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pinkrelish · 1 year

Text

𝐭𝐡𝐞 "𝐲𝐞𝐬" 𝐩𝐨𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐲.

singledad!mechanic!eddie x fem!reader

✶"Can I kiss you?"✶

NSFW — smut, blowjob, swallowing, ball worship, cock worship, grinding, dry humping, first kiss, slow burn, flirting, mutual pining, eddie is touch starved, mild angst, 18+

chapter: 10/20 [wc: 25.1k]

↳ part 01 / 02 / 03 / 04 / 05 / 06 / 07 / 08 / 09 / 10 / 11 / 12

AO3

Chapter 10: The Intentional Second Date

Smoke trembled past his lips in stuttered bursts.

It was Eddie’s second cigarette of the morning. Not completely out of the ordinary for him; sometimes he needed a second one when Adrie gave him trouble before preschool, or if he had a bad night’s sleep and relied on nicotine to help delay the impending headache, but that’s not why he was smoking again today. Adrie woke up, got dressed, brushed her teeth, and told him she loved him in the carpool lane. She was a dream. His nightmare, on the other hand, was coming to fruition. Because of course he couldn’t remember where he’d set his wallet if it weren’t chained to his pants on a sober day, but drinking enough to where he should’ve been plastered? He remembered it all. He remembered it all.

Oh, he remembered it all.

And when he heard the front employee door to the auto shop unlock, he held his breath, and counted down the routine seconds for you to pop your head out in the alleyway and greet him, and when it didn’t happen.. He knew you remembered too.

The morning smile did not come. No greeting. No laughter. Just nothing. Nothing happened except for the glass door to the lobby opening, and you going inside.

He fucked up. He fucked up. He fucking fucked up.

He made things weird, and now you were avoiding him, as you had every right to after he tried to initiate phone sex without warning— Consent? Consent. Both of you were inebriated to some degree, and he’d never felt more like a creep.

Oh, God.

His knees went weak.

Anxious bile sloshed in his seizing stomach. His face broke out in a cold sweat. Knots constricted tighter. Heart beating in his throat. Decisions—mistakes—put stars in his vision. His world was ending, and it pounded at his temples. This was it. This was it. He fucked up.

“Good morning, hand—Oh?”

Eddie froze.

You leaned more than your head out the door, and stepped onto the concrete slab. All your tender attention was on him, studying his pale face, and his hunched form. Your eyebrows swooped in worry at how he was crouched to the reedy weeds instead of standing tall with his back against the gray bricks. A frown slighted your smile, insulting your beauty when you saw him bent down, knees to his chest, holding his head while his other hand shook hard enough the cigarette pinched between his fingers fell amongst the rocks.

“Eddie? You don’t look good. Are you okay?”

His lips parted.

Was he dreaming? Was the lift of delight in your tone when you first went to greet him, and then the drop to concern ebbing your voice deeper when he appeared ill a figment of his imagination? Were you about to call him handsome? Was this the second chance he didn’t deserve?

“Eddie?”

“Yeah!” His exclamation helped him stand, and the twitch of your lips battled his nausea. “Yeah, I just had a long night,” he lied.

Lightheaded, he concentrated on keeping balanced in his woozy lurch towards the wall.

Sharp edges of rocks slid against one another under your winter boots. “Aw, I’m sorry.” Your apology was sincere, as was your silly quirk of swinging your arms to point finger guns towards the garage. “I brought donuts this morning, and went ahead and made coffee, so they’re both fresh if you’re the type to dunk.” You mimicked dunking a donut into a mug of coffee. “Maybe it’ll make you feel better?”

Endearing. Genuinely, honestly, so fucking adorably endearing.

“Yeah, that sounds great right now.” The pet names returned to their restricted status for now. He had to know for sure. “Did you, uh, like playing with us Saturday?” It was a coward’s way to dance around the real question burning his esophagus, but it was a valiant introduction.

“I did! It was a lot of fun. I’m glad you invited me. And, hey, uhm, I didn’t say anything weird to your friends, or anything like that, did I?”

“No, you didn’t,” he responded in an even tone, stomping his curiosity from fluctuating his cadence with hopefulness when you chose that of all things to ask him.

“Good! My memory went a little fuzzy after my fourth drink, you know, when Lloyd kept trying to get us to sing along to that adventuring song he made up. I didn’t know if I said anything weird, or rude, or something by accident.”

Salvation reigned upon him.

Eddie’s lungs allowed him to breathe at the kindness alcohol spared him, and finally, he could relax. Your fretting stemmed from making a good impression on his friends, and with his reassurance, you stopped fidgeting at your nails, and the color returned to his cheeks. “You don’t need to worry about that. Seriously, they loved you.” His grin struggled to blossom. “Do you not remember anything else?”

In contrast, your grin was a field of wildflowers swaying under the summer sun.

“Not really, it’s pretty spotty around the time they left, but I do remember a few things,” you said, taking another step towards him. “I remember you throwing a napkin at the back of my head. I remember falling asleep in Robin’s car. I also remember asking her to pull over on the side of the road. I remember waking up in the living room, on her dad’s recliner of all places. And boy! do I remember being hungover.”

Closing the few feet of distance remaining, your confidence was established in your ability to pinch the sleeve of his coveralls and tug at it in a playful, flirty way, coasting your frosted sigh over his embroidered name patch.

You claimed him, heart and soul, “But I remember us dancing, too. I’m so glad I remember us dancing.” Softer, “You’re the sweetest person I’ve ever met, you know that?”

“I’m the sweetest?” he repeated in a mumble, complying with the tug to open his arm in a curve, which you fit into.

“Of course you are. You sure you’re not sick? You still look like you’re about to puke.”

As if your grip on his tricep wasn’t enough of an anchor on reality, the backs of your fingers gliding down his cheek were, checking his temperature like he was worthy of being doted on. A fortunate thing, a blessing; having your hand guide him from the river Styx with a simple brush, thumb tracing the edge of his lip.

Yeah, his heart clenched. “I’m okay,” he rushed to whisper, wanting the words to sprint after your fingers falling from his chin. He kept the connection alive by copying the stroke along your spine, over your denim jacket.

The wintry redness returned to his face, he knew. His racing pulse brought it there, splotching warmth to his skin. There was not enough bravery in the world to ask how much of the dance you recalled; whether your memory ended at your head on his chest, or your wrist to his lips, or your foreheads together with your noses smashed to the other’s cheek, but he did gleam one thing for certain.

You beamed up at him with eager eyes, as if those intimacies flashed in the sun’s reflection, and you wanted more of them.

He said, “I think I’ll feel better after a donut. Or three.”

“Or a nap, or three,” you countered.

“Sweetheart,” he exhaled, a rasp present in his throat from smoking, “I’m not gonna waste my time napping when I could be eating donuts with you.”

A wry laugh played at your lips. “How romantic.”

“I’ve been known to be romantic from time to time.”

You hummed in interest, arching an eyebrow. It was a challenge. Oh, really? you asked. Show me, then, you said.

Stepping back, you dragged your hand down his arm and embraced the motion, seeing it through to his elbow, forearm, the heel of his palm. Feeling but a faint outline of his form beneath the thick sleeve of his canvas jacket and light blue coveralls, yet still clinging to him as if he were your heater. Your warmth. Another body laying next to you in a cold bed.

“C’mon, handsome.” You urged him inside by your feeble grip around the stretchy knit cuff covering the plastic bead bracelet around his wrist. “Let's see if getting some caffeine in you helps you look less like a corpse.”

He snorted, and obeyed. “Whatever you say, dear.”

By all means, it seemed you didn’t remember the phone call. No doubt you were stone cold sober for the bad jokes, dorky innuendos, and inappropriate behavior that would be frowned upon at work, but you didn’t bring those up, so he didn’t either. He was in the clear.

Fate forgave him. And now, he could move on with the ‘thank you’ he owed you in good faith.

————

It was days later when your stapler ran out of staples.

You clamped it shut a few more times until you realized, and opened the second drawer on the short filing cabinet beneath your desk. After a cool slide of metal on metal came a rattle. Instead of your extra sticky notes, folders, and office supplies being visible, a foreign object sat on top of them. Perplexed, you reached in and grasped the lime green box. An index card was taped to it, and removing it jolted the waxy candies inside, sliding them against the cardboard in a merry cascade.

Setting the Mike and Ikes aside, you read the thin, angular handwriting on the note, written in red.

DO YOU WANT TO GO ON A DATE WITH ME? (circle one)

YES or NO

ARE YOU ONLY SAYING YES BECAUSE ITS YOUR POLICY?

YES or NO

By outward appearances, your mouth was tugged downwards at the corners, but make no mistake, it was not a frown. No, no. What your expression was overcome with was so sentimental, so empathetic, you had to pout.

Besotted, you hugged the card to your chest, and reflected on the heaviness of his expectant gaze when he passed by your desk this week. The longer eye contact, the anticipatory lift of his eyebrows wrinkling his forehead when you waved at him. He must’ve put this in your drawer days ago, and you had kept him waiting by accident, poor guy.

You weren’t about to keep him in suspense any longer.

(Though, maybe he should’ve put it in the top drawer, which you opened daily for your highlighters, if he wanted a quicker response.)

Pen to paper, you selected your answers, jotted a line, and tucked the notecard inside a manila folder with two invoices he needed to fill out. You pushed your rolly chair away from the desk, and dug through your purse before going to the breakroom where Eddie sat hunched over the round table, shoveling a chicken Rice-a-Roni meal in his mouth (haphazardly) with his left hand while writing in his DND notebook with his right.

You stood at the vending machine with your hip jutted out, sinking to one side with utmost concentration on your pursed lips, perusing the rows of choices. There were just so, so many categories to choose from. Chips, candy, chocolates. How could you ever decide? You crossed your arms, and tapped your chin at the dilemma, taking your time. This was a wise use of your work hours, of course. Flirting with your coworker by passing notes, and watching the side profile of his smirk break through his curtain of curls in the glass reflection.

Finally, you settled on F4, and slotted in your quarters, punching those buttons.

The Kit Kat bar was deposited in a loud clunk.

“Hey, didn’t know if you saw,” you started casually, and held the manila folder out to him with an imposing grimace, “but you forgot to fill out a couple of lines at the bottom of these invoices. Can’t have you slipping up, and not finishing your paperwork before working on your little roleplaying game, now can we?”

Eddie shifted his gaze from the bulky folder failing to stay pinched closed, to your face. Fawning, he arched into an overly apologetic expression to match your performance, and placed a hand over his heart. “Oh, no, sweetheart. I’m so sorry. Did I forget to do that? Silly me.”

“Better not let it happen again, Mr. Munson,” you warned, placing it on the table and leaving.

“Never, never,” he promised.

Back at your desk, you sat in your chair, calm and poised. And approximately two seconds later, you kicked off the floor into a fierce spin, dizzying the lobby around you. The place was a blur, your stomach swirled, and still, your goofy grin refused to wane. But, you did stop eventually. The antics had to come to an end. You did have work to do, afterall.. Which you ignored when you heard him rip into the foil wrapper in the other room, and you couldn’t possibly concentrate on calling a warehouse to check on an order of headlights when your ears were tuned to the flimsy chair scraping across the tile, and his heavy work boots stomping down the hall.

“Filled out those forms for ya, sweetness,” Eddie said with a wink.

There was a weight to the manila folder when he dropped it on your desk, and tapped twice on his way out to the garage. Not a physical weight, but a gravity that wasn’t there before, now concentrated in his keen eye contact. An invisible significance.

The relationship had changed, just then, in the trade off of boring invoices.

Opening the folder, the index card was deemed more important than the paperwork. Your gaze stalled on the thick circles around YES, and NO. Yes, you’d go on a date with him, and no, it wasn’t because of your policy. Below them, your thick handwriting flowed together.

what did you have in mind?

I RETURNED THOSE KIDS MOVIES FOR YOU.

YOU CAN THANK ME FOR SAVING YOU

THE LATE FEE BY WATCHING SOME

HORROR WITH ME AT MY PLACE

PICK YOU UP SATURDAY AT 6?

Fighting back another sickeningly stupid willowy sigh at his charm, you wrote a lovesick reply.

In usual Eddie fashion, he left the very last box on the second form blank, so you had to go out to the service area, and address the mechanic bent over a car engine. Not that you were complaining. The back of his coveralls hugged the slight curve of his ass, and his hair was not only pulled into a low bun at his nape, but he wore a bandana tied to keep his bangs off his forehead.

“Hey there handsome, couldn’t help but notice you left the date box on this form blank again.”

“Oh, did I, pretty girl?” He spun, and rolled his eyes to mock himself. Wiping the grease from his hands on his coveralls, he took your pen. “It’s my old age, y’know. Things always slippin’ my mind.” Mumbling to himself, he pressed his palm to the back of the folder, and sketched out a sentence into the page longer than a few numbers warranted. During the arduous process, he looked at you with sorrow, and complained, “These dates are just so tedious to write out, it may just take me all night to complete.”

You refused to give him the satisfaction of a smirk at his (possible) insinuation.

All night? He wished.

Eddie surrendered the folder and pen, and smiled at you, stretching the streak of soot on his chin and cheek. “There you go. All filled out. Not a ‘T’ uncrossed, nor an ‘I’ left undotted.”

“Thank you,” you over-enunciated as a goodbye.

The very second the glass door came to a slow close behind you, you sat at your desk with the folder, and threw a subtle glance out the window to the garage to make sure Eddie wasn’t watching you lose your mind over two short words exchanged in quick succession.

sounds perfect :)

YOURE PERFECT =)

For the second time since you moved to Hawkins, you had a date. And judging by Eddie’s sway from foot to foot with his hands laced behind his neck and his head hung back, listening to the traffic outside echo off the cement walls, he was thrilled for his second date, too. He dropped into a steady bob at music that wasn’t playing. A too-large grin teased at his mouth as he paced to the motor he was repairing, and bent over it. His boyish excitement spilled like an overpoured mug of coffee into his unabashed giggle, and glance in your direction.

Eyes locked, he didn’t steal your breath. You gave it to him willingly.

————

Saturday’s setting sun was just another audience member to your date night routine. Robin and her mom leaned in the doorway of the bathroom the entire time you were shaving, and due to the opacity of the shower curtain, you were unable to convey your glare to the degree it deserved.

“Well, why doesn’t she wear this instead?”

There was a shock of laughter mixed with Robin’s scoff. “Mom, if she wore that Eddie would pass out on the spot. What if he hit his head, and they had to call an ambulance? You know she can’t drive him to the hospital. No, this bra still gives sex appeal without causing an injury. And besides, calling 9-1-1 would put a damper on them—”

“Rob,” you groaned.

“—spending a wonderful evening together,” she finished.

The thunk of a walking cane neared, and her dad’s hoarse voice sounded from down the hallway, “My! The rowdy Munson boy is getting lucky tonight, is he?” he proposed in a faux British accent after watching BBC nature documentaries all day. “Do you think he’d have dinner with us tomorrow? We haven’t seen him since Robin threw that New Year’s party years ago, and almost set the roof on fire.”

Oh dear God get me out of here.

Once you were finished with your shower, freshly scrubbed and smelling nice, you humored them by wearing the outfit they picked out. It was pretty much what you would’ve worn anyway. A short black skirt made modest by nylon tights to stave off the chill from Eddie’s trailer, and an oversized crocheted cream cardigan with tiny pink flowers, the hem of which hit you at your waist, showing a tempting preview of your stomach when you raised your arms to fix your hair. The pale lavender bra (the reason for their debate), was covered by the aforementioned sweater, and you weren’t sure if the sheerness of the lace mattered much when Eddie’s daughter may be present, or in the next room over. It didn’t occur to you to ask if he’d have Adrie with him, so, such is life. The bra may stay a secret despite their efforts to doll you up. But the sudden realization he may see you in it tonight clenched your stomach with excitement..

The clock struck 5:55, and an ominous roll of thunder put everyone on edge. It electrified nerves, and stood hair on end, setting forth premonitions of bad weather and foul fortune. Doom, it was; and it came, and came, neverending. Except.. It wasn’t thunder. It was Eddie Munson’s brutal music.

His little black car came flying down the road, and swung into the driveway, screeching to a halt heralded by flung rocks spat by his tires, and a flock of songbirds splitting the sky.

And yet?

Charm bowed before Eddie’s easy strut. Pebbles dodged his stride. Clouds of hellish dust evaded the shine on his laced up boots. His tight jeans flaunted the subtle flex of his thighs, and his belt sloped on his narrow hips with each uneven stride, daring the world to stare at the extra length of stiff leather flopping outside the confines of the belt loops, attracting all the attention he desired to the places he wanted.

You were still in the living room struggling with the buckle on your Mary Janes when the intense, raw screams of his heavy metal music stopped, and the muffled guitars faded away. He showed up, shockingly, on time, and you shot out the door before the heavy slants of sun breaching the leafless trees could beat down on his trademark jacket rattling with dainty chains.

“Hey there, sweetness.”

“Hey!” you blurted in a huff, racing down the steps. Flustered by his punctuality, you made the first move of the night by snatching his hand and dragging him away.

Slighted by your absence of drooling over how cool he looked, Eddie grunted in objection, but let himself be steered away. He glanced over his shoulder at the three faces peering at him from the window, and spared them a tentative wave. They were nosy, but not in the unkind way he was used to, and for that, he was thankful.

You apologized at a hurried pace, “Sorry, but if you step foot on the porch, they’re gonna ask you a bazillion questions, and never let us leave.”

“Ah,” he said, short of a laugh, “but let me get the door for you. Wanna impress them.”

“Impress them?” Dregs of sleepy sunlight highlighted the twist of your lips. “You come in here like a bat outta hell, blaring your music loud enough that I’m surprised you’re not hard of hearing, and you’re worried about impressing Bobbie’s parents?”

Refusing to let your fingers slip from his when he felt your grip go weak, he tightened his hold, and opened the car door with his other hand, sidestepping awkwardly to avoid the wide swing, towing you around him.

“Is that so strange?”

“It’s a little strange.”

“Good.” He established the bond of your palm cupped to his until you sank into the red plush passenger’s seat. At the groan of the hinges, and a hard slap on the metal, he finished, “I like being strange—” Punctuated by the door slamming shut. His cackle was far away. Shrieking silence filled your ears, interrupted by your elevated pulse pounding in your chest, and the tink of a pebble pinging the bumper when one was unfortunate enough to come into contact with his boot as he strode around the front of the car with his hands in his back pockets, stretching his shirt over the curve of his stomach.

What a lovely thing he was, truly. To lord the power of sheer captivation over you, and still ground you with a humble gaze and tender smile through a windshield flecked with dirt, as if stealing one of your five senses was a normal feat and returning it to you wasn’t an act of benevolence.

He folded himself into the seat beside you and staggered his legs until he could relax fully into the position, and turned the key in the ignition. His music took residence in the sense he stole. You tensed in anticipation, but it wasn’t offensive. The previous song was ending, and with you being boxed in with the speakers bullying your ears from every angle, you heard the animalistic screams as something more haunting, more beautiful. They were organic. Emotional. Conveying a longing which flowed into the next track; a restrained piece laced with sweltering lines, where each croaky utterance heated your cheeks fiercer and fiercer. Carnal of a different nature.

Intentionally avoiding eye contact with Eddie, you twisted enough to see the carseat behind you was empty. “No Adrie?” you asked to confirm a suspicion.

“She was invited to a sleepover for one of her friend’s birthday parties tonight,” he said.

You reeled at the information, but not for the reason you assumed. “Wait, what? There’re people out there willing to have a hoard of five-year-olds running around their house? Like, with the screaming and everything?”

“Crazy, right? Some people still have their sanity, I guess.” He stamped the gas and clutch, revving the engine with an amused answer poised on his plump lips. “Or enough downers to get them through the night.”

The guitars increased in ferocity, drowning out his wistful reminiscing on such substances helping him through the day, pre-Adrie.

It was then you noticed an interesting detail about his compact car you didn’t fully appreciate last time you were in it: there was no center console. You didn’t need to check. The lack of separation was confirmed by the heat radiating from his heavy palm draped over the gear shift, and the blunt edge of his nails skimming your tights when he clicked the stick into a lower slot, dragging it along your leg. The armrests were raised, and they too touched at the base. It was no surprise when his long hair swept your clothed shoulder as he twisted around to look out the back window and put the car in reverse, avoiding the Buckley’s dented mailbox, and lurching you against the seatbelt.

The lyrics peaked in sultry aggression.

So, no Adrie. “Am I meeting your uncle, then?” Oh, how your question was thin against the strong note the singer held. His wavering timbre penetrated you in waves, releasing a ripple of tingles from head to toe. Creating a change in the tension existing between you and Eddie when he answered in a deeper register.

“No, he’s uh, he’s gone for the weekend,” he said, drumming his rings on the steering wheel, squeezing his fingers over the gear stick to shift it into drive. “Out playing poker with his friends. So, uh, it’s just you and me. S’that cool?”

So, no Adrie, and no uncle.

“Yeah—Yeah, that’s cool,” you replied. Whereas his voice went lower, yours went higher at the acknowledgement. Fainter, wispier. Fluttery with the nerves in your stomach. Restless like butterfly wings beating on gusts at the explicit implication matching the subject matter pumping through the speakers.

Tonight was your first real date with Eddie, in his trailer, alone.

Soon, the dense thicket of rural Hawkins was replaced by houses and population; gone were the fields of deer, and approaching in a blur were stout brick buildings, and stop lights swinging in the slight breeze.

He slowed at the intersection where Family Video’s neon sign struck red over the black pavement, and stopped. Eddie, being an opportunist, saw the boring wait for the light to turn green as fortuitous. It granted him the ability to gaze upon you as he wished, ready to take you in after your rushed greeting. You had robbed him of the movie-esque scene where he’d walk up to your door, knock three times, greet you with a stunning grin and compliment you until you were giggling and swooning in his arms. It was only fair he drank you in now, in the low liquid blue of the early night.

Beyond bewitched, he didn't register how methodically he traced his eyes over your body; devouring details the generous neckline of your cardigan allowed him, reaching the narrow channel of shadow where your bra assisted your chest, and the small gaps the tiny pink flowers woven into the yarn created in the chain loops, gifting him a charitable preview of the delicate lavender beneath. Appreciating how below that, your skirt wrapped your legs snugger than his arms had ever been privileged, and your tights graced skin he’d never felt. Perhaps he even lingered on the strap of your Mary Janes draped around your ankle, wondering if he’d be lucky enough to circle his fingers there one day, too.

Flattery raced your heart. You’d never been the subject of someone’s study to this degree, as if you were artwork to be admired. Not from any of the dates you’d been on, anyway. Not in a meaningful way, consumed wholly by someone you considered a close friend. And not while a man sang about vulgar acts in a gorgeous way.

Eddie remembered to breathe when green flashed in his periphery, and his gaze evened the playing field when he caught you dedicating entire prayers to the indecent crease at his hip and inner thigh where he rested his large palm.

“Baby, you’re beautiful,” he exhaled.

Not you look beautiful. You are beautiful.

Meeting him head-on, you smiled. “I don’t have the lexicon to describe you.” His expression faltered to a confused pinch between his brows, and you reassured him, “Handsome isn’t good enough anymore. Never was. No words are. They need to invent new ones.”

Leaning in, he scrunched his nose, and teased, “You can just call me hot.” Which would’ve been a decent line; imposing himself so near his words caressed the gloss on your lips, and finishing the hard plosive—Hot—with the bite of his charismatic wolfish grin. But the aggravated honks killed the mood.

Two cars behind him laid on their horns, and he was startled into the reality of holding up traffic. You openly laughed at his change in demeanor, at how he scrambled to get the car going before they got angry again, all flustered and stomping too hard on the gas, sending you both slamming backwards in your seats.

“Yeah, real hot stuff you got goin’ on,” you teased in return.

He stuck his tongue out in concentration as he checked the rearview mirror, speeding to put distance between him and the other cars. Dangerously, he slid his gaze to you once more, prioritizing you over the road. “Are you really gonna deny I'm the hottest guy you’ve ever met? Even with all your city boys, actors, and freaks who’ve been on bigger stages than me? Guys who took you to fancy sit-down restaurants in a suit and tie? Men who drone on about finances because they chose a viable career not covered in grease? Are they really hotter than me?”

His tone was flat, and his face neutral, cracking a cavern of curiosity wide within you.

Your instinct was to treat the insecurity as genuine, but the moment you opened your mouth to restore his confidence, he smirked.

“Just kidding, baby,” he broke the act. “I know I’m the favorite.”

Glowing with confidence, he took his hand off the gear shift to jab at your ribs, but he underestimated how thick the crochet was. Instead of tickling you, it was more of a soothing stroke along your side. And he didn’t stop. He kept up the intimate gesture, brushing the fabric with his curled index finger three times. Giggling, himself, at nothing other than his own thoughts.

Gone was the swell of empathy clogging your throat. “My favorite idiot,” you corrected in an exasperated mumble, yet leaning into the shy affection.

The cassette played static, then began a new song. Angsty still, but not quite as on the nose as the last. This, along with another dig at each other, eased the pressure preventing you two from relaxing into the evening. The awareness revealing itself in nervous glances and dry swallows digressed into your normal dynamic as friends with the benefit of flirty innocence without the stress of expectations. Those motives could stay locked between your clenched thighs, and aching against his jean’s zipper. Tonight was the first foray into real time together, and if you watched movies and it ended there with no moves made, or romantic elements explored, then so be it. There wouldn't be any unnecessary impatience, or snap decisions made to cross those final platonic boundaries if one of you chickened out. This date would be perfect, regardless.

Right?

You could endure another day of him acting confident in front of others, only for him to buckle under the pressure and pussy out before kissing you, right?

..Right?

Whatever. The night was young, and oh, how Eddie’s giddiness for spending time with you emerged. The instant he arrived at the trailer, he jammed his thumb into the seat belt latch and commanded you to stay put. Naturally, this didn’t go without a snort from you, but it escalated to true laughter when he stumbled out of the car, and sprinted around the front in a flustered jangle of chains beating on jeans, only to play it off as cool once he reached your side and opened your door for you. “You’re silly,” you commented. His chest rose with a panting breath, and his lips jumped into a playful smirk at his own oddities. He stepped back, and swept his arm in a classic bow.

The friction burn from the seat belt slipping through your grip was balmed by the chilled leather beneath your fingers when he offered his elbow to you. You set your heeled shoes on the uneven ground, and wobbled on the deep tire tracks scoring the dried mud, and again, he was twisting this way and that, trying to figure out the best gentlemanly way to help you balance. Not that his brave palm on the small of your back wasn’t warranted in the treacherous battle of shadows in the underripe evening, but even you couldn’t stop your snicker when he, too, met you with a side-ways glance.

“Nervous?” you asked, bringing attention to the situation for what it was.

“Me? Nervous?” He arched his eyebrows up, then brought them into a swift furrow. “Nah, never. I’m just making sure my girl doesn’t twist her ankle before I get to cook for her on our second date,” he ended with a suggestive tone, canting his head to yours. Foreheads near.

Ah, the buzzing of springtime bees was trembling your fingers again, gripping him when the hive in your stomach fed honey to your hungry heart, pumping, pumping a sugar rush.

Acknowledgements. His girl. Cooking. Second date.

He was sweet. And you were trapped in the sticky nectar thrumming in your veins. It was a futile effort, after all, to convince yourself you two could act as normal friends do around each other. Truly, you lost that war when you inclined your head to his, and divulged in the same grin he wore.

“Cook for me?” you repeated in a voice of ambrosia, which he partook.

“Mhmm,” he hummed amongst the drone of television programs filtered through bug screened windows. “I wanna watch movies with you, cook you somethin’ nice, and remind you that I’m not the guy I was at the movie theater—” He flinched at the last part, accepting your weak slap to his chest. Pleased with himself for finally swooning you, he trained his gaze on your giggly sway, and squinched his eyes with mirth.

“Eddie, I’m well aware you’re not that guy.”

“Oh?” he lilted. “But aren’t I? Still got the outdated haircut, stick in the mud attitude, and leather jacket.”

You slipped a finger beneath the jacket, and poked at the macabre skull on his tee. “Got a different shirt, though. Last time you were wearing a rattlesnake, now it’s..?”

“Metallica,” he finished. A softer expression deepend his dimple. There may have been a particular meaning behind it you were missing, but he didn’t share. “Good memory, but may I also bring to your attention that it’s fucking freezing out here?”

Overcome by a shiver, you retracted your prodding, and he removed his hand from your lower back. The warmth was sorely missed. You agreed, it was fucking freezing and pantyhose were not a replacement for snow pants.

Eddie jostled the keys from his pocket and unlocked the front door for you to enter first, trailing behind you with a welcome to his humble abode, as if you hadn’t been there several times before. But you supposed the circumstances were different when he showed you in, and a certain coziness defrosted your cheeks. The trailer was lit by a singular lamp in the living room and the nightlight from the bathroom. An electric radiator generated heat near the armrest where his pillow stayed, and at the other end of the couch was a messy pile of blankets in varying textures and thickness. A stack of three VHSes sat on the coffee table near a collection of never-used cork coasters. In the kitchen, a spread of groceries occupied the counter, along with a page from a magazine, but Eddie stole your attention before you could puzzle together the ingredients he laid out.

“So, which one do you wanna start with first?” Eddie asked, drawing your gaze to the VHSes fanned in his palms, fingers stretched wide to contain the movies.

Subtly, he wiggled the one on the end. The green HORROR sticker on the cover appeared new; unblemished, without creases or dirt. You recognized the drippy blood stylized title as the same one printed in the local newspaper warning mothers of its gore and perversions. Less subtly, he darted his eyes to it, and made encouraging noises while presenting it closer to you. It's not like you cared what order you watched his surprise selection in, so you went with the new release he was most eager for, as opposed to the other schlocky B movies.

“Sweet!”

Adorably, he told you to make yourself at home, and you both found yourselves bumping into each other in the entryway. You bent to unbuckle your shoes, and he shrugged off his jacket. Maybe you swung your knee into his shin, and he flopped the leather sleeve atop your head in retaliation. And when you stood, he jabbed his elbow into your arm before kneeling to untie his boots, and you picked a long, curly auburn hair off your sweater, holding it out and away from you as if it were revolting. “Is this what it’s like living with you?” you asked with an excessive amount of mock disgust.

“‘Fraid so,” he consoled, looking up at you as he worked the knot out of his laces. “At least—until I go bald.”

You tilted your head as you tried to picture him without his wild haircut, and after some consideration (and curious fingers kept laced tight to discipline yourself from running them through his curls to test the tamability of such rowdy layers cut without rhyme or reason), you concluded, “I think you’d still be the most attractive person I’ve ever met.”

His expression widened at your honesty. Pushing himself upright, he rocked side to side as he toed off his boots, and stepped beyond them, narrowing the distance between his ego and your lifted eyebrow. “Most attractive? Yeah?”

Before his head swelled to hot air balloon status from a compliment he pried out of you, you stopped him.

“Bald or not, you’re still Eddie,” you expressed. “And that’s what I like about you the most; your Eddieness. Regardless of your hair, you’re still that guy that’s willing to trip over his own feet so he can open a door for me.. and cook for me, apparently.”

You drove your gaze to the ingredients on the counter, but he distracted you from venturing into that part of the date.

“Uh-uh-uh,” he tsked. “Movie first, then dinner. I’ve been wanting to see this one, so make yourself comfortable. Get some blankets too, I know the radiator sucks.” The warmth it gave off rarely brought circulation to his toes when he was sleeping, much less kept him from shivering on the windy nights. “Lemme get us something to drink, and I’ll put on the movie.” He chose to fill two bright red plastic glasses with water and bring them to the coffee table. They were the type of textured cup one would find at a pizzeria, and he set them directly on the wood, because why bother with coasters when most of the varnish had been worn away over the years.

Water itself shouldn’t be a surprise, but the fact he chose it over beer stood out.

Interesting. You made yourself snuggly as instructed, and sat in the middle of the couch where two cushions met. Amongst the pile, you picked the thick blue and white striped comforter, and draped it over your not-quite-numb legs. He crouched in front of the TV, and popped open the VHS case, brushing his calluses over the frosted plastic cover, and shut the case with a satisfying snap. Lining the movie up with the VCR slot, he pushed on the flap, and it was accepted into the mouth of the machine—kuh-chunk, slide, whirring reels, a fuzzy high-pitched noise—staticy snow played, then the first commercial started, flickering a woman’s face mid-scream across the screen.

Eddie turned off the lamp, and in the sudden darkness, he slid his socked feet in timid steps across the carpet to avoid a pinky toe colliding with the coffee table, and he fell into place next to you.

The cushions sank with your combined weight. The seams separating you clashed. Hip, thigh, shoulder. Layers of clothing blazed from the heat of his proximity, setting fire to your cheeks. You weren’t touching, not really, not yet, and you both stared at each other with lips slightly parted.

Your voice went unnaturally airy as you offered him the blanket, “Want some?”

And his voice was lost to the sensation of his bare arm making contact with your sweater.

He nodded.

Predictable for the genre, the next commercial advertised a pair of tits before the camera cut away, and the woman was assumed to be brutally stabbed by a masked serial killer.

He shifted. You shifted.

The comforter slid across your lap. He stole the warm pocket of air you were generating for yourself, and replaced it with the cold half of the blanket. It may have been an innocent movement, but him yanking it caused you to press against him more than you already were. His arm went rigid with tensed muscles the further you sloped into the crevice where the cushions met, stiffening against your soft body like a brick wall you had no choice but to lean on. You tried to help the situation by breaking the silence between the next commercial.

“Do you want to know another Eddieness I find endearing?”

During the first part of your sentence he didn’t react. He watched the TV; jaw tight but not clenched; it was only on the last word did he turn his head, and set those big eyes of his on you.

You went ahead and answered, “It’s how shy you are.”

The hint of a deeper emotion eased from his gaze when he closed his eyes in a slow blink, and raised his brows, processing what you said. “’M not shy.” His smile grew at that, stretching half his mouth in shadow, making his nose appear larger, rounder.

“And awkward.”

“I’m not awkward,” he complained, tone soft and playful.

Lit by the soft grain of the movie starting on a scene of a young boy running inside pitch-black house, Eddie’s eyelashes clung to the remnants of light, curling longer, and longer. His lips lifted at the corners, testing a sneakier grin at the idea of you finding him both shy, and awkward. Words he hadn’t heard in years. Descriptors he would’ve called himself when he was still in high school and dipping his toe in the dating pool, but not since then. Not since he dabbled in liquid courage at parties and gained some experience from the confidence alcohol afforded him.. and lost when he discovered the consequences of acting impulsively, and his casual assuredness was ripped from him when his daughter was born.

Or, yeah, maybe he was always shy and awkward as you presumed, he just didn’t care about people’s opinions when he wasn’t invested in starting a future with them. Which was fine by him, you could call him dorky if you wanted, because here he was in the midst of a boyish rush of adrenaline when the lack of stressful music coming from the TV became ominous, and the excitement of his plan working vibrated in his chest.

“Oh! And you’re—” Whatever adjective you were about to use was bitten short.

Paying more attention to him than the movie, you missed the build up of the masked killer’s reflection in a mirror, and were caught off guard by the boy’s sudden blood curdling scream trilling above the heart-racing violin screeches. It wasn’t even a good jumpscare—totally predictable—but you still jolted from it.

Eddie lurched into a devious smirk. “Movie getcha, pretty girl?”

It was your turn to be defensive. You pouted, “No. It just surprised me, is all.”

“Aw, come on,” he implored in a gravelly urge. Under the thinning comforter, between the mountains of compacted cotton from overwashing it, there was movement, and the unmistakable contact of the back of his hand on your nylon tights. He bumped you once. “Here, if it’s that scary, you can hold my hand, okay?”

As snarky as his teeth glinted, as teasing as his words were, both of your chests rose with a mutual suspended breath.

This was the line. The barrier. The emotional boundaries were dust, only the physical ones remained. He invited you over them as gingerly as a grown adult man could when on his first true date in years, and the fresh fear of making a move on his crush spiked his rejective-sensitive nerves.

“Yeah, you’re right,” you exhaled. Holding his gaze with the same fondness which existed in your heart, you found the edge of his hand after some sightless venturing. At the graze of skin on skin, you dropped your head to the side, and appealed to him, “It’s so scary.” Across the room, the TV played a calm, serene daytime scene with birds chirping in the background. “So terribly scary,” you repeated, facetiously pitiful. “There’s no way I’ll get through to the end all on my lonesome.”

But rather than hold hands perfectly between the both of you like the pious churchgoing teenagers you’d felt yourselves become, you went in for the kill.

Drawing back, you wedged your fingers between his arm and his ribs, and after a beat, he understood and lifted his elbow. You snaked your hand along his forearm, and down to his awaiting palm. His jeans were rough; his palm was too, torn asunder by his trade to ensure a roof over his and his family’s head, but the spaces between were softer. Love gentled the joints digging into your bones. Your fingers had to stretch to accommodate him, and the wintery dryness pulled at your unlotioned knuckles, but the twinge was forgotten when you focused on your hand in his hand. Your hand in his hand. Your hand in his hand.

You dragged your attention away from the entanglement of your selves finding a missing half under the blanket, and searched his face. His eyes flicked from the same knot stirring under the comforter, and the wrinkles in his expression flourished. He thinned his lips into a tight smile. His cheeks were never that full, but there was a roundness there you’d give anything to discover by touch. You’d been closer to him before, like in the kitchen when you counted his freckles after your painfully geeky dagger innuendo, but if you leaned in any further, your vision would blur.

An obvious awkwardness dwelled in the intimacy of your entwined arms, and tensed bodies.

“So, so scary,” you promised during the exposition dialogue taking place on a sunny morning between the characters eating cornflakes at a large dining table. “I’ll probably have to cling onto you the entire time with my eyes shut.”

His voice cracked high pitched, “Yeah?” Feathery soft, on the verge of disappearing altogether. “Guess I’ll have to be the brave one, then.”

“So very brave,” you said, sweet as sugar.

He snorted whereas you giggled, converging with heads together, and a laugh shared, hands held so very bravely. A breakthrough. One second at a time, you melded into his shadows, as you belonged. You angled yourself toward him and tucked your legs onto the couch, freely huddling your knees against his thigh. Your joined hands were nudged onto his leg more, and the clasp became sticky from perspiration. That was okay. There was a thrill in being the reason each other sweated. He curled in his fingers harder, nesting them between the peaks of your knuckles, and you returned the honor by hooking your fingers between his, lightly squeezing him back. One second at a time, he sought your sunshine, as he belonged. He made sure the pressure of his arm and elbow boxing yours in against his side wasn’t painful, slouching a bit so the top of his leather belt wasn’t digging into your forearm. He was thoughtful that way. Concerned for you and your comfort. Didn’t matter if his lower back would be killing him by the end of the first movie, you were wrapping your free hand around his bicep and rubbing your thumb under the short sleeve of his shirt, back and forth. Back and forth. Then, you were resting the side of your head on his shoulder.

He heard you—felt you—inhale deep. Why? Was it to fill your lungs with the scent of his deodorant, the cheap cologne he spritzed at his chest, the drip of Old Spice aftershave on his shirt collar? Was any of that better than oxygen?

Curious, he tilted his head as if something in the movie had him stumped, and he put his nose to the top of your hair, and took a small breath.

A different shampoo than usual hit him first, but below that, clinging to your clothes, was the smell of Robin’s home. He was struck with the thought of what his home smelled like. Was it good? Bad? Could, over time, over months, over difficult questions he couldn’t bring himself to ask, could maybe by the end of summer your two homes combine to make one unique scent?

That would be the dream. And a dream, it may remain. But what a lovely reality it would be; you staying, and your scents mixing to create a new one.

So lost in his thoughts, he didn’t predict the fake-out jumpscare of a murder of crows taking flight after an eerie bout of silence, and he was the one to flinch.

“Aw, movie too scary for ya, big guy?” you cooed.

Eddie sealed his lips in a frown, and tucked his chin to create the maximum amount of wrinkles when he looked down at you. “Maybe a little. Good thing I have you here with me, though. Right?”

You nodded most ardently, squishing your cheek over his scorpion tattoo—just another place on his body you made your home—and grinned up at him.

“Of course, babe.” You called him babe. He smiled so fucking hard. “I’m here if you ever need me to hold your hand.”

You squeezed.

He squeezed back.

Scenes went by on the tiny TV across the room beyond the condensation pebbling on the plastic cups threatening to fall on the coffee table where Adrie’s box of crayons spilt into her coloring book. A story unfolded in the flash of blade, a clatter of piano keys, and a quiet neighborhood who knew no better. The movie played, but neither of you paid attention.

Your gaze was keen to the way his lips stayed parted after he licked them. His gaze was invested in your expression, how you viewed him with such kindness he was seldom shown. A tenderness he was rarely given. He tried to show you the same sincerity, but your eyes were fixated on his mouth.

Self-conscious, he asked, “Is there something on my—?” He rubbed the back of his wrist over lips.

You answered him with a belittling pat on his chest. “No, big guy. You’re good.”

Your tone didn’t sound ‘good,’ but you pulled the blanket up to your chin, and laid your head on his shoulder again, wrapping your other hand around his bicep until your fingers were stuffed between his arm and side. He interpreted your change in mood as a signal the conversation was over, and put his eyes on the movie. Though, his brain was busy toiling over why you were staring at him, and wondering if the pats on his chest were still echoing beneath your ear, or if it was simply his heart threatening to strangle him from the angst of not understanding if he did something wrong already.

At least he was holding your hand like a real boyfriend would. That had to count for something.. Right?

~~~

The credits rolled, and neither of you moved until you pointed out a name scrolling by, and a laugh so akin to a man being punched in the gut wheezed out of him, it caused you to erupt into your own embarrassing goose honk laugh, causing you to both double over in a fit.

Somehow, his nose was nuzzled to your hair. His inhale was cool on your scalp, and his words were a humid huff. “Bart Horsedick,” he said, “Whatta name.”

“You should name a character after him in DND.”

“Mm! You know what? I will. He’ll be a local legend with all the ladies, and tries to charm his way into the party by constantly making passes at the girls. Erica will kill him for sure.”

With a groan and a wince, he sat up straighter, and you lifted your head off his shoulder, making similar complaints about your neck. It was tough work being brave during the scary parts for each other, regardless if neither of you were paying enough attention to care about the reveals.

He asked, “How’d you like the movie? Even that last scene kinda got me.”

“Yeah, it was good,” you answered in the same tone, searching for anything to say that wasn’t, If you don’t kiss I’m going to fucking scream. “I wasn’t expecting the second killer to be the news reporter. That was kinda cool. And that final death was super gory, with the guts ‘nd all, but uh, I’m starving, and ready for something campy.”

Heeding his lady’s request, Eddie dashed around the room, turning on a few of the eclectic lamps, and jabbed the backwards arrow button on the VCR until the movie was playing in reverse at a hilarious speed. “Be kind, rewind, y’know.” Once it clicked, he took the tape out, and put the next one in.

You followed him into the kitchen where the groceries were laid out on the counter. Some were things he already had, like the half-empty bottle of olive oil, and two government supplied cans of vegetable stock, but from the fridge he added an unopened tub of butter, a container of mushrooms, and a wedge of parmesan cheese. He put them beside the onion, fresh sprigs of parsley, and special bag of rice. Ingredients he bought specifically for a meal he didn’t know how to make, but knew it was impressive, and wanted to try cooking it for you.

You picked up the magazine clipping and raised your eyebrows at the recipe.

He fidgeted, spinning his rings. His voice was hesitant; falling back on self-deprecating humor as a crutch, “I know you’ve probably been to France, or, uhh, Italy or whatever,” he guessed, “and’ve learned from experts on how to make it perfectly, but I thought maybe I’d give it an attempt and hope it turns out edible. Just forgive my shit knife skills, and if I pour too much broth, or don’t stir it the exact number of rotations, or some pretentious bullshit like that,” he finished, gaze solidly on the floor, toeing at a scuff on the vinyl to occupy himself. “‘M not exactly a chef outside a can of Boyardee, so..”

Some of his mumbling was lost on you as you read the bottom of the page. Narrowing your eyes at the title printed beside a number in the corner, you put your fist on your hip. “Edward Munson.” He snapped out his worrying at the use of his full name. “Did you rip this out of one of my lobby magazines at work?”

He rolled his lips inward to curb his grin. “No, no, of course not, dear,” he promised, finding it the most opportune moment to turn away, and organize the ingredients in no practical order.

“I swear if I go to work Monday and find Better Homes and Gardens missing page 57—”

“Okay, okay—I’ll tape it back in, but give me some credit, will ya? I didn’t rip it out like some animal.. I cut it out neatly with scissors.” He eyed your harmless smirk, and plucked the mushroom risotto recipe from between your fingers. “Now, if you’d like to get out of my hair, you may,” he said, gesturing at the TV with a knife. “Skedaddle. Go watch the movie.”

“You don’t want me to help? Or at least to keep you company?”

It wasn’t often he was tripped up on what to say, so when his mouth hinged on a mute excuse to get you to leave, you registered what he was going on about earlier, and shook your head.

“Wait, Eddie, I worked in kitchens prepping vegetables when the cooks were too drunk to come in on time because they went home with some random woman from a bar, and were too hungover to know what day it was. That’s why I’m like, okay-ish with a knife. You don’t really think I’d judge you for how you chop an onion, do you?”

A few words were stammered. You shushed him from bothering.

If his confidence had trouble surfacing when everything was out in the open and not hidden under a blanket, then you’d give him another nudge; a single stroke of your knuckle along the monster tattooed on his tricep. The muscle reacted to you, flexing the wyvern’s clawed feet. You did it again. And again. Pinching his sleeve and tugging at it, doing all the cutesy, flirty things you’d learned over the years, including dropping your gaze to his pretty pink lips. Employing your best strategies, you laid it on thick; swaying your hips, and bringing in your arms to frame your chest. “You could heat me up a can of Chef Boyardee, and it’d be the best meal I’ve ever had, as long as I got to share it with you.”

Shy, shy, shy. He brought his shoulder up and ducked his face from your view, giggling at your heavy adulation. “You don’t have to flatter me like that,” he mumbled, sounding not unlike he was wrapped in a ball of lovesick yarn. Overly smitten, ooey gooey with the warm fuzzies in his chest. So very, very adorable, sneaking a glance at you with an unbelieve amount of precious crinkles at the corners of his eyes.

How sweet.

It’d be sweeter if he could take the hint and share those kinds of things with you, but you could be patient and wait until he was ready. Again..

Just.. keep making everything so obvious for him, and try to ignore the sting of rejection when the guy you’ve liked for months finally invites you over for a date, and still won’t kiss you.

At least you were saved from the worst of your downward spiral by the bad B movie and its body melting scene.

“Ooh!” Eddie pushed the cutting board away. “That effect was really cool!”

Since he was already making his way to the TV, you trailed at his heels, and crouched beside him, sinking to your knees while he pressed the rewind button, and clicked Stop/Play twice. The lead up to the moment played again. You sat in anticipation, wholly aware you’d just watched this interaction between the college girls putting their best effort into delivering their lines, only for them to fall flat when their acting was off the charts horrendous. Eddie regarded them with the same sort of awkwardness, rotating his hand in hurried circles until one of them got obliterated into a goopy pile of human remains, and you began to dissect the undulating puddle of sludge.

“How do you think they made that one?” he whispered, mesmerized. “The way it pulses like that?”

“I think it’s from a balloon inflating beneath it. Watch the way the flesh cracks, and the blood oozes out. I think it’s something like that pushing it up from under.”

He hummed, and rewound the tape a few seconds. “Yeah, yeah, I see what you mean,” he said, tapping his finger on the thick curved glass. “And look at that bone. It actually looks like a charred, brittle skeleton instead of those cheap femurs everyone gets at the party store for Halloween.” You also agreed with him in a hum. The extra touches of effort were impressive for a low budget film like this.

The movie continued inches from your eyes. You rested on your calves, flattening the plush carpet under your shins. The harsh fibers were dulled by your pantyhose, and if this was a spot Eddie had to scrub clean after Adrie spilled juice, you weren’t aware of the stain; you were only aware of the hair-raising sensation of being watched.

You directed your attention to Eddie’s pointed stare on the side of your face, about to ask if there was a reason behind his adamant inspection when—

He dropped his gaze to your lips.

Sparks ignited behind your ribcage. Hopefulness latched onto each long second wherein he resisted flicking his eyes back to the screen. Each passing breath a choice to follow the gentle curve of your mouth, and stay there to revel in the simple pleasure of studying the unspoken language evolving between you two, sinking into his own warm grin for you to decipher. He was still crouching on the balls of his feet, and you had to wonder if he leaned over to kiss you now, would he lose his balance and cause you both to fall to the floor? Would he catch the back of your head in his palm to soften the crash? Would his hips fit perfectly between your legs? Would his jeans drag along your inner thighs? Would he whimper when you held him? Would he grind down on you at the first sign of reciprocation? Would he already be hard?

Your thigh muscles ached at the racing thoughts, clenched so tight in response to the needy throb between them.

Was the unspoken language shouting now?

Eddie’s throat bobbed on a stuttered exhale; his chest shook at fractions of his inhale, as if he was experiencing the same tightness there from the rosy desire blooming so greatly, struggling to cope with the oxygen in his lungs when there were far sweeter things they’d rather be filled with. “I—” He stopped. “I read a review on the back of the box that said this movie was scary too,” he informed you in whisper, right when a godawful green alien appeared and shot the worst CGI laser you’d ever seen from your peripheral vision. “Better hang out with me in the kitchen, where we can keep each other safe.”

You urged your yearning away from his mouth to the neon colors of a spaceship glancing off his cheeks, to his large nose, to the tips of his bangs skimming his eyebrows, to the bags under his eyes, and finally, you caught the last moments of him roaming your features with utmost care before your gazes locked.

The floor beneath him creaked.

Briefly, you considered closing your eyes.

The carpet flattened in a muffled rustle.

Briefly, you considered uttering his name.

The dry air in the room vanished with his humid huff coasting over your forehead.

Briefly, you considered begging him when he pushed off his knees, stumbled slightly towards you, and stood, offering you a helping hand.

He said, “Gotta make this dinner for you before I starve, sweetness.”

Kissless, you fought against your inner bitterness, and accepted his fingers. To hide your wilting resilience, you put a swing of vigor in your voice, and happiness on your face. “Yeah, watching hot blondes perish into goo really makes one hunger for sloppy rice with mushrooms.”

Well, at least you could always make him laugh.

~~~

Onion skin crunched under Eddie’s heavy chop. The papery layer was discarded. Laying the halves on the textured cutting board, he dragged the knife in long slices out from the root, then rotated to dice it into cubes. He blinked away fresh tears, and beside him, you scraped the sweated mushrooms into a bowl, and placed the pan back on the burner for him to sweep his prepped vegetables into. They sizzled on impact. You stirred the mixture with a wooden spoon, and made sure nothing seared to the bottom.

Steam rose from the bowl of cooked mushrooms. Slippery oil slicked their surface, adding to the smells of onion and garlic. Condensation fogged the tiny window above the sink. The rice began to toast. A burnt popcorny, yet pleasantly floral fragrance mixed with the sour note of cheap white wine bubbling down to nothing, and salty splashes of broth.

Mostly, the continuous stirring was done passively because you were both watching the movie from across the room. When it was your turn at the stove, you grasped the skillet handle and moved the spoon around in some sort of pattern, but your upper body was twisted towards the TV. When it was his turn, you took his place at the wrap around counter, bending over to rest your forearms on it, savoring his body heat baked into the surface under your palms before it faded and was replaced by your own.

The last VHS was inserted. No commercials on this older tape.

You grated the last of the cheese into the rice, and tipped in the mushrooms. Behind you, there were two metallic latch sounds followed by two loud bangs. Eddie sucked in a hiss, and apologized. You were too busy portioning out the risotto to see what in the world he was doing, but the sharp clicks of his lighter were distinct, as was the notch turns of the unnecessary lamps being turned off, casting you in dimmed ambiance.

Garnishing the meal with parsley, you scooped up the bowls and turned.

“Ta-da,” he said meekly, opening up his arms with weak pizazz.

You were stunned at the effort.

The collapsable ends of the green table hung by their hinges, making the surface area impossibly intimate. On top, there were three lit candlesticks to set the mood, and underneath, the seats of the chairs almost touched. The whole thing was incredibly sweet. Thoughtful. Endearing. He had trouble meeting your eye.

Eddie glanced at the unscented candles burning bright for practicality’s sake. The first wet drip of wax joined the others melted down the side since the last time he used them when the power went out. Not exactly romantic. “Has, uhm, anyone made you risotto before?” he asked, and tacked on, “At home?” when the fear of not being the first smacked the words out of him.

“No,” you stated. “No one's ever done something so sweet for me.”

His lower lip twitched, and he ran his tongue over his teeth to quell the giddiness from exploding. And to stop himself from celebrating too soon.

As you carried the bowls towards his attempt to recreate a fine dining experience, he tried to push aside the thoughts of inadequacy—the candles, the fact he couldn’t take you to a real restaurant, the flowers he decided against because he no longer had a vase, the nagging voices in his head that told him this whole idea was stupid—and instead, he focused on anything else. Anything, anything else.

“Here, lemme help you, sweet—Ow, ow, ow, ow—Jesus, do you have hands of steel or somethin’?” The candles wobbled when he dropped the bowl on the table, and you both froze as they teetered back and forth, praying your second date didn’t go up in literal flames.

When they came to a rest, you both sighed.

“Hands of steel, huh?” you mused. “I think they feel kinda soft compared to yours.”

Quickfire, he picked up on the age-old flirt you used on him months ago (back when he was dumb, and genuinely thought he was the one flirting with you by suggesting you come back to him when you found a spider as big as his palm), and he concurred, “Maybe we need to compare them again. Y’know, really get in there and make sure I have the toughest hands in the Midwest.” Adopting a southern drawl, he stuffed his thumbs into the waistband of his jeans, and puffed out his chest. “Can’t let a lil’ lady who answers phones with ‘Yellow?’ have stronger hands than me, now can we?”

You pinged him with a wry expression twinged with cringe, and sat down, scooting your chair in, and looking up at him still standing. “You are so pitifully dorky.”

“I sure am, sweetheart,” he said proudly, falling into the chair across from you.

Your knees collided under the table; bone on bone due to his inability to wear jeans without holes in them. They knocked painfully, and while he did remember to apologize when you winced, he was distracted by the silly notion that his bare knees were the second body part to make contact with your tights. The back of his hand during the movie didn’t lend much to his senses, now he had a better feel of the texture, and how it rubbed against his skin. A strangely marvelous thing. And he was getting ahead of himself, sure, but he wondered how your tights must feel under the same rugged palm he was offering to you upturned on the table while below, his thoughts were erring away from respectful visions of circling his thumb over your knee cap while you were stretched across the couch with your legs in his lap, to something he felt unworthy to ask for.

Oh, but how he ached to be the one who was trusted to keep you warm when you were undressed..

Your chair squeaked. You changed the position to where your legs were bracketed by his wide spread. Perfect, because he brought in his stance and crossed his ankles behind yours, locking your thighs and calves between his, as if you were his possession, unable to escape. Indulging him, you giggled, and squirmed to the edge of your seat, taking his hand. His right, your left. A polite union of criss-crossed fingers. Mountainous calluses mapped against rolling hills of satin. Flickering candlelight dancing off the silver band of his ring. Kind, and sweet.

He gripped his spoon in an unnatural way, dragging it through the risotto, and bumping the ceramic.

“I can hold your other hand,” you offered, motioning at where you could link his non-dominant hand in the space between your bowls.

His voice was made of mushy tenderness, but his clipped tone left no room for argument, “Nah, I like it this way.” If you didn’t understand why yet, you did when you traced his gaze to his wrist. The beads had shifted from where they dug into his flesh. Squares from the blocky letters left indents in his skin, as did the corners of star beads interspersed throughout the round ones. Opposite D-A-D-D-Y, your sleeve was bunched up from cooking, baring the precious nickname M-O-U-S-E.

Your eyelids fell half-closed. The fondness on your lips wasn’t a result of the risotto—as delicious as the first bite was—no, the sentiment was much too darling. Almost as if you could hear the dormant vocabulary you awoke running hot in his veins. My girl, my girl, my girl is wearing the matching bracelet my daughter made for us, and I’ve never wanted anything more than another excuse to call you my girl out loud; I want it so bad I could cry.

“You did such a good job on this,” you complimented the risotto after taking another bite.

Fate. “It only tastes good because I had my girl’s help.” Under no circumstance was he about to make eye contact after saying that. In fact, he avoided sound altogether when he angled his spoon so he wouldn’t scrape it along his teeth a second time, and blew on the porridge-like rice before sliding the richness over his tongue, alighting his mouth with mellowed complexities for such unassuming ingredients. As he ate, he listened to you eat too. As he glanced, you glanced too. As he embellished his grin with a secret, you snuck in one of your own through the mysterious sharpness in your eyes boring into his too. He didn’t question it, didn’t breathe, didn’t make a sound above the panicked yelling happening in the movie in the other room; for now, he was content with holding your hand and calling you his girl.

The pressure to continue conversation waned.

He squeezed.

You squeezed back.

~~~

Dinner was finished in cherished bites. The movie was in the process of concluding, as most of the cast had been killed off by the time Eddie uncrossed his ankles and released you. He blew out the candles and stood, already regretting the act when the imprint of your body faded from his between his legs.

While he filled the sink with soapy water, you put away the forgotten ingredients, and wiped up the counter with a wet rag in absentminded circles, thoroughly invested in the slasher’s “forest chase scene” probably filmed in someone’s mom’s backyard.

Once the frothy bubbles sloshed to the rim with each dish put in, and the clammy air was brightened by the scent of blue Dawn liquid soap, Eddie rolled the stretchy bracelet up his forearm and began dunking the glass cup used for measuring the broth. He ran his hand around the inside to rid it of the gritty residue left behind. Dipping the thin washcloth, he submerged his hands up to his wrists in skin prickling hot water, and brought the cup out, exposing his chafed knuckles to the sting of cold air. He washed it, rinsed it under even colder water, and handed it off to you. You toweled it dry, and put it in the cupboard next to the fridge.

Over and over, he washed, you dried. He washed, you dried.

Routine, monotonous, robotic and quiet.

Outer input died away. No more movie, no more hot water, no more spoken conversation, no more meaningful glances, nor more intimate nicknames, no more inappropriate touches stolen under the guise of a drunken night. Just his thoughts, insecurities, anxieties, and hopes and the instant foreboding stress wrenching his stomach with fear of those hopes never coming true.

The air was thick with awareness.

You were in his home. The date was coming to an end, and so was his bravery. This was his chance, and he was letting it slip by him. Again.

He’d run out of excuses. Or rather, he reasoned with the excuses, and now he was facing the real problem. All the stuff from months ago about him not knowing if you liked him, your flighty lifestyle, the dynamic of being coworkers and worrying if it’d make things weird, the conversation he never had with Adrie; forgoing divulging his hobbies, his music, or his past with you because he didn’t see the point; those things he conquered. Those things no longer bothered him. Those things had answers putting them to rest.

Now, there was nothing keeping him from pursuing you except his own inhibitions..

Sad, how even when he had the courage to get this far with you, the differences in your lives served as a reminder he was just a poor boy from Indiana whose greatest aspiration was owning a trailer of his own so his uncle could have his room back. You had a drama degree—hell, you went to college in the first place. You had real dreams, and achieved semblances of those dreams before coming to Hawkins. A star as bright as you shouldn’t have to peter out in a town in the middle of nowhere. You needed the city to thrive, to perform on stage again. It was your calling, wasn’t it? Munson wasn’t calling you like your previous life, was it? You spoke of your accomplishments so highly. Would you ever learn to speak of him that way? Would he, one day, become one of your stories? A memory you moved on from?

Or did he deserve to ask you to give up everything you loved and earned to settle down in a dead-end shithole that hated him, and help him raise a child that wasn’t yours, tying yourself to his reputation forever?

What if he asked those things of you? Would you say ‘yes’?

Shit.

While the sea of doubt churned in his head, he rinsed off the ceramic bowl you used to eat from, and blinked the sting from his eyes after staring off into space for too long. He waited to hand it to you until you had put a pan away in the lower cabinet under the wrap-around counter, and accepted the bowl, drying it off and ping-ponging to the other side of the kitchen to the upper cabinet above the toaster. You didn’t have to guess. You knew exactly where it went. You were familiar with the precise drawer the spatula went in, next to the cutlery one where you tossed in the spoons. There was a beautiful domesticity to it all; washing dishes with you as if it were a nightly occurrence. Like you lived here. Together. You, him, Adrie, and his uncle—preferably not in that arrangement, and not in this trailer, but the vision.. the vision was there. You and him rejecting the bullshit small town mentality, and creating a life in Hawkins you could both be proud of, free from strife. A do-over, in a way, with you at his side, and his daughter on your hip.

The pit of self-loathing in his stomach yawned.

Those idyllic fantasies were too much to ask for. Too much to even risk speaking out loud. He could feel the rejection welling up behind his eyes as it were, wobbling at his bottom lip. The crushing reality of being a lonely single dad with nothing to offer—

You slammed the cabinet door shut, and tossed the towel aside. “So, are we gonna pick up where that phone call left off, or not?”

Eddie stilled under your loaded stare.

You remembered you remembered you remembered—

“If you adore me so much..” you added.

Jolted into action, the last dish slipped from his fingers, splashing and bouncing sluggishly off the bottom of the sink. Adrenaline hit him in droves. Frantic stings of want pushed him forward. Chores were forgotten. Mind blank. The soft thuds of his stride thundered off the thin walls. Pace quickened. Pulse beating in his throat. Vice grip on his heart. Months, weeks, days, hours of keeping his starvation alive through longing looks and inside jokes and hands brushing hands in fragile innocence, denying the vital comfort he craved to experience with the one person who made him feel special; the yearning reached its peak.

Predatory hunger rushed color to his cheeks at the remarkable sight of his dearest dream going slack with surprise.

He secured his fate with his arm wrapped around your waist, sweeping his hand upwards and dragging your cardigan with it. Water dripped to his elbows, cooling the wicked fever igniting his skin. He poured his strength into bringing you into him at the same time he stepped into you, forcing you back, back, back until the distance keeping you apart was eliminated, caging you where you gave him his final nudge beyond the brink of composure. His hips coaxed you side to side. His legs boxed you in where he commanded. Each motion pressed his strong, needy body to yours, driving the edge of the countertop into your lower back. Sway by sway, a dance of insurmountable patience built over months met its breaking point. You went pliant for him. No fight, only a small noise when he engulfed you in his aggressive embrace.

You gathered the hem of his shirt in your weak fists. His sudden leap over the platonic line broke goosebumps across your exposed midriff, tightening your nipples against the delicate lavender lace. The tremble in your knees was juxtaposed by his steady hand tilting your face up to his.

Sudsy bubbles burst on the peach fuzz beneath your ear from where he cupped your jaw. Droplets trickled to the base of your neck, curving over your breasts, and beading on the surface of your cardigan. He swept his fingers in an untamed stroke over your cheek. He tested a deeper angle, fitting his broad grasp to your chin and compelling you to lean in with the heel of his palm guiding you, drawing you forward, supporting the pout of your bottom lip with the base of his thumb.

His nose whistled when he took a shallow breath. The wet, soapy trails left in his hand’s wake went cold against his sigh coasting over your skin. Again, he tried another breath. Deeper; initiating the unadulterated intimacy of his stomach filling out and pushing against yours. More. The great expanse of his shoulders squared with confidence, and his muscles braced under your tender exploration. Your weak grip left his waist to climb up the confines of his arms, passing over his ribs and the flat plane of his pecs to place the lightest touch at the base of his neck. Closer. The serious glint in his eyes blurred as he neared.

The tip of his nose butted the apple of your cheek.

“Can I kiss you?” he spoke aloud for the first time, words breaking on the whisper.

You answered him in a faint, insatiable, “Yes.”

He imposed himself more. Frame on frame. Unyielding body leaned and curved around your softness, channeling every repressed feeling he’d had since you met into pinning you against the counter. Gradually, he dropped his head into a better angle; grinding forehead on forehead, tracing his perfect nose along yours, tilting so his mouth hovered fractions above a decision.

He teased, “Are you only saying that because it’s your policy?”

You smiled against the edge of his thumb after spying his sly grin through your heavy lashes. “No,” you stressed the single word, speaking through the mild irk of impatience building like an itch that could not be scratched in the marrow of your bones.

Anticipation clung to the prolonged gossamer blinks before they lulled into closed eyes, and slow swallows of air until lungs were poised on a held breath.

Every syllable of his next question dragged his lower lip across yours. “Are you my girl?”

“Eddie—”

The whine. The beg. The genuine plea of his name.

Organically imperfect, he smashed his mouth to yours. It was a harsh collision of teeth to lips, and a startled grunt at the abrupt impact, but neither of you cared. Reservations were off. You clung desperately to his shirt, stretching the cotton around his neck and biting the ball chain necklace into his throat, striving for a needier kiss; sparking a heady rush of awareness to the oversensitive areas reacting to the animalistic push and pull of him gaining control, advocating for his own fight in the flex of his thighs driving you into the creaky doors of the cabinetry. The fervency spurred him on. You combed your fingers through the downy curls at his nape, and he did not hesitate slipping a hand under your sweater to smooth his palm to your bare waist. And fuck, how you arched your back on instinct.

Nasally grunts of pain descended to pleasant hums from the throat.

Unable to divide his attention, the kisses went sloppier. Rushed. Awkward, and clumsy. He slotted his mouth to yours with too much force, to the point of bruising your spit slicked lips, and the wet smack pulled a submissive whimper from the places he’d yet to take. The flush blotching his throat ran hot like flames, heating the Old Spice aftershave on his skin. The scent aided the dizzy lurch in your head, lost to the dull lamplight beyond your eyelids, rocking you onto your toes and falling back on your heels in the swirling give-and-take of his unstated needs reaching levels of crisis only you could solve. A pain you could cure as you crammed your nose to his cheek, spread your fingers firmly against his skull, and kissed your friend harder than he kissed you.

Hums lowered into a depraved moan.

The intensity of your reciprocation fueled his ego. Seeking, he moved his chivalrous hand from cupping your face, downwards. Grabbing, seizing, squeezing. After refraining from so much for so long, he was mesmerized by the curve of your shoulder, the sway of your lower back, the waistband of your scratchy polyester skirt. He roved until he found your ribs, and he molded his fingerprints there, branding you with the sensation of his thumb beneath your underwire bra. It was a messy exploration. His excitement had him bearing his weight down on you, and when your strained feet failed to steady him, your ankle gave. Knees bumped; he stepped on your toes. He fell into you and matched the pain of the counter prodding your tender flesh with the bulk of his leather belt scraping your stomach. No apology. Not with words. It was the safety and protection of his arm crooked between you and the laminate countertop which rescued you, and as a reward, he dropped his forearm from the cusp of your hips and feasted his thick fingers on a handful of your ass, rocking you into him.

There was no other way to react to the blunt suggestion.

Heavy, uneven breaths were panted across the other’s sore lips as you both withdrew to gauge the next step. He scoped your features with urgency, darting from your relaxed brows, to your keen gaze. There was an etching of insecurity marring the honey in his gentle brown eyes when you were too dazed to remember to smile, jumping to conclusions in his worrisome ways.

He really did worry too much.

Bringing your hand out of his curls, you grazed the strained tendon on the side of his neck, and worked your way up. You trailed your knuckles along his cheek, swept them under his wispy bangs, and put your fingertips to his temple, triggering a shivered sigh and fluttering lashes at the new touch.

You answered him as you combed his hair away from his face, “I’m your girl.”

The instant sincerity of his red, swollen lips kicking up into an uneven grin invoked a raw tenderness to his pink nose scrunching in playfulness, and the corner of his eyes going tight with happiness.

“Yeah?” he asked, voice hoarse from the exertion of kissing you senseless.

“Yeah,” you promised in another caress.

For a moment, he held your gaze with the importance of someone understanding what it meant to be by his side and to be seen with him out in Hawkins public; as if he were on the verge of crying from the sheer gratitude of your policy landing you here, in his arms, on this night, wanting to be his.

Eddie peered into your eyes again. His wide pupils and dusky cheeks spoke of the nature of his body, but behind that, lurking beneath his fibrous sinew was the same innate marrow telling him this was okay. This was right. Just let go.

Just let go.

He listened.

As wild as he took you minutes before, he was ready to luxuriate in the nuances of affection. He pressed his mouth closed in a dry swallow, and raised his hand from your ribs, beckoning your cheek into the stifling heat of his palm. The throbbing pulse in his neck beat a rhythm to his chest, rising and falling in a quick cadence until he was able to discipline his attention away from the obvious snag of his zipper on your skirt.

He relaxed into another kiss. It may have been the hundredth of the night, but it was pivotal. Something changed. The frantic clashing lessened, and the cravings heightened.

Consistent as he was in taking things slow, he knew how to make you feel cherished. He took your bottom lip between his and dragged it as he broke the chain from one kiss to the other, as if the extra second he claimed a part of you was crucial to his survival. Truly indulging in the full potential of someone witnessing the many bad days of his life and still wanting to cook dinner with him. Someone enjoying the harmonized hum of your lips converging while you scratched small circles on his scalp above his ears. Someone willing to hear his shameful complaints about fatherhood, and not judge him when he took his lunch break in his car, cranking the seat back to rest his blood-shot sleepless eyes, instead of sharing a coke with them in the breakroom. Someone he’d come to rely on; a constant in his life.

He poured his coffee pot’s worth of trust into you, and you answered him with the blissful endeavor of your fingers scaling his forearm, brushing through the thin hair growing like wheat and pushing the beaded bracelet up to his wrist, cupping your hand over his on your cheek. D-A-D-D-Y. M-O-U-S-E. In turn, you drank his insecurities and added your own, overflowing with the mutual truth that neither of you had been in a stable relationship lasting longer than a month, and this whole thing should’ve been very scary.

But it wasn’t scary.

It was slow and steady.

The heaviness of his body returned. Hands wandered aimlessly. Arms entwined, untangled, confused themselves on who was where. Attentive fingertips glided over woven yarn and cotton, following the dips and curves and slopes; basking in the reverence of married threads and validation. Legs shuffled, spreading and accommodating. Jaws went slack. Languid tongues merged, lazy and hot. He palmed your ass in a lax grip, easing your hips flush against his. You answered with a purposeful roll intending to earn some friction, but you couldn’t reap the benefits on account of one problem..

Your skirt was stretched to the fabric’s maximum allowance, creating a taut buffer keeping him at bay. Any motion was nullified by the hindrance. Noticing this, he shifted to be better cradled by your thighs, and a delicious gift was granted with the tandem action of your bodies joining.

He flattened his hands on the countertop behind you and blessed you with a proper long drawl of his hips; pausing in an open mouthed kiss because the noise you made—the noise you made—the noise the noise the noise you made—

Your quick inhale faltered, flattering the hard press of his cock with a shameless gasp.

Eddie halted at the top of the motion from your involuntary praise, and locked eyes with you. Just like when he made you laugh, he wanted to witness your pleasure, soak in your reverent stare and pride himself on the way you asked for more—by sinking back and away and rutting upwards, instigating a filthy tension on the layers separating you; panties, nylon, polyester skirt, seams on seams on seams of harsh denim, and his choice of boxers; and God, you thrived on the bulk behind his zipper caressing you for the first time where climaxes were born. Your moan hinged on his satisfaction, and in a dare, you pivoted the descent of your roll towards the right, capturing between you his stiff length tenting towards his pocket. And when you arched into a slow grind on the base—sliding him along the curve of your clothed heat—he released his own pretty noise.

“Mm—fuck,” he groaned into your mouth.

Gravitating elsewhere, he left messy kisses on your jaw and brushed his nose over the peach fuzz on your cheek to put his love-bitten lips to your ear. Gravelly with want, he asked, “When did you remember what happened that night?”

A dirty throb pulsed where he buried himself between your legs, striving for the angle which had you grasping at his narrow hips as a silent plea for him to drive into you harder.

“Oh,” you panted into his hair sticking to your mouth. Answering casually as you could despite your face running hot, and your voice straining light with a joke, you answered, “I never forgot. I lied when you asked me.”

“You—?” The word was a quick huff of air against your neck. He pulled away enough to look at you, but not divorce your stomachs from touching. Two deep creases formed between his brows, shadowing his squint with incredulity. “You lied to me?”

A pang of doubt weeded its way into your insecure hands around his waist, forcing you to question if he was really mad at you for pretending you didn’t remember the exact details of last weekend in order to bolster his confidence into asking you on a date instead of wallowing in silent guilt for thinking he did something wrong and end up pushing you away, sabotaging himself from ever acting on this.

You were about to speak your mind—that is, until his lips crooked up, and he invaded your space with his big eyes, big nose, and even bigger grin.

“You lied to me,” he said with a snap of wolfishness, tonguing his sharp canine after the bite of his words; hosting an overabundance of admiration in his half-lidded gaze raking over you, alighting every sinful nerve in your body.

Time to pick up where that phone call left off—

“Yeah, I did.. But you didn’t.” You sank your hand between your bodies, and flattened your palm to the front of his jeans.

His breath hitched.

Skimming, teasing, playing with him, you strung his lust taut, tracking your fingertips over the hardness and sweeping them to the very end, circling an outline around his head like a Siren’s call to his fiery blood. His biceps flexed against your arms. The laminate counter squeaked from his sweaty grip on the edge. Vinyl flooring creaked at his antsy rut into your hand, and you gave in to your own curiosity.

Wrapping your fingers as best you could through the thick denim, a spike of cold excitement washed over you at the sheer girth you struggled to handle—much less the long, long drag of your palm from base to tip—sending an ache to your cunt begging to be stretched by him.

Slightly over seven inches, indeed.

Lacking poise, you blurted an unintelligible word, and his smirk underscored his heavy kiss.

“Told you I didn’t need to overcompensate,” he taunted.

His newfound smugness was allowed. Encouraged, even, by your firm strokes, again and again, creating a damp patch on his pants at every pass of your thumb. You were fascinated by his ability to engulf you in another tender union of lips when your senses were overwhelmed by the impressive size filling your palm. Intoxicated by the gentle glide of his considerable tongue along your bottom teeth. Dazed by his pitiful groan when you increased your pace, building and building the wicked friction burn from his jeans on your soft skin, tending to the flames of your arousal, sensitive nipples peaked and receptive to the warmth of his lean chest pressing down on you.

Needing him, you closed off the kiss and played into your appeal with a saccharine pinch to your expression, and a cloying sweetness to your tone. “You do so much for your family,” you murmured. “You work so hard to provide for them, always staying late at the garage, covered in grease and dirt, fixing cars until your hands are torn and your back aches. Making sacrifices without a second thought. Always putting their needs first.”

Stroking his hard cock, you asked, “When was the last time someone put your needs first?”

Eddie screwed his eyes shut and fit the bridge of his nose to your forehead. When he spoke, his embarrassment influenced his mumble, “S’been a long, long time.”

“Sounds like you need me to take care of you, handsome.”

He tensed to suppress his shiver from your sultry tone, and withheld his whimper at the prospect, meeting your gaze in a nervous flick. “I don’t, uhm.. have..” His assured demeanor ebbed to stuttering shyness. “I didn’t, uh, buy any condoms, and all the stores are closed by now..”

Your face fell flat.

You threw your exasperated stare to the ceiling, and searched the series of events which would lead to him asking you on a date, at his home, at night, without anyone else present, and somehow not think to buy condoms. “Why didn’t you buy any?”

He shrugged, frustration evident in his tone. “I was afraid of being a dumbass and leaving them out in the open where you could see them—like with the groceries or some shit—and give you the wrong impression, like my goal was only to invite you over for that reason, and, I don’t know, think I’m coming on too strong, or something, and make you uncomfortable.”

You gripped your beloved dumbass by the chin with your unoccupied hand, and put an end to his fretting. “Or, I would get the right impression, and we’d have that box opened within ten minutes of me walking through the door.”

He blinked dumbly.

Before he could ask if you were serious, you steered the conversation to its original topic with a gentle squeeze where the dark spot on his jeans bloomed, and said, “We’ll worry about condoms next time.” He throbbed in your palm. Next time. “After all the romantic stuff you’ve done for me, I want to show you my appreciation.” You slid your fingers through his belt loops, and leaned up, nosing your way through his frizzy waves to whisper a fantasy in his ear. “I want you in my mouth.”

You put the power of suggestion in your aggressive tug, snapping your hips together.

Ripples of electric pleasure stood his arm hair on end. The alertness in his expression glazed over. He lazed in the feeling, hardly able to open his eyes to follow the bounce of your eyebrows and the deep cut of your smirk; matching with his own goofy smile going lopsided with enthusiasm.

Since his birth, there were few instances where he felt wanted, or loved, and for his dream girl to waltz into his life and be so brazen about her attraction to him with no hidden motives, empty sweet-talk, or ill intentions—

For possibly the first time in Eddie’s ostracized existence, he felt desired.

Each low tug on his jeans was another boost to his self esteem, guiding him step by step further beyond the platonic line. Deeper, and deeper into new territory. Crossing the threshold from cracked vinyl to plush carpet, and with it, entering the fear of the unknown he wasted countless hours resisting. There’s no going back after this. Acquaintances was a laughable notion, coworkers was a tricky dynamic left to be dealt with on Monday, and friendship was the foundation of him opening up to you.

Every decision persuading you to the edge of his bed was made in careful consideration. Choices were presented and chosen without impulse. Nothing about him was casual. Not anymore. The slow crawl towards this relationship was impeded by his past, and instead of giving up, you stayed true to him. Because you saw him as worthwhile.

Eddie sank to the couch, and before his back made contact with the cushions, he had his fingers cupped to the backside of your thighs, proposing a bend to your knees. In a fluid motion, he dragged his rough palms up your tights and coaxed your legs on either side of him, running his heavy hands over your skirt and up to your waist. He relaxed into the sitting position with an arm crooked around your ass while he treated himself to a handful, gathering you as close as possible until he was satisfied with the places he could reach. Not once did his eyes leave your face. He tipped his head back to watch you go from standing at the end of his knees, to straddling his lap. Wholly enamored.

Blue cast from the TV’s standby mode contrasted the dim glow from the old lamp on the kitchen counter, highlighting his blushy cheeks in eventide colors, and cleaving a defined shadow down his bobbing throat.

Earned muscle and bulky denim and seven inches of bliss prodded the delicate meat of your inner thighs. You sat high on his lap, releasing the tension in your body in increments, settling yourself on top of him. He kissed you. Short and sweet; a brief encounter compared to before, but with your senses amplified by the deeper connection you two fostered for one another, it was the best kiss of your life. And it served as a chaste prelude to his next devotion.

Taking the lead, Eddie moved on from your lips, working downward in a dreamy, drunken daze, reveling in skin-on-skin. Want—more—please. When he couldn’t access the vulnerable underside of your chin, he urged your head up with a determined bump of his nose to your jaw, and continued to praise you in stray kisses and greedy palms. He showed you what he wanted by dragging you forward in his lap, and you didn’t need to be told twice by his white-knuckled grip.

You grinded down on him, and your mouth went slack with a fragmented moan.

“You’re so pretty when you do that,” he slurred, voice husky and low.

The bulge behind his fly parted your aching cunt. With your legs spread wide, you found your perfect middle and worked the stiff seams against your need. Each rut glided him along you, slipping over the nylon and stretching your pantyhose taut. You beared down harder, obeying the faint throbs of desperation, and turned them into inadequate stirs of pleasure, fleeting at each pass.

The first stitch of nylon broke. Then, another.

His generous kisses went wayward, favoring your jawbone as a means to end, tucking his teeth into the pocket beneath your ear and nipping at your vulnerable pulse. You swallowed under the threat, and dropped your head back, revealing the neglected expanse for him to cherish.

Cascades of euphoria flowed down your neck. Teeth grazed, his tongue tasted, the cold tip of his nose drew sentiments on your throat. For every dull sting of his untamed bite, he apologized with a softer, and softer affection. Lessening in aggression. Soothing your sweltering skin with cooling breaths on the streak of spit he left behind. You shivered despite the sudden break of sweat in the humid entanglement and embraced your urges, squirming against his jeans and circling your hips in measured thrusts, tilting into the motion for your own sake and blanketing your thigh over his achingly hard cock by chance. “Christ, sweetheart.” His muffled moan set your blood on fire. Your fingers went tight on his shoulders, digging into the muscle shifting beneath your nails, wrinkling the fabric of his favorite shirt.

More nylon stitches popped.

Too lost in your own efforts, you hadn’t noticed the loss of his possessive hold on your waist until your hard nipples brushed two solid objects.

Yarn fibers tickled overtop the sheer mesh cups of your bra.

Eddie nuzzled at the base of your neck and rested the slope of his broad nose there, moving his lips on your skin when he remembered, but otherwise his attention deviated elsewhere. At his leisure, he thumbed the top button of your sweater through the loop, and drifted to the next. Another, and another, exposing the sheen of perspiration on your chest to the stagnant air in his living room. His deft fingers undressed you with undue ease. Each loosened button raced your heart, and you repaid him by widening your knees and sinking fully onto his lap, laying your plush inner thigh on top of his length in a satisfying squish, and staying there.

A weak whine tinted his pretty, “Feels—good.”

Feels good played off the thin walls stacked with ceramic mugs. Feels good joined the sporadic pitter patter of raindrops on the tin roof streaming to the grassless earth outside. Feels good warmed you like the oil filled radiator at the end of the couch, popping and crackling when the heat droned higher. Feels good manifested in your cardigan slipping from your shoulders and falling to the floor in a mute drop; rooted itself in his ringed fingers dipping into your waistband; was proven by his other palm molding to the curve of your hip as if it were shaped by the same artist; and confirmed by the unambiguous focus to your right side.

Feels so fucking good burst forth in his hand’s unyielding snatch on your waistband and decisive jerk forward, ripping through the last of the strained seam trapped against your satin underwear.

The pantyhose split at the gusset, and your plump pussy spilled out, perfectly framed by the gaping nylon hole presenting your wet cunt to the thick denim. You draped him sweetly. Curved over the immense rise behind the creased zipper, creating a stiff peak before sloping to the soft give of his stomach. It didn’t take more than a single experimental thrust for your thin panties to slide into your sticky need, working them snug to your heat and inciting the first true tug at your core. Whispers of relief roused at your center, but it wasn’t until your second try, when you tilted your hips and Eddie guided you down onto him, genuine satisfaction was achieved.

The low rumble from the bottom of his chest filled you with oozy pride.

You concentrated the friction on your clit, and Eddie concentrated on anything else.

He stopped sealing his kisses, letting the envelope of his lips fall open, slack, and inarticulate, never beginning nor ending the ode to your neck. His mouth hovered wherever his head hung, and in his stupor, he could do little more than use his tongue to cut a fat line through the luster beneath the hollow of your throat, letting the salt sit in his mouth before swallowing, grateful. With each movement, the scratchy grain on his jaw from that morning’s shave buffed your sensitive skin, and he lapped at the rawness he caused in apology. The higher you rose over the swell of his cock, the lower he prized you in sloppy drags of his ample lips. He cupped his ringed fingers to the underside of the lavender lace and used his heavenly tongue to lick the top of your breast, accentuating the curve for his teeth to savor you in a lovebite. Your nipples begged for him, and your back arched for him. Your mouth fell open with a gasp—”Eddie”—drawing out the last set of vowels before they devolved into a whimper. Soon, his head was a heavy burden between your tits, and you wrapped him in your naked arms, cradling him there with your fingers in his hair. Spit from his sloppy kisses smeared on your cleavage, wetting the stubble on his cheeks, and he remained smitten, moaning into them with each bounce on his lap.

He was so wrecked on intimacy.

Loading your lungs with another sigh of his name, you rocked your hips in whichever way felt best, not paying attention to the way your inner thigh rolled over Eddie’s fat cock, again, and again. Satin on denim; faster, and faster, tensing your leg muscles and releasing them like a quick stroke down his length. You embraced him with your chin to his hair, panting over the frizz sticking to your lips. Tender, always. Committed to lauding gentle kisses to his scalp even as you chased the one thing on your mind. Grinding in quicker thrusts. Listening to his muffled praise, but not hearing him go quiet, or noticing his body go still when his thighs edged into a hard flex under your ass. You were oblivious to his hand falling from your bra, and his fingers anchoring onto your waist. You were too engrossed in the act, rutting like animals do. Lurching towards the inevitable one desperate grind at a time, quicker.. quicker.. Heeding what your body wanted. Racing, faster.. faster..

Abrupt pain bloomed where he shoved his palm into your thigh to stop you.

“You’re gonna make me cum,” he panted in a ragged breath.

A new heat rushed to your cheeks. The dirty word spoken from his mouth engulfed you. It tingled and danced over your skin, firing signals of excitement in pulses. With clarity, you realized the few direct strokes during what was supposed to be foreplay had him tensing and trembling, trying to keep his release from arriving too early and making a mess of himself before getting to the real deal. Your nipples tightened at the knowledge, and your legs clenched on instinct. You almost made him cum his jeans. What a compliment.

Your puffy clit was sore from the brief friction, and you felt every centimeter of space he put between you and your reward, but it was like a switch flipped in your brain.

The sharp throbs of his fingers clamped onto the meat of your thigh and his thumb jammed into the soft muscle were forgotten when you looked down at the man who shied under your observation; his face aflame with the awareness he ruined your release as well and his, and his bashful eyes worried with remorse. He was the reason you craved the early dawn, and weekday nights. He was the reason your heart crowded your throat when you woke up and your first thought was to reach for the bracelet on your bedside dresser. He was the reason you took a liking to heavy metal and board games. He was the reason your body reacted to wafts of earthy tobacco in the air, only to be disappointed when the person behind you at the grocery store was just another smoker who hand rolled their cigarettes, as if they had the right to smell like Eddie Munson.

You looked down at the man who lived an isolated and thankless life, who found joy in the small things and loved with his whole heart, who had few outlets to express himself and receive love back, and nothing mattered to you more than giving him a reason to look at you differently come Monday morning.

You thumbed the edge of his jaw with a promise. “I’ll go slow, pretty boy.”

He made a choked off noise in response.

Eddie’s eyes followed the nuances of your movement as you rose from his lap and planted your feet on the carpet. His stance widened to make room for you, chest falling with a silent exhale; peering at you with a question between his brows, as if he were contemplating his luck. When you bent over and placed your palms on his thighs, you stole his gaze from the intimate way your cleavage shifted under gravity, and honored his lips a last time for the foreseeable future, about to show him how fortunate he really was.

You sank to your knees, dropping dry kisses onto his shirt in a path to his belly as you went, and lifted the hem. The bottom of the inked sword and dragon greeted you. Sparse hair fanned as you raised the shirt above his tattooed navel, and pushed it to the crease where his sternum and belly met. His stomach wasn’t as flat as when he stood, giving him a slight curve where it pushed past the edge of his belt—a roundness when he sat relaxed. You laid your elbows on his thighs, and avoided touching the large subject in your peripheral, instead shaping your hands to his hips, and bowing your head.

His muscles jumped under your lips.

Finally, you knew his ticklish spot.

He sucked in a breath, and squirmed at the scattered kisses to his sides. You applied more pressure, mashing your mouth to him with a giggly hum, and teased your wet lips through the thick curls leading downwards. The hairs grazed the sides of your mouth and nose. The warm metal from his belt buckle brushed your chin. You’d never guessed you’d come to know these sensations when you first met him and he made it clear your enthusiasm for life was not appreciated, but here you were, stroking your thumbs up his leather belt, bordering your grin with his happy trail.

Eddie skimmed his fingers over your wrists. “I’m not gonna last long,” he warned.

“That’s fine,” you assured him in a quick peck to the significant outline you’d become obsessed with, feeling him twitch beneath your lips. “We have all night to work on that.”

“What—? Jesus Christ, uh—okay.”

Sitting back on your calves, you held his gaze while you pulled the extra length of his belt through the loops in a smooth rush, and worked it through the handcuff buckle. You tightened the slack and loosened the pin with a nimble finger, undressing him with the ease of an expert.

Asking from a place of your own curiosity, you wondered, “How often do you jerk off?”

His eyebrows disappeared behind his tousled bangs.

Not yet used to you being so forward with him, he stammered on his tongue, but held his composure, much to the surprise of both of you. “Not that often, I guess.. Uh, a few times a month.”

You snorted. “You don’t have to lie to me, you know that, right? You can tell me if it’s everyday, I don’t care. It’s not like I’m gonna judge you.”

The two halves of his belt flopped to either side of his waist. With it out of the way, you pinched at the stamped button at the top of his stupidly tight jeans, but you had trouble getting a good grip on it. Here, let me—he mumbled in a small voice, lifting his hips off the couch to undo it himself, popping it through and revealing the waistband of his forest green boxers.

It was with great determination you aimed your gaze above his obvious grandeur when he started talking.

“I’m not lying,” he said during the sturdy grind of the zipper being tugged down. “Not exactly like I have a door to lock when I need some alone time around here, sweetness. Plus” —he grunted at the freedom his unzipped jeans granted him, pushing them lower on his hips— “I’m usually too worn out after work, and just wanna crash on the couch. Not to mention taking care of everything around here is exhausting. Just don’t have the energy most days.”

Reading the precious draw of sympathy between your brows, he sat on the edge of his bed, and reached into the fly at the front of his boxers. “But, uh, there has been a recent change in my life that’s motivated me to.. take better care of myself. More often.” A certain motivator who sat between his legs with her hands in her lap, piqued and obedient. “Lot more often than a couple months ago, before she started working with me.”

He wrapped his fingers around himself and stroked upward, moving his knuckles against the fabric. He’d been rambling to ease the anxiety from his nerves until only the adrenaline remained, and with his pretty girl biting her bottom lip at his impure thoughts, his stalling came to an end.

Out came his hand—broad palm and thick fingers stretched full—and you stared in silent awe.

The back of his pale wrist and rosy knuckles were the first to show. Prominent blue veins led to his crooked hand, thumb and foremost fingers grasping his base while the last two struggled to collect the rest. His wet tip grazed the top of his boxers, peaking the fabric and dragging it along in a mouthwatering sweep towards the opening, and out it bobbed in flushed hues of pink and needy red. Below, he used his other hand to lower the fly, and cupped his palm to his heavy hanging fruits. They slipped out one plump roundness at a time to display their greatness against his dark jeans in a weighty sway.

Eddie’s cock leaked a bead of anticipation for you.

Starting with a lazy tug, he stroked himself. The arousing sheen smeared around his tip glistened, shining anew with the pass of his fist. As predicted, he curved to the right, and the fact he could hardly overlap his thumb to get a good hold on himself spoke of his size. All of him was beautiful, and you felt beautiful when another drip of precum swelled from his pretty head, threatening to fall before your very eyes.

He was thrilled by your shock. “Want it?”

“Need it,” you responded in a faint exhale.

With a smirk deepening his smoky tone, he kept moving his hand up and down, and granted you permission, “It’s all yours.”

You snapped your attention to his face, and inched forward until you were snug against the couch, eager and motivated by the lustful stretch in your thighs exposing your soaked cunt to the air. Good and pleasing, you clasped your hands politely in the folds of your bunched up skirt, and framed your arms around your chest.

Dipping your head, you lolled out your tongue for his approval.

His expression was the highest compliment; revering you with crinkles at the corners of his heavy-lidded gaze, lips stretched into a genuine smile which emphasized the elusive dimple on his cheek, and defined the bags under his eyes. Strands of his finger-swept messy curls stuck out at odd angles after you had your way with his hair, grazing his high cheekbones, and thick neck.

His heart pounded louder in his chest the longer he stared at your offering.

Weight pressed down on the plush middle of your tongue. It left, then happened again, again. Again, he tapped the fat head of his cock to the sticky wetness, mixing his salty taste with your spit. Bestowing you the gift, and taking it away. Teasing you. He slapped his heaviness down in a dull throb of owning you, and lifted it off to run his fingers over his own length, jerking himself off at an easy pace he wouldn’t cum from before putting his weeping tip to your tongue once more for you to admire, but not indulge. It was the cruelest, and hottest, thing he’d ever done to you.

When he next rubbed his head along the supple muscle and took it away, you tempted him into giving you mercy.

His lungs stuttered at your first demure kiss to the underside of his cock. You listened to his shallow breath on the second, released in a short ahh on the third. On the fourth, you vied for privilege to spoil him. He relented. How could he not?

To give himself a better angle to watch, he propped one of his hands behind him, and dropped his cheek to his shoulder, where his hair poured in a mass of tangles. The broad grin he wore waned to a subtler emotion as you hummed for the silky skin thrumming against your lips, feeling him shift when he lifted his thumb from taming his hard-on down.

Eddie marveled at how you balanced his cock on your pout. Amusement—and an unending amount of tenderness—gentled his features. He was sweet on you. You were sweet on him.

Treating him how he deserved, you rolled your tongue around your mouth to gather spit, and pushed it past your lips to wet his slick head, making your kisses slip against him in a smooth glide. You showered him in small pecks at first. Short kisses with the cutesy sounds pressed to the sensitive ridges which earned Eddie’s involuntary moan; low and thick, drawing from the months of pining for this moment. Venturing into more, you darted your tongue out to test his reaction when you licked the valley between the halves of his plump tip, and you winced. His cock kicked up, and fell in a smack. It was painful, probably bruising the delicate inner flesh of your lips when it smashed them against your teeth. You thanked him in an acquiescent whine.

It was addictive—a daze. With nothing but gravity to keep him in place, you cherished your favorite mechanic’s cock openly and honestly. You flattened your tongue to him in a loving lap, and chased it with a long drag of your lips up the underside to the round head, struggling to keep your eyes open from the bliss of tasting his reward, and suckling noisily for more.

Eddie accepted defeat in a sudden, disappointed grunt, “Yeah.. I’m not gonna last long.”

He fell backwards in a dramatic flourish.

Sprawled almost flat, his shoulders hit the cushions, and his body melted into the position with his fingers laced over his eyes as a shield. A groan of despair reverberated in his throat. Poor Eddie, can’t last long with his favorite receptionist’s mouth around his cock. A giggle bubbled from your chest, and you were about to repeat your promise to go slow, but the words wouldn’t form.

Your mouth had other plans than wasting their time on reassurances.

In his melodramatic moping, his dick left your lips and flopped onto his belly—which was a loss you felt in your soul—but with how he slouched into the cushions, a fruitful endeavor presented itself. Swung, and bounced, actually.

You leaned in, and became acquainted with your hand around his girth; familiarizing yourself with the naked warmth in your palm, and his airy whimper when you did.

The top of his boxers brushed your knuckles as you drifted your hand up in a single stroke. One fluid glide on the cock which belonged to you. He did say it was yours, after all. And though the thought alone had you wishing it was stretching your tight cunt in a blend of pain and pleasure, you had a yearning for what else moved up and down when you pumped your fist.

“Eddie?” you called. He peered at you from the shadow of his fingers. Innocently, you traced the bottom of his sack, and oh so carefully settled them into the nest of your unblemished palm. “Are these mine too?”

A croak broke his speechlessness. “Y-Yeah, those are yours, too. If you want them.”

Please was written in your grateful lurch towards his cock. Thank you was expressed in your lush moan when he entered your mouth.

“Baby,” he whined in a docile sigh.

You sank his cock into the wet heat he needed, but only for the purpose of curving your tongue to his begging tip and bathing him in your spit, using your hand to work it down his shaft. Except, you got carried away. A few strokes in, and you put your lips tight around his head, and already there was a warning forming between his brows.

You backed off. His face went lax in relief.

“Feels too good, sweetheart,” he praised from the depths of his gravelly voice. “Gonna make me cum like that.”

Your pussy ached to be spoken to that way.

Moving your attention away from how pitifully empty you felt, you loosened your grip and twisted your wrist to massage the base of his slick cock; not exploring upwards, just giving him enough friction to keep him on edge without spilling over. A perfect amount of pleasure, you guessed, from his red face emerging from behind his hands, raising them to comb his bangs off the fine layer of sweat beading on his forehead, and blinking himself out of his haze just in time to see you lower your face between his thighs.

You tended to him first with a kiss. An opening, or introduction, to your lips finding the spot beneath your working thumb where the hardness ended and the velvety skin began. He tensed. His legs flexed around your shoulders, bringing his knees in all shy like, like he was self conscious to have you down there. And maybe it was one thing to have his balls cupped in your palm, but it was another to have you nosing around the opening of his boxers when he hadn’t gone through with his plan of trimming back the hedges.

All he could do was stare when you inhaled his scent after he spent the day cleaning his home, running errands, driving across town to pick you up, and sitting next to you during scene after scene of horrors playing on a screen directly across from the terrifying event of holding your hand while trying not to out-sweat his t-shirt.

His bewilderment was apparent, but so was your enjoyment.

You burrowed your nose at the narrow opening of his fly, and tilted his cock to the side, finding the thick thatch of curls growing around his base, and admiring his heavy musk breaking through the perfumed Dove soap. A heavy purr of pleasure rumbled in your throat, coming out as a nasally moan against the wrinkled skin you kissed. So enraptured by his body, you couldn’t hold back anymore. You had to part your lips, and run your tongue along the seam of his sack. It was with a dire urge you stopped at the bottom, and flaunted how big he was by snuggling your nose to the heft and lifting.

You draped his balls over your mouth.

It was silly to him, and you didn’t mind the tss of laughter, but to you, earning his baffled smile while your giggle was buried under his sack was vital to your design. Their ripe heat enveloped you. The stripe you licked was wet on the tip of your nose. His natural scent swaddled you. Both corners of your lips were encumbered by the wonderful weight hanging on either side, brushing your cheeks as you swallowed the taste of his tangy sweat. You kissed up into the excess skin stretched over your face, and they rolled to your chin when you changed the angle you were teasing his cock, disciplining him towards his stomach so you had more room to worship the pome.

Warming him to the idea, you flattened your tongue to one side and ran it along the fullness, curving up, and dragging down in a long caress. In a breath, he placed his hand on his stomach where his shirt gathered, and skimmed the other over his body until it laid on top of his jeans, in the crease between his hip and thigh. You could see his fingers work themselves into the loose denim out of the corner of your eye, and heard them relax when you traced the other side of his sack, ending with a murmur to the textured skin.

“Too much?” you asked—he shook his head before you could finish the question, still hanging onto a suggestion of his fascinated squint at what you were doing to him.

With his approval, you indulged.

The gentle licks evolved to sloppy circles, eager to prize and polish, ensuring there was no part of his balls gone neglected. Lapping at, kissing at, making out with another spot on his body out of a necessity to fawn over every inch of him. Willing to nuzzle your way between the plumpness and have your drool drag wetly across your cheeks in his name. Fully content with messier and messier affections, cozying your nose to the base of his curls until he understood how little it bothered you to be smothered by his nature.

Unable to resist satisfying him how he deserved, you dropped an open kiss to the squish of his sack, and suckled on a small section, checking his reaction.

Not an ounce of protest glimmered behind his lashes, eyes falling almost closed at the intimate gesture between two people who were never supposed to be more than coworkers.

You parted your lips, and accepted a mouthful.

Eddie whimpered.

His toes curled into the carpet at the novel sensation. There was an incredible amount of trust required to fight the instinct to pull away. Even his fingers strained the denim when you drew your lips around one of his balls, and slackened your jaw. It was with great respect you brought him into your mouth, and cradled the weight on your tongue, cheeks stretched full and soft. You held him there for a long second. The rain was a steady noise of the roof, but your exhale was loud in the space between his thighs. Quiet suspense followed your hand climbing his shaft.

You wrapped your fingers around his hopeful tip, and fitted your thumb to the valley on the underside. In perfect sync, and with your eyes steady on his face, you hollowed your cheeks and squeezed each of your fingers at the same gentle pace.

“Fuck, baby—”

At once, Eddie’s unabashed groan inspired you, and his balls jerked in response to the direct touch in the places he needed it. From pinky to index, you massaged his fat head in a smooth pulse—matching the strokes of your thumb—and though your grip was light, he was already kneading his hand along his inner thigh and clamping it down close to your face. You soothed him on your tongue as best you could, and eased him into having more pressure from your lips, sucking harder on the most sensitive part of him.

Concentration stressed a shadow between his brows; chest braced on a held breath.

The telltale sign of his skin tightening in your mouth, along with his clenched stomach and abnormal silence, had you testing his limits. But it was too fun feeling his legs squirm at the effortless flow your fingers performed, coaxing him closer to coming undone and still daring to smear the swells of precum over the pleading edge of his tip, again and again, but slower. Slower. Memorizing the metallic slink of his guitar pick running along the ball chain necklace when you released him, and his chest sank with a sigh.

His voice cracked a notch higher, “Jesus, you’re really into this, huh, sweetheart?” he asked, but you couldn’t answer.

Before committing to his other ball, you spat into your cupped fingers, and put them to his cock, adjusting how you held him until you could look past and see the handsome glint of respect in his eyes, and he could gaze into wealth of adoration in yours.

“Love being on my knees for you,” you mumbled sweetly, kissing your way to the other side of his sack. “Love your cock, Eddie.”

His name, spoken where it was on his body, brought out a smugger twist to his already prideful grin. “Yeah? You like it?”

Rushing at the chance to compliment your man, you straightened your spine, and punctuated your words along the thick vein leading up to the drips of seed. “Love it,” you promised in a syrupy yearn, swallowing the bitter salt. “Love your cock; love it so much. It’s my favorite.”

“Is it the best?”

The question was tonally rich with confidence, but just in case there was any doubt woven into the wording itself, you regarded the man who went to work early on a day he had off for the purpose of leaving flowers on your desk, and smiled.

“Yeah,” you confessed, recalling a memory from the earlier months, after your first failed date, when he shared his can of Coke with you at lunch because the vending machine was out, and two sets of chapsticked lip prints were left around the metal rim. “It’s the best.”

You hugged his cock to your cheek, and nuzzled the warmth as you would any other part of him, humming a sunshiny hum, and parted ways to return to your true calling further down.

This time, Eddie groaned in relief when you settled his other ball in your mouth—”That’s it.”

With your newly slick hand, you slipped your palm over his desperately purple tip with ease. His thighs jumped into a flex, and his stomach fluttered with tension—almost like he was going to lose himself right there—but he exhaled hard through his nose, and became better at existing in the mutual pleasure. This was as much for you as it was for him.

There was a scrunch of determination above his nose, and a strong edge to his jaw, but otherwise, his fingers were gentle on your temple.

“You always know how to make me feel good,” he said, tracing his knuckles downward, lacing multitudes of meanings behind the sentence. Physical, and emotional.

He prodded his thumb into the hollow of your cheek, feeling how full you were of him; how his calloused fingerpad rocked in the same rhythm of your lips sealing around him and sucking; and you leaned into the tender gesture of his open palm, to which he cupped your jaw with a sentiment tantamount to what you were baring.

A sweet man through and through, even as he trembled in your fist.

You curved your tongue around the tight skin in your mouth, and moaned prettily for him. Frequent moans, ardent moans, moans appealing to his ego, moans you’d hear on a tape rented from the backroom of a competing video store with a black curtain separating it from the wholesome movies up front. Performing for him, finding what he liked. Which lick, which whine, which speed had his cock leaking over your fingers. Which trick made the creases between his brows mature, and his mouth fall open: the answer was two fast pumps over his throbbing head, and back down to his base for a respite, prolonging his release with a thank you on his heavy eyelids.

Prolonging, at least, until two fast pumps became a naughty blur of more—Oh, fuck, baby—and his brushes along your cheek went rare, and he licked his dry lips in the fog of his ramping high, and he hung his head back to the dense cushions, and his question escaped his throat in a hoarse huff, “You wanna—?” and it wasn’t a question at all.

You pushed your lips in soft goodbye to his sack, and his fingers under your jaw communicated his wish, aiding your chin up with a light pressure until your mouth was tasting the result of his aching lust. Slow and steady, you lavished his head in tame licks, building into a long sweep over the top. Warming yourself up to the painful stretch your lips were about to endure while his kind fingertips coasted over your hair, and found themselves at the back of your neck. Drawing out the seconds he tucked his thumb behind your ear, and rubbed circles. Sitting in the moment of something delicate, before things changed, and the platonic line became a horizon.

You drove his tip past your lips, and channeled all your appreciation into sucking Eddie’s cock.

He whimpered in surprise. A different whimper than before; not a drowsy noise he may make when rolling over in bed, but a sputtered note expelled in bursts of heavy breaths, singing a hymn to your blood.

The pace was not shy.

You descended to meet your fingers wrapped around his shaft, and reached your temporary depth where his hardness caressed the back of your mouth, and your throat clenched. Pulling back, you focused on his head, wetting his length with the sudden drool, and busying your other hand with his balls, cupping and stroking them in gentle passes.

“Ri–Right there, yeah, God, right there, sweet girl.” The syllables were mashed and dropped and disconnected on his whine.

Flicking your gaze up, you thrived on his fixated stare, bobbing your head on his tip only. Sliding your lips back and forth over the luscious ridge which had his tongue pressed against his bottom teeth. Massaging your wet heat around the center of his pleasure; encouraging a pinch in his expression as if he were in pain when he was in anything but.

Being higher on your knees meant your tits could be seen, and what a delicious sight it was for him to covet. Braced by your bra, your cleavage bounced as you pumped your fist along his cock, grazing your nipples above the opaque floral applique, cresting them beyond the sheer lace. It was enough to make his stomach squeeze, and his fingers tremble in the baby hairs at your nape.

His cock twitched twice in your mouth, conveying a message.

You welcomed him to the back of your throat, gladly this time, accepting the overfulness making it hard to breathe and the soreness surely to come, using your hand for the rest you could not take. No amount of uncomfortableness would make you shy from showing him the recognition he earned. For years he didn’t see the value in himself, and knowing the person who saved a Laffy Taffy wrapper to tell you the joke on the back didn’t prioritize his own happiness compelled you to take him deeper, faster. You shaped your tongue to the outline of his cock, and chased your lips with your fist, hollowing your cheeks at the top, teetering him on the cusp, rousing him until your skin buzzed from the friction and his hips pitched. Bringing him so close to the edge that when you broke away to catch your breath, his muscles shivered, and the shadows between his brows lessened as they arched higher from the mounting pleasure, where every touch on his body felt better and better and better than the last.

In the brief seconds you wrapped both your hands around his length, he made a pleading noise with the added weight of his warm palm at the back of your head—an urgency in his disheveled state, but not without the option of choice.

At once, he was at home in your throat.

In a union, your fingers wrenched his waistband into your damp palm, and he laid his hand across your knuckles. The control was yours, but the pace was his. He fucked himself into your pliant mouth in short, quick thrusts; ever attentive to keep his thumb strokes on your cheek unquestionably loving.

“Gonna make me—” He found the angle to cant his hips so you could watch him unravel; eyes falling closed and face tipped to the ceiling. “—Make me cum, baby,” he finished, voice light as air.

Throat flushed bright pink, cheeks dark red. Eddie panted into a shaky moan of true relief, and your core craved to be the one to take care of his needs, but there was something special about proving your attraction to him in every way you could.

The ridges of his greedy tip found where they were best brushed, and his hips lost their tempo. His stomach sank and stuttered in pulses. A dear emotion clutched your chest, letting loose when he crashed into his climax.

His knees closed you in, crowding you to his lap. “I’m gonna—” he gasped, rough and breathless; presented as a warning for the shot of bitter taste at the back of your throat, filling your mouth and spilling over your tongue with each throb of the thick vein pumping over your swollen bottom lip.

Something undeniable feathered the vulnerability of the position.

You swallowed.

And when more remained after it slid down your throat, you steadied his twitching cock over the offering of your tongue and jerked him off, stealing more drips to satiate you, swallowing with your lips pressed in a kiss to his overstimulated tip. “Baby,” he begged with his head thrown back, legs shifting restlessly around you. He sucked in breaths. Squirmed. Bit his tongue. Tugs of laughter played at his screwed up mouth, so desperate to resist giving in to a true grin when you rode out his high until he was beginning to soften, and the euphoria wore off to a dozy tingles, and the tingles dissipated into you giving him mercy, and mercy gave way to the aftermath.

In all the awkwardness of reality, you unceremoniously wiped your hands on his jeans, and right as he properly tucked himself back into his boxers, he beckoned you with open arms, gripping at your hips and bringing you onto the couch in a clumsy tumble; straddling his lap with his eager kisses seeking your jaw, your neck, your mouth which worked so hard for him. “Fucking amazing, baby,” he mumbled at the corner of your lips. You didn’t need the words—you’d heard them all before—but the reassurance of his arms locked tight around your middle, and the golden rays of honey shining so bright in his eyes allayed the tiny ball of worry at the pit of your stomach telling you he’d next follow it up with an excuse to send you home, as did every man before him.

“‘Mazing, ‘mazing, ‘mazing,” he mushed together on his way to your slack lips, bringing you out of your thoughts and into a kiss. “And dare I say, ‘amazing?’”

His ability to make you giggle when your bare stomachs were pressed together was the sort of tenderness you sought, and he provided.

You rubbed the tip of your nose along his, so very aware of his broad grin, and sweet nature. “You’re silly.”

“That I am!” he stated proudly.

Dipping to complete your gentle smile with his, you sank into the acceptance of him wanting to take your bottom lip between his, and flatter himself with the knowledge of where it’s been, what parts of him it became intimate with, instead of avoiding what was only human. He noticed your cold skin beneath his hands, and ran them along your back and upper arms. There was a motive behind his fingers slipping under the hem of your skirt, and palming you forward—where your heartbeats hammered together, and heat stirred in the lack of layers separating you—but still, there was one more affection you thought he deserved before the night moved on to your own.

Shivers chased his thumb braving the roundness of your breast, edging closer to the sensation of due pleasure yearning to be released. He spoke straight to your needs by putting the suggestion in your hips, “It’s your turn now.”

You stopped yourself from toppling to the cushions, and upheld your decent balance through your grip on his shoulders. “Wait,” you complained without malice, forgiving him for not reading your mind, “I’m not through with you yet.”

The word choice sparked intrigue across his face, then it cautioned to curiosity at the ominous roll of thunder rumbling through the trailer, clanking the mugs on the wall behind him.

He turned his head to the side, eyeing you. “What does that mean?”

~~~

“God, that feels so good.”

“Yeah, right there.. A little to the left—Oh fuck, right there.”

“So fucking good, sweetheart, keep going.”

Perturbed, you asked him, “Do you ever shut up?” and kneaded your knuckles harder into the knot of muscle between his shoulder blades, earning a louder groan than when you had his dick in your mouth.

One of the horror movies played on the TV, volume turned high for the alien’s gargled dialogue to be heard over the storm. Eddie’s lanky body was limp with sleepiness, melting under the smooth strokes of your palms starting at the base of his neck and gliding downward over his shirt, dragging another grunt out of him when his voice was hoarse from shameless use, not tempering it for a late night where he’d employ his range outside of singing for Corroded Coffin. He mumbled another praise, but his face was smashed to his pillow, rendering what he said unintelligible. His strong back rose with a shallow breath, and you moved with it. The couch was crowded, but you insisted he get comfortable, even if you had to straddle the curve of his ass with one knee fallen to the alarm of crayons and crumbs stuck between the cushions, and your other leg hung off the edge. This worked for him, though. It gave his hand a place to hold you, fingers clasped to your calf and thumb tending to you in little sweeps of truth. I need to touch you. The room was smothered in darkness, save for the brighter scenes highlighting the glossy line of his eye fighting a losing battle one massage of your thumbs into the pockets of soreness at a time.

You worked at the tense muscles with his comforter draped around your shoulders. It slipped down to greet the chafing air, rushing goosebumps over your skin. After the fourth time adjusting it, you left it gathered at your waist. Making sure Eddie was taken care of was more important. And the college girl turning into goo occupied what was left of your attention.

Though, soon, your tendons ached from effort, and staying-up-late stole the water you yawned from your eyes, and the comfort of being with someone who appreciated you wore heavy on your bones.

You grabbed the blanket, and leaned forward.

Brushing back the mess of curls covering the side of his face, you combed through the strands of hair stuck to his stubble, and found his chubby cheek smushed to his shoulder. You kissed him. “I adore you.”

He put a weak squeeze in his palm behind your knee, and spoke through the grog, “I adore you too, baby.”

Adore. Using the endearment in place of another word, and still, the weight was understood by the both of you.

Housed in the cozy heat of his body, sheltered from the rain lashing the windows in sheets, and the howling wind whistling past the corrugated metal roof in gusts, you sighed. Thunder vibrated from the floor, to the couch, to him, to you.

“You’re too sweet to me,” he said, sounding more awake.

“I’m exactly as sweet as you deserve.”

Instead of using his words to express he wanted to turn over, he just started rolling beneath you, forcing you to rip yourself from his divine warmth, and settle upright on his lap.

You were reminded of the reason you were cold when his eyes trailed over your naked skin, not afraid to show their appetite for your chest. The hunger in his hands returned, scaling the plush expanse of your thighs, and feasting his thumbs higher on the sensitive inner haven he’d yet to pay tribute to.

A smirk cut across his mouth. With a slow breath, he rocked his hips, grinding his half-hard cock against your neglected need, now attuned with the perfect tilt to achieve that pretty noise from your mouth which riled him like nothing else.

Oh, he was very awake.

Eddie exhaled with a pitying sound with attentive eyebrows, almost like he was mocking your moan. “You look so good up there, sweetheart,” he admired through his teasing. “Could get used to it..”

“Yeah?” you questioned. Reaching between your joined bodies, you held no qualms about circling your fingers over his cock, and honoring just under his head, ending your stroke just before he could reap the benefit.

He tipped his head back to gain his wits, finding his answer in the darkness behind his eyelids. “But you keep forgetting this night was about you, and thanking you for everything you’ve done for me. And then you go and add that on top of it.” Private fantasies took hold of him, influencing his heavy moan and thumbs climbing higher, higher. “Gotta thank you for so many things, sweetheart. So many.. However many you want,” he said, alluding to his way of showing gratitude. Fresh lust rushed to your soaked heat hugging his length. “Gotta get you out of these, though.” He scratched a nail over your pantyhose.

You snorted, accidentally ushering humor into what was a sexy exchange. “Why bother? You already ripped them.”

“I what?” Plain confusion marked his face.

Treating it like an ordinary thing, you bunched your skirt up to your waist, and drew his gaze to your mismatched black panties. You gandered at them as well, second guessing if you should’ve taken the extra time to find the lavender pair somewhere at the bottom of your drawer.

“Yeah,” he groaned; as his chest fell, his cock swelled. “I’m gonna show you just how thankful I am, again, and again, and again,” he trailed off, each word fluttering the heartbeat at your core—

Lightning struck, and the phone rang.

Jolting, Eddie stared at it from a long moment, breath held as if that alone would will it into submission from ringing a second time. Spikes of prickly anxiety stabbed at your chest, frightened out of the moment worse than any jumpscare.

It rang a second time.

He took the initiative and sat up, consoling you with his hand on your back and a kiss on your cheek. “I’m sure it’s nothing, just stay put and make yourself comfortable, sweet girl. I’ll be right back.”

Use your pet names all he wanted, his voice didn’t instill confidence when it went flat and wavered.

He got up from the couch and you were left feeling exposed, nestling into the blanket as the rain picked up, and the buzzy feeling he left imprinted on your skin faded.

“Hello?” he answered, rubbing his stomach above the open fly of his jeans.

As he listened to the man’s voice on the other end, he dropped his hand, and his shoulders sagged at the information.

Turning away, he huddled the receiver to his ear, and asked, “Is she okay?”

His question didn’t have the direness a parent should have if someone were hurt, so you stood up and padded softly to the kitchen, straining your ears, listening intently and discerning a few sniffles. But one little girl’s cry rang above them all. A shrill call for her Daddy to save her from her greatest fear.

Thunder rocked the trailer.

“Yeah.. Yeah, I’ll come get her.”

The phone clicked into its holder on the wall, and like that, the illusion was shattered. It was no longer just you and him spending a night together, carefree. Responsibility took precedence, and when Eddie faced you, his mood was tainted by all the things he explained about being exhausted from just existing his thankless life, judged by all.

He stared into your optimistic gaze knowing this is when you’d get a dose of his reality as a single father.

Fatigue and dread haunted his expression: this date is over.

#eddie munson x reader #eddie munson #stranger things #eddie x reader #eddie munson smut #mechanic!eddie #eddie munson fanfic #stranger things fanfic #the yes policy

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taexual · 1 month

Text

sleepwalking ● 22 | jjk

pairing: jungkook x fem!reader

summary: due to unfortunate circumstances, you ended up managing your ex-boyfriend’s band. you thought you’ve both made peace with it, but suddenly he’s very eager to prove to you that first love never dies.

genre: rockstar!jungkook / exes to lovers

warnings: explicit language, suggestive themes, FLUFF, some angst, mentions of drugs (including descriptions of harmful use), very plot-heavy chapter, SLOW BURN

words: 18k

read from the beginning ○ masterlist

chapter 22 ► if you want an enemy, i’ll be the last one that you ever meet

Jungkook marvelled at how quickly he got used to the peace he felt with you in his hotel room. It was strong, too, this peace. Stable. It seemed to him, as you slept on the bed right by his side, that nothing could disturb the walls of his room.

Sid’s Instagram post had been nothing but a picture. Neither of you interacted with it, nor did you respond to him—although, like a true pest, he continued to message you both throughout the night.

The picture remained as it was: largely anonymous, because Sid, in his petulant haste to post it, had not tagged you. And, from the looks of it, he had not realised he hadn’t tagged you.

The people in the comments—Jungkook checked, after making sure you’d fallen asleep—tried to guess what was happening. Most of the comments, with usernames that made Jungkook chuckle, seemed to recognise him (well, a few people did, and others jumped on this bandwagon with a heedless excitement that brought another smile to his face—they were thrilled to find him in this seemingly random picture, and he was thrilled by their thrill), but no one could understand the context.

So happy for you, Sid’s caption read. But happy for what? Happy for whom?

You’ve both decided to raise this issue with the band before the concert tomorrow. There was very little you could have done this late at night anyway. All the staff had a day off, and you did not want to disturb them over a personal problem that had escalated into something bigger than you.

Jungkook was delighted by your choice to stay in his room. He interpreted your decision to wait until morning as a confirmation of your deeper desire to prolong your time together. He preferred to believe that this was the reason, rather than the circumstances, that allowed you to stay.

And since you were sleeping next to him right now, your chest rising and falling gently under the covers, it was all too easy to give in to this belief.

When Jungkook woke up a few hours later, the room was bathed in a golden glow. The sunlight filtered through a gap in the curtains that he must have overlooked last night.

You weren’t next to him.

Panic seized him almost instantly, and he realised that the peace he had felt last night with you beside him was not quite as stable as he had believed. Now you were awake, and you were not here.

He flipped on his back and pushed himself into a sitting position. He even searched under the bed in irrational desperation—as if you had decided to play hide-and-seek and give him a heart attack for breakfast. And then, as soon as he threw back the covers and scanned the room, he heard your voice—a lifeline, really, amid his suffocating thoughts.

You were still here, in the bathroom, either talking on the phone or to yourself. Honestly, that part did not really matter to him, as long as he knew you were here.

Outrageously relieved, he collapsed back onto the pillows and buried his face in his hands, a ridiculous smile spreading beneath his fingers as his heart continued to race in his chest.

He realised that he was a little out of his mind.

You were on the phone, as Jungkook would later learn, with the founder and CEO of Jett Records, Christian Jett—or simply CJ, as he insisted you call him, even though you’d only spoken to him once in your entire time at the company: right now. You figured one of the reasons he insisted on the abbreviation was that his full name could have worked incredibly well as a Christian rock band name.

If Jungkook had known who you were talking to, his panic might have resurged. Your hands were shaking, too, as you clutched your phone to your ear and took in CJ’s rapid news.

In just one breath, CJ shared his thoughts on Rated Riot’s reception in Europe and outlined his vision for the coming months. He also surprised you with some good news, and you tapped your fingers on the hotel sink, eager to tell the band.

Then, CJ, your new best friend by the sound of it, turned the subject over to you.

“Here’s what’s going to happen in the next few weeks,” he said, speaking so quickly that you barely had time to react. By the time your stomach clenched in anticipation, he had already informed you of his plans. “I’ve personally put together a team, just a couple of execs and someone from HR, to recruit support staff for you. We’re thinking two people should suffice for now.”

Your pause seemed incredibly long compared to his—which was virtually non-existent, and CJ opened his mouth to keep speaking.

“I was also thinking that—”

“I—sorry, uh,” you interjected, finally finding your words, “w-what support staff are you referring to, sir?”

“Assistant managers,” CJ replied with a chuckle. “I should’ve started with that, you’re right. You’ll have a team. Naturally, you’ll be promoted to Head of Management.”

You needed some time to process that. It was the “naturally” in particular that confused you because none of this seemed very natural.

When you woke up and saw ‘Christian Jett’ on your phone (the device even vibrated differently, almost nervously), you immediately assumed the worst: Sid had done irreparable damage to the band’s reputation by hard-launching a relationship that no one at the label knew about, and now you were going to be fired because you had not contained it.

That was the only thought you had when you took the call. But you were actually being promoted. Naturally.

Did he even know about Sid?

“That—that’s great,” you managed. You sensed CJ’s anticipation for a more effusive response and he grumbled in mild disapproval when you did not offer one. “I am very happy to hear that.”

“Yeah?” He chuckled again. He sounded like a train veering off its tracks when he laughed, which was very odd, yet somehow felt comforting. “You don’t sound much like it.”

“Oh—m-my apologies, I’m just surprised.”

“Yeah, well, you shouldn’t be,” he said. “Others are trying to scout you for their own bands—fucking Reconnaissance, of all people—so, of course, we have to promote you.”

Your fingers stilled on the cool porcelain of the sink.

He said they had to promote you: as if it was a decision forced upon them by some foreign threat, rather than your efforts and the unprecedented growth of the band.

It would have made sense to expand your team eventually—when the tour ended, for example, and everyone could see how far Rated Riot has come. But now, apparently, your career would abruptly progress just because you received an offer from another band.

“Respectfully, sir,” you said, avoiding his nickname, “may I ask how you came by that information? I was under the impression that the offer from Reconnaissance wasn’t official.”

“It’s a small industry,” CJ replied. “We consider any offer aimed at our talents official.”

He gave no further explanations. You had questions, of course, but did not know how to say What the fuck is that supposed to mean? in Corporate.

Instead, you said, “I see.”

“I’ll send one of my assistants and a couple of people from our legal team to go over the new contract with you in the next few days,” he informed you.

You wondered what time it was for him, wherever he was, because here in London, it was far too early to talk about legal teams. The magnitude of the situation made your empty stomach churn.

“Your new contract won’t be much different,” CJ continued. He sensed that the mention of lawyers had unsettled you, and his tone softened. “Bigger pay, a few extra tasks, a more defined division of labour. Your assistants will handle the routine chores, allowing you to concentrate on promoting and advancing Rated Riot. That’s the direction we’re moving in right now, and that’ll be your main priority.”

“I understand, sir,” you said, although you understood fragments.

They could have hired a marketing specialist instead of two assistants for you if they wanted to focus on the advancement of the band. Rated Riot did not even have their own publicist right now. There was one at the company, but she juggled several bands and rarely ventured beyond arranging an occasional interview for Rated Riot if someone contacted the company, and not you.

Evidently, they chose to promote you to Head Manager and Publicist instead of hiring a different person for that job.

“You’ll stay with the band and work on location,” CJ said. “That arrangement seems to bring the best results, especially regarding the band’s schedule. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“Yes, sir,” you replied, recognising that CJ probably had the authority to teleport you out of London immediately should you disagree with anything he said.

“Excellent,” he said. “I’d like to move forward with this while the band is still on tour, so you could train your assistants as soon as you are back. From then on, you’ll focus on effective representation and the strengthening of their brand, marketing strategies, bigger shows, more advertising—well, you know the drill.”

“Right,” you said. “Of course.”

You chose not to point out how far these new duties deviated from your original job description. You were already doing all that anyway, even if you weren’t, technically, required to. And they clearly seemed to think that your extra work came without saying—of course, you’d do everything. When have you not?

“And mostly everything else on the contract will remain as it is,” CJ finished. “The legal team will go over the rest with you. It’s the same things: compensation, conflicts of interest, obligations, bonuses, the whole bunch. You know. You’ve done it before.”

You haven’t done it before, actually. When Rated Riot hired you, the company emailed you the contract, you skimmed it, understood about half, and e-signed it without any meetings with HR, let alone the legal team.

Nevertheless, you responded obediently, “I understand. When can I expect to meet with them?”

“Let me check your schedule,” he said. You heard the faint clicking of a laptop mouse and assumed he had Rated Riot’s schedule at the ready. “Alright, you’re in London for the next few days, then almost a week in Paris. How about one of the days there? My assistant will email you later with a more specific time and date.”

“Okay, that sounds perfect,” you replied. “Thank you for taking the time to personally inform me about this, CJ. I—I’m very excited to start this new chapter with the band.”

“I’m excited as well,” CJ said, glad to finally hear your use of his name, even if you wavered while saying it. “Let’s keep this discreet, though, yeah? For now. I’ll mention the changes in management and the band’s upcoming promotions at the executive team meeting next week. Namjoon will update you on how that goes. Until then, let’s keep this within our circle.”

“I—of course, sir,” you replied. CJ allowed you a moment of thought and did not interrupt your silence this time.

You worried that his strong emphasis on discretion indicated his knowledge about something else. And even if it didn’t, you thought it would reflect badly on you later if you did not mention Sid right now, when you had the perfect opportunity for it.

“I’m—I would also like to address the recent speculation online regarding the, uh—bathtub picture,” you said, trying to choose your words without sounding like a three-year-old imitating a businessman. “I want to assure you that—”

“Oh, yeah, no—Namjoon called me earlier. He filled me in,” CJ said. “I hadn’t even seen the picture before he mentioned it. That Sid’s a weird character.”

Your heart jumped over a beat, chilling the blood in your anxious veins.

“Uh—yes,” you played along, wondering all the while where Namjoon was, and what he had done on your behalf. “He is.”

“I trust you’ll ensure no one else leaks the band’s album covers in the future, though,” CJ said. His words sounded like a demand—half a step away from a threat—but you could not recognise your reflection in the mirror all of a sudden and could not reply. “Maybe reset your systems or something.”

Namjoon had called CJ. He had deflected from your relationship with Jungkook and shielded you from what could have happened if someone discovered who the people in the picture were.

Sid leaked the album cover.

You took a fractured breath and leaned against the counter, closing your eyes for a moment.

“Yes—yes, of course,” you finally managed. “We’ll take every precaution to make sure these incidents are avoided in the future. Th-thank you, CJ.”

You could no longer tell if you were still coherent or just trying to be. CJ’s unusual pause seemed to indicate that he sensed your unease, but he chose not to comment on it. He thought you just felt uncomfortable that the album cover had leaked.

“Alright, happy to hear that,” he said. “Talk to you soon. Keep up the good work.”

He ended the call before you could voice any more platitudes about looking forward to hearing from him again. You weren’t. You were looking forward to finding Namjoon and possibly offering your soul to him to repay the debt.

Namjoon had resolved the issue that Sid had caused—the issue you considered personal, because you were keenly aware of the causal relationship between Sid’s post and your relationship with Jungkook: if you hadn’t spent so much time with him on this tour, if you’d kept your professional distance, if you’d closed the damn door in that hotel bathroom, there wouldn’t have been any picture at all.

However, there was more for you to fix. Namjoon had helped you now, but Sid was still at large, wild and unpredictable.

And as you glanced at your phone, you also remembered something else that CJ had said about your contract: conflicts of interest.

In your initial contract, you had declared none, despite already knowing that Jungkook was in the band. You hoped you could carry on quietly enough—as though you had never met him, really—and no one would mind. That more or less worked out, up until this point.

Now you wondered if you could still claim no conflicts of interest without any consequences. Was that what your relationship with Jungkook was, in the eyes of the company?

You took a deep breath and decided to ponder this elsewhere because the bathroom was getting stuffy and the clothes you’d worn for a comfortable film night suddenly felt suffocating against your skin.

Stepping out of the bathroom on the tips of your toes so as not to wake Jungkook, you turned the corner and locked eyes with him right away.

“Hi,” he murmured, the edges of his morning voice hoarse and groggy as he watched you from the mess of sheets on the bed.

Despite hoping to find him still asleep so you could slip back into bed and have the morning together that had been stolen from you, you didn’t feel disappointed that he was awake. He had a lazy smile on his lips. His hair was dishevelled and he kept bringing his hand through it.

There was a glow over your face as you approached the bed. “Hi.”

“I thought you’d left,” he said, his eyes following your every movement as you settled back next to him.

“Do you want me to?” you asked, tilting your head to the side, closer to him. He wasn’t sure if you were even aware you did that, it seemed subconscious, but it prompted his hands to reach for you.

He touched your cheek, running his fingers over your jaw before leaning in to press his lips to yours—quickly, just to remind himself that he could. And to steal just one breath from you.

“No,” he said then. “Never.”

He saw your eyes soften and your smile grow. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” He traced his thumb over your lower lip before pulling away to sit up on the bed. “Who, um—who was that on the phone?”

The question was expected, but you didn’t have an answer for him personally—you’d planned to explain everything to all of Rated Riot later today.

“Uh,” you leaned against the headboard of the bed, “the label.”

“Yeah?” he encouraged.

“The CEO, actually,” you added briefly. “But I should probably discuss this with the whole band.”

Startled, Jungkook gripped the sheets in his hand. He was worried—rather obviously—that this was about Sid or still about Reconnaissance, and he couldn’t decide which he dreaded more. He was absurdly quick to convince himself that the CEO had told you something so serious that you didn’t even see the point of talking to him about it.

“Did something happen?” he asked, feeling the tips of his fingers grow numb.

You recognised the concern on his face with half of a glance. “Yeah, but it’s something good.”

Relief, excitement, and curiosity replaced the previous anxiety in his eyes at an impressive speed.

He shifted on the bed with a newfound energy, crossing and uncrossing his legs. “Well, tell me!”

“We’ll have a meeting—”

“That’s fair,” he said, moving closer. “But tell me now.”

You were too excited to dwell on the fact that this was the precise conflict of interest that had unsettled your mind earlier—this perception of favouritism, this special treatment that others might assume Jungkook received because he was in a relationship with his manager.

“You’re doing festivals next summer,” you said, pausing for emphasis, “and they’re extending your tour. We’ll be going back to at least five countries in Europe for encore shows.”

You still had to confirm the dates with the venues and perform several additional bureaucratic tasks so your team could stay in Europe longer, but all of that seemed irrelevant in light of this news.

“Ah,” Jungkook replied—happy, but not nearly as exuberant as you’d hoped. “That’s cool.”

You realised quickly that he must have misunderstood.

“No, Jungkook,” you said. “In arenas this time—with a capacity at least three times larger than we have right now.”

Instantly, his eyes ignited with the flames you’d looked forward to before.

“Oh,” he said and now the tingle of adventure was finally there, glistening fervently in his burning eyes.

But he looked at you again, and he thought there was something you hadn’t told him yet. It was the way your lips curled—smiling, but not quite.

“But you look—was there something else you talked about?” he asked.

You were surprised. You had hoped—naively, you now realised—that you could continue to talk about the promising parts of all that CJ had told you, leaving the more questionable parts to wait until the rest of your thoughts had cleared.

“They’re, uh, holding interviews for assistant managers and promoting me to Head Manager,” you said. Jungkook raised his eyebrows, but you continued before he could interject, “they’ll send people to Paris for me to sign the new contract.”

“To—oh, shit. Fuck.” His shock turned to laughter. Just moments ago, he was worried you’d have to leave the band. Now you were signing a new contract to stay. “Oh, but does that—does that mean we will see less of you? Is that why you—why you don’t seem very happy about that?”

“No, it’s—I am happy,” you said. “I’ll stay on-site with you guys. But the focus is—they’re saying we’re focusing more on promoting you and ‘strengthening your brand.’ That was cool, by the way. Your brand. I liked that part. But, uh—that will be my main priority, apparently. I guess I’m not really sure how that’s going to go.”

That wasn’t the only reason for your apprehension, but you did not want to mention Reconnaissance and the unexpected impact that Nick’s offer had on your sudden promotion. You preferred to see Jungkook smiling at you from across the bed—even more so when he was smiling right next to you.

“Well, what will you have to do?” he asked. “I mean, exactly?”

“I guess I will be making phone calls the whole day,” you replied, hoping secretly that this would not turn out to be all you’d have to do. “It also means that none of us will be going home longer than it takes for you to record a new album.”

“Oh.” Jungkook attempted to control his facial expression. For him, this arrangement—album, tour, album, tour—sounded almost ideal. “Well, that’s honestly fine by me.”

You knew he would not mind. But you minded. You had not said anything about your own workload to CJ, but you were prepared to use any threats necessary to ensure that Rated Riot had enough time to breathe.

“You say that now,” you pointed out, “but it will eventually get tough, being away from home for so long.”

“I have you,” Jungkook said. “I am home.”

He said that like it was the most obvious statement in the world—the grass is green, the sky is blue—but subtle magic was laced in every letter of every word. When he closed his eyes, when he couldn’t see the unfamiliar surroundings of the hotel room, his senses recognised the warmth of your presence as home.

Unfortunately, the darkness in his thoughts was unforgiving, and he had to ask you something else—but then he lost his resolve momentarily when he met your soft gaze and realised that you’d placed your hand on his.

“I, uh—” he tried, but several more moments had to pass before he sobered, “he—did he say anything about Sid?”

You exhaled. “Yeah.”

Jungkook nodded contemplatively and took a breath, bracing himself. Although it was difficult to imagine what the label could have said about Sid, considering the abundance of good news, he knew better than to expect something positive.

Another book his grandmother had read with him when he was young suddenly returned to his mind, the dark cover with thick red lettering vivid in his memory: Something wicked this way comes.

The book had been sinister, completely unfitting for a child of his age at the time. Just like Sid.

“What was it?” Jungkook asked.

“That picture he posted,” you said, “is apparently the cover of your upcoming album.”

“It—oh.” He looked away, puzzled, suddenly, by the shade of the wallpaper behind the bedframe and the questionable events that had led the label to that conclusion. He tried to say more and managed a very successful, “ah.”

You lowered your head, tugging on the edge of the duvet. “Namjoon, uh—he took care of it before I got the call from CJ, so I don’t know much about what he said to him.”

Jungkook was not sure if he should have been relieved that Sid’s damage had been neutralised seemingly so effortlessly. He could never know with Sid; his refusal to give up rivalled only Voldemort’s immortality. Only Sid’s horcruxes were, apparently, pictures and videos he used to manipulate others.

“It’s a good photo for an album cover,” Jungkook finally said.

“It—it is,” you agreed. “And it’s also—well, you know. A good explanation.”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll inform the label about us before I sign the new contract, though,” you decided. “I’ll talk to them. I thought maybe this could wait, but they’re sending over lawyers, so it’s—”

Jungkook’s breath got lodged in his throat and he had to cough several times to clear his airways, interrupting you.

“H-hold on,” he said. “You need lawyers present when you tell them we’re together?”

“They’re coming for the contract,” you explained. “And I’ll have to talk to them before I sign it because I figure you might be my conflict of interest.”

A sudden surge of very different emotions made Jungkook purse his lips. He found himself wondering if there was any term starting with “my” you could have used to describe him that he wouldn’t have liked. My boyfriend. My source of headaches. My biggest nuisance. Ultimately, all of that still meant that he was yours.

Reasonably, however, he did not like the sound of this.

“Huh,” he mused. “Doesn’t work as a pet name. Call me something else.”

“Yeah.” You chuckled. “I don’t like that one, either.”

You did not look particularly troubled. Everything was going to be fine, you were sure of it. You just weren’t sure how soon, and what this “fine” would look like.

“Come here,” Jungkook said before you could begin thinking about the possibilities and the risks.

You moved closer, happy to relish in the warmth of the room for a few more minutes as he wrapped his arms around you.

This was the morning you were looking forward to. Everything else could wait.

The second you stepped out of Jungkook’s hotel room and headed towards yours to pack for the day, Maggie startled you by calling out your name in the otherwise empty, echoing corridor. She appeared a little worried when you turned around, and that was so unbecoming on her normally laid-back face that you took an instinctive step back.

“Is—are you okay?” you asked.

She seemed surprised to see your surprise.

“I slept the whole day,” she explained. She was carrying something in her hands, but she kept it behind her back. “Feels like I was out for a week, actually.”

You smiled. That was hardly anything new.

You remembered the fright of your life that Maggie had given you the first time the two of you went out together. She had an alcohol tolerance that should have been outlawed, so she always drank more than Jungkook could ever handle (though he would argue otherwise, of course). By the time you got her back to your apartment that night, she was already barely conscious.

She had collapsed on your bed and when you brought her a glass of water about three minutes later, she was already snoring. And she’d slept—you counted—for twenty-two hours and thirty-three minutes. You had spent the last eight hours keeping watch over her, periodically checking if she was breathing, with your finger hovering over the emergency number on your phone.

To your amazement, she woke up the next morning without so much as a hint of a headache, perplexed by the concerned look on your face. She looked a bit like that now.

“Yeah,” you replied, a little jealous of her dangerous, but seemingly foolproof ability to avoid hangovers. “Maybe we should have stopped before the tequila shots.”

“Hmm.” She scratched her forehead. It was hard to tell what she was feeling; hesitation flickered in her eyes when she looked at you. “Was, uh—was Jungkook in my room yesterday?”

“He—oh, yeah,” you recalled. “I asked him to check on you.”

“Oh.” Relief washed over her face, adding some vibrancy to her cloudy features. “Okay. So I didn’t hallucinate that.”

You smiled again. “No.”

“I took your jacket,” she said, revealing the item she’d been clutching in her hands. “I don’t remember doing that.”

She seemed to remember even less from last night than you did, which was not uncommon for Maggie. She had a terrible memory in general—she took notes and then forgot she took notes—but this time, you could not help her remember, either.

“Thanks,” you said, taking your jacket from her. It still smelled faintly of your perfume and too much liquor. “Jungkook told me you had it. I still have one of your shoes.”

“Yeah, I—I have yours somewhere, too,” she said. “I assume you have my phone, too, then?”

You looked up. “Why would I have your phone?”

“Hm?” she asked as her heart began to pump blood a tad more effectively than necessary; you hadn’t even properly answered her yet. “But—you—didn’t you put it in your bag last night?”

You stilled and the surprise inside your stomach grew large, floating inside you as if it were a heavy, helium and anxiety-filled balloon.

“I… I had my bag with me?” you asked very slowly, but Maggie still did not understand the essence of your question. She looked around as though she’d just realised she was accidentally having this conversation in a language she did not speak, and she needed someone to translate it for her.

You were baffled. You knew you’d left your phone in your room before you went out with the girls, it was entangled in the sheets when you woke up the next morning. But you couldn’t remember whatever happened with your handbag; you had assumed it remained in your room as well.

“I’m pretty sure you had it with you,” Maggie said. Your heartbeat sped up, matching the frantic rhythm in your friend’s chest. “You took our orders on my phone because you didn’t have yours. And I assumed you put it in your bag after that.”

You turned around, frightened goosebumps rising on the back of your spine as your trembling fingers fumbled with the lock on your door.

“Jungkook said I didn’t have my bag with me when I got back,” you said as you entered the room, your gaze sweeping the space with an ever-mounting sense of panic. “I assumed—I thought I just didn’t take it with me. Nothing was missing. I had my keys in my jacket—I took them out at some point, before the jacket ended up with you—a-and my phone was here.”

You attacked the room, lifting suitcases and inspecting empty closets. Since you hadn’t fully unpacked, there were not a lot of places where your handbag could have been. Maggie tried to help you by holding up furniture for you to check underneath—just in case, she’d said—but it became increasingly clear, with every nook and cranny you searched, that the bag was simply not here.

“Okay, shit,” Maggie finally concluded as the two of you knelt side by side on the floor, the room in disarray around you.

Among the useless clutter, you found a lot of dust, someone’s phone charger, and a forgotten USB flash drive under your nightstand.

“Wait, so—wait, wait.” You stood up, stumbling slightly as your knees cracked. “So, you don’t have your phone?”

The question was redundant, but Maggie didn’t mind repeating herself. She was just as confused as you were. And the handbag was the least of your problems: you did not carry a lot of cash with you when you travelled, so if you didn’t find the bag, all that you’d lose would be a travel-sized container of hand sanitiser, an old tube of lipgloss, and a package of tissues. It was Maggie’s phone that you were worried about—you couldn’t even remember putting it in your bag.

“No,” she said, shaking her head. Her eyes seemed even wider than they had in the corridor. Her hair fell in chaotic curls over her face. “I couldn’t find it anywhere. I tried Find My iPhone today, but it didn’t show anything. Maybe the phone’s dead? I don’t know. I didn’t check right after we returned to the hotel, because I was sleeping. And then, this morning, I thought, well, of course the app won’t tell me where my phone is. Because you have it, and you’re right next door.”

You clenched your jaw. “Okay. Okay, I-I must have left my bag at the club. Or someone took it. We have to call them.”

“Call them?” Maggie repeated, standing up, too. She glanced around your room once more to make sure your bag had not decided to grow feet and return on its own. “What will we say?”

You did not mind the pointlessness of her question, either. Evidently, now was the precise time for stupid questions.

“That I lost it. I don’t know,” you said. “Let’s just see. Maybe I left it there.” But you hesitated as soon as you pulled your phone out. “Shit. Do you remember what the place was called?”

“Oh, yeah, I have the directions open on my pho—” She stopped tapping the pockets of her jeans, realising. “Oh, shit.”

“Fuck.”

It took you less than a second to find the solution to your new problem.

Luna and Taehyung’s room was just down the corridor, and Luna opened the door as soon as you knocked, almost as if she had been waiting for you to require her immediate assistance in this crisis.

She could not remember many details of how the three of you got home, but she readily supplied the name of the club. Then she joined you and Maggie in your room, where your friends tried to reconstruct the events of the previous night and you dialled the number of the club, your shaky hands and frazzled mind leading you to hit all the wrong keys on your phone.

Finally, the call connected, and a cheerful, young voice introduced himself as, simply, Tom, barkeeper—although your frantic mind interpreted that as Tom Barkeeper initially, which, honestly, seemed like a fitting government name for someone tending the bar.

“Hi!” you said, your nervous voice nearing a screech. Luna and Maggie stopped talking and turned to you. “My friends and I were at your club on Wednesday night, and I seem to have misplaced my handbag. Is there any chance I left it there?”

“Let me check, miss,” Tom Barkeeper replied. You heard the faint sound of his footsteps in the background. “Could you describe it for me?”

“It—well, it was black,” you said, your palm pressed against your forehead. “With a large grey metal zipper, and sort of a—a little chain on the—”

“Er, actually, no, we’ve got no handbags at the Lost and Found,” he interrupted. “Got five watches, though.”

He chuckled lightly, and you looked up at your friends. There was a frown on your face that they immediately took to mean danger, and moved closer, settling on either side of you to listen.

“Uh, right,” you said distractedly, putting the call on speaker. “Are there any phones, by chance? There was a phone in my bag.”

“We had a couple of phones left here, but both have been picked up by their owners,” Tom B. replied. “Sorry.”

You turned to your friends, silently asking them what to do next.

“Perhaps you left your bag somewhere else?” the barkeeper suggested over the phone. “A taxi?”

Maggie, who remembered glimpses of your taxi ride, shook her head.

“Hmm. Or it was stolen,” you speculated.

Tom Barkeeper seemed surprised by this and he stuttered for a second—he had a thick accent, and even his, “well, er—I’d—uhm—” sounded really quite elegant—until he finally composed himself.

“Well, it—it does get rather busy here,” he admitted, and his voice sounded even younger all of a sudden. “I—er, was it very valuable? You could try filing a report, then we’d get our security here and rewind the CCTV footage.”

You glanced at Maggie. She shook her head again. She doubted they could find her phone in time if it really was stolen; you’d be leaving for Paris soon. She was embarrassed, too. There was nothing she could tell the police if you filed a report.

When have you last seen your phone, miss?

I have no idea, officer. I was shitfaced the whole night.

“I think we—no, that, um—we’ll try to see if there are any other places where it could be first,” you told Tom, trying to come up with a logical plan on the spot. “And then I’ll—”

“Yeah,” the barkeeper cut in, sounding relieved. “You check and call us back if you haven’t found it.”

“Yes. Thank you. Sorry to bother you.”

“That’s alright, miss,” he said. “Hope you find it.”

You ended the call with a disheartened sigh and turned to your friends.

“Well, they don’t have it,” you declared, as if they hadn’t heard everything.

“That’s great,” Luna observed. She glanced around the chaos inside your room. “And it’s definitely not here?”

“You can go ahead and look,” you said, stepping back to gesture at the piles of clothes. “I don’t know where else it could be.”

“Okay, well, Maggie and I both remember you having it with you on our way to the club,” she said. She tapped her chin and, because she had her glasses on and wore a sweater with a long white dress shirt underneath, she looked a bit like a heroine from an old Agatha Christie novel. “I remember the pins on my dress getting caught on the chain on your bag in the taxi.”

“That’s right,” you said, pointing at her, although you weren’t sure if you remembered the moment under discussion, or just the way the three of you had laughed about it later that night.

“So maybe you left it there before we even got to the club?” Luna suggested.

“No, but she still had it with her in the club!” Maggie interjected, frustrated. Her hair kept growing wilder the longer she stayed here, tousling it nervously every few seconds. “When she took our drink orders! My phone and her bag were both there.”

You and Luna both groaned, realising Maggie had already mentioned this. You were aware that the three of you had turned into a mess after just one night of drinking. Perhaps the next time you went out, you should consider bringing a chaperone, because this right now felt a lot like the blind leading the blind.

“Right,” Luna mumbled. “Sorry.”

“It’s starting to seem,” you said, “that either I left it in the taxi at the end of the night, or someone grabbed it at the club.”

Maggie nodded, agreeing with these options, even if she did not know what to do with them. You didn’t, either. Was there a Lost and Found for items accidentally abandoned in taxis? Should you have filed a report with the police, after all? Surely, they dealt with drunk people losing their belongings all the time. And maybe they could search for the phone even if you were across the strait.

Then you noticed that Luna was biting her lip, seemingly lost in a recurring thought.

“What are you thinking?” you prodded. She did not react. “Luna?”

She looked up from the floor, surprised to be addressed.

“Nothing,” she said, hesitating. “It’s sort of a conspiracy theory more than it is based on actual facts. But, um, you did mention seeing Sid and Jude at the club.”

You watched Maggie pull on her hair so hard that a few strands stayed in her grasp when she let go. Neither of you liked how plausible Luna’s not-fact-based theory was.

“You think they took my bag,” you surmised. “But why?”

“I don’t know,” Luna replied. “Why does Sid do anything?”

Your frown deepened. She had a disturbingly solid point. Sid was diabolical.

“That’s…” you faltered, thinking. “Well, he could have—although I didn’t even have anything in my bag except for Maggie’s—oh. Shit.”

Your sudden realisation—and the subsequent horror flashing across your face—surprised both girls. Maggie stepped closer to you.

“What is it?” she asked.

You pulled out your phone and opened Instagram.

“Sid posted a—he posted the picture,” you explained, scrolling down your feed, then abandoning this decision and going directly to Sid’s profile. “The one Maggie showed us at the club.”

You found the post and turned your phone towards the girls. The expressions on their faces made it very clear that Luna’s hypothesis was not far-fetched at all. Maggie looked delightfully murderous.

“Jungkook thinks Sid got it from his phone,” you said, “but what if—wh-what—”

“My phone was in your bag. He could have downloaded it from my gallery,” Maggie concluded, staring at the screen.

She wasn’t just angry about her stolen phone or the filter Sid had put over a perfectly good picture. She was also angry about him using a photograph that she was proud of to stir up trouble.

“That fucking loser,” she said. “That massive fucking piece of shit. Fucking good-for-nothing rat. Motherf—”

“Yeah, Mags,” you interjected, knowing she might not stop for a while. Last week, she had kept mumbling curses under her breath for forty minutes straight after Jimin ate the last pack of tomato ketchup crisps that she’d brought with her on tour. “We agree with you.”

Luna continued to bite her lip until it took upon an angry shade of red. She did not want to be responsible if she’d just led you in the wrong direction. Maggie already seemed prepared to crush your phone in her hand as she stared at Sid’s post.

Luna tried to reason, “we don’t know if that’s really what happened, though.”

“No, but it makes sense. You have to be right,” you insisted, glancing at the clock above the door. “Fuck. I—I have to—I have to get the band together before their soundcheck, but after that, I’m—I’ll talk to Minjun.” You brought your hand through your hair, angrier at yourself than you were at Sid right now. “We should have left the club right after I talked to Jude. It was a shitty call to stay there. But we’ll find your phone, Mags. And if Sid was really the one who took it, he’s—well, he’s not going to be taking shit from anyone anymore.”

Some of the tension in Maggie’s posture eased at your words.

“Well, we couldn’t have known they’d do something like that when we decided to stay,” Luna said, her voice comforting. “If they indeed—”

“Alright,” Maggie interrupted, taking a deep breath and returning your phone to you. “Let’s kill him.”

The room fell silent. You did not know if Maggie was aware of the undeniable resolve in her voice. She’d said that like she would have said, “let’s get lunch,” while already holding boxes of take-out in her hands.

“Or, you know,” she added in response to your and Luna’s expressions, “let’s beat him up. That’ll work, too.”

You glanced at Luna and the smile spreading on her face made you lose your calm, too.

“We’ll do that,” you promised Maggie, grinning as you wrapped an arm around her shoulders and leaned your head against hers. “If we can’t come up with anything better.”

“Hell yeah,” Luna agreed, joining you on Maggie’s other side. “He’s got a few teeth left, right? We can start counting who knocks out more. Jungkook is in the lead right now, but I don’t like losing, so—”

You and Maggie burst into laughter so loud and sudden that Luna flinched in surprise. Maggie even had to clutch your arm for support as she bent over, struggling to breathe in between wheezes. Her laughter was so infectious that Luna couldn’t keep a straight face much longer, either.

You were convinced that you would fix everything.

You’d find Minjun and ask if he had talked to Sid or Jude since Wednesday. If not, you’d get to the two of them yourself. Maggie would take care of them if they had your bag. And if, by some lucky chance, they would turn out to be innocent, you’d go to the police to find the real culprit.

You gathered the band—and Namjoon, of course—in the changing room of the venue before the soundcheck. Mindful of your limited time, you started by sharing the updates from CJ – the festivals next summer, the arena tour, and finally, the strategic shift that Jett Records was planning for Rated Riot, including your promotion and the expansion of the management team.

Once the cheers and the high-fives died down, you asked the boys to settle down for one last thing.

“The opening act,” you said, scrolling to the very bottom of the meeting agenda you’d prepared on your Notes. “Ren is still recovering from his broken foot, so we—”

“Because Ren is a whiny baby,” Jungkook chimed in helpfully. He was leaning against the wall instead of sitting around the table like the rest of his bandmates.

You gave him a look that was not particularly grateful but lacked any real threat. He grinned.

“So, Poison Tongue might be out for the rest of the tour,” you went on. “We’re talking to several other bands that might join you instead. Ivy will continue to support you on the upcoming shows in London and Paris.”

The band members nodded. They’d grown accustomed to Ivy’s presence—she used to be a tattoo artist and brought her equipment with her when she travelled, which everyone on tour appreciated. You and your girls personally found it wonderful to have another girl around.

“Alright. That was the last thing on my list, but it—there’s something else we have to discuss,” you paused, glancing around the room to keep your voice steady. Jungkook gave you a firm nod of support from the back of the room, no longer fooling around. “Uh, there was a picture posted last night. I’m sure you’ve all seen it. Namjoon took care of it; he informed the label that it’s the leaked cover of your upcoming album. But I want to emphasise that it doesn’t have to be the cover of anything. We can say it was one of the options, but we settled on something—”

“I like it,” Taehyung interjected. “The picture, I mean. I think we could use it as the cover for our next single, at least. It fits, right?”

“It does,” Yoongi agreed. You felt a tingle of unease creeping down your spine. “The lyrics match the picture very well.”

That was understandable, given the subject matter of the lyrics, but you were grateful that Yoongi did not elaborate further. You felt Jungkook watching you from across the room and your skin was burning.

“And it fits in with the rest of our album covers, too,” Hoseok joined, solidifying the consensus.

The decision had already been made, so Jungkook only shrugged when your eyes slid over to him.

“I say we use it,” he said. “It’s a great shot.”

For the first time since you joined Rated Riot, you genuinely worried that you might not keep your composure.

Every person in this room—and many people in the corridors, working on Rated Riot’s show—knew that you and Jungkook were the people in the photograph, and they all agreed to help you hide your relationship in plain sight. Aching discomfort and heartfelt gratitude fought a fierce battle inside your chest.

“Well, then, alright,” you said, your voice quivering slightly on the last syllable. You fixed your gaze on the white table. “That’s, uh, settled, then. Thank you, Namjoon, by the way. That was great quick thinking on your part.”

“No problem,” Namjoon replied. Hoseok leaned back in his chair to pat him on the shoulder and Namjoon gave him a smile before explaining, “I didn’t mean to jump the gun, but—”

“No, no,” you cut him off. “You did great. It’s—well, it’s good PR, claiming he just leaked the cover art. Thank you.”

He shrugged. “Maggie’s the one who took a great picture.”

Hums of agreement filled the room, and you nodded, too. Maggie had always been a field photographer. She felt claustrophobic in a closed photo studio, she needed the space, the action, the emotion. And she knew how to capture it all. It was a great picture. It was a shame what Sid was trying to do with it.

“She did, yeah,” you said before noticing the time on your phone. “But, uh, anyway, that—that was all. Any quick questions?”

No one spoke, and the momentary silence in the room felt a little disconcerting. These were the loudest people you’ve ever met, so you did not enjoy feeling like a teacher, asking for volunteers to solve an excruciating equation. Actually, you did not enjoy standing here at all right now; pins and needles chased each other all across your body.

“In that case,” you locked your phone and set it down on the table, “go out, and get ready for the night. It’s going to be a good one.”

Someone cried out, “fuck yes!”—it was hard to determine who, due to the immediate shouts of agreement that followed—and the boys tumbled out of the room, making as much noise as they could. Right away you felt a little better. Everyone had already been excited about the concert tonight, but the news about the extended tour and bigger venues only amplified their emotions.

You ended up watching each of the boys leap over the threshold of the door for no reason whatsoever, just to see who could jump the farthest—until Jungkook smacked his head right into the top of the door frame.

Pouting, he walked over to you after everyone else had finished laughing and left. You fixed his hair, trying to bite back your laughter, and he pulled you into a hug, groaning in disapproval when he felt you chuckle softly against his chest.

“Is your head okay?” you asked, the humour in your tone undeniable, despite your attempts to suppress it.

“No,” he said, tightening his grip on your waist until he heard your quiet gasp. “Oh, now it’s a little better.”

“Oh, it’s better,” you retorted, evidently taking up the challenge. “I see.”

The force of your grip was nowhere near as strong as his—although it was very impressive, he had to admit; he did lose his breath for a split second—but you felt his smile spread as he leaned his head against yours, and that was good enough.

He hummed against your neck, swaying with you in his arms, and you realised that you could not think about Sid’s picture or Maggie’s phone now that it was just the two of you in the room. That was good. You wouldn’t have wanted to speak to Jungkook about any of that right before his concert anyway.

“Now it’s okay,” he whispered. “Fifteen more minutes and I’ll be good as new. Maybe twenty.”

You smiled, but one of your hands had stopped drawing soothing patterns on his back.

“You have to go, though,” you reminded him reluctantly. “Jin will rip you a new one if you’re not on stage in two and a half minutes. He and Jimin got into an argument with one of the local sound engineers earlier today, so he wants to finish the soundcheck as quickly as possible.”

Jungkook groaned, releasing you, but keeping his gaze on yours.

“Can I just tell him I hurt my head,” he asked, “so I deserve special treatment?”

“Not sure,” you replied. “I think that only works with me.”

His laughter was loud and unapologetic. Before you could say anything else, he wrapped an arm around your waist and pulled you back into his chest again, resting his forehead against yours.

“What are you doing?” you whispered, concerned about his poor time management and the relatively open space that you were in. The door was closed this time, but not locked.

“Nothing,” he replied softly. His lower lip brushed against yours as he spoke. You felt dangerously light. “If you say I’m late.”

“Well, n-not yet... You have about,” your breath hitched momentarily when he pressed a gentle kiss just under your jaw, “a minute and forty-five seconds left.”

“Well, then,” he lifted his eyes to look at you again, but only for a moment, “I have to make the most of my,” his lips touched yours slowly, but firmly, “one minute and,” his quick kiss gained more force, “thirty seconds.”

You were laughing by the time he kissed you again, and he could not stop himself from smiling, too. He knew he was running late, but he kept his lips on yours, the kiss focused, lingering, and locked your taste in a separate part of his brain—a part so full of you that it was beginning to overtake other, much less important parts.

“I love you,” he whispered, pulling away.

His lips glistened slightly from your gloss. Your heart, having already finished three laps around the venue, had now taken up parkour in the crevices of your chest.

“I love you,” you replied. You ran your fingers down his cheek, forgetting yourself, almost, when he leaned into your touch. Then you pulled back and nodded at the door. “Go now. I’ll see you after the show tonight. There’s, uh—I have a plan I want to discuss with you.”

Jungkook was about to object—you couldn’t remove your hands from his skin so abruptly, there was a certain procedure you had to follow to ensure he could still breathe when you were no longer touching him, similar to replacing nicotine patches for someone trying to quit smoking—but then he realised what you were saying.

“Oh.” He raised an eyebrow and stayed still despite your utmost attempts to push his shoulder to get him to turn around. “About Sid?”

You nodded. “Yeah. But I’ll explain later.”

You expected him to question this, to try to find out what the plan was right now, but he did no such thing. He felt happy and optimistic—kissing you might have helped with that—so he did not need to know more. You could have said that you were taking all of your staff to Argentina to escape Sid, and he would have grabbed his sunglasses.

“Okay,” he said. “I’m in, either way. Operation Cobra-Rabbit.”

“Operat—” You scoffed, suddenly remembering your conversation after the film yesterday. “We’re not calling it that. It’s not a secret operation, it doesn’t need a name. You’re going to your soundcheck now, and then we’ll—”

“How about Operation: Escape from London?” he suggested, dragging his feet as you pushed him towards the door. “Since, you know, we’re in—”

“No,” you said. “Go.”

He didn’t protest this time, because Seokjin’s angry, hurried footsteps were already reverberating down the corridor, and Jungkook did not want to piss him off more. Still, he paused again by the door, giving you one last overly dramatic nod over his shoulder as if he were in a spy film. Then he left with a triumphant fist in the air after finally earning a chuckle from you.

You shook your head as he shut the door of the room behind himself, leaving you alone—not for very long, however.

Less than a minute later, as you returned to the table that Hoseok and Yoongi had dragged to the centre of the room for your meeting, you heard the door open again. You lifted your head, ready to scold Jungkook, and saw Namjoon instead, peeking inside sheepishly.

“Hey,” he greeted, hesitating in the doorway. “Didn’t want to interrupt your meeting, so I, uh, waited until it’s over. Do you have a minute?”

A knot tightened in the pit of your stomach. There were too many things that already took you by surprise today. You were not sure how many more of them you could take.

“You wouldn’t have interrupted,” you said, mustering a smile. “You’re part of the team. Come in.”

Namjoon slipped into the room without any sound at all and took a moment to close the door, his hand lingering on the engraved knob.

“Yeah, uh—I just want to have a quick word with you,” he said, turning around. “About why I called CJ in advance.”

“Oh. You don’t have to explain that,” you said. “It—that was a good decision. Thank you for thinking of it. You might have really saved—”

Namjoon started to speak in the middle of your sentence as if he hadn’t heard you.

“I was with Yoongi in his room, working on the song, when we saw Sid’s post,” he said, clearly battling his guilt about the extra attention the picture had gained because of him. He wanted you to know that he had no bad intentions. “It was about four in the morning when we—well, actually, a fan sent it to Yoongi, and asked, “oh my god, is this the cover of your new album?” Obviously, Yoongi and I thought that was impossible; we haven’t even decided when we’re releasing this new song. We could tell that Sid was just trying to mess with Jungkook, and that it had to be you in that picture with him.”

Self-conscious when he gave you a questioning glance, you brought a hand over your neck. “It is.”

“Yeah. So, I called CJ right away,” Namjoon continued. “I don’t think I even had a clear plan of what I was going to say to him or what time it was for him. But he picked up, and I just blurted out, “our album cover leaked,” because that was what that fan had assumed. And why not, you know? If the fans think that’s what happened, why not utilise that to eradicate whatever Sid was trying to do? The picture’s really good. Might as well use it for—for a good cause, instead of whatever Sid was hoping for.”

“Right. Yeah. Exactly,” you said. The more words you used to agree with him, the clearer it became that you still wished you could have escaped this situation. “And now Sid’s caption makes it seem like he’s just—”

“Congratulating them,” Namjoon finished for you. “Happy for you, he’d said. Makes sense.”

“Yeah.”

The two of you allowed for several quiet moments to pass, lost in your own thoughts. Namjoon shifted his weight to his right leg and tucked his thumb into his belt loop.

“I, um—I’m sorry if that made you uncomfortable, though,” he said, looking up. “I knew things might get… weird if I didn’t do anything. The picture itself might not have caused any harm, but given the speculation surrounding it, and your upcoming promotion… I thought that using the picture as an album cover was just safer.”

“Yeah, it—no, I—I’m glad you did that, really,” you said, a little thrown off by the mention of your promotion. “I don’t know if I would have thought of a solution like that.”

Namjoon believed you would have come up with a similar plan quite easily. The problem was that you did not want to draw even more attention to the picture.

“Y-you said—um,” you added, “did you know that CJ was going to call me?”

His pursed lips turned into a timid smile.

“I heard some things…” he admitted.

You arched a surprised eyebrow. “And you didn’t tell me?”

“I hear a lot of things you wouldn’t want to know.”

You nodded. You were fortunate to work with many amazing people, but you had heard their stories. You knew what this industry had been like to them before they reached this point. And you felt very blessed that these same people now shielded you from the negativity that they had not been able to escape themselves.

“Alright,” you said. You were glad, all of a sudden, that CJ had not elaborated on his decision to suddenly promote you. “That’s fair enough.”

You returned to your belongings, sliding your phone into your pocket, and Namjoon observed you in silence for a second, only moving to assist you when you began to push the table back to its original place by the window.

“So,” he said, once the room was restored to its former order, “how come you look so worried? Head Manager! That’s great.”

“Oh,” you said. “It is great.”

Namjoon knew there was more. The two of you hadn’t had many chances to have private conversations during this tour, but usually, you were the person he came to talk to about the problems in his job, and he expected the same from you.

He gestured towards the couch next to the table and waited until you took a seat before sitting down next to you with an expectant look on his face.

“It—well, really, this is great,” you said, clasping your hands together as you rested your elbows on your knees. This was standard, Namjoon knew. You needed a minute to admit what was bothering you. “I’m grateful. There’s just a lot of stuff going on right now. Nothing I want to trouble you with, but, uh, this promotion feels… well, it feels like my work had very little to do with it. They found out about Reconnaissance and just decided to promote me. I’m happy, of course, but I wish they had waited until after the tour, so I could say, with confidence, that this was due to everything I’ve achieved with Rated Riot. And not just because Nick Zhou called me one time.”

Namjoon appeared to be highly interested in one specific crack in the floorboards.

“But this is because of everything you’ve achieved with Rated Riot,” he said, not looking up. You wondered if he did that on purpose, to make you feel less like you were talking to a specific person, and more like you were just talking—so you would not feel bad about sharing your troubles. “You took the abstract concept of a European tour and brought it to life. And then Rated Riot got on stage, and the whole Europe fell in love with them. But you brought them here. You looked after them. And the staff. And, actually, their personal belongings. Sorry about Tilburg.”

You smiled, recalling the Lost Laptops of Tilburg.

“It’s nothing. I was just doing my job,” you said. “And everyone on this tour looks after one another. That—well, that’s the whole point, I—”

“No,” he disagreed, finally giving you a look. “You’re never just doing your job. You’re always doing more. You earned this. Accept it.”

Namjoon had used a very similar tone to defend you from bitter, middle-aged men who had a problem with your promotion after CJ’s assistant had brought it up at the last Zoom meeting with the executives at the company. Their issue was your young age. Namjoon did not think a person needed to start balding to be awarded for their great work.

“CJ actually didn’t even give me the option to refuse,” you said, your smile turning wry. “He just told me I’m getting promoted and I felt like I had to go along with it.”

Namjoon nodded knowingly. He had several similar experiences with Christian Jett before. He had even played tennis with him once and called him Chris—not CJ—by accident. Luckily, he managed to duck before a tennis ball came hurling at his head. Namjoon knew CJ did not give suggestions; he gave orders.

“Would you have refused, if he’d asked?” he asked you.

“No, but…” You spun your ring around your index finger and settled back against the couch. “Can I be honest?”

“Of course.”

“I am—honestly, I’m also worried about my relationship with Jungkook,” you said.

Namjoon noted that this was the first time you brought this up to him without encouragement. Despite his surprise, however, he did not want to let the awkward silence take over the room, so he coughed politely into his fist and tried to reply, not particularly smoothly.

“What do you—what are you worried about?” he asked, even though that was obvious.

“I talked to Jin the other day,” you said. “He said that as long as the band makes a profit, no one’s going to care—which is true enough. But with this happening, with Rated Riot growing more and more popular, with my promotion… they will have to care. Our relationship has, obviously, never been strictly professional. And now it could hinder their plans for the band.”

Namjoon mulled over this for a minute, his gaze drifting to the expanse of the empty room. He had obviously had similar thoughts as you when he made the call to CJ, but now he realised that this was only half the picture.

“If they’re promoting you,” he began, his voice steady against the subdued air in the room, “that obviously means they want to keep you in the company. So, when they learn about your relationship, they definitely won’t immediately decide to fire you. I suppose they will ask you to end the relationship, or they won’t care about it at all. Those are the only two logical possibilities, right?”

“Right,” you agreed.

“If they tell you to end it,” Namjoon continued, “I think you’re in a position to present them with a similar ultimatum. Tell them that you will leave if they won’t accept your relationship. That is risky, I’ll admit. But they need you. And, from what I hear, they know you have other options.”

There was a quality about Namjoon that you really admired. Often, when people wanted to make someone feel better, they said things that they knew would lift their spirits—you appreciated that as well, just in a different way. Namjoon, on the other hand, managed to offer comfort tempered with rationality.

You took a deep breath and stretched your legs.

“Yeah,” you said. “Negotiate, is what you’re telling me.”

“Yes. More or less,” he confirmed. “But, of course, you have to decide what, uh—what you will do if they refuse to do it your way.”

You shook your head.

“I’ve already decided,” you said. The smile on your face was as sad as smiles could be. “If they will tell me it’s one or the other, I won’t choose to stay at the company. I’ll choose him.”

Namjoon nodded and hung his head. He hoped you would think he did that in solidarity, but, really, he was trying to hide his smile. Of course, he was a little worried about the label’s reaction. But he was also happy for you and Jungkook.

Not to mention, he had been roped into joining the bet about your relationship backstage—Seokjin was very loud, and Namjoon embarrassed very easily—and now he might have been the first to find out that he’d won.

He couldn’t resist the urge to ask, “I—are you guys, um, back together, then?”

“Honestly,” you said, snickering at the absurdity of your position, “at this point, it feels like we never even broke up.”

Namjoon’s smile was too big to hide it. “So, you are, then.”

“We are. And, it’s—you know,” you said with a shrug that was not one bit nonchalant, despite your best attempts to make it seem so, “I’d love to still be able to keep working with you guys despite that, but, uh—I’ll deal with whatever happens. If they will think this is unacceptable, I’ll leave.”

“It may not come to that,” he said, his tone reassuring, yet grounded. “There’s still a good chance that the label won’t care. I mean, Taehyung is in a relationship.”

“Yeah,” you gave him a skeptical look, “but Luna isn’t working with him.”

“True,” he acknowledged before pursuing his point further, “but that relationship only has a positive impact on the band. He’s relaxed when she’s here, her presence helps him cope with the stress of the tour… on and on this list goes.”

That was a great observation, of course. Not to mention, you enjoyed having Luna around, too. But you knew that there was more to the story.

“I had to fight for that, though,” you said. “Jett Records didn’t think we should allow any girlfriends, friends, or relatives on tour. I had a different opinion.”

Namjoon did not know this, but his surprise quickly turned to pride.

“Oh,” he said, beaming. “But you won, though. They allowed our loved ones to join. You got your way.”

“Yes, but that could be because they didn’t think the tour would be this successful,” you countered. “Sure, most of the dates sold out before we came here, but it—that’s the minimum requirement. You know that. So, alright, the label already knew that Rated Riot would gather two or three thousand people every night. But they didn’t realise there’d be another thousand waiting outside the venue in every city we visited. Their attitude might change now that they know about the level of interest in the band.”

Namjoon noticed a tentative smile tugging at your lips. Despite your concerns about the future, the fact was that this tour—with all its mishaps and accidents—had already surpassed everyone’s expectations. Rated Riot were on a clear path to success and the unexpected crowds at each venue made it impossible not to feel excited, no matter what happened next.

“That’s just the thing, though,” Namjoon said, his eyes kind. “When you came to manage Rated Riot, they were still playing in bars and restaurants. All they had was potential. But with you, they’re starting to live up to it. Not to mention... there has to be a reason why Nick wanted to scout you for Reconnaissance. The label knows they need you. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be in such a rush to promote you without even asking if you agree.”

You realised you hadn’t thought of it like that. But Namjoon was right. Everything he’d said to you was true.

You loved your job, and you were good at it. It was just this one hiccup in your otherwise excellent performance as the band’s manager that made you doubt everything you’ve done for them: you were dating the lead vocalist.

But you listened to Namjoon now, and you realised your thoughts weren’t fair. Your relationship with Jungkook did not—and never would—impact your ability to do your job, and do it well. It was not an indicator of the quality of your work. It was not proof of your lack of effort or motivation.

You were learning, through agonising trial and error almost every day, that these two roles—manager and girlfriend—could co-exist. You did not need to relinquish one to succeed at the other.

Namjoon noticed that your eyes seemed brighter, your shoulders were less hunched and you no longer averted your gaze when he looked at you. The melodic strains you heard as the band finally started their soundcheck likely helped you calm down, too.

“I realise,” you admitted, “that I am nervous about big changes. About multiple big changes, concurrently.”

Namjoon had to lean in closer to be able to hear you—Hoseok pounded his drums behind the wall as if his life depended on it.

“I think that’s normal,” he noted. “Who wouldn’t be?”

He hoped to remind you that it was very easy to get lost in your feelings and experiences, and convince yourself that you were going through them alone—but you weren’t. And you saw that very clearly today.

“And it’s okay,” he continued. “I can’t make decisions for you, but you’re—you have us. We’ll always have your back. We won’t sit idly if we find out the label made you resign.”

You took a breath and finally allowed the gratitude in your heart to really settle.

“Thank you,” you said. “For everything. I really liked your advice about standing my ground. I think I’ll try to follow it.”

Namjoon smiled at this and nudged your shoulder with his. Smiling in response, you nudged his right back.

You’ve found your family when you met Rated Riot. They made bets about your relationship, they teased each other at nearly every possible moment, they complained and argued, but they supported each other with unwavering loyalty. And you were prepared to fight, if it came to it, to stay with them.

You were convinced that CJ had put a hex on you, because you had to spend the rest of the day on your phone, arranging interviews, giving comments about the band’s plans for the future, and pacing in the corridors of the venue. You could not even return to the hotel to pick up your forgotten laptop, you had to do all the work on your phone.

You still had to figure out what happened to Maggie’s phone, but you resolved to track down Minjun and ask him about Sid and Jude later, after the incessant calls stopped. For some reason, everyone demanded to talk to you in Dutch or Swedish or something that sounded vaguely German, and all you could gather from their speech was ‘Rated Riot’ and a questioning tone at the end of the sentence.

You still hadn’t finished by the time Rated Riot began their set on stage, so you had to return to the dressing room for some silence, no matter how much you’d missed hearing the way the audience responded to the band. Thankfully, you only had two more calls to get through—both in Swedish, much to your enormous joy.

After you left the changing room to finally join Luna by the stage, you heard a peculiar sound—a soft, conspiratorial shushing from somewhere in the corridor backstage, like someone trying to beckon a cautious cat.

“Psst. Psst. Pss—hey!”

You did not immediately realise that this was aimed at you. Stopping, you looked around warily until you finally spotted Minjun’s head peeking out from behind the corridor wall. He was trying not to attract too much attention to himself, so he did not use your name.

“What’s going on?” you asked, approaching him. “Why—”

“Come with me.”

“Wh—” you began, but Minjun’s hand darted out from behind the wall, joining his head, and he seized your wrist.

He pulled you down the corridor with an urgency that made your heart drop to your knees and he refused to stop no matter how much you struggled to watch your steps.

“What’s going on?” you demanded, altering between genuine fear and irritation.

“Jude’s here,” Minjun said and tripped over something as soon as he did, forcing you to stumble, too.

“Jude—with Sid?” you asked, your insides stirring with newfound horror.

Jude never went anywhere alone, and you did not like this rush that Minjun was in to get to him. You tried once more to stop running, or slow down at the very least, but Minjun was a train, running late on schedule.

“No,” he said, his grip on your wrist firm, his eyes frantic. “Alone.”

“Why?” you pressed.

He did not reply until he brought you to a halt outside the door at the far end of the corridor, leading to what appeared to be either a utility closet or an unusually small dressing room.

“Come in,” he said then, without any explanation, and held the door open for you.

You pushed the door further.

Jude stood before you inside the room. He looked more transparent than he had at the club the other night, and you weren’t sure if this wasn’t just a hazy memory. He was holding your handbag in his hands.

You wished you were back on the phone with the impatient Swedish journalist from before.

“Hi. This is yours,” Jude said awkwardly, extending your bag towards you.

You stood in the doorway and did not move. “How did you get that?”

Minjun had to gently push your arm with his shoulder so he could enter the room. Jude appeared very small as he held out your bag and tried to find his words.

“I, um—after I talked to you at the club,” he said, “I told Sid that I saw you, and he—he made me hang around and wait until you weren’t paying attention. I told him I knew which table you and your friends were at, and he thought—h-he wanted your phone.”

He waved the handbag, his alarmingly thin arms growing tired, and you finally took it from him. Maggie’s phone was inside, snug among scattered receipts.

Luna had been right—not that you doubted her for a second. And it made sense now, why Jude had lingered that night: he was waiting for Maggie and Luna to pick a table.

“I ju—I just had to wait until you all went dancing,” Jude continued, his voice unsteady. “A-and I was supposed to grab your phone. Sid was—he was desperate.”

Your posture was rigid, your eyes locked on Jude in a way that stopped him from breaking eye contact, and even Minjun felt a little uncomfortable. He knew more of what happened, after all; Jude had to explain it all to him to persuade him to find you. Minjun did nothing to interfere now, however. Jude was the one who wanted to talk to you, so he should have been the one to convince you to listen.

“Why?” you asked finally, your voice cutting through the tense silence, and slicing into Jude’s fragile confidence.

He glanced at Minjun, who gave him a small nod. Encouraged, Jude rubbed his hands together and began to speak. He could taste bile at the back of his throat, but the bitter sensation had been there for a while.

“He was looking for something to use against you and Jungkook,” he explained. “He hoped to find an old picture or video of the two of you together. When you were—when you dated. He wanted t-to cause a little trouble. If he couldn’t find anything, then h-he would have called Jungkook from your phone to, um—to give him the wrong idea.”

You gritted your teeth, reminding yourself that Jude was the accessory and the messenger. Your desire to slam someone’s face into a wall was not aimed at him.

“This isn’t mine, though,” you said, nodding at the phone inside your bag.

“Well, wh—it doesn’t matter,” Jude dismissed it with a shrug that seemed to propel his whole body backwards. “There were a lot of pictures from backstage in the gallery. Sid thought that was good enough.”

You wished Luna or Maggie were here with you right now, maybe both. Granted, Maggie might have attacked Jude—and you weren’t sure if you would have tried to restrain her, given your own urges—but at least you wouldn’t be standing here alone, trying to make sense of what was happening. Minjun’s quiet presence in the corner of the room did not offer much comfort. He was poised to intervene as if he was waiting for you to throw a punch.

“And why are you here?” you asked Jude.

You noticed that he was leaning slightly to one side despite standing firmly on both feet, and you wondered if this was a sign of how accustomed he was to standing on Sid’s right. Or maybe he was just drunk or under the influence of something stronger.

“Because you—you don’t owe me anything,” Jude replied, and you felt even more confused. His eyes looked watery, the edges of his pupils blurred. “You hate me, actually. And you have that right, I haven’t—I haven’t been very nice to you over the years. But you—you’re the one who told me to be careful. And Sid—I was—he left me for dead when he got bored later that night.”

You frowned, meeting Minjun’s brooding eyes across the room. He knew about this, you could tell. But he wanted Jude to do the talking.

Jude continued, “it started with a nosebleed. Then, I couldn’t breathe all of a sudden. I don’t—I don’t know what happened. Sid tossed me another bag of ice as if I hadn’t already taken enough.”

You were slow to grasp that “ice” did not mean frozen water in this case, and you wondered how many different ways to describe meth Jude knew at this point.

Then you needed another second to stop your heart from overexerting itself. Your initial plan for Sid paled in comparison to the new one burgeoning in the dark depths of your mind.

“A-and then he left the hotel between my third and fourth wheeze,” Jude finished. “He said he didn’t have time for this shit.”

You allowed Minjun to give the appropriate reactions to the story—and he nodded empathetically every few seconds—while you were only half-listening.

This happened in their hotel room, then. And Jude had said, another bag.

How many bags of methamphetamine did Sid keep in his hotel room in a foreign country with possibly very strict drug regulations?

“I-I remembered you, sud—suddenly,” Jude stammered when you did not respond. You looked up, surprised by the weight of your presence in his memory. “You told me to drink water. I drank a lot that night, but it—it obviously wasn’t water. Water was—it’s not what we usually drink. I didn’t—but there was half a bottle in the room, so I finished that. I could see a little clearer after that. Or so I thought. I went to the sink, and—and drank as much tap water as I could bef—before I threw up.”

“You might have overdosed,” you observed, studying his appearance again. His bronze complexion had taken an unsettling, ashy pallor. His hands were shaking and he kept rubbing them together. He looked cold, but beads of perspiration glistened on his forehead. “Are you—”

“I don’t—it’s not my first time taking a bit too much,” he said, wiping the sweat from his brow after he sensed your scrutiny. You blinked and looked away. “I’ve never really—never thought I would die before, so that was new. B-but I don’t think that I—I didn’t overdose. I think I just lost track of time because I was—I was waiting to steal your bag. For Sid.” His right hand trembled so awfully that he had to clutch it with his left to steady himself. “I’m really sorry.”

“Jude, I’m—”

“He left me for dead,” he reiterated before you could suggest calling a doctor. “You were right. He doesn’t care. I-I could have—I was de—dehyder—”

“Dehydrated,” you supplied.

“Yeah. That,” he affirmed, pausing to give you a grateful smile, then looking at Minjun for approval. Minjun did not move. Jude lowered his gaze again. “A-and he thought I was being a nuisance. He thought another dose would help me, and he just left.”

“And are you sure you don’t need help?” you finally asked. Your tone was strict, but Jude was touched by the sentiment so much that he swayed slightly on his feet. “You look like you could use some.”

He cast a pleading look at Minjun, and you feared that he was teetering on the verge of tears.

“Shit—y-you see,” he said, though it was not clear if he was addressing you or Minjun. “That’s what I mean. I don—I am—I’m fine now. I’m—I’ll be fine. I’m going home. I won’t go back to the hotel.”

Your surprise was quick and obvious, prompting Jude to launch into a hurried, almost fanatical explanation. He was eager to break through the formidable barriers of his usual reticence, which felt awkward and embarrassing now that Sid wasn’t here to tell him to keep quiet.

“I don’t want shit—I don’t want to deal with his shit anymore,” he said. “I’m flying home. I’m sorry. I wanted to tell you that. Y-you don’t even—you didn’t have to say anything to me, especially after all that I’ve done, but you said that, you told me to look after myself, a-and I don’t know. You might have saved my life that night. And—and you’re—y-you want to help me now. I’m—I’ll be okay. I’m just—I’m sorry.”

You winced at his exaggeration about your conversation at the club, but Minjun was the only one who’d noticed it. Jude was oblivious in his fervent need to get the words out, to explain, to apologise, to tell you how thankful he was.

You thought his gratitude was misplaced. He would have realised what to do in that situation anyway; he’d said something similar had already happened before, even if it hadn’t been as severe. He knew he had to drink if he took substances that could lead to overheating—you just happened to repeat it to him at a convenient time.

But just as you prepared to reply, the words died on your tongue.

You realised you could use his gratitude and guilt.

“Jude,” you said, breaking the rhythm of his laboured, frantic breaths. “If you really are okay, how—how would you feel about getting even with Sid for treating you like that?”

He stopped breathing for a second, confused. “W-what do you mean?”

Your gaze shifted to Minjun, whose initial surprise quickly melted into a realisation that lit up his features. He nodded enthusiastically.

“I have this idea,” you continued, returning your attention to Jude, who remained anchored against the back wall of the room, resembling a child caught drawing on the walls with a permanent marker. “But I would need you to stay in London a bit longer. Just a day or two. Could you do that?”

“That would be fair, I think,” Minjun added hastily. Jude hadn’t even processed your request yet. “It’s the least you can do after she practically saved your life—which she really didn’t have to do. I mean, you stole her bag.”

“I—but Sid asked me to do that!” Jude protested, panicked once more. He looked at you, his brows knit in an expression of profound desperation. He genuinely felt indebted to you, and he was dying to make it right. “I wouldn’t—I didn’t want to. You’ve never done anything wrong to me.”

“Well, exactly,” Minjun continued before you could respond. He could tell that Jude’s abnormally energetic apologies troubled you. “You kind of owe her, you know?”

Jude knew. You could tell he knew because he began to rub his hands together faster, his fingers restless, agitated as they ran over his calloused skin. He looked frightened. He looked like half of a person.

You felt the first threads of remorse coil around your mind for taking advantage of him in a state like this.

“Well, I—I—o-of course, I guess,” Jude acquiesced, though his compliance seemed strained—much like the rest of his actions, really. He needed to lie in bed for a week or two. “W-what would I have to do?”

You turned back to Minjun, who appeared to be waiting for you to give Jude any command whatsoever. Jude, in turn, appeared willing to comply with any command.

It occurred to you that perhaps Jude’s obedience to Sid did not stem from a specific attachment to him. Perhaps Jude had simply chosen to surrender his free will, and now he gravitated towards anyone who could make decisions on his behalf—as long as he could justify it to himself: a decades-long friendship with Sid, or a perceived debt he owed you.

Jude—as Minjun had suggested before—just didn’t know any better. And it was so easy, so very simple for him to just let someone else take the reins. To float down the stream instead of fighting it.

“Just keep spending time with Sid like you used to, okay?” you instructed. “Act as if nothing happened between you, like everything’s alright. Yeah? And we’ll be in touch with you.”

“Yeah,” Jude replied slowly. It took him a few seconds to grasp what had been said to him. You wondered if he’d always been this way, or if this was a lingering effect of all that he had to endure in the past twenty-four hours. “Yeah, I can do that.”

“That’s great,” you said. And then, because he continued to look smaller than his shadow, you added, “I, um—I understand you’re not a fan of hospitals, but how do you feel about pharmacies? They have a great selection of supplements I think you should try.”

You handed Minjun your handbag and he watched, in bewilderment, as you led Jude out of the room. You gave Jude step-by-step instructions—in excruciating detail that Minjun thought Jude did not deserve—about what to say at the pharmacy, which vitamins to seek, what nutritional products to consider, how to drink water, what fruit to buy on the way back to the hotel, and what to tell Sid if he asked questions about any of this.

Jude wrote it all down on his phone—a process that consumed an additional twenty minutes outside the venue—before he finally thanked you, apologised another dozen times, and walked away, leaning against the side of the building for support.

When you rejoined Minjun, you felt like you had just finished teaching six kindergarten classes.

“He’s gone,” you announced, sinking into the only armchair in the cramped room. Your foot came to rest on the handle of a discarded broom. You still weren’t sure what the purpose of this room was.

“Why’d you do all that for him?” Minjun asked, handing you your bag and leaning against the wall.

“Because I don’t want Rated Riot’s opening act to be Jude dropping dead,” you retorted. “He’s severely malnourished. Does he even eat when he—anyway. I don’t know what’s going on with his nervous system, he was shaking the whole time he was here. I don’t—I’m not Sid. I can’t stand to talk to someone half-dead without trying to do something.”

“Yeah,” Minjun said, still a little amazed at your lack of hesitation when you walked Jude outside. Jude had certainly never been as terrible as Sid, but he was still Sid’s closest friend. Yet, you were eager to help him feel better, when even Minjun had given up. “You’re not Sid. That’s what got us to this point. But you, um—you still didn’t have to go to such lengths for Jude. He… he’s always had withdrawal issues. He’s going to take something as soon as he goes back to the hotel, and he’ll probably be fine again.”

You exhaled. Probably was a very heavy word to carry on your shoulders everywhere you went.

“Yeah, but at least now my conscience won’t keep me up at night,” you said, stretching your arms over your head. “Besides, we’re kind of using him, so we obviously need him alive.”

“True…” Minjun faltered, his eyes shifting to the only minuscule window in the room and squinting. He could not see anything beyond the thick glass, obscured by rain residue. “It, uh—it’s great that Jude can be our man on the inside. I’m glad he realised what a fucking bag of shit Sid is. But, honestly, I’m not sure we can trust him if we send him straight back to that hotel. He might have a change of heart.”

“I know,” you admitted. Even if Jude felt indebted to you and demonstrated that by returning Maggie’s phone, his gratitude could prove temporary. Sid had an exceptional talent for coaxing good people into bad deeds. “That’s why I’m not telling Jude anything else we’re going to do.”

Minjun turned back to look at you, intrigued. “And what is it that we’re going to do?”

“I need to do some research first,” you said, your thoughts speeding a hundred miles per minute. “Did Sid reach out to you at any point over these past few days?”

“No.”

“Alright, so it’s just Jungkook, then.” You leaned forward, considering this. “I-I don’t get it, to be honest. I mean, I get that Sid is the spawn of the devil, but really, why is he—why does he care so much? Because this isn’t some prank. He’s digging up old videos, posting pictures that could have serious consequences for us, and he’s—he made Jude hang around the club to steal my fucking bag. That’s so stupid and over-the-top that I’m not even—I mean, does he really have nothing better to do?”

Minjun did not seem to share your confusion, and your shoulders slumped in disappointment. Clearly, Minjun did not think this was out of character for Sid at all.

“Well, yeah, he doesn’t have anything else going on,” Minjun said. “He doesn’t have a job. He has money and twenty-four hours in a day. Might as well torment people. Besides, he feels wronged. He won that bet he had with Jungkook, but—”

“No, I get that,” you interrupted, your gaze drifting to the same window that Minjun had attempted to look through before. “He’s always done this. But it makes no sense to me. Fucking with people just because he thinks they’re not miserable enough. That has to be some sort of a latent inferiority complex, this need he has to prove to everyone that he’s better than them. But I don’t—he’s going to have to take his insecurities elsewhere. He’ll have to fuck off. We’ll leave him no other choice.”

When you did not succeed in seeing past the thick fog over the glass, you turned back to Minjun again. He was grinning, for some reason, his bright smile standing out against the sombre atmosphere in the room.

“What?” you asked.

“Nothing.” He chuckled, excitement twirling in his eyes. “I’m glad you and Jungkook are back together.”

You looked away, pensive.

“Come on,” he said, pushing himself off the wall. “Let’s go defeat evil. I’ll help with your research.”

Minjun ended up providing fantastic assistance, and by the time the two of you had exhausted all the keywords in your Google search, you had a rough outline of what you’d do with Sid. You and Minjun both agreed that you needed Jungkook’s input, so the three of you would need to meet sometime later to finalise your strategy and set it into motion.

In the meantime, you had to find your friends, return Maggie’s phone, and update them on everything that had happened since you’d last seen them.

When you entered Rated Riot’s dressing room, the walls were pulsating with the beat of an old Arctic Monkeys song, blaring unapologetically from Yoongi’s Bluetooth speaker. You had thought you felt completely drained from this day, but the sight of everyone celebrating as they always did—as if it were the final show of the tour, the venue filled with their laughter, the floor wet from their spilt drinks—lifted your mood and your energy levels immeasurably.

Maggie was the first to catch your eye in the crowd of people. As soon as you returned her phone, a tipsy Yoongi interjected affectionately, “you find everyone’s lost eletornicks!”—which was almost an actual word, so you figured he still had room for more alcohol. He drifted away before you could say anything else, moving his shoulders to the rhythm of “Snap Out Of It” and joining Hoseok by the drinks table.

Luna noticed the slight commotion and approached you. As soon as you finished telling the girls what happened to your handbag, she broke into a surprisingly graceful, but very, very drunken performance of flailing her limbs and singing, “I knew it! I fucking knew it!” while Taehyung watched her from the doorway with unmistakable fondness. He had genuinely never looked more in love.

Then Maggie caught you off guard by wrapping her arms around you—as if you’d crossed Middle Earth and battled Smeagol for her phone—and you realised how safe, happy, and comfortable you felt here. It was such a stark contrast to the unease you had felt in Jude’s presence that you found yourself laughing, your chest feather-light.

Someone behind you suddenly cleared their throat—with such force that it sounded like they coughed up half of a lung—and Maggie pulled back, allowing you both to turn around.

Jungkook looked like he had been waiting for you to notice him for a while. Your friend snickered and hugged you once more before taking an intentionally ostentatious step back and bowing.

“She’s all yours if she wishes,” Maggie proclaimed to Jungkook, who turned to you, his eyebrows raised.

You nodded. “She wishes.”

Chuckling, he pulled you close. He was still high from the concert and just as lively and animated as everyone else in the room. The second he wrapped his arms around your waist and buried his face in your neck, he refused to let go, finding that only fair since you had ended up missing his show tonight.

You realised, while fighting for breath in his suffocating grip, that the two of you did not look strange or inappropriate to anyone who noticed you, despite standing almost in the middle of the room, wrapped around each other. You expected to feel anxious about the public display, and were surprised to feel comforted instead.

No one cared.

Unbeknownst to you, the bet backstage had ended, and now that everyone here knew that you and Jungkook were back together, they were no longer invested. They won their money—or lost, in a few cases—and moved on to make bets about whether Taehyung, who was too prideful to sing without his bass, would start singing along to Luna’s playlist on Yoongi’s phone.

No one cared.

Surrendering to Jungkook’s touch, you abandoned your other plans and relocated with him to the far corner of the room, separated from most of the dangerous festivities—Seokjin and Hoseok had bumped foreheads while dancing just as you walked past them—by a heavy rack of clothes.

Jungkook lied down on the couch with his head on your lap, recounting how he had accidentally turned off his microphone in the middle of his break during the encore and had to yell his speech at the audience because he couldn’t turn it back on.

“I’m glad your throat is alright,” you remarked. The warmth of your touch and the lightness of your tone filled him with something that tasted like honey on his tongue. “The rest of the guys also sound like they just got off the tallest ride at the amusement park.”

Jungkook’s laughter was soft, laced with a lingering echo of the concert that still reverberated in his mind amidst the lively chatter and the music in the dressing room.

“After the show,” he said with an unusual gravity in his tone, juxtaposed against the serenity in his eyes while you ran your fingers through his hair, “someone asked Yoongi and me about our new music. They asked if the picture on Sid’s account was a leaked album cover. We said yes. So, that—that’s confirmed now.”

Your hand stilled, and Jungkook lifted his head. He did not like the emotion he saw in your eyes when he looked at you and he felt melancholy, all of a sudden, for the moment you’d just shared. He wished he hadn’t said anything.

“Oh,” you replied. “That’s good.��

But it didn’t feel good. He couldn’t shake the memory of the way you’d looked after the band had unanimously decided to use the picture as the cover art for their next single. It seemed like the fact that everyone knew about your relationship was physically weighing on you.

He hadn’t said anything to you earlier, not wanting to exacerbate your anxiety, but he couldn’t keep this to himself now.

You’d promised each other communication.

“I—uh,” he sat up properly and you felt an odd ache inside when his head was no longer resting in your lap, “I know you’re not comfortable with us using the picture for that, um—for that particular purpose. And—and I get that. I just, uh—I just wanted to ask if y—if the actual problem here is that others know about us.”

The look on his face was an echo of your conversation last night. It threw you off balance, this statement, not even an actual question, and you were all the more aware of the loud beating in your chest and in your head. The music drowned out any chance of others overhearing your conversation, but it also muffled your thoughts.

You took a deep breath, so you could explain everything.

“No,” you said. Then once more, to make sure he heard you, “no. That’s not it. I don’t want—my problem is that we barely had one day together, you know? I would have liked some time alone with you before it all exploded. But Sid posted that picture, and now—now everyone in this room knows we’re definitely together. I mean, they already suspected it, since we’re not as discreet as I liked to think. But, uh, still. I am learning to be okay with others knowing, though. And I want you despite that. Despite others. Despite everything. I want to be with you. I just wanted to reveal our relationship to the public in our own time. Not Sid’s.”

Jungkook was not sure if you said anything else after I want you, because he certainly had not heard a word.

Frankly, he didn’t care about any public pictures. He wouldn’t have cared if a hurricane swept through the place, tearing down buildings and leaving debris that spelled out your names in the shape of a heart. But he knew you cared.

And yet—I want you despite everything.

He was crazy. Positively mad. A raving lunatic, really. He wondered if there was any medicine to subdue his symptoms because he did not think this was good for his health.

“Okay,” he said, looking down to get his feelings and his thoughts together. “I’m sorry.”

“No, you’re good,” you said. “It was—a lot of things happened today, and I was—I feel like I’m losing my head a little bit. But you and I are not—we’re not one of the things I’m confused about.”

He gave you a concerned look as he settled back on the couch. “What happened?”

You took a breath and recounted the story about Maggie’s missing phone, Luna’s observation—manifestation, almost—and Jude’s visit, which sparked the idea to include him in your plan to retaliate against Sid.

Jungkook spent a minute nodding, rubbing his chin, and moving his eyebrows up and down and sideways.

“Okay, that—that’s a lot of—and, uh—” He leaned forward, feeling a bit like the two of you had lived through an entire decade in one day. He could not summarise it all in one word. “What’s your plan?”

You took another breath. You and Minjun had checked and double-checked everything, so you were sure you had this part of your research right. The challenge of your plan came from the parts that couldn’t be researched in advance—the parts where you needed Jungkook.

“Did you know,” you started, “that the penalty for methamphetamine possession in the UK is up to seven years in prison? Apparently, it’s a class A drug.”

Furrowing his brows, Jungkook gave a slight nod of his head. “Uh… okay.”

“Right. Well, see,” you were sitting on the very edge of the couch, restless suddenly, “Jude mentioned tripping on ecstasy and speed that night I saw him at the club. And now, while returning Maggie’s phone, he mentioned Sid casually giving him a bag of meth. Just there, in his hotel room.”

“Mmhm, he—wait.” Jungkook straightened. “W-what are you saying?”

Someone jostled the rack of clothes next to your couch, causing a few hangers to clatter to the floor. You heard an excited shriek, followed by laughter, as two pairs of hands scrambled to pick up the clothes and hang them back in place.

You lowered your voice and moved closer to Jungkook on the couch. “You know what I’m saying.”

“I’m—”

“If a penalty exceeds twelve months,” you continued, “a person may be deported. That also sounds alright.”

Jungkook paused to listen to the sounds inside the room: the clothes rack had now been pushed back, shielding you from the rest of the room again, but limiting his view. He could hear Taehyung singing along to “Do I Wanna Know?” by the drinks table while Luna and Maggie waved the flashlights on their phones dreamily for extra ambience in the dimly lit room. He could also see, most unusually, the way Hoseok and Jimin seemed to be exchanging money right behind the two girls.

Jungkook leaned in even closer to you.

“You want to deport Sid?” he asked. You could feel his warm breath on your cheek when he spoke. “A-and lock him up?”

“Actually, I want to wring his neck and use his head to scare off pigeons,” you said. “But that would result in me getting locked up, and I really don’t have time for that right now.”

You watched the corners of Jungkook’s lips twitch as he tried to suppress a smile.

“No?” he teased, unable to resist. “I might like that. Think about all the street cred I’d get with a jailbird girlfriend.”

You snorted. “Yeah? Two one-hour visits every four weeks sound hot to you?”

“Hmm.” He pursed his lips. “No. You have a point, that won’t do it. I need you with me. Should we—should we tell Minjun about this plan, then?”

“Minjun knows. We’ll talk more about it tomorrow, okay? But I—I promise we’re going to teach Sid a fucking lesson,” you said. “And then I’m going to tell the label we’re together, and all will be right in the world for fucking once.”

Jungkook didn’t think he’d ever wanted to kiss you more than he did right then. The air around you felt static, and the bodies behind the clothes rack did not feel particularly corporeal. The side of his chest was pressed against yours and he could feel your heartbeat speed up when his gaze flickered to your lips.

“You know, you can be really evil sometimes,” he remarked, chuckling when you raised your eyebrows. “I love it. Count me in. Sid won’t know what fucking hit him, and I want to be there to see it. Not going to lie, though, it does sound like Operation: Escape from Londo—”

“No.”

You thought you could feel his laughter resonating in your chest.

“Can we do that, though?” he whispered after a moment. “Can we—you know? Deal with Sid? In-between dealing with the label?”

You nodded. You were determined to find your happy ending and, watching the faint lights reflected in Jungkook’s eyes, you thought you could already see it, waiting for you in the distance.

“If we handle Sid,” you said quietly, “we can handle anything.”

Jungkook liked the sound of that very much—almost as much as he liked the song playing in the background while he breathed in your scent, while he allowed it to engulf him, to drown his senses, to annihilate any sanity he had left.

However, he was aware that for a long time before this moment, he had been making all the wrong choices while dreaming of the right outcomes. It would take some time for him to adjust to the fact that he lived a different life now—a life where you were by his side, and his reality was suddenly significantly better than his dreams. He would need to hear you tell him that it was going to be okay just a few more times.

“And if the label says that no, we can’t, actually?” he asked, his tone hushed.

He was very close and you could no longer look at him without your vision clouding. Your head spun so much that your thoughts felt tipsy. You lowered your gaze to his chest, avoiding the sight of him biting his lip.

“I’ll just leave, then,” you replied.

Jungkook pulled back suddenly. “You—but—no.”

You were breathless and slightly disoriented when you raised your head. The room was very dark, and he was very far away.

“We—we’re staying together regardless,” you said, distracted.

He still looked wounded.

“But that’s not fair to you,” he argued.

You shook your head and sighed. The Arctic Monkeys song on the speakers faded, changing to Rated Riot’s “Cursed,” and the room erupted into cheers as if the band members themselves had stood up to perform the song. You shivered under Jungkook’s gaze.

“That—it doesn’t matter,” you said. “I already told you before. If that’s the only way we can work, I don’t mind leaving the company. I’ll miss everyone, but I’m—we’d stay in touch anyway, I’m sure.”

Jungkook was torn. He wanted to tell you not to go—cast a spell or a curse, whichever worked—but his song played in the background, and you were trying very hard to keep a straight face on the couch next to him. It felt like a spell had already been cast.

He didn’t want you to leave, and in this moment, he felt convinced that you never would. You were not meant to.

“At least fight back,” he said, “if these fucking lawyers have a problem with us being together.”

A smile finally broke through your restraints.

“I will,” you promised. “You want me to punch someone? Knock out their teeth for good measure?”

He grinned, too. His black eye had already healed, save for a few stubborn cuts around his cheekbone. The altercation he’d had with Sid seemed a lifetime away—a lifetime that he was not sure belonged to him anymore.

“Please,” he said.

“Hmm.” You leaned in closer, brushing your fingers over the side of his neck. “I’ll see what I can do without joining Sid in prison.”

He felt the way his skin came to life, the way all of his cells leapt up and screeched, as soon as you touched him. He thought that perhaps he had contracted some sort of eye disease on top of his blatant insanity, too, because the dark room had brightened all of a sudden.

He knew he had gone right out of his mind, and he’d never felt better.

“I love you,” he whispered, and his nose touched yours when he said it.

“I love you,” you whispered back, and the happy ending that you had seen in his eyes felt no more than a breath away.

It approached you in silence, dimming the lights in the room, and in the building, and on this side of the world, so it could light the ones in your eyes and your chests.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Jungkook whispered, the tips of his fingers tracing tenderly over your cheek. He felt it coming, too. “And I hope you stay.”

You closed your eyes. “I promise I’ll do everything to stay.”

Your lips finally touched his, and he discovered that you tasted exactly like the medicine he needed to halt his descent into madness, to calm the anxious beating of his heart, to clear his uncertain mind, and to dry the ink he’d used to engrave your name onto his soul.

chapter title credits: bad omens, “exit wounds”

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