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sometimesanalice · 1 year

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Like I Can (Part 3)

Summary: After yet another bad date and tired of swiping on apps, the Dagger Squad steps in to help you out by setting you up on a series of blind dates. Much to Rooster’s dismay.

Warnings: fluff, swearing, slight angst. Minors DNI

Length: 7.2K

Pairing: Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw X Female Reader

Part 1 | Part 2

(All’s well that ends well❣️ Enjoy!)

You’d been on edge all day.

Having slept terribly the night before, you’d woken up early and giving up on the idea of going back to sleep had ended up at a sunrise yoga class, hoping that some movement would help you clear your mind. By the end of the hour you were even more frustrated than you were before you arrived, the poses feeling unnaturally forced instead of flowing seamlessly as they usually did.

So much for some goddamn inner peace.

Work was even worse. You had arrived to find that the espresso machine was broken. And whoever made a pot on the ancient drip machine, that was undoubtedly pulled out of a dingy storage closet somewhere, clearly hated everyone else since it tasted like tar. You could barely focus enough to clear out your inbox, when your work nemesis started breathing down your neck about a proposal that wasn’t due for another two weeks.

Time was dragging on. And every time you looked at the clock thinking it had been at least an hour since you’d last checked, were continually shocked to see that barely fifteen minutes had passed by. Thankfully it was Friday, so your boss didn’t care when you called it a day and left at lunch. It was better for everyone this way.

You had tried painting your nails, but didn’t have the patience to let them dry and smudged them trying to open a package of crackers. Ignoring the crumbs that got everywhere as you ate them while working the cotton pad over the remnants of your pretty pink polish. Your new favorite show didn’t hold your attention like it usually did and you found yourself mindlessly scrolling on your phone, missing most of the plot you’d had to restart it. Twice.

Not even the scenic drive along the coast to the restaurant you were supposed to meet your date at had done anything to alleviate your nerves.

You had been surprised at the choice of location when you had received the text message with the information about this particular date. As much as you enjoyed going to the Hard Deck, you were very much looking forward to drinking something other than a beer. Sure, Penny could make a mean spicy margarita, but sometimes an overpriced aesthetically pleasing cocktail just hit the spot better than anything else.

But most of all, you were thankful for a change of pace and the privacy this offered you. You had never been one for the spotlight, and dating on display had left you feeling drained.

You’re sitting in a surprisingly comfortable wooden wicker dining chair on the outdoor patio of the new trendy fusion restaurant you’ve been dying to come to. From your spot tucked away in the corner you can see the ocean waves rolling in and back out again. The golden rays already promising a stunning sunset later in the evening.

The foliage of the giant potted monsteras and birds of paradise made the terrace feel like a lush oasis, and contrasted stylishly against the large painted terracotta tiles on the ground. The pergola that covered it was dotted wisteria amongst the other climbing greenery, and numerous oversized hanging rattan sconces. The dainty lights woven throughout reflecting off the wine glasses on the table.

This was exactly what you needed. Too bad you couldn’t let yourself enjoy it, the twisted knots in the pit of your stomach had served a constant reminder of your nerves all day.

You had used this date as an excuse to finally buy the deep green floral dress you’d had your eye on for ages. The gentle drape of the neck was subtly sophisticated, while the high slit on the side added some serious sex appeal.

There was nothing wrong with a little retail therapy you had told yourself as you’d swiped your credit card. If you looked good, maybe it would help you to feel good.

In all honesty, it probably had a little too much sex appeal since you couldn’t stop fidgeting in your chair trying to get the silky dress cover up more of your thigh that was currently displayed rather provocatively. It felt like the more you tried to get it to lay right the more of your leg was exposed.

It probably didn’t help that you couldn’t stop the restless bouncing of your leg. You weren’t usually an antsy person, leg bouncing had always been more of Rooster’s anxious habit than yours.

Maybe you’ll feel less exposed once you draped the linen napkin across your lap. You’re tempted to do it now, but you don’t want to disturb the artfully laid out tablescape before your date has arrived.

It had been three weeks of back to back truly terrible dates. You could see the finish line now, but you couldn’t say that it wasn’t wearing on you. It had sounded like fun in theory, but now you weren’t so sure you would said yes again if you were offered a do-over.

You were tired.

Tired of going through the motions with men who could hardly be bothered to do the bare minimum. Tired of trying to sell the best version of yourself. Tired of putting on a show when all you wanted to find was an easy kind of love.

And this particular date had you more on edge and anxious than any of the other ones you’d gone on.

Even if you were pressed, you could not remember a single thing about the guy Payback had set you up with on your most recent blind date.

That evening you hadn’t even bothered trying to put together a cute outfit for the meeting. Instead, the only real effort you’d opted to put in was painting your lips a bright red as an attempt to psych yourself up for it. You didn’t usually wear such a bold color, but when you did it never failed to make you feel more brilliant.

And while you couldn’t remember anything about your date, what you did vividly remember was the fight you got into with Rooster that night.

You had been coming back from the restroom and on your way back to your date when you had bumped into him rounding the corner.

“Sorry, that was my fault,” he’d said as he reached out to steady you with hand going to your waist, dropping it once he realized it was you. “Oh, hey.”

Glancing over to your date who seemed absorbed in some game he was playing on his phone, you figured he wouldn’t miss you if you spent a few extra minutes away to catch up with Rooster.

He had been acting really distant lately, taking a couple days to respond to texts rather than a couple of hours like it usually took him. Natasha had told you about the rigorous training they were being put though, and you had assumed it probably had something to do with that. However, you couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off between you two.

Rooster was already pulling away from you and taking a step towards the bar when you reached out grabbing his wrist to keep him with you. Looking around for a quiet place to talk, you’d heard him sigh behind you, but still held on to him as you made your way to one of the high-top tables in the corner by the empty stage.

You’d stopped and let go as you turned towards him, only to find him already looking at you with an expression that landed somewhere between expectant and exasperated. The cuffs of his shirt straining around his biceps as he crossed his arms over his chest.

“Well?” he grunted out.

Was he mad at you? You couldn’t think of any recent arguments you’d had recently that would explain the harsh tone he was using with you.

“Is everything ok? I feel like you’ve been really off lately. You know I’m always here for you, right?” Your hand was already reaching out to touch him, but you resisted the urge not wanting to further agitate him.

“Nothing’s wrong. I’m surprised you even have time to talk to me with all these washouts you’ve been wasting your time on. You’re the one with the busy social calendar, not me.” He was looking over the top of your head avoiding your gaze now, the bitterness in his voice had stunned you.

“Seriously? What is the matter with you?”

He’d never been so intentionally callous with you before and it hurt.

“Listen, if there is an issue me dating the people your friends have been setting me up with, you need to let me know,” you’d said pointing a firm finger at him, your anger rising. “This was supposed to be a fun no pressure situation, but I don’t want to be in the middle of this if things are getting heated between you guys. It’s not worth it to me. But you don’t get to ignore me for days and then claim that I’m the one avoiding you.”

He made a noise of frustration as he dragged both hands through his curls. You could see the flex of his jaw as he’d clenched his teeth together.

“Look, I’m sorry,” he ducked down to that his eyes were level with your, and you could see the remorse in them. “You’re right, that was shitty of me to take it out on you. I’m just… tired.”

You’d simply nodded at him, feeling like you weren’t on the same page as him didn’t sit well with you. “Phoenix told me about your new training program, it seems intense,” your voice sounded small even to your own ears.

“Yeah, the training,” he’d sighed out pausing for a moment as he weighed his words, rubbing at his chest, “It’s taking a toll on me, but that’s my problem. I mean it, I’m sorry.”

“Are we good?” you searched his eyes, your friendship with him was so important to you.

“You and me? We’re good, kid. Always.” He’d reached out and squeezed your shoulder before heading back to where the group was gathered together pretending like they weren’t just watching your argument play out.

Needless to say, your head was somewhere elsewhere entirely as you made your way back to your date. You’d felt bad being so distracted, but your mind just kept playing the argument on repeat. It was like your brain was trying to pull apart every little word to decode something that you didn’t think was there.

After Payback’s friend had left, you rejoined everyone else around the pool table. You couldn’t tell if the mood was off or if it was just you reading into things, since they hadn’t been prodding you with questions like they usually did.

Natasha was in the middle of giving you a glowing review of the man she had been bragging about since she first offered to set you up, when Rooster came to sit with you both.

“He’s just your type. He’s an engineer, so he’s smart. He’s got that whole glasses wearing and floppy hair thing going for him. And he’s funny. Rumor has it that he talked back to his Rear Admiral one time and got away with it because the guy had found him amusing. I fully expect you to name one of your future children with him after me.”

Rooster had surprised the pair of you when he stood up so violently that he almost knocked over the beers on the table.

“What the fuck, Bradshaw?” Nat had exclaimed as you both worked to rescue the teetering bottles from becoming casualties from his sudden movement.

You had no idea what he was going to say as an explanation for why he’d jumped out of his seat the way he did, but what he ended up unexpectedly announcing instead of answering Nat’s question had sent you into a tailspin.

So now here you are in a restaurant you’d be dying to go to, fidgety and anxious in a probably-too-expensive-and-probably-too-provocative dress for a first date with the guy who Rooster was willing to break his long-standing rules for to set you up with.

To say you were feeling the pressure was an understatement. No one knew you like Rooster did. He’d seen you at your best and at your worst. He wouldn’t just pick any random guy he knew, he would be picking the one who he thought would be the best for you.

The thought should be comforting, but you couldn’t shake the feeling of uneasiness.

You pick up your phone again and double check the time in the text that Rooster had sent you with all the details for your date with his friend.

It was either that do that again or moving the ever-so-slightly crooked gold salad fork back into place.

You’re about to open Instagram for the third time since you sat down, turning when you hear a throat clear purposely behind you.

“Hey, sweet girl.”

For Rooster, when you’d first agreed to participate in the bet with his friends those dates started off as annoying inconveniences. Just inconsequential disruptions that got in the way of his time with you.

You were his best friend and at his bar, yet he felt like he’d hardly seen you these past couple of weeks- or at least not as much as he would have liked.

Sure, he got some time with you here and there at the end of the night like when you had late night tacos on the beach. Or when he’d taught you his favorite pool trick, well more like attempted to teach you, he loved how stunningly bad you were at the game. But he felt like he was competing with these idiots his friends had picked out for your time and your attention.

He wasn’t used to sharing you. In the past, if you had a date that conflicted with something spontaneous he wanted to do or something that the group had planned together, more often than not he could get you to move it or cancel completely.

He’d never been above a little bribery to get his way, he knew what you liked.

You going on dates wasn’t a new concept to him, but seeing them paraded in front of him was a different story. And he was getting really tired of watching you from across the bar while feeling like you were out of reach.

The more of them you went on, and the more he heard Natasha crowing about having the perfect man for you the more agitated he felt. The worse that feeling in the pit of his stomach got.

The evening of date for Payback’s pick, they’d all seen you walk in through the doors of the Hard Deck wearing that shade of red lipstick. You’d wore it so well. His friends had immediately started speculating about what it meant. Phoenix had called them all idiots, and while he couldn’t claim to know anything about make-up and those things, he did know you didn’t just wear that color for no reason.

He had vague memories of his mom putting the color on when they’d go greet his dad, at least he like to think those were his memories. Or maybe they were just something he’d created in his head from all the time he had spent looking at old photos of his mom and dad together, her smile always outlined in the color. His favorite was the one where his dad’s cheeks were covered in bright red lipstick kisses as he smiled indulgently down at his mom while a young Bradley was propped on her hip clutching his prized F-14 Tomcat. He had that one framed on the end table next to his couch.

And seeing that color on you for a date with this random guy had rattled him.

He’d felt so terrible later that evening when he took those feelings out on you. Hating himself as he lashed out at you. Hating himself as he saw your face fall and the hurt in your eyes. Hating himself for being the person who made you feel bad.

And the crux of it all was that you weren’t wrong, he had been deliberately distant by being slow to reply and ignoring texts from you. He wasn’t proud of it, but he didn’t know what else to do. He’d hoped by creating some space that it would help him to try and get his head back on straight.

He’d let you assume that he was tired from the new training program they were being put through. What he didn’t tell you was that he was already outperforming everyone on the team, and that he hadn’t had to do any extra push-ups in a week and a half.

He was tired because he hadn’t been sleeping, and he couldn’t sleep because every time he tried to close his eyes all he could see was you on these dates. Replaying them in his mind’s eye wondering what the outcome would have been had they not gone so terribly wrong each time.

The what-ifs swarming around his brain day and night like agitated hornets.

While he had been quick to apologize for being a dick, the sharp pain that settled behind his sternum wouldn’t subside no matter how much he had tried to rub it away.

He didn’t know what was more unbearable, the idea of losing you to a chance encounter of circumstance. Some meet cute courtesy of the universe that he couldn’t see coming until it was too late, when it’s already too far out of his hands and out of his control. To see you grinning that smile so bright, the one so wide it made your dimples appear, as you introduced that guy to him.

Or sitting here night after night analyzing every little thing as you date the people some of his closest friends had picked out for you. Watching and hoping that these dates would just be funny stories you told on drunken nights out rather than the story told at your wedding about the night that everything changed when you met your person. Of having to be happy for you even as you pull away from him.

His ears were ringing and he’d felt his stomach drop.

He could see it now, a day when your life ran parallel to his rather than entwined as he was used to. Of you with a partner. With children. Of him as ‘Uncle’ Rooster, demoted to the rank of ‘longtime friend of the family’ rather than a core member of it.

The thought of it making him feel sick.

All evening he had been moving around like a ghost completely lost to the thoughts in his head, but now it felt like he’d been shocked by a live wire. He’d pretty much jumped out of the chair he had just settled in, almost knocking the beers in front of him off the table completely.

“I want in, I’ll do it,” he’d blurted out, interrupting the conversations that had continued on around him while he had been spiraling. “This whole thing has been a complete shit show. I can’t watch this anymore. I know a guy, I’ll set it up. I’m in.”

His hands were sweating as he hoped no one would call his bluff. He’d made it a point to actively avoid looking at you. You had such an uncanny way of reading him.

“I don’t know, Bradshaw. You’re a little late to the game, aren’t you? I’ve been saving the best for last, and I’m ready to collect my winnings.” He’d expected some shit from Hangman, but he never would have guessed it’d come from Phoenix.

Feeling his anger flare up, he reached into his back pocket and fished out a $100 bill from his worn leather wallet, double the original entry fee. He slapped it down on the table, leaving no room for any further discussion, “I’m the one setting her up for the next date.”

He’d caught a look between Hangman and Phoenix, but he couldn’t be bothered to read into it as he tried to keep his temper in check.

He wouldn’t lose you. Not to someone who didn’t deserve you, especially when he already knew the person who could make you happy.

“Alrighty,” Jake had drawled out, as he pocked the bill. “Looks like we have another player. I look forward to taking your money.”

He’d extended his hand out and they’d all shook on it, reaching Phoenix last her grip firm and her smile sharp. And that was that.

Now he was here at the new popular restaurant he’d heard you talking about a few weeks ago, his feet cemented to the tiles beneath him just gazing at you.

He could tell from where he was standing behind you that you were nervous by the way you were opening and closing apps without truly looking at anything. He knew it was a habit of yours when you were feeling anxious, something for your hands to do as you tried to distract yourself.

He had sweet talked the hostess over the phone into reserving the best spot on the outdoor terrace, and you looked so beautiful sitting there wearing his new favorite color. Your hair is held back by a delicate golden clip on one side leaving the line of your neck exposed, the sea breeze picking up a few wisps. It makes his teeth ache with want.

He knew you were gorgeous, he’d stared down enough men at the Hard Deck to know that others thought so too. However, he’d never let himself sit with those thoughts for too long, not trusting himself to keep his mind from wandering.

You were his best friend.

And best friends don’t think about how the other would look so perfect in their bed, that pretty green dress forgotten on the floor.

Best friends don’t think about how perfect you would look under his arm.

Best friends don’t think about how perfect you would look with his ring on your finger.

Best friends don’t think about how perfect you are for him.

Best friends don’t think about how perfect he is for you.

Him.

It was a good thing he didn’t want to just be your best friend anymore.

He’d already done too much thinking, done too much waiting. He wasn’t going to miss his moment.

Taking one more deep breath, he made his way to you.

“Rooster? What are you doing here?” He was the last person you’d expected to see when you turned your head to see who had been trying to get your attention, “Are you ok? What’s wrong?”

Did he get emergency orders? Did your date get in an accident?

Your anxiousness was quickly morphing into panic, you’re already half way out of your seat when he puts his hand on your shoulder, his thumb stroking the skin there reassuringly.

He is standing there looking completely at ease, as if he belonged there, “Nothing’s wrong, sweet girl.”

And there it was again, you hadn’t been sure if your ears were playing tricks on you the first time he’d said it. That simple term of endearment silencing the alarm bells that were going off in your head, the edges of the lush restaurant softening around everything except him.

“Your mom always called me that,” you say softly.

You cherished all the memories you had with Carole, the woman who had been such a significant figure in your life for so long. You knew your mom still sent Rooster a cake every year to celebrate her birthday from whatever bakery was closest to wherever he was stationed.

“I know, I remember,” his voice so warm and deep, “She loved you.”

He says it so simply, so sincerely. As if his presence here hasn’t just completely untethered you and sent you adrift in a sea of bewilderment.

The writhing snake that had made a home all day in the pit of your stomach finally disappeared, only to be replaced with the fluttering of wings that you were desperately trying to ignore.

You’d been so shocked when Rooster had exclaimed that he was going to set you up with someone, your mind had been whirling so much at the time you could barely focus on anything that had been said in the aftermath of his announcement. Maybe you had missed some caveat he’d come up with for his participation in the bet? That could make sense, considering how adamant he had always been in the past about never getting involved in your love life.

He was standing there looking so good in his best short-sleeved button up shirt, the one that was scattered with vibrant palm leaves that fit snugly against his body. And wearing the white slacks that usually had you looking anywhere else in the room to avoid acknowledging the way they clung to your best friend’s thighs and ass. If only he knew how weak they made you.

There just has to be a logical reason for why he’s here, but the soft smile on his face was rendering your brain uncooperative.

You were getting tired of feeling like you were missing something that should be so obvious, “My date is supposed to be here soon, are you going to hover in the back like you have been at the Hard Deck? Or are you just planning on pulling up a chair and third wheeling up close and personal?”

“Why would I need an extra chair,” he asks as he pulls it out and eases his large frame down onto the wicker seat, “When mine’s already free?”

You move to open your mouth when the waitress arrives, asking if you had your drink orders selected.

“I’ll do the Bourbon Sidecar. You feelin’ like a gin, sweet girl?” You just nodded at him mutely, still desperately trying to catch up. “And the Clover Club for her, please.”

It’s what you were planning on ordering to calm your first date jitters before had Rooster arrived and sent you into a complete tailspin. He hadn’t even looked at the thick textured cardstock of the drink menus that were strategically placed just to the right of the golden soup spoons on the artfully laid out table.

The butterflies were threatening to break free from the tightly locked cage you had attempted to shove them in.

The waitress took down the drinks, and you watched her as she crossed the patio pausing to tap away on the screen of their POS, trying to give yourself a few more moments to collect your thoughts.

“Bradley. I don’t understand, what’s going on?” He’s sitting there looking so secure, so steadfast, so sure.

His cheek ticks up, “I like it when you call me Bradley. Why did you stop calling me that when you moved out here?”

“You’re avoiding the question.”

“Why did you stop calling me Bradley when you moved out here?” he asks again, leaning in. How does he expect you to answer a question, when your mind is going 1,190 miles an hour?

“I don’t know,” you start with a halfhearted shrug. “You’ve made a name for yourself in the Navy, you are ‘Rooster’ to everyone here.” You open your mouth to say more, before closing it quickly.

“There’s more going on in that head,” you feel his foot reach out tapping against yours under the table, before leaving it there a steady presence. “Tell me.”

You know you can tell him anything, but this feels different.

The intensity of his stare has you fighting the flush you feel spreading across your cheeks.

It wasn’t something that you’d ever given much thought to before, but you know if you answer truthfully now that he’s asked you it’s going to leave you feeling more exposed than you’ve ever been with him.

You sit up more fully in your chair deciding to be brave, “I mean, we haven’t really truly been in the same place since we were teens, and things are so different now. It was easier to start calling you ‘Rooster’ or ‘Bradshaw’ like everyone else, because it didn’t make me feel like I was piece from a different puzzle trying to force myself into a new picture. I wanted to fit into the life that you’ve built here, to feel like I still have a place with you as you are now.”

You’re actively fighting to keep your eyes on his. It would be so easy to look away or to laugh off your confession, but for whatever reason, you don’t want to take the easy out.

“I never knew you felt like that, but I wish I had,” the look in his eyes is softer than anything you’ve ever seen from him before. “I like being Bradley to you, I want to be Bradley to you. You aren’t just a piece to me, you’re the whole picture. You’ve always had a place here, exactly as you are you are now.”

It’s never been like this between the two of you. It feels like you both are saying too much and not enough all at the same time. As much as you find yourself wanting to sink into these intoxicating yet unfamiliar feelings, you know you’re still holding yourself back.

God, he is so handsome. You had been right, the sunset that was just starting was stunning, but the way golden beams were hitting the lightened strands of his curls was spectacular.

You’re almost too afraid to ask, but it’s unbearable not knowing, “Why are you here right now, Bradley?”

Of course, the waitress chooses that moment to return with the drinks.

She sets them down in front of you, the skewered raspberries sitting daintily on the side of your glass are suddenly the most fascinating thing in the room. You vaguely hear him saying you both need more time and that he’ll flag her down when you’re ready to order.

He waits for her to leave to attend to her other tables before turning his heady gaze on you once again.

“I thought I’ve been making my intentions pretty clear here, sweet girl.”

He takes a sip of his Sidecar before continuing, the slight bounce of his leg the only thing giving him away that he might not be as self-assured as you’d originally thought, “I’m here for our date.”

There’s no hope of containing the butterflies now. You’re a lost cause.

“Bradley.” You can only imagine the emotions he is reading on your face. It would absolutely break your heart if this was some kind of bad joke.

“He’ll never love you like I can.”

“What?” you ask sounding every bit as dazed as you feel.

“Sorry, sorry,” he says shaking his head slightly, huffing out a little laugh at himself, “I got ahead of myself.”

You watch as he resituates himself in the chair, wiping his hands on the front of his slacks before restarting.

“Watching you on those dates has been hell, I don’t want to be jealous of some guy you gave a second glance. I don’t want hold back, not when we can be so much more,” he reaches across the table, taking your hand between his two large ones, “I thought having you as a friend was enough for me, but how am I supposed to sleep at night knowing that I could be the one who makes you happy and then do nothing about it? That I’m the only one who can love you the way you deserve to be loved?”

You’ve always known he’s cared for you, that was unquestionable, but to be loved by Bradley Bradshaw? It was something you’d never let yourself imagine, let alone dared to hope to for. It had been kinder to spare yourself from the heartache that came with hope. But now? With him sitting right here in front of you saying you could have him like this?

Was this how he felt flying in his F-18 every day?

He gets up and rounds the table coming to your side, hooking an ankle around the tapered leg of your chair pulling you out a bit. You’re suddenly very thankful for the probably-too-expensive-and-probably-too-provocative for a first date dress you purchased when you see the way his rich brown eyes turn molten as he gets a glimpse of your exposed thigh.

He settles into a crouch before you, his warm hands seeking out both of yours, “You don’t need Phoenix or anyone else to set you up, because he’ll never love you like I can. Let me show you how good it can be. Let me be it for you, sweet girl.”

The man in front of you is everything you could have ever possibly wanted for yourself. And to be the one who could get to keep him forever? There’s no doubt in your mind, it’s worth everything.

You’re sure you will have to have a more serious conversation about what this means for the two of you, but that can wait for another time when he’s not in front of you with his eyes so earnest. So hopeful. To another time when he’s not wearing his heart on his sleeve as he patiently waits for any kind of response from you.

It would be so easy to lean in and kiss him right now.

So easy to learn what that mustache would feel like against your skin.

To learn how his lips and tongue would feel against your own.

To learn how his mouth would move with yours.

But what’s a couple more hours when you’ve had years to build up to it.

“Well then, Lieutenant. I guess you better show me how it’s done,” you bring your hand up to cup his face, your thumb gently stroking along his cheekbone. “But I’m warning you now, I fully intended to give you as good as I get.”

Being on the receiving end of a Rooster smile was something special, but it had nothing on the beaming grin that Bradley Bradshaw is giving you now.

“I wouldn’t expect anything else from you,” he says as he lands a lingering kiss on your cheek before standing and pushing your chair back in for you. “You’ve always known how to keep me on my toes.”

He returns back to his surprisingly comfortable wooden wicker chair, stretching his leg to rest it against yours. When the waitress comes back you both end up picking your meals at random, having been too absorbed with each other to actually bother reading the menu.

You’d barely eaten all day because of the knots in your stomach, and now you were starving. Thankfully, Bradley at least had the commonsense to ask the waitress to pick her favorite dish as a third entrée “for the table”.

It feels the same in many ways, he knows what to say to make you laugh and what to bring up to get you fired up. And you know what questions to ask to keep him talking and how to push his buttons just right.

But it’s also different when he doesn’t bother to hide his knowing smirk every time he catches you looking at his lips. And it’s even better when you don’t bother trying to hide yours when you catch him doing the same.

Afterwards, he takes your hand in his as you slowly make your way to the parking lot, his fingers lacing between your own. He surprises you when he leans against the Bronco, murmuring something about not wanting to let your pretty dress get dirty. His long legs extended wide as an invitation for you to come stand between them, his strong hands stroking the silky material of your dress on your hips as you step closer.

You’ve been ignoring the pull low in your stomach all evening, the tension between you two the most luscious feeling you’ve ever experienced. The combination of his heat, his woodsy smell, the headiness of his gaze on you almost too overwhelming.

Almost.

Your hands settle on his broad chest, playing with the button of his shirt now a bit nervous. Your faces closer than you’ve ever allowed them to be before. If what you’re hearing is the sound of the waves or the roaring of the blood in your ears, you couldn’t say.

You know he is waiting for you to make the first move. You see the moment when he’s about to say something, knowing him the words would be wonderfully reassuring and perfectly Bradley.

Why would you want to talk when his mouth was already waiting like a question. Why would you want to talk when you could learn what it’s like kiss him instead?

So you do.

When your lips meet his for the first time it feels like the sweetest kind of devotion.

bradleybradleybradley

His mustache scratching satisfyingly at the skin of your upper lip. His mouth tasting like the Sidecars he sipped on throughout the night and something that was just fundamentally Bradley.

Your hand moves on its own to stroke the side of his neck, your fingers seeking out the line of the longest scar that adorns his skin there from that night all those years ago.

Your heart is beating wildly in your chest as he licks his lips before bringing his face down to yours again. Your other hand tightly clutching his shirt in anticipation.

He’s always been so in tune with you, so when he tilts your head just right before leaning into the kiss it feels like a homecoming.

thisthisthis

One of Bradley’s hands makes its way up your back, pressing you closer to him as the other bands more securely around your waist. And when his tongue skims your lower lip, you sigh into his waiting mouth thankful for his strong grasp on you.

Nothing your mind could have imagined would have ever come close to the perfection that is Bradley Bradshaw’s mouth moving against yours. Nothing has ever felt so good, so right.

When he pulls away, you’re both over fighting back the smiles that feel like have been permanently fixed on your faces all evening.

“I’m don’t want to call it a night yet,” he tells you, as he brushes the hair back from your face. His smile turning playful, “What do you say, kid? Wanna go get some milkshakes?”

“Depends,” you reply cheekily, “Can I drink it in the Bronco?”

Wrapping both arms around his neck you draw him back in towards you again.

“Anything you want, sweet girl,” he promises against your lips.

The next night at the Hard Deck, you entered the bar with Bradley’s arm draped your shoulders.

His team whooping loudly when you pull him in for a kiss as he handed you a Blue Moon. They’d declared the drinks were on Bradley that night as they’d swarmed you both in celebration. Maverick pulls you aside to give you a warm hug, whispering “I knew you’d get here” in your ear before releasing you.

Now that you had let yourselves cross that line from friends to more, the pair of you are entirely too aware of the other. Never content to be too far away from the other. Your eyes like magnets, each seeking out the other to find them already looking back.

There’s nothing friendly about the way he has his hands on your waist. Nothing neighborly in the way his hands rub your shoulders. Nothing platonic in the way he rests one hand on the back of your neck, his thumb making teasing circles.

And there’s nothing friendly about the way you run your hands through his curls when he’s at the piano. Nothing neighborly in the way you slide your hand into his back pocket. Nothing platonic in the way you rest your hand on his chest, your finger tracing the line of his collarbone.

It has always been so easy with him, even as you explore in this new area of your relationship.

You’d been orbiting around each other all night, when Jake yelled out to heckle you both about indecent exposure, threatening to call his cop friend if Bradley didn’t “get his ass over to the pool table in the next thirty seconds.”

He’d peppered your face with kisses before you’d shooed him away, laughing when you realized he had swiped your beer and had taken it with him.

“So you and Bradshaw,” Natasha states as she settles down next to you.

That makes you smile.

“Yeah, me and Bradley.”

How could you have possibly thought you’d want anyone else other than him? You were a goner from the moment you’d turned and saw him standing there at the restaurant. Your golden boy.

You turn towards her, putting a hand on her arm, “I’m sorry that you didn’t get a fair shot at the bet. I really do appreciate the effort you all went through. I mean, Bradley would have had it in the bag anyways. But still–”

“Oh, don’t worry about it,” she waves a hand, cutting you off, “We had a team meeting and changed the rules of the bet anyways. I still won, so it’s all good.” Her smile was nothing less than mischievous.

“Wait, what?”

“We could all see from Rooster’s reaction during that disaster of a first date with all the dogs that he was completely hung up on you. We didn’t want to wait for him to figure it out, so we decided to adjust the terms a bit to help him out,” she laughs at your clearly baffled expression. “We reached out to the cringiest people we knew and set you up with them instead. And then took bets on how long it would take Rooster to get his head out of his ass and go get his girl.”

“Oh my god, seriously?” The revelation has you bursting out in laughter.

“Yep, well except for Bob. His date was a genuine accident, bless him. I’ll be honest, I didn’t even bother reaching out to anyone. I was betting on Rooster getting it together before I needed to step in,” she explains while wearing the most self-satisfied smirk on her face.

Of course Natasha Trace had bet on him. On you.

You couldn’t wait to tell Bradley how you had both been so absolutely played by his team.

You loved these people. You loved your life here in San Diego.

“I’d apologize for putting you through all that, but it looks like it worked out well in the end,” she says knowingly nodding her head towards him.

You’re fully watching him now as he bends over the pool table looking amused at something that Hangman says.

Bradley looks up catching your eye and shoots a wink in your direction, a grin taking over his whole face. You already know you’re wearing a matching one.

“I wouldn’t change a single thing.”

Thank you so much for all the love on this one! I’ve loved sharing this journey with you all! Happy Valentine’s Day Everyone!

If you want to know what happens next for these two you can check out my masterlist!

Written as part of @roosterforme’s #Love Is In The Air TGM Fic Challenge!

Song Inspiration Sam Smith’s “Like I Can”.

Thank you Jordan (@gretagerwigsmuse) as always for being the ultimate hype girl!

Taglist:

@sehnsuchts-trunken @top-hhun-main @itscheybaby @prettylittlelauraa @startrekfangirl2233 @marantha @callsign-viper @teacupsandtopgun @itsizzythebell @shanimallina87 @angelbabyange @boltgirl426 @oneelleandaneye @mizzzpink @cornishkat @torres-espana @uzumegui @dont-talk-me-down @fandomunite2107 @alana4610 @20th-centu-fairy-girl @pariahsparadise @pono-pura-vida @donttouchmycarrots @nina-sj @eg-dr3amer3 @whaledots-blog @a-beaverhausen @misty-inferno @angellwingsss @hangmanscoming @mandolin22 @theweekndhistorybook @lilpeekabooze @high-bi-imgonnacry @ahintofkiwistrawberry @mrsdaamneron @ruewrote @spiderman-stilinski @jayniebop @melllinaa @my-soulmate-is-mycroft @mandolin22 @imaginecrushes @soleilgrec @keyrani @finelytaylored @phantomxoxo @viridianphtalo @chicomonks @artemissunn @hey-assbutt35 @mayempress @eddiemunsonreader @averyhotchner @caatheeriinee07 @rileyanntoinette @lublycho

#bradley bradshaw x reader #bradley bradshaw imagine #bradley bradshaw fanfiction #bradley bradshaw x you #top gun fanfiction #bradley rooster bradshaw x reader #bradley rooster bradshaw x you #rooster x reader #rooster x female reader #rooster x you #top gun maverick fanfiction #bradley bradshaw fic #bradley bradshaw #bradley rooster bradshaw #love is in the air tgm #like i can tgm

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foxymoxynoona · 6 days

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Over the Falls (Ch. 5)

Sexy Banner & bar by @borabae-gx

Summary: Jungkook sees a lot of things as a pool tech. It’s… fine. It pays the bills between mornings on the water and evenings rocking out with his garage-band. His favorite thing to see on the job has been Grace Birch –older but a hottie, wealthy but nice, and unfortunately very married. At least until Grace learns what her husband has been up to behind her back. Now that she’s free, Jungkook finds himself wondering: what does it take for a guy like him to catch the eye of a woman like that?

Genre: Poolboy Jungkook x Rich Divorcee OC

Tags: Age gap (older woman), socioeconomic gap, Surferboy JK, drummer/guitarist/vocalist JK, Wealthy divorcee OC, househusband

CW: Mature/Explicit, Infidelity (not between JKxOC), language, alcohol, recreational drugs, lots of explicit sex, ageist/racist/classist remarks down the road, outdoor sex, beach sex

Chapter Four | Masterlist | Chapter Six

The scent of coffee wafted around the kitchen, the gurgle and sigh of the Keurig tinkling coffee into her mug. For a moment, Cafe Bustelo overpowered the smell of drying paint. She dragged her finger impatiently along the warming mug, her nail catching the glaze coating the blues and browns of the stoneware ceramic. She’d bought a set of these when Tim had dragged her along to Germany one year –ostensibly for business meetings but shockingly they all took place at Oktoberfest events and the most expensive BierHalls to be found in Munich. Grace had spent most of her time wandering the museums and historic churches and a lively marketplace where she’d found the handmade mugs.

She loved those mugs. She decided they made her think of beauty and independence and times when she had made the most of being dragged around as a trophy by her ex-husband, so the mugs were allowed to stay. The other option would have been to donate them; no way would she have allowed Tim to keep something she’d carefully selected for its beauty, which he refused to use because “it’s like drinkings from rocks.”

The second the coffee was done, she snatched the mug up and breathed the scent deep into her lungs. This was one of the small things she was trying to make more space for in her life: the scent of coffee, the crisp look of freshly done nails, the warmth of a steamy bath at the end of the day, perhaps with a glass of wine and a mystery novel perched on the edge.

She glanced at her nails, then turned her grip on the mug so she couldn’t see them. Her nail tech was going to have a fit. They were a mess, but she didn’t see the point of getting them fixed until she was done with the cabinets. Which would be soon!

She tentatively touched the doorless cabinet above her, testing the dryness of the most recent coat of paint. One more, she felt like, and probably the same for the cabinet doors that had been outside drying overnight. The new hardware sat in a box on the marble counter. She couldn’t wait to screw those in and put the doors back on. Having work finished on a central room was going to feel so fucking good.

The rest of the house seemed to call to her, reminding her of all the in-progress things standing between her and her finished home. But at least she was almost to the fun part, the filling out part. The walls and ceilings, once dark and oppressive, were now white and taupe throughput, a much more fitting canvas for the art she intended to collect. There would be furniture to buy once the floor guy was finished restaining all the wood, and plants to tuck everywhere she could fit them, and functional space to fill out. When she hosted, did she expect folks to congregate in the living room or the dining room or the deck? What would she need to make them comfortable?

It was easy for her daydreams to run away with her and to feel impatient about it. She was trying to romanticize and enjoy, but the truth was she felt late to be starting a new life from scratch. She’d already done this! She’d already worked so hard to make dreams a reality… Sometimes starting fresh was fun and at other times utterly demoralizing.

The remodel of the master bedroom and bathroom were the most frustrating right now and the living room wasn’t far behind, but at least the kitchen would be done soon. She hadn’t even been in the house eight weeks yet. She sold houses, she knew the settling in took time. When she’d moved in with Tim though, it had been such a simple, straight-forward process. He’d wanted something totally move-in ready, no updates needed, and he’d never wanted her to “fuck with it” much in terms of personalizing. They’d ordered whatever they didn’t already have between the two of them in a week and paid for expedited shipping to get it done quick.

This time, she wanted quality, even if she had to wait for it.

Which she reminded herself daily, hourly. Every time she noticed more “little things” she suspected she would want to do later, once this big things were done. A re-do of the downstairs bathroom, turning the downstairs guestroom into a work out room, adding at least a pool shed–

“Breathe out,” she told herself, lifting the coffee to her nose again. One thing at a time. Well, several things at a time, but not all the things at a time. She could chip away at things around the house until she had it exactly the way she wanted it, even if it took years. There was no rush, no one to impress, no expected interruptions to this pursuit. Life stretched before her with blue skies and gentle breezes. She could do whatever she wanted for as long as she wanted. No husband, no kids, no real financial worries once this shitty divorce was behind her. So long as Tim didn’t successfully clean her out. Thank god her lawyers were going to make sure that didn’t happen.

She breathed out again. Yoga that morning on the deck outside the master bedroom had given her the strength to keep the stress at bay. Yoga and a healthy dose of snuggles from her partner in crime.

Foam headbutted against her leg and curled around, stepping on her toes and then ducking down for a nibble. He was an odd cat, that was for sure. She loved him. She gave him a little scratch behind the ears and then lifted him to ride on the crook of her arm as she gathered avocados, eggs, and her favorite artisanal bread. Foam sniffed and stretched, then pulled back quickly when she let him sniff each ingredient, no longer interested. She set him down and pulled the Everything Bagel topping from the painfully bare spice drawer. The glass bottles of her collection had broken during the move and she hadn’t had time to order replacements.

Foam wove in and out of her legs as she cooked before dashing off to chase ghosts, which so far seemed his favorite pastime. At first she had thought he might hear mice or insects in the house –but of course he wasn’t hearing anything! Nor could she find any evidence of pests, thank god. Just a silly little cat living out his best life.

Coffee and avocado toast and eggs arranged, she was just carrying it out to the outdoor dining room when she heard the back gate grind open. She’d only given the code to a couple of the contractors she trusted enough not to show up in the middle of the night and murder her –namely the woman managing the bathroom remodel and the pool guy.

JK’s truck crunched to a stop on the gravel, muffled music breaking the quiet stillness of the morning. He banged out a drum solo on the steering wheel, then the music abruptly shut off seconds before he stepped out, still singing along. It was only eight, earlier than she’d expected him, though he wasn’t on some set schedule. He looked shockingly awake and she suspected that meant he’d been out surfing this morning; other days he looked like he’d just rolled out of bed at ten.

“Surfing this morning?” she called over as he lowered the tailgate of his truck, so he’d know she was there and not think she was just standing around gawking.

He stopped what he was doing and grinned over at her; it caught her off-guard, that grin, like he’d known she was there and expected her to ask. He grabbed a big white bucket and hauled it closer, at which point she realized his hair wasn’t just wild today but wet, like he’d just hopped out of the shower.

“I was out, yeah,” he said. He didn’t look it now, more bundled up than she’d ever seen him in a gray hoodie and long pants.

She worried he’d noticed her look him over and teased, “You look cozy. Not very beach bum.”

“I took a cold shower before I came here,” he said. “So… I’m cold.” He grinned wider, dimples showing on each side of his mouth.

Damn. He had quite a smile.

“Do you want coffee or tea?” she asked.

“Nah, hate the stuff. I’m more of a Bacchus-D guy.”

“I’m not familiar.”

“It’s an energy drink,” he answered, shrugged.

“Ah.”

“I’m good though. Thanks. Figured I’d get an early start today scrubbing that baby down.”

She had the urge to bite her toast and realized she was just standing there, holding her plate and her mug, still wearing the tank top and leggings she’d done her yoga in. A tap made them both look back at the French doors, where Foam was pawing to get her attention.

“That your cat?”

“I should hope so,” she laughed. “Isn’t he cute?”

“Yeah. I’m more of a dog person but cats are ok.”

She didn’t know why that made her feel a bit put off. You could be a dog person but still think cats were cute. Or you could just be polite and say yes, your pet is cute.

“I’ve never had a dog or a cat,” he continued. “Once I had a bird.”

“What kind?”

“Oh, it was wild. Like a bird that you just see in the yard. It had a hurt leg so I took it in. My mom was pissed,” he laughed.

“So… what happened to the bird?” she asked, because it seemed like the right question to ask.

He grimaced and admitted, “I don’t know. She told me she took it to a rescue but… I doubt it.” He looked to the side and scowled. “She’s kind of– I don’t have a good relationship with my mom.”

“Oh.”

“But I do with my stepmom, I don’t have like sad puppy syndrome or anything,” he quickly clarified. “I’m not weird about women just because my mom probably killed my bird.”

“You think she was capable of killing it?” Grace asked, not quite sure what else to say. He was an interesting character, this JK, telling her all of that first thing in the morning.

“Even if she just tossed it out, it probably died, right?” He shrugged, like he’d learned to live with this. Grace decided not to mention she’d been dragged along on duck hunts several times as a teenager until she threatened to become a vegetarian. It was natural to search for those types of thematic connection when someone shared something personal, as a way to comfort, and yet this conversation felt like it didn’t quite follow the rules of etiquette she’d learned growing up. Conversations with JK rarely did.

“I’m sorry. That sounds… upsetting.”

“Anyway,” he said, and stretched, allowing a glimpse of a tanned toned stomach. “I’ma get started.”

“Need anything at all?”

“Nope.” He grinned and waved and grabbed his bucket in one hand. “Actually can I give you a CD to put on?”

“Sure…” Actually she’d been looking forward to her quiet breakfast but fine, music could be ok.

It felt too awkward to sit outside to eat anyway, since it might seem like she was just watching him, even though she couldn’t see him at all once he hopped down into the empty pool. Instead she ate in the kitchen, windows open to hear the music, trying to identify the heavy drums and shout. It sounded like… old rock music? But maybe it was a modern band that only sounded old, like Greta van Fleet.

Foam leapt into her lap and she scritched under his chin, almost asking if he liked the music –would he be able to feel the vibrations from this far away? She wondered if he’d enjoy it up close. She kinda liked it. It sounded like the thing she would have listened to as a teenager to piss off her parents, if she’d been that kind of teenager. Maybe it was the kind of music you listened to even into adulthood to piss off a mom who’d killed your rescue bird. Yikes.

But it was endearing, him being the kind of guy who’d bring home a wounded bird, expecting to take care of it. That was charming.

She bobbed her head along to the music as she chewed her toast and scrolled through a digital copy of The New Yorker on her iPad. She was trying to get back into breakfast being a routine rather than something to grab on the go or skip, now that her time was her own. She used to love slow, coffee-laden, literature-infused breakfasts, but over the years she’d lost them in favor of the hustle. It became a bagel on the way to a house showing, a parfait halfway through the morning when she realized she’d forgotten to grab something between yoga and the list of phone calls to make with her clients’ real estate attorneys and inspection officers and the occasional mortgage broker. An occasional brunch with friends had done its best to keep breakfast alive as a tradition, waiting for her to return to her roots. Growing up, her family ate breakfast together every morning.

It took her long enough to notice the harsh buzzing to also recognize that the person held the buzzer for a painfully long time. Grace startled and Foam vaulted from her lap, back claws leaving red lines of nearly-cut skin in his haste. She winced and hobbled to the console by the back door to see which damn door had something going on.

An older woman with a visor and long-sleeved shirt and large sunglasses stood at the back gate, her lips pursed so tightly the camera seemed to zoom in on them.

“Hello, can I help you?” Grace asked.

“This is a nice neighborhood, you know!” the woman shouted. “Turn that horrible noise down right this instant! Good people are trying to have a good morning and you’ve got the gall to–”

Getting yelled at by an irate neighbor was not on Grace’s to-do list today.

“I’m sorry, ma’am, I’ll look into it,” Grace interrupted her. Curious if the music seemed louder away from her house –where she could hear it but not excessively– she stepped outside. She could see the shadow of the woman’s feet still standing at the gate, shuffling like she couldn’t decide whether to stay or go. A small dog stuck its nose under the gap.

The music didn’t seem that loud to Grace, even directly on the patio where the speakers were. Still, not excessive. She thought this had just revealed she had at least one annoying old lady neighbor, but maybe a weird acoustic was happening and causing it to somehow seem louder elsewhere, so she walked the perimeter of the yard.

The inside of the pool briefly distracted her from her investigation. She hadn’t come to look since JK’s friend had finished draining the pool the other day, nor when JK had come by to do an inspection of all the pumps and filters and heaters and decide what needed to be replaced (everything, unsurprisingly.) The water had been green and slimy before but she hadn’t realized there were plants beneath the surface. It looked like the bottom of an aquarium down there, with actual patches of moss or grass or whatever it was, and leafy plants, and who knew what else!

Something went flying through the air and landed behind her.

“What was that?” she asked, worried JK was going to cover her grass in slimy shit.

“Oh!” His eyebrows raised and he stiffened in surprise at seeing her. “Uh, a frog.”

“A frog.”

“Would you um… rather I catch them and put them somewhere else? They’re just frogs though.” He looked so completely guilty that she half expected the frog was a lie but when she looked back at the blob, it was in fact a frog.

“Won’t they just come right back in?”

He looked around at the ecosystem he was charged with dismantling, thinking about it, then answered with that familiar confidence he had, “Nah, there won’t be anything good for them down here once I finish today. All this will be gone.” He spread his hand out, gesturing to the whole pool. Grace didn’t see how that was possible to do in a single day. “Hey, did you know there’s all this pretty tile at the bottom?”

“No,” she admitted. He crouched and dragged a bunch of plants to the side and wiped at the muck with his hands to reveal a glimpse of small bright-blue tiles.

“It’s kinda cool. I feel like a– what are those guys that dig up dinosaurs?”

“A paleontologist?”

“Yeah. Hey, don’t laugh at me, smarty. English isn’t my first language,” he said. She was positive she had not laughed at him but quickly checked herself.

“I didn’t laugh! I would never.”

“I know, I’m teasing.”

“Oh.” It was a horrible thing to tease about. It kept her from asking what she was curious to know now, what his first language was. She worried there wasn’t a way to phrase the question that wouldn’t sound racist, especially since he might be joking about that, she realized. He might be messing with her, waiting for her to ask what is your first language? She couldn’t quite understand this man, or how to tell when he was serious or teasing. She used to think he was always serious and polite but now she wondered if he’d been teasing a lot. Or making fun. She suddenly felt very self conscious about it.

“She doesn’t like being teased,” he muttered, seemingly to himself. “Sorry.”

“No, it’s fine! I just would never insult you like that.” The self conscious feeling got worse. It was like he’d read her mind!

“I know that’s why it’s funny… so, frogs? Stay, go? Put ‘em in a box to toss at that lady?”

“Oh, you heard that?” she asked, glancing over to the gate. The woman’s feet were gone but she had the sixth sense she hadn’t gone far.

“Yeah, I even turned it down from where you had it. Guess you were partying last night?”

“That’s where we left it the other day! I didn’t think it was that loud but thanks. I guess I don’t want to go to war with my neighbors just yet.”

“Guns n’ Roses is a good thing to go to war with a neighbor over though.”

Instantly she thought of the band’s logo design, something she’d seen printed on the T-shirts of trendy twenty-somethings. She didn’t know their music but she did know they were an older band and felt very proud of herself for having blindly guessed correctly.

“Maybe once I’ve established myself…” She trailed off, contemplating now just where that woman could live. She’d already gone around to all the neighbors on this street with boxes of pain au chocolates from Republique and her business card which had her phone number and email on it, putting her best food forward. It amused her that every single one of them had seemed so surprised by the introduction. None of them knew each other, she understood. This wasn’t that kind of neighborhood. Her previous one hadn’t been either. But it was the way she’d been raised! Her parents would be severely disappointed when they came to visit if she couldn’t name her neighbors and wave to them when they passed on the street.

She had not met this woman yet though.

“And how do you do that, exactly? Establish yourself?”

“Hm?” Belatedly she processed the question and answered, “I prove myself to be a good neighbor.”

“Which means quiet music? Lame. Guess I’m the shittiest neighbor but no one’s egged my house yet.”

“Maybe at least quiet until ten. I guess folks around here are late sleepers.”

He was coming towards her and she instinctively backed up, watching with dumb curiosity as he leapt up to grab the pool edge and pulled himself out the way she might if the pool was full of water. He’d done it so quick and fluidly that it startled her; there was no other explanation for why it felt like an adrenaline shot through her.

He dusted off his hands but the muck remained.

“Folks,” he muttered, she didn’t know why. “Well, what’s the verdict on the frogs?” She blinked at him, her mind dragging confused at how he’d gone so quickly from standing beneath her in the Jurassic Park of her empty pool to now looking down at her. How had he actually pulled himself up that way? She never would have that upper body strength.

He added, “I’ve got a bucket in the truck, I can take ‘em with me if you don’t want them in your yard.”

“And do what with them?”

“Kill them probably, like mother like– no, shit! I’m joking!” he laughed because her face had failed not to react to such a blunt answer. In an instant his face went from an intense, lowered-brow stare to lifted eyebrows, softened eyes, a supplicating smile. “I wouldn’t kill them,” he quickly assured her. “I’ll set them loose in a park pond or something.”

“Won’t that upset the balance of the ecosystem there?”

“Uh… don’t know, don’t care? It’s fine, they’re just frogs.”

“They can stay, I don’t mind some frogs as long as they aren’t going to live in the pool,” she assured him. Because obviously she couldn’t be like his mom. And his jokes were weird and kind of flustering her. “Maybe I should make a pond somewhere… They’ll eat the bugs in the yard, won’t they?”

He grabbed two blue tubs and tossed them right down into the pool before answering, “I’m not an expert on frogs but I’ve heard they do that.”

OK, that made her crack a smile.

“You don’t watch Planet Earth documentaries in your spare time?” she teased.

He seemed to take this seriously though and gave her a curious look as he admitted, “Ah, no. A documentary? You watch those for fun, huh?”

“That’s a very normal thing to do,” she said, a combination of flustered and annoyed by the way he grinned at her.

“Watching documentaries for fun?”

“Yes, don’t you like animals?”

He laughed and held his hands up, like he didn’t understand what she was talking about, and assured her, “Yeah I do. And I like the earth. I watch little clips of stuff that come across my feed.”

“What feed?”

“Tiktok?”

“Oh, isn’t that…” She cut herself off before finishing for teenagers? “I’m not on that.”

“YouTube has short animal things too. I’ve probably watched one about frogs but if I tried to watch like an hour of frogs, I’d fall asleep.” He nodded, as if thinking through it more and growing more certain.

“That’s a shame. You really learn a lot and they’re beautiful…” What the fuck was she talking about, preaching nature documentaries to this guy? God, he brought out weird behavior in her. Not her best, sadly.

“Know what’s even better than a nature documentary? Being in nature, riding the waves. I bet I could make you a better documentary while I’m out than like the mating cycle of two-tone shrimp or whatever. I see animals every time I’m out. You ever had a seagull snatch a hotdog out of your hand?”

“...no, I have not,” she could say with certainty.

“Scared the shit out of my sister,” he snickered. “You want to learn about nature, you should be out in it.”

“I go out into nature,” she clarified. “I hike. I… travel. But I’m not trekking through the forests of Madagascar the way documentary filmmakers are. I’m certainly not taking an Arctic cruise.”

“Why not? God, if I could afford to go see all that crazy stuff…” He shook his head, then grabbed a sort of rake lying on the ground. It thwacked her leg as he lifted it, not hard enough to hurt, but he flinched like he’d been the one hit and apologized.

“You may be more adventurous than I am,” she suggested, not sure what else to say.

“Nothing stopping you now though, right? Now that you’re free.”

Free. What a word to use. She liked that better than ‘divorced.’

“I don’t think getting divorced made me suddenly athletic.”

“You work out, I’ve seen you,” he argued. He suddenly clutched the handle of the rake to his chest and looked stunned, like he’d said something he hadn’t meant to. His reaction made it weird; what he’d said on his own wasn’t, because he’d come over when she was coming up from the gym, that would have been fine. But again, he looked so guilty! His face was more expressive than she’d realized before. “I mean, you know, yoga or whatever it is you do.”

It was kind of fun watching him squirm instead of herself for once.

She crossed her arms and leveled a serious look at him as she demanded, “Is that how you got that video that we promised never to talk about? Do you peek in–”

“Fuck no, I swear I don’t!” he cried. “I swear I’m not a window creeper. I just happened to see that one time because they were making so much noise–”

“Lovely, thank you.”

“I just meant— I just know you work out because you’ve come out to say hi after you’ve clearly been working out,” he said. “At least I think so? I don’t know, I don’t know what you do in your house. I swear that’s all I meant. I don’t look in windows. Not one of my hobbies. I just surf and play in my band and thrash my roommates in video games and… and hang out with my family. That’s it, that’s my life.”

He seemed sincerely panicked now, but not guilty. Grace studied his face. He sure could flip back and forth quickly between sexy smirk and doe-eyed innocence. She wondered how intentional it was. She didn’t really know much about JK, after all. Maybe he fucked women over too.

Well, not her at least, because he just worked on her pool and did a good job of it.

“Fuck,” he huffed. “I swear I’m not a creeper. I felt like a fucking creeper taking that video but I didn’t think you’d believe me any other way and I knew you deserved not to be with that piece of shit so… yeah, sorry. I swear I’ve never looked through your windows– through anyone’s windows!”

Ok, he looked like he was literally starting to sweat.

“I believe you,” she relented.

“Ok good I’m going to shut the fuck up and just clean your pool now…”

She didn’t like that it was all so awkward between them now though. She hadn’t meant to leave him squirming, she’d just gotten briefly thoughtful about how little you could ever actually know anyone. She hadn’t even known her husband, of course she didn’t really know JK either. And he didn’t really now her and now he was anxious. She could recognize the power dynamic. She could imagine the damage done by an errant accusation like that from a wealthy customer, just one phone call to his boss.

“I mean it, I believe you. You don’t seem like the type.”

“You’re familiar with the type of guy who looks through women’s windows–”

“Maybe not that in particular but I was married to an asshole for years so…”

“True.” That seemed to have placated him, a weird sort of peace offering she hadn’t expected.

“All right. Cool. I just don’t want you to worry that like… I’m not an asshole or a predator or anything.” He held his hands up, the rake handle still deftly held in his fingers. Not that it weighed a lot, but it still demonstrated an impressive finger strength. Drummer, she remembered. Damn. “I swear,” he continued. “I’ve got two sisters, I babysit my nephew a lot, I’m a good son to my stepmom.”

His insistence continued to be weird but in a way she was starting to equate with him. He talked so much sometimes, like he had no idea when to stop. Her lawyer would hate him.

She couldn’t help it, she propped her hands on her hip and pointed out, “Lots of assholes are good sons though. I think it’s more telling what your ex-girlfriends would say.”

“Ah, that I’m great in bed but not going anywhere in life and I spend too much time with my family and my band,” he quickly rattled off. It obviously wasn’t even a brag or a joke, he meant it sincerely, he had been given this direct feedback.

Grace couldn’t help it. She laughed. She covered her mouth and laughed and he responded with a crooked grin like he was relieved she found this funny.

“What, do you give your exes a poll?” She couldn’t help herself. “God, I can’t imagine what Tim would have written.”

“Well none of my exes were like that asshole.” He shrugged. Which was kind of refreshing, actually, that he didn’t take the opportunity to claim his exes were all crazy bitches. Low bar? Maybe she’d just been hanging around the wrong men all her life.

Damn. Maybe Tim really had done a number on her expectations of men. Most of her friends were women. Actually, maybe all of her friends were women… was that just a natural order of things, or was it because Tim had always tensed up if she mentioned other men… she hadn’t thought about that until right now.

“You ok?” JK asked, looking at her like something embarrassing had flashed across her face.

“Yes, just… every day realizing new things about myself and the type of men I’ve had in my life…” She trailed off, realizing she was saying too much while talking to a man. But not a man in her life. Well, a man in her life, but not in a relationship way. In an employer-contractor type of way, that was all.

“Well don’t think too hard about it, you deserve to just have some fun now.”

Whyyyyy did he say things like that? With that smirk? With the rake propped against the ground and held out from his body, showing off the flex of his muscles as he swayed it playfully, possibly a bit coy?

She was imagining things. The whiplash from the weird things he said and the weird things she thought and that thing he kept doing with his tongue in his cheek that she couldn’t figure out if he was doing it without realizing it or to be sexy except obviously he wasn’t trying to flirt or be sexy right now as he dug amphibians out of her pool –see? She was losing her mind.

“You can leave the frogs,” she decided, not sure if she’d already said that. “I’ll leave you to your work.”

“Wait!”

She’d turned but hesitated at his call, much too loud, as if she was already halfway across the yard. She hadn’t even begun to move.

“Uh, what about you?”

“Hm? What about me?”

“I answered what things I do for fun. What about you? What do you do for fun?”

Grace found herself baffled by the question. Why would he ask her that? Her pool guy? She stared at him, trying to comprehend what would lead him to ask such a flirty question. It was flirty, right? She definitely hadn’t asked that… had she? Oh god, had she flirted with the pool guy? No. Definitely not! And he definitely wasn’t either. No way, not possible. Maybe it was just friendly.

Did men sincerely ask friendly questions of women? No, right?

“I don’t know, you know, normal things.”

“Like…”

“Like… reading books. Going to museums. Yoga. Travel… brunch….” She could see clearly on his face that she was growing more foreign to him by the second, which made no sense because she was listing the most normal things for a woman to do. “Not a museum guy?” she guessed.

“I got kicked out of one once… haven’t been back.”

“Wow, real bad boy, huh? What did you do?”

“I laughed too much.”

“That’s not true,” she said with a sigh.

He looked immediately and obviously offended and defended with that innocent look again, “It is true!”

“What, was the artist standing right there or–”

“...maybe,” he admitted. Cheeky grin back. “It was a lot of nudes. The guy was definitely exaggerating…”

“Ah, a dick measuring contest?”

“Trust me, you would have been giggling into your little nails.”

“My nails?” she gasped and immediately closed them into her fists. Really?! The guy was going after her nails?!

“Yeah? You know, tee hee?” he demonstrated, covering his mouth with one hand. “The little polite lady laugh? I don’t think you’d laugh loud like that.” He hesitated, then added, “I don’t think you know how.”

“How… to laugh?”

“Yeah, loud.”

“I… what a weird thing to accuse me of…? I know how to laugh.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” he shrugged, clearly not believing her.

“Maybe you just aren’t very funny.”

He threw his head back and laughed, eyes scrunched tightly closed, full rows of white teeth on display.

“Now that, that is definitely something my exes have said on the morning after survey,” he laughed. There was a joke to be made there about him saying “morning after” and not “end of relationship” but she couldn’t figure it out quickly enough. Instead his laugh flustered her. People didn’t usually think she was very amusing, that was true.

He shook his head, still winding down, and added, “But hey I don’t think they went home with me because I was funny, so…” He shrugged and looked down at himself, as if inviting her to do so. It was kind of crass. She refused and kept her eyes leveled at his face, as if she didn’t understand.

This seemed like it was maybe nudging against inappropriate, didn’t it? This was definitely more than she needed to know about her pool guy. Her pool guy didn’t need to know what she did for fun. She didn’t need to know what women said the morning after fucking him. She was glad now that her answer had bored him instead of giving any indication she was flirting back.

“A sense of humor is really important.” She didn’t know what else to say.

“Oh right, that’s what drew you to your ex, huh?”

She leveled a stern look at him, which he met only with a cheeky grin. Ok, this had definitely gone on long enough.

“Weeeell,” he dragged out. “Now that I know how boring your life is, I’d better get this pool into shape so at least you’ll have something exciting in your life.”

“I’m remodeling my house. That’s pretty exciting.”

“You think my music is quiet enough for your bougie neighborhood?” he said, which she thought meant it was another joke but she didn’t know what that word he’d said was and she wasn’t about to ask.

They’d had an entire conversation over the rock music. If the nosy lady complained about this, Grace would have to correct her.

“It’s fine,” Grace assured him.

“Do you know who it is?”

“You said it’s Guns n’ Roses.”

“This is Iron Maiden.” He suddenly pulled the rake across his body and played it like a guitar along to the music and mouthed the lyrics.

“I thought you’re a drummer.”

“You can be more than one thing, you know.”

She didn’t know what to say. He seemed to be doing that to her a lot, leaving her unsure what the right next thing to say was. He was a hard one to figure out. He didn’t follow the normal rules of polite conversation and while she spoke with plenty of people who didn’t, none were quite as baffling to her as this guy. He was weird and borderline inappropriate. Maybe more than borderline.

“I will keep that in mind,” she said, pulling on professional real estate agent persona because it was all she had left. “Thank you, let me know if you need anything else.”

“You got it!” he called after her, then immediately began singing the song. She glanced over her shoulder just in time to see him jump down into the pool like a movie superhero. The mucky wet sound of his landing made her glad she was paying him to deal with that. Hopefully frogs were the worst thing he found, but maybe there’d be snakes or dead things too, who knew! She might not ever know. He’d handle it. That, at least, was very nice, to not have to worry about it. He might be odd, but he was a great pool guy.

Great in bed. Definitely not something she needed to know about her hot pool guy, what the hell was wrong with him, telling her that?! She didn’t think he, young and clearly with women dancing at the ends of his fingers, was trying to flirt with her, old divorced idiot. Was he mocking her? But nothing he said ever seemed unkindly meant… teasing, not mocking… unless her Bullshit Rader was as bad with him as it had been with Tim.

Maybe, she considered, JK was just really bad at conversation. Guess you could be if you moved through life looking like that and being Great in bed.

The scrubbing was a bigger job than he’d expected. Getting the plants out was no big deal and he’d made good headway power-washing the green hue out of the grout lines. He’d called for Grace to come once he got the power-washer hooked up, so she could watch the grand unveiling of all that pretty blue tiles from beneath what had to be at least eight years of muck.

To his gratification, she had been just as excited as he was, she got it. He didn’t have to explain himself at all to her! He thought pools were pretty cool and he got to see some really nice ones and this had once been a really nice one, that’s what he would have defensively explained if she looked at him like he was making a big deal out of nothing. A swirling mosaic of overlapping waves in shades of blue covered the bottom of the pool, hand-tiled, not quick-lay blocks. It was rad as hell, someone had put a lot of time and money into this thing.

Sadly, the glass tiles had not weathered the neglect. The grand unveiling revealed a significant number of them had chipped and dislodged over time. He didn’t think that came from sitting underwater, but that it had sat empty for a while at some point, which was way worse. Judging by the large ring of busted tiles in the deep end, he suspected someone had dropped something. Maybe someone had tried to skateboard in this thing? If so, they’d eaten shit pretty bad.

Darker thoughts came to mind. Jungkook blamed it on watching too much Walking Dead the night before and decided not to suggest those things to Grace in case someone really had died or something and she’d freak and want the pool ripped out. It probably wasn’t a body anyway, it would have had to fall from higher than that, right? He didn’t really know the physics of it but probably. Not big enough for a car driving in. Maybe someone dropped a table or threw a chair.

He really needed to not watch Walking Dead right before bed.

But he could fix it! The only thing really sad about the damage was that it was going to cost Grace more money than he’d estimated. He did give her the option of trying to fix it cheap but she didn’t want cheap. She didn’t even bat an eyelash at the number when Bob texted him the time and materials estimate. He felt bad to add to the project cost, he should have predicted there might be an issue like this but he’d assumed the water meant it hadn’t sat empty!, so he pushed off the decision to Bob –only for her to not even care. Bob had offered Kyle to take over the tiling job but Jungkook was confident he could do it, and Bob knew he was good for it. Jungkook had done plenty of repair jobs with Tyle Kyle and there wasn’t enough damage to warrant two guys, he could handle it. Grace wasn’t in a rush. Also that guy was a such a fucking flirt with customers, Grace didn’t need that guy bothering her.

The sun wasn’t out today. The waves had been too choppy for him to hit that morning, and he’d slept through dawn anyway and then had a morning of pools to clean before he could make it over to Grace’s.

Damn, it really felt wrong still to call her Grace. It felt like… like calling a doctor by their first name or something. He hadn’t called her Grace out loud yet –not that he was talking about her to anyone anyway, but it would feel weird to call her… what, Miss Arison? Yeah that made him sound like a fucking second grader. If somehow she ever came up in conversation, he was going to have to just avoid calling her anything…

He chipped away at the broken tile, thinking normal thoughts like that about the woman who’d hired him to repair her pool.

He shivered in the shade and crouch-walked around the space, hammering away at the chisel to pop out the busted tiles. The replacements sat piled beside the pool, hauled over first thing to get that sweaty task out of the way, but this was tedious and he found himself wondering if he should have let Tyle Kyle help with this part after all. He’d been here over an hour without a sight of Grace anyway. Her car was in the driveway but she hadn’t even come out to say hello. There was no way she didn’t know he was here, with how loud that fucking gravel driveway was, and he’d put on a Tori Kelly CD because he had a suspicion Grace might like Tori Kelly, just based on the things she’d said about the things they’d listened to so far.

He glanced towards the house over the edge of the pool and contemplated pushing the buzzer to ask if he could use the toilet as a way to get attention. He supposed it was just dumb luck that so far his work days at the house had aligned with days she was also outside a lot. She was fun company every time she wandered over to chat for a couple minutes. She was easy to talk to and never asked something stupid or acted like she was judging him or whatever –unlike some women his own age he could think of who acted like conversation with him was such a fucking chore. So what, they just wanted a fuck and get the fuck out? Maybe he wanted to just shoot the shit sometimes, huh? And it wasn’t one-sided, he was down to listen.

Annoyed with the state of conversation in his life, he took it out on the tiles, crawling across the bottom of the pool to find the cracks in the design. At least he had Jimin and Taehyung, they talked to him, but lately they were both so busy… Yoongi had taken some extra hours to get the amp they needed for Flowerfest so he’d bailed on dinner plans Jungkook tried to make, and it wasn’t a big deal, but it wasn’t like Jungkook made plans with just anyone. He’d put effort into texting him about why didn’t they hang out and cook and whatever.

Yeah and while he was thinking of things that annoyed him, he was positive Yoojin was texting with a fucker and if it was her fucking ex again, Jungkook was going to fucking lose it. The guy had commented on a photo Yoojin had posted of Max’s birthday –months late, to be clear– and Yoojin had responded with a fucking laughing emoji and wouldn’t answer Jungkook’s question about whether she was laughing at him or with him. Fuck, if she let Jordan slide back into her life like that… and Max’s life, especially! If she was going to fuck around that was one thing, but Max deserved better than a flake for a father and Jordan had made it pretty fucking clear he had no interest in his own son…

The crunch of feet on gravel was his alert that Grace had stepped from the house. Immediately he popped his head out of the pool and spotted her looking around the back of his truck. He wasn’t there, obviously. He waved at her from the pool when she looked further around, then felt kinda stupid about it and dropped back down. Let her come to him, that kind of thing.

He was being an idiot. He shook his head at himself and tried to look busy surveying his work as he listened to her footsteps across the gravel, then more quietly along the deck and walkway.

“Good morning. I didn’t know you were here,” she immediately said. He couldn’t help but think she sounded a little put out about it, which he liked.

“How did you miss me driving across that gravel? Sounds like a fucking landslide every time,” he complained. Fuck, his voice had hitched when he looked up at her and he hoped she hadn’t noticed. She was dressed up today, a little skirt suit, dark blue, blousy white shirt.

Wait, damnit, did he have a thing about skirt suits?! He’d never had a thing about that before. Usually he thought they made a woman seem… mean. Not in a good way, in an principal’s office way. But her legs looked fucking whatever as she balanced on one foot and brushed the gravel out of the slip-on sandals that didn’t match the look at all. He liked the combination. A lot.

“Well it’s good, means no one can– well, I was going to say it means no one can sneak into my house without my knowing but I guess you basically did…”

“Yeah, get a dog or something, don’t rely on gravel,” he scolded. Instantly agog. Surely she wasn’t being serious…

“I have a really good security system, I was only joking. You’re on candid camera!” She said it like it was a joke. He didn’t understand and waited for her to explain more. “Oh, it was an old TV show…”

“Never heard of it.”

“It… nevermind.” He wished she had explained it so he’d understand the joke but she didn’t.

“You’re dressed up,” he pointed out at the same moment she said, “You’re making a lot of prog– oh, I… yes.” She looked down at herself as if remembering and added, “Yeah, long morning and then I got wrapped up in stuff and haven’t changed yet.”

He couldn’t help it, he had to know and asked, “Is that what you wear to sell houses?”

“Uh… sometimes, why?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know what real estate people wear,” he quickly shrugged. It wasn’t that he thought she was only good at her job because she looked like that in a skirt suit but he did feel like it probably helped. Like were inspectors not going to give her whatever she wanted?

Ok, he really didn’t know anything about what buying or selling houses meant.

“It’s not uncomfortable as long as you get a nicely tailored suit,” she told him. “Well the shoes get a little uncomfortable… not these. Obviously I wear heels.”

“Obviously,” he repeated, and smirked, because she was talking more about her outfit than he’d expected and it was kinda cute.

“But I wasn’t selling houses this morning, I was– nevermind. This looks tedious.”

“What were you doing that’s not selling houses?” he asked because why not? Sometimes she seemed confused enough by his nosy questions to answer them, even if he knew they were kinda borderline not okay to ask the lady paying your boss. “That sounds suspicious. Do you actually sell houses or do you launder money for the mob or something?”

“Actually I was at a funeral.”

“Well fuck me.”

“No,” she gasped and covered her mouth. “It was a joke.”

“Which part was, the funeral?”

“I wasn’t at a funeral,” she laughed and touched her forehead and flinched like she was not someone used to telling jokes and was positive she’d done it wrong. Which made it even funnier. He liked that kind of almost-mean humor. He didn’t know she had it in her. He was glad she was talking to him but it was even better if she was joking.

He didn’t want to be standing down in the pool anymore and pulled himself up onto the ledge while teasing, “Well now I’m even more convinced you work for the mob.”

“I think if I worked for the mob, my ex would already have been ‘taken care of,’” she suggested, complete with air quotes –only to quickly correct, “Oh shit, now if something happens to him I’ll be the first suspect.”

“I think you’d already be the first suspect.”

“Oh. True…”

“But I’m offended, actually. You think I’m going to rat you out?” He’d meant to sit casual and cool on the side but it put him on eye level with the fabric hugging her thighs so he decided to stand instead. “I’m ride or die.”

“Are you offering to help?” she laughed. “We should change the subject…”

“I’m saying I wouldn’t rat you out. What’s the amendment that says I wouldn’t have to say anything in– no wait, that’s only for a husband, right?”

She nodded and laughed, “Yeah, that’s only spouse privilege. You’d be legally compelled to turn me in.”

“Well… nah. They can try and catch me first.” He crossed his arms, trying to look like someone experienced in flouting the law.

“We should probably be careful what we say out here, that neighbor lady might be listening. Oh my god, I didn’t tell you– yesterday I drove around the front of my house coming back and I swear she was peeking through the cracks in the gate.”

Jungkook could not have explained why he was so excited by her excitement to tell him this.

Immediately he assured her, “I don’t doubt it for a second.”

“She hates me.”

“She’s a nosy bitch,” he snorted.

“Well… that may be a bit much but… I definitely think she’s not thrilled I’m living here, but I haven’t figured out yet where she lives. She’s not on this street so she must be a couple over.”

Jungkook immediately considered this and pointed out, “She’s like eighty-five, how far can she walk?”

“Oh my god,” Grace laughed. There was a brighter laugh! “She’s like in her sixties, JK, she’s not that old.”

“Isn’t that old?”

“How old are your– nevermind,” she said and held her hands up. “We’re off topic.”

Jungkook took his time, letting his face do the talking before asking, “Was there a topic?”

“I’ll let you work,” she suggested and turned to go.

“Oh, you were telling me what you got dressed up for this morning.”

“I don’t think I was telling you that,” she countered. Then shook her head at some thought Jungkook would have loved access to before she ruined the topic with honesty, “I don’t mean to make it sound secretive. It was just a divorce mediation bullshit thing.”

“You wore that to see your ex?”

Her face immediately scrunched up, transparently unhappy, as she said, “I wore this to a court mediation I had to endure his presence for… why?” He worried he’d insulted her somehow without meaning to.

“Oh, just seems mean which, good for you.”

“Mean?”

Damnit, the compliment wasn’t any good if he had to explain it!

“You know, because, like….” He waved his hand and looked away from her, wanting to get back to work now. It sounded so stupid to say something like you look nice and it’ll make him jealous. Because the stupidest thing was, Tim was a fucking idiot who didn’t appreciate his hot wife and probably was too busy trying to screw her out of money to even notice how she looked. “Like dressed to impress or whatever.”

“Oh. Right, well, I need to look professional around lawyers and obviously I don’t want to look like my life is falling apart.”

Jungkook looked around her yard, across the back of the mansion she lived in by herself, her shiny car, all of it, and snorted, “Yeah, it definitely doesn’t look like that.”

“Speaking of falling apart…”

For the briefest moment Jungkook thought she meant him. But very quickly he realized of course she meant the pool, which currently was looking worse as he ran around prying out the broken tiles.

“It’ll get worse but then I swear it’ll get better. I got a late start today but it’s going. I should be able to get a lot of the tiles replaced today before I have to head out.”

She held her hands up and assured him, “No criticism from me. It’s fascinating to watch the process.”

She hadn’t asked, but he wanted the chance to brag and continued, “Yeah, I’d be willing to stay later but I’m supposed to watch my nephew tonight. Uncle-nephew time is very important.”

“That’s really sweet. How old is he?”

“One.” Yep, that’s right, I’m good with babies.

“Well he’s lucky to have you.” He liked the words, but the tone she used was disappointing. He didn’t think she sounded that impressed. Maybe she didn’t like babies? Or families? Or involved uncles?

“Do you have any nieces or nephews?” he asked.

“Yes, though none are close by,” she said, obviously distracted and looking at something in the yard. “You know what, it’s a really nice day –if I’m not going to bother you, I think I’ll try to get some gardening done.”

“Gardening?” he repeated, before reminding her, “Hey, it’s your house, lady.”

Her smile seemed more sincere then as she agreed, “It is. I was in such a bad mood after this morning, but I think some time in the yard will be just the thing. You can turn the music up if you want, this is nice. Who is it?”

“I’ll start it over. It’s Tori Kelly. Promise you’ll protect me from bitchon freeze lady?”

“It’s pronounced bee-shaan free-zay,” Grace whispered, “and you shouldn’t go around calling women bitches.”

“No, it’s the dog!” he insisted. She pursed her lips and gave him a look like she didn’t believe him, and he wasn’t sure if it was worse for Grace to think he was cleverly calling the woman a bitch or that he genuinely didn’t know how to say that breed of dog. “The little white yippy ones at dog shows.”

“Uh huh.”

The look she tossed him over her shoulder had no right being as sexy as it was. He knew she didn’t mean it sexy, but damn. The things he’d do if he let this fantasy roll…

Later. Fuck. He tucked that little look away into his pocket, eyebrows raising at the way that look and pencil skirt combination were going to play out when he took a shower tonight…

When she’d said she was going to work in the garden, she really meant it. Jungkook restarted the CD once she reappeared from the house, changed into a different blousy shirt and blousy pants and a wide-brimmed sunhat, which he supposed was what you should wear when gardening but it all looks so summery and fresh, not like what you actually wore digging around in the dirt. Like what you wore in a photoshoot or something. She had a bucket of gardening tools, all clean and new looking. She had a little purple pad thing which he eventually figured out was for her to kneel on, like a princess.

Needs a pillow under her knees, he noted for that later fantasy. That made sense, since she was older.

He’d expected her to wander around pruning things that probably didn’t need it, watering things, maybe sweep some leaves off the patio. He was prepared to swoop in and save her when she screamed upon finding a bug unexpectedly. He’d only tease her a little about it. Never in their conversations had she mentioned any skill at gardening and she didn’t seem like someone who’d done a whole lot of digging in the dirt. Maybe she’d clip some flowers to take into her rich house so she could post to insta bouquet from my own garden and call it a day.

That is not what she did.

Grace got it into her head that pulling a bunch of plants out of the ground was the gardening that she herself wanted to do. He watched with mounting fascination as she pulled out a shovel, shears, and one of those little gardening spade things, and tore her way through a flower bed like a berserker. He didn’t even hide that he was watching as she’d bend at the waist, wrap her hands around the base of a pretty thick plant, and yank with her whole weight –without budging a fucking thing. Then she’d dig around the base, bright yellow gardening gloves like little gopher hands, then go back to the bend and yank.

The spank bank content she was blessing him with today was starting to make him feel kind of predatory. It was too generous.

He’d just decided to be a better man and focus on getting the last of the broken tiles out when she yelped, “FUCK!”

Jungkook was out of the pool and across the yard to her side in a matter of seconds, already bracing for the toe she must have sliced off with the shovel, or a rake spike to the eye, something that had caused that cry.

She grimaced, clutching her gloved hand.

“Shit, did you cut your finger?”

“I… I broke a nail,” she grimaced, slowly opening her eyes. The pitiful look she gave him did something really stupid in his chest. “And I just got them done…”

For the first time in his life, Jungkook understood what Taehyung meant about high maintenance girls being good. If you’d told him six months ago he’d find it endearing for a woman to cry over a broken nail– No, in fact, he’d found it very prissy and annoying in girls he’d dated before! But something about the way she gingerly removed the glove and looked down at the manicure with the same dread as if a bone was going to be sticking out, it just made him want to take hold of her head and kiss her forehead and tell her you beautiful idiot, go get your nails fixed and I’ll rip the plants out for you.

Then he actually looked and saw the broken nail and he turned quickly away and hunched his shoulders and made a strangled noise.

“What’s that?!” she cried.

“Jesus that looks bad. Do you need to go to the hospital?!”

She laughed and insisted, “It’s not that bad.”

“Is it bleeding?”

“Oh my god, are you bothered by blood?”

“No, I get fucked up all the time surfing, but nails… how bad is it?”

“JK…” Her laughter at least reassured him that she was not, in fact, badly hurt. “It just scared me more than it hurt. I guess it’s fine… but I’ll have to file it down and go get it fixed… damnit.” He glanced over his shoulder, only to startle when she thrust her hand into his view. “See? It’s fine.”

“It’s bleeding,” he insisted, and grabbed her hand to show her, mainly so he could control where it was and not look.

“Oh. A little bit…”

She, shockingly, did not seem that bothered by it. So was she high maintenance or not?! Meanwhile Jungkook felt like chills were rolling up his spine because there was a part dangling. He’d seen people knock their teeth out on boards. He’d been adjacent to a bar fight where a dude busted his face open. He and Mo had gotten into so much shit as teenagers and it never phased him but this…

“Maybe you should go lie down,” he suggested because he wasn’t sure what else you were supposed to do. “Does your nail lady do house calls?”

“No, she doesn’t.”

Grace was clearly laughing at him.

“Ok, it’s freaky looking,” Jungkook told her defensively. “It’s really broken.”

“I’m going to go file this down before you faint,” she teased.

“I’m not going to faint.”

“Maybe you should lie down.”

He rolled his eyes aggressively and announced loudly, “I’m going back to my work where I manage to use a hammer and chisel without breaking a nail.”

“Oh, you want to put acrylics on and make this a competition?”

It had Jungkook laughing all the way back to his pool and helped him endure the boring part where she went inside and fixed her nail. He figured she might be done for the day, but eventually she was back and pulled her gloves on and went back to the flower bed and picked up her tools and got back to work.

Damn, what a woman.

He put on a new CD and an hour passed. He was to the point now he could start filling in the replacement tiles, which was going to be fun. He stood on the edge of the pool and looked down, surveying, calculating if he’d brought the right amount and shades. And maybe watching out of the corner of his eye as Grace tried to pull a rather large shrub out of the ground. She had a grip on it and pulled in repeated short jerks, like a dog playing tug, which Jungkook thought was probably brutal on her muscles and didn’t seem like the right way to go about that.

Just as he opened his mouth to offer some help, some of the shrub ripped from the ground and smashed her in the face, sending her tumbling backwards onto her ass. Dirt flew everywhere, covering her eyes and mouth; she spluttered, trying to slap it away as he once again flew to her side.

“Hold on, hold on,” he encouraged, grabbing her massive water bottle. “I’m going to pour water on your face, hold on.” He figured that was enough warning and dumped it over her forehead, but she gasped and choked like she was dying. He didn’t know what else to do but pull his shirt off and wipe the mud from her face.

“Oh my god it’s in my mouth!” she cried, dirty tongue hanging out as she wiped his shirt across it. He froze, certain she didn’t realize what he’d used to wipe her face off, not sure how to react to her licking his shirt. “It’s everywhere!” She wiped at her eyes and brushed at her hair.

“Yeah, what are you doing, lady, you have a yard guy! Let him pull this shit up!”

She let out a deep sigh through her makeshift mud mask and looked up at him with those eyes again and said, “Well I want only native plants in here and these are invasive.”

“Ok? I’ve seen your yard guy, he can get ‘em out of here.”

“But he got all booked up and can’t come for a couple weeks–”

“So wait.”

“You know I like to be able to do things on my own though,” she insisted and damnit if he wasn’t flattered that he did know that about her. “It’s just ripping up some plants, it’s not rocket science.”

“Well the plants seem to be winning.”

“No they aren’t, I’ve got almost all of them out,” she argued and pointed to the pile of her defeated foes.

“That one got you pretty good though.”

“Yeah well… I’ll win in the end. Don’t give me that look, I realize this is a little pig-headed but I spent two hours in a room with my ex-husband this morning, it was either rip out plants or tear down a wall and I don’t know which ones in the house are load-bearing so…”

“I was going to suggest boxing but maybe not with your nails.”

She snorted, “I can’t imagine what my mother would say if she called and I was boxing. I come from more… yoga people, you know?”

“Hm… drumming.” Instantly he thought of setting her down at his drum kit, showing her the ropes, then showing her how it’s done, her sliding into his lap all admiration–

“I have absolutely no rhythm,” she admitted.

“You just need someone to– oh, damn, you’re bleeding.”

“Again?”

Without thinking he brushed the blond whisps of her bangs away from her forehead, where a decent cut had now bled enough to show through the mud.

“How bad?”

She flinched as he brushed the dirt away and he suggested, “Not bad. Sorry, I don’t want to hurt you, but you should get the dirt off and wash it good.”

“Fine,” she sighed with an obvious huff, like this was all his fault. He found that funny too. She was a little bit of a brat, huh? As to be expected of a rich white lady. At least her brattiness seemed harmless. He half expected her to stomp off like a toddler when she returned to the house, shaking dirt off like an angry cat.

As soon as she was gone, Jungkook grabbed her tools and began hacking at the roots. If she was so fucking stubborn that this shrub had to come out today, fine, he’d help before she actually busted her tailbone or eye socket. The piece she’d managed to unearth lay limp across the path, a martyr for a cause Jungkook wouldn’t let stand. At least he had the wherewithal to realize that she had probably been trying to pull up what were actually several trunks at the same time. The roots were all twisted together and he went to town snipping them, snip snip snip until he could wrestle one, two, three of the trunks out of the ground and toss them on top of the other one.

“What are you doing?” she called, running over like he was doing something. It gave him a jolt of panic; had she decided she didn’t want the shrub out after all and he’d just killed her bush?

“Saving you from yourself,” he offered. She’d put a bandaid on her forehead over the cut and it looked adorably stupid.

“The roots have to come out too,” she said. “I didn’t cut because I thought that was the easiest way to pull them out…”

“Just brute strength? They didn’t want to come out that way, I tried. And before you say anything, I’m pretty strong.”

“But now how am I going to get the roots out?”

“We’ll pull them,” he insisted. He wrenched another trunk out, yanking several times to pull up as much of the roots with it as he could, which was certainly more than she would have been able to do. Dirt went flying but only thwacked him in the stomach and he tossed it aside, then brushed it away from his skin. Grace watched this quietly.

“One more,” he said. “Then you’re done, right?”

“Except I have to get the roots out.”

“Geez, woman, one thing at a time.” He shook his head at her doubt in his method. Hers hadn’t been working so great! He bent at the waist and crouched and took hold of the last, thickest trunk as close to the roots as possible. The cut ones snaked all around, and he suspected he was only going to be able to get it partway out of the ground before he’d need to hack at more of the roots.

“Excuse me?”

Oops.

He gave her his most charming smile and said, “Sorry. Lady. Um… Miss Arison? Feels weird to call you Miss though–”

“Grace is fine– wait for me to help!” She rushed forward.

“I don’t want you to get hit,” he grunted out, giving the trunk several sharp tugs to test the hold. It wiggled. That was good.

“We’re stronger together.”

He was not sure that was true, but she was so damn determined, and her closeness as she pressed against his side and wrapped her hands just above his was kind of nice.

“Put your gloves on,” he scolded, and at least she did that, grabbing them where she’d ripped them off. She had a bandaid around her broken nail finger and it made him shudder again. Then she was back by his side, and damnit if he didn’t have the urge to just playfully knock her over, body her to the ground. She was still covered in dirt, crumbs of it in her hair and around the edges of her face. He could make it worse, press her down into it–

She yanked and he scolded, “Wait for me! We’ll do it together.” Oof that combination of words paired with where his mind kept trying to wander –this was a problem he’d need to handle. He shook his head. “On my count ok? Pull a little each time like one–pull, two–pull–”

“Ok ok I’ve got it. Wait! We should have goggles.”

He’d been about to pull and just let go and sat down on the lawn.

“I’ll be right back.”

She ran off and he sighed and shook his head. He definitely wasn’t going to finish the tile today. Not that he minded another day added to his work here, but she really did make projects difficult, didn’t she? He could already have the bush out of the ground. In fact…

He stood and grabbed it, ready to just do it on his own when she started shouting from the house, “Don’t you dare, JK! Wait! Wait for me right now or I will…” She trailed off, clearly unable to think of a threat as she slammed the door and ran back to him, two pairs of goggles in her gloved hands. “Safety is important! It will be traumatizing for both of us if I have to drive you to the hospital with a twig sticking out of your eye!”

He rolled his eyes because he did not think that was likely to happen, but he took the goggles and put them on.

“Happy now?” he asked her, knowing he looked ridiculous –but also secretly a little glad she’d insisted and provided the safety gear because actually he’d be kind of fucked if he had to be out of work for a while. And he didn’t want to lose an eye. He liked his eyes.

“Do you want a mask in case dirt flies into your mouth?”

“Nah, I’ve had worse things in my mouth.”

Her eyebrows raised but she didn’t say anything.

“You have a sick mind,” he teased her, thrilled she’d displayed this bit of juvenile depravity.

“What?!”

“I saw that look,” he snickered, and crouched to reach the trunk again.

“What look? There was no look!”

“I saw the look.”

She crouched as well and grabbed the trunk, her hands right above his, and insisted, “There was no look. I don’t know what kind of things you put into your mouth. OH, do you want gloves? Don’t you have work gloves?”

“Just pull the fucking plant or I’ll never get your pool done. Ready? One –yeah, rock your body like that.”

Well shit. He heard it too. He’d meant because when he said one, she pulled afterwards like he’d told her to do, using her weight to tug!

He quickly let go of the plant and insisted, “I meant that purely professionally–”

“Pull the fucking plant, JK,” she said right back and he kind of loved her a little in that moment. He took hold, counted again, tried not to let his mind wander to the way she crouched and tugged and grunted and how her hands looked wrapped around –though admittedly he was not as thick as this trunk, sadly.

At three, they both pulled back, legs straining, feet sinking into the dirt. The plant stretched and a bunch of roots popped but it didn’t come out.

“Ok one more time,” he said. “We’re almost there.”

She nodded, gasping for breath.

Again they counted, again they pulled, and this time Jungkook could walk his hands further down, and dig his fingers into the roots beneath the trunk. They strained and pulled and her feet slid out from under her, rendering her mostly ineffective, but still she pulled!

Enough roots finally snapped and the plant went rocketing over their heads to land in a defeated heap behind them. Grace simply laid the rest of the way, and Jungkook stretched out beside her because why not? The damn thing was out, and a lot of the roots with it.

“There. Done,” he beamed at her through his own strained breath.

“I still have to get the roots out.”

“Make the yard guy do it! Damn, you’re really determined, huh?”

“I am.” She beamed at him, lying next to him in the dirt, and damnit if that wasn’t a moment ripe for kissing… and grabbing… and maybe fucking, yeah? Right there in the dirt under the shade of the trees… animalistic. He’d never done something like that. Could be cool.

But he wasn’t so fucked in the head not to know his little fantasy was one sided. Obviously he wasn’t going to do something aggressive like that. It helped when she started to giggle.

“What?” he asked, eyes narrowing.

“You are covered in dirt.”

“Yeah you too.”

“That plant put up a fight but we won.”

“With minimal blood.”

She sighed loudly, “God I wish I could jump into the pool to cool off.”

“Jesus, lady, I’m working on it!” he laughed, knowing she wasn’t actually complaining but eager to pretend he was offended.

“No, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean that as a complaint!”

He pushed to his feet and continued to pretend, “Fine fine I’m going, I’ll get back to work.”

“No, I’m sorry,” she cried, and grabbed his arm. “I really wasn’t complaining! Thank you so much for helping me and– here, let me get you something to drink and–”

He grabbed her arm too and pulled her to her feet before admitting, “I know, I’m just playing with you. Jumping in the pool would be great. It’s going to be a great fucking pool.”

“I know. It’s worth the wait.”

“Lots of things are worth the wait.”

“I know…”

“So I’ll get back to it.” He grabbed his shirt from the grass and shook it out because the sheen of sweat was now leaving him quite cold in the chillier air. He didn’t mind the dirt or blood on the fabric, but she grabbed it from his hands.

“I’ll wash this for you.”

“Nah, it’s fine.”

“You have a sweatshirt, don’t you? I’ll wash this, it’ll be done before you leave. It’s the least I can do. I can see my blood on it.”

“It’s not much blood.”

“Do you want something to drink? I don’t have those Bacchus-D things you like but I have water or lemonade or wine or… oh, I got Sprite.”

“For me?” he asked, surprised into it.

“Yes, you want that?”

“Sure. Ok. Thanks.” He didn’t know what else to say as she walked off with his shirt to get him a Sprite she’d bought for him. She was nice. It made him feel a little bad for the depraved things he thought of doing to her –but they were nice depraved things! He was a giver, even in his fantasies, he’d make her cum really hard, definitely harder than that asshole little Timmy ever had.

She seemed almost meek about it when she brought him a Sprite and a wet towel to wipe his face with and also a box of Girl Scout cookies. He wasn’t going to say no to Girl Scout cookies!

“I really appreciate it. You don’t have to keep helping me like that,” she insisted. “Or at least let me Venmo you some money or something for the extra help–”

“Nah, it’s fine. Seriously. Thanks for the cookies and Sprite though.”

To be honest, he was a little annoyed by her offer of money. He appreciated it but still, couldn’t they just be friendly enough he could help and it wasn’t a big deal? He couldn’t imagine Tim-tim racing over to help her rip up plants, so it made him feel superior.

“Ok well I promise not to get into any more trouble while you’re here.”

“Better than getting into trouble without me,” he argued.

“I don’t always need saving, you know.”

It was like he could read it on her face, hear it in her voice, that she was getting a little defensive. He’d just meant to be playing with her, but he’d seen that defensiveness from her come up enough now to recognize it. She wanted to be independent and strong on her own. Ok, he could understand that, especially with her ex. He did think she was strong and independent and all that. Smart and nice and a really good eye for things, and not afraid to get her hands dirty. He could see the cabinets installed and her kitchen looked nice as hell.

“I know, you just need some muscle sometimes.” Yeah, he heard how that sounded. To make it better or worse, he flexed his bicep; probably it was for the best he had his sweatshirt on so she couldn’t see. At least she’d know he really did mean strength and not dick. Though he’d be happy to help her with that too, if she wanted.

She did not want.

“Well, thank you,” she said again, and that was that. He couldn’t think of an excuse to keep her there any longer, so he went back to tiling and she went to clean up the gardening mess she’d made and dig out the remaining roots. He heard her hiss again at one point and wondered if she’d broken another nail. If so, he didn’t want to know.

By the time he was wrapped for the day, he’d managed to replace all the missing tiles in the bottom of the pool, but not yet started the new tile pattern she wanted around the lip. She brought him his freshly cleaned shirt, hanging on a fucking wooden hanger. The shirt was still warm from the dryer and he couldn’t bring himself to pull it on his sweaty body. When he went to fold it to carry with him she insisted he just take the hanger with him, so he did because damn, that was a nice hanger.

He drummed on the steering wheel, singing along to the Green Day CD as he headed home. Dookie had come out a few years before he was born but come on, everyone knew Green Day. Even Grace had known Green Day. She said her brother had the album and listened to it in secret and it made him want to ask her about her brother, if he got into trouble too or if listening to Green Day was the worst thing he ever did. Rich kids could go hard, but they could also just be bratty over nothing, if he’d learned anything from the couple somehow stuck in his public high school.

The memory of Grace singing along to I went to a whore, she said my life’s a bore when she hadn’t realized he was listening made his smile grow. It was the first time he’d heard her sing and he regretted it was too quiet to really hear, more like talking. Did she sing well? He wanted to know! She said she couldn’t but maybe she was just humble, possibly the first humble rich person to ever exist.

By the time he parked at his parents’ apartment that afternoon, he was showered, changed, and his favorite jacket now hung on the wooden hanger in his closet. He bounded up the steps and pulled out his key and sang out,

“Helloooo, favorite uncle is heeeere.”

Max’s shriek of delight revealed his location: systematically pulling the take out containers from the low cabinet in the kitchen.

“K!” he called. “Hi, K! Hi!”

“My man Max,” Jungkook greeted and scooped Max up to blow a raspberry on his cheek. “Where’s your mama?”

“Just getting ready.”

“Ready for what?” Jungkook asked, eyes narrowing as she came around the corner. She had a headband with a floppy bow on and it fell across her forehead in a way he thought looked silly and also reminded him of Grace’s silly bandaid.

Apparently it made him smile without meaning to because Yoojin crossed her arms and demanded, “What are you so happy about?”

“Huh?”

“You’re smiling like an idiot. You’re in a good mood, I can tell. Get a girl or something?”

“What a weird question to ask your brother but no.”

“Come on, I’m a cool sister. You can tell me if someone finally took pity on you–”

“Why do I have to meet someone? Why can’t I just be happy about… you know, life. Good waves and a new amp–”

“So you didn’t meet anyone, you’re just being weird. Whatever, that’s fine. Seems like you two will have fun,” Yoojin cooed to Max. “Uncle JK isn’t grumpy today!”

“Screw you, I’m never grumpy. You’re the grumpy one this week.”

“Um, I’m in a great mood, I’ve got a new job and everything,” she pointed out. He didn’t think desk girl at the gym was going to pay great but it was definitely better than her big fat paycheck of $0 she’d been making before.

“Hope it’s great.”

“Day two,” she beamed. “Be good for Uncle JK, my big Max Man.” She took Max for a moment to hug and kiss and giggle with before handing him back.

Max immediately told Jungkook a stream of gibberish he couldn’t make any sense of.

“Good luck!” Yoojin called and was gone. Max frowned for a hot second, then waved at the closed door, “Bye bye! Bye bye bye. Akka?” he asked Jungkook.

“What’s that?”

“Akka? Akka?” He whined and reached towards the cabinets.

“Akka… banana? Apple? Rice cakes? Crackers?”

“Yaaaay.”

Jungkook bounced Max on his arm, tossing him playfully over to the other arm, as together they went to dig out all of those things and see which was right. Maybe Yoojin was right, he did feel pretty light and energetic. Had he been cranky lately? He didn’t think so. But he felt very much the opposite of that right now. Maybe he’d get dinner started before Appa got home. He felt like he could manage that while also playing with Max. He felt like he could kind of do anything right now, if he could retile a pool and pull a stubborn plant out of the dirt. The ache in his shoulders felt good.

Her pool was going to look so fucking good. He wondered if she’d remember him when she swam in it. He wondered if she still had that white bathing suit. That tile was going to have a great view…

Stephanie raised a bejeweled, manicured hand and easily waved at Grace over the heads of those in the restaurant. She was so tall, always the first one to be spotted in a crowd –a skill she had put to good use with some modeling in New York in her 20s, though she’d ultimately condemned the industry and moved into a completely different role: art lawyer.

A wave of greeting rolled around the pulled-together high tops as Grace slid onto the stool between Alicia and Stephanie, Ashley and Catherine already sliding drinks around to make room for whatever she ordered.

“She lives!” Ashley cheered.

“Girl, you had us worried,” Alicia scolded, waving with a tortilla chip. “Like you just disappear and we’re hearing about your divorce but– hey, don’t elbow me, she knows she’s divorced, we know now, no need to make it some big thing it’s not.” Alicia glared at Catherine, always the more subtle among them.

Catherine corrected, “Maybe we talk about something before we go right into it?”

“There’s nothing to go into,” Stephanie argued. “Tim’s a dick. Fucking good riddance. Welcome back.”

“Is there a club?” Grace asked as their voices continued to bubble and churn over each other in the busy restaurant. She wasn’t sure what club connected these women other than being 30-somethings. Stephanie lived life floating from one dalliance to another and loved it; Alicia hadn’t had anything serious in five years since she called it off with her fiance, but Victoria was married with a son, Ashley was engaged, and Catherine newly married, to a much older but allegedly wonderful man. Grace had only met him at the wedding –it was a bit of a fast thing– but he’d seemed nice.

“The club of not being hitched to a prick,” Alicia explained, then raised her hand to gesture for their waiter. Her thousand-watt smile no doubt bewitched him as it did everyone and he was with them in an instant, nodded as she gestured to Grace. “Our friend has arrived and would like a very strong drink.”

“Alicia,” Grace complained. She laughed and assured the waiter, “It doesn’t have to be any stronger than usual but an amaretto sour, please?”

“Coming right up, normal strength,” he told her. She could see why her friends had obviously immediately made buddies with him in that way sexy women and handsome waiters do. His teeth were shockingly white in his tan face, his blond hair streaked by the sun, the cut a little long like had been heartthrob popular when they were children in the 80s and 90s. He could have walked off the set of Saved By The Bell with that chiseled jaw. Was he a surfer? He looked like a surfer. She wondered if he knew JK.

“Don’t leave, we want to order appetizers too,” Victoria said, as if he’d started to run. He had not, too busy grinning at Stephanie’s flirty banter.

“Did you want to pick something out?” Ashley asked Grace, handing her the menu while Victoria rattled it off, Alicia adding and Stephanie subtracting from the things she said.

Grace waved it off with, “No, I’m just along for the ride.” She’d heard once that there was always a dominant one of a friend group, a sort of leader who drove the planning and the food ordering and such. Well in this friend group there were at least four of them and yes, the squabbles erupted sometimes, but it was beautifully upfront and direct. Her other social circles had the kind of conflict that was all all simmering resentment and gossipy whispers and passive aggressive snark at brunch. This group addressed disagreements –of which there were plenty– head on, sorted them, and moved along.

“Aren’t you going to write this down, Matt?”

Matt gave them a charming grin alongside the assurance, “Don’t need to, I remember every word you’ve said.” Then he rattled off their list of appetizers-as-entrees like a showman pulling off an audience participation trick. They acted duly impressed as he gathered the skinny menus and then turned his grin to Grace, “I’ll be right back with your normal strength amaretto sour.”

By the time Matt set the drink in front of Grace, her mind was already spinning from the onslaught of updates from these girls. They were women on the go, all of them, busy and bright and ambitious. Fear of their opinion was, secretly, one of the instigating factors in her pursuing her real estate license years ago. Too many brunches having to admit that her day consisted of pilates, social calls, and a dash of volunteer work. Not that they’d begrudged her –in fact they’d sighed about how lucky she was. But she could see the near-pity in their eyes at her having nothing of her own to compare to their director of marketing promotion, success with fundraising for the new start up, the completed surgical residency. They had all started out privileged, though not quite the status she came from, but for them it had only been a launching off point, not a totality.

So Grace had given real estate a try, because she loved houses and interiors and homes, and it turned out, she’d loved it. She still loved it. She credited these women for keeping her grounded and stable –and realized in letting herself get wrapped up in their energetic, overly loud conversation just how much she had missed them. Why had she not spent time with them since her divorce?

“Ok so how did you figure out he was cheating on you?” Ashley suddenly asked, turning to Grace expectantly her mouth full of food.

“Oh.” Grace covered her mouth and chewed dramatically to look like she was rushing to answer. She was not.

“Oh don’t ask her that,” Alicia gasped. “That’s so rude!”

“Yeah don’t ask for the juicy details!” Catherine scolded.

Victoria gave Grace a devilish grin and teased, “So are they? Juicy?”

“Ladies ladies,” Stephanie intervened. “This is a ruined marriage here. A betrayed woman. Our friend, not the latest season of Love Island.”

“All the more reason to care,” Ashley insisted.

Grace did not think Stephanie and Catherine had defended her very strongly, but didn’t wish to be enigmatic about it either. Maybe listening to her friends curse Tim to hell and back would be cathartic.

“Can I have another one of these?” she asked Matt as he came by to check on them. Her friends took it as a sign and laughed and clapped while he just grinned and promised not to keep her waiting. He was obviously just flirting for his tip, but the wide eyes and raised brows as he departed were followed quickly by poorly stifled giggles.

“Well well, he didn’t say that to any of us,” Alicia snickered.

“He has been checking by our table a lot, right? More than his other tables,” Victoria mused, tapping her chin.

Grace rolled her eyes and scolded, “You’re all terrible. I am in the middle of a… rancid divorce.”

“Which you filed.”

“Which I filed,” she confirmed. “And which I will not speak about the details of because with my luck he’s got a private investigator following me for dirt he can use in court.”

“He wouldn’t,” Catherine gasped.

Stephanie guffawed, “Of course the piece of shit would.”

“It’s been longer than six months, right? Isn’t that how long it’s supposed to take?” Ashley asked. “I looked it up.”

“Six months and a day if it’s mutual and simple. Unfortunately…” Grace trailed off as Matt returned, fast indeed, and set the drink in front of her.

“Anything else I can get you ladies right now?”

“Ladies,” they groaned. “Might as well call us Ma’am! How old do you think we are?”

“Twenty-eight,” he said, his face leaving it unclear whether it was a joke.

Alicia snorted and flapped her hand at Catherine, joking, “You know he’s young if he thinks we want to be twenty-eight!”

“We are women in our thirties and you couldn’t pay me to go back,” Victoria agreed.

“Seriously, can you remember when it felt like we’d be dead at thirty?”

“Yeah but there is that thing that happens when you sleep funny…” Grace suggested, because Matt looked like he wasn’t sure what was going on and if he’d said the right thing or not. When her friends just stared, she continued, “You know, where apparently you slept wrong or sneezed wrong and now your neck is convinced you’re–”

“Batman!” Alicia and Stephanie cried together. That was not what Grace had been going to say, but she could understand what they meant when they both stiffened their necks and turned their whole bodies.

“Not me, thanks, it’s got me reaching for the–”

“Ibuprofen,” Catherine suggested, but Ashley corrected, “Percocet.”

“Oh Lordie,” Alicia giggled.

Grace grinned up at Matt, “I’m so sorry about my friends. I think we’re fine for now.”

“I agree,” he said, and winked, and sauntered off.

Grace startled, not sure if he’d meant he agreed they were fine or agreed they were fine. The wink?

Stephanie had, of course, seen, and elbowed her, teasing, “Eh, eh? I think he likes you in particular.”

“He’s our waiter.”

“Seriously though, I ask you this… so what? We’re not talking about marrying the guy,” Alicia said.

Victoria nodded, then leaned in close and stage-whispered, “We’re talking about fucking.”

“Jesus, how many have you had?” Stephanie laughed. She playfully nudged Victoria’s drink away from her.

“I have a three year old, you know I can’t hold my vodka anymore,” Victoria laughed and slid it back.

Ashley motioned for everyone to wait while she chewed, wait while she swallowed, then safely said, “I hope you know you’re way too hot to sit around.”

“Yeah, take it from me,” Alicia agreed. “We’re not saying to rush anything. I get it, babe. I’ve been there. Don’t sit around wondering what the next thing is, just grab what you want and have a good time.”

Catherine passed a napkin to Victoria, who had just dragged her sleeve through her plate, and assured Grace, “You’ll know when you’re ready for something new.”

“I can’t imagine being ready for something new,” she admitted, because she was just a little tipsy and so were her friends, so it felt safe to have a moment of vulnerability in this trendy gastro-pub. “I mean the pool guy is the one who caught Tim and let me know… My husband! It was mortifying.”

“That’s right, he sucked.”

“Let it out, let it out.”

“No, that’s… that’s all I had to say,” she laughed, and sucked down the last of her drink. “It was unpleasant.”

“Unpleasant!” her friends repeated and giggled into each other’s shoulders. She rolled her eyes.

Stephanie patted her arm, sighing, “Grace, my dear old friend. I think Ashley and Victoria may be right. You’re so…”

“So what?” Grace pressed, eyebrow arching.

“So bottled up,” she tried.

“So careful,” Catherine suggested.

“That’s what I’m saying,” Ashley sighed. “I’m a doctor so I say this with a medical degree backing: you need to get fucked good. You need to fuck someone good, just get all that anger out and like… cum your feelings and your frustration and your brains–”

“This is medical advice, hm?” Victoria asked, barely holding it together. She and Alicia caught each other’s gaze and lost it.

“It is! Grace is always so proper and polished and I just– aren’t you mad? You did everything right and that loser fucked you over.”

Grace nodded, feeling herself fade away. Sure, she was mad. Really mad. But as much as she was enjoying this time out and knowing her girls were in her corner, she didn’t have the same spirit that Alicia and Victoria and Ashley had to just rage about it. It felt… private. Painful. Shameful.

Also she didn’t know the first thing about finding someone to fuck.

“You deserve to get a little wild,” Alicia told her. “Not crazy, don’t do something you’re going to regret, but like…”

“Take the waiter home,” Ashley suggested, then pretended to be innocently watching the TV over the bar as Matt returned with another round of requested drinks. Grace knew she might regret this come tomorrow. The hangovers were another part of their 30s they ought to have warned Matt about. He didn’t look like he’d reached his yet, but probably not far off. Maybe twenty-eight, twenty-nine? Surely not younger than that… though it was possible JK was skewing her ability to guess ages because he had such a youthful face.

“Anything else I can get for you?” Matt asked her, and Grace had the horrifying fear she might have been staring. His blond hair was really beautiful. She’d never been with someone like that, surfer guy, sunkissed cheeks, hair that would drape around his face–

Oh good god.

“No,” she said quickly, and buried her face in her drink. “Last one. Cut me off after this.”

“If you say so,” he smiled and was gone again, laughing when Victoria and Ashley called something after him that Grace completely missed in her embarrassment.

Catherine managed to steer conversation away from fucking and over to a hospital workplace drama of Ashley’s that got them all as rabid as they’d been for details of her divorce. Grace was more than grateful for the break –which seemed intentional, judging by Catherine’s smile. Despite Grace’s misgivings about Catherine marrying a wealthy man in his early 50s when she herself was only thirty-six, she seemed happy and like things were going well for her. Maybe it wasn’t all older men who sucked, just her not-yet-ex husband in particular.

But a younger guy… could Grace really see herself taking someone like Matt home? She watched him glide between tables in his all-black uniform, crisp below the neck, a little wild above, his smile radiating sunbeams upon whoever he addressed. A younger guy would have no reason to pursue her though, not when he looked like that and could catch women his own age, easily. She wasn’t old or anything, and thought she looked her age in an attractive way, but still, what unique thing, what special draw did she really have that would lure someone in for a night of… that? She was wife material, not a brag-worthy catch, but she didn’t want to be anyone’s wife again for a long time. Probably never.

God, she really couldn’t imagine going through marriage again. A wedding? What a nightmare.

She’d lost track of Matt, which meant he surprised her suddenly appearing at her shoulder.

“You look like you need something,” he said, and you could have heard a pin drop at the table.

“I… do not,” she told him.

“Are you sure?” He leaned in close and joked, “Look, I’ve got connections here. I can get you anything you want. Amaretto sour? Glass of sparkling water? One of those chocolate cakes with a strawberry on it which it’s not even supposed to come with, but I know a guy…”

It wasn’t possible. Was he flirting with her?

Suddenly he laughed, “It’s me, I’m the guy. I can just put a strawberry on the cake. If you want one.”

“She wants the cake,” Alicia assured him.

“She definitely wants the cake,” Ashley agreed.

“Honestly I think we may all want the cake?” Victoria asked, looking around.

Grace could only nod as Matt went to get some unknown number of chocolate cakes. She actually didn’t want the cake. She couldn’t figure out if anyone was actually talking about cake because all she could understand in the moment was that a good looking man might be flirting with her out of everyone at the table. Had he overheard about her divorce? Worse, had her friends put him up to this before she arrived?

But their giggles seemed sincere as they kept wiggling their eyebrows at her and dug into chocolate cake.

“Why don’t we ever treat ourselves like this?” Ashley demanded. “We should always be getting the chocolate cake.”

“It’s better with the strawberries,” Catherine said.

Stephanie smirked at Grace and agreed, “Thanks for getting us the strawberries.”

“I didn’t do anything.”

“Just being hot,” Alicia assured her.

Grace was not sure what to make of this. She didn’t even want the cake but felt rude not to at least have a few bites. The strawberries were not in season and were a little sour. She downed it with water to stave off any headaches tomorrow, and waved Matt over for the tab.

“We should go to Mexico or something,” Ashley sighed. “So we can actually stay out instead of work and significant others– shit, I mean, not that you have to–”

“Hey, I’m single too,” Alicia pointed out.

“Yeah but by choice, I just didn’t mean to–”

“Shut up, Ashley,” Victoria laughed. “Go back to slicing people open instead of talking.”

“Rude!” But she gave Grace an apologetic look that was more painful than the reference to significant others. She wasn’t bothered by that!

Cards rained down into the tray for Matt, and upon his return he made a playful show of calling names and passing the booklets out for them to sign.

In Grace’s booklet was an extra slip of paper, on which he had scrawled: I get off in twenty or I’m off Saturday if you feel like grabbing a drink (amaretto sour, normal). 31, if it matters. –Matt

Grace slapped the book closed, face instantly aflame. Seriously?! Couldn’t he lose his job doing something like that?? Not that she was going to file a complaint or anything because, well, in this particular situation she felt flattered, not bothered.

Should she do it–

NO, of course she shouldn’t do it! She’d had enough drinks for one night, any more would be courting disaster. And coming back Saturday felt like such a thing, and she wasn’t ready for a thing, she wasn’t even actually divorced yet. And what if drinks led to something, hm? She hadn’t been with anyone but Tim in a decade. She’d made a fool of herself and her ego just couldn’t handle that right now, disappointing someone who looked like he might be the actual biological son of the ocean.

Not that she wouldn’t like to surrender herself into the experienced arms of someone who could really “fuck her brains out” –as Dr. Ashley ordered.

She was mortified by her own inability to do anything with this obviously dream-like scenario. She tucked the paper into her pocket, afraid it might fall out of the booklet and get noticed by one of her nosy friends. It felt rude not to say anything back but she didn’t know what to say, just tipped him very well and scurried out of the restaurant between her friends so she wouldn’t accidentally make eye contact.

Grace made sure her friends were all safely in cabs, caught her own, and was home, in-bed, unfucked by 10.

“Shit.” Jungkook’s brow lowered as he flipped the keys around on the ring, confused by the lack of house key. He patted his pockets despite knowing that at no point had he removed the house key from his keychain and put it in his pocket. He checked the ring again, eye twitching with annoyance that it had not reappeared. The metal ring was a little loose, but loose enough for a key to fall off? One single key? Not the three mystery keys that he had no fucking clue what they went to but only his very useful housekey? Eomma and Appa’s key was still there, his car key, the garage key, an old gym locker key… no house key.

He resorted to knocking on the door and ringing the doorbell in case anyone was home. It was almost eight, someone ought to be home.

No answer.

A crack of thunder rattled the frame of the house and, like it was the sound of the sky breaking, torrential rain fell in a sheet so physically heavy Jungkook felt like he’d been hit by a wave. He scurried to his car and ducked inside, poking around between and beneath the seats to see if his key had fallen out there. He found two guitar picks, a pacifier of Max’s, someone’s melted lipstick, and three half-empty water bottles and made a note to vacuum out all the sand when he had a couple quarters, but no key. Maybe it was in his work truck… but he was wearing baggy sweatpants today with shallow pockets, the little metal fucker could have fallen out anywhere.

Well, good thing they kept a spare key in the garage. He had to brave the rain again to dash from driveway to the garage, lifted the door just enough to duck under, then went for the lock box stuck to the underside of the tool table they did not own any actual tools for. The box was there but he had to try each of their birthdays because they all kept resetting the passcode. It unlocked on 1-2-3-1, hinting Taehyung had been the last one to open it, which meant he’d know who to murder because the spare key had not been replaced.

“Fucker,” Jungkook sighed.

He returned to the front door and pounded again as another crack of thunder rattled the windows. Thunderstorms were unusual, it gave everything a sort of suspense-movie feel. He fished out his phone and tried calling Taehyung and Jimin but neither answered like the assholes they were. So Jungkook could either drive back to work and see if the key fell out in his truck or go hang out at Eomma and Appa’s until someone answered.

Another thought occurred to him. He’d been at Grace’s that morning, finishing up the final patches and protective coat over the tile before it would be time to fill it –meaning he was (sadly) just about done with the project. When it was time to go, he’d asked to use her bathroom because she had one just off the back patio, and then they’d spent a few minutes talking about how he would fill the pool soon, and then about some road construction going on nearby and whether that was annoying her because he was looking for any conversation to prolong his departure, and it was possible he’d spun his keys around his finger while they talked.

When one more round of banging on the door and calling Taehyung and Jimin and then Taehyung again didn’t get him anywhere, Jungkook jumped back into his car and set off for Grace’s house. The rain came down in sheets pushed sideways by the rain, making it hard to see, so he drove slowly. It made it an even longer drive, they lived in different parts of the city and there was traffic at this hour (haha, there was always traffic) and the traffic was slower because of the rain too except for the occasional shitbag flying down the road, two blocks at a time, as if they’d get there faster. More like kill someone on the way.

Eventually he got to her place and punched in the back gate code and pulled in. Her yard beyond the reach of the motion light looked like a shadowy lush forest in the downpour and it made him jealous. At his house the rain was annoying and he was worried the garage would flood again but here there was something refreshing about it, like the LA smog couldn’t reach. He knew he shouldn’t talk shit about the rain, in a month they’d be in another drought and longing for a storm like this. They didn’t happen often. But it was definitely going to flood his garage again and they needed to practice in there tomorrow!

If he had a yard like this, he could enjoy it. Instead he just thought of missed surfing and angry oceans and leaky garages.

He ran from his car to the back door; for some reason it made him recall being a little boy attempting to dodge the raindrops, back before he became a surfer. Once you got hooked on surfing, you got used to “wet” and “dry” being states of mind.

She he had apparently not heard the gate open or his car on that crunchy-ass driveway. Instead she moved around the kitchen making dinner, washing dishes it looked like, mouth moving like she was singing or talking to someone, completely unaware he was about to knock on her backdoor. She didn’t look like she was dancing but she could just be really bad at it.

He felt only a brief flicker of guilt for interrupting her evening. He’d be quick. In and out and gone before she knew it. He knocked on the door.

At first she didn’t react at all, so he knocked again harder.

This time she spun around with a visual gasp, her hand shooting out to grab something in defense –a sudsy spatula which flung soap all across her counter, which Jungkook noticed only peripheral to the wide, terrified look on her face.

Oops.

He would have hoped that settled as soon as she saw it was just him, but the shift to her expression was only slight as she crept towards the door, as if he was actually just someone else in a JK costume.

“JK?” she verified when only panes of glass and a couple feet separated them.

“Hi,” he said. He gave her an awkward wave. He hadn’t expected to scare her. “Yeah, just me.”

“What are you doing here? It’s–” She broke off, glancing at her wrist but there was no watch there. Her voice was muffled through the door, which she hadn’t opened.

“I know, sorry,” he said. “I lost my keys.” Thunder cracked right as he said it, drowning him out.

“What?”

“I lost my keys!” he repeated, louder.

At this point she unlocked the door and opened it, spatula still in hand, and said again, “What? Please don’t be here to murder me.”

“What?” he repeated as thunder rattled the frame of the house and rain pummeled the patio behind him because he thought she’d just said something about murder.

She leaned further out the door and asked, “Why are you here so late?”

“Did I leave my keys here?”

“Your keys?”

“Did I drop my housekey when I used your bathroom today?”

“Oh. I– no!!” she shrieked so loud that Jungkook took a step back because yeouwch right in his fucking ear. It left him unprepared for her to suddenly lunge forward. Maybe she tripped. Either way, she collided bodily with him and they sprawled together to the ground, her fully on top of him and his ass taking the beating on those fancy patio stones.

“Foam!” she cried and tried to leap to her feet, only to knee Jungkook in the groin, almost a fatal blow. He managed to twist just enough, just in time, so she at least missed direct assault on his balls but it still left him shuddering.

“Fuck,” he groaned and grabbed her arms to lift her off him so he could take a moment.

She stood and looked forlornly around the yard, spatula clutched in both her hands. The tree cover made things pitch black and her yard lights weren’t on so it was impossible to see anything through the torrential curtain now that the motion light had clicked off.

“What just happened?” he asked, dragging himself up, testing out his body to make sure her knee hadn’t just done permanent damage to his future as a father, should he care to. He couldn’t even enjoy the moment she’d been sprawled on top of him!

“Sorry,” she said, distracted, like she didn’t really mean it. “You let my cat escape!”

“What?”

“I mean… sorry, it wasn’t your fault, I shouldn’t have opened the door but–”

“Why would your cat run out into a thunderstorm?”

“I don’t know! He’s… special.”

Jungkook joined her survey of the yard, half expecting a very regretful cat to come streaking back, but no such luck. Lightning lit up the yard but there was no sign of any cat.

“He’ll come back,” Jungkook assured her. And for good measure, called, “Here, kitty kitty!”

“He’s deaf, I can’t just leave him to roam the world! He’s an indoor cat! He doesn’t know anything about– shit,” she huffed.

“Oh.” Now he felt like an asshole to have called for the cat but it’s not like he could have known! He’d never thought about the fact cats could even be deaf.

She seemed to only just notice the spatula in her hand. She tossed it back into the house, then turned and promptly ran into the rain –no umbrella, no jacket, no shoes.

“Foam!” she called, only to break off with a curse, “Fuck, he can’t hear me…” as she disappeared behind some tall bushes towards the front of the house.

In a flash of lightning, Jungkook thought he saw a blur of motion in a very different part of the yard.

He thought hunting for her cat in a thunderstorm was only going to end in failure but he’d seen people do dumber things over pets. He’d never had one, but maybe if he had a dog or something, he’d do the same thing.

Maybe not. It was really coming down out there. He saw the shadow of Grace jogging along the edge of the yard and couldn’t just let her search alone. At least he had to try since apparently she really cared about this cat of hers.

Another clap of thunder this time preceded the shriek of an animal which for a brief moment he thought might be Grace. Just as quickly he realized it must be the cat because it didn’t sound like a noise classy Grace would make and it was from the wrong part of the yard. The yowl sounded terrified and Jungkook knew he had to help find this dumb little cat.

Jungkook took off in the direction it had come from, hand shielding his eyes from the rain as he tried to make sense of the moving shadows. At least her motion light activated and gave him some help but it was so fucking bright it left swirls dancing across his vision when he tried to see in the shadows again.

“Foam!” he called out of habit, then cursed. She had so much stuff in her yard –bushes and trees and plants and shit– and usually he thought it was cool but right now it made it hard to find a shivering wet beast. At least in the denser parts the rain was less of a slap against his face, but still it dripped from his hair and ran down his nose and chin, and he was used to being soaked from his time in the ocean but it was beginning to feel like he’d never be dry.

“Foam, where are you?” Grace called, a desperate edge to her voice.

“I think he’s over here,” Jungkook shouted back.

“Where? JK?”

But Jungkook couldn’t answer because he’d spotted the cat, miserable and shivering and panicked. The cat looked up at Jungkook with his spooky reflective eyes and something in his expression made clear he was about to take off again and Jungkook felt sure he would be even harder to find a second time.

So he did the only thing he could do. He grabbed the kitty by the scruff of the neck and dragged it, writhing and chirping into his arms. It was wet and hard to hold and shockingly strong though, so he felt like there was no choice but the next move: he shoved the cat under his shirt and held it there as he dashed towards the house.

Which the kitty, to be clear, did not like. He thrashed and tried to escape, first through the bottom, then through the top. He’d managed to get his head stuck in the pit of Jungkook’s sleeve just as Jungkook reached the back door of the house. He flung open and then shut the door behind him to try and wrench the cat out in the kitchen, only to realize he’d slammed it in Grace’s face and opened it for her again.

“You got him?!” she gasped, as if it wasn’t obvious from the weird clicky cries yodeling from Jungkook’s armpit as he tried to drag the cat out the bottom. The cat put up too much of a fight and now his stomach was starting to sting from the scratches so Jungkook just yanked his shirt up and let the cat drop –after a moment of simply hanging there, claws dug into his body.

“Oh my god!”

Just as Grace reached forward, her cat vaulted off Jungkook with a final slash of his back claws and tore through the house, leaving a trail of spattered water in his wake.

“Shit,” Jungkook hissed, curling forward and looking down at his bare torso. His body shuddered at the sharp pain as it rolled up his torso and then down again. Thin bloody red lines cross-crossed all down his abs, heavier blood seeping out in a few places.

“Oh my god. Oh my god, I’m so sorry,” Grace gasped, hands reaching forward but stopping just shy of his body before she pulled back, only to almost reach again, like she couldn’t figure out what to do. “Um… uh…”

“Maybe a towel or something,” Jungkook mumbled as a hint.

“A towel!” she repeated and leapt into action only to slip and crash into the counter. The rain had pooled around their feet, turning the tiled kitchen into a death trap. Jungkook hissed at the red welts and shivered again as the air condition made pebbles of his skin and nipples. He lowered his shirt just a smidge, self conscious about his nipples. In the background a drawer slid open and slammed shut.

Grace abruptly pressed the towel against his torso and he yelped.

“Oh…?” she said, eyes going wide. As if it hadn’t occurred to her a rough kitchen towel shoved against a torso full of raw scratches wouldn’t be comfortable.

Gingerly he pulled it away and used it instead to wipe his face and hair off so it would stop running down his face, then squeezed his shirt out with it.

“I’m sorry, I don’t have anything for… do you need to go to the hospital?”

“It’s not that bad,” he assured her. He almost laughed but his smile seemed misplaced next to her worry. Sure, it hurt, and he was soaked, and he’d had a long day and just wanted to be home in bed and instead he was dripping water and blood on her rich person tile but it wasn’t like getting a little roughed up was new to him. Maybe it wasn’t usually cat nails scratching him but– well not that kind of cat–

“I have… hm… Oh! I can get you dry clothes and maybe… medicine? I’ll see what I have,” she said and spun away again. This time when she slipped on the tile, Jungkook reached out to steady her, hands clamping to her hips.

“Careful, you’ll bust your head open.”

Briefly her hands pressed over his and then simultaneously they both released.

“Uh.” She glanced over her shoulder at him for a moment. “I’ll get dry clothes for you.”

“Right,” he said as she shuffled away. “Wait, nothing that belonged to your ex husband.”

“I didn’t keep anything,” she called back, her voice quickly an echo across the house. He heard her heavy footsteps on the stairs and it made him pause. Damn, she really stomped on those. He wondered if she always pounded the stairs like that or if she was just really panicked right now.

Shit, the scratches really hurt. He hissed again and looked down. That damn cat, he’d been trying to help! He wanted to splash some soap and water on it but also didn’t want to extend the pool of water further through the kitchen. She was bringing him new clothes –whose, then?-- anyway and wouldn’t be back for a moment, so he tugged the shirt off and then his pants, letting them fall in a pile by the backdoor, then strode quickly to the bathroom. There he grimaced further at the full reflection of the scratches… yeah, he was going to tell his friends a chick scratched him up, no way did he want to let smuggling a wet angry cat under his shirt take the credit for this. He’d definitely need to wear a rashguard if he hit the waves or his board was going to tear those lines up bad.

He leaned over the sink as best he could to do a quick scrub down with the blue hand soap in a glass bottle by the faucet –after knocking it with slippery hands down into the bowl of the sink and freezing until he was sure it hadn’t shattered. It sure sounded like it had. The smell of “fresh” wafted up at him as he rinsed the suds off. Probably the soap was “clean linen” or “ocean breeze,” even though an ocean breeze smelled nothing like that.

“Oh. Uh… I mean… you’re just– here are some dry clothes you can borrow,” Grace said from the doorway and gently tossed a stack of fabric onto the closed lid of the toilet. “I’ll get my first aid kit while you…”

She shut the door without finishing her sentence. Jungkook looked back at the shut door, then smiled at his reflection in the mirror. Was she… flustered? He looked at more of his body than the cuts this time. His black boxer-briefs hugged his ass pretty good, and his abs were looking good today because he hadn’t had dinner yet because he was locked out of his fucking house. He lifted his eyebrow in the mirror, trying out a smolder just to cheer himself up, then lifted the clothes to see what she’d brought him.

The gray sweatpants were the softest material he had possibly ever touched and looked shockingly well sized. He couldn’t bring himself to put them on over wet boxers and so traded the bottoms, then shook out the t-shirt. Red with a graphic of Christmas lights zigzagging back and forth across the front, it read Santa Run 10k December 2024 Ho Ho HO.

“Hey, who decided to capitalize the third ‘ho’ like this?” he asked, leaving the bathroom once dressed. The shirt fit him comfortably and frankly he was going to have a really big morale decision about whether he remembered to bring these sweatpants back.

Ok he’d remember.

Probably.

Grace paused digging through a red zippered first aid kit, contents strewn across the counter. She had on dry clothes, her hair pulled back into a real mess at the back of her head, like she’d been in a hurry. It was the most disheveled he’d ever seen her.

She cracked a smile though and admitted, “I don’t know but I thought it was funny too so I kept the shirt.”

“You trying to tell me something?”

“What?! No! It was just the first thing I grabbed that I thought might fit you–”

“I’m joking. I think it’s funny too. The sweatpants are fucking awesome.”

“Yeah, Brendi, it’s a unisex brand so I thought they might fit– my friend does marketing for them so I– here, I found antibiotics. Let’s see?”

“I washed off already, it’s fine.”

“With hand soap?”

“Yeah. I smell nice now, huh?”

Again she smiled, looking slightly more herself with each grin, and assured him, “Yes, but you really need this and bandaids.”

“I’m not putting on bandaids,” he snorted.

“Hm… why not?”

“Because…” He trailed off, judging by her narrowed eyes that she was not going to agree with bandaids on your tummy look stupid. “None of them are that deep or anything.”

“Ok, let me see. Obviously if you wind up needing to buy any medicine or bandages bring me the receipts and I’ll reimburse you–”

“Eh,” he shrugged. Actually that was a really nice offer but obviously he wasn’t going to show up with a Walgreens receipt.

“Come on, at least let’s check that the bleeding has stopped.”

“If you wanted me to take my shirt off, all you had to do was–”

“That’s not–!” she gasped but he thought her surprise was way too funny. Even though he had no interest in letting her inspect the cuts, now he felt compelled to follow through, and so dragged the hem of the ho ho HO t-shirt up. Only then did he realize that now, in this moment, after all his attempts, she would be directly checking out his body, no distractions or interruptions.

She promptly dropped to her knees in front of him and Jungkook’s hands flew up to hover in the air, stunned by this development.

To his immense disappointment on all accounts, Grace merely methodically and without any apparent blush, surveyed the cuts across his stomach without seeming to even see his stomach. Try as he might, he could not really paint it as sexy for her to keep squeezing splurts of antibiotic onto her finger and then dabbing them against various sore points. That’s not to say he didn’t start to chub up because a beautiful woman was kneeling before him and touching all over his stomach! But thankfully her clinical, almost jabbing approach to medicine application kept it from reaching a noticeable state, even without the security of boxers. It was like she wanted as minimal contact with his body as possible. Grace was definitely no bedside nurse.

“I’m really sorry about this,” she said as she stood and screwed the lid back on the medicine tube. “And thank you for helping me find him.”

“Yeah no problem.” For a moment they just stood there before Jungkook realized she was holding the tube out to him. “I don’t want to take your medicine, I’m all good now.”

“Cat scratches can be painful and I don’t want you to risk getting an infection or anything.” She waved the medicine tube.

He wrapped his hand around hers and pressed it back in her direction, insisting, “You need it more than I do.”

“I’ll just buy more.”

“You live alone,” he insisted, not sure what that had to do with anything but looking for any argument not to take medicine away from her that he was never going to use anyway. “I’ve got some at home.”

“Why do I not believe you?” she asked, but did pull the tube back and tuck it away in the medicine bag. Jungkook had never seen someone with an actual full-blown first aid kit in their house, like the kind they had at the pool where he lifeguarded sometimes.

“I wouldn’t lie,” he lied.

“Ok, if you say so…”

But now he was offended and insisted, “Really, I would never lie to you.” Which made him feel a little bad because he was technically lying right now but actually probably Jimin had some, so see? Not a lie.

She stared at a moment which made it seem so serious, what he was saying. He meant it! Then her mouth twitched and she admitted,

“We really got soaked, huh?”

“You need to teach your cat not to do something dumb like that.”

“Oh? How will I teach my cat something, exactly?”

“You can train cats,” he insisted. “Train him not to run out the door.”

“He’s never run out the door before.”

“He seemed pretty good at it,” Jungkook pointed out.

“Maybe he was trying to protect me from a guy randomly showing up at my back door at night?” she countered, and now crossed her arms and turned to face him. “You can’t do that, you know.”

“Do what?”

“Show up at the backdoor unexpectedly at night when a woman lives home alone! Or ever, really, for that matter.”

“I didn’t sneak up on you,” he defended. “I told you, I just wanted to know if I left my keys here.”

“Knocking at the backdoor of a house with a gate is sneaking,” she argued. “I have a front door. And a buzzer.”

Jungkook paused now and thought about this, just a little bit. He hadn’t considered before that the gate applied to him because she just let him come and go for work and had told him the code.

“Ok, well… I didn’t think I had to buzz because you said I didn’t,” he admitted.

“It’s dark outside! You could have been a murderer.”

“Yeah and you were going to fight me off with this, huh?” he snorted, stooping to pick up the spatula that had lay in the middle of the floor for some time now.

“It’s the first thing I grabbed.”

“At least keep a bat or a knife by the door or something,” he suggested and set the spatula in the sink.

“That’s why I have a gate!”

Another fair point, but he still pointed out, “Didn’t stop me.”

“Because I gave you the code.”

“Didn’t we talk about this? You need a dog instead of a cat,” he suggested. “A dog would come when you called and not scratch the shit out of my stomach.”

“You did put a frightened angry cat in your shirt,” she pointed out.

He couldn’t help but laugh, “Oh so now it’s my fault? He’s squirmy when he’s wet! It’s like trying to hold a snake. You sure he’s a cat?”

“Definitely a cat,” she assured him. “Speaking of which, I should go find him and dry him off…”

“Well don’t put him under your shirt.”

“Oddly, the thought never occurred to me.”

A moment passed before he realized she was waiting for him to recall, “Oh right. Uh… have you seen my key?”

“I haven’t. Did you see it in the bathroom?”

He’d forgotten to look. They walked together there, passing close together through the door so that he could feel the warmth from her body for the briefest moment.

“No,” he sighed.

“There,” she corrected, and pointed to one single key in the middle of the mat in front of the sink.

“My key!”

“You really didn’t see it? Or step on it?” she clarified as he scooped it up and pressed it with relief to his forehead.

“No, how did you see that? You have vision like a hawk.”

“You don’t need to flatter me.”

“I’m trying to apologize for scaring you,” he said, which hadn’t occurred to him until just that moment because she was being casual about it, but now he did start to feel more bad about it, like maybe he shouldn’t just tease her about being scared by him.

“There’s another way to do that.”

He choked.

“Use your words,” she said quickly, looking stunned. Good, he was glad she’d noticed the double meaning of what she’d said. Look if she wanted a sexual apology he would be more than happy to– She cleared her throat.

“I’m sorry I scared you?” he tried and she nodded. “I do know how to apologize,” he quickly added. “I just didn’t think about it scaring you.”

“Don’t sneak in the backdoor of women’s houses, JK,” she said, her smile growing as she teased. “You deserve to go through the front door.”

“I… don’t really know what that means but thanks? And now I will take my key and go home so you can deal with your wet… cat.”

She gave a decisive nod, clearly not noting his verbal stumble, and added, “Do you want a bag for your wet clothes? Or I can just dry them.”

“Ok, thanks.” She probably had an expensive dryer and they would come out all soft and maybe he’d get another wooden hanger out of it. He line-dried his clothes as much as he could and sometimes they felt sort of crunchy, which wasn’t a big deal but he thought it would be nicer to get dry clothes back than slop a bundle of wet clothes home.

“Sorry again about your body,” she said. “I mean the scratches.”

“It’s fine, we’ll call it even,” he said, and held his fist out without thinking about it, because that was something he might say to his surfing buddies and they’d fist-bump and he’d done it out of habit.

Just before he dropped his hand, she tapped it with her own, her lips twitching with a suppressed smile.

“Goodnight, JK. Drive careful. Looks like the rain has stopped.”

“Oh yeah, look at that.” He hesitated. Not for a reason, or at least not a good one. It was nice being around her, that was all.

His stomach itched so he scratched it, then flinched when his nails rubbed the shirt against his raw skin.

“Tell your cat I expect a better introduction next time,” he told her, then slid out the door without even a wave, because he got the feeling that had possibly been an odd thing to say.

He felt keyed up heading to his car, wearing Grace’s clothes. Rain still dripped from the trees, loud on the top of his car as he started it up and paused for the gate to let him out. The streets were quiet and as clean looking as they ever were –definitely cleaner here than near his place. He had a long drive home still.

Ah, she kept her house too cold. She hadn’t put a bra on when she put on dry clothes. It wasn’t his fault he’d noticed, yeah? He’d had to look somewhere when she insisted on dabbing medicine all over his stomach while kneeling in front of him and then obviously looked away and done his damnedest not to notice again.

It all started to catch up to him now: Grace sprawled on top of him, the dash around the yard, how confused she’d looked at first about the cat scratches, the view of her from above, the–

On second thought, air conditioning was a great idea. He cranked it up and nudged the radio louder and thought about how Grace’s sweatpants were the softest fucking thing to have ever touched his dick. Very, very different than her knee. But hey… tonight was the most action his dick had seen in…

He cranked the radio louder. The air conditioner too, just to be safe.

Chapter Four | Masterlist | Chapter Six

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