#wicked the musical part 1

[jryno]

WICKED (2024) dir. Jon M. Chu

[presidentofspace]

Good Omens + Wicked part 1 (part 2 / part 3 / part 4)

[oflgtfol]

sorry im going crazay over john wick of all things but the card game scene when the synth music - i think its specifically blood code - is just stripped back to the low tones and slowed down in the background building suspense and then the fighting eventually breaks out and blood code starts full force and its just the action set to the beat of this sogn im throwing up

[agir1ukn0w]

ok so…I’m a little bit torn. because obviously I agree 1000% that fiyero should have been cast as a poc/Romani person, like that’s not even up for debate.

…however…

I think you all know how I feel about Jonathan Bailey☺️

[kiakahawhovatic]

Watch out Barbenheimer - Moaned is coming soon!

Moana 2 and Wicked: Part 1 both release on the same day.

[chocopokkie]

Alastor x Sensitive! Horned! Reader Pt. 2

Part 1 - here

Fem Reader, slight NSFW - enjoy! ^-^

As you walk back to your room in the dimly lit corridors of the hotel, the haunting echo of Alastor's words reverberates through your mind, leaving an indelible mark. "I do believe we shall have to explore this further," he had said, his voice dripping with intrigue and a hint of something darker.

Lost in thought, you barely register your surroundings until it's too late. Without warning, shadows coil around you, ensnaring you in their grasp and propelling you forward with an unnatural force. Panic surges through you as the tendrils guide you into your room, the heavy wooden door slamming shut behind you with a resounding thud.

Heart pounding, you find yourself face to face with the figure who had sparked this whirlwind of uncertainty within you. Alastor stands before you, his presence commanding yet tinged with an unsettling allure. His crimson eyes gleam with amusement as he regards you, a wicked grin playing at the corners of his lips.

"Why, hello again, my sweet doe~," he purrs, his voice a velvet melody laced with mischief and a hint of danger. Each syllable drips with an otherworldly charm, sending shivers down your spine as you struggle to find your voice amidst the turmoil of emotions swirling within you.

"What... what do you want from me?" you manage to stammer, your voice betraying a mixture of fear and curiosity. Every fiber of your being is on edge, poised on the precipice of the unknown as you await his response.

As you stand there, caught in the web of Alastor's mesmerizing presence, his words slice through the air like a knife, piercing the fragile veil of your composure.

"I do believe I said that we would have to explore this further! Or have you already forgotten~?" His voice rings out with a tantalizing blend of amusement and anticipation, each syllable laced with a subtle hint of coercion that sends a shiver down your spine.

Before you can even begin to formulate a response, his hand snakes upward, his fingers wrapping around one of your horns with a tantalizingly gentle touch. A gasp escapes your lips as he begins to caress it, his touch sending jolts of pleasure coursing through you. A soft, involuntary moan escapes your lips, the sound like sweet music to Alastor's ears, only encouraging him to continue his teasing ministrations.

"My my, so sensitive and I've barely even touched you!" Alastor's voice dances with amusement, his words a playful taunt that sends a jolt of heat coursing through your veins. Despite your efforts to maintain a semblance of composure, another involuntary moan escapes your lips, betraying the effect his mere presence has on you.

Desperate to regain control of your senses, you attempt to avert your gaze, seeking refuge in the familiar surroundings of your room. However, before you can fully retreat into yourself, Alastor's hand shoots out, seizing your face with a firm grip and forcing you to meet his gaze once more.

"Don't look away from me or I may have to punish you, (Y/n)," he murmurs, his tone laced with a dangerous edge that sends a shiver down your spine. His words hang in the air like a veiled threat, a stark reminder of the power he holds over you in this moment of vulnerability. "Unless, you want me to anyway, naughty girl".

"W-what!? N-n-no! I-" You stutter in protest, your words faltering under the weight of Alastor's presence, but before you can articulate any coherent response, a ripple of laughter escapes him, cutting through your feeble attempts at resistance.

Alastor's amusement only fuels his resolve as he effortlessly pulls you away from the door you had instinctively pressed yourself against. With a swift motion, he spins you around and pushes you onto the soft expanse of your bed, his movements fluid and commanding.

Before you can react, Alastor swiftly crawls on top of you, pinning you beneath his weight with an effortless grace that leaves you feeling utterly powerless. Panic surges through you as you realize the futility of struggling against him, your limbs feeling heavy and unresponsive as you succumb to the intoxicating allure of his presence.

Just as you were about to protest again, Alastor silences you with a sudden, fervent kiss that catches you off guard. Your breath catches in your throat as his lips meet yours with a searing intensity, sending sparks flying through every fiber of your being.

Shocked by the unexpectedness of his actions, you part your lips slightly, unwittingly granting him access that he eagerly seizes upon. With a predatory grace, Alastor slips his tongue into your mouth, the intrusion sending a jolt of electricity coursing through you. He explores every corner of your mouth with deliberate precision, savoring the taste of your essence as if committing it to memory.

As Alastor breaks the kiss, a trail of fire lingers on your lips, leaving you breathless and yearning for more. His attention shifts, and he positions himself above you, his gaze fixed on your horns with an unmistakable hunger.

With a delicate touch, he traces his fingers along the curve of one of your horns, eliciting a shiver of anticipation that courses through your entire body. Then, without warning, his tongue darts out, gliding along the length of the horn in a slow, tantalizing motion.

A gasp escapes your lips as a wave of pleasure washes over you, the sensation of his tongue against your sensitive horn sending sparks of ecstasy dancing along your nerve endings. Another moan spills from your lips, unbidden and unrestrained, as Alastor savors the sounds you make with undisguised delight.

"Such delicious noises you make, love," he murmurs, his voice laced with satisfaction. "I can't wait to hear what other sounds you can make for me." His words hang in the air, a promise of untold pleasures yet to come as you find yourself ensnared in the web of his dark desires.

[strangerhottotties]

Mad Sounds - Part 2 - E.M.

Part 1

Summaries: You get Eddie's assignments back for the week and you have a meeting in his van to discuss...

Warnings: Horny shit. Minors fuck off. Mentions of masturbation, slight voyeurism, slight heavy petting and VERY brief grinding.

A/N: Just on my whore shit. I'm finally evening out after coming off birth control so the engine's warming for the first time all year. I share this with you at your own risk. My husband, ever my cheerleader picked out Eddie's test scores for the first couple weeks. Please enjoy.

Special thank you to my bestie who edited this and gave music recommendations: Taylor Swift's 'I Can See You' and 'Dress'.

All week Eddie hovered over you, never was he more than five minutes late to a study session. His newfound eagerness to study had turned more than a few heads. But ever the attention whore, he had turned his audience to you exclusively as much as he possibly could.

Every visit to your locker to retrieve books, he was right there to smile at you brazenly, eyes sliding over your form. It thrilled you. You had an incentive that no one else had ever offered, it fed your confidence. Eddie, ever the flirt, always held doors open for you, now insisted on being as gentlemanly as he possibly could.

All week he's been flashing a crisp red folder at you. Every time you see it, a tingle begins beneath your skin. The flat cardstock you always expect to warp, but the only distortion was the exaggerated hand drawn font across the front. Inside contained every assignment he'd received a grade for this week.

When the final bell rings on Friday afternoon, you make your way to your locker. Your eyes draw up towards your locker and catch a glimpse of Eddie leaning against the set of your lockers. He's a constant in the flow of bodies eager to leave the premises. His eyes as you approach are downright insidious, utterly wicked as he notices you. He fans himself that red folder.

"Hey, Honey," he hums, smile twisting with false sweetness like he was made of Aspartame. "I do hope you're prepared to pay up. I worked hard for these grades."

There were only three classes you were tutoring him in. The remaining classes he needed to graduate. Mr. Allen's Chemistry, Mrs. O'Donnel's Advanced Algebra, and Mr. Jones's Government class.

Thankfully your blush is minimal as you stop in front of the blocked lockers. "Hand 'em over," you hum, holding out your hand. He passes the folder into your hands and you're a little surprised by just how thick it feels in your hand.

He pushes off the wall and leans in close enough to your ear to taunt you that you can feel the heat of his breath fan across your cheek. "I even did the extra credit in Chem." You quirk an eyebrow at him as he holds you in an intense stare just inches from your face. You try to suppress your smile as you adjust the books in your arms to give it your full attention.

It'd be a lie to say that you weren't utterly feverish to discover exactly how good. How many times you thought of him tucked under you comforter at night, aching for his promises that he made last Friday. Aching to know how he tasted, what those talented fingers could do, and how much eagerly he wanted to touch you. Late nights filled with desperate, muffled whines for him. Keeping quiet as you squirm in the dark, wishing for the relief that his skin would give you, craving giving him anything he needed, being by Eddie Munson. 

He seemed pretty excited. "Extra credit, who are you and what have you done with Eddie?" You tease softly, your smile turning demure. Eddie's shoulders roll back as he tilts his head to the side, modeling his pretty neck for you. It reminds you of a brightly colored bird.

"What can I say, I really like my tutor." The hallways are beginning to clear as you flip open the folder and smile at the top page. His government test with a big, fat 'B-' on the top right corner. You flit your eyes over to his, where they burn with a darkness. He blows you a playful kiss.

"This is excellent Eddie!" You flip through his next couple assignments. "Two 'C's, a 'C+', 'B-', and a 'B', Extra credit..."

"I got full credit for it, does that count as an 'A+'." You flush as you consider. It certainly shouldn't go unrewarded if you wanted to encourage it. You draw out your consideration and his eyes light up with eagerness.

"I don't think this warrants that kind of reward," you answer honestly and he deflates, until you follow up with a... "but..." his head snaps up at that, "I kind of had a surprise for you."

"A surprise?" He asks. "Don't leave me in suspense, sweetheart." You glance around at the lingering student body.

"Can we go out to your van first?" You ask him quietly. His face goes blank and he snatches your hand to pull you towards the front doors. "Wait, wait, wait, Eddie!" you call and he halts as you dig the heels of your shoes into the tiled floor to yank him to a halt.

"What?"

"Let me get my bag first. It's in there." Eddie grins and turns around to sweep his hands at your locker. You smile and turn to open your locker, Eddie hanging over your shoulder.

"Do I get a hint?" he hums, but before you can answer, someone shouts his name from down the hall.

"Eddie, c'mon, what are you standing around for? We've got to set up!" You glance down the hall at Gareth and Jeff. Gareth is throwing his hands up in the air.

"Hold on!" He shouts and then turns his attention back to you.

"Do you need to go?"

"No, not even hellfire is getting between me and this surprise," he grins.

"Oh, you guys moved it to Friday?"

"Yeah, I figured we can tweak our schedule tomorrow. I can pick you up-"

"Hey, Eddie!" You giggle at the second interruption of the conversation. Dustin Henderson and Mike Wheeler, Nancy Wheeler's little brother, are jogging up to the irate metalhead. Eddie's mouth presses into a thin line as he regards the kids.

"What is it?" He sighs,

"What's up your ass?" Mike scoffs. You bite your lip to hold your laugh as you start filing through what books you'll need for weekend homework.

"Conversation, A," he points to himself, "B," he points to you, "see your way out of it!" You drag your bag out of your locker and close it. You hit him with an unimpressed look.

"Well, we wanted to ask," Dustin starts, "but I don't think we've been introduced. I'm Dustin, this is Mike." He holds his hand out with a toothy grin. You take his hand, shaking it with an introduction as Eddie slips up next to you.

"We're in Hellfire with Eddie and it's supposed to start in like, five minutes, would you like to join?" You blink with surprise.

"Oh, I don't know how to play D'n'D." You reply evenly. Eddie clears his throat softly.

"I could teach you," he offers, regarding you with playful eyes.

"Totally, it's actually super fun! It's based on strategy and there's a ton of different ways to play!" Mike encourages and receives a harsh look from the senior standing beside you. Eddie was being possessive of you, wanting your singular attention.

"Look, whatever this is..." He gestures between the two of them. "Lose it. I'll be in there. Give me... fifteen minutes?" He confirms with you.

"Be nice," you instruct him flatly before turning towards the two kids. "But fifteen minutes should do it." He rolls his eyes at the kids and grabs your hand to start dragging you away.

"Who'd have thought Eddie's girlfriend would be so nice?"

"Girlfriend?" You repeat in surprise to Eddie exclusively when he comes to a full stop at the word. The kids are walking away and thankfully don't hear your question.

"I never told them you were my girlfriend," he immediately discloses to you. You roll your eyes at him and continue you on, tugging at his hand but admiring the pretty blush that fans his cheeks.

"Come on, sweetiepea," you tease and he laughs awkwardly as you are both trotting into the parking lot.

"But, um," he rumbles in a far more sober tone, he pulls you to a stop, facing you directly. "I want to take you out." You tense as he says this.

"Oh." You sigh and glance around as you think. You shift on your feet as he tilts his face to the side. "You do?" You ask.

Eddie gives an awkward chuckle. "You don't?" He prompts. You teeter on your toes for a moment.

"I think it's more complicated than that, Eddie," you tell him softly, "but I'm... open to talking about it." He wets his lips and steps closer, eyes sliding across your eyes.

"Honey," he hums, "You don't have to go out with me, but... answer me this," he uses the knuckle of his free hand to nudge your chin up a bit, "Do you want... me?"

The air smells earthy. A contradiction in itself as dead leaves skirt across the asphalt of the draining parking lot. Eddie was washing his vulnerability across your skin with the trial of his voice. It was braver than you had any right to enjoy, but after a moment of thought you feel the need to meet him on that level, to share in that vulnerability so it wouldn't be quite so scary.

Your free hand drifts across his jean vest, taking in the coarse fabric as you reach for the collar. You grasp it firmly before pulling him closer to you. You breathe deeply before sighing out, "Yes."

It's simple as he nods. "That's so stupid of you," he responds with a nervous smile.

"Only if you make it so," you reply with a warning and he breathes shakily. You release him by the collar and continue pulling him to his van. He rushes to get to the passenger side for you, swinging the door open. "Thank you," you chirp and climb in. He trots around to the other side and slides into the driver's seat.

There is a heavy moment of silence as you glance at each other. "So, when I had you teach me something," you start as he twists to face you in the seat, "I wanted to model the studying after how you teach. I figure that's the easiest way for you to learn."

Eddie's eyebrows tilt up. "What was your conclusion?"

"Kinesthetic mostly," he gives you a crumpled look. "Hands on. You need to be apart of it, to tinker."

"How do you learn?"

"Writing and visually. The four main groups are kinesthetic, writing, visual, and audio. You are more audio and kinesthetic, if you're learning to play songs by ear." He tilts his head at you with interest. "So, that being said, you've responded the best so far to... motivation and you get distracted when your bored so I was worried that the motivation might get boring for you."

Eddie barks a laugh at you, eyes glittering. "Jeez, your brain is like a supercomputer, I swear." Your face twists at that and you bite your lip as Eddie's smile fades. "Hey, it's a compliment. I swear," he urges.

"I..." you start and fade off.

Eddie takes a deep frustrated breath and looks out at the parking lot. "I know I try to get under your skin," he starts, "but I hate it when you make that face. It kind of makes me sick to my stomach. It's not as fun as I expect it to be. So what did I say, that's the second time now."

You fiddle with the strap on your bag for a moment, fighting the tears away. "'I’m not a robot, Eddie. I have emotions and thoughts and... I don't always get... what's said in between the words. Logic is easier... that doesn't make me less human." A hand skirts across to brace on your knee and your stomach jumps.

"If anything," he coaxes, "it makes you superhuman. Better than the rest of us." You spare a glance over at him and find soulful, brown eyes glittering at you. "I've never met anyone who just... understands. I watch and I see, but you, you watch and you understand. I see the gears turning in your head all of the time. I wish I had that setting."

"It's not a setting, it's all the time. I can't just switch it off. My brain never stops." Eddie smiles at you, eyes crinkling with empathy.

"I think I understand that better than most. It's like fighting nature itself. Never a quiet moment." You nod at him, sighing out with some relief that he understood. He could conceptualize how you operated.

"Exactly."

Eddie's smile widens. "So, do I still get my surprise?"

It's your turn to smile at the way he defuses your tension. "Of course," you reply as he gives you a gentle squeeze of your thigh. You draw the cardboard out of your bag to reveal a spinning dial, expertly color coded. You present it to him as he laughs. "We could fill in with little things that if you're sick of my cookies or something you can spin for a possible change."

"I get to pick things out?" He chirps.

"Sure, as long as we both agree." Eddie grins maliciously and his fingers pinch the tender skin on the inside of your thigh, making you squeak and swat at his hand. His eyes widen.

"Are you ticklish?" He rumbles playfully.

"Eddie, you've got like five more minutes..." you warn sternly, pushing his hand away with an embarrassed glare. He pouts and leans in towards your face, eyes lit up like a cat that's noticed a mouse.

"Okay, okay... is that long enough for me to get the reward for my 'B-'?" Your cheeks flush further and you glance into the back of his van. That could be secluded enough you think.

"Okay," you hum softly and his eyebrows raise with delight.

"Really?"

"Mhmm." You nod your head towards the back of his van and he darts, snatching your hand to pull you after him.

"Please tell me I can unwrap you like a present," he begs and the way he asks makes your knees tremble enough that you wobble and stumble down on them after you've barely made it past the front seats. Eddie's eyes go wide as he tries to soften your fall.

"Ah, sorry!" You chirp, a little frazzled as you attempt to give him an embarrassed smile.

His grin etched across his face, full of salacious cues. "What, that get you excited, pretty girl?"

Your cheeks flare with heat as your brain sparks out and he must see it written on your face because his laugh is out right evil. He's corrosive to your steely exterior and there was nothing you could do to stop that. The only thing rotating through your head was Eddie's voice saying pretty girl on repeat.

Was that really all it took to fry your circuits?

"Uh-huh," fell from your mouth before you could stop it.

Eddie's face freezes, too as you cave into him. It was an excellent example of just how easy you were to bend under the right circumstances. Eddie swallows before giving you a possibly nervous laugh and kneeling down with you.

"I-I mean... shit," you say, hands covering your face in horror. Your nervous break has Eddie grinning and pulling your hands away from your mouth. "I didn't... mean to-to say that-that." You squeeze your eyes shut and your lip wobbles because the repeating words begin.

Eddie sets your palms down in your lap as he gives you a chuckle, wetting his lips. "I think I could use a little more of your honesty," he rasps and your breath hitches as he reaches for your waist, untucking your shirt and sweater with a wiggling motion from where they are secured in the waistband of your jeans.

You don't trust yourself to speak, not when he's staring right at you with those endless eyes. He's barely (technically not even) touching you and your chest is expanding deeper and deeper with each breath.

If you could only see inside his head, every ounce of delicate nervousness would be washed away. Every conscious moment had you. He felt like he was fourteen all over again, springing erections at the very smell of you or the curl of your shy smiles, the ones that had lingering of heat at the edges. The idea of you giving yourself over to him so easily.

If it had been any other girl, he'd have been excited, sure. He was twenty and a pretty girl offering her services as a reward would have simply been a brag. But it was you. You who had seemed so immune to his ridiculous boyish crush for years. You who had been impervious to every flirt he'd attempted throughout the years. You who was smarter than anyone he'd ever met. You who didn't give a shit if you were a cheerleader or if you were dating a jock. You who'd actually had a sense of justice. You... who offered yourself to him ooohhh so sweetly in his bedroom after a tearfilled confession.

It was torture.

He'd had to fuck his fist three times after you left that night just to be able to get rid of the ever-returning erection. Hell, you'd given him more than enough to work with.

"Fuck," he groans as he peels the sweater up over your head and you happily help but lifting your arms. "You don't even know how hot you look right now."

It makes you whimper.

Eddie freezes as he stares at you, his own chest rising and falling heavily. His fingers tremble as they work your buttons loose. The sounds of shaky breathing and the soft press of fabric sliding on fabric is filling the inside of the enclosed space. It's a little too stuffy in here but that makes your heart pound harder as his fingers glide gently over the skin of your shoulders.

It hitches your breath, the heat of his palms as he pushes the open blouse off your shoulders. Your brain, as if to prove your earlier conversation wrong, melts in the heat of the moment until you can't think. Those eyes scorch your skin as he takes in the silky hold of your breasts. He hooks his index fingers through the straps and drags them slowly down, savoring unwrapping you.

"Jesus Christ," he mutters, face crumbling in distress as you feel the fabric flip under your breasts. His face is twisted as his eyes take a moment to dart up to yours. He opens his mouth to say something, but all that falls out is another soft, "Jesus Christ."

He looks closer to tears than you've ever seen. It's what drives you to lift up onto your knees and push closer, cupping his head in your hands. He's so close you can feel his damp breath breeze across your breasts. His hands rise to cradle your waist, sliding up you until with a jerk you're in his lap and gasping.

Your sternum collides a bit with his forehead as his hands start to creep upward. You smack his hands and he jerks away to stare at you like a kicked puppy. It almost works.

"What?"

"'B+'," you reply. "You... you've earned the right to... see them, and to... a picture, but you-you haven't earned feeling them," you whisper, voice already fighting to come out. Eddie's gaze softens and he nods obediently.

"Look so good," he sighs. "So good." There is a mutual understanding, the dangling that if he really wanted to, he could. He was inches away from his fingers gliding up to caress you in the way you ached for. Barely a breath away from scooping up your nipple with his tongue to taste. “Did you touch yourself to the thought of my rewards?” He asks, fingers dancing sweetly over your waist again.

A shuddering sigh leaves you and you swallow the saliva building in your mouth. Your thumbs trace his cheek bones. “Every night since you offered to touch me,” you manage on the edge of a sigh, cheeks deepening with color. Your eyes float up to gauge his reaction, flutter with the desire to turn away. His fingers tighten and knead the skin of your waist.

His mouth goes slack with want, eyes boring into yours. “I love your honesty. You’re being so good,” he praises softly.

It felt kind of torturous but as he adjusts you feel something nudge your center and your eyes snap down to the shape at the front of his pants. "He doesn't lie, you know," he promises you.

"No?" You find yourself smiling with mild amusement. "It's not like Pinocchio?" Eddie grins nearly drunkenly at your poor joke.

"The polar opposite... save for being woody," he rumbles back and juts his chin in your direction. He's staring at your mouth, his hands finding purchase on your hips, thumbs rubbing little circles over your skin, sending tingles down your legs.

You sink curiously down into his lap and his eyes seal shut with a rather deep intake of his breath. Your heart is hammering at the sight as you feel yourself pulse against him. As he breathes out his eyes hood at you, mouth tilting towards yours.

You lean back with your shoulders, just barely out of reach of his kiss. A taunted groan rumbles in his chest. "No?" He hums.

You wet your lips, a demure smile spreading across your mouth as you shake your head at him. You find yourself biting your lower lips to keep you grounded.

"What do I have to do to earn that then?" He asks.

"Add it to the-the wheel?" You offer and his smile is stretching affectionately across his face. He sighs softly.

BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!

"Eddie! You better get your ass out here!" Gareth roars as you're both scrambling in the back of the van.

Eddie launches you onto your back beside him as he scrambles up to the driver's seat and rolls the manual window down. It nearly knocks the adrenaline out of you as he grumbles about 'these friends cockblocking him'.

"What the fuck is your problem?" Eddie snarls as you're sliding your straps back in place and searching for your blouse.

"My problem? Dude, get out here! We're ready to start our campaign and you said 'fifteen minutes' twenty... two minutes ago."

"Gareth," Eddie seethes as you button the front of your shirt, not bothering with all of them before scrambling to put your sweater on.

"No- Eddie, get the fuck out here? What's more important than-" but then you're making contact with Gareth as you're tucking in your shirt, hair still tucked into both aspects of clothing. Eddie glances in the rear view mirror as you flush with embarrassment.

"Shit," Eddie sighs.

"You're really boning the valedictorian?" Gareth demands.

"No!" Eddie snaps. "We're not boning, okay?"

"Really?" His friend scoffs. "Just get in here!"

With that, Eddie gives a frustrated groan and rolls the window up, Gareth already left your slot of the window. When he twists around you give him a little wicked giggle that makes his eyebrows creep up his face.

"You think that's funny?" He accuses, eyes glinting as you giggle uncontrollably harder, hand covering your mouth as you shake your head at him. "Are you sure?" He teases creeping closer to you. Your giggles are getting more wicked until he's moving fast and you're all but tackled to the floor of his van.

Eddie pins your hands to the carpet, hovering directly in your face. "You better get your ass inside," you hum, "your subjects are waiting."

"But you see, there's one more nefarious thing that I must do."

"What's tha-ahmpf!" Eddie's mouth is on yours before you can finish your question, eyes widening as he intertwines your fingers. That heat you were feeling starts flooding your body back.

He's straddling you, and yet somehow his weight isn't enough. He's not resting against the one place you need it. But your mouth parts to mimic his hesitantly, regardless of your lower protests. You copy him, gasping quietly into his mouth, before he pulls back.

He sits back then, grinning down at you on the floor below him, flushed and pouting. "Had to steal a kiss from the princess in secret," he jokes, "don't pout, I'll earn my next one."

"I... want another one," you murmur and his eyes light up like a kid on Christmas. His warm laughter bounces off the walls of the van.

"Next time, we've got to go," he chirps and pulls you up.

"Do I... look decent?" You ask untucking your hair and fluttering your hands over it, hoping it's not too obvious what you were doing in the back of the van.

"You look stunning," he urges with a wink and climbs up front.

More pounding startles you from the wall of the van.

"Not what I meant and you know it!" You hiss but he opens the passenger door and you both file out. You snag your bag from the front seat, leaving the unfinished wheel on the passenger seat instead.

"Oh, and Eddie," you call, turning towards the two boys, you fish your hand into the front pocket of your bag. "For that 'B'... and the extra credit." His eyes widen as you draw two polaroids out of your bag. You'd prepared six... just in case. Six you thought looked good. There were more among the ash in your fireplace at home that were awkward angles (close to twenty more).

You can't look as you draw them out, too indecisive on which ones he'd like. He's in front of you like an obedient dog in an instant, taking them like it's gospel. 

"You were walking around all day with these in your locker?" He demands as Gareth tries to peek only to be met with a literal pushy Eddie. You grin, flushed deep pink, surely. His gaze goes gummy with heat again, melting under your soft seduction that you’re beginning to lean into. He was nothing but putty to your soft and genuine admiration of him. You’re finding how responsive he is to the warm and sticky center that he’s managed to find in the maze of your steel barricade.

"Bye, Eddie." You hum, thrilled with surprising and delighting him. 

"Bye, Honey," Eddie teases back, dazed as you turn on heel.

"Have fun with your board game club," you toss back and manage to get Gareth to snort. Eddie's eyes narrow on your own form retreating towards your car.

"What's that?" You hear his friend demand.

"I'll take your hand off. You’re not looking." You smile to yourself, stealing glances over your shoulder as the boys roughhouse.

Your first kiss stolen with the most delicious thievery you’ve ever tasted; the ghosting memory enchants your lips. You can still feel the heat of his calloused hands drifting over your thrumming skin. The scent of him, wearing on the day, still clinging to you as you settle into your car.

Again, I'm not doing a taglist for this currently. If you want to follow this short series hit the follow and turn on notifications.

[xxxregulusblackxxx]

So I'm obsessing over Hazbin Hotel like all of the internet right now, but I've been a fan since the pilot and am caught up on Helluva Boss. I have a few things to rant about here.

1. ALEX BRIGHAM AND HIS OBSESSION WITH DEMONS. He's Beetlejuice in the broadway musical, he's Fizzorolie or however you spell his name in Helluva boss, he's Sir Pentious and ADAM THEE GOD DAMNED ADAM THE FIRST MAN In Hazbin hotel.

2. Husks voice actor is Keith David aka DR. FACILIER IN THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG!

3. Jack Kelly from Newsies on Broadway, filmed and put on Disney plus, Varian from Tangled the Series is Played by Jeremy Jordan, now if you're a theater kid you know who he is, you'd also be interested in knowing that he's LUCIFER that's right Lucifer Morningstar THE DEVIL HIMSELF

4. HUSKERDUST. I love this ship. Yes they are romantic and Vizzy has confirmed they are a slowburn relationship so if Anyone who interacts with me says they're platonic or found family I will be sending you to hell yourself

5. Alastor, first off he's canonical Aro Ace, just so ya know. Secondly he's such a good manipulator that he's manipulating fans into thinking he's not trying to fuck over the hotel and that he's not a villain. Which he is but he's still lovable. ALSO Alastor is Creole, he may have been white passing when alive but he's Creole and from Louisiana (I love Louisiana born men, my obsession with Leo Knut is proof of that) So just keep that in mind when drawing him. The transatlantic voice is something he would have learned, it's called All American speech and was used in Radio and TV, that's his voice under the radio affect.

6. The V's. Love them and hate them. I absolutely loth Val but at the same time Vox's screen brightens when he's trying to get Valentino's attention and that's really cute

7. Lute's Voice Actress played Elphaba in Wicked and her part in You didn't know is the absolute best part ever.

And Remember they're all in hell for a reason Sir Pentious is the only one who's truly good out of the Sinners

[ladykailitha]

Royal Pain Part 1

Hello, everyone! Welcome to the story that has had my entire weekend on lock. Like every spare moment was writing this story. I wrote over 6000 words in two days. So yeah. Don’t worry. I’m still working on Boy With a Bat (I just need time to research season 3 so I don’t over step on the show’s timeline {like I did with “Little Runaway”}). And of course I love working on “All My Roads Lead Back to You” and will continue working on it as well. Also these first two parts are long. I don’t know if all the parts will be as long, but as you can see when you read them there isn’t a lot of places to stop (and not make them super short).

Summary: No Monster Modern AU. Eddie and his band, Corroded Coffin, have a steady gig at a bar in Indy where they play every weekend. Eddie's life takes a left turn when his regular tattoo artist, Max Mayfield, moves to New York with her boyfriend Lucas Sinclair, newly traded to the New York Knicks.  Now needing a new tattoo artist, Jeff recommends "Royal Pain", which even Max agrees is a good shop.  On arrival, Eddie is shocked to find Steve is the shop's artist.  They hit it off, and slowly move from the barest of acquaintances to boyfriends.

***

“God damn it!” Eddie growled, throwing his phone at the sofa and snarling when it bounced to the floor.

“One day you’re gonna throw it so hard and it will break,” Gareth grumbled from behind his drum set.

It was Corroded Coffin’s weekly practice. They weren’t big or anything, but they had a steady gig at a local metal bar and it paid good money. They drew large enough crowds that they were able to play their own music.  

Eddie hopped to his feet to retrieve the discarded phone from the floor. “Yeah, yeah,” he muttered darkly.

“What’s got your panties in such a twist?” Jeff asked from the same sofa Eddie had tossed the phone at. He was tuning his guitar, ear bent toward the strings.

Eddie scoffed. “Like you have any interest in my panties.”

Jeff lunged and grabbed one of Gareth’s drumsticks from the bucket he kept at his side and threw it at Eddie.

“Hey!” both Gareth and Eddie protested.

“Just answer the damn question!” Brian sneered from his place on the battered old floral armchair. “You usually like bitching, so what’s your deal?”

Eddie flopped gracelessly on the lavender two-seater.  “That was my tattoo artist,” he groused, crossing his arms petulantly. “Her boyfriend got traded to the New York Knicks so they are moving there and if I want to get my dragon finished before she leaves, I better ‘haul ass’ according to her.”

Eddie’s friends winced. They knew finding a tattoo artist you could trust in a style you liked was hard. And for Eddie to lose his? That sucked. Max Mayfield was one of the best in Indy and to lose her to New York? That was even worse. But her boyfriend, Lucas Sinclair, was an NBA raising star and she went where did. Which meant Eddie had to start all over with a new artist.

Suddenly Eddie straightened up. “Hey, Jeffie!” he said. “Did you ever get that tattoo you wanted done?”

Jeff lit up. “Oh yeah!” He set his guitar aside and rolled up his sleeve and showed them his tattoo. It was of a bullet tearing through the flesh. It was fantastically rendered, where you could see the torn muscles and broken bone. It covered the scar there perfectly. “Isn’t it fucking amazing?”

“Holy shit!” Brian cried. “That is so wicked.”

Eddie leaned forward, eyes wide with wonder. “Yeah fuck, man. Where did you get that?”

“It’s this little place called Royal Pain,” Jeff explained. “The artist, Stevie is so fucking good.”

Eddie chewed on his lip, thinking hard. “Hey, can I get the number?”

*

Eddie was standing in front of a shop that he wouldn’t have in a million years would have even suspected was a tattoo parlor. It was a clean and bright storefront. The sign was black with a golden crown was on the R. It was a far cry from any other tattoo parlor he had ever been to. But despite his reservations, both Max and Jeff highly recommended this place and specifically this ‘Stevie’.

Sighing deeply, he yanked open the door and took two steps into the shop. The decor was nice enough, it had a ‘royal’ theme to it, he supposed, but he really didn’t look that much. Because suddenly Eddie knew who Stevie was. The name, the royal decor, and Robin fucking Buckley as receptionist.

He was going to kill Jeff. Or maybe just his next three D&D characters. Because there was no way on this insignificant planet did Jeff Lawrence not recognize King Steve ‘the hair’ Harrington. They had all gone to school together. Robin was Steve’s best friend. His soulmate if the rumors were to be believed.

He was about to turn around and walk out, Jeff and Max’s recommendations be damned. Even he wasn’t that masochistic. But he was stopped by the cheerful, ��Welcome to Royal Pain! How can I help you?”

Eddie winced and rubbed his eye in frustration, but made his way up to the counter. “Munson, Eddie. I have a two o’clock with Stevie.”

Her smile grew genuine. “Not your first tattoo, I take it.”

Eddie pulled down the collar of his shirt to show of his finished dragon tattoo. “Yeah, no. Some asshole jock absconded to New York with my tattoo artist, so here I am.”

She grinned. “Stevie will be out in a moment.”

Before Eddie could chicken out, the man himself came out of a backroom, wiping off his hands. Eddie gulped. Steve looked very much the same as he did in high school. Same hazel eyes, honey hair, tight jeans and a fucking polo. This guy couldn’t have looked less like a tattoo artist if he tried. Except for one thing.

He could see tattoos on Steve’s arms. He couldn’t get a good look at them without staring but yeah, okay. Steve Harrington, tattoo artist. Who would have thought?

Steve looked up and smiled brightly. “Eddie?” Eddie nodded. “Hey! It’s so good to see you. I had hoped when I saw the name that it was you. How’s it been?”

Robin tilted her head in confusion and made an odd chirping noise.

“Come on, Robs,” Steve teased her. “You can’t tell me you don’t remember Eddie from school.”

She looked Eddie up and down and then cocked her head. “You do look vaguely familiar.”

Steve laughed. “You know, ran the D&D club, had that rock band–”

“Metal,” Eddie corrected. “Not rock, metal.”

Steve snapped his fingers. “That’s right, sorry. Oh! And stood on tables ranting about the man and how schools fail the kids they are supposed to teach.”

“You stepped on my sandwich,” she said deadpan.

Eddie’s eyes went wide. “Whoops.”

She grinned and pushed his shoulder. “Just kidding. It was Tammy Thompson’s sandwich.”

“Isn’t she the one that sings like a Muppet?” Eddie asked, with a raised eyebrow.

Steve laughed. “That’s what I said.”

Robin looked between them both and growled, “I hate you both.”

“You’re only saying that because you had a crush on her,” Steve teased.

Eddie raised an eyebrow, “I didn’t know you swung for the other team, Buckley.”

She grinned. “What can I say, I do love a pretty girl.”

Eddie shrugged and cocked his head, nonchalant. “I wouldn’t know.”

Robin wagged her eyebrows at Steve, who rolled his eyes. He turned to Eddie. “So what am I doing for you today?”

Eddie blinked at him for a moment. “Oh!” He pulled out a picture from his back pocket and handed it to Steve.

“This is the Evenstar from Lord of the Rings, right?” Steve asked, tapping the picture. “Arwen’s necklace.”

Eddie lit up. “Yeah. I’m impressed, even uber fans have a hard time remembering that.”

Steve blushed, ducking his head. “I have this friend that hosts huge parties watching the extended versions of the movies every year. Complete with full Hobbit meals. It’s hard not take in something from the films.”

“Yeah?” Eddie asked, suddenly feeling less like murdering Jeff with each passing moment.

Steve smiled back. “Actually, you might remember him. He was in your club, your final year at school.”

Eddie cocked his head. “Oh?”

“Actually, you had three of Steve’s nuggets in your club,” Robin interjected.

Eddie turned to Steve. “What nuggets would those be?”

Steve blushed again. “I used to quasi-babysit these kids. There were about seven of them, if you count Erica and Elle.”

“Which I absolutely do,” Robin crowed delightedly.

Eddie’s eyes nearly bulged out of his head as he leaned forward. “You babysat kids?”

Steve shrugged. “They were good kids and their parents worked a lot, so they just kinda imprinted on me. Like ducklings.”

“Wait...Lucas, Mike, and Dustin, huh?” Eddie asked putting two and two together. “Holy fucking shit. I loved running their characters. The ranger, the paladin and the bard.” He couldn’t believe it. He had missed out the chance to run with their friend Will, but he had come back to Hawkins after Eddie finally graduated. “Which one was Dustin?”

Steve smiled and then ran his tongue over his teeth. “Floofy hair, trucker hats, Weird Al shirts, and a huge theater nerd.”

Eddie clapped and pointed, “That’s the one!” He tapped his finger over his lips. “Which means it’s Dustin that hosts the Lord of the Rings fest, isn’t he?”

Steve beamed up at him. “Yeah. Sadly I haven’t been able to go the last couple of years.”

Robin made a sympathetic noise.

“Why not?” Eddie asked, the curiosity getting the better of him.

“Migraines,” Steve said with a wince. “Too long staring at a TV set can trigger them, who knew?”

“That sucks.”

Steve looked back at the picture in his hand. “Did you draw this?”

Eddie grinned. “Sure did, big boy!”

“And would you want me to tattoo it in your style?” Steve asked.

Eddie blinked rapidly. “You can do that?”

Robin folded her arms, looking smug. “Hell yeah, he can!”

“I mean, if you can that would be amazing,” he said breathlessly.

“Where is it going, the tattoo, I mean?” Steve asked.

Eddie tapped his chest. “Sternum.”

Steve chewed his lip thoughtfully. “That would be awesome, but have you thought about putting it on your back. Like a shadow covering your spine?”

Robin’s eyebrows shot up.

Eddie shook his head. “As tempting as that would be sweetheart, I have plans for my back.”

Steve looked a little disappointed. “And what would that be?”

“I want big black bat wings on my shoulder blades,” Eddie said gleefully. “I just haven’t found anyone who’s style I liked well enough to trust doing it.”

Steve hurried around the desk and pulled out a large three-ring binder. “This is all my work, flip through it, see if you like my style enough for me to do it for you. Because I would love to. So take a look and let me know if I could be your man.”

Eddie blinked. “Yeah, sure.”

Steve smiled brightly. “Great! I’ll go set up and I’ll call you back when I’m ready.” He practically skipped to the back room again.

Eddie opened the binder slowly and began to shift the pages. They were all amazing pieces of work that only seemed to get better the further he got into the pictures.

“These are amazing,” he breathed.

Robin leaned on the counter and stage whispered, “If you do not get his number after he does your tattoo, I will murder you and no one will find the body.” She leaned back to look down the hall. What she saw Eddie didn’t know, but she leaned back into whisper to him, low and menacing, “I am not paid enough to listen to his rom-com pining bullshit.”  

Eddie looked behind her and then back at her. “I’m–I mean–what the hell?”

“Eddie!” Steve called.

Eddie slammed the binder shut and stomped to the back. He stopped short when he got to room. Again he was blown away at how opposite it was from other shops he’d been to. It wasn’t sterile white or anything like that but it was brightly lit and nicely decorated. It was a place that most ‘normies’ would feel comfortable getting their first tattoo. And he got the appeal.

Steve looked up at him with a lopsided smile as if he understood why Eddie was brought up short. “Other tattoo artists give me such shit about my set up, but it’s not about the aesthetic of what people think a tattoo shop should look like. It’s about people feeling comfortable about permanently altering their bodies.”

Eddie nodded. “No man, I get it. It’s just a pleasant surprise, you know?”

Steve grinned at him. “Thanks. Come on, have a seat. Take off your shirt. Relax.” He paused for a moment. “But not necessarily in that order.”

Eddie laughed and pulled off his shirt, tossing it on a nearby chair. He got on the lounge chair and laid back. He noticed the way Steve dragged his tongue over his bottom lip and smirked. Maybe Buckley was right.

“You’ve got a lot of great tattoos,” Steve said, wiping down Eddie’s chest with a mild anesthetic to clean the area. “Your old tattoo artist do those?”

Eddie shrugged. “Yeah, I mean most of them. A couple were stick and poke when I was high school.”

Steve raised an eyebrow. “Shit, really? I wouldn’t have guessed. They’re all really good.”

Eddie blushed. He figured Steve was just being polite because he thought it was fairly obvious which ones were the stick and poke. “Speaking of high school, I would have never in a million years thought that King Steve would become a tattoo artist. You been doing this long?”

Steve chuckled. “Yeah, I got voted most likely to run my own business, but I’m pretty sure they thought something closer along the lines of hair care or some such shit.”

“At least yours was nice,” Eddie grumbled. “I got voted most likely to still be high school at the ten year reunion.”

Steve winced. “Was that the first time or the second time they held you back?”

“First.”

“That’s harsh, man,” Steve commiserated. “Yeah, no, I’ve been doing this for the last five years. Three years at my own shop.”

Eddie raised his eyebrows. “Wait really? That’s epic, dude.”

Steve nodded. “I went with a friend of mine to see about apprenticing under Hop. He caught me doodling on myself because I forgot to bring my drawing pad and offered the apprenticeship to us both.”

“I can see why,” Eddie said. “You do some pretty impressive work. Who was the friend? Robin?”

Steve laughed. “Yeah, no...I love Robin, and she is a lot of wonderful things, artist just isn’t one of them.”

Eddie laughed, too. “Yeah, okay. That’s fair.”

Steve picked up his gun and sat down on the rolling stool. “Nope, Max Mayfield. One of my nuggets, as Robin called them.”

Eddie blinked. “Shit, dude. She was my old tattoo artist? You two really apprenticed under Hop?”

Steve hummed. “Yup.” He turned on the gun and then shut it off again. “I know you said that you wanted it in your style, but can I add my own flourishes to it?”

Eddie cocked his head. “Yeah, sure. I liked what you did with Jeff’s tattoo, so yeah. Knock yourself out, man.”

Steve grinned. “I promise you won’t regret it.”

***

Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14 Part 15 Part 16 Part 17 Part 18 Part 19 Part 20 Part 21 Part 22 Part 23 Part 24 Part 25 Part 26 Part 27 Part 28 Epilogue

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[serosblunt]

BakuSquad Boys: Showering with Them (Pt. 1)

BakuSquad x (Gender-neutral) reader

Characters: Sero & Denki

Warnings: None really; mentions of shaving, nudity, hints at spicier things.

Description: What I imagine showering with these two would be like, from how often they shower to skincare routines and fun little quirks they have. Kirishima and Bakugo coming soon in part 2 :)

—————

He loves to bathe with you, no matter how it’s done. Bath vs. shower, quick or not, he doesn’t care. Sero’s convinced it’s one of the most intimate things in the world. Especially when he shaves your legs for you.

He gets it, sometimes the feeling of hair is overwhelming, but you’re too tired to be able to shave yourself, and honestly, you can’t help but fall in love with the way he plants kisses up your calves as he goes.

Trust me when I tell you ladies, gents and everyone in between, this man is the KING of shaving for you. Body part is irrelevant, he’s got it. Just put your leg up on his, babe, and you’re good to go. And if waxing is more your style, you’re in luck! Your charming boyfriend comes with a handsome smile and an unlimited supply of tape- a handy substitute for wax strips.

Hanta spent hours practicing on patches of his own hair so as to perfect his technique before he dared risk damaging your beautiful skin.

You’re usually both nightly shower-ers, unless Hanta’s weekly night shift interferes, which he hates more than anything. Showering alone in those boxy agency stalls could go suck ass as far as he was concerned. He lives for quiet nights with you. This is where the routine usually begins.

An intimate dinner, low music playing in the background to fill the silence, or burning conversation that just couldn’t wait to be heard. But normally this is saved for the bathroom, this is where you both really begin to wind down for the night.

Celebrating your vulnerability by talking about your days, and gently massaging the stress out of aching muscles; kissing away annoyances to replace them with a new, more comfortable warmth.

The tape-hero’s arms wrap around you from behind as you do your skincare in the mirror. He places gentle kisses to your neck as he patiently waits his turn. There’s never a burden behind these touches, nothing that says you have to go further. Nevertheless, you appreciate the love he puts into each caress of your skin, despite already knowing the outcome of the night will be an early bed time to combat Hanta’s outrageous patrol schedule, and you happily curled up in your hero’s chest. Once Sero does get his turn in front of the mirror, his routine is quite simple.

Having already brushed his teeth to keep that signature smile shining, he uses a basic facial cleanser - one you got him onto. After that, there’s another mystery product that he can never pronounce, but the serum has helped his childhood acne scars to no end. Slap on a bit of moisturiser and he’s done. Simple as that.

He never had a skincare routine before he met you, so these steps feel like quite a milestone achievement to him. Needless to say, he ALWAYS sticks to his routine, and he’s quick to pull you up and help you with yours if you happen to be slacking a little that day.

Never in the history of the world, has a man gone more feral for someone’s body than Denki does for yours. You like to joke that he was actually born with some sort of bloodhound quirk crossed with his electricity. Only your loving boyfriend doesn’t smell blood, oh no. He has a wicked sixth sense about when you are actually, or are planning to get naked; and he refuses to be absent for that particular event.

He normally showers every second day, most of the time that happens to be at the agency, out of convenience. It serves as a good visual reminder to him. He’s not a barbarian though, if he needs a shower, he’ll take one. Besides, it’s not like his routine is exactly consistent. If you’re naked too…well, who could resist?

However, on the odd occasion when you are showering and he doesn’t feel like joining you, he’s not just going to leave the bathroom. No, no, that little sneak will be watching the entire time.

The two of you can still carry on with a conversation for the most part, but the second you stretch your arms up to wash your hair, he’s a goner.

Droolin’ fool type goner.

Kaminari considers it his duty to moisturise your body. He especially admires how smooth your skin is after you’ve exfoliated, but he thinks you’re smokin’ either way. He’s just honoured that you even let him touch you like that. It’s arguably his favourite part of the day, feeling your velvety skin gliding beneath his palms. And it’s not like you dont get anything out of the experience either ;)

Hear me out, Denki LOVES doing skincare with you. Any excuse he has to get close to you is a win in his mind.

To the blond, the feeling of your hands on his face are equally as soothing as the water itself. Your apartment doesn’t have any of those fancy water filters on the faucets, thus, Denki finds showers particularly calming after a long day. Tap water is a good conductor of electricity, and is often useful in helping your sparking boyfriend come back to himself after he’s overused his quirk, or just had a bit of a rough mission.

Sometimes, he can quite literally feel his quirk humming through his skin as it recharges itself, occasionally leaving tiny Lichtenberg figures down his arms.

If you ever do a facemask on yourself without telling your boyfriend, he actually considers it a personal offence. His motto when it comes to skincare is, whatever goes on your skin, goes on his.

Cleansers, serums, balms, creams, masks, the whole nine yards. Denki has never complained once because he truly loves every minute of it. To him, it feels like you guys are secretly matching in an odd way. As he inhales the lingering scent of the new moisturiser you had wanted to try the night before, he’s reminded of all the laughs you’ve had in your tiny apartment ensuite.

Like when he tried to kiss you through the ill-fitting lip sections of a sheet mask, before you had pulled away, lightly swatting his shoulder and warning him about ingesting the serum. The subtle feeling of being close to you provides memories he carries with him everywhere throughout his day, like a badge of honour.

—————

[writingsfromhome]

Dos and Don’ts IV

A/N: hello my loves this final part to this fic completes the birth of one of my favourite fics I’ve written. Thank you for reading and enjoying it just as much—every like, comment, and dm meant the world <3

Parts: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4

—————————————————

We have an extra day in Barcelona and the team is buzzing to enjoy their nightlife since we could sleep all day tomorrow. I’d visited here while I was a uni student so I give some suggestions.

Harry’s a little on edge the whole time. Earlier today some headline from a musician Harry worked with was taken out of context and thus took the internet by storm. Now he was being flooded with people wanting to know his thoughts and feelings. It was a hot topic.

With a joint effort of me, Jeff, and Graham, we tried to keep the spotlight on his Barcelona show. Well my role was mostly to screen Harry from seeing any further discourse online.

The show itself was one of the loudest I’d been to—I was glad I had my own ear protection. The tense Harry falls away and he’s electric on stage. Even coming backstage he’s on a high; he hugs the crew and thanks everyone like he usually did at the end of shows and disappears into his dressing room with Jeff. They look like they’re talking intensely.

“So,” Sarah slides in beside me. “We noticed you’re a bit different coming back. What’s happened?”

I try to play dumb but the girls keep pushing.

“Me and my fiancé ended things,” I confess. They gasp, Claire’s eyes actually fill with tears.

“Shh!” I shush them. “Keep it on the down low please I don’t want anyone to know.”

“But y/n why are you even here!? Is it because of tour! I’m sure Harry could have rearranged things-“

“No no,” I appreciated their support but I didn’t want to hash things out. “It’s just…I think it was a long time coming. God, I don’t wanna cry. I’m good. For now. And I want to be on tour I need the distraction.”

“I get it,” they sympathize. “We’re gonna make you forget so hard tonight.”

“Okay but don’t,” I look around us to make sure there was nobody else around. “Please don’t tell Harry. Seriously please. I don’t want him to know especially. I don’t want him to treat me differently or something.”

“Lips are sealed.” Sarah zips her mouth. “But we can all tell you’re off. It’s hard not to practically living together these last couple months. If he asks we’ll say…”

“Just say she’s on a break?” Charlie suggests.

“Yeah,” I shrug. “Things are complicated, I’m on a break, whatever that’s fine.”

The girls lean towards me and envelop me in a hug. It reminds me of my friends I’d said goodbye to.

“Thanks,” I say through tears.

And the girls hold me to their promise.

After we get dressed for the night—I chose a corset-style top and trousers—we head out. The sun dips below the horizon and the old city is cast in a warm orange glow that could inspire anyone who set eyes on it. String lights come on and music plays from various doors; the city is alive.

We tease each other about looking so glam as we wander the narrow cobblestone streets. Aside from the shows we all wore sweats and tees.

Every place we pass sets my senses alight. We grab tapas from a place that smells irresistible and chat over each other about tonight’s wicked show. I continue avoiding Harry by sitting as far away from him as I can get.

As we wander off in search of the club I can’t help but feel a twinge at how incredibly romantic the moonlit streets felt.

The club is loud and alive, the noise levels even feel normal after the roar of the last few of Harry’s shows. My mood starts shooting up steadily as I drink in the energy around me.

We join the crowd and I give away my worries and my annoyances to enjoy the music. I feel it in my chest and for a blissful moment I’m grateful for my whole damn life despite everything.

“Cute guy!” Someone shouts in my ear.

Charlie nudges me to one of the guys dancing nearby. “Get distracted!”

I shake my head no.

“Do it!” She cheers. It barely travels to me. She grabs Claire’s hand and tugs her, letting her in on the plan and they goad me into going for it.

I motion a drink. I’d need another shot for the courage.

We trail back to the bar and do a round of shots, and they grin with thumbs up as I hesitantly enter the crowd again.

The dude they pointed out is tall and beautiful. Like beautiful not even handsome. I get stuck looking up at him in awe, he wasn’t really my type. A tad too pretty boy but when he notices me looking he smiles and I’m won over. I couldn’t deny a good smile.

“Hey!” He turns his body to me. At least I think he say hey.

“Hey!” I shout back.

“Que pasa?”

“What?!” I couldn’t hear a single thing. What did I expect.

He smiles and takes my hand that had been anxiously playing with the edge of my top. The other has a hand splint that I’d received in Madrid. Apparently I sprained my fingers.

The stranger wriggles both my hands to loosen them, raising his brow at the splint. I laugh.

He asks in my ear but I don’t understand. It sounds like a question, something bylar. When I scrunch my brows he laughs, “Dance! We dance!?”

“Dance!” I laugh. He was cute! “Yes! I want to dance with you!”

“Vamos,” he pulls me in. I understood that at least.

I used to do this in uni, I think. I should be able to do it again.

He teases me a little because I’m so tense. His hands knead down my back to my waist to get me to relax. It feels nice, being touched by a man that looks like he was carved from marble but filled with music.

I begin to find my rhythm and sway with him, eventually letting go completely. He compliments me as I start to move with him and pretty soon I’ve channeled my 20-year-old self. It feels pretty spectacular.

When his lips ghost my cheek I don’t protest. Right now, I felt good. Everything was on the back burner’s back burner and I felt grounded in this nighclub with this random stranger who was paying attention to me, just me. And it’s just us. And it’s just temporary. And I feel good.

When I turn around, my back to his chest, he moves my hair to the side and kisses down my neck. It felt good.

I run my hand up into his hair and he moves lower murmuring foreign words on my skin, our bodies still dancing in the same language, his hands still gripping my waist and my hips. I feel blissed out.

It ends in a split second.

“What are you doing?” Harry’s suddenly tugging me towards him. His mouth makes the words I just fill them in with his annoyingly bossy voice.

“Hey man,” the guy I’m dancing with tries to get in between us.

“What are you doing!?” I snatch my hand away from Harry.

Harry puts his hand on my partner’s chest and says something to him, maybe in Spanish. He looks at me with puppy dog eyes and I look at Harry. What had he said.

“What did you say?” I ask. I try to call back my dancing partner but he just salutes me with a smile and fades into the crowd. No wait, I’m being dragged away.

“Y/n what are you doing out there?”

“What am I doing?” I shout. “What are you?! I was having a nice time with that guy what did you say to him?”

He walks away, further back into the edges of the club. There’s a few people milling about with a number of them involved in heavy makeout sessions.

Harry turns to face me finally. “You’re engaged y/n, Claire and Sarah said things are complicated at home is that why you’re doing this?”

“What!” I throw my hands up, tears prick my eyes. What the fuck was his problem! Since when did he care? “Why do you care?! Yes, things are complicated and I was getting my mind off of said things—what is your issue? You want to drag me back here and remind me of how shitty things have been?”

“This isn’t the way,” Harry insists. “You don’t even know that guy!”

“Whatever I’m over this convo.”

I turn to leave but Harry grabs my hand, the one in the splint, and pulls me back.

“Sorry,” he lets go of the splint. Then picks it up again. “Look. I’m worried about you. This isn’t you, you’re not the girl that goes home with another guy when your fiancé is back at home! I just don’t want you making any regrets.”

“Oh is that it,” I step towards him so my hand isn’t so outstretched. He stands still but on my second step he inches back. “Since when did you get a high horse huh? Don’t tell me who I am and who I’m not. You barely know me! If I want to make decisions I regret I can do that. They’re mine to make.”

“No. Y/n, as mad as you are don’t go home with a stranger.”

“As if you don’t!” I scoff. “What’s your real agenda here? What’s going on?”

“Nothing!” He insists.

“Why do you suddenly care so much about my chastity?”

“It’s for your own good!”

He’s lying. I know he’s lying and I don’t know why he pulled me away from my beautiful Spanish dance partner but I was actually relaxing and now he’s put me right back into this crazed and tense headspace I kept finding myself in.

Fine, I decide. I could make him regret it.

“Really? You care about my morality that much?” I ask.

With my hand flat on his chest I’ve pushed him further into the wall behind him. He watches me with a guarded look.

But I want him unguarded, vulnerable. The same way he’s made me feel. I lean in, “Are you really worried about the technicalities of me cheating on my fiancé?”

I hover a half foot from his lips. Finally his eyes flicker down to my lips and I know I’ve got him.

I slide my hand up his chest and when my hand inches up the skin of his throat his eyes grow unguarded and heady with lust. He doesn’t push me away. He doesn’t say no.

Hypocrite.

I drop my hand.

“That’s what I thought Mr. Styles.”

I watch for a wonderful moment as the lust clears from his eyes and he realizes what happened. Shame, embarrassment, resignation, and then anger.

I spin on my heel and head away from him. He could deal with the consequences of his actions all on his own.

I’m half-afraid he’ll come after me but luckily I make it out of the club alone.

“He’s such a dick,” I say more to myself. Just to get it out because I’m pissed. “Who the fuck does he think he is!?”

My night is over. I just want to take this all off and forget about it. Maybe I can lock myself in my room and raid the mini-fridge, get drunk and cry myself to sleep. Those seemed like the best options right now.

I take an uber to the hotel. As I walk up to it I notice a weird crowd outside. For nearly 2am I wasn’t expecting this and my instincts kick in that this wasn’t normal. Especially when I notice all the camera straps.

“Excuse me,” I ask the front desk. “Why are there a bunch of paparazzi outside?”

“Is there?” The man behind the counter asks. “Sorry we will tell them to leave. Are you staying with us?”

“That’s a privacy concern out there, and a concern with your staff because they’re here. How do they know who’s staying here?!”

It seems to dawn on him I wasn’t just asking out of curiosity. He promises me he’ll get management. In the meantime I call Jeff and explain the situation. He starts to panic the way I hated, looking for something to blame. He calls Graham who sounds like he’s driving in nascar. It’s a very noisy and over-stimulating conversation.

“Call Harry!” Jeff orders. “Tell him he cannot go back to the hotel no matter what! Fucking vultures man!”

“Y/N,” Graham says in a calmer voice. “You need to go back to where Harry is with some sort of disguise. A hat or sunglasses. That sort of thing-“

“It’s night.”

“Yes night. No glasses. Book the closest hotel you can find. Tell his band they can come back, but to go through the back. They might get spotted but they’re trained on dodging questions. That will keep the vultures there waiting for Harry and we can pick you two up back to the airport tomorrow morning. Where’s after this?”

“Glasgow,” I bite my nail as I think. I had to call Harry asap. What if he was on his way back. “I gotta go now to call him though. Talk later.”

I hang up and call Harry. He picks up the second time.

I explain the situation and he reacts the same way as Jeff, swearing and cursing the papps. I tell him what I was going to do and tell him to go right back into the club. To pass on the word to the team even though I was going to send them a text.

I head up to my room and grab what fits in my bag. I didn’t have Harry’s room key so I decide he’d have to wear my hat and head back out. The vultures stay waiting, now just a few feet further away from the entrance.

I speak briefly to management—I figured Jeff could talk to them and give his classic earful.

On the drive I find a nearby hotel to the club and collect Harry to get him there. We’re too tense to talk when we meet up. Once inside again, I tell him to sit in the lounge while I go up to the desk.

Act above it all, I channel a rich bitch. We needed privacy and we needed nobody to know Harry was here.

“Hi I need a room.” I say.

“Of course, how many night will you be staying with us.”

I glance back to see where Harry sits. He’s in a wingback chair that’s mostly turned away and with his hair stuffed in the baseball cap you can hardly tell it’s him.

“Just a night. I need your best room please.”

“Absolutely,” the woman smiles and I feel bad for only giving a tight-lipped smile back. I wait as she clicks away, finally looking back to me with a slight frown. “So miss unfortunately we are very booked tonight. There are a couple events going on in the city making things very popular.”

“The best room will do. Preferably large.”

“Well,” she hesitates. “A lot of our larger rooms are taken um. I can offer you a bed with one king, it is a bit smaller because it’s by the elevators. I also have one with a queen that is tucked away in the corner with a better view.”

I wanted to be as far away from Harry as possible but by an elevator was asking for trouble.

“Well, I’d rather stay far away from noise so we’ll take the queen.”

“Is that just you or…” she glances at Harry.

“Yes. Two. We’ve had a rough day of travel he’s just resting.”

I hand over ID and my card, trying not to balk at the total. At least I’ll get reimbursed.

“Do you have any bags?” The concierge swoops in as I get the key card.

“No! No. Like I said, bad travel day. We just need somewhere to sleep and we’ll reunite with the bags once they arrive tomorrow.”

They leave us alone after that. I hoped it was because I’d been standoffish enough and not plain weird.

The elevator ride up to the 8th floor is stony and I spend the spare second to text Jeff and Graham the hotel’s address.

The room itself is pretty sub-par and the adrenaline of getting Harry here safely wears off.

I drop my bag by the door and pull out my toiletry bag.

“I don’t have clothes for you to change into, I didn’t have your room key.”

“Yeah. S’fine. I’ll just sleep shirtless unless that bothers you.”

We stare at each other for a tense moment.

“I’m fine with that, you’re the one with the high horse.”

After doing all this for him I wasn’t going to be easy to deal with if he wasn’t going to be easy to deal with.

He chooses to ignore me.

“How the fuck did they know I was staying there? We were under a-“

His phone rings and he answers. Sounds like Jeff.

I use the time to go to the bathroom and finally take off the makeup. I realize I should have grabbed my pjs from my bag too. I take my hair down and massage my scalp with my fingers, letting myself calm down despite the aggressive voices outside.

“Yeah whatever. Keep me updated.” I hear. Great. That was done with.

I leave the bathroom and Harry’s still pacing the floor.

“You’re gonna wear the carpet down if you keep doing that.”

He stops and looks at me, his eyes trail down my body.

“You didn’t bring yourself a change of clothes either?”

“You wish,” I head for my bag again and grab the tee and shorts. “I just forgot them out here.”

“Do you always have to be so snarky?”

Oh, so he wanted to fight. Good news for him, so did I.

“Depends. With you? When you’re being a dick? Yeah. I do.”

“It’s really quite unbecoming.”

“Is it?” I mock his accent. “It’s not proper for a lady to be snarky?”

“I don’t sound like that. You just never let anything go.” He continues.

“I never let anything go?” I repeat.

“Yeah! Ever!”

“What do you want me to let go?” I ask.

“Everything. You’re bothered by everything just let it all fucking go.”

“No like specifically what should I let go?” I turn on him and with each question I stalk towards him. “Being treated like trash by you? Being told I’m replaceable and unnecessary? Getting bossed around about who I can and can’t dance with because you suddenly decide to be the morality police!?”

“Jesus take it down a notch y/n.” We’re fuming as we square off. “I’m not your bloody fiancé.”

“And thank fuck you’re not!” I throw the clothes in my hand on the bed. “You’re my employer Mr. Styles and I’ve been nothing but a good fucking employee for the last year! I try to keep my patience and do everything I can to do my best! You’re the one always trying to blur lines! You’re the one always getting in my damn business when I don’t pay you to!”

With every accusation I poke my finger into his chest and it’s like literally pushing buttons. His face gets stonier and stonier until I’m sure he’s going to crack.

“You wanna know what your fucking issue is?” He swipes my hand away.

“Oh sure tell me, wise Harry Styles who definitely has no issues at all. Tell me.”

“This. This is your fucking issue,” he spits. “You’ve always got such a temper on you! I’m not blurring any bloody lines I check up on you and you get all offended over nothing!”

“Over nothing?” I ask. I laugh sarcastically and walk away from him. I was seeing red. “Over nothing?”

“Yes! I don’t do shite and suddenly you’re trying to bite my dick off.”

“You fucking wish,” I turn on him. “It’s crazy you don’t realize what an absolute jackass you are! We should be refunding all those fans who’ve come out to see you because the man they’re paying for is a fake! You’ve treated me like nothing and embarrassed me countless time-“

“Embarrassed you,” he scoffs.

“Yes!” I go on. “What do you call what you said on our way to Paris huh? You can be so cruel! So if I have a temper it’s justified because you’re one of the worst people I’ve met!”

“What did I say?”

“Are you kidding? You’re going to make me repeat it?” He was crazy. He was depraved and absolutely insane. Or he just hated me.

“I’m not playing a game just tell me!”

“You said I could have skipped the whole tour and nobody would notice.” I say the words that had looped through my head. And of course, he has the audacity to look surprised. “Thanks. A lot! It makes it even worse that you were so casual with your cruelt-“

“You need to stop being so sensitive,” he has the nerve to say. “Then maybe you can manage your temper.”

“I can manage my temper any time but you’re moody like a pre-pubescent teen and that looks to be a lifetime fucking problem!”

“What’s your fucking problem Y/n! What is your problem with me!? Why do you still work for me if you are this angry all the time!”

“I’m not this angry all the time, you just makes me this angry! And I hate you for it!”

“Then quit!”

“Maybe I will!” I had to. After tonight and this blowout I had to. How could I work for Harry like this.

“Great! Then you can take your problems with you.”

“Don’t gaslight me,” how dare he. “You’re not innocent in this! You create my problems and blame me for being this way.”

“Whatever y/n.”

“No.” I wasn’t letting him off the hook. I get in his face again. “Why did you stop me tonight? Why did you keep me from doing what I wanted tonight?”

“What? I told you I was looking out-“

“Bullshit!” I cut him off. “That’s a bullshit excuse, I want to know why!?”

I feel like I’m made of flames and in desperate need of a lobotomy. How could one guy make me this crazy. How could it all revolve around him.

“I was doing it for your own good! But clearly I understand why it’s so fucking complicated with your partner-“

“Don’t you dare talk about him,” I seethe. I was mad. Fuming. I want to get physical, I wish I could throttle him or at the very least access one of the pillows from across the room and smash it to the floor. I want him to see how angry I am because my words are twisted with every angle Harry could find. I wanted him to admit to something he’s been skirting for a long time. “Tell me.”

Harry stares at me with hate in his eyes and I know I have the same look. I wasn’t going to let him get away.

“You don’t even have the balls to admit it,” I poke. “Is this why you’re so hard-headed to anything I say? Because you can’t even admit something like this to yourself?”

“Just shut the fuck up y/n and stop being so mental.”

“I refuse to shut up. I want you to talk.”

His breathing gets faster and I watch him flex his hand. He was as angry as I was. Good.

“You’re a fraud. And I hate you.” I step into his space. Our bodies are a hair’s breadth away from each other’s. I want to show him how mad he makes me. I want to do something. I want him to admit this thing he’s been dancing around. It makes me so mad!

When he starts to shake his head at me I lose it. Instinct takes over where I want to physically show him how angry he was making me. I grab his face in my hands and push my mouth against his. I meet teeth.

But it doesn’t take long for him to respond. To correct the unadulterated anger with purpose.

He pushes back, kissing me harder whilst pushing me against the wall. I feel sandwiched, my chest crushed against his and I bite down on his lip trying to get back some control.

My hands are all over him, grabbing his shirt, running through his hair, pushing under his shirt to touch skin. Harry does the same, pulling at my hair and lifting me onto him.

Our tongues clash together, his hand grabs my ass, squeezing and moving up. His hands feel hot on my skin, his metal rings an icy contrast. Neither of us want to give up control. We keep fighting, just now with our bodies.

“Why can’t you ever just let it go,” he traces his teeth over my collarbone. It all feels too much.

In response I push him back, he stares at me for a heated second before we crash into each other again. We don't care where we are. All that mattered was here and showing the other who was in control. Who hated who the most.

Harry pulls away, his mouth a deep pink from our fight. His eyes are half lidded, his pupils dilated. I can tell he wants this but a part of him hesitates.

"We're doing this," I commit, not taking my eyes off his lips.

"I’m doing this," he growls and lifts me up, any hesitancy washed away. I wrap my legs around him, not thinking about anything but what I was going to do.

He whirls me around and deposits me onto the bed, and his body covers mine while his mouth attack my neck.

He wasn't gentle or slow, but then again, I didn't want him to be. I pull off his shirt, not wanting anything between us, not caring that my nails would leave marks down his back. Leaving something permanent on him sounded exactly what I needed.

I tug on his hair as his teeth come down on my chest. I feel heated as he swears, “Teasing me with this top all night was a fucking sin y/n.”

“Fuck off,” I gasp as he figures out the row of clasps at the front and the icy rings of his fingers presses against my sternum. I grit my teeth, “I didn’t wear this for you.”

His abs contract as he pushes himself back up, his eyes dark as his hands find the clasp on my trousers, undoing them with ease and tugging them off. His other hand comes back up to tilt my chin up.

“D’you really hate me?” He asks.

“Yes,” I respond with zero hesitation.

He moves his body, covering mine with his own again. My breath catches in my throat as he presses his lips to my neck, slowly moving down. He drives me crazy with anticipation and I wriggle up to keep up the pace but he holds me in place. I let out a moan as he kisses my inner thighs, his fingers gripping the tops of them. I'm squirming under his hold, the heat pooling inside of me.

“Do you hate me?” He asks again.

“Yes,” I cry, not wanting to relent to him.

“Good,” he says and that’s the last thing I remember.

The rest is a tangle of limbs, an out-of-body sensation, and seismic wave after wave coursing through my body. It’s unlike anything I’ve experienced before; the fury we felt with each other fuzes to the passion of the moment and it blitzes every damn thought out of my head.

Hours later, or maybe the whole night later—I don’t know but all I do know was that my body was spent and I was barely hanging on.

“I can’t,” I plant my hands on his shoulders and nearly pitch forward just from pausing. His hand splays on my back, keeping me in place as he turns us around.

“Okay?” He asks low.

I nod, grateful that he was taking over.

And after riding out what I know would be my last wave he rolls off of me, and we lay there just trying to catch our breaths.

After a few minutes, I sense him tilting towards me, his eyes on my face. When he stares for so long it becomes obvious, I look back at him.

His eyes are not the same ones that started this mess, they’re breezy meadows of green compared to the icy sea glass from before. But it’s not surprising. With each round and each minute we spent with other tonight, things had grown softer. Not gentle, but softer.

And as we look at each other with the awareness that the anger had bled into the threads of these tangled sheets a long time ago, we’re left with something neither of us want to distinguish. At least I don’t.

His gaze holds something too real for a place like this and I quickly look away and back at the ceiling. I feel his eyes on me a moment longer before he himself turns away to stare at the same ceiling.

“Y/N,” someone suddenly calls my name, tapping my cheeks with a gentle pat. I have to pull myself from the depths of wherever the fuck I just went to open my eyes and look up, at Harry. He looks concerned and asks me a question that I don’t register—I was truly out of it. I must have dozed off.

I push his hand away and grab the closest piece of clothing to wrap around myself in which ends up being a sheet. I take myself to the bathroom to clean up.

I hardly recognize the girl in the mirror. My eyes are blown out and my neck looks like it was rammed by a bull. I can hardly look at the rest of me. I would need to buy something high necked before we got picked up tomorrow morning and use all the concealer I had. I know I marked every inch of him I could find too.

I had never felt that level of passion with anyone. It was unnerving.

My knees collapse under me as I sit on the toilet and try to count the tiles on the opposite wall, just to come back to earth. To my body.

I sense a shadow under the door after I’m in there for a while, I watch it move from one side to the other and then move away. I wait longer, nearly falling asleep there before going back out.

The bed looks a right mess and most of the duvet is twisted to the side. I don’t bother with it, I use the sheet I’m wrapped in and crawl right into bed. Harry seems to have fallen asleep too but as I near sleep I feel the bed dip and the heavy weight of the duvet drapes over me.

I don’t have enough clarity or energy tonight to think about what any of this meant but I know I was right about leaving.

***

We return to London on a Wednesday morning and nearly kiss the ground. Harry was still playing two shows here but getting to go back home instead of a hotel room was enough to make us weep.

I didn’t really have a home to go back to. I’d been thinking about that a lot as the tour took us closer and closer to London. I had texted Gray yesterday and we agreed I could crash there until this weekend to get my stuff together.

London had a metaphorical grey fog over it in my mind. Nothing felt appealing about it and the only thing on my mind these days was home—my childhood home.

I already knew I was going to give in my resignation letter to Harry after tour but I had a 3 week period under contract. I don’t think I could afford a hotel for three weeks and staying with any of my friends is out of the question.

These thoughts kept me preoccupied.

It helped me not to think about that night though. I avoided Harry unless it was for work, returning to the solitude of my first few months working for him. He does the same: curt and avoidant. I know others notice but nobody dares to ask.

It was the most intense thing I’d done in my whole life and that was saying something. There was a way that Harry got under my skin that nobody else could. And it was hard to find a balance after the scales had shifted so far in that direction.

I felt like I had to block it out until I could have space to process it. And yet memories still seeped through when I was quiet for a moment too long or when he’d walk past me with the same cologne as that night and I’d catch a whiff. I was doubly sure this chapter had to close.

When I get back to the flat on Wednesday Gray has vanished as he promised. He told me he’d drop by that evening to talk. Surprisingly, I felt calm about it. I don’t know if it was getting all of that ferocious energy out that had been churning for months, but I feel level-headed and I appreciate the space to myself.

Gray texts me before he arrives. Like this wasn’t the flat he was now paying for alone.

I know what he wanted to talk about—we were all supposed to go to Harry’s last show at the o2 since I had tickets for everyone. Josie was stoked and based on the way she’s been texting me leading up to the day I don’t think she knew. Gray confirms it.

“So,” he rubs the back of his neck. He looked nice in a beanie and corduroy jacket. I wonder if any of the effort was for me, then vanish the thought.

“So,” I echo.

We stand awkwardly across from each other—him propping himself up behind the couch and me leaning against the dining table. Like we needed to get as much furniture between us. Like we hadn’t shared a bed a few weeks ago.

“We should sit?”

“Yeah,” he attempts a laugh and sits on the sofa. I choose the closest chair and turn it to face him. “Yeah. Um, I don’t know how you feel about Saturday. But I haven’t told Josie yet. I haven’t really told anyone.”

I nod, “Me too. Not really. People at work think we’re on a break.”

“Right. Good.” He says. “I’m not tryna lie to people but I don’t really want to get into it…”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “So Josie?”

“I’ll let her know once…once you move out?”

Move out. Of this flat. It’s been home for nearly 3 years.

Gray had surprised me with it when he found it—I had been broke and only been able to pitch in for utilities and groceries but he’d been gracious. He’d been supportive once. But I guess his support had boundaries too. I didn’t entirely blame him for that.

“Sounds good. Or later, maybe when she’s done her exams.”

He leans back on the couch, arms spread over the back and sighs as he studies me. “Yeah of course. I should’ve thought of that. You’re always good at that stuff. She’s gonna be gutted.”

I nod. Not sure what to say to that.

“So you’ll be out on Saturday yeah?” He asks after a while. It seemed both of us had a lot on our minds. But his question stings a little.

“Yep. I’m off for most of the week so I’ll just pack things up. Uhm, with Josie and whatnot I guess we’re still acting like a couple? Will that be weird?”

“Yeah. It will be but we’ve got no other option.”

“Right.” I respond. His voice grows an edge I’m not a fan of. “Well. Thanks for letting me stay here. If you need anything else I guess you can grab it now.”

I want to ask how he’s doing, who he’s staying with, and just hold his face one last time to really remember. But his cold apathy grows like frostbite over the room and creeps into my heart. I always thought where there was love there would always be love but I’m not as sure tonight.

I stay busy and when I can’t sleep at night; I map out a dream, an exit plan home. I write up my resignation letter, I look at flights and rentals and talk things out with my family, I cancel wedding and couple shit, and grieve a fair bit.

On Friday afternoon, my only formal shift this week, I head to Harry’s with an anxious weight in my chest and a buzz in my head from the hope. Hope that this chapter of my life could end soon, and I can head home and recuperate and plan out what my life was going to look like.

Harry’s on a call when I get in. He spares me a glance but I head to the office with my stack of mail. Today was mostly for some housekeeping/admin but I hope to avoid Harry for the most part like I’ve done since that night. My letter sits like a bar of gold in my bag.

I hear him move about the flat. I restock some pantry items, and we speak as little as possible. Going with him to his meeting was my final task for today so I decide it’s a good time to hand in my letter.

I find him sitting in the studio, tapping a pen against the table.

“Mr. Styles?”

“Hm?” He drags his eyes away from his screen to look at me.

“So we’re heading to your meeting in 10. Before then I just wanted to hand this in.”

The envelope stays outstretched in my hand and he eyes it, not taking it.

“What is that?”

“Can you just take it?” I shake it a little, like a bag of treats for a puppy.

His muscles move one inch every ten seconds, that’s how slow he is to sit up in his seat and finally take the letter from my hands. I almost let out a big sigh of relief. The process was finally in place.

“What is it?” He asks again, tearing the corner and down the side like he usually did.

I wait for him to unfold the thirds before answering, “my resignation letter.”

His eyes scan the sheet left to right right to left and when he looks up at me it’s hard to say what he’s thinking.

“Is this a joke?”

“No? Obviously not? I’m handing in my 3 weeks. I’ll also email a copy to Jeff and you.”

“Why are you doing this?” He stands, his tall frame rigid.

“Why? Because I’m…I’m quitting? I think I’ve learned everything I could here a-and it’s time to move on.”

By here I don’t mean working for Harry Styles and co but just here as in London. I’ve learned a fuck ton of life lessons here, and it was time to process them elsewhere.

“Is this to get back at me somehow? I don’t understand,” the papers crinkle in his fist as he grips it tighter. “Do you want a raise? Can we talk about this?”

“No.” I say and even though there’s so much more I could say I think that sums up my answer.

He looks puzzled, then annoyed. Just then my phone buzzes. The car was downstairs.

I grab my laptop and we head down. I was coming along to take minutes and then head home. In the car I reassure Harry,

“I plan on wrapping things up in the next three weeks and making sure everything is set up for an easy transition. I’ll leave continuity notes and reach out to people I regularly communicate with to break the news. The next couple months are pretty easy anyway coming out of tour and going on holiday so there should be plenty of time for the new PA, whoever your hire, to catch up.”

He doesn’t say a word. It reminds me of our first drive to the studio together. How naïve I was. How things changed.

He continues staring out the window, resting his face on his fist. I remember my teeth dragging over that jaw. I blink the image away; this was why I had to go.

When we get to Graham’s office Harry tells Jeff, “we don’t need minutes.”

Jeff looks over at me for answers and I shrug. I guess I came here for no reason but at least I had my laptop to work.

“Uh y/n please come i-“

“She’s fine working out there,” Harry cuts Graham off. Graham looks offended, his gaze drawing between Harry and I. Again, I shrug. I wasn’t leaving today I don’t know why he was acting like it.

For the next hour or so I sit at a spare cubicle and do just as I said in the car. I type out lists for upcoming interviews and studio days. I send emails for information to note for whoever the poor person was to replace me.

I had been keeping the Dos and Don’ts updated over the last year and it feels like a baby the way it came together with so much thought. I was almost sad to part with it.

Nobody tells me the meeting is over. The door simply opens and Harry breezes past.

“I’ll be in the car.” He mutters. Any faster and I would have to hold down the papers around me.

When he’s gone beyond sight, I turn back to the open door.

“What’s the matter with him?” I hear Graham asking inside.

“You keep pushing him,” Jeff responds with irritation. “That’s not his brand Graham.”

“Well that’s a different tune. Prior to this you were singing my praises with these new ideas.”

“I don’t know. Something’s been up with him for…a while-“

“Since that article isn’t it?” Graham references the Harry Styles slander when we were in Spain. Little did they know other things had also happened.

“We dealt with that article.”

Shit, I think. Has he been any different? I think I was keeping too much distance from him to notice.

“Y/n,” my name snaps me out of my thoughts.

“Mhm?” I’m beckoned to the meeting room. “Yes?”

“Find out what’s wrong with him. Or better yet just convince him to be a bit more alive at his last show tomorrow with his usual charm? He hasn’t been his full capacity the last few shows has he?”

Shit. “Um. Burnout?”

The two men look at each other. They make a face like that couldn’t possibly be why. I tell the men what they want to hear, that I’d try to find out and get him back to his charming self (yuck) before joining Harry in the car.

“Jeff and Graham aren’t all that happy with you,” I say when we start driving. Harry was giving me a lift home. “They’re insisting you do it right at your final tomorrow. Be your charming self.”

He grunts in response, head facing the window again. Was he allergic to look forward in the car or something?

“Are you coming?” He asks after a good ten minutes of silence.

“Tomorrow?”

“Mhm.”

“Yeah. I gave my extra tickets to…my fiance,” my brain fumbles my words as it remembers what he was and now is. And the lie I had to keep up. “And his sister and her friend.”

He just nods in acknowledgement, somehow stonier.

When the car pulls up to my familiar building I thank his driver and begin my shimmy out but Harry puts a hand to my knee to stop me. His touch sears right through my stockings and he must feel it too because he slides his hand back.

“Answer this,” he looks at me for the first time tonight. Wow, this really did feel like my first week on the job.

“Sure,” I reply.

“Is it because of that night?”

It’s the first time it’s been mentioned, and his gaze burns brighter than a forest fire. It’s mesmerizing and I can’t look away.

Wait, he wanted an answer.

“It’s because of a lot of things,” I answer truthfully.

He clenches his jaw. Leans back in his seat. The seatbelt reverses to hold him in place again and he’s no longer looking at me. I take that as my cue to go.

***

Josie bursts into the flat dressed to the nines in a groovy floral jumpsuit and boas in her hand. “Don’t worry. I have one for each of us.”

Her friend trails behind her in an equally 70s inspired look.

“That’s what you’re wearing?” Josie judges her brother’s hoodie and jeans. “You’re lowering the vibe Gray do better. Y/n? Why didn’t you brief him?”

“I did!” I eye Gray. “Don’t blame me.”

This was way more awkward than I thought. Or I really was not as good of an actress as I wished.

“What am I supposed to wear?” Gray asks. “I’m not wearing a jumpsuit.”

Josie rolls her eyes. “Y/n please drag him back and find a decent tee or something?”

“Yes ma’am,” I take Gray by the arm and take him back.

“This is kinda weird hey?” I whisper when we close the door.

“I don’t really like it either,” Gray scratches his head. “But it’s for the best.”

I nod and then louder announce, “Well it’s Jo’s night so find something a tad more retro?”

We end up with a red tee and find a belt to tie the look. Josie hugs her brother with thanks when she sees it.

I had on a pair of black bellbottoms paired with a blank tank. My hair was in spacebuns and Josie plucks a few boa feathers to accessorize my hair. It’s cute.

We head off and I have to make a conscious effort to remember my mannerisms with Gray before all this. I feel woozy while I slide my hand into his on the ride there, as Josie snaps our pics on her disposable, as she tells us to get one of us where Gray’s kissing my cheek and she’ll save it to show our kids. It makes me sick.

He keeps an arm on my waist as we walk. I want this night to be over so bad but every time I look Josie’s way I perk back up a little. I wanted her to enjoy this.

And she does. I’m sure she’s lost her voice by the end of the concert. At one point we drift away a little and breathe easier to drop the act but when she’s back Gray wraps his arms around me from behind and we act like a happy couple. Again, I felt sick.

Being in Gray’s arms held none of the spark it used to. I just feel awkward and sad.

At one point Harry looks my way, I don’t know how he spotted me in such a big crowd. It’s between songs and he looks at the group I’m with. I give a pathetic wave and he nods ever so slightly, his gaze sliding off soon after. Gray’s arm tightens around my shoulder and my heart gives a squeeze in response. I’m reminded: this era was ending.

The band told me to meet them backstage at the end, to join in on the final-show celebration. Josie and Gray would wait at a local pub and with the way Josie’s Instagram stories were glowing I could imagine her sitting there uploading it all.

“I couldn’t have done it without any of you,” I catch Harry saying as I slip behind stage with my pass. “I know I’ve not been the easiest to be with but you all sit in my heart. This is our Euro tour, concluded.”

Somebody pops bubbly and I congratulate the whole team as they drink. They insist on going out for proper drinks and I’m denied not going. They tell me to invite my guests to party with them and I know, based on where we were going, Josie was going to flip.

Juniper, a club that gets us all in on Harry’s face card, is opulent and lively on the inside. Josie is buzzing about with her friend—Gray had opted to go home, claiming he had early morning sessions. Josie didn’t think twice about him, but we pretended to go back and forth with a final warning from Gray to Josie to behave.

“He’s a broody one,” Charlie comments on Gray as we chatter while we get drinks. “Sister?”

“Yeah. Doesn’t know yet though so,” I put my finger to my lip.

“So no Barcelona dancing tonight?” Sarah teases. I laugh and tell them to keep me tamed. “We gotta do some shots with the team though where is everyone?”

We gaze around the room and manage to get everyone together. After one round of shots and another that Harry forced on all of us I feel the tension I’ve been carrying with me most days slide away.

We end up sticking together as a group and dance together, laughing and cheering each other on. Even Harry’s in a cheery mood—I suspect the alcohol. I catch him watching me at one point and when I raise my brow he takes my hand and spins me in a friendly twirl. I trip on my wide-legged pants and he catches me from behind. With my back to his chest I have the urge to turn around and kiss him and feel the peculiar comfort I had received from him before. That thought drives me away from him again. Despite the tight knit group there’s too much between us to even attempt being close.

I call it quits when Josie finds me and announces she was going home. I hug the newfound family I had made over the last few months one final goodbye, knowing I might never see them together like this again.

***

Jeff’s reaction to my news surprises me the most. He’s visibly upset and tries to sell me anything to stay. I tell him there was nothing to keep me at my job but I would rely on him for a good reference. I think it’s the first time he’s ever reassured me.

Between Harry and I it remains curt. Sometimes even edgy. I post my own job replacement and Jeff keeps me updated on potential candidates. By the time my last week rolls around I’m host to a roil of emotions.

The first week homeless, Charlie had let me crash on her couch and promised not to say a word to anyone. I didn’t want to overstay my welcome and so I had checked into a hotel and called it home for now.

I’m on my way back home to the hotel after being at Gray’s. We’d invited Josie over for dinner now that her exams were over and she’d been suspicious from the start.

We had told her the truth and she refused to believe it, hurt and betrayal in her eyes as she looked at me and realized she had been kept in the dark for the last week. I felt worse then, than I did when Gray and I called it quits.

I promised her a lunch together this week to talk more. Just because I was out of Gray’s life didn’t mean I had to be out of hers. I thought I could also tell her then that I was leaving to go back home.

On my second last day at work, Harry sends me on an errand near the end of the day. When I get back there’s a small group of friendly and familiar faces waiting to surprise me. I’m touched by the gesture, and I try to corner Harry to say thank you but it feels he avoids me at every chance, always in a larger crowd.

I finally catch him while I’m heading out of the bathroom and he’s heading down the hall.

“Oh hey,” I step in his way. He looks cornered. “I just wanted to say thanks for throwing this.”

“Yeah,” he gestures it was nothing. “It was Jeff’s idea.”

Ouch. I hide the sting. “Well. Thanks regardless.”

He nods, staying mute, but his eyes speak a thousand words—just none that I can read. They stay trained on me, communicating whatever.

Slowly the furrow between his brows eases and the sharp edges of his face give way to a softened expression. I’m scared to move in case I break the trance and don’t get to hear whatever his racing thoughts spit out. Just when it looks like he’s about to say something, a guest turns the corner up the hall.

“Anyone in the toilet?” It was Mitch. Damnit.

“Nope,” I step out of the way, inadvertently brushing Harry. A shiver runs up my spine and I try to act casual but he stiffens beside me. Was it that awful being around me, jeez.

I give up. If he wanted to continue staying moody, so be it. I leave to go back to the party and don’t look back.

My final days in London are hard. The same way I arrived, I go: alone and unsure of what’s ahead.

I always thought here was where I would stay forever. And maybe one day I would return but there was a little too much friction between me and the Capital.

I finish work on an unremarkable note after going through processes with the new hire, and dotting all of my i’s. Harry is nowhere to be seen and I’m gone before he gets back. I’m frustrated that he’s behaving this way but there’s also too much between us for the simple goodbye I yearn for.

I visit all of my old favourites, have one last drink at my old local pub somewhere in between Gray’s flat and Harry’s. I shed a lot of tears on my pilgrimage through the city’s veins. I promise the paved and cobblestone roads I would be back one day.

The walls of my lungs ease open on the flight home. Still, tears cascade down my face silently as the plane sleeps. Eventually I do too. When I wake the sky is filled with bright blinding sunrise, and American soil peeks out below me: I was finally home.

••••••••••••••••••••

Present (2 years on):

My heart flutters seeing Harry here, I chalk it up to anxiety. But it annoys me that despite all the distance and the growth, he still had an effect on me.

Harry’s head turns and before I can be smart about it our eyes lock. His eyebrows raise ever so slightly before his face falls into a nonchalant facade again. I don’t even want to know what my face looked like.

Then he gets the nerve to smirk, hang his head, and then grab his drink and walk towards me.

“If I had a cross I would be holding it up right now.” I have to shout a little so he hears me before he gets to me. He was an emotional vampire feeding on all of mine.

“Now why’s that?” He continues towards me. My emotions swirl through me. “I thought time heals all wounds. Why the unfriendly welcome Mrs. Duran?”

I grit my teeth at the name, he was still filled with poison. “Right, the timeless wisdom of clichés.”

“I like to think I’m pretty timeless.” He smiles.

“I’ve found that time may heal wounds, but scars make sure you never forget.”

“Well, scars aside, you look good,” he moves on and I feel like an idiot the way I was used to feeling around him.

“Of course I do.”

“What are you doing in London? Last I checked I was getting a reference check from America.”

I debate not answering him but I was trying to straddle the line between indifference and confidence. It was like walking a tightrope.

“I’m in London for a little while,” I give vaguely.

“Ah,” he smiles and damnit I forgot how handsome he could be. How handsome could then turn into seductive so quickly. I had to remember: Still a devil. “Are you looking for a new employer? Because I could be hiri-“

“No.” I cut him off. “I finally have a job I love so I’m good.”

Something flickers in his eyes but surprisingly he stays quiet.

“What are you doing here?” I ask. I sort of wish I still had a drink in my hand, they feel awkward and clunky and I want to avoid playing with my hair. Gah. “Global star drinks alone at his local bar?”

He laughs but I can tell I hit a minor nerve. “Here I’m just a local. Always have been—it’s nice to be anonymous for a little bit.”

I roll my eyes. I didn’t believe that for a second. He loved his fame and everything that came with it.

Plus I used to come here all the time, I would’ve known if my employer was a local too. He was lying for some reason.

“Mr. Styles if there’s one thing I remember about you, you’d choose death over anonymity.”

“Firstly,” he leans in and I get a whiff of his usual cologne with a hint of malt. “A person can change a lot. So maybe you don’t know me as much as you think you do-“

“Oh I don’t think anyone can change that drastically in only a year-“

“You seemed to have.”

His words take mine out of my mouth. I hadn’t changed, not really. I’d always been this y/n but the further I got away from him the more reassured I had gotten being that y/n.

“And secondly,” he continues before I could think of a response. “You no longer work for me. Harry is fine.”

The smile he throws me is almost sweet if I didn’t know the cruelty that could hide underneath. I don’t return the smile, I only raise my brow and look back down at my phone. My cell service hasn’t gotten any better and I’d missed the wifi password.

I could connect to Harry’s wifi, ask him so that I could order an uber.

I’d rather van gogh my ear.

I weigh all my options and consider the last one again. I look up to see what Harry was doing in the silence and find him looking at me. A shiver runs up my spine as our eyes clash. So much history and words unspoken fall in between. A very specific night flashes through my mind. I wonder if it does him because he looks down first. Damn.

“So I’ve gotta get going,” I say.

“Let me buy you a drink.” He says at the same time.

He laughs awkwardly and repeats, “One drink?”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Why not?”

“We’re not drinking buddies.” I pull my purse to my chest, wanting to hop off this stool and run home if I need to. Put as much distance between myself and this man that was put on this earth to confuse me.

“Then what are we y/n?” He asks, his voice silky smooth as he leans in. The voice that whispered sweet nothings into my ear in my worst nightmares, nightmares of cotton sheets and heated limbs, of passion and shame.

“Ex-employer,” I point to him. I point to myself, “Ex-employee.”

“Exes have drinks together,” he grins full well knowing the double meaning.

“Never ends well,” I eye the door.

“Just as stubborn as I remember.”

“And you were saying people change?” I raise my brow.

He drops the smile and sighs, “I’m not gonna be able to convince ya am I?”

I shake my head. He should know that by now.

“Can I walk you out at least?”

I shrug, couldn’t hurt.

“What is this?” I ask as he opens the door for me.

“What?”

“This? Why are you trying to be so friendly?”

“I thought we could be friendly exes.”

And when did he get so cheeky.

“Something weird is going on,” I watch him stay in step with me as I walk up. With no service I was going to take the tube. “And I don’t like it.”

“Nothing weird is going on don’t get all paranoid on me.”

“Don’t call me paranoid! You never call a woman paranoid.”

“I thought that was conspiracy theorists?”

“Nooo. You’re being weird.”

"Alright, no need to get all Freudian on me. Just trying to be a decent human here."

I shake my head, somehow in our exchange my face had decided it was okay to smile. To forget what he put me through and remember instead that when things were good between us we actually got along.

Damnit. The devil knew how to play tricks. I wipe the smile off my face while he continues walking with me.

“So…what have you been up to?” He asks.

“Working, you know me.” I say after trying to figure out what his angle was but unable to find one.

“Oretta Smith I hear, how did you manage that?”

“I’m just that good Harry,” I say. His name is weird in my mouth. Sure I called him that in my head but I usually used Mr. Styles. I can tell he feels the same with his quick glance my way.

“How do you like that?”

“Yeah, she’s a great employer like I said. Very professional. Lots of flexibility.” Each praise is a knock to his ego. But it was all true, plus with Winnie joining the team I had a friend my age that felt great.

But there was also a darker side called burnout that I barely admitted to myself. Ever since we landed in London and I had time to orient my new self in a city that molded my old self, I felt the familiar singe of purposeless. But I keep it to myself of course.

“Great.” Harry responds curtly. “What about yourself? How’s your life, are you finally married?”

My instinct is to raise my defences and chew him out, he must know Gray and I were done what with me living in the States.

And yet, when I peer past the defences and take a long hard look at him I realize he is asking earnestly and without another angle.

We’re nearing the tube now. I hesitate in lying or telling the truth.

“We broke up,” I choose to confess. I peek at him and he looks surprised, even sorry.

“I didn’t know. Sorry.”

“I’d hope not,” I reply. “Otherwise you’d be an asshole calling me Mrs. Duran.”

He huffs an awkward laugh.

“Anyway this is me—

“I can give you a ride home—wherever that is right now?” He asks.

We’re stood in front of the glass doors. There’s not a lot of people this time of night. And as tempting as his offer was, the way he looks at me right now sends poisonous butterflies to my stomach and I think it’s best I get home for the big day tomorrow and not make any regrets.

“I’m not too far,” I lie. I point a thumb to the doors behind me. “I’m just gonna…”

“Yeah. Yeah right.” He’s awkward, which is a first. He clears his throat and stuffs his hand into his pocket. I watch him with a removed sort of curiosity. Eventually he coughs out his question. “How long are you in London for?”

“A few weeks,” I reply.

He finally meets my eyes again—and there goes my stomach. He was supposed to have zero effect on me, I was supposed to stay mad at him. Why was my body betraying me? Why did it continue to loop memories from that night and remind me of the things he whispered in the dark?

“A few weeks,” he murmurs back.

His gaze travels over my face openly, no longer holding back the barely-hidden expressions from before. Because I told him Gray and I weren’t a thing? Because I was entertaining whatever bullshit this was?

“Yep,” I nod. Awkward. Nervous. Cautious.

“My number’s the same,” his eyes snap back to mine. “If you want to go for that drink later.”

“Harry,” I try to break it to him another way. I wish I could just say I never want that drink. “I don’t think-“

“Don’t think,” he cuts me off. He laughs when I furrow my brows. “I mean, I’m right here for most of the next few weeks. When you feel like you want to have that drink just give me a call. Or text.”

Why, I want to ask him. Why, after all this time, after everything that happened? And it’s like he reads my mind in the silence.

“I know you left on a pretty poor note.” He shuffles his feet. “I know a lot of that was my fault. I apologize for that. Um, but I did enjoy having you around. You were excellent at your job and…you are missed. Even Jeff remembers you fondly. Which is saying something.”

This was some sort of prank. Or Harry had gotten so famous he now had a doppelgänger roaming the streets as him. It couldn’t be that Harry, my Harry, would say something so sentimental and so…genuine.

“So uh yeah, I would love to see you again while you’re in town.” He says when I don’t respond.

“Right.” I choke out.

He shrugs when I can’t bring myself to say anything more. “We do change, whether you believe it or not y/n.”

I swallow, hoping to lubricate my vocal cords and find my voice. “I-I really do have to go.”

Crestfallen, he nods. His hand comes up to touch my elbow. “Yeah ‘course. Just…think about it?”

I look down at his hand and he lets go, we stay in another bubble of silence. His eyes flicker down to my lips and I feel a wave of warmth as I try not to do the same.

“Goodnight,” I blurt and get to the other side of the glass doors. He watches me go.

On the escalator down I risk a glance back and he’s still there, watching until I’m out of sight. That ended incredibly awkward.

Leave it up to Harry to confuse me in coming back into my life. Damn him, he could never be consistent.

***

Waking up super early to catch the train out to Cambridge is so worth it because I get to watch Josie walk the stage and graduate with distinction wearing her famous smile that beams over the vast room.

Despite what happened with Gray and I, Josie and I have kept in touch steadily over the last year. It started as weekly facetimes which reduced down to monthly calls and have now become a steady stream of texts and memes swapped back and forth.

When she found out I’d be in London around her graduation dates she gave me no choice but to show up, sending me a ticket without asking.

I knew I’d see Gray, and a part of me was nervous and curious how that was going to go. But mostly I was grateful to still be in Josie’s life and spend time with her in person. She was the part of this life I missed most.

I’m sat somewhere in the middle of the room and Josie was smart enough not to seat me with the rest of her guests. But I know I would see everyone during photos and the dinner we were having later on. I try keep my focus on the ceremony however.

“Y/N!” Josie rushes towards me when she sees me after the ceremony. The group she departs from I recognize is a mix of her girl friends, her family, and a few others.

“Josie!” I return the same energy and she leaps into my arms. I squeeze her tight to me. “I’m soo proud of you my girl.”

We sway side to side, until we get enough hug.

“Look at you!” She exclaims when she leans back. “Your hair looks amazing and you are glowing. Please tell me you have a boy in your life.”

“No,” I laugh.

“A girl?” She asks hesitantly.

“No! I’m just…happy where I am right now! How about you look at you! You look phenomenal as per.”

“Oh thanks,” she takes the compliment and giggles. “I asked my dad to grad gift me a salon and spa visit so I am rejuvenated and blown out.”

“Aren’t you ever,” I touch a lock of her hair. “Congratulations.”

“Eek!” She squeals. “Finally finished this hellscape! I can’t wait to never write an exam again—ooh wait I want you to meet my boy…”

“So that’s why we’re actually glowing,” I tease as she tugs me towards the group. That definitely has Gray. My stomach drops the closer we get, he doesn’t seem to notice. He looks busy talking to one of Josie’s friends.

“Anyway,” she deposits me in front of a 6 foot something guy made of angles. “This is Jax. My boyfriend. We met during a Friendsgiving Myles threw last year.”

“Nice to meet you,” Jax smiles. “Y/N right?”

“Yes!”

“I was supposed to get around to that,” Josie huffs.

“Sorry she talked about you a lot when she found out you were coming. She was really excited.”

“Ugh,” she turns to me like she was embarrassed but her face is glowing. Josie was in looove.

“You two are so cute,” I tease which just makes Josie blush a little harder. “So are we getting any pictures?”

“Oh yeah,” Jax swivels his head. “Liliya has the good camera if you want to get-“

“Oh we can use our phones,” Josie cuts him off.

“No get the high res one—Liliya, camera?” Jax motions a shuttering action to the friend Gray was talking to. He’s so tall above the crowd that both look up at him and comply.

“Y/N,” Josie drags my arms back and takes me on the outskirt of the crowd. “I’m so sorry I never mentioned because I thought you wouldn’t come if I did tell you but you-“

“Y/N?”

Josie’s rushed whispers are cut short when Gray notices me and calls my name. He looks stupefied. I spare a glance to Josie and she’s paled.

She didn’t tell him.

“Hey,” I force a friendly tone. I was going to kill that girl.

“Did you all want a photo?” Josie’s friend Liliya shoulders her way back into the circle with the camera on a strap. She turns to Gray, “Babe?”

It’s an odd sensation, like all oxygen has left my lungs and they’re being squeezed as if tightened in a vice. Gray’s eyes drag away from me to his…girlfriend? Definitely not Josie’s friend.

It shakes me in the moment how much I realize I still cared, still carried a shred of hope for…something. And not consciously knowing this makes this moment feel a little like a slap in the face.

What did I think? I was going to leave this country for a year and people were going to pause where I last left them? Of course Gray’s moved on. Aside from the end he was a great partner and anybody would want that.

These thoughts race through my head in the few seconds Gray responds to his girlfriend and I look at Josie. She looks guilty as charged.

“I tried to tell you just now?” She whispers.

Deep breaths, I remind myself. You’re not the hot-headed y/n these people knew last. This day is not about you. It’s about Josie.

“It’s cool. Let’s get some photos,” I smile. “Don’t want to miss having them with you.”

She sighs but keeps her eyes on my face as we walk farther out.

“I am really sorry,” she whispers.

“Hey it’s alright,” I lie. This was the worst of it—Gray had moved on, had a great girlfriend, and I was living the life I wanted. No harm and no foul. “Honestly Jo I get it, you wanted me here reallllly bad.”

“I did!” She says. “But I’m also gonna kill Jax.”

I laugh and we straighten up when we realize the camera was already pointed at us. Josie flashes her degree and a few of her friends join the pictures too. We hustle back to Gray to see them and flipping back on the first few makes my breath catch in my throat. There’s one in particular where Josie is turned to me talking and my mouth is in a big grin because I’m laughing.

I catch eyes with Gray in an uncomfortably intimate second.

“Send me that one for sure wow Gray that’s a really good shot.”

“Oh wow,” his girlfriend peers over. “That’s a great candid.”

“Yeah,” I agree. I’d love a copy too. And of course that’s when Gray’s girlfriend notices me and introduces herself.

“I don’t think we’ve met—is that an American accent I detect?”

“It is,” I smile. “I’m Y/N.”

“Oh!” Two spots of pink appear on her face. It seems she’s heard of me. “Well it’s nice to meet you—nice that Josie invited you! I’m Liliya but Lily works too.”

“C’mon!” Josie interrupts the awkward by grabbing her brother’s arm and pushes him in the direction of where her friends are posing for photos. He takes some shots but Josie hates the look of them and gives the camera to Lily instead.

With just Gray and I left behind it grows very awkward.

“I thought Josie told everyone I would be-“ I say just as he says, “I didn’t realize you would be-“

We stop and chuckle awkwardly.

“Sorry,” I shake my head.

“No,” he shrugs. “It’s cool. It’s cool you’re here actually.”

“Okay,” is all I can say. Until the awkward silence stretches. “So…Liliya?”

“Yeah. Yeah, Liliya. You?”

I want to lie, but I shake my head. “No. Sorta needed the year to breathe a little.”

“Fair. How’s America?”

“Oh y’know, still super-sized and politically a guessing game.”

“Have you turned on our news while you’ve been down at all?” He raises a brow. I laugh because he was right. It was all a shitshow everywhere.

He asks me about my family as Josie jogs up to us.

“Okay, tell me the truth is my hair going flat?”

“No,” I look behind her where her friends are hovering over Lily and the camera going over their photos.

“Good. Where’s mum and dad?” Josie asks Gray. “Dad was just here 10 minutes ago he said he’d come by for—oh there’s mum! Look!”

We turn to where she points. Michelle—what I’ve always called Gray’s mom, spots her daughter at the same time and waves. She starts to walk towards us.

It’s nice to see her but I also feel a bit nervous; going cold turkey on relationships you only had because of an ex are always weird to come back to. Especially ones you were fond of.

“Mum! You’re missing all the pictures!” Josie says. “Where’ve you been!?”

“I just saw somebody I knew back from my first job as a librarian can you believe that?” Michelle says as she joins the group.

“Crazy. Well mum look who got to show up today! Isn’t that crazy too?”

Michelle looks at me and the bright smile that was intended for her daughter dies like a flower in overnight frost. The look wipes the anticipation off my face.

“Who?”

That one word shades the sun from the sky and brings forth a gust of western winds through the group.

“Mum,” Josie look between me, her mum, and Gray. She’s confused. “Y/N?”

“Hey Michelle,” I croak. Maybe my hair was too different for her to recognize me, or maybe she had early onset alzheimers. Surely this woman who I’ve had a better relationship with than her own son has wouldn’t be treating me like your worst frenemy at your high school reunion.

But Michelle looks right through me. I can’t explain how it feels, not in the moment. I’m gutted, and feel an unexplainable wave of sadness.

“Mum…” Josie sounds hurt and Gray finally decides to swoop in.

“Mum let’s check out the photos we took already. We gotta get some of the three of us.”

They walk away and I feel seven inches tall but I turn to Josie with a brave face and face her teary one.

“That was kind of awkward,” I downplay.

“Y/N I’m honestly so sorry I-,” Josie blinks rapidly.

“No it’s ok!”

“I don’t know why she acted like that-“

“Hey It’s natural for her to feel that way I’m alright don’t get upset-“

“It’s not alright though! That was such a…she never acts like that.”

It was true. Michelle was a free-spirit as she called herself. That’s why Gray had such a hard relationship with her; in his words, she was too emotional and ungrounded for him.

Yet apparently, she was able to find enough ground to stand on when it came to treating me like a nobody. I wonder if it’s because she heard Gray’s biased side of the story or she was hurt herself—still, the way she’s always talked about herself never struck me as someone who would believe a one-sided story. Or be a bitch to someone they previously called their daughter. It hurt like a mofo.

I didn’t want Josie to find out this way, here of all places, that her mom was just human after all. She idolized that woman.

So even though it hurt, I comfort her instead.

“She probably just feels betrayed by me leaving and stuff since we were close too. Imagine if Jax broke up with you and she gave him the cold shoulder—wouldn’t you feel justified?”

Josie scrunches her brows to think about the simplified story I’ve just fed her to feel better. I can tell it still doesn’t sit well with her but she nods in acceptance, “I guess.”

“Yeah, just forget it Josie. Plus you’ve got pictures to take so dry those eyes.”

“Shit I know,” she blinks some more. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to invite you here and twist the knife at every bloody turn.”

“Jo I’m honoured to get to be here and see all your hard work pay off. Don’t worry about anything else.”

“It’s unfair,” she says before she drifts to her group of friends. “I feel like nobody understands how…how understanding you are. But I’m really glad we’re still in touch. And you came for me.”

Her words bring tears to my eyes and I nod, afraid that talking would bring them forward. I watch her crash her group and start instructing photo coordination. I help hold things for people while they take photos and feel like a stranger outside the crowd. If it weren’t for Josie, I think I would have regretted coming here. I feel homesick and unwanted. A tough combo.

I was supposed to crash on someone’s couch tonight and do brunch with Josie tomorrow before going back to London but from the last half hour alone I know I’m going back to the city no matter how late it gets tonight. I think of the hotel room that was home right now, of how lonely that was going to feel to go back to too.

Home right now was in America, in the same time zone as my family, and comfortable in my shared apartment with one of my high school best friends who I reconnected with after going back home. I miss it so bad. And I feel like I’ve bitten into an unripe fruit coming back to the UK before I was ready apparently. My experience feels soured.

I shake off the doom and gloom when the party breaks. We were all going to meet at the restaurant at 6–my plan was to explore the university city and find a place to kill some time in. Maybe go outside to a park with lunch. Josie tries to convince me to join her and her friends for their mid-day celebration but I lie and tell her I had some work to do.

I call Winnie on my stroll through the city. I insist she update me on last night first, and she has more to tell—the guy had a yacht and he was inviting her to a party tonight. She tells me to join if I came back early and we cross our fingers that Oretta wouldn’t need her before then.

I originally called her to rant about Michelle and Gray but I don’t, I didn’t want to kill her vibe. So I scroll through my other contacts but don’t want to worry my mom and it was too early back home to reach anyone else.

My eyes catch on Harry’s name, he was at the top of my texts currently because he sent me a link this afternoon asking me for thoughts on it. I hadn’t opened it yet, I wasn’t sure what to think about this new persona he was wearing or that he thought yesterday’s run-in went okay enough to casually message me for my thoughts.

I remember the weird electricity of yesterday and shove my phone back into my pocket.

He genuinely wanted to have a drink? And talk??

I did enjoy having you around. You were excellent at your job and you are missed.

Was he trying to make up for his cruel words? But he also seemed a lot more mellow than before. Maybe that was just because I didn’t work for him. What did he want? And was I twisted for believing the new schtick?

Most curious of all was him at the pub in the first place. He was not a local there—that was a big lie.

I try to conjure up my previous hatred, calling him the Devil in my head. But it’s harder to do. Seeing him yesterday, he was just a man standing in front of a woman with a head full of cautionary tales and bad experiences.

Without warning images from that night come back and I feel my heart flutter. I shut them down just as quick. Not all bad, my body tries to remind me. I tell it to shut up.

I’ve barely stepped foot in this country again and already my mind was running circles around my heart. How exhausting.

***

I’m early to the restaurant, before anyone else apparently. As the hostess finds my name on her floor plan Josie comes in behind me with Jax.

“Oh! Y/n you’re early!” She seems flustered.

“Yeah I didn’t think I would be,” it was only a few minutes to 6.

We make small talk while we’re led to the table, Josie’s eyes keep darting to where our table might be.

“Sorry I was hoping to do this before you came,” she says when we get there. There are name cards along the 7 seats and she picks the one in front of me. “I’m just gonna move mum to my other side so it doesn’t get weird. Which means she’ll be closer to dad but…I think he’s bailing since his girlfriend doesn’t want to do this.”

Josie shrugs, I know how she feels about her dad’s girlfriend. She begins explaining the plans she has to do dinner with her dad later this week and the more she talks the more I can tell that she feels awkward. And I hate that it’s because of me. At one point Jax and I catch eyes and pass an awkward smile.

“Josie,” I walk up to her fiddling with the name tags. She stops talking immediately. I grip her shoulders. “Thanks.”

“Sorry,” she whispers. I wrap my arms around her and she melts into me.

“Stop apologizing.”

“Sorry. I can’t help it. It’s a disease.”

We let go with a laugh and she seems more stable. “This is going to be fine.”

Famous last words.

It’s definitely not fine and very awkward. Jax ends up sitting in front of me, and even though Liliya’s name tag was beside mine it’s suddenly swapped as they slide in and Gray sits beside me. I guess it might be too awkward for her but not awkward enough to fit someone we both dated between us.

I can sense Michelle’s pinched face as she notices us sitting beside each other and I feel badly for Josie the most as she tries to play the gracious host. At one point I sense Jax laying a hand on her arm and taking over, asking Michelle questions about her yoga and getting her talking.

“Did you need more?” Gray turns to me with the wine bottle, it’s the second thing he’s said to me tonight. Otherwise he mostly just watches me talk and leans back enough when others are talking so I can be involved.

“I’m okay,” I whisper. I didn’t want to draw any attention while Michelle was talking. She hadn’t said a peep to me, even when Josie tried to involve us both in a shared memory. She continued acting like I was Casper the ghost.

I can feel Lily’s eyes on us as Gray offers wine, of course they would be. No wonder Gray barely spoke to me all night. Fuck me, what was I doing here.

Jax is a sweetheart, asking me about my job and encouraging conversation between the both of us. I’m so happy for Josie that she found a partner like him.

By the time dinner is over I mostly want to cry. I feel spent. But I also feel like I crashed an intimate dinner and everyone’s polite enough not to mention it. Despite Josie, I do actually regret coming.

As we pay the bill and shuffle out, Josie grabs my arm.

“So I have two friends where you can crash at their place or Jax can sleep over at mine and you can sleep at his or-“

“I think I’m gonna head back to the city.”

Her face falls. But it’s like she knew I was going to say that.

“Sorry Jo. I think you should come to the city next week—maybe visit your brother? And while you’re down we’ll do brunch then. I’m mostly free while I’m here. I’m just pretty tired and have to help Winnie with something tomorrow.”

“Really?” She says in the smallest voice I’ve heard out of her. Salt to my wounds.

“Yeah, I’m sorry. I know we were looking forward to getting time together.”

She juts out her lip and I’m reminded of the girl I met when I first started dating Gray. How she’d taken to me so quickly. How the whole family had. How things could end up like this.

And suddenly I see the future laid out in front of me. After tonight it would be hard to keep this relationship going—Josie and I. She’s just seen her mom be an unreasonable bitch for the first time, I can tell she’s been trying to compensate all night but the cracks won’t go away. It’ll always be a sitting duck between us.

We might try to stay in touch, maybe I’d reach out if I was ever in London or if she ever visited the west coast. But this would fizzle out.

She was still young and naive enough that her mom hung the moon and stars; mom’s beliefs were gospel, her opinions were rulings, and she’d just delivered my ultimate sentence: I was a black sheep to the family. How could sweet Josie walk through a mess like that?

“I’m so proud of you,” I tell her as I fight tears. “Congratulations again and thank you for inviting me.”

“Thanks. And you don’t have to be so nice. I know it was kind of a shitty invite.”

“No,” I insist. “I loved being here. I don’t regret showing up for you. I can’t wait to hear what you get up to.”

“I’m going to make sure to make it to the city next week,” she squeezes my arm. “We’ll see each other soon.”

“Exactly,” I look over at the rest of the group, where her boyfriend waits for her. Her family. “And I really like Jax, so good on you for that.”

“He…” she twists her lips, swallowing what she was going to say before vomiting it out. “I always aspired to have a relationship like yours and Gray’s. I never wanted to settle for anything less so that’s…that’s why Jax.”

“Hm I think you made us the bar and you leapt over it babe,” I wrap my arms around her again. I ache with the loss of what we used to be.

“See you soon,” she says before she drags herself back to the group.

I stand off to the side, awkwardly ordering an Uber. The group begins to walk the opposite way waving bye to me. I breathe easier without the weight of them around.

As I tap my foot in anticipation of the ride to the station arriving, I feel a hand tap my shoulder.

“Y/n,” it’s Gray. “Hey I…I just wanted to say something before you left.”

“Oh. Hey yeah. Shoot.”

What was it with everyone wanting to say something to me.

“Uh…ok give me a minute,” he laughs in the way I know to mean he was feeling nervous. “I just sort of jogged back impulsively.”

“Yeah well you have,” I glance at my phone. “4 or so minutes.”

“Damn,” he ruffles his hair. “Alright. I think I just wanna say sorry.”

“Oh.” That was it. Everyone had something to say to me and the something was apparently sorry.

“Yeah I’m sorry. I…when we broke up I was so upset and caught up in my own head. I blamed you for everything. I think it only hit me when you just up and moved out of the country how things actually went down.”

I hadn’t told anyone but Josie that I was leaving.

“Yeah you were just like gone.” He continues. “I guess a part of me thought we’d get some space, maybe circle back later…”

“You really betrayed me,” I remind him.

But even I know what he means. He hurt me bad and it might be crazy stupid but on some level we were both aware we were in an ugly place and maybe with some space we might come back to the place that was good for us again. Maybe bump into each other one day, strike up a conversation, find there might still be a small amount of love left. Enough to water and grow again.

“I know,” he sighs. “I know. I hate that I hurt you like that. I regret…I actually don’t really hang out with that group of friends as much anymore. I sorta have myself to blame but I didn’t like who I was with them.”

I listen, letting him speak. It hurt too, knowing this was the Grayson I had fallen in love with. Kind and supportive, and now apparently he’s learned to communicate. Maybe that was a Lily thing.

“I guess,” he blows the air out of his cheeks. “I want to say I’m really truly sorry. I missed you a lot after you left. Nothing was the same and life was fucking hard. I wish things didn’t end the way they did and I stayed mature but I was just jealous and angry.”

I nod to acknowledge what he’s saying and watch him take a breath to continue.

“And I always appreciated how you never let us shake your relationship with my sister because she bloody loves you—I don’t think how mum treated you was right today but I never really understood her in the first place. I’m sorry about that.”

“Yeah,” is all I can manage without making it obvious how emotional this was all making me. How one year could make me feel like a completely different person. How this man I loved, and still love in some way, could stand in front of me talking about us as something in the past. Because we were. Long past.

My phone dings with a notification that my ride would be here. We glance down and out into the street.

“Anyway,” he swallows. “I just wanna apologize. And say I genuinely hope you find love y/n. Love that’s as fierce and loyal as you are. I hope you can forgive me one day. And I hope you’re successful as hell in whatever you pour yourself into.”

“Thank you Gray,” I want to say I was sorry too. For what it was worth. But my car pulls to the curb.

I wave at the driver to let them know I’d ordered it and we walk the few feet to the back door.

I face Gray and open my mouth to say it. Say something more: how I appreciated his words, how I was sorry for how things ended too, how I hope he is happy. But nothing comes out of my mouth. I just stare at him, my eyes welling with tears instead.

Gray holds out his hand and I look down at it. I knew those hands well and it’s like walking into a place you used to frequent in the past and have memories rush towards you as you remember: those hands held me and wrapped around my own and comforted me, they made me food and stroked my hair, and carried my bags when they got too heavy. They once wore an engagement band I gifted, they once held a small box with a life-changing question I had said yes to.

Now it was just a hand.

I clasp it and he squeezes.

“I know,” he says, his eyes trained on my watery ones. He squeezes again and lets go.

I rush into the car, those two words nearly cracking me in half. I wave goodbye through the tinted window and feel a wave of despair that pulls me down into the depths of darkness.

Too much was happening at once.

My emotions spiral out of me and I feel alone in this foreign country; I needed comfort where none could be found.

I don’t mean to. Or maybe I do. But on the train back to London I text Harry: is it too early to cash in on the drink?

His response is immediate: no, I was waiting for this text last night

I smile, despite myself.

Can I come over? I text with shaking hands.

H: For drinks?

Y: For drinks

H: Ofc.

***

The taxi drops me in front of the familiar building. I feel an echo of anxiety pierce through me as I go through the familiar doors. I nod at the concierge, the night replacement was new and I’m grateful nobody can recognize me making this potentially stupid decision.

For a brief second I wonder if Harry had other plans tonight but decide not to overthink it. He’d invited me openly. And maybe I was making a decision based on sadness and loneliness and grief and needing to be wanted but I make it. And I would make it like a grown woman—ready to accept the consequences.

I didn’t want to go back to my lonely hotel room. I didn’t want to call anyone and talk about what just happened. I didn’t have words. My body was taking the beating, feeling everything under the sun and now bruised and battered for it. I just wanted my body to forget that. And there was only one person in this godforsaken city that could help.

I’m let up to the penthouse and I forgot it had a distinct smell, wood-like and something indescribable. Weird that it felt comforting.

“You made it,” Harry comes into view in a simple pair of shorts and a long-sleeved white tee pushed up to his elbows. It’s the sleeves that really do it.

“I did.”

I leave my bags beside the elevator next to the umbrella stand, keeping my eyes on him. He doesn’t take his off mine either. I’m glad he doesn’t. Now I know he knows we both said drinks but meant something more.

He reaches out for me before I even get to him, and I know I would think about that later. A lot. But right then in the middle of his entryway I wrap my arms around his neck and lean up on my toes to reach him too.

His lips are soft against mine and he tucks me into him, his hand splayed out on my lower back. It feels like a return to a lover, someone who knows you, like I would’ve thought seeing Gray again would feel. But it’s just Harry, and the thought of baseless familiarity freaks me out a little.

The next time I feel his lips they’re on my jaw and neck and down to the base of my throat. He murmurs my name as he makes his way down and my body reacts immediately. He takes me by the waist and backs me up against the nearest wall, and I have a feeling I might fall.

I had made the conscious decision to walk into the devil’s lair because it was the only place I could get what I needed.

My fingers dig into his shoulders. My body wants this. Every part of me wants to pull him close and hold him and never let go. I wanted all of it tonight.

But I am so tired.

I put a hand on his chest and press gently. I can feel the warmth of his skin, the firmness of his muscles and the beat of his heart as he pauses.

“Sorry, I should have started with a hello. That was too fast was it?” He whispers, looking me straight in the eyes.

I have a million answers, but nothing comes. He puts his hand over mine and I feel it as a shiver runs up my spine.

"Is this too fast?" he asks again, and I hear the worry in his voice.

I shake my head.

He gives a breathy laugh, "Then tell me."

"I think I-“

“Don’t,” he covers my mouth with a laugh. “Please please. Don’t think.”

I smile under his palm and he drops his hand, I can tell he’s proud of lightening the moment by the sheen in his eyes. The moment is tender in a way that takes me back.

He brushes back my hair and kisses my forehead. I close my eyes, breathing in his cologne.

“That’s not where I want to be kissed,” I tell him.

“Then where?” He plays along.

“Anywhere but there.”

He kisses my nose. “There?”

“Not there,” I open my eyes to look up at him. “I’ll have you know that was very snotty just an hour ago.”

He groans, “you really have a way of taking the desire out of a situation.”

But his brows furrow and he watches me even closer.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” I respond to his unasked question.

With that statement he takes a painful step back and I nearly slide down the wall without his support.

“What?” I ask.

“We should take that drink first.”

I feel the loss of his body pressed against mine, I realize miserably.

“What do you mean? I thought the drinks were just an excuse?” I ask.

He laughs a little, “Maybe tonight, but I really did want to have a drink with you. And talk.”

“Harry,” I groan. “I’m all out of talking tonight. Truly.”

“As much as I want to say forget talking and take you to bed I need to do this…just follow me,” he leads me and my flushed body through to the main living area which I was well familiar with but it’d gotten a facelift. I make commentary on the changes and he tells me more about it as he pulls a wine he wants out for us.

“I changed things around a little after you left,” he says as he hands me the wine glass. “I needed it. The change.”

“Oh.” Is all I can muster. I follow him to the sofa, tonight he doesn’t leave as much space between us but it still feels like a weird parallel to the night I landed in the hospital; a confrontation with Gray leading me to wine with Harry. “Look Harry I don’t know if I can do this.”

“Why not?”

“I…I’m at minimal capacity right now I just-“

“Just let me talk then.”

“Why does everyone want to talk!”

“I need to tell you what I should have said a long time ago and I want to apologize-“

“You already did-“

“Properly.”

I cross my arms and sigh.

“Y/n bloody hell I forgot how quickly you can get under my skin.”

“So this isn’t a great thing then.”

“Y/N,” he says my name like a warning and I want to comply. I roll my eyes and knock back my glass of wine, the buzz from the glass at dinner has long since worn away.

“Part of me wants to top you up but another part remembers what happened last time.” Harry eyes me.

“No I’m okay with just one glass. Drinking when I’m upset doesn’t end well.”

“Yeah…I don’t want you concussed on my watch again.”

“No we don’t want that,” we smile at each other, a soft and sentimental smile that gets the anxious stuttering of my heart to calm down a little. He just wanted to talk, so what?

But the anxious voice runs through the scenarios he might want to—his recent text, or something I did as his PA he wants to take up now. Gah.

“I really have missed having you around,” he says softly.

“Didn’t feel like you would with how you treated me.” I raise my brow.

“I know.” He pauses then mumbles something before talking to me directly. “You must have heard about the PA before you? Maybe from Riley?”

“Kind of.”

“Kind of?”

“Hmmm this feels like a trick question.” I say but he tells me he just wants to know what I knew. So I rip the bandaid off. “You had a fling with her.”

He hangs his head back over the seat of the sofa and sighs. “I knew that piece of…Riley makes me really mad when I think about him sometimes.”

“Does he?” I raise my brow. “I can think of someone else who makes me madder.”

“I know that’s supposed to be me. And I don’t know what to do about that except come clean right now.”

“And why is that?” I ask. “Coming clean? I came here just to get distracted in bed with you. I never thought I’d live to see the day where a guy like you wants to talk instead.”

“Y/N,” he says with such an intense look my way my stomach flips. “Trust me. I want to have you in my bed more than you do. But I told myself if that day ever somehow happened it would be after this.”

I shrug, let him continue. In reality his words make me weak and I can’t speak. Which kind of annoys me—why did he have such a strong pull over me? How did he so easily admit he’s thought about me, about having me in his bed!?

My heart flutters amongst other things.

I remember a brief conversation I had with my mom last year when she asked me why I wasn’t putting myself out there and dating again and I told her I just didn’t have the heart for it. She had said it seems I left my heart in London—my passion and my heart. Sitting here with Harry stirs something inside of me, scares me, and I want to distract that with more wine. But I manage to control myself.

“I was fairly new to the industry when I hired Riley and it was his second proper job or something so we were both a bit young and we ended up being friendlier than we should have.” Harry starts. “But he was great at his job and never gave me any issues. I stayed naïve that people in this industry would look out for my best interest-“

“That’s really naïve,” I can’t help but comment but he throws me a look and I zip my lips. “Sorry.”

“I was lucky that the first few relationships I built as I got my foot in the door were genuine but I realized too late that it wasn’t a norm. Everyone wanted a piece of me and they all wanted me to be someone else. Some angle. Shit hit the fan pretty quickly. So when I needed more help I decided to create a new role for Riley and hire a PA. She was seasoned and came highly recommended.”

I nod along to his story.

“Long story short, she started out good but she kept trying to get me alone and get me talking. And back then after being friends with my old PA I didn’t have the wisdom of setting boundaries—don’t give me that look.”

“What!” I raise my hands. “I’m just listening.”

“You’re judging me.”

“Just continue,” I encourage. I was judging a little.

“Anyway, where I thought we were just friendly she thought I—I dunno I was falling for her or something. And one night she was working late so she had dinner here. She kept refilling my drink I didn’t realize she wasn’t drinking as much. It’s not much of an excuse but by the time she came onto me I was pissed and it didn’t take much.”

He continues the story like it was nothing but his voice catches a little and he doesn’t look me in the eye. My insides grow colder. I want to reach inside of him and hold the old Harry, the naive one who didn’t know better.

“Please don’t feel bad for me,” he cuts my sympathy short. “I didn’t turn into a great person after that. Especially with how I treated you.”

“That’s right.” I pretend to be unaffected by his story like he wanted me to be. But it’s near impossible.

“So that’s how I decided it was best for me to play the asshole. I couldn’t fire her after that—it would look awful and she could report me and screw me over. But I could make working for me a nightmare and so I did. A few months later she quit.”

He sighs and takes a swig of his wine, “Then you came along and I thought ‘I should play the asshole from the get go.’ I had gotten good by then at compartmentalizing my personality in the industry.”

“Hmph,” I raise a brow. He has the decency to look embarrassed but he continues.

“But the more time we spent together the worse I felt. You were nothing like the previous PA. You were genuine and down-to-earth. Pretty fiery but I wouldn’t find that out until later,” he grins. I roll my eyes. “I tried to ease up a little but things kept happening to push me back into the asshole box.”

“But you were so snappy, and a dick.”

“I know. I didn’t know how to tell you you worked too hard without dropping the asshole act and making you feel even shittier.”

“What do you mean?”

“I had to be the villain in your story-“

“What?” What was he talking about?

“Yeah like, you were working all the time even though there were some times I told you to wrap it up for the day.”

I remembered that, thinking he was kicking me out.

“But you took the job so seriously. I appreciated everything you did but you were dogged at making sure you did the best at any cost.”

“What do you mean? At any cost?” I ask, a cold sensation running down my back.

“For example take that one time a few months in when I asked you to call me because you forgot to order wine. You bloody came all the way back to hand deliver it-“

“Yeah because you said to call you and you were gonna be pissed if I-“

“No, y/n,” he lays a hand between us. “I just wanted you to call to know where you usually ordered from so I could order that for myself. You weren’t in any trouble! But I could only blame myself for playing the hard asshole too well.”

I think about that night, Josie’s birthday party. How I left early and upset Gray. How I didn’t need to but I had been following the Dos and Dont’s list.

Shit, the lists. They were added onto by the last PA who, now I know, was having her life made into hell just so she would quit. Some of those lists were on an extreme I didn’t even have to follow. Fuck. That was on me.

My face must be a painting of regret because Harry apologizes again.

“I’m sorry but I didn’t want you to…I just felt like I had to play the villain so you could do what you had to do. So you could continue hating me and we could establish the clear boundary.”

“Right.” I have a bitter taste in my mouth.

“But I genuinely liked you, I thought you were funny and sensitive-“

“You don’t like my sensitivity.”

“I do. I just hated how angry you were-“

“Because of you.”

“I know. I created a monster, I’m Frankenstein.”

“Damn straight.” I agree and we pause a beat before laughing.

“Anyway,” he continues. “You were funny and sensitive and resilient, passionate and smart, and you cared so deeply. It was rare meeting people like you in this field. I wanted to wrap you in bubble wrap but I think I shattered you instead. I’m sorry for the way I just let my past colour your time here. I feel like you left because of me-“

“It was really a lot of reasons.”

“I know but I was part of that and I felt no good. After you left I was a miserable son of a bitch for a while. I couldn’t even enjoy my holiday because I kept thinking of you. I was miserable so I barely even said goodbye—I didn’t realize you were going to run away so far. But I also didn’t want to say goodbye because I was scared I would convince you to stay by spilling my truth.”

His words sit on my chest and they slowly sink down to my stomach. I don’t know what it meant, what he wanted me to do with this confession. It’s too much.

“Mostly,” he continues, shifting closer to me on the sofa. He lowers his voice, “Mostly I’m sorry about Barcelona.”

I flush at the mention of it. At the heat and passion from that night. His eyes roam my face.

“I’m not that guy. I should have treated you nicer, should have been the one to keep my patience.”

“I didn’t make it easy,” I admit.

“No,” he chuckles. “You really fucking did not.”

We smile.

“But you’re so much more than anger y/n. I could barely sleep that night, I kept regretting giving into the anger and not being slow and soft with you the way you deserve. I regret it all the time.”

His confession pulls the veil off my eyes and I see a sharper image of my past. Of everything. It all comes at once and I can’t sort through it in the moment but I know what I want to do.

I shuffle over until I’m up against Harry, I hold his face in mine and he cups my face in his hand.

“You drove me crazy,” I tell him. “Made my life hell.”

“I know. But you drove me crazy too. Nobody got under my skin like you did.”

“Same.”

His hand snakes down to my thigh and he nudges it over his lap so that I’m straddling his body. I feel vulnerable and scared—not the first time these emotions have coursed through me in this very room. But today I don’t feel powerless.

His lips are soft against my cheek, my jaw, down my neck. Unlike the first time he’s slow and deliberate like someone who’s waited so long to unwrap a cherished gift and can’t stand ripping even the gift wrap. He pushes my hair out of the way and trails his fingertips down the back of my neck.

“I’m glad you’re here,” he whispers in my ear. The more he talked the more nervous he was making me. I turn my head to capture his lips, run my fingers through his hair which is too short to really grasp. I missed his old hair.

We break apart for a breath and I can feel the tension. The desire to have him near clashing with the need to go slow. To savour this. Somehow we both feel it.

“We don’t have to do anything tonight,” Harry promises me, his finger trailing down my arm. “Just having you here is enough.”

Oh god. How did he know just the things to say. This man was way too suave. He really was the devil.

But I needed him. It’s scary to admit but I did. I wanted to be here, I really did. I needed to be in this moment with him. Fulfill some shut-out desire that had grown dusty in the corner of my heart.

“I want to do this.”

With a gentle kiss he gets us up and takes my hand. I feel myself being pulled through the living room and towards the bedroom. The sheets are cool, but not cold and when he crawls in beside me I forget that I had ever been anywhere else.

He’s attentive and deliberate and I’m buzzing with anticipation. I decide to pick up the pace, propping myself up to take off my blouse. I watch his throat bob up and down like he’s never seen me like this before even though he has. It’s endearing.

The way his hands fit in the curve of my waist makes it harder to breathe. He moves his hands up my torso and to the straps of my bra. He pauses, as if asking permission, and when I nod, he kisses me. He unhooks it and slowly slides it off my shoulders, eyes fixed on mine.

The intensity of his gaze is overwhelming.

I pull him close to kiss him again, and he pulls me under him so I can feel the full weight of him against me. This is what I needed. To be physically present and not stuck in the after tremors of the earthquakes of my past. Not that he wasn’t part of my past but this is different. A non-verbal agreement to just be present. I knew his ways with women, it could be a one-night thing and that’s what I needed.

But that’s why the moments of tenderness and adoration nearly take my breath away. I don’t know where to put these things.

He kisses down my shoulder while his hand trails down to my trousers. He hooks his finger into the belt loop and tugs gently, looking up at me for consent.

I nod.

He slowly takes them off, and when his fingers brush against my bare legs, my breath hitches.

It happens again when he presses his lips against my hip bone.

He stops for a moment, and I can almost see the cogs in his brain whirring.

He moves up to press his forehead against mine.

"I don't know how to do this right," he says quietly, and his eyes search mine.

“What do you mean?”

“This is always how I should have treated you,” he whispers. “I want you to know-“

“Harry,” I smooth out the lines on his forehead.

"No," he grabs my hand and kisses it. "I don't want you to feel like I don't care because I do. I don’t want to hurt you. I'm not good at saying these things. But I want you to know how much I value you. That I like you as a person. I respect you. I want you to be okay.”

“I-“ who was this Harry, seriously!? “I get it. I’m okay. I am.”

He smiles at me tentatively and my heart does a somersault.

I grab the back of his neck and pull him down, pressing my lips against his. I could taste the sweetness of the words he had said.

I tug at his shirt and it flies into the darkness of his bedroom. His skin is heated against mine.

It feels like an eternity before he finally reaches the band of my panties, and my heart thumps wildly.

"May I?" he looks up.

"Please," I whisper.

For the first time since I’ve met him he doesn’t make it about himself or what he needs. It’s almost intimidating how intense he is as he looks after me and it’s hard to reconcile this man with the man in my head. We’re of one mind and it’s like he knows everything I’ve been through in the last 24 hours; he just attends to my every need reminding me that I was here, right here, in his arms and in this body.

And it doesn’t go unnoticed.

“Are you staying the night?” He asks later with a final kiss to my shoulder.

“If that’s alright?” I ask. I didn’t want to be alone in a cold hotel room.

“I’d love nothing more.” He says earnestly.

Love. I brush the word away.

He warns me that he was a slug if I stayed and he’s not exaggerating, with his arm draped over me and tucked up against him he’s like a child with a plush. He falls asleep just as quickly.

I should too but can’t. I feel so intensely about this body laying beside me, I want to crawl inside of him, understand him, understand us and how this worked.

Or maybe I wanted to just understand me, and why I felt a piece of myself sliding back into place tonight. I had to be the most fucked up person in this city.

Instead of sleeping I lay awake thinking about everything and I can’t help it. I go over this morning—god it felt like weeks ago. Josie’s graduation. Josie. Gray. Even Michelle.

I feel slightly paralyzed by everything that transpired today—it truly felt like peering through a glass window into a life I used to have. I try to break open the glass, sort it all out.

On one side is me and everything I’ve done this whole year to move on from the crumbs of my life here in London. I don’t know why but I really did think that coming back I would be 100% untouchable by my past. I was an idiot for thinking that because I was bothered that Gray seemed to have a steady girlfriend. Why did I think anything would rekindle between us?

I dig deeper, did I even want that to happen? Or did I just want to prove to myself that I was the one Gray let get away because I was too scared to face the possibility that I was the one who let Gray get away.

But clearly something didn’t work with us, I think bitterly. A few months with his new girl and he found the balls to open up with me and communicate his grievances and his apologies.

Love that’s as fierce and loyal as you are, he had said. Was I too much for Gray? Is that why we were made to burn out? It hurt too that he had damaged all my relationships I made in my life here in London only to cut those same people out of his life immediately after I left. The more I think about it the angrier I feel.

And his mom, I still feel bruised by her acting like she didn’t even know me. It stokes the anger higher. Her own son has called her crazy on multiple occasions, I was always nothing but kind to her. Gray was the one who put the final nail in our coffin yet the woman who called me her daughter and claimed to love me had been cruel. Even in the face of getting along for Josie’s sake she had put her petty feelings in the forefront.

These people made me so angry.

How did I ever think I could rekindle anything with Gray? As much as I was to blame, I realize, Gray couldn’t even be kind in the end. Just because the year apart was good to him didn’t mean he would still be good for me.

I think about the man laying beside me, in a hypothetical situation if things got ugly I instinctively want to say he would be cruel too. But I have to push past the persona he claimed to have put up and think about the glimpses of the man I saw underneath. Something tells me he would be just as fiery in letting me know how he was feeling. But with his recent apologies I’m not as convinced he would go out of his way to hurt me again.

Even in the bar last night, I just assumed he called me Mrs. Duran to be cruel but he hadn’t known. Or when I had assumed at Josie’s birthday party I would be fired for forgetting wine because he was an asshole when really he just acted like one so I wouldn’t feel worse.

How many times had I judged people because of how skewed my own lens was? It’s a sobering reminder.

Josie’s face flashes through my mind and I tear up at knowing we were going to cut each other out. No matter how much we loved each other staying in touch at this rate was no longer sustainable. For her best interest.

I think of my younger brother back home, my older sister, our family of 5. When I went back home there was so much to catch up on and eventually, apologize for. I had missed out on so much of my family’s life because I believed I needed to leave to grow. Well, life sure handed me a lot of lessons but I needed to go back home to plant them and let me grow.

Harry stirs beside me, nuzzling my neck in his sleep. I feel myself go teary eyed for no reason.

I wondered if this was just a one-night thing. If we would see each other again while I was in London. Did I want to see him? My heart sings yes immediately.

Damn.

What was it about him that pushed my emotions to the highest highs and lowest lows. How did he know every button to push and every bruise to kiss. This had to be toxic, we couldn’t just take our great big baggage of a past and see each other casually while I was in London. It couldn’t be that easy.

What if it was, hope whispers. I squirm. Could I forgive Harry for everything he’d done?

“Y’sleeping?” Harry mumbles to my left. Shit.

“Yeah,” I say which invokes a throaty chuckle from him. I check the time, it was nearly 4. Double shit.

“Liar,” he tugs on my hips and I turn to face him. “Talk to me.”

I couldn’t. Half of my thought were about him. And how could I tell him I was thinking about my ex after spending the night with him. So I just shake my head.

“Please?” He brushes my cheek with his thumb. “You need to sleep.”

“I-“ I try to say I can’t but the words get stuck in my throat. The emotions of everything I’d been thinking in the last couple hours threaten to dislodge the words from my throat so I close my mouth. But it doesn’t work.

A sob bursts out of me and before I can reel it all in the floodgates swing open and it carries all the pent-up sorrow and confusion, grief and anguish I had bottled up.

Harry freezes for a moment, probably very confused to wake up and have me reacting this way. But he recovers and pulls me into his warm chest.

“What is going on in that head of yours love,” Harry murmurs. Love. I sob even harder.

He murmurs reassuring words whilst stroking my back and I cry an embarrassing amount in the same bed where just hours ago I was blissed beyond comprehension. Life moves fast.

Finally when I gain enough composure I lean away, covering my face because crying into him was one thing but seeing my ugly cry face was another.

“Here,” I feel his body move and then tissues pressed into my hand. I’m grateful for them but I wasn’t going to blow my nose here. I sit up and try to dry my nose. His hand reaches out and the tips of his fingers rest on my spine like he was tethering my lost body to him. Somehow even that is reassuring.

“Don’t go trying to kiss my nose this early on again,” I try to joke through a stuffy voice.

“I wouldn’t dare,” he tugs my arm a little and I fall back beside him. He holds me in both his arms and I watch in horror and affection as he kisses the tip of my nose.

“Stop being so nice,” I laugh and cry a little too.

“You’re actually complaining about me being nice?”

“No I just—I’m not used to it,” I press the tissue to my eyes again.

“Well get used to it,” he peels the hair off of my face and pushes it back. “I don’t want to be the one hurting you. I swear to never ever be the reason you cry like this to anyone.”

“Don’t say those sorts of things if you don’t mean it.”

“I do,” he caresses my face. “You’re breaking my heart y/n, I don’t know who hurt you but I never want to see you like this. Especially not because of me alright? I’m sorry if I ever-“

“Stop,” I put my hand to his mouth. Which is kind of gross since I just blew my nose but I’m pretty sure him kissing my snotty nose means he didn’t care.

“But-“ he says behind my hand.

“I’m embarrassed right now,” I admit.

“You have seen me in every compromising situation,” Harry says. “And we have been through too much together to be embarrassed right now.”

“Fine,” I sigh. “It is tiring.”

“Maybe you can finally sleep now that it’s…almost 5?”

“Sorry,” I sigh. “I hope you don’t have something early?”

“Nope,” he kisses the top of my head. “And even if I did it wouldn’t matter.”

So we both try to go back to bed and I manage to fall asleep, all of those tiring racing thoughts washed away by a good cry. I feel warm and cared for and vulnerable and protected. A stark change from how Harry has made me feel before. Maybe this was temporary or maybe this was the start of something new. I’m just taking it minute by minute while all I can think is Do I or Don’t I?

***

It’s my final week in London and if you’d asked me a couple weeks ago if I was looking forward to going back home I would have said without hesitation yes.

But that night at Harry’s and putting my past to rest brushes away an old and tired film I had been viewing the city with since I landed.

We had seen each other a couple times a week since—I’ve been cautious despite my body saying otherwise. There were many days I had been free but I had made up some excuse not to see him, I was scared of getting too attached and having to leave.

But I can’t deny how nice it was to be with Harry without any labels. Most of the time I went over to his, it was tricky going out somewhere too public and risking getting papped. Together we just talk about life and work, my life back in America and my relationship with my family, his life growing up and his relationship with stardom. We watch movies and listen to music and make jokes and I open up a little about what had been weighing on my mind that night.

Winnie teases me that I was lighter than she’s ever seen me, that London looked good on me. I tell her she’s crazy. But even Oretta admits it when Winnie brings it up to her.

Harry makes the effort to make up for how he acted until it’s not just words. I believe what he was saying. And I admit to my faults too.

We still get under each other’s skin.

The thing we argue about the most is an opportunity Harry tries to get me to sign off on. The link he texted me when I was in Cambridge was an upcoming single one of his friends was releasing and he wanted to get me to bid on executing a music video for it. I tell him he was nuts and that I had no experience, plus I had a job. But he persists. He thinks I should explore putting my creative skills to use and not just my organizational skills. The arguing continues.

I have a date with him tonight, at the same bar we bumped into each other that first night. I have a question I’d been meaning to ask him.

“You aren’t actually a regular here are you?” I ask when we’ve settled.

“Of course I am,” he says but I know he’s lying. I raise my brow and he looks everywhere but at me. “Fine. I’m not.”

“So how the hell did you end up here that night?”

“Coincidence.”

“Liar.”

“I’m an honest man.”

“Truth please?”

“You’re embarrassing me here let’s move on.”

“Nuh-uh,” I’m enjoying his bright cheeks and darting eyes. “Did you stalk me or something?”

“I…I knew this was a local spot for you. Or was.”

“Really? How?”

“You mentioned it a few times? And I dropped you off here once after work.”

He might’ve. I’d met many friends and especially Gray here. I motion for him to continue.

“I might’ve known you were in town, might’ve found out you were here and…”

“So you did stalk me,” I gasp. “Oh my god ladies and gents he is obsessed.”

“That’s a strong word.” He argues.

“You. Stalked. Me.”

“Oh fine, I’ll confess: I’m used to the stalkers and I thought it was high time I did some stalking and see what the fun was all about,” he joins in on making fun of himself.

“Someone get me a restraining order,” I say just as someone approaches our table with drinks. As soon as they leave we burst out laughing.

“So have you given the music video any more thought?” Harry asks as the evening continues.

“Can we not talk about this right now?” I ask.

“I just think you should give it serious thought. I know you want to go into PR, be somebody’s Graham, but you have a really good eye for this thing. Before you pursue what you think you want, try this out.”

“You’re one dude,” I say again. “Who believes I can do this. You want me to throw away the career I’ve worked on for years to dabble in this and potentially waste time instead of getting to where I want?”

“Firstly, if you love doing something it’s not time wasted. And secondly you only ever need just one person to believe in you, angel.”

His fingers brush mine on the table, the familiar electricity courses through me just through the small touch. And of course, his use of pet names always turned me to putty. I hated how malleable he made me.

“Consider it. Just write a proposal y/n, it’s not betraying Oretta or anything. I can talk to her if you want if they choose your idea.”

It was scary putting myself out there for something I didn’t believe in myself for. But my echoes of burnout grow towards the idea of doing something less demanding than being an assistant just like a sunflower to the sun. It basks in letting my creativity flow.

“I’ll think about it.”

“Not for too long,” he taps my fingers again. We were cautious about being too touchy in public, even in a place like this where people genuinely didn’t care who he was. “Proposal’s due at the end of next week.”

When I would be back home in America. Away from here. Him.

We hadn’t talked about it, if we would try to keep in touch. I can’t really imagine a long-distance thing with Harry. Not at this stage. Mostly we enjoyed being in each other’s company and I was scared forcing labels just because we would be apart would ruin this fragile thing.

“Fine.” He’d worn me down and I submit. “Fine I’ll get something in for you.”

He pulls back with a shocked expression. “Did I just convince the stubborn y/n y/l/n to do something she didn’t want to do?”

I scowl. “Don’t get used to it.”

“I won’t,” he laughs, waving his hands around him like he was fanning in an aroma. “I’m soaking this in though.”

“Whatever,” I say with a smile.

“You make me work hard,” he smiles back. “For everything y/n. That’s one of the things I l-I-that I really like about you.”

We ignore the near slip of something far too serious for what we had going. We move past it but it sets my heart racing.

“So this friend of yours,” I change the subject. “With the music video. Didn’t you guys have like, beef when you were on tour? All that article stuff?”

“You of all people should know not to believe what you see online. It was all manipulated and put out of context.”

“I know but you were all moody for all your shows afterwards. I remember Jeff and Graham complaining. I assumed the articles had worn you down a bit.”

He raises a brow like he’s waiting on me to figure something out.

“What?”

“Really? You think it was the artcles?”

“Well what else happened that-“

Oh god. Was I that stupid?

Of course it wasn’t the articles, it was me! Us.

A smile stretches over the contours of his face as realization dawns on mine, “Twice in a row I’ve got you today, I should buy a lottery ticket.”

“I’m off my game today is all, don’t get used to it.”

I can’t believe it. Not that I didn’t believe Harry after the last few weeks but I—that night—really meant that much to him that his feelings over it had affected the rest of his tour? I had affected his tour?

“Why didn’t you say anything if it was weighing on you so much? If I recall I tried to talk to you a couple times.” I ask.

“What could I say,” he snorts. “You were engaged and my loss of control was why you cheated. Then you were quitting and I knew if I said anything you might have stayed. I didn’t want to keep you where you didn’t want to be.”

His words tug at my heart. He really had thought up a storm.

“Harry,” I lean back. “Gray and I broke up before I joined you guys on tour again. We weren’t cheating.”

His forehead creases, “What?! But you were together at my London show. I thought you two broke up after you moved back home?”

“No,” I guess in the last few weeks I’d just mentioned we broke up a long time ago. He didn’t know any specifics. “We were fake-together because he hadn’t broken the news to his sister then. But that’s why I was all…y’know in Barcelona-“

“Fuck me,” he groans. “No wonder you thought I was an ass for pulling you away-“

“Well you were-“

“Yeah alright-“

“Why did you really pull me away though?”

“I…I was feeling a bit possessive.”

“What?”

I wasn’t expecting that to come out of his mouth. He smiles sheepishly, “I thought we already came to terms with that.”

My stomach does a few somersaults. Until tonight I don’t think I’ve really focused on the magnitude of how Harry felt back then. Parts of my mind were still remembering him as a prick just because it was easier to remember my side of things. But this spins things in a brighter light.

“I was just your assistant though.”

“Y/N,” he tilts his head to the side. “Did I not already tell you what I thought about you that night in my flat?”

“Yeah but-“

“I’d never met anyone like you, I really liked you. I couldn’t have you though and I had to push you away constantly. And that drove me a bit crazy sometimes.”

I let out a noisy breath, wondering if how he felt about me was just as intense now as it was then. A part of me knows it must be. Feelings like that didn’t fade. But here I was, barely knowing what it was I felt for him. All I knew was that it was nice when we were together.

Why me, I want to ask. But I hold back. It wasn’t a question I could ask my ex-employer current-lover part-time-asshole.

“Sorry,” he apologizes. “Was that a bit strong?”

“No,” I sigh again and he laughs. “Fine. A little. But it’s fine, I’m okay.”

“Okay,” he believes me. “So you broke off your engagement and didn’t tell anyone?”

“Kinda, we weren’t in a place we could come back from. We decided that mutually after things blew up. He didn’t even know I was leaving the country actually.”

Harry whistles. “You ran out on all of us.”

I scratch the side of my head, “Maybe?”

“Well I’ve enjoyed having you again, here.” He says with sincerity. “I’m really relieved to be able to get to say everything I wanted to your face.”

I agree. Neither of us mention I was leaving later in the week.

Even by the night before I’m leaving London we still hadn’t discussed a thing. But there’s a heaviness to us as we have dinner at his, as we pretend to watch a movie only to cuddle on the couch. We lay there facing each other and I trace his eyes, his nose, his wonderful mouth. It’s so odd to me that this was the same Harry Styles performing in sold out venues and on the walls of teenage bedrooms. That I got to have him in these quiet moments and be present.

I feel so grateful for this. That I didn’t have to carry around these draining stories within me anymore, that it felt like it happened to someone else. In a way even if nothing came from all this, I got closure. I was able to move on now.

I imagine my heart and it feels like when you take a stroll mid-March and realize nature was healing from winter’s blues. Warm and blooming the earth was growing again—my heart was growing stronger. Now the idea of a date or a partner didn’t seem so daunting and exhausting. I would never have guessed that it would take the man who almost broke me to come into my life again for me to see how to fit those pieces back in place again.

“I don’t know what I’m gonna do not having you in town anymore,” his lashes flutter as I run my hand through his hair. It was still shorter than I was used to but it had grown in the last three weeks.

“Oh you’ll be fine,” I say. “I’ve worked on your schedule before: meetings and studio sessions and photoshoots and interviews.”

“A busy life isn’t always a full one,” he whispers. And it’s the closest thing to a confession we were going to get to. I cover his mouth with mine and we indulge in each other one final time.

There is a symphony of unexpected but undeniable intimacy woven between the beats of our entwined hearts. I know I would probably never feel this way with anyone and I don’t think I’d want to. Being with Harry was passion. It was losing myself and finding myself at the same time. It was being vulnerable and guarded and cherished and known.

My flight out tomorrow is around noon but I can’t stay the night as I’d have to help Oretta in the morning to make sure everything gets to the airport in time. Harry walks me down to his lobby and we stand there for a few, just holding each other tight. He doesn’t ask me to stay and I don’t ask him to come.

“This isn’t goodbye y/n,” Harry says when we part. His hand rests on his heart. I know the feeling, mine aches so hard I want to press my hand to it just to tell it everything would be fine.

“No,” I shake my head. My eyes had been teary ever since he squeezed me to him. “We’ll talk soon.”

“You’ll be directing music videos soon.”

I roll my eyes, “I’m still working on the proposal.”

“I have a good feeling about it.”

“That makes one of us. But…thanks for believing in me.”

“Thanks for believing in me,” he whispers. “Even when you didn’t have to.”

I’m glad I did. The only time in my life not paying attention to the warning bells had paid off.

“I’ve been working with this new producer and he wants me to come out to a studio in Cotati?” Harry mentions. “How far is that from where you are? Are you still in m Burbank?”

“Burbank’s where my parents are,” I shake my head. I look up what he’s talking about and feel a thrill when it’s less than a couple hours. Still, I try to maintain neutrality. “A little over an hour?”

“Well,” he brushes my hair over my shoulder and keeps his eyes looking just over it. “Depending on what you’re doing—maybe if you’re free…we can see each other again?”

I would love that. My heart is bursting just thinking of getting to have him in the place I called home. Of this meaning something. Of him wanting to see me again.

“Of course if you have a boyfriend by then and he doesn’t want you to see me that’s…I mean, live your life and if it works out we-“

“Yes,” I cut him off. “Yeah. Let’s see but that sounds good.”

He meets my gaze and I laugh a little, he was nervous and that was rare.

“Good,” he smiles with. “Until next time.”

“Until next time,” I step into his arms and it’s a quick affair before he steps away. I turn to head out the door, shielding my eyes from him. Not wanting him to see that this was stupidly hard to say goodbye.

He waves me off and I head back to my hotel with a heavy heart. But I think about him asking to see me again. Who knows when that would be. And I know this wasn’t the end of our story.

***

I’m happy to land in SFO the following evening, happy to busy myself with Oretta’s business, happy to have Winnie chattering away. I spent parts of the flight I wasn’t sleeping working on my MV proposal and it awakens a familiar passion inside of me I’d been afraid I’d lost.

I send out a silent thanks to Harry for knowing what was good for me.

I think of Harry often, Gray even less until I don’t think of him at all. I dream of London weekly; I missed it this time around. And as life resumes again I anticipate the change I sense on the horizon.

So when life gives me lemons I stop asking Do I or Don’t I. If one thing the last year has taught me was I had to listen to my gut and look at the signs. I had to start asking what I wanted and go after it. Even though Harry and I barely talk, I remember the lessons he’s taught me.

I stop looking to others to make decisions. There’s no guidebook or lists to help me make my decisions either. I take deep breaths and I believe in myself.

I build a new life on the remains of my old. I don’t let it dictate what I did anymore, I simply leave it as the foundation to elevate me even higher. I reach for the sky with my feet planted firmly on the ground. And I grow with reckless abandon.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

TAGLIST: @boomitsallie1 @indierockgirrl @ndunad @jerseygirlinca @sunshinemoonsposts @ninasw0rld @love-letters-to-uranus @mayamonroem @sassamanda77 @harryspirate

🤍

[presidentofspace]

Good Omens + Wicked part 2 (part 1 // part 3 / part 4)

[dragonnarrative-writes]

Transferrable Skills

Part 1

Your therapist warned you about superstitious thinking. You've been working on it. In fact, you've been very good at catching it, challenging yourself to relax, and letting things go. Even before this big work trip, you consciously avoided the "unhelpful" rituals and reminded yourself that the little ones were just to make you feel secure, not to actually influence the future across an ocean.

"I'm very nervous," you had told Señor Snuggly two weeks ago. Your worn out stuffed lizard hadn't said anything back, of course. "That's normal, because it’s an international flight. So I'm going to give you a hug good-bye, and you're gonna stay here to watch the house. I know it's not going to change anything, but I'll feel better knowing you're here."

At the airport, you realized that you had forgotten your toothbrush. It had satisfied the part of your brain that was looking for one (1) thing to go wrong. Superstitious thinking, but the kind that helped you to relax and listen to music until you boarded.

Now, forced to sit on the floor, surrounded by shouting men with guns, your brain is stuck on your lopsided stuffed animal and blue toothbrush. Of all the things that could pop into your head, why those?

You almost let out a nervous giggle at the mental image of Señor Snuggly using your toothbrush as a shiv to save the day. And then the idea of what would happen if you started laughing right now almost startles you into another burst of giggles. You clap your hands over your mouth and curl into yourself a little bit more.

Next to you, your boss throws you a sympathetic look. "You okay?"

"No talking!" The nearest assailant yells in heavily accented English. You're pretty sure the attackers have been speaking Russian, but you could be mistaken. He brandishes his gun. "You want to die?"

"She needs to go to the restroom," your boss answers.

"No, I don't," you protest. You really, really do, and have for the last two hours. But being escorted out of the room alone seems like enough of a Bad Idea that your bladder can wait.

"No, she does not," the man confirms. "Shut up. Do not talk."

You meet your boss's eyes and try to silently convey, Why are you trying to get me killed?

His doughy face says back, I am a white man who goes to the gym once a week, and I really like the John Wick movies. I have delusions of being a hero. If one man takes you to the bathroom I have the mistaken belief that I can overpower two men with guns to save everyone. Also you're a black woman, so don't you have super powers? I believe in you, queen.

You may be projecting.

Ten minutes later, just as you're wondering if you should suggest a group field trip down the hall to the bathrooms, a series of gunshots rings through the building. The energy in the room goes from nervous to frantic in an instant. Your bladder shuts up. The Russian men start shouting and waving their guns, apparently too agitated to speak English. Two hostages start crying because no one else speaks Russian, just English, French and your half-forgotten, informal, Mexican Spanish.

Another three Russians come bursting in the room, snarling something you can’t understand. They grab at a couple of people, force them to stand at gunpoint and gesture to the rest of you. And then everyone is up and kind of moving in the direction of the door. But you can’t get out of the door because they’re blocking it, but they’re really agitated that the room is still full of hostages. And then some people are being pushed back down to the floor. Your boss ends up sitting back down again. A hard hand closes on your arm before you can get down, and you and four others are dragged out.

The leader says, “You all are dignitaries, yes? Your embassies will send money or they will watch you die.”

This is, potentially, the worst possible scenario. None of the five of you are even remotely important, let alone dignitaries. You’re not 100% sure about most of the others, but you’re an aid. An aid to an aid, really. The blonde woman with the remarkably sharp bob is a personal assistant. Today’s conference was about health data management, of all things.

You decide you’re not going to die with a full bladder. You look to the man holding your arm in an iron grip and point to the upcoming door on the right. “Can I please go to the restroom? I’ll be quick.”

He asks the leader something in Russian, and then you’re being shoved through the bathroom door. He doesn’t follow you into the stall, but it’s still so awkward to pee knowing that there’s a man with a gun waiting for you. You’re so glad you aren’t on your period - opening the wrapper on anything right now would feel louder than it has since middle school.

The door to the restroom opens just as the toilet finishes flushing. You hear a scuffle, an aborted shout, and then something heavy hits the floor. You freeze, heart racing. But then there’s no more sound.

You wait for what feels like an hour but must only be a minute before calling, “H-hello?”

You don’t get an answer. Unlocking the door and easing it open, you peek out and stifle a gasp. The man who had escorted you is on the ground, a pool of blood growing around him. His gun is gone.

You’re halfway through washing your hands before you realize you’re on autopilot.

It takes everything in you to fight down the urge to freeze in place and make yourself inch around the body to the door. When you poke your head out, the hall looks so normal that it makes you dizzy for a second. You try to decide what to do through the anxiety fog. You can’t hide in the bathroom with a dead body, and you probably can’t go back to the big room with everyone without getting shot. You have no idea where the other faux-dignitaries were taken. Apparently, there’s at least one person going around killing people in bathrooms.

You try to think of what your therapist would say in this situation. All of the options feel bad, she would say. So you can’t not do anything because it feels bad. Thank the anxiety for trying to keep you safe, then try to pick the least awful course of action.

“Fight, flight, freeze, fawn,” you whisper to yourself. Fighting is right out. “Flight, freeze, fawn.” There’s a body pouring blood right behind you. “Flight, fawn.” No one is around to appease. “Flight.”

Another gunshot and shouting. It sounds like it’s coming from the left, so you head right.

You shuck off your sensible kitten heels and fervently wish your otherwise sensible pantsuit wasn’t pastel purple in this very beige hallway. Not that a thicker-than-European-average black woman mincing around in a Swiss hotel and conference center would be inconspicuous in a black suit, your mind counters itself. You try to force your brain to shut up, with mixed success.

You wander a good five minutes, reminding yourself not to panic at every locked door you try. The halls are so quiet that you half convince yourself that you’ve gotten out of immediate danger. So of course, right as you’re about the round the next corner, one of the Russians appears, reeling backwards. And then he collapses, a knife sticking out of his neck.

You can’t really worry about that, though, because right after him comes one of the largest men you’ve ever seen. He must catch sight of you out of the corner of his eye, because his head snaps to look at you. You barely register the assault rifle in his hands because his eyes bore into you through the top half of a human skull.

Oh, I’m glad I already peed, you think, staring into the eyes of Death.

“Fuckin’ ‘ell,” the man says, growls really. “What are you doing here?”

“I… bathroom? Please don’t kill me. I’ll cooperate.” you squeak out. Oh, fawning! Cool.

“Price, I’ve got one of the hostages,” he says, nonsensically. “I’ve cleared the east wing.”

You jump when his walkie-talkie - of course it’s a walkie-talkie - squawks back an “Affirmative. Status?”

“She’s up and walking,” the man says, not taking his eyes from yours. “Seems uninjured.”

“Stow her somewhere safe.”

“Negative,” Death says. Before you can panic because what the fuck does that mean? he says, “Bringing her back with me.”

“Copy.”

When he takes a step toward you, you stop breathing. Everything in you is screaming RUN and DON’T MOVE at the same time. His second step in your direction results in a full body twitch. You get the impression that the gun is pointed at the ground, but the only thing you can really see is bone white over a black mask and what might be really pretty brown eyes, but the shadow from the overhead light really makes it hard to tell and your vision is going a bit darkaroundtheedgesandohI’mstillnotbreathingthat’snotgreat.

You’re shocked into gasping when a gloved palm touches the side of your face. The rough material helps you settle into your body, just in time to start hyperventilating.

And that’s when things get weird, because Death says, “Easy, lovie. Settle, f’ me, yeah? Deep breaths, like we’ve practiced.”

Your brain latches on to the familiar command to settle before you can even question why it’s familiar. The way the man makes a long, low shushing noise makes you so suddenly weak in the knees that you stagger where you stand.

And then it clicks. Holy shit. You know this voice. You know these commands. You’ve been listening to and learning them at least once a week for the last six months. He doesn’t even sound that different from over the phone or on a video call.

“There you go, that’s good,” Simon, the dominant you’ve been seeing online, tells you through his skull mask. “Keep breathin’. In through the nose, out through the mouth.”

It’s the second time in your life you’ve been surprised out of a panic attack. “W-what the fuck? Si?” you gasp. “What are you doing here? Did you kill that guy?”

“Questions are gonna have to wait,” he says. “Keep breathing. In for four, hold for two. In for two, out for eight. Can you do that?”

“Why are you in Switzerland?”

“Breathe,” he rumbles. “Settle.”

“No,” you hiss, even as your shoulders relax another fraction. The corners of your eyes start prickling with tears.

“This is a double red light situation,” Si says, staring into your eyes. “I know you’re scared, but I’m going to get you out of here. You trust me?”

“You are wearing a skull on your face.”

“And you’re wearing a purple suit,” he answers. “There are people who want to shoot both of us. You get one more outburst, then you’re breathing and following me. Acknowledge.”

What the fuck? “This isn’t a scene!”

His eyes bore into yours. “Might surprise you, but I’m aware. Acknowledge.”

A distant shout makes you flinch. You relent. “Acknowledged. Four in, hold two, two in, out eight. Follow.”

“Good girl,” he says, patting your cheek once. “Stay behind me.”

[the-witch-of-one-piece]

Calling Them Daddy During Sex N/SFW: Part 1(Bleach Edition)

霊圧 + 淫慾. //spiritual pressure + lust. ( @sashi-ya x twoop)

Calling Them Daddy during Sex N/SFW Part 1 ft. Shunsui, Byajuya, Kenpachi, Bazz-B and Jugram Created by: The-witch-of-one-piece /600+ /Masterlist/Collab w/ @sashi-ya💜

TW: mention of being called daddy, penetration of a hole, spanking, dirty talk, rough sex and scratching

 He positioned you on your knees as your back arched up. You could feel your knees trembling as he rubbed his tip at your entrance teasing you. You suddenly feel his large fingers gripping the back of your neck pressing you against the mattress. Suddenly feeling his cock sliding inside you. His hand was on your ass as he was rocking you back and forth. With each thrust you could hear the sound of the skin slapping against one another. “Yes daddy just like that~~~!” you called out as you cried against the mattress in full of pleasure. 

~~~~~~~~~~

Shunsui 

Licking his lips hearing the phrase that was music to his ears. These thrusting motions continued at the same pace. You could hear a low chuckle as he groaned so quietly. Leaning in and kissing your shoulder, feeling his warm breath against your bare damp skin. “ So I’m your daddy now??” you could feel the smirk on his face growing. “Well don’t worry_____, daddy is going to take care of you.” Shunsui's sinful voice lingered in your mind with every sensational thrusting he did inside of you.

Byakuya

The pale captain's eyes widened as his thrusting slightly became a bit slower. ‘Daddy?’  he thought to himself. But hearing how you called him daddy once again you could feel his hand gripped on your ass a bit tighter making indentations with his slender fingers. You could hear the moans slipping from his perfect lips as the pace became a bit more rough. Removing his hand from the back of your neck as he pushed his bangs out of his face. “If you desire to call me daddy now.. I won’t object to it.” Both hands firmly holding your ass, his pelvic began to thrust more inside of you. 

Kenpachi

The hands that held you by the neck became tighter, his nails digging into your flesh feeling the sting as your body was coated in a thin layer of sweat. His eyes focused more as he drove his cock deeper inside of you. Instead of calling out daddy you began to moan trying to form the words but the pounding he was giving you was making it hard. When he noticed the word daddy wasn’t coming out he was a bit displeased his raspy voice said “you get me all turned on with that god damn word and you decided to stop saying it? Daddy must be fucking you really good then huh?” the wicked laugh leaves his lips.

Bazz-B

In his mind automatically ‘what the fuck…Daddy?!’  he would think this is some kinda daddy issue you have and that's why you called him daddy.. His jaw is flexing he tilted his back closing his eyes for a moment as he was savoring your slick walls clenching his cock. Hearing the moans of pleasure as you lustfully called him daddy sent the chills down his spine. Drawing his head back as he looked down. You felt the sting as he gave your ass a  hard smack. “I will show you what daddy is capable of doing to a little cum bucket like you.” 

Jugram 

Feeling his hands releasing slightly off the back of your neck, his hand gliding up your arched back. He could see the goosebumps forming. Jugram letting out a low moan spill from his lips. His eyes peeking through his blonde lashes looking at your naked frame, noticing your knees trembling. He didn’t want your knees to give out. Pulling himself out of you, having you on your back facing the blond lash man. Leaning in more, you could feel his thin build body against yours. His eyes looking directly at you “Daddy wanted to see that face of yours.” in his low hush tone you could hear calling him daddy turned him on. 

Tagging: @stygianoir @tealcat001 @dumbbitch223 @bookandyarndragon. @jin-supremacy01

[mermaidgirl30]

✨Dancing With Fire Part 2: Save me ✨

- Summary: You’re starring in the ballet Swan Lake, taking on the lead role in New York. You practice day and night and are always staying after hours. You keep seeing Joel around the theater, the hot maintenance worker you can’t keep your eyes off of. You aren’t the only one though because you think he’s watching you too.

- Tags: No outbreak, protective Joel, angst, fingering, oral, cream pie, abusive dance partner, tension, longing, porn with plot, smut, dom! Joel (reader mid 20’s, Joel in his early 40’s) Joel x you, No use Y/N

- Word Count: 9.2k

- Rating: Explicit (18+ only)

Part 1 Masterlist

Dividers by @saradika-graphics

The long days seemed to blur together. You were constantly being worked overtime. Carlotta was insistent that you stay over every day and practice till you got every single move perfect. It was grueling, excessive and honestly a chore. You had absolutely no free time to yourself except some weekends. Not that it mattered. You had no friends in New York, but it’d still be nice to have some room to breathe and relax.

Today was an exceptionally bad day because you had to spend the entire day dancing with Pierre, your awful dance partner. He was tall, had slicked back short blonde hair, beady blue eyes, and had a short temper. A lot of the girls fawned over him, gushing how handsome and nice he was. You wanted to laugh every time you saw it happen because you knew how he really was behind those thin walls.

He was cruel and brutally wicked. A pig at best.

You’d never forget that day where the company threw a celebration party for the cast after auditions. He’d introduced himself and offered you his hand as he congratulated you for getting the lead. He seemed friendly enough until he tried to smother you and demand you let him take you out. You politely declined, not interested in fraternizing with your co-star.

What happened next was something you wanted to forget entirely. When you turned to leave after saying no, he’d grabbed your hips and pulled you to him, securing his hands around your waist. You tried to pull out of his grasp, but he dug his nails into you so hard that you couldn’t. You snapped at him and demanded he get his hands off you, but he wouldn’t listen. He had other intentions. Intentions you didn’t want to revisit.

“Let me make this clear. Refuse me and I will make your time here a living hell,” Pierre had warned, leaning into your ear and whispering so nobody else could hear the conversation around you in the busy foyer, the two of you standing in the corner of the shadows where no one looked over to. You squirmed and stomped on his foot in defense.

He finally let you go, wincing from the pain of your foot. You kicked his shin with your long heel and cursed him for laying a hand on you. He intended to sleep with you, but there was no way in hell you were letting that happen. He even tried again a week after that, but he had failed miserably.

You tried to confront Carlotta about the whole thing, but she had shut you down and said Pierre would never do such a thing, and it had made you want to quit right then and there. But you worked for this your whole life, so you decided against it. You’d just roll with the punches until the last show was over. It was just a few months. Which couldn’t hurt. Right?

“Alright, let’s take it from the top. Pierre, the first dance with the swan. Go on,” Carlotta commanded, pointing to you with cat-like nails to get ready.

As the slow, romantic music filled the auditorium, you took your spot and got into fifth position, placing your arms over your head like the delicate swan queen you were.

Pierre was smirking at you from the other side of the polished stage, his blue eyes narrowing into slits. Before Carlotta spotted him, he put on a huge fake smile and turned his eyes friendly.

What a fake.

You rolled your eyes and then started the routine as he danced over to you, grabbing your hands and twirling you around the stage in a frenzy. You hated every second you had to dance with him, wanting to push him out of your hold and smack him across the face.

You kept your vision on the red velvet walls as he spun you over and over, lifting you over his head and catching you after your big leap, pirouetting from his hold until he joined you again, clashing you to his chest.

“Smile pretty now. Don’t want Carlotta to get on to you,” he smirked, turning you again so you were facing him.

You scowled up at him and glared. “Don’t worry about me.”

When he turned you back around to face Carlotta, you put on a big smile, not showing her just how uncomfortable you truly were. Before you took another step, Pierre stomped on your pointe shoe hard and tripped you, almost falling over before he grabbed you.

“Stop, stop! Start again. None of that,” Carlotta huffed as she put a hand on her forehead like she was in agony.

You turned fast and gritted your teeth at him. “What the hell was that?”

He laughed quietly and smiled down at you. “Just having a little fun,” he teased, taking his hand and fixing a flyaway on the top of your head.

You grabbed his hand and shoved it away from you. “Don’t touch me unless we’re dancing,” you hissed, stomping away from him back into your starting position. You could still hear him quietly laughing as he took his place across the stage, smirking up at you with a dare in his eyes.

Fucking idiot.

You went through the same dance time and time again that day, Pierre always doing something to mess up the routine so you’d have to start from the very top. You were absolutely done with him, wanting to just go home. It was almost 4:00pm, and you still hadn’t had a break. Your body was about done for.

“You two, I want you to go through a few more times. I have a meeting I can’t be late for,” she said hurriedly as she grabbed her stack of folders and pink iPhone.

No.

She was leaving you alone with this thing? Fear crept through your body and slithered down your spine, leaving no room for breathing.

“Wait, Carlotta…”

She cut you off fast. “No buts, you’re staying and that’s final. You two work it out. Today was not your best work. The two of you need some bonding time, so go focus on perfect form and pointed feet,” she said harshly.

Her cell phone started buzzing and she picked it up and answered with a laugh, walking away until her high pitched voice was out of range and she was disappearing through the back doors. Leaving you all alone with Pierre.

You slowly turned and gulped away your fear. Focus. He couldn’t do anything to you. Could he? No. He wouldn’t. Surely not.

As soon as you turned, he was staring down at you with cold calculating eyes, a smirk plastered against his mouth as his sunken cheekbones reflected off the auditorium bright lights.

“Looks like it’s just you and me, princess,” he scoffed.

“Let’s just get this over with,” you insisted, taking a big step away from him.

“Oh come now, you don’t wanna spend a little quality time with me?” he said in a deceiving way, sticking his lower lip out like he was pouting.

“No,” you said back in a hard tone, your eyebrows furrowing at the cruel man that stood before you. “You did this on purpose! You kept messing me up in practice so Carlotta would make us stay longer. You thought that was okay?”

“Of course I did it on purpose,” he laughed.

“You’re making me look bad in front of her! And you’re really fucked up for doing that, you know that?” you bit back bitterly, almost biting down on your tongue.

He was laughing at your words, a wicked cackling sound escaping his throat. He just stood there taunting you, asking you to throw another insult his way. Daring you to keep on.

You rolled your eyes and got into place. “Enough. Let’s just do this already,” you said firmly as you raised your arms into your starting pose.

“Fine by me,” he said as he got into his own position, signaling you to begin.

You started the routine, moving your arms gracefully up and down as you made your way to center stage, putting your pointe shoes to use as you dug your toes into the ground, twirling around as he chased you across the stage. You were the swan that got away, and he was on the hunt for you. Carlotta always said seduce him, make him fall in love with you. That’s the last thing you wanted. It was all for the act, the ballet. That was your mission in this dance routine, and it was your least favorite because of it.

You performed your best, making every turn sharp, pointing your toes with perfect precision, elongating your arms to be as graceful as a flower, lifting your legs as high as they’d go. Making every single move pristine so this would be the only run through you’d have to do tonight.

He was the hunter in this scene, and you were the beautiful, untouchable swan. His mission was to catch you, and yours was to keep away until he could finally reach you. He chased you throughout the dance. With every turn you’d make, he’d try to get closer. Reaching, fighting, trying with all his might to snatch you. He stretched out an arm, but you jumped out of his wavelength. He tried again as you flew across the stage in a graceful run.

But in the end he won. Finally winning you over as you stopped in the middle of the stage motionless as he grabbed your waist and spun you on your toes in place, catching your arms above your head and then stopping your rotations. His arms were still on your waist as you faced him, almost chest to chest with him. Suddenly he turned you and positioned you in a laying back position when the song ended, signaling the end of the routine.

You took a breath before getting up and then attacked instantly. “Why didn’t you just do that in practice today? That was spotless, clean. We could’ve been done a lot earlier if you wouldn’t have kept messing me up,” you huffed, crossing your arms over your chest.

“Remember that night I said I’d make your life a living hell? Well, I wasn’t kidding,” he said with a laugh, his blue eyes piercing into you like a knife, making your insides instantly icy. “I can make it go away, you know. I can stop taunting you every day. All you have to do is change your mind.”

You dropped your arms to your side as they grazed the white tights, trying to make your mind focus on anything but that night. “No,” you said firmly.

“No? You sure about that?” he asked as he grabbed a hold of your wrist and pulled you into his chest, his grip on you not letting up.

You tried to pull away, but he grabbed you tighter, digging his fingers into your skin. Searing it with a tinge of pain. You winced in response. “Let. Go,” you said slowly as you glared up at him, daring him to try anything else.

“I don’t think so,” he said as he pulled you tighter, pain resonating through your wrist.

“I mean it, Pierre. Let go or I’ll scream,” you warned, giving him your best dirty look you could muster.

He narrowed his eyes as he locked his jaw, weighing his options carefully. He dug his fingers in one more time and then released you, letting his fingertips leave marks against your sore wrist.

“Little bitch,” he muttered under his breath as he turned the opposite way, about to head out.

“Prick,” you muttered quietly.

He must’ve heard you because he spun around so fast that you could’ve sworn he got whiplash.

“You better watch it,” he warned, pointing a finger terribly close to your face.

“Or what?” you asked confidently, wanting to fight back.

“Or else I’ll have no choice but to do this,” he said as he took a step towards you and pulled your arm, forcing you up against his chest.

“Let me go,” you demanded as you hit him in the chest, trying your hardest to pull out of his grasp.

“Change your mind then maybe I will,” he smirked, laughing at you while you struggled against him.

“Get the fuck off me,” you shouted as you pushed at his upper body, slipping away from his sharp grasp.

He tried grabbing you again as he caught your wrist, his fingernails digging into you. You spit into his face, and then he did something that shocked your entire system. He slapped you hard across the face as you felt a sudden searing, stinging pain fill your cheek. Then he pushed you down against the hardwood floor as you landed with a hard thud on your hands and knees.

“No more saying no to me, little swan. Have to teach you some manners. Let me show you how it’s done.”

He took a step closer and you cowered over, shutting your eyes so you could block out the ringing noise that was blasting through your eardrums. So close to having a panic attack, not wanting him to lay another hand on you. You shaded your eyes against the shining floor and sank down as far as your body could go.

You waited for the next blow to come, but it never came. Instead, you heard a loud crashing sound behind you, like something had just collided into the wall.

You looked up and glanced behind you, freezing once you saw just what it was. You gasped, too stunned to move.

There he was. Joel.

Joel had Pierre cornered into the red wall, slamming his body hard against it as his hands dug into Pierre’s white shirt. Bunching the material so much that it looked like the shirt would rip at any moment.

“Think you’re such a tough guy, huh? Do ya get off on hitting women for fun you twisted fuck?! Huh? Well, do ya?!” Joel yelled into Pierre’s horrified face, digging his fingers deeper into his shirt, bringing him closer to the bared teeth of his scowl.

Pierre stuttered and couldn’t get a single word out, mumbling nonsense quietly to Joel.

“Answer me!” he growled, his eyes going the darkest shade of brown you’d ever seen them turn. Almost like a dark charcoal color, pupils getting larger by each second that ticked by.

“N-n-nooo,” he stuttered, chattering his teeth together as the whites of his eyes expanded.

Joel shoved his head against the wall, grabbing his blonde locks and pulling hard, making Pierre yelp. “If you ever lay a hand on her again I’ll break your fucking jaw. Do you understand?” he roared. His massive fingers moving up around Pierre’s neck to hold him in place, the veins in his hands growing larger, and his breathing coming out rough and winded.

“Y-yes,” Pierre shrieked.

“Repeat it!” Joel growled, jerking Pierre’s blonde locks so hard that you swore he was about to pull out a fist full of hair or snap his neck all together. You weren’t sure which would come first.

Joel pulled harder, making Pierre scream out in pain. “Alright, alright! I won’t touch her again. Unless we’re performing for the show.” He looked scared as his eyes were bulging out of his skull and his face was scrunched up into absolute terror.

Joel accepted that answer and muttered a groan. His eyes were locked on Pierre, hounding him with those dark brown eyes. He was feral, unhinged, overpowering as he stood there holding Pierre in place, punishing him for putting his hands on you. It was so hot. Making your insides feel all sorts of warmth as you sat there in awe, watching your protector defend you.

It was absolutely exhilarating.

Joel slowly released his hand from his shirt and backed up just the tiniest bit from Pierre, giving him room to breathe. Pierre pressed against his shirt and smoothed it out, fighting to catch his breath as his eyes were wild with fright. He took a step past Joel, but Joel stopped him, putting a strong hand against his bicep as he grasped him firmly, turning him so he could face those burning brown eyes.

“I’ll be keepin’ a close eye on ya. Better learn where your fucking place is before I put you in it,” he warned, turning his mouth into a hard scowl as his forehead hardened into wrinkles. “You do anything to give her a hard time and I will have words with you. Words that lead to fists,” he stated firmly as his right hand clenched into a tight fist.

His jaw flexed as his eyes glanced over Pierre’s timid face, finally releasing his grip and letting him run off the stage in complete fear. Not wanting to stay in Joel’s fuming presence anymore.

You sat on the floor gawking at the tall, broad man in front of you who had just saved you from God knows what. Your breath was coming out shallowly as your eyes were wide, staring at his large biceps that were flexed and pulling at his denim button up. His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, exposing those long protruding veins that you couldn’t get enough of.

You watched as his colossal hands went from tight, flexed fists to relaxed fingers against his dark jeans. His jaw went from tensed to tempered as he continued glaring in the direction that Pierre had fled in. A faint smolder setting his features that made you weak in the knees. A vision you wanted to burn into the back of your mind. The man that made you ignite with desire.

Your savior.

Joel finally dropped his tight fisted knuckles and relaxed his glare, turning in your direction. The moment he saw you he dropped his furrowed eyebrows and came to your side, kneeling down to be eye level with you.

“Are you hurt?” he asked with concerned brown eyes as he reached his arms out to place on your shoulders, making you shutter at how warm his hands were on your bare skin.

“No, I-I’m alright,” you responded breathlessly, forgetting about your aching jaw. Too focused on the gorgeous man that was right in front of you, bending at the knee to examine your frail body.

“Here, let’s get you up off this floor so I can take a look at ya.” He held out a hand, and you didn’t hestitate to take it, feeling right at home when his rough fingers met your smooth skin. Sending electricity through your fingertips.

He grabbed a hold of your waist and hoisted you up off the cold floor, bringing you over to sit on a beige upholstered bench behind the stage. He sat down next to you and turned you to face him, his concerned honey eyes looking over your face carefully. He reached out a hand and slowly lifted your chin, gently bringing his fingers to the left cheek that was raw from the hard slap.

He moved ever so gently, sliding his fingers slowly over your jaw. Examining it to make sure there was no damage to the skin. His calloused fingers brushed against your cheek, making a tingle run down your neck, sinking its way to your lower region. You fought back a blush as he continued looking you over thoroughly. He hit a sensitive spot and you winced against his touch. He apologized as he dropped his hand, leaving your cheek cold and untouched.

“I don’t see any bruises, but you might wanna ice that tonight,” he said as he ghosted his fingers over your thigh, barely putting his fingers on you. But it was enough to make you jolt in place.

“You alright?” he asked quietly, noticing your jumpiness. You couldn’t help it though. He made you feel like a complete nervous wreck, never able to fully calm yourself when he was in your presence.

“Yeah, just a little shaken up still,” you stammered out, eyes fixed on the thick fingers that laid against your thigh.

You peered back up into his face as it changed from relaxed to apprehensive as he furrowed his brows. It made your eyes go that much wider, not fully understanding why this man made you feel the things you did when you barely knew him.

“Is that the first time he’s hit you?” he asked with a serious gaze, his jaw clenching into a fist.

“Yeah, that’s the first time,” you sighed, trying not to think about how scared you were in the moment. What you were afraid he would’ve done if Joel wasn’t around. Just to spite you and take what he thought was his to take. It made you sick.

“And it’ll be the last time if I have anything to do with it,” he said with bared teeth, his eyes growing darker the more he talked about it.

You sat there gaping at him, your eyes sinking deep into his as you were swooning at the way he was talking about defending you. Making every single fiber in your body want to melt into his chest, wrap your arms around him so he’d never let go.

You got your wits about you and focused back on the brooding man that sat in front of you, his fingers still laying against your toned thigh.

“Thank you. For saving me,” you said slowly, looking up from underneath your long lashes, your fingers digging into the soft material of the bench nervously.

Joel’s large veins tightened up in his neck as he flexed his jaw again, eyes still alight with anger, but then he slowly relaxed as he gazed into your eyes. Those amber eyes simmering into yours.

“‘Course, darlin’. I wasn’t gonna let him hurt ya,” he said gently as he brought his hand to your cheek, slowly caressing you tenderly. He looked so composed, so soft as he ran slow circles across the skin, easing away your pain.

And fuck, did it feel good.

“You hungry?” he asked as he let his hand fall back to his side.

Your stomach growled at the mention of food. You were more than hungry. You were starving. Ravenous almost. “Starving,” you answered almost too quickly.

“You like Italian?” he asked with a raised brow.

“Do I like Italian? It’s my absolute favorite,” you said excitedly, almost bouncing out of your seat.

Joel noticed the response and laughed casually, his dimples forming over that beautiful mouth of his, making your insides buzz with glee.

“Alright then. C’mon, I’m taking you to eat,” he said as he stood up and held out a hand for you to take.

You glanced at his rough hand for a few seconds, blinking slowly, trying to process that Joel was about to take you to dinner. You finally got up the nerve to reach your hand out, sliding your fingers along the back of his calloused hand until he closed his fingers around you.

It felt so good. So right. Like putting on the perfect fitting glove. A warm, gentle embrace that was only for you.

He started pulling you towards the side door, but you stopped fast. Painfully pulling your hand away from his tight hold. “Just a second. Let me go change real quick,” you said hurriedly as you started to head towards your dressing room.

“Alright. I’ll be here when you’re ready,” he stated.

As you rounded the corner to the back of the stage, you turned your head, stealing one more glance at Joel. Your heart skipped when you saw he was staring back at you. You gave him a quick smile before you ran fast to your dressing room, nearly knocking over the pink wardrobe dresser as you threw off your pointe shoes and leotard, stripping your tights to expose bare skin.

You pulled on a pair of yoga pants and an oversized purple sweater, quickly slipping on the white Converse to finish the job. You swiftly undid your too tight bun and ran a hand through your messy hair, trying to tame the long waves that went down a little past your shoulder blades.

You checked yourself in the mirror one more time before you decided it was good enough. You were ready.

As you made your way out of the dressing room and rounded the corner to the stage, you found Joel with his hands in his pockets, waiting patiently. As soon as he caught a glimpse of you his eyes went wide as his brown eyes trailed down over your waves, past your long legs and then back up into your face. He looked mildly surprised, like this was the first time he was actually seeing you. And that made you shiver with anticipation.

You walked up to him slowly, batting your long eyelashes at him and giving him a gentle smile. Trying your best not to look like the absolute wreck you were and instead trying to look as flirtatious as you could come off as. “Okay, I’m ready,” you beamed, giving him your best smile.

A small smile crept up to his lips as he ran a hand through his tousled curls, making something stir deep inside you. You wanted to know what it felt like to slip your own hand through his hair, wanting so badly to tousle it even more, dig your fingers into his scalp. You wondered if it was just as smooth as you imagined, just as coarse.

He brought you back to reality as his deep voice smothered all your senses. “C’mon then. I’m gonna show ya my favorite restaurant. It’s jus’ bout a ten minute walk from here. Not too far.”

And then he was leading you out of the massive auditorium and out of the theater, stepping into the chilled breezy evening as the wind howled and the orange leaves blew across the busy road.

It didn’t take you long to get to the restaurant. Matter of fact, it took no time at all as Joel was easy with conversations. Something that came naturally to him. You weren’t usually the best talker, but with him it was different. It was simple, just like a walk in the park. It was unforced, carefree, and casual. You never felt like this with anyone else which was strange, but you’d take it. Because every minute you spent with Joel, the more you liked him. The more you wanted to be around him. The more your insides burned for him.

Once you were inside, a waiter led you to a back booth. Joel took one side and you took the other, sitting back into the black cushion as your hands went to the menu the waiter placed out for you. He took your drink orders and left the two of you alone.

As you looked around, you took in the laid-back, quiet ambience of the restaurant. A single white rose adorned each table, the chiffon curtains draped over the lavish tall windows, and soft music played over the speakers faintly. It smelled like garlic bread and serenading pasta in here, making the inside of your mouth water with hunger. The back booth that you sat at was a little private as no one sat around you. The restaurant was quiet, peaceful as the dinner rush had not yet entered. Giving you the perfect opportunity to talk to Joel without the weight of a loud crowd or overstimulating environment.

As you looked over the luxurious menu, you could feel Joel’s eyes on you, suddenly averting your gaze from the jumbled words on the page.

“Know what ya want?” he asked coolly.

You quickly scanned the menu and decided on the first thing that popped out at you. “Think I’m gonna go with the chicken Alfredo pasta.” Your go to always.

“Not a bad choice,” he nodded.

When the waiter came back, Joel ordered for you, telling the waiter you’d have the chicken Alfredo pasta and he’d have the classic Italian spaghetti. The waiter left a basket of fresh garlic bread in the center of the table before heading off and placing your order. It smelled amazing as the warm buttery scent wafted through your senses.

You reached out and grabbed a hot piece and sunk your teeth into it, quickly devouring it as the melty goodness ran down your throat. You held in a moan as the taste hit you hard, pulling at that hunger that had been attached to you all day.

“This is the best bread I’ve ever tasted,” you gushed, taking another bite without wasting time.

“Glad ya like it,” he said with a smile that curved at the corners. One that could make you weak at the knees.

After you finished the first piece and sat in silence for a few moments, Joel spoke again. “So, tell me about yourself. You go to college out here?”

You looked up after wiping your hands on the crimson napkin, dabbing at the corners of your mouth. “I attended Juilliard. Just graduated a couple of years ago.”

“You went for dance I assume?” he asked with a raised brow.

“Mhm. They actually gave me a full ride after I submitted my audition and application to them. Guess they were impressed by me,” you said as you shrugged your shoulders.

Joel let out a low whistle, leaning back in his seat to take a better look at you. “Full ride, huh? Impressive,” he said with awe. “And ‘course they were impressed. I mean, look at ya. The way ya dance says it all. And not to mention you’re easy on the eyes,” he said lowly as his coffee colored eyes flicked over your face, making your cheeks burn as you simmered in his presence.

You pulled back a lock of hair behind your ear and fidgeted in your seat, suddenly a nervous wreck again from the smolder he was giving off. Making your insides complete jelly. “Oh, uhhh, thanks,” you said shyly.

“You always know that’s what ya wanted to do? To dance?” he asked as he leaned his elbows against the table, placing his hands under his chin so he could give you his full attention. You gulped at the sight.

“My parents said I was dancing before I even learned to talk. They put me in some classes after I learned to walk, and I never looked back since. That’s what I love,” you said knowingly.

He gave you a small nod and continued staring at you, making you that much more nervous. Before he could ask you anything else, you threw a question in. Wanting to know about him.

“What about you? You aren’t from around here are you? Not with that southern accent you have. Where are you from?” you asked curiously.

“Austin, Texas,” he said with a thick accent coming off the s.

You nodded in response. You should’ve guessed that. Of course he was. How could you not hear it in that sultry southern accent?

“And what on earth made you move from Texas to New York? That’s quite the change,” you said questionably, observing his stature as he sat up just the tiniest bit straighter before he spoke.

“I found some high paying contract jobs up here and couldn’t pass ‘em up. Money was too good. Thought a change of scenery might do me some good too. Been in Texas all my life, wanted to see what else was out there.”

Made sense. “And now you’re working for the theater?” you asked with raised eyebrows. Questioning his choice in work.

“Stumbled upon them from a client of mine. Said they were lookin’ for someone to help keep the theater in one piece. Always needin’ something fixed. And the pay and benefits were worth it. So now I just do contract work on the side. Keeps me busy, but that’s how I prefer it,” he said straightforward as he took a swig of his water and sat back against the booth seat.

“I see. Well, I’m…” You stopped yourself from what you were about to say, biting your tongue as you felt the tinge of blood run down the back of your throat.

He raised an eyebrow and kinked his neck while his honey eyes bore into you. Making you gulp at the sight. “Well, go on. Finish your sentence,” he urged.

You took a breath and finished what you were holding back. “I’m glad you decided to come to New York.”

“And why’s that?” he asked as he leaned forward, elbows going on the table, and eyes growing darker. Making something stir deep inside you.

You leaned forward as well, digging your fingers into the cushioned material, getting a grip on yourself. “Because I met you…” you whispered bravely, staring up into those dark eyes that turned a bit more primal but yet stayed soft. Triggering heat inside your legs.

The waiter interrupted the tense moment and placed the food on the table, quickly disappearing once again. The suspense ended as you looked down at the glorious plate of food that sat in front of you. Carbs galore. Exactly what you were craving.

You didn’t waste a second as you dug your fork into the creamy noodles, scooping up a large amount and shoving into your mouth. You nearly moaned at the taste as the marinated noodles slid down your throat, the Alfredo sauce setting off all your taste buds into a frenzy. You scooped up more and pushed another fork full into your mouth, almost forgetting Joel was right in front of you.

You nearly coughed up your food as you looked up to see him watching you carefully, an amused look on his face. He wasn’t even touching his food yet. He was just sitting there watching you closely, while a noodle was hanging out of your mouth.

How embarrassing.

You quickly swallowed the noodles and wiped your mouth with your napkin, making sure there was no sauce left on your face. You were mortified at what he just saw. He probably thought you had no table manners. Christ. You did not want to give off a bad impression to him.

“Sorry, I got a little carried away. The food is absolutely sensational,” you stated quickly as your cheeks burned bright red.

He laughed a little at your hurried apology, his eyes glowing brightly as he watched you. “No need to apologize, sunshine. Glad ya like the food.”

There it was. That nickname. Sunshine. The one that pulled at your heartstrings and made you want to shriek with admiration.

God, he got you good.

Something shifted in his eyes as he watched you twirl the spoon in the bowl full of steaming noodles. A concerned, caring look. He leaned forward again and concentrated on your facial features.

“They’re starving you, aren’t they?” he asked with fleeting brown eyes, carefully registering your hesitation to the question.

“What? Well, I wouldn’t quite say it that way…” you said too quietly, digging your fork into a cooked piece of chicken.

“Don’t lie to me, sunshine,” he warned, a serious look glossing over his eyes, causing them to grow darker.

“They…well, they don’t really let me have breaks often when I’m at the theater. And by the time I do get to the break room, someone has already thrown my food out…”

He didn’t like that answer. Not one bit. You saw his jaw clench and his lip twinge, watching as the veins in his neck bulge.

Oh, no. He wasn’t just mad. He was furious.

He leaned all his weight into the table, leaning forward so you could look him straight in the eyes, making it known that he wanted you to pay attention. “From now on you leave your lunches with me. And you will have breaks,” he said with gritted teeth.

You gasped at the force in his voice, the way he was making it known that you would be taken care of. You were swooning then, loving how protective he was being.

“But Carlotta, she doesn’t let me…”

He cut you off quick. “I don’t give a fuck what she says,” he growled, nostrils flaring as his breath came out ragged. “You will eat and you will have breaks. I’ll make damn sure of that,” he promised with a thick, deep tone as his dark eyes penetrated straight through your walls, sending you into a spiral of overdrive. “Okay?”

“Okay…” you whispered. Slowly watching as his brooding eyes turn into softer chestnut colored eyes.

“Alright, well go on and eat. Don’t want your food gettin’ cold on ya.”

He was being so dominant. Dare you say even primal which sent a shot of warmth in between your thighs, making you squeeze your legs shut at the growing arousal that was building.

He was being so vigilant with you, so careful. You just couldn’t wrap your mind that this was actually happening. That he was happening. That he cared that much about what happened to you. This was all you ever wanted. He was what you needed. A protective, overbearing, gallant man. He was exactly what you pictured in your mind over the years. And it was happening.

This was happening.

You went back to eating your pasta, making sure you took slower bites, trying to savour the rich flavor in your watering mouth. You made sure to look up every few seconds to watch Joel down his spaghetti, watch as he twirled the long strings of noodles with his fork, trying not to drool at the way he was wiping the corner of his mouth with his thumb. Gaping at the way he licked his fingers clean from the red sauce. Wishing that those fingers were your own.

You didn’t realize you were staring until he cleared his throat, lurching you out of your mind numbing thoughts of the brooding man that sat in front of you. He smiled gently, the corners of his mouth crinkling up as he focused on you. Only you.

“How old are ya, sweetheart?” he asked with charm in his voice, a lilt that could hum you to sleep.

“25,” you answered as you smoothed a lock of hair behind your ear nervously. “And you? How old are you?” you asked with your ears practically perked up.

“How old do ya think I am?” he asked as he tilted his head in curiosity.

You slowly studied his features, gathering as much information as you could before you guessed a wrong number. You carefully examined him as if you were drinking him in. Taking in his sensuous big lips, going over the slight wrinkles that lined his forehead when he was tense or angry, holding yourself back from running your hands through his thick, tousled dark curls, lingering on the scruff that lined his jaw, noticing the patchy grey areas along his hair. Gazing over his calm, collected composure. Fixing your sight on those warm, inviting deep brown eyes that pulled you in. Nearly losing yourself in the way his bulky arms were clinging against his denim button up.

And then you made your assumption, finally feeling confident enough to guess an age. “38,” you said with finality in your voice.

“Good guess, but you’re wrong. I just turned 40,” he said with a smirk, leaning up against the side of the booth.

“Ahh. I was close enough,” you laughed quietly.

40 huh? The perfect age. Only 15 years older than you. And you were perfectly fine with that. You were always attracted to the older men. The way they were more experienced, knew what they wanted, were more confident, sophisticated, protective, handsome…

“That don’t bother ya now, does it? That I’m a little older?” he asked with concern flashing in his dark eyes.

“Not at all,” you said with a laugh, giving him your best smile.

“Good,” he stated, relaxing his shoulders at the answer.

You twirled your fork around a lone noodle, getting up the courage to ask your next question. You peered back up at him and asked before you lost your nerve. “You’re not seeing anyone…are you?” you asked with a nervous stutter.

“Now if I was seein’ anyone, would I be taking ya to dinner?” he asked with a raised brow, a mischievous look playing at his features. Making you gulp at the way he was looking at you.

Taking you out? Was this a date? Holy…

“Oh, I mean…I wasn’t sure. You’re uhhh…you just seemed like the type of guy to have someone is all,” you shrugged, cursing yourself for being a blubbering mess around him.

He laughed at your response, apparently finding you humorous by the way you were talking. “No, I’m not seein’ anyone. Haven’t had anyone in years,” he replied factually.

“Why not?” you asked timidly, your voice barely above a whisper.

“Guess I just didn’t find the right one,” he said matter of factly. But he was looking at you with such intensity that maybe he was insinuating that someone could be you. You gulped at the thought, your eyes going wide as you recomposed yourself.

“And yourself? Seein’ anyone?” he asked with a fixed gaze, twinging his lip as he waited for a response.

“No. Can’t say that I am.” You wanted to tell him that you were seeing someone. And that someone was him.

“A beautiful girl like you isn’t seein’ anyone? I see the way guys look at you. You could have anyone,” he stated, dropping his hand against the table, just slightly brushing against the outside of your hand, sending fire along your skin.

You laughed nervously and shook your head. “Guys don’t look at me like that.”

“Really? Cause I’m lookin’ at ya like that.”

You froze as his eyes flicked down to your lips and back into your eyes, fixing his stare on you. You swallowed trepidatiously and stared back at his burning gaze. Making you want to melt into those simmering eyes. He was the only man that mattered. The only one you wanted attention from. And you had his attention now.

The two of you continued dinner with flirtatious smiles and small talk about mutual hobbies and life in general. You probably stayed there for two hours, just losing yourself in conversation. When the waiter had come back, Joel paid for the check like the gentleman he was. You offered him some money to pay for your portion, but he declined. Saying a lady should never pay for her own meal.

He walked you back to your apartment which was only a couple of blocks from the theater. Joel walked on the outskirts of the curb, making sure you weren’t the closest one to the crowded street. He gently put his hand on the small of your back which sent goosebumps down the whole proximity of your arms, guiding you along back to your place.

The casual conversation continued as you carelessly let yourself relax around him. Fawning over how easy it was to talk to him. He told you about some of his goals in life, what he wanted to accomplish in the next five years and even told you about his daughter. Sarah was her name and she had just turned 18, just starting her first semester at Harvard which was impressive in itself. You should’ve known he was a parent. The way he was so overprotective should’ve said it all. Maybe you’d meet her one day. Assuming this was going in the way you wanted it to.

You finally made it to the dark blue front door of your apartment, stopping just before putting your hand on the handle and turning around to face Joel. “Thank you for today. Not just for the food. But also for defending me back at the theater.”

Joel looked carefully at you, a slight twinge in his upper lip as he moved a lock of hair behind your ear delicately. You leaned into his touch as his fingers trailed along your cheek, keeping his eyes fixed on you.

“It was nothing I wouldn’t do anything,” he said nonchalantly stepping even closer to you, crowding your space. You concentrated on keeping your breathing normal as your pulse picked up, alarming you of why he might be coming closer.

Was he going to kiss you?

He flicked his eyes over you languidly, stopping just short of where your lips curled up in a smile.

Oh my God, just do it already. Please. You were begging.

You bit your lip discreetly to stop the nerves that were racing through you. You counted to three in your head, trying to stop the pounding thoughts that were swirling through your head. Come on, Joel. Do it.

He looked like he was about to lean in, but instead he trailed his eyes back up to yours and gave you a tight smile. “Go get some rest, sunshine. I’ll see ya tomorrow.” He grazed his fingers underneath your chin and then turned to head back to his place. Leaving you with disappointment written all over your face.

You leaned your head back against the door and groaned. So close. He was so close. But that wasn’t enough. Not even close. You sighed and turned to unlock your door, stepping into the empty apartment that felt somewhat hollow now. You threw your keys against the kitchen counter and decided to get ready for bed. Pushing away the disappointment that was eating you alive.

That night you tossed and turned against your sheets, trying to get him out of your head, but it was no use. He was stuck like glue, a sticky substance that you couldn’t ever get rid of. When you finally got to sleep hours later, you dreamed of dark eyes and calloused hands encompassing you slowly.

The next day at the theater was different. Pierre didn’t do anything to make you mess up in practice. You got through every dance with him unscathed. You guessed Joel really got under his skin. Carlotta still made you run through the routines more than once, but it was tolerable. As long as Pierre wasn’t making you suffer, it’d be fine.

After getting done with one of your routines, you made your way to the side of the stage behind the crimson curtain so you could wait for your next dance. Taking a small rest between dances since you were not in this particular one.

As you rounded the corner, you came to a halt. There he was. The man with the tousled salt and pepper hair and broad shoulders stood feet from you. He was busy fixing up a broken board on one of the props for the show, using his rough hands to manhandle the jagged edges. Flexing his thick fingers around the wood, making his veins fully display across his massive arms.

You were biting your lip while you watched, pretending that it was your hips he was holding down and not the broken prop. He looked up from what he was working on and found your eyes, smiling gently with that sideways smirk you couldn’t get enough of.

He dropped what he was doing and put his full attention on you, taking a few steps in your direction. “Hi, sunshine,” he said in a low voice, making your insides quake against the sound.

“Hi,” you whispered, suddenly more nervous that you had ever been around him.

He trailed his eyes over your body, going from your tight swan bodice, down to your flowing, short see through skirt and over your white stockings that clung to your toned legs, ending at the polished, shiny ballet pointe shoes.

“You look nice today. That one of your costumes for the show?” he asked as he peered back up at you, taking another step towards you.

“Thanks, it’s part of Act 1, one of my main pieces,” you said nervously as you brushed back a flyaway strand of hair.

“Sure looks good on ya. Brings out the color of your eyes.”

Brings out of the color of your eyes? Okay, Cassanova. Keep talking.

“You think so?”

“Mhm,” he groaned with a low hum coming from his throat, making your toes curl in your tight shoes.

“What else?” you asked curiously.

“What else what?” he asked questioning you with the cock of his thick eyebrow.

“What else do you like about the dress?” you asked quietly, mustering up every ounce of courage you had.

“Hmmm,” he hummed, looking over you once more. Those dark eyes eating you alive.

“I like the way it matches your complexion, how it fits you perfectly.” He took another step closer, causing you to take a step back in response.

“What else?” you asked, pushing the limits as far as you could.

This time he took two steps, his eyes growing darker. That honey color turning into black colored coffee. “The way it hugs your curves in jus’ the right places. How the sheer skirt falls short against your thighs.”

He reached out a hand and trailed his fingers lightly over your hip, down to the top of your thigh. Making you gasp as he backed you up against a post, covered up by the crimson side curtain.

He took one step closer, and his tan work boots were toe to toe with your pointe shoes. He couldn’t get any closer. Not really. Not unless he leaned into you.

Please, you practically begged. Touch me.

“Anything else?” you asked in a trance like state, voice barely audible over the music that was playing on the stage.

He reached a hand up and brushed his fingers over your jaw, trailing it down to your chin, lifting your head where it was level with his mouth, making you inaudibly gasp at how close you were.

He smirked down at you, a smoldering, devilish smirk that could make you fall to your knees. It was that powerful. He was that powerful. He ran a calloused finger against your skin, torturing you with how intense he was looking at you. Making you want to pull his mouth to yours with how big and soft they looked.

“I like how the back of it laces up, how easy it’d be to slide on and off. How absolutely gorgeous you are right now…”

Oh.

He placed a hand on your hip, flexing his fingers against the smooth material. You could feel the burn of his calloused fingers through your dress, straight over your skin that was alight with arousal.

His other hand lifted your chin higher as he leaned in and ghosted his lips over yours, not quite touching but barely grazing the surface. Able to feel just how soft they really were.

“How easy I could do this,” he whispered as he moved his hand to the back of your neck, pulling you closer. So close. Almost fully contacting his lips. The tension was everywhere, encasing the air around you in a thick pool of arousal, fueling that chemistry, lighting a fire deep in your core.

“This what you want?” he asked with a low, raspy breath. That bedrooom voice returning in full force.

“Mhmm,” you moaned out, about to completely lose yourself in a pool of desire.

“Thought so,” he laughed, ghosting over you again, getting a hint of coffee breath from his mouth. Something you wanted to taste, drink down as you swallowed him whole.

“Joel…” you begged, grabbing a fistful of his plaid shirt, digging your fingers into him. Telling him exactly what you wanted.

“Sunshine,” he answered back with that low drawl, sending a wave of slick down your center.

He pulled your chin up again, this time not letting it fall. His pupils were blown out as his dark eyes stared at you, his eyes slowly going down to your lips, that primal desire flooding his features. Making you fucking feral for his touch. He trailed his thumb over your lower lip slowly, seductively. Teasing you in the best possible way.

He gazed into your eyes, so deep that you swore he could’ve seen right through you. Could’ve reached into your soul and taken every bit of you in that moment. And then he was moving his thumb down, leaving room for his own lips.

He flicked his eyes up to yours, asking you for approval before he put his lips on yours. You slowly nodded, giving him your full permission. A smoldering smirk ghosted over his mouth, and then he was leaning in, pulling at your hips and sinking you against his chest.

Before he could brush his lips against yours, you heard Carlotta scream in the auditorium. “Where is my swan? Get out here, you’re up! Hurry up now. We don’t have all day,” she yelled as her authoritative voice carried through the balcony, forcing Joel to stop in his tracks.

Damn it.

You internally groaned at how close Joel was, how close you were to getting exactly what you wanted. Until Carlotta ruined that moment completely.

“White swan!” she yelled again, this time her voice was more annoyed.

“Better go out there,” Joel whispered in a raspy voice. “They’re waiting,” he said quietly, still hooked around your hips, eyes devouring you.

You gulped and locked eyes with him. “You have to let me go first,” you said slowly, your breath coming out in waves.

“Oh. Right,” he said, fingers still digging into your side.

“Can someone please go find my swan? Time is being wasted!” she screamed at one of the other dancers, hearing their feet echo against the hard floor. Making you jump at the sound.

Joel slowly dropped his hand from you and took a step back, giving you room to breathe freely. Eyes still burning into you. Tempting you to go dance in the flames. You slowly backed up, drawing closer to the side opening to the stage, almost stepping into the light.

“Go knock ‘em dead, sunshine,” Joel whispered, making the floor feel like quicksand, threatening to take you under at any second.

You were still breathing heavy, eyes never leaving his, fingers flexing so hard against your skin you swore you were about to start feeling warm blood.

Once you stepped into the light Carlotta ripped into you. “Where have you been? I’ve been waiting!” She continued letting you have it, but you couldn’t hear her. Drowning out the distant screams to focus on the brooding man that stood feet away from you, still fixating his stare on you.

You turned and quickly apologized to Carlotta, getting into position to start your routine. Before the music started up, you turned your head slightly and peered up behind your long lashes, finding his gaze again.

And then the burn simmered over you. Scorching you alive.

There was nowhere to run or hide. Nowhere where you could kill the heat. It was too late. You were already consumed by the flames, doomed to incinerate to liquid. Branded by the man made of fire.

Part 3