No. 1 Smut With Argyle 🤭

Boy Noise

summary: prompt fill. Wally's waited a whole week for you to notice he still exists and he's going crazy. finally, he manages to get your attention and you dote on your sweet boy the way he's been so desperate for you to. (request)

pairing: Wally Clark x masc!reader

warnings: smut. flashfic. sub!Wally Clark. brat. flirting for attention. blow jobs. Wally Clark has undisclosed mommy issues. dead dove.

bon reading, frens

___________________________🖇️

Boy Noise

He doesn't know why he does it.

Lie.

He does it because he's fucking desperate and you're over there watching with a simmering grin and sharp eyes, acting like Wally isn't going out of his fucking. mind. because you haven't touched him in a week.

And yeah, okay, it's no one's fault. You were stuck in practice after practice for soccer and Wally has that Art project he needs to finish, and schedules got too full too fast, but, come on, please. He hasn't been able to touch himself, his hand not good enough when he knows what the real thing feels like, and you're just smiling. Giving him that sedate up-and-down stare, licking your lips like he's a piece of meat you want to devour and, still, you just sit there, sprawled on Simon's couch, taking up more room than your frame should allow and not doing anything.

So, he flirts with Chloe, watching you watch him, hoping to instigate some kind of response. It wouldn't matter if you didn't look so good. Sleeves rolled up to accentuate your forearms, shirt tucked in, slim waist to round hips on display. A deity in painted-on black jeans and Wally's gold chain.

He hates you.

No he doesn't.

He wants you.

Now. Yesterday. Tomorrow. A week ago. Jesus, please. Do something!

Fuck, he's aching for it. Can feel his cock harden for every feline look you pin him with.

It's Maddie's birthday, he knows that's why you haven't made a move yet. You want to be present—told Wally to be present, to enjoy the celebration and it'll be worth it, sweet boy, I promise. But he's about a hair's breadth away from total atomic failure and can't get the memory of your hands on his body out of his mind for more than a second.

He tried so hard to be good. He really, really did. Sat on his hands and pretended everything was hunky dory until you showed up dressed like that, sauntered in like you owned the room, and gave him such a hot stare, Wally's blood is still on fire. And now most of it is in his cock as he sees you dancing to that song you blast in Wally's car, body moving like water; hips swaying, ass perfect.

Wally doesn't hate you, but you must hate him. He abandons Chloe without so much as a nice to see you, slinks into your space—where he belongs—and glides his hands down from your waist to your hips. You're not the only one dancing; everyone else (especially from Claire's adopted squad goals) is making a dancefloor out of the living room, the lights dim and the atmosphere high.

No one else is making this song their bitch, though. No one else is torturing Wally with their ass against his crotch and their nails grazing his neck. No one else is making him fucking wait for something he needs more than air, water, life itself. Please, please, do something!

Finally, you take pity on him, his hand in yours as you lead him to a bedroom upstairs and farthest away from the party. A guest room, Wally hopes, but a quick scan tells him it's Simon's room. You place your drink on Simon's desk and shove Wally down so he's sitting on the bed. Kick his legs apart and step between them, a sultry grin on your face.

Wally whimpers, his heart beating triple-time, head spinning already, yes. He leans back and props himself on his elbows, just watching you, licking his lips in anticipation. His eyes fall to half-mast as you bend over him, hands on either side of his hips, lips so close he can taste the Vanilla Coke on your breath. Your eyes bore into his, heavy and dark and full of promise, and you trail your fingers so lightly from his chest to the front of his tented jeans.

"Is this where you need me to touch you, baby?" You purr, holding his gaze. He nods, a little choked sound escaping as he rocks his hips up in a bid for friction you refuse to give him. "Think you can be quiet?"

Uhm, "Yeah," sure, Wally can try. But you can't blame him if he can't. It's been a week since he's been inside you. A week since he's felt your body on his, skin to skin, slick with sweat and spit and come.

"You want to taste me, baby? Or do you want me to take care of you first?"

Oh, such a tempting offer, and Wally suddenly doesn't know what he wants more. Needs more. He loves it when you fuck his face. Loves how you force him to give you what you need, using him until you scream in ecstasy. On the other hand, his dick's so hard he's sure one more soft touch will undo him, and he'd rather come in your mouth than in his jeans.

He swallows, pleading, "Can you suck me off?" Your grin turns sharp, and he adds, "I'll do whatever you want after, I promise, just please, I need it so bad. I need you to help me, please." He's babbling, begging, hand on your jaw and then sliding over your chest to your back then your ass. "I'm so hard, I can't think, p l e a s e." Wally hitches his hips up to emphasize the point.

"Whatever my boy wants," You soothe, making quick work of his fly and pulling his jeans and boxers down to his ankles as you sink to your knees.

He barely has a chance to react, mewling like a fucking slut when you get your mouth on him. He falls back, arm over his eyes, opposite hand on the back of your head, forcing his hips to stay still as you work him into your throat.

"Oh god, oh fuck, yes, ungh, thank you, thank you—" And you tap his hip, a signal that he can move as much as he needs to which he takes for the permission it is. He humps your face, fucks into your mouth in little motions, panting and whining and showering you with gratitude. You're so good to him, taking care of him like this, he has to tell you, "thank you!"

He comes with a spasm and a high, needy whine, back arching off the bed and his eyes rolling back. Fuck. Stars collide and angels sing and it feels like the first time he's ever experienced true pleasure although you and he have done this and so much more. He's just blissed the fuck out, melting into the mattress, blind eyes on the ceiling as he comes down.

Not that he can revel in the afterglow. He hears you peel out of your sin-tight jeans, feels and sees your underwear land on his face. Wally chuckles, delighted, and reaches for you, eager to show you exactly how grateful he is for you. He uses lips and tongue and careful brushstrokes of teeth to make you see God, and then asks in a breathy voice if he can do it again, "Just one more?" as if he's asking for another piece of Maddie's birthday cake.

And, Jesus, thank you, you oblige with a wicked smirk, eyes heavy, smoldering, yet razor-edged. This time he rolls you over and fits his shoulders between your thighs, uses his fingers in time with his mouth, moaning wantonly as he tastes you again. He loves this more than you'll ever know. But you stop him when he wraps a hand around himself, tries to use spit for lube, and insist, "Not so fast, baby," your chest rising and falling rapidly.

Wally whimpers, pouts, and then brightens when you flip him onto his back, sweetness hovering over his lips as you fold over him and take his cock in your mouth again.

An hour later, he's curled around you, his head on your chest, dozing and unaware. He thinks he hears Simon shriek and both feels and hears your cackle, but he could be dreaming. Shit, he hopes he's dreaming.

Whatever. Wally's too sated and happy to care. He knows you'll make everything better before Simon can banish Wally from all future gatherings or activities or the friend group altogether.

Because that's what you do. You make Wally's whole world better.

fin.

🖇️___________________________

also on AO3!

Order Up! MASTERLIST

if you enjoyed this, you may also enjoy Alphabet Soup.

the journey of a clandestine love affair at several stages because Wally Clark craves what he can't have and refuses to keep his hands to himself. and you live for it. (Janet and Wally are dating to increase their social value. meanwhile, Wally wants to get closer to her step-sister. you.)

after hours.

pairing(s): chad meeks-martin x fem!reader

summary: in which chad just can't get enough of you

warning(s): adult content, porn without plot, no spoilers just smut, unprotected sex, soft sex, dick riding written by a professional dick rider, missionary, some dirty talk, mentions of chad wearing a chain that has ur name on it cause i think hes that bf, grammar mistakes because i lack the english speaking ability and unedited work because im incapable of editing my own work.

© msgorillagripcoochie , do not steal or translate my work

"Kiss me." Is the breathless whisper that echoes through the quiet area, he's desperate as if you hadn't been kissing him this whole time. His hands gripping your waist as you fit so perfectly in his lap almost like that it was meant for you to be seated there.

You lean down pecking his lips with a soft giggle and he huffed pulling you back down before you could move to far away from him.

His hand on the back of your neck to hold your there as his tongue slips into your mouth exploring you like he had done so many times before. He moans against your lips at your taste.

He only let's up when he's in need of oxygen "What was that for?" You asked breathless your hand on his bare chest "For being so fucking hot." He hummed biting his lip and thrusting his hips up causing you to laugh "Stop."

He smiled pressing a kiss against the corner of your lips, then your cheek before kissing your jaw nipping lightly at your skin.

"You're so needy." You tease him as he begins to suck marks on your throat. His hands explored your body feeling you up while you sat on his lap.

His hand dragging to your abdomen sliding up under your shirt, his fingers brushing against the skin before he cupped your breast in his hand. He massaged your breast, his thumb circling your hardening bud.

He dropped his hand for a moment to hook his fingers around the hem of your shirt "Take this off."

"This?" You asked with a sarcastic confused voice placing your hands over his."Yes stop messing with me." He whined and you chuckled but pulled the shirt over your head throwing it elsewhere. He leaned his head back take in the sight of you "Wow."

Your cheeks heated up "You see me naked all the time."

"And you get prettier every time." He drops his head kissing the tops of your breasts. His hands explored the uncovered skin as he gripped and kissed you.

His lips wrapping around nipple loving the way you gasp when he took it between his teeth pulling on it. You felt breathless shutting your eyes at the feeling rolling your hips into his.

His eyes fluttered closed for a moment a groan releasing from his throat. He pulled away from you causing you to whine "I hate you."

"Aww who's needy now?" He teased and you pushed his shoulder "Shut up and touch me." He chuckled placing soft pecks on your lips "You're lucky you're cute."

"You're lucky, you're still my boyfriend." He scoffed reaching his hands down to unbutton your shorts "Like you could do any better." You snorted softly moving off of him to slide your shorts and your panties off "I don't know, I probably could."

You were just teasing of course, you probably couldn't do better than someone as sweet and caring as Chad and even if you could you didn't want anyone different.

"Yeah but when I'm inside you it's a different story." He's sliding his shorts down to his thighs when you throw your leg back over his waist to straddle him again.

"Oh you can't tell when I'm faking babe?" He glared holding your hips as you hovered over his cock for a moment "Ha ha ha, you're a real comedian." He says in a monotone voice and before you get to laugh he's pushing you down onto his cock.

He leaned his head back letting a groan "Fuck." You moan your nails digging into his stomach as you close your eyes for a moment.

He traces slow circles on your hips while you shift a little adjusting to his size. He loved watching you, he wasn't ready to say it but he think he might love you.

He held your chin for a moment "Look at me." His voice is soft, he gives you a moment to get yourself together before you open them for him.

He's smiling his sweet stupid smile at you "It doesn't look like you're faking it." It's lighthearted and it makes you laugh "Fuck you." You giggle moving in the space between you and him kissing him.

He hummed against your lips, he held you hips beginning to move you on his cock. You held his shoulders, your nails digging in his skin surely to leave marks that he'd proudly show off tomorrow. He nips at your bottom lip when you pull away soft moans leaving your lips.

You're doing a number on him, he feels like he's on fucking cloud 9, the way you feel around him. He was sure no one had ever made him feel this way.

"You look so good." He moans softly in your ear when you lean against his shoulder. You bite the skin playfully and he chuckled "Come on baby." He begins to meet your thrusts half way, thrusting inside you.

He doesn't stop like he had planned to, he can't help it when his teasing movements turn into him almost fully pounding into you.

He's practically using for his own pleasure but you don't mind not when it makes you feel like this "Don't stop." You beg him holding onto him for dear life. "I wasn't planning on it." He replies breathlessly throwing his head back as you whined into his skin.

Both your moans echo through the room as the two of you begin to lose yourself in each other.

Suddenly he's flipping you over and your back hits the mattress, his hands dropping by your head to hold himself up. He smiles above you the chain that says your name on hangs in your face for a moment.

The new angle making him feel like he was deeper inside you. His thrusts were rough and powerful and when you moved up on the bed he was careful enough to place his hand over the top of your head just in case it hit the headboard.

You're practically seeing stars, your eyes rolling back as your orgasm approached "You're fucking perfect." He sighs out looking at where his cock slid in and out of you.

You don't hear him though to lost in yourself. Your nails are scratching down his back but the pain you brought him only added to the pleasure.

He leaned down licking and nipping at your chest, he was absolutely feral for you if he was being honest. You had a hold on him that no one else has ever had.

You were getting closer, he had the privilege of knowing all your tells, to him you were an open book he could read a thousand times. "Come on, give it to me baby." He muttered in your ear pressing kisses along your skin "Come on."

He dropped his hand to rub your clit stimulating the nerve and you were gone cumming on his cock, your head thrown back looking like something from the nastiest porno. It was amazing, Chad loves seeing you this way.

He dropped his head fucking you through your orgasm while his approached "Please cum inside me." Your voice is breathless, your eyes are hooded. That was truly all he needed was your sultry voice in his ear before he whimpered softly cumming inside you.

He catches his breath looking down at you, he doesn't say anything he doesn't need to as he leans down to kiss you passionately.

He pulls away watching you wiping some sweat off your brow "I should get cleaned up."

"I should join you." He hummed and you laughed "You're a pig, Chad."

"I'll be whatever you want me to be."

a/n: wrote this out of anger because everyone is thirsting for ethan when my boy chad has always been right there. ethan is cute but chad has always been that dude. this isn't proofread, i haven't even reread this so if it sucks yall i am so sorry mama is trying. feel free to request and tell me what you think. IF YOU WANT MORE REBLOG AND COMMENT!!!

pairing ➵ luke castellan x fem reader

wordcount ➵ 755

content warnings ➵ angst, hurt no comfort (does this count as hurt no comfort?) implication of intercourse, makeouts w luke!!!

luke’s pov!! 💝

LIFE AT CAMP HALF-BLOOD WAS MISERABLE to say the least.

Luke watched as young teenage boys and girls, almost always younger than him, journeyed on quests their pathetic excuses of parents couldn’t be bothered with on their own.

He watched as they came back, eyes shadowed over with grief. Bodies weighed down by a fortnight of constant battle and little to no sleep.

He watched as sometimes they didn’t.

Solemn news raced across the camp as the words of a fallen friend made its way back home.

Life at Camp Half-Blood was miserable.

Well, until he met you.

It was a typical sunny morning, the scorching heat of the sun tanning the skins of the youths.

He was spilling his water bottle over his head onto his bright tufts and down his shimmering, golden skin for relief.

When he shook the water from his hair he glanced across the camp, and somehow, as if by fate, his eyes found you.

He hadn’t seen you before today. He was sure he’d remember the way your beauty seemingly rendered him speechless. You sat laughing with a few Aphrodite kids—perhaps your siblings? Silena was sitting closest to you on your right, and Drew was on your other side. He surveyed as you all giggled, eyes mischievously filled with gossip.

How had you flown under his radar? Your laugh ringing in the wind, cheeks puffed out from the action. Your orange camp shirt was tied up in a makeshift crop top, pink beaded bracelets tied onto your arms. He didn’t know whether you had makeup on, or if Aphrodite kids were just that naturally beautiful.

When you get up with Silena and Drew (he assumes are your sisters) he takes in the rest of your outfit. A tight jean skirt adorned your hips. The fabric accessorized with jewels. It was short—a little too short.

He let his pink clouded gaze memorize your figure. The soft skin of your legs taking up his eyes. He was hooked on the way your hips swayed side to side, a bit sensually for a teenage girl to be honest, but he didn’t mind.

Luke’s a great deal of embarrassed and practically feels the definition of creep when he stares back up to your face and makes eye contact with three, cabin ten girls that have their mouths slack open from his not so well disguised eye fucking.

He sees you close in on yourself, expression guarded when he tries to reclaim control of this awkward situation by sending you one of his Luke Castellan, the most popular camper, smiles.

Silena squeals, and punches your shoulder. Sending him a flirty wave with flicks of her fingers. Drew does the same and they bump your hip to follow suit. Undoubtedly doing what Aphrodite kids do best—matchmaking.

The next time he sees you, he detects you don’t actually need your sisters pushes to do something. Your long, manicured nails drag down his forearm and you slide your soft hand into his. Pulling him along to the quiet, deserted woods of the night.

He lets you shove him into a tree, momentarily stunting him from the aggressiveness of it all.

Damn, Aphrodite kids sure are freaks.

He loses himself in your kisses, your touches. Soft moans taking space in the night sky.

After that? Luke and you are inseparable.

Well, at least in the night. During camp hours you guys usually avoid having to encounter one another. It’s not like he’s ashamed of you, and vice versa. He loves what you two have. And he wants to keep the sweetness of it all to himself for just a little longer.

Especially when he has you beneath him, backside covered in the dirt from nature’s floor. You’re writhing under him, asking him to do anything and everything to you.

He likes the way your hand touches his scar, hesitantly moving up to kiss it sugarly.

“You’ll always be everything to me.” You had panted, lips rosy colored and raw.

So why is that now, as you're staring him down in a clash of bronze swords and armour.

You look at him like he’s nothing to you.

He didn’t understand why you chose Camp Half-Blood over him. Over your Luke Castellan. The Gods were irresponsible and immature. Luke couldn’t keep pondering over all his sparks of anger in rants of the camp, and Olympus—did it really not clue you in on his nasty resentment to the olympians?

Life away from Camp Half-Blood is miserable.

Even more so away from you.

© kisscastellan | all rights reserved

like i would | rc

| pairing: (non canon) rafe cameron x female reader

| genre: fluff, boyfriend rafe, rafe calls his gf baby like 100 times

| content warnings: mentions of being sick, tears lol, mentions of food

| précis: your boyfriend takes care of you while you’re under the weather.

| word count: 1,184

| a/n: im sick rn so posting this from my drafts

The first thing Rafe notices when he gets home is silence. If you’re home before him (which he knows you are today), you usually call out a greeting from wherever you are, to let him know that you’re there.

So, when he calls out your name and gets nothing in response, it’s safe to say he’s a little worried. He slowly walks to  the bedroom, where he, insert relieved sigh, finds you curled up underneath the comforter.

Keep reading

૮(ˊ ᵔ ˋ)ა ... i’d follow you anywhere .ᐟ

ᥫ᭡ pairing :: neteyam sully x avatar! reader

ᥫ᭡ genre :: mature

ᥫ᭡ synopsis :: in which the reader uses her new avatar body to finally show neteyam just how much she loves him… + based off of this thirst!

ᥫ᭡ general tags :: 18+ (explicit sexual content, explicit language), minimal angst (?), lots of fluff and banter lol

ᥫ᭡ content warnings :: characters aged up to 20, oral (m receiving), cum swallowing, dacryphilia (v tame), corruption

ᥫ᭡ word count :: 2.5k

ᥫ᭡ note :: guys this is what happens when i ask for thirsts!!! i get carried away and never know when to stop ;(( anyway, here, have this while i work on my annual dick analysis for jake & quaritch.

“Where are you taking me?”

“Shh, you’ll see, kitty boy,” you giggled, tightening your grip on his wrist.

Neteyam shakes his head, tongue in cheek. He could never say no to you—not that he wanted to…he always wanted to play with you. He’d follow you into the depths of hell, or whatever the na’vi equivalent of hell was. Yeah, he’d follow you there, he thinks—definitely.  

Keep reading

can you do a small peter blurb (doesn’t have to be smutty) where you wake him up at like 3 in the morning bc you woke up randomly super horny so you’re just like “peter… peter wake up” “…huh? what are you okay?” “can we have sex?” “…like… now?” “yeah.” PLEASE I NEED ITTTT

im obsessed with this tysm for the request! NSFW suggestive but not graphic x

Streetlight filters in through the slats of your blinds and illuminates Peter in broad white light. His arm, muscled, pale, is stretched over the small gap between you, his hand on your hip. You sit up and rub the sleep from your eyes, rub your entire face clean with your palms. 

It takes you a few seconds to realise why you're awake, and when you do you can't ignore it. You look at Peter's hand in your lap and figure, what's the worst he can do? Say no? 

"Peter…" you trail off, feeling a little guilty for waking him in the middle of the night. Then you think about his hands on your legs and persevere. "Peter, wake up." You say it like a question, more of a suggestion than a command.

His eyes scrunch up as he comes to, lifting his head off of the pillow. "What? What's wrong?" His voice is thick with sleep. You push the fluffy hair from his eyes and give him what you hope is your softest smile. "Are you okay?" he asks, blinking as his bleary eyes open fully.

You don't mince words, worried you'll wussy out. "Can we have sex?" 

He looks like he might laugh, endeared at your request, and it takes him a little while to answer. "Like… now?" 

"Yeah." 

There's no way he could miss the amorous twist in your tone, and he doesn't. His eyes light up, his lips quirk. 

"If you want to. Please," you whisper. 

"So polite," he murmurs, turning from his side to lie flat on his back. He holds his arms open. "C'mere."

Your excitement surges up in a breathless giggle.You almost throw yourself onto his chest, needling your arms around the back of his neck. You hold your face an inch from his and you're gifted his own lovely laugh as you lean down. 

"You're so pretty," he tells you, cupping the side of your face in his big palm.

"I love you." It bursts out of you, accidental but completely true. 

He tilts in response, your kisses slow and sweet. His hands wrap around you, tighten. You feel the heat of a thousand suns in your tummy as they move down, smiling against his mouth.

"I love you too," he says, full of fondness, his hand closing around the back of your thigh. He hikes your leg up, pulling your knee forward. You drop your head into his neck as he touches you, his lips in your hair as he says playfully, "Let me show you how much, yeah?" 

Umm can we get a jj fic that's just making out while a movie plays in the background...? Like a makeout sesh not leading to anything...?

I love your writing and think you could make it so cute...😊😊

Author's Notes: It was hard for me to pick a movie, but I ended up picking one that I thought fit for JJ, and is a personal favourite (also shout out season 2 for the lil' homage) If this was your request I hope you love it. Please let me know what you think if you have a moment! Thank you xoxoxoxo

Warnings: Brief mentions of Maybank home life, Otherwise fluffy! Just kissing, and touching.

Requested? YES! Requests for OBX are OPEN!

*My work is not to be transferred, copied, translated or reposted to any other sites without my permission. Please see my masterlist for all other works and warnings. Thank you! xoxo

Slow. JJ Maybank could do slow. He could be the King of taking things slow. He could keep his hands to himself and keep his....in his pants for as long needed, if that's she wanted. He would be the most gentlemanly Pogue to ever walk the Outer Banks.

It was their Friday night routine. A movie at her house, too many snacks and then they crashed on the couch. Her parents were fine with him staying there, they knew it was the best place for him. And they trusted him, surprisingly. So they didn't care about having a giant, blonde boy sprawled out on their couch from Friday to Sunday.

Her dad always greeted him with a smile, and a pat on his shoulder when he let him in the front door. Always asked him how he was as he let him inside, telling him to kick off his shoes and make himself at home. It was always foreign to JJ, but he did it anyways.

That Friday, though, they were alone. Her dad didn't open the front door to let him inside, or tell him to kick off his muddy boots. It was his girl who opened the door for him.

"Hey, gorgeous." JJ smiled as he leaned against the doorjamb with his backpack slung over one shoulder.

"Hi, baby." She beamed up at him before she stood on her toes and tossed her arms around his shoulders for a tight hug. He pressed a kiss to the side of her face and then followed her inside the house, kicking of his shoes as she looked back at him expectantly. He didn't think he would ever get used to that.

"So, what movie did you bring me tonight?" She smiled at him as she flopped on the couch, her knees hung over the arm.

"Thought it was your choice this time." JJ replied as he grabbed her feet, pulled off her fuzzy slippers and wiggled the tips of his fingers against the arch of her left foot to make her squeal.

"You don't pay attention to the movies I pick." She giggled with a kick of her foot away from his tickling fingers.

"I will this time, promise. Pay attention to whatever rom-com trash you pick." JJ scoffed as tossed his backpack down beside the couch, then placed his hands on the arm of the plush piece of furniture and leaned over her legs.

"Well, you're in luck. Because I didn't want to watch a romantic comedy tonight." She smiled as she opened her arms, reaching up to him and inviting him to lay in her arms.

"No? What were you thinking?" JJ responded as he accepted her invitation and laid his body on top of hers, spreading his weight on his hands so he didn't crush her.

"Maybe a scary movie? I know you like those." She grunted as his chest dropped against hers, her hands resting on his shoulders.

"Well, you're in luck. I brought one just in case you picked something lame." JJ grinned as he leaned down and pressed a kiss to her nose.

"I don't have a VHS player, JJ." She teased as she reached for the soft wisps of blonde hair beneath his solid blue hat.

"Shut up. I didn't bring a VHS." JJ scoffed, a blush creeping up his neck and colouring his cheeks. He pushed himself up from the couch, reaching down to his bag and pulling out an old DVD from the island video rental store he never returned. If that place was still around he would probably owe more than the HMS Pogue was worth in rental fees.

He popped the disc in the player, then turned on the television, making sure his frame blocked her eyes from seeing what the was putting on. He always liked it to be a surprised. Her exaggerated whines were his favourite. The way she'd toss her body into his when he put on something from the 80's that she swore she didn't like, but would watch in a trance the whole time. He knew her better than she thought he did.

A smile crossed his face as he pressed play then slowly backed up towards the couch to take up his usual spot beside her. He rested his arm over the back of the couch and let her cuddle up close into the side of his body, her knees against her chest.

"I knew you'd pick this one! It was only a matter of time!" She giggled as she grabbed the collar of his shirt then turned her body so she straddled his lap.

"Goonies are like Pogues. We never say die." JJ shrugged with a lopsided grin as he placed his hands on her hips. He thumbed at the belt loops of her shorts and let her toy with the ends of his hair.

JJ's girl only smiled as she twisted her fingers into his hair as it poked out of the bottom of his hat, leaning her body into his as the movie started in the background. He wanted to make a smart remark about how he had been trying to get her to watch this movie for months, and she was distracting him.

But he really didn't mind the distraction. He had seen the movie probably a good two dozen times. Maybe more.

JJ placed his hands on her backside and tugged her closer against him, the heat from her body engulfing him. He pressed a kiss to her cheek as he slid his hands in to the back pockets of her shorts, letting her play with his hair.

"You smell really good." JJ mumbled against her cheek, then began to press kiss after kiss along her jawline down her neck.

"Thanks, baby. You smell good, too." She replied with a smile, her hands resting on his shoulders as he pressed a prolonged kiss to the side of her neck.

"No. I don't. Been helping my cousin work on his car all day. I smell like oil, and grease." JJ laughed as he pulled his head back and looked at her face.

"What's wrong with Ricky's car now?" She questioned as she traced over his strong shoulders, her eyes on her fingers.

"I think a list of things that are right with Ricky's car would be easier to answer." JJ scoffed as he pulled his right hand out of her back pocket and placed it on her thigh, his calloused fingertips tracing his own patterns on her soft skin.

"You're a good cousin, JJ." She stated softly before she leaned forward and pressed her lips to his.

JJ released a slow exhale through his nostrils as he reached his right hand up to place it on her cheek. A low groan rumbled in his chest as she shifted in his lap, her arms wrapping around his neck to pull herself close him. She was so warm in his arms, and she smelled so good - like the flowers outside of that library he used to visit as a kid. Fresh, but a little sweet.

"Take this off. I love your hair." She whispered as she pulled of his hat, placing it on the back of the couch then pushed her fingers up the back of his head and into his hair.

JJ smiled then leaned forward to kiss her again, not ready to let her go. He sealed his lips to hers in a firm kiss as his hand wrapped around the back of her neck, his own fingers twisted in her hair. He couldn't remember the last time he had spent so much time with a girl just touching her, kissing her, or learning who she was.

"JJ." She mumbled into their kiss, her eyes closed as his fingertips circled the back of her neck.

"Yeah?"

"My parents won't be home next weekend." She whispered as she dropped her forehead to his and smoothed her hands over his biceps, his skin warm and still a little sweaty from a day outside working on the car.

JJ leaned his head back on the couch and raised his eyebrows at his girlfriend. He had been with enough girls to know what that statement meant. Or what she was asking him, without really asking him. JJ placed both hands on her backside as he mulled over her statement for a moment.

"Where are they going? JJ questioned as his hands traveled from her backside to the sides of her thighs, her skin so soft and warm beneath his palms.

"A vow renewal on the main-land for some of their friends from college. I thought, if you wanted, you could spend the night." She didn't look at him as she answered, rather pulled her index finger through the collar of his T-shirt.

"Of course I want to. I always want to. But, you know that we don't have to, y'know, do anything. I'll spend the night next weekend just the two of us. But there's no like, expectation. We can just hang out and watch movies. Or I can build you a fire in that nice pit outside your dad never uses. Whatever you want." JJ replied, and he meant every single word. He could, and he would, wait for her.

"And if I happened to be naked?" She questioned as she thumbed at a piece of lint on his shirt, her eyes on his chest.

"Then I guess I'll be naked, too." JJ grinned before he pressed his lips to her cheek.

She held his face in her hands, her fingertips on his jawline, and turned her face to press her lips to his. JJ released a breath he didn't realize he had been holding in his chest and wrapped his arms around her middle again, keeping her flush against him. He licked at her bottom lip, the corners of his mouth turning up into a small smile as she whined a little and let his tongue slip inside her mouth. She reached to the back of his head, tugging on his soft, messy blonde hair as he dragged the tip of his tongue along the roof of her mouth. JJ breathing out a laugh as she rocked her hips on top of him.

"You make it hard to take things slow sometimes, pretty baby." JJ muttered as he removed his tongue from her mouth and tucked her hair behind her ear.

"M'sorry." She whispered as she twirled a strand of his hair around her index finger, her forehead against his.

"Don't be. You're worth the wait, and I kinda like just kissing you." JJ breathed as he placed a hand on the back of her neck once more to bring her lips to his.

In the back of his mind, JJ made peace with the fact that he wasn't going to get to show his girl one of his favourite movies that night. He figured there would probably be ample opportunity to show it to her again, and if she found herself in his lap again the next time The Goonies were on a treasure hunt...

Well, he wouldn't exactly mind then either. Whatever got her close to him.

Hotties:

@rafecameronspolo @barrysjumpsuit @barrysmanbun @vintageobx @fashion-fasting @drewstarkeysbitchh @babeyglo @pogueslandia @rottenstyx @whcclxr @soph0864 @beauvibaby @plutooryectors @futuremrsstarkey @multifandom-obsessed @siriusstwelveyears @drewstarkeysbitchh @mackenzielovee @glodessa

*tag list is open, please let me know if I forgot you or you would like to be added/removed from particular posts. I've removed the people that don't pre-populate :(

Please let me know what you think if you have a moment! Thank you so much xoxo

Requests for OBX ARE OPEN!

imagine luke and hades!reader who has a hellhound as a protector bc she’s a big 3 kid. this hellhound is very protective so this got me thinking. imagine the r is going at it with luke, and luke makes her moan and barely a second later, this hellhound is clawing at the door and barking bc it thinks r is hurt, when really it’s the opposite.

idk just a thought i had :)

want to make it known that @gh0stsp1d3r has written a hades!reader w a hellhound concept as well

your moan is still echoing around the empty barn whenever you hear the first scratch. at first, you attribute it to nothing, choosing to focus on the long and steady strokes luke is pushing up into your gut.

but when you groan at the feeling of luke pushing down on your lower abdomen, making you feel the outline of him within you, you hear the scratching again, this time paired with a whimper you recognize well.

"wait, luke." he's quick to stop, curls flopping as he looks up at you with his eyebrows pinched together.

"what?"

with the wet sounds of your cunt and the shared groans between you and luke eliminated, you can hear the sound of an upset dog on the other side of the bolted barn doors.

you don't have to be looking at luke to know he's frowning whenever you start to push him away. he doesn't go far, though, only unsheathing himself just to the tip.

"drac?" your voice elicits another whimper from the dog on the other side of the door.

you turn back to luke with a pout on your lips. "luke, he's sad. he wants to come in."

luke, clearly not as fond of your hellhound as you are, scoffs and pushes you to lay back down.

"so he can try to bite me as soon as i touch you?"

you hit his shoulder halfheartedly. you intended for there to be more power behind the jab, but it's then that luke sinks back into you and your limbs have a tendency to turn to mush whenever your boyfriend fucks you.

"that was ..." it takes you a moment and loads of determination to finish your sentence. "that was one time."

"one time too many." luke dips his head to suck on the spot that always clears your mind. psychological warfare that works up until dracula barks.

you're whining when you tell luke that you should at least go check up on him. eventually, he sighs, lets up on your skin, and faces you with his lips turned down and his eyes a little emotionless.

"lemme at least make you cum and then we can all go play a nice game of fetch. okay?"

you're quick to agree, laying back complaisantly and holding up your half of the deal so luke can do the same.

come into my bedroom

description. you and JOAQUÍN TORRES take a week long vacation to the beach together. just a week on the coast, spending time in each other's bubble, without falling for each other ... probably. visuals

includes. coworkers to friends to lovers, SMUT 18+ MDNI, reader has been kept as ambiguous as possible (hair type, skin color, body type, place of birth, etc), reader is able to tan, the location is ambiguous, slight spoilers for brave new world, takes place after bnw, protected p n v sex, oral (f receiving), soft dom! joaquín, reader is called "baby" a couple of times

wc. 12.3k+

a/n: title from champagne coast by blood orange. i tried to keep where they vacationed as ambiguous as possible, but it's definitely at least a little bit obvious. for my bsf who recently got back from miami. thanks to @luckypunklemonade for beta reading :D

You’re drunk. 

No, you’re not drunk. You’re too drunk, inching towards shitfaced. You’re still here, at least here enough to walk beside Joaquín down the street towards your hotel, but you’re not really here. You know you’re not exactly walking in a straight line, and you know where you’re heading, but you don’t know how long you’ve been walking. You could’ve left the club five minutes or 50 minutes ago. 

You weren’t going to get this drunk. Honest. You and Joaquín were just going to go out, have a few drinks, and go back to your separate rooms. 

But the music was good, and the drinks were good, and the people were good, and suddenly you and Joaquín are drunk and navigating your way down the street. Well, he’s navigating your way. You’re just trying to keep up with his long strides. 

He walks a little in front of you the entire time, slightly more rigid, and a little less drunk than you are. You’ll probably be at his level in another half hour, that is if you get something in your stomach by then. Every so often, he looks over his shoulder to make sure you’re still there. You thought about hooking a hand around his elbow to keep him close, but the thought entered your mind and left before you could act on it. 

There’s not much small talk happening, but you don’t mind it that way. You’re focused on making your feet pick up and land one (mostly) in front of the other. Actually, you’re focused on walking and finding an open food spot on the way. 

One part is going fine, the walking part, but you’re still blearily searching for something to eat. You pass bars and closed businesses, restaurants that require reservations weeks in advance, one of them you think you and Joaquín actually have a table at later this week, but nothing quick and greasy. Which is exactly what you need before calling it a night. 

Joaquín calls your name and you hum. 

“You up for stopping in right here?” He points to the side and you look around his wide shoulders to find your saving grace. It’s like he read your mind, or maybe you’d been audible harping on about wanting something to eat the entire time. Right now, either seems plausible. 

Either way, you nod and let Joaquín hold the door open for you. 

You and Joaquín end up sitting across from each other at a tiny outdoor metal table. With the wind blowing against your skin as you’re sipping freezing cold water from a to-go cup, you finally realize how hot you’ve been this entire time. You lift your skirt up a bit to press your thigh against the cool metal and a sigh pushes out front your lips. Your eyes fall shut as you just sit in the moment. 

“You still drunk?” Joaquín speaks from across the table. 

You open your eyes and destroy your brief peace to glare at him as you wrap your lips around your straw. “What do you think?” you ask him only when the cool liquid has slid down your throat. 

He laughs. “First night here and you’ve already gotten shitfaced.” He shakes his head as if he’s ashamed of you, but the playful glint in his eyes keeps you at ease. 

“It’s your fault!” you accuse. “You’re the one who made friends with that couple. They kept buying us drinks.” 

Joaquín throws his hands out to the side in a surrender. “I’m not going to say no to free drinks. Don’t blame me!”

He’s right. Even if he wasn’t, you aren’t in the arguing mood anymore. You would rather finish the greasy taco sitting limp in your hands. And you do.  

You’re not being very attractive about it, though, you can tell from the way the juice slides down your fingers and around your mouth, but that’s not really the point to all of this. 

Besides, you and Joaquín are just coworkers and friends. Just two coworkers/friends on vacation together. Sitting across from each other in front of a taco spot, fighting for sobriety as you occasionally lock eyes between large bites. There’s no reason for you to be attractively drunk eating when you’re only with your coworker/friend. 

You finish the last bite, wipe around your mouth with a crumpled napkin and throw it onto your empty tray, looking up to find Joaquín already looking at you. He has this look on his face, nothing different from the one he usually wears—soft eyes and a softer smile—but it feels different this time. Maybe it’s the city lighting and your drunkenness that’s skewing the meaning. You’re going to blame both factors for the flutter in your heart, too.

Neither of you say anything for a moment and in that moment, a thought flashes across your mind. It’s quick and fleeting, but still strong enough to evoke a reaction. Just a thought of you leaning over this small table and pressing your lips to Joaquín’s. And the thought was truly fleeting, but you bring it back and sit in it to imagine how he would reciprocate with his hands on your lower back, big palms resting on the strip of skin between your top and skirt, and he would taste like lime and alcohol and when you pulled away he would have a look almost identical to this one on his face. 

Joaquín’s eyebrows push together, skewing the soft look he wore before and knocking you out of your drunken trance. 

“What’s that look?” he asks. 

You shrug, feigning nonchalance. “What look?”

His gaze lingers for a moment, but then he licks his lips and cleans up his area. “You think you’re sober enough to walk back now?” 

You scoff and attempt to make a point by quickly standing to your feet. When you wobble, it’s because your shoe didn’t land right on the concrete. Honest!

You have a crush on Joaquín. 

You don’t know why you’re realizing it here and now—laying in a hotel bed on vacation first thing in the morning. You don’t even know how long this crush has been here, but you know for sure you have a crush on Joaquín Torres, your partner/coworker/friend. 

You thought your little image from last night was fleeting, nothing but a drunken thought that you let yourself imagine for less than a minute, but it proved to be way more than that because when you got back to your room, you couldn’t stop thinking about him. 

As you took your makeup off, you thought about Joaquín waiting in your room for you to finish, snuggled under the blankets and scrolling through the channels on the TV until you came out of the bathroom in his shirt. As you climbed in the shower you imagined him standing at the sink brushing his teeth and humming that song he’s always singing but you never ask the name of. As you finally climbed into bed and clicked the lights off, you imagined fighting for covers with him and sleepily talking about your plans for the next day. 

It was so domestic and loving and absolutely sickening and unexpected. 

Well, maybe you should have expected it. At least a little. 

Joaquín is kind of the perfect guy. Everyone in your life made sure you were aware of it. He was funny, attractive, hard working, and easy to get along with. Even his flaws—his incessant nature and occasional annoyance for one—was quickly reworked as lovable in your head. 

You struggled with falling asleep for at least a half hour last night, and as soon as you knocked out, you were out. You might not have remembered your dreams but you knew deep in your mind and body that he was there. 

Just as he is here now, standing in front of you early  in the morning, wearing a bright smile and an athletic set. 

“No,” you sternly shut him down before he can even say anything. 

Joaquín’s jaw drops and he wears a mixture of shock and humor. “C’mon, you didn’t even let me say anything.”

“I know what you’re gonna say, Torres. I’m not going to some ‘sick workout class’ when we’re supposed to be on vacation.” 

“Oh, so we’re on last name basis again?” He crosses his arms over his chests and widens his stance. “I thought we moved past that.” 

“If you ask me to come with you then we’re back to last name basis, yeah.” 

He pouts and it’s so stupidly cute that you want to slam the door in his face. “Don’t let the hangover speak for you. I know you secretly wanna come workout with me.” 

You squint at him accusingly, leaning into the doorframe. “‘m not hungover.” 

“Uh-huh. How’s the headache?” He’s obviously not buying your shit.

“I don’t have a headache.” Bullshit and you both know it. 

“How’d you sleep?” He asks you instead, this time lacking any suspense. For a moment, he seems like he’s actually wondering how you slept. 

“Like a baby.”

“Then that means you should be energized enough to go for a workout. It won’t be bad. It’s only an hour.” 

You shake your head. “That’s an hour that I could be sleeping.” 

“And basically waste the whole day away? That doesn’t sound like the partner I know and love.”

You don’t let your mind linger on that word, especially when you know he doesn’t mean it like that. But still, knowing that Joaquín has some sort of love for you makes your chest feel all airy and glittery. 

“Yeah because that partner isn’t here right now. We’re on vacation.” 

Joaquín doesn’t respond. Not verbally at least. Instead, he tilts his head and fully pouts, lips pushed out and eyes big. He’s not backing down and truthfully, it might be better for you just to say yes and halfass the entire session. 

Finally, he reasons with you. “I’ll buy you a smoothie afterwards. Whatever overpriced shit you want. Fair?” 

Fair enough. 

Compared to what you’re used to, the workout is quick, but it’s certainly not painless. The instructor, some woman with much more energy than you’re willing to exert on vacation, seemed to find pleasure in kicking your asses. For a brief moment there when you were catching your breath and wiping your forehead on a towel, you wondered if she could be some big and bad super villain hiding in plain sight. That would explain the inhuman stamina, and the almost eerie cheery personality, but other than that your theory didn’t make much sense. And even if it did, you were on vacation. Now wasn’t the time to seek out trouble that wasn’t presenting itself. 

The only thing that pushed you through the entire thing was looking over at Joaquín, one because of how attractive he looked with sweat glistening along his tanned skin, and two because you refused to let him show you up, even if the workout was his idea. 

You will admit, though, that every time he lifted his shirt to wipe his forehead, your knees did feel just a little weaker and your last rep in a set was not nearly as strong as it could’ve been when you heard him grunting beside you. 

You couldn’t understand it. You and Joaquín workout together all the time. You train together, sometimes with Isaiah and Sam, sometimes with friends of friends, sometimes with just each other. You’re used to seeing him sweat, you’re used to hearing his grunts and breaths, you’re used to all of it. But something about all of this happening now is making you lose your mind. 

As soon as the class ended, relief entered your entire body. 

The relief certainly didn’t last for long, though. 

Since you did what Joaquín wanted to do that morning, he did what you wanted to do right after. Before you could even really think about it, you happily suggested sunbathing on the beach until you were too hot or hungry to continue, whichever came first. 

It wasn’t until Joaquín slyly grinned and sang your name that you realized what you signed up for. 

“You tryna see me shirtless?” he teased at the time. And you rolled your eyes and called him a freak and continued walking down the hall towards your rooms, but as soon as you were behind the closed door you were digging into your suitcase to find the cutest swimsuit you brought. 

Not that you were trying to impress Joaquín or anything. 

As soon as your bare toes are sinking into warm sand, you slowly feel yourself relax. Slowly. 

Laying on your back in a swimsuit that was a nice mix between cute and attractive, your eyes closed, your ears full of a playlist you made just for this occasion, the sun radiating down on your skin. It’s easy to forget everything laying just like that. The breeze cools your skin as soon as you get too warm, the sun heats you back up as soon as you get too cold. Absolutely nothing to worry about except how long you’ve been laying on one side and when you should flip over. 

Absolutely no stressors. 

Until Joaquín speaks. 

“Do me a favor and get my back?” 

You peek an eye open and lift your sunglasses up to see Joaquín standing next to you, holding out a bottle of sunscreen. 

You don’t mean to hesitate, but you still do. It takes a moment to process his question, and it takes another moment to find an answer, even though the clear one is yes. If he wasn’t standing there without a shirt, wearing forest green trunks that hung low on his hips, and his skin wasn’t glistening in the daylight, it wouldn’t have taken nearly half the time to help him out. 

“What would you do without me?” You try not to let your voice falter while you watch him massage sunscreen onto his chest, but you’re sure the little dip at the end of your sentence was noticeable. 

Joaquín just tilts his head and tosses the bottle into your lap.  

It’s not awkward. At least you don’t think it’s awkward. You rub the sunscreen on Joaquín’s skin as quickly as possible, trying to ignore the sturdiness of his muscles beneath your hand. You know how fit he is, it’s impossible for you not to know since you’ve been working with him for a while now. But knowing and knowing are two different things. 

Seeing is not the same as feeling. 

Feeling his muscles as you work them beneath your fingers, feeling the warmth of his skin under your fingertips, grazing your hand lightly over the scars littering his skin, only lingering for a second on the life altering scar that trails down from the side of his neck to his shoulder. You try not to touch it too much. He hasn’t talked to you much about the accident, not since you visited the hospital with high quality food instead of flowers for him. Even then, he joked around it, even if you saw sorrow in his eyes like you’d never seen Joaquín wear before. 

You rubbed the sunscreen down his back and finished above the waistband of his trunks. Not even a second later did he look over his shoulder and down at you through a squint. “Now let me do you,” he urged without leaving much room for argument. 

Doesn’t mean you wouldn’t make room. 

You shook your head. “‘m okay, I already got it.” 

Joaquín turns around to face you completely. He laughs through a quick puff of air, his lips pulled up at the corners. “Barely. I saw you struggling over there. C’mon, let me top it off for you.” 

His hands take the sunscreen bottle from you, but he doesn’t put any in his palm. Not yet. For now, he stares at you, eyebrows lifted, waiting for you to give him the final answer. 

You turn around, moving whatever needs to be moved to give him basically full reign over your back. 

The first touch makes you jump, even if you were expecting it. You hear him quietly apologize under his breath, and you quietly brush it off, but you aren’t sure if your response was heard or if it was carried off with the wind. 

He continues in silence. 

You’ve had Joaquín’s hands on you before. A hand clasped in yours to pull you up, a touch fixing your posture when he was showing you a new trick Isaiah taught him before, a finger jabbed into your side when he walked past you. But again, this is much different. 

Having Joaquín’s bare hands on your bare back makes you tense up, and you hope he doesn’t notice it. He rubs with a lot more attention to detail than you did; he reaches beneath the straps of your top with curt permission, and even asks if he can get the backs of your arms too. 

By the time he finishes, you’ve started to relax just a bit, to the point where the expected disappearance of his hand on your back feels unwanted. Joaquín’s hands are big and soothing, you could do with them on your skin for the rest of your life. 

Of course, you don’t tell him that. Not just because it would be completely inappropriate, but because he would never let you live it down. He would go the lengths to change his phone contact to Joaquín “best hands there ever were” Torres. 

Which is just a step below Joaquín “best co-worker there ever was” Torres. 

Somehow, you manage to make it through the rest of the beach day without much trouble. You tan until you don’t think you could tan anymore. Joaquín lays next to you most of the time, besides when he began to feel fidgety and he ran to grab both of you drinks, and pre-cut fruit for you, as an excuse to stretch his legs. You used the few minutes of solitude to text your group chat about the agony you accidentally put yourself into. Agony that was only made worse by Joaquín coming back with two drinks in one hand, fruit still in its rind in the other, and his newly tanned skin glistening from sweat in the sunlight. 

Shortly after, you had to leave and take a cold shower to get your head on straight. 

You think you’re doing pretty good at ignoring your feelings. You know you have a crush on him, but acting on it would change nearly too much, and a lot in your lives—his especially—has already changed. It’s not a leap you think you’re ready to make yet, so you’ve been ignoring your feelings. 

Over the course of the past couple of days, you and Joaquín have been spending your time doing every relaxing thing you could think of. Decompressing at that same club from the first night, but leaving as soon as the crowd proved to be very different from before—more rowdy for the hell of it and less generous in general. Eating at trendy, overrated lunch spots, or underrated hole-in-the-wall dinner spots. Spending a little too much money on new clothes but enabling each other anyway, because the shirt might look similar to another one that you already have but that shirt back home wasn’t that shirt there in your hands, so you needed it. 

There were just two nights left and then you would have to pack all your stuff, somehow fit in more new clothes than you anticipated, and return to the real world. One that entailed mission debriefs and learning how to work new tech. The only thing you were looking forward to about the real world was Sam, since he happened to be a natural barrier between you and Joaquín. It’ll be hard to focus on how badly you wanted to be underneath the Falcon whenever Captain America was in the vicinity providing tasks that required your full attention. 

But that is days away. For now, you’re going to try and enjoy the remainder of your all too quick vacation as much as possible. Even though you’re becoming more and more tense as you go on, a tension that your fingers beneath your panties hasn’t been able to fix yet. 

You didn’t think your behavior was noticeable, but Joaquín notices more than you thought. 

The two of you are walking side by side down the boardwalk. You’ve been fairly silent throughout, but not for any particular reason. Silence made sense to you, there wasn’t much to talk about right now. 

Apparently, Joaquín felt different. 

“What’s up with you?”

You furrow your eyebrows, quickly trying to figure out if you did something wrong between the walk from your hotel to the walk at the start of the boardwalk. Coming up short, you ask for clarification. “What do you mean?” 

“I mean why’re you so tense? Isn’t this relaxing for you?”

Yeah, this is relaxing for you. Walking side by side, letting the beach breeze blow your dress in the wind. Showered, fed, at the end of your vacation, this moment you exist in is like heaven. It’s a little too much like heaven, a perfect plane where the guy you’ve been crushing on is wearing a button up with the first two buttons undone so you can see the fresh tan he has and the gold glint of the chain he wears instead of his dog tags. 

It’s hard to relax when right beside you is someone you’ve wanted so badly, and he looks like everything you’ve ever wanted. 

“I’m not tense,” you finally respond. Although it’s a lie. 

“You so are,” Joaquín counters, “let me show you what you look like walking around here.” He takes a few quick strides ahead of you, and then pulls his shoulders up to his ears, straightens his spine, and walks with a little too much purpose. He looks odd and menacing. And definitely not like you. 

You tell him as such. 

He turns around to face you, grinning and walking backwards. “Okay I did take some creative liberties there, but you do look tense.” He turns back around and slows until he returns to a stride right beside you again. “What’s wrong? Do you wanna do something else?”

You shake your head. “No. This is fine. I like doing this.” 

Joaquín takes a moment and you see him look down at you from the corner of your eye. “Then what’s up? Anything you wanna get off your chest?” 

God, you should just tell him the truth. Well, not the full truth. 

Joaquín is chill personified. If you told him that you’re wound up sexually, he would likely make a joke about it, then brush it off and avoid asking you about it again. Friend to friend, you could just let off some steam—verbally!, although the other option is much more preferable—and then hopefully feel better. 

But just imagining yourself saying those words makes you tense even more and you have nothing to do but shake the thought out of your mind completely. 

“No. ‘m okay. I was just … thinking. But not anymore.”

He doesn’t say anything for a second and you don’t know if he believes your lie. But he moves past it. He points to an ice cream shop to your right, and you swerve for the window. 

You and Joaquín end up sitting side by side on the beach, willingly letting sand press into your nice clothes but neither of you care much. You have a dinner reservation soon, and you’ve just been killing time—and also your appetite, but you and Joaquín both swore to eat dinner. Even if you’re devouring ice cream cones. Truthfully, this is a perfect way to end your night, sitting by your partner's side, letting the world exist around you both. 

The breeze blows against your skin. You and Joaquín sit with your bare toes digging into the sand, shoes having been discarded to the side, your shoulders close enough to brush against the other if either of you move. You’re looking off at the ocean, watching people enjoy the evening air around you both as you sit in a moment of stillness. There’s paragliders, a few jet skis, some boats, and a large cruise ship sailing into the port. 

Joaquín points off at the ship with the hand not holding his waffle cone.

“We should cruise for our next vacation.”

You turn to face him, tilting your head to the side. “Our next vacation?”

Joaquín nods. “Yeah. We should make this a regular thing. You know we work well together.” 

That you do. You grin and knock your shoulder into his.  “Let’s hope Sam doesn’t start feeling left out.”

Joaquín laughs with a quick exhale through his nose. “He’s definitely having the time of his life back home.” 

You’re unable to stop yourself from grinning as you imagine it—Sam working back home, likely enjoying the rare lull in the terror that the three of you have been fighting and will continue fighting. “He’s probably blasting Marvin Gaye over the speakers in the office.” 

This gets a real laugh from Joaquín, likely because he, too, can see it perfectly. 

Your laughter dies down and for a few moments, you and Joaquín sit in comfortable silence. 

Then, “You been having fun?” 

You hum. “Yeah. It’s nice not having to deal with—” you gesture vaguely in the air and Joaquín nods beside you. “Especially after everything.” You don’t say it exactly, but you know Joaquín still understands you. He knows you’re talking about his accident. 

You weren’t even the one in danger, having stayed grounded on the ship, but the horrors still settle deep in your heart some nights. Things are repaired, or currently being repaired in the case of D.C, but everything still feels so fragile to you sometimes. 

Which is why you’re so glad to be here with him at your side, reminding you that he’s okay. Everything’s okay. 

Joaquín takes a breath as if he’s about to speak. You turn to look at him. He’s staring off at the sunset, his face mostly stoic except for a slight twitch in his eyes, a flare of his nostrils, and his jaw clenching. “For a moment there when I was falling out of the sky, and when I could barely move my body on my own in the hospital I was worried that I wouldn’t get the chance to see places like this again. To … you know…” he hesitates and you’re about to tell him that he doesn’t have to keep going if he doesn’t want to. You and Joaquín have avoided talking about the day his heart stopped, and you don’t have to start now. But then he inhales through his teeth and continues. “To see home.” 

Your breath hitches and your eyes sting. Without thinking too much about it, you scoot closer into Joaquín’s side, tilting your head and resting it on his shoulder. Immediately upon contact, Joaquín wraps his arm around your waist, pulling you fully into his side. 

“I’m glad you’re here with me, Joaquín.” 

“I’m glad you’re here with me,” he says your name at the end, echoing you but somehow sounding more earnest. More meaningful. 

He places a kiss on the top of your head and in that moment you decide you could stay here just like this for the rest of your life. It all settles in your body at one time, the realization that you want Joaquín, you’ve known that for a while, but you want more than his body. 

You want Joaquín Torres in his entirety. 

“Is that what you’ve been thinking about?” he continues, “Is that why you’ve been tense? Because I promise I’m okay. It was scary for a bit but my heart’s fine and I feel fine physically—”

“No. It’s not that, Joaquín. I promise I was just a little tense but I’m good now, too.”

He nods once. “Okay.” He pulls his phone out and checks the time. He doesn’t say anything for a while as if he doesn’t want to disrupt the energy, but he speaks eventually. “If we wanna make our reservation we gotta leave now.” 

He stands to his feet and puts a hand out for you to grab. You take a moment to look at the sun setting and to finish the rest of your ice cream in one bite, then you take another moment to look at him. With resolution, you place your hand in Joaquín’s and let him pull you to your feet. 

Yeah, ignoring your feelings isn’t working anymore. 

It’s not like you’re exactly able to ignore how bad you want Joaquín when you’re at dinner with him, sitting in such an intimate setting—sat at a small table tucked in the corner of the restaurant next to a window looking out on the street, his tan skin lit by candlelight and ambient low lighting around the both of you. 

Having just come from the beach, the two of you are still wearing the same outfits (now without as many grains of sand as possible), meaning you have an even better view of Joaquín’s chest and the chain sitting right below his collarbones. He looks so nice and put together—his curls out more than you’ve ever seen them before, his face a little unshaven and adding an older look to him. 

God, he’s so pretty, it’s impossible for you not to think so. Not when you’re faced with him like this. 

Joaquín’s looking at the menu, acting like he didn’t look at it on his phone two hours ago. You’re holding the menu open, acting like you’re still deciding between two options, when really you’re just trying to decide if you should make a move or not. 

When Joaquín looks up, you quickly look down, furrowing your eyebrows and pouting as you stare at words that aren’t processing.  

Joaquín calls your name and you hum without lifting your eyes. When he doesn’t say anything immediately, you glance up. Not only is he already looking at you, but he’s looking at you with a certain look in his eyes. Infatuation, admiration, something else that you don’t wanna name, for it feels like too much of a jump.

“What?” you ask, a shy grin splitting your face open as your skin starts to warm. 

Joaquín shrugs like he’s going to say the most casual thing ever. Instead, he tells you, “Nothing. I just wanted to tell you how pretty you look.”

Oh my godddd. 

What are you supposed to say to that? Everything thus far on this vacation has been widely platonic, and anything crossing that barrier has been nothing but a hopeful figment of your imagination. But his words, paired with the way they were delivered, feels like a step towards a future you want to live in. 

But maybe you’re overthinking it. Joaquín is honest and earnest when he wants to be and maybe now is one of those moments. 

You wrap your hand around your glass of ice water and bring it to your lips, pausing just long enough to respond. “What is it? The tan?”

Joaquín nods but that look in his eyes is still there. Chocolate brown dances across your figure before settling back on your own eyes. “Yeah … among other things. The tan and the color of your dress,” a bright colored fabric that hung loosely over your body and dipped around your back, you chose it especially because you knew it would look good on your skin, “and just you.” 

You gulp down water, trying to contain yourself. 

“Thanks, Joaquín,” you finally respond, trying to remain as casual as possible. “You look good, too.” 

Joaquín grins and you can see the man you’re used to coming back to himself. He tugs at the collar of his shirt and dusts off invisible particles. “I clean up well don’t I?”

You halfheartedly roll your eyes and return back to the menu. That interaction has already been catalogued for you to hyper analyze in the shower later. 

You thought that interaction was mind boggling, but the one you find yourself in later is ten times worse. 

You’ve both steadily worked through your plates, giggling and laughing about any and everything you could think of. The waiter mentioned the option of drinks at one point, and you looked to Joaquín for his reaction, wanting to see if that’s how the night was going to go. Not exactly as drunk as you were the first night, but at least a little buzz. When Joaquín politely shook his head, you did the same, and continued to sip your water instead. 

You do, however, decide to split two desserts. 

“Can I say something?” Joaquín speaks whenever he scrapes his fork across the decadent chocolate dessert sitting in the center of the table. 

You hum, grabbing a forkful of the fresher, citrus dessert instead. “Depends. How stupid is it gonna be?”

“Um … let me say it and then we can decide.”

You sit back in your seat, thereby giving him the floor. 

He takes his time chewing and swallowing before he goes to respond. “I’m shocked that we’ve been together every day and night of this trip.”

Your eyebrows furrow. “What d’you mean?”

“Like we haven’t … been with other people.”

His words shock you. “Is that what you think of me, Joaquín?” 

You don’t feel upset, or particularly offended. You’re just a little confused on why Joaquín has been thinking about your sex life while the two of you have been on vacation together. Sure, you’ve been thinking of the same thing, but his sex life hasn’t exactly crossed your mind. Besides whenever you pictured the two of your sex lives merging into one. 

But now that he’s presented the idea, you, too, are shocked that things have been contained to just the two of you this entire week. It’s not that you expected Joaquín to sleep around, you actually didn’t know what to expect when it came to his dating life. You did know that Joaquín was attractive and people other than yourself thought so, and he obviously knew it as well, but it’s unexpected that you didn’t see him intentionally ogling at least one other person on your nights out. 

You don’t know why he would think the same of you, though. 

“No!” he’s quick to defend himself, “But I wouldn’t judge you if that’s how you wanted to spend your vacation. I mean I wouldn’t blame you.”

“You’re digging yourself further and further into a hole, Torres.” 

He laughs. “Yeah, I can tell.”

A moment goes by and you sip your water. The air here feels open, but certainly not casual. You feel like you can tell the truth in this intimate atmosphere, and your words would hold intentional weight. 

You take the jump. “I didn’t wanna be with anyone else. I liked being with you.”

Joaquín looks surprised. “Really? So you preferred beach trips and coffee shops and working out over a hot hookup?”

You shrug. “I haven’t been interested in hooking up with anyone else.” 

His eyebrows lift in the center. “Anyone else?”

Fuck. 

It seems you have joined Joaquín in that hole, but you don’t mind being here. It’s about time you did something, right? You don’t bother responding, at least not verbally. Instead, you just look at Joaquín over the rim of your glass, sincerely hoping that he’s starting to understand. 

Before any more progress can be made the waiter comes back with the check and you’re already reaching into your bag for your wallet, verbally chastising Joaquín before he can even reach for the bill. 

Quiet returns to you both during the walk back to your hotel. It feels natural this time, likely because you’re not speaking, but it isn’t silent. Cars against asphalt as they drive down the street beside you, music spilling out of establishments that line the way, the automated voice of the pedestrian crossing pole when Joaquín presses the button for the both of you. There’s not anything being said, but there doesn’t need to be; much is being communicated through the energy radiating off of your body. 

Walking closer to each other than you had ever before, elbows grazing, a lightness to your bodies even if you both indulged a little too much over dinner. Everything just feels so right, even if there’s still an emptiness inside of you. Even if you leave this trip without getting laid, you’ll still feel fulfilled because you and your partner are closer than you’ve ever been before. Though, after existing in this bubble with only him, it’s going to be hard to return to your normal life and let other people in. 

A car honks and skirts to a stop. Before you can even realize what just happened, Joaquín’s already throwing an arm over the front of your torso, his face turned to the car that almost (wrongfully) hit the two of you. He yells something at them and blindly grabs your hand, pulling you in front of him and pushing you to the sidewalk and out of the street. 

He mutters something under his breath, but you don’t hear it. “You good?” he asks at full volume. He stands next to you but still holds onto your hand. 

“Yeah. We’ve been through worse than almost getting floored by a Benz, right?”

He laughs and continues leading the way back to the hotel. 

Your hand stays in his the entire time.

You and Joaquín make it all the way inside of the hotel with your hands still clasped together. They don’t part until an unattended child runs between your bodies, forcing you to separate. 

You end up standing in front of the elevator with the up button pushed. It dings every few seconds, an indicator of its steady descent, but it makes a few stops along the way. While you wait, you lean your shoulder into the wall next to it, crossing your arms over your chest and your legs at the ankle as you look at Joaquín standing across from you. 

He speaks first. “You wanna go out again tonight?  End the week with a bang?”

You shake your head. Your eyes are big, your lips are pulled into a soft smile, your entire expression is soft. Fuck hiding it, you’re done pretending. 

“Nah. I’d rather stay in tonight.”

Joaquín nods and tucks his hands in his front pockets. “Alright. Together or separate?”

“Together.”

His eyebrows lift as if he’s shocked, but there’s a little glint in his eyes. You think he’s starting to catch on. 

“Okay,” he drags the last syllable out and shifts his stance. He clears his throat before he speaks again. “What d’you wanna do?”

The elevator door opens and you and Joaquín stand out of the way to let people come out. As soon as everyone has cleared out, the two of you enter the elevator alone and you push the button to shut the door before anyone else can come around the corner. With the doors closing you turn to face Joaquín to see him already looking at you. 

You smile up at him and he smiles down at you. 

You take a step closer to him and he takes a step closer to you. 

You reach a hand out to his face, hesitating, and then he nods just before he reaches a hand out and places it on your waist. 

And then finally, your lips press against his. 

The first kiss is tentative. It’s testing. Your lips press together, you stay like that for a moment, and then you pull away. The two of you stare at each other, Joaquín’s expression as soft and docile as it always is. You think you’re mirroring him in this moment. 

Then, without any words exchanged, you both move towards each other again. Your heads are tilted and without much trouble at all, your faces slot together nearly perfectly. This kiss is more exploratory. It’s open mouthed, teetering towards a messiness that you’re sure you’ll both fully succumb to by the end of the night. At least, you hope so. 

You don’t have much time, you’ve realized that as soon as the elevator dings the first time to indicate its ascent, therefore you’re trying to get what you can while you can. You throw your arms over Joaquín’s shoulders and hook them around his neck, pulling him down towards you as you tilt yourself up into him. His body curves to engulf yours in his warmth, but he kisses you like he has all the time in the world. 

He kisses you like he means it, like there’s more than one mutually shared goal at the end of this motivating him. 

It’s hard not to give in to the slow and longing way Joaquín kisses you. You don’t even try resisting it at a certain point. Instead, you press your chest up into his and lean up on your toes to get more of him, yet not initiating a change in the pace at all. You like the slow way Joaquín’s lips move against yours. You feel much more this way. 

Your fingers lay across the back of his neck and just as they start to inch up into the faded part of his haircut, the elevator dings and announces your floor. 

You and Joaquín separate with clear hesitance in the movement. The two of you stare at each other, unmoving, just looking in each other’s eyes. His eyes look darker than you’ve ever seen them before. If you got closer, you think you would see his pupils blown out. From here, though, you see his desire in other ways—the flush on his cheeks, the prominence of his chest rising and falling, the hint of your lip products that have rubbed off on his lips. 

The elevator door starts to shut and Joaquín is forced into making the first move. He slots his arm between the doors just before they close and he stays there when they open. He turns to look at you, tilts his head in a beckon, and holds his hand out for you to grab.

The walk to your rooms feels much longer than it usually does. You try to make it go as fast as possible, skittering ahead of Joaquín as fast as your impractical sandals would allow, but you’re trying not to look too eager all the while. Still, when you reach the number you’ve memorized for the week and turn around to look at him, he has a slight smile of amusement on his face. 

You’re already searching into your bag for your key when you ask, “Yours or mine?”

Joaquín reaches around you for the handle to the door without speaking. You watch him press the key card to the sensor and push the door handle down just as you feel your fingers find the piece of plastic. 

“We gave each other one of each when we checked in, remember? Just in case.” comes his unprompted explanation. And now that you’ve been reminded, you do remember. Your key to Joaquín’s room has been sitting on the dresser forgotten the entire week. You know he wouldn’t have done it, not without your explicit consent, but you wish Joaquín had used the key to his advantage once this week. You wish he would have acted on the tension between you both, the tension that you’re finally realizing has been reciprocated this entire time. 

But now it’s happening. There’s no reason to complain when you’re getting what you wanted. 

His hands are on your hips as he leads you into the room, your bag is thrown to the floor and your shoes are kicked off of your feet. Your body is turned at his will, your eyes meet his as he lazily grins  down at you. His tongue flicks out over his lips in a quick and smooth movement, and at a much slower pace, you lean back in to press your lips back to his. 

Joaquín’s hands automatically latch onto your lower back, one warm palm pressed into the thin fabric of your dress and the other settling right on your bare skin in the opening. Meanwhile, you start working on his shirt, popping button after button through the holes. You stop when you’re halfway down, not on your own accord. 

You’re forced to stop when Joaquín slots his hands behind your thighs and he easily lifts you up. You squeal into the kiss on instinct. 

There’s a moment where both of you are grinning against each other’s lips and it just feels so right. It feels incredibly natural to be doing this, to be smiling when you’re kissing Joaquín, even though nearly everything else about this situation isn’t natural for the two of you (your erect nipples rubbing against his chest, your panties stuck to your cunt, the very faint brush of his cock stiff in his pants that you get on the journey up). 

“You’re just showing off,” you half-heartedly chide. 

Joaquín shrugs and walks you back to the bed. “Maybe just a little.” He places you down, kneeling between your legs and finishing off the remaining buttons on his shirt. “You love it, though.”

You don’t admit it verbally, but the way you shamelessly ogle his chest when he pulls the shirt off says everything. 

As soon as his shirt is gone, he places a hand on your ankle, slowly inching your dress up a few inches before he stops and looks at you. His expression is open, you can tell what he’s asking without words. But for good measure, he includes them. 

“Can I keep going?”

You nod, eager and unashamed. “Yeah. Keep going.”

He starts to push the bright fabric further and further up your legs, speaking to you as he continues. “You gotta let me know if …” his words taper off when he sees the first hint of your panties, and you don’t know exactly what he’s seeing, but it makes him speechless for a moment and your ego inflates. 

“I’ll let you know if …?” Cockiness is audible in your words but he doesn’t comment on it. 

Joaquín blinks and comes back to himself. “If you wanna stop, or if you want something changed. We gotta communicate.” 

“M’kay.” 

And with that, Joaquín pushes the fabric completely over your hips and he’s met with your panties. They’re a bright color that compliments the color of your dress, and, consequently, your tanned skin. He swears under his breath and although you don’t hear him clearly at all, you’re pretty sure it wasn’t in English. 

You sit up fully and slip your dress over your torso with Joaquín’s help. He lets the fabric drop to the floor without looking, his eyes are focused solely on your chest. 

You’re laying back on your elbows, elevated just enough to look at him. You stare at his eyes, even if you aren’t making eye contact, while he leans up to hover over you. His head dips and he presses a single kiss in the center of your chest and repeats the action right over each side of your ribcage. The tip of his nose grazes your breast and instinctively you arch up towards him. When he pulls away just enough to look up at you, you see him smiling.

You could beg, but the night has only begun. You decide to save that for later. For now, you huff and stick your spine back to the mattress. 

Joaquín places a hand around your side and dips his head back down, this time higher than before. When he latches his lips around your nipple, a little gasp breaks from between your lips. He lets his teeth scrape against the bud, alternating between giving you pressure and giving you wet heat from his tongue. By the time he switches to your other nipple, you’re already desperate for a true relief focused on your cunt. His lips travel upwards, brushing against your skin throughout the journey, until he’s pressing them into the side of your neck and under your jaw. You let him continue upwards, you let him kiss you a bit more, but you can only go so long without real, fruitful stimulation. And maybe another time after this (circumstances willing) you would love to prolong everything. 

But right now you need to get fucked, whatever that could entail. 

You buck your hips up and end up catching the bulge in Joaquín’s pants where his zipper lies. You think he’ll catch on that way, and maybe he does, but he just chooses to ignore it. Either way, you send him a hint and Joaquín doesn’t do anything about it. He continues kissing you, he tweaks your nipples and slots a knee between your legs, all of which you’re grateful for since it is a stepping stone in the right direction. But you need stimulation, you need to get off, and the slow crawl is slowly driving you crazy. 

You pull away from Joaquín to call his name. He responds with a gruff yeah that immediately settles deep in your gut. 

“I need more. Please.” 

He grins right in your face. The expression almost looks wicked on him for the first time ever. He has the power here right now and he’s obviously letting it go to his head. 

“Why didn’t you say anything?” he asks while his hand slides down between your bodies until his thick fingers can slip between your clothed folds. 

His question was rhetorical (and smug but that’s besides the point), yet you still find yourself going to respond. Your lips part, you can feel the corners turning down as you prepare to say something just as smug back to him, but then he presses down and quickly finds your clit after a moment of fumbling. As far as words go, you’re silent. Nothing but sounds slip from your mouth from that point onwards. 

Joaquín toys with your clit. He starts with one finger, just the pad of what you think might be his middle finger, and when that has you forcing your hips up into his touch, he adds a second finger. With two fingers, he has more space to work with, resulting in larger circles right over the most sensitive part of you. He speeds up, too. 

Your back arches and you dig your nails into the sheets. You know what you want to ask for, it's simple and you’d already said the word in this space, but it gets trapped in your throat this time. You’re close already. Yeah, you’d been getting yourself off throughout the week, but finally having Joaquín do it for you has made you so much more responsive. 

You get the first syllable out, the ‘M’ vibrating in your throat before you open your mouth to round it out in an ‘O’. 

Joaquín picks up where you left off. 

“More?” he asks, eyebrows lifting as he holds your heavy gaze. Before you even respond with a nod, he’s already sitting back far enough to slip his hand in your panties and repeat his emotions. 

The first real touch dizzies you for a moment. You pinch your eyes shut with the pure intention of orienting yourself, but then Joaquín chastises you in a soft, but firm voice. 

“Look at me. I wanna see you.” 

You do as told, of course. 

He nods. “There we go.” His fingers get just a little faster, the circles tighter. You’re so wet that there isn’t any uncomfortable friction at all, his skin easily glides against yours. 

“You close?” he asks after a moment. When you nod, he continues, “If I give you this one, you’ll be able to give me another, right? You can give me more?” 

“Yeah. Yeah, I can.” You’re breathless when you speak, and it certainly doesn’t help that it’s then when Joaquín decides to pull his fingers away completely, pull your panties to the side, and sink down completely until his face is level with your cunt. 

Just the image below you is enough to twist that section deep into your stomach into a knot. He’s barely able to give you anything before your back is arching off of the bed and everything in you mounts to a peak. 

When you come, it’s from the controlled and effective licks Joaquín delivers to your cunt. You don’t know when your hand moves on its own, but you feel silk-like strands between your fingers. It helps anchor you, gripping his hair helps keep you sane, especially when Joaquín keeps going. 

He broadens his reach this time. His mouth opens wide enough to slide his tongue down from your entrance and back up towards your clit. And he doesn’t just lick this time, you hear the audible suck from him. He’s slurping that shit, and you can already feel the introduction of another orgasm. 

If you were with anyone else, you’d be shocked at how soon another is on the precipice. But it’s Joaquín, and aside from the fact that you’ve wanted him for a while, you’re not exactly shocked that he knows what he’s doing. 

He slowly sinks one finger into you, pumping the digit in and out of you with meticulous ease. It’s a stark contrast from the almost sloppy way he’s eating you out. But it works. 

One finger is nice, it’s thicker than your own, rougher, too. You could get off just like that. And then, he adds a second. 

“Fuck,” you swear without any conscious intention. 

Joaquín comes up for air, releasing you with an audible smack. “Yeah?” he asks, the word coming from right in his throat. 

You nod as you take in the way he looks—cheeks flushed, hair tousled and hanging over his forehead, pink lips shining, his eyes wide and nearly doe-like. 

“Yeah,” you confirm. You see a look flash in Joaquín’s eyes then. It’s a look similar to the one he has whenever Sam affirms his work with a clap on the back—self-satisfied, delighted, proud. It occurs to you then that he doesn’t know what he’s doing to you. He can read your body language, sure. It’s obvious from your cunt, along how good he’s making you feel, but you know verbal affirmation is different. It’s better, especially for Joaquín. 

As he goes back in to finish you off, you speak to him.

“Just like that,” you tell him. Just this little bit encourages him, you can feel it in his movements.  “Keep going. ‘M close, so close, Joaquín. Please, don’t stop. You’re so … you’re so—” Before you can even get it out, all noise dies completely from you. Your mouth uselessly hangs open, not even air comes out as your entire body stiffens. Nothing happens for a moment, Joaquín continues, you’re stuck, and then a nanosecond later everything knocks into you. 

Sound emits from you, moans and groans and breaths. You’re digging into whatever you can find—the heel of your foot into Joaquín’s back, your hands in his hair, the rest of your body into the twisted sheets beneath you. You’re simultaneously trying to escape and trying to keep Joaquín from parting with you for even a moment. It’s hard to decide which you prefer, you don’t even think your mind has any say in the dilemma, your body is in control at this point. 

Ultimately, your body decides to let go, releasing both of you at the same time. Still, Joaquín takes a moment to pull from you. He continues licking and sucking, but his fingers slowing down indicates his intent to free you. It comes after a few drawn out moments where you’re stuck twitching beneath him until finally, he pulls his fingers out of you and presses one final kiss right onto your clit. 

His head lifts and the evidence is more obvious than you expected. It’s gathered all over his chin, stuck along the beginnings of facial hair that will likely be gone first thing Monday morning. It’s gathered on his lips and along his tongue when he uses the muscle to pull the remnants of your arousal into his mouth. 

He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and only then does he realize how much of a mess you’ve made of him. He pulls his hand back, brown eyes big as he stares at the evidence. 

“Shit,” he laughs. 

All you can do is agree through labored breaths. 

He tries to clean you off of his mouth, but not much is done. He leans in tentatively after that, as if you’re going to shy away from him. You don’t. 

You kiss him back eagerly, although a bit lethargically. You’re trying to hide it from fear that Joaquín could think that you’re done. But your body needs a moment to recover from that. 

When Joaquín pulls away from you with a small smile on his face, you know he’s onto you. 

“You need a minute?” The way he says it isn’t much different from the way he asks you those same words when he’s kicking your ass in the gym. 

And just like when you’re in the gym, you shamefully nod. 

Joaquín chuckles and leans in to kiss your forehead. “That’s okay. You want anything? Water maybe?” 

“Water sounds good.” 

You watch him leave and then your eyes are focused solely on the ceiling. You can’t even let what’s happening sink in when you’re still a little spacey. But you can handle more. You want more from him. 

Joaquín comes back with a glass of water. He stands next to the bed and passes the full glass to you. You don’t question the source, you just drink until there’s half left. You offer it to him and he gladly takes it from you. 

“Are you … do you wanna stop?” He speaks when the glass has been emptied and placed on the nightstand. For the most part he looks like he would be unaffected by whatever answer you gave, but you think you can detect some premature dejection in his features. Quickly, he adds, “Because it’s fine if you do. I’m okay with that.” And he’s being honest. You don’t feel any pressure coming from Joaquín at all. 

It’s what you truly mean and want when you immediately shake your head. “No. Let’s keep going.” 

He nods once to himself. “Alright. Cool. Yeah.” 

Excitement leaks from his pores but you don’t comment on it. You felt just as he did not long ago. You still feel like that, but you’re under a haze right now and that’s what your emotions are being led with. 

Joaquín hooks his thumbs into his already-loosened jeans and goes to pull them down. First, though, he pats at his pockets. When he doesn’t feel what he’s looking for, he swears. 

“One second.”

You watch his form retreat until the door of your room is pulled open. Not even a minute later he comes back in with a foil pocket brandished between his fingers, the same fingers that were in you not long ago. 

“You came prepared?” The question comes out more judgemental than you meant it to. 

Joaquín shrugs. “I keep an emergency bag full of … stuff. You know, in case of an emergency.” 

“Freak.” You don’t mean it. 

“You’re about to get fucked by a freak so, wouldn’t that make you a freak by association?” He seems to mean it. 

“I don’t think that’s how that works.”

He holds the packet between his teeth while he slides his jeans off of his legs, stepping out of them and leaving them at the foot of the bed. He comes back around to the side, pulling the packet out from his teeth and staring down at you. Like this he looks more imposing than he ever has before. 

When he’s been out in the field, when he’s training, when he yelled at the car earlier tonight, he didn’t look as imposing as he does now—staring down at you over the bridge of his nose, hair tousled, cock tenting in his black briefs. 

“That’s definitely how that works,” he claims as he leans down. He presses his hands into the bed beneath you to leverage himself as he kisses you, slow and passionate. You wonder if he’ll fuck you like that too. 

You reach a hand up and pull the elastic away from his waist. When he doesn’t react, you tug the fabric down. You feel it get stuck around his cock just before you feel his cock spring free. It brushes against your wrist and you make a little noise into the kiss. 

As soon as Joaquín’s briefs are laying at his feet he assumes his previous position, this time sitting right on his haunches. You avoid looking at his cock for a moment, but when you watch him tear the condom packet open, you get the first glimpse at him. 

Even this part of him is attractive. He’s thick, that’s the first thing you notice. Thick and heavy, if the way he hangs to the side is any indicator. There’s a vein leading from his taut stomach down towards the dark and trimmed thatch of hair at the base of his cock. You hadn’t noticed the vein ever before, not when you had been too busy ogling the v-line chiseled into his torso instead. 

Now that you’ve seen all of Joaquín, you can easily conclude that he’s perfect. Just as you have that thought, Joaquín takes an inhale as he prepares to speak. 

“You’re so perfect,” he says. 

The warmth instantly floods your body. 

“I was just thinking the same thing about you,” you tell him. 

He dips his head almost shyly and doesn’t say anything. Instead, Joaquín pulls the condom out of the packet. 

“Wait. Lemme do it. Can I do it?” 

He looks momentarily surprised at your request, but he passes you the condom and politely places his hands on top of his thighs. 

It’s truly an excuse to feel him beneath your palm as you glide the latex barrier down his length. You revel in the warmth beneath your hand, because as soon as you’ve secured the barrier around the base of his shaft, Joaquín's leading you back without even having to touch you. He leans forward and in response, you lean all the way back until you’re nestled amongst the pillows at the head of the bed. 

“Ready?” 

You nod, letting your legs fall open for him. 

One warm hand falls to the inside of your thigh while the other disappears between your legs to line up his dick. Then, slowly, Joaquín pushes forward. The stretch is instant, you can feel yourself opening up wider and wider to fully fit him in. If you weren’t as soaked and prepped as you were, you’re sure the burn would’ve been way worse. 

For a few moments it’s like the length of him keeps going and going, but then you feel his thighs press up against the back of yours and there’s the faint feeling of his balls resting against your ass and you know he’s bottomed out. He looks at you, gauging your reaction, and your response comes in the form of linking a leg around his back.

Joaquín smiles through nothing but the twitch of the corner of his mouth upwards, and then he wastes no more time. He rests his weight on his hands at either side of your head, and pulls his hips back just to roll them forward and slide his cock back into you. 

And for a bit, Joaquín does fuck you slow and passionate. He fucks you in full strokes, a nice tempo that doesn’t overwhelm you too quickly. There’s punctuation at the end of each thrust, followed by a nearly agonizing pull back out. Whether intentional or not, Joaquín’s introducing you to the feeling of his cock filling you up, just as he’s introducing the concept of another release to you. 

But you’ve had your fill, it’s his turn now. 

You press your hands into his shoulders. They glide back, one hand grazing over the raised skin of the scar that leads down his back, the other following a smooth path, but they meet in the same place—back around the front to where his chain hangs. You hook one finger into the gold link, the other going behind his head. You pull him closer until you can nudge your noses together. 

His eyes flutter shut and his eyebrows pinch together in the center. You kiss him once and pull back to tell him, “You can use me, Joaquín. Take what you want.”

His eyes open to stare at you with confusion written on his face, bordering on hope, as if he already has an idea formed in his head of what he really wants to do to you. 

You nod assuredly. “It’s what I want.” Just as you’re about to add a quiet plea to seal the deal, Joaquín adjusts his position and then he pulls nearly all the way out of you, only to forcefully drive back into you. 

The switch is immediate. He still fucks you in complete motions, but they’re shorter, no longer the tip to the shaft each time. These are faster, much faster. It feels like he’s reaching up into your guts each time, just to pull back and do it again and again and again. 

You’re forced to find purchase again, hands digging into whatever you can find. One hand attaches to his hair and the other holds onto his chain, your legs have linked around Joaquín’s hips, your head has craned backwards, leaving the area between the base of your neck and your chest open for Joaquín to rest his forehead on. 

You can’t hear his sounds over yours, but you feel them—quick breaths let out onto the sweat coated area of your chest. You would try and silence yourself to better hear him, but you couldn’t even if you tried. 

Luckily, though, Joaquín lifts his head and notches his nose against the side of your neck instead. He kisses you right beneath your earlobe, but when he can no longer complete that action, his jaw goes slack and every single noise he makes travels directly to your ear. 

You swear and it comes out as a whimper, not even a second later Joaquín swears and it’s a deep groan all the way from the back of his throat. You call his name and he calls yours. He’s affecting you, and you’re affecting him, even just by laying back and urging him to get himself off by using your body.

“Are you close?” you eventually gather the strength, and will, to ask. 

You feel Joaquín nod against your neck. “Yeah,” he confirms, “yeah, baby, ‘m almost there.” 

Your reaction is instant. You groan, a sound that could be interpreted as frustration if you weren’t having your guts completely rearranged right now. 

He chuckles deeply against your skin. “What? What’s up?”

“C…Call me that again.”

“What? ‘Baby’? You like when I call you baby?” 

You hum affirmatively. 

Joaquín lifts his head and slots one hand against your cheek. His pace slows as he stares at you. “You’re my baby? Hm? Are you?” 

You nod, whining out an “uh-huh”. 

“Yeah?” he grins as he says it, as if he’s shocked that you agreed. You don’t know if he’s serious, if he knows that his words are holding weight even if you’re a little dumb right now, but you do mean it. 

He licks his lips and you see an idea coming to his head. “You gonna be good for me, too?” When you nod, he continues. “Be good for me, baby, and touch yourself, alright?”

He gives you the space needed and watches your hand slide down your stomach. When you use two fingers to tweak your already overstimulated clit, Joaquín nods. 

“That’s right. Just like that.” 

He resumes his original pace, this time with his eyes fully locked on your cunt. He pulls one of your legs up and throws it over his shoulder, leaning forward to get even deeper into you. 

You’re close, you’re almost there, and the erratic way Joaquín practically jackhammers into you as he chases his own release is what pushes you over. You finish just after Joaquín buries himself into you and curls his body over yours. This orgasm truly feels like a release. Everything in you melts into the world around you, just as Joaquín’s body melts on top of yours. 

He kisses the skin closest to him, first in small almost discrete pecks, and then they gradually get bigger and more audible until he’s clearly making them ridiculous on purpose. 

His cock is still nestled in you and his head is still resting on your chest when he speaks. “You think you’ll be up for a shower?”

You hum, letting the question run through your head for a minute before responding. “In about ten minutes, yeah.” 

“Take your time.”

In the meantime, Joaquín slowly slides out of you. The emptiness is immediate, but after all you’ve been through since getting back to your room, you don’t exactly hate it. Your eyes start to feel heavy but you let them close for a little while. You rely on your other senses throughout. 

The feeling of Joaquín kissing over where you think your bikini tan lines are, the rim of the glass that he brings to your lips, the sound of his voice as he gently urges you to drink, the feeling of cool water sliding down your throat. He holds you steady as you drink with a hand behind your head. Your lips turn up tiredly, and you feel his thumb at the corner of your lip catching a stray drop of water. You don’t have to open your eyes to know he’s wearing that same soft look on his features.

You’re so pampered there that you don’t force yourself to get up until you hear the shower running. 

Joaquín’s already there waiting for you at the door. He smiles when he sees you as if he’s shocked that you came, even though this is your room and your bathroom. Still, he reaches out and grabs your hand, pulling you into the bathroom and in front of him. His hands push at your back, guiding you towards the shower. He pulls the door open for you and lets you step inside before he follows after you. 

You reach for the towel and soap, but stop when he tuts behind you. 

“I got it,” is all he says. So you let yourself completely relax with the feeling of Joaquín dragging the cloth up and down your limbs. He talks to you throughout, mostly asking you to lift an arm or turn around, sometimes bringing up small bits of conversation, every now and then singing bits of songs—some that you recognize, some that you don’t. There’s a familiarity now that you’ve gained since his hands had massaged sunscreen into your shoulders. 

Eventually, though, he finishes with you, leaving you to lean against the wall and watch him shower.

“You know what I realized like a few minutes ago?” he says when he’s rinsing the soap off of his body. 

“What?”

“Remember the couple from the club that first night? The one who kept buying us drinks?”

“Yeah, how could I forget?”

“Yeah well I’m pretty sure they thought we were like … swingers or some shit.”

You’re startled awake. “Huh? Why do you think that?”

“Oh I don’t think, I know. The guy gave me his number and everything. Plus you saw the way they were looking at us, and the woman kept cozying up to you.”

You frown. “I thought she was just drunk or friendly.”

“She definitely was drunk and friendly. And she also wanted you.” 

You blink. “I thought she wanted you.”

Joaquín shrugs and rinses the last of the soap from his back before he shuts the water off. “She probably did. That’s sort of part of the whole swingers gig, isn’t it?”

You laugh through a quick exhale of air. “Come on, Joaquín, let’s go to bed.” 

You step out of the shower and wrap a towel around your body. Joaquín follows after you. 

“Oh, I get to sleep with you tonight?” He sounds giddy when he says it, as if he wasn’t just fucking you so good that your legs are still getting used to walking again. When you tell him that, you see the unintended compliment go straight to his head. 

You end up getting exactly what you wanted. Joaquín leans into the bathroom counter with the towel hung low around his waist and his eyes watching you do your skincare routine. As soon as you’re finished, he’s trekking off to his room for a change of clothes and to do whatever he needs to do, and he comes back in nothing but boxers with a big shirt in his hand. He lays it on the counter for you casually, but you see the tips of his ears tinted just a tiny bit red when he retreats back to your room. 

You come out in his shirt to see him lying on your side of the bed, the remote in his hand and pointed at the TV. As if the entire trip had been going like this the entire time, he instantly scoots over when you come to the side of the bed and lifts the sheets for you to climb under. You lay curled into his side, telling him to click a channel playing a movie that you know he likes. 

The remote is placed on the nightstand, the lights are clicked off and you’re snuggled up next to Joaquín, wearing his shirt and talking about how the two of you are going to spend your last day of vacation. 

Not everything goes how you thought it would, though. Joaquín ends up being pretty mindful with his blanket usage. 

something borrowed

(dearly beloved part 2: electric boogaloo ! ; tashi duncan x fem!childhood best friend!reader x patrick zweig ((x art donaldson?? a little?)); nonlinear narrative; playing fast and loose with tenses; where do i start; patrick and reader are their own trigger warning; tw pregnancy and childbirth; major major tw for talk of abortion; tw depression and antidepressant talk; cw breeding kink centric smut; more artashi wedding scenes; baby lily !! ; art donaldson #dadding out; grammy donaldson mentioned ! ; tw vomit again i’m so sorry lol; cw more menstrual talk; tw adultery but i mean come on; baby names; lasagna; we all have annie’s reblog to thank ((blame)) for this)

‘ JESUS: Judas—

JUDAS: You forgave Peter and bullshit Thomas—you knocked Paul of Tarsus off a horse—you raised Lazarus from the fuckin’ dead—but me? Me? Your “heart”? . . . What about me??!! What about me, Jesus?! Huh?! You just, you just—I made a mistake! And if that was wrong, then you should have told me! And if a broken heart wasn't sufficient reason to hang, THEN YOU SHOULD HAVE TOLD ME THAT, TOO!

JESUS: Don't you think . . . that if I knew that it would have changed your mind . . . that I would have?

Pause. ’

Stephen Adly Guirgis, ‘The Last Days of Judas Iscariot’

“Is it one of those ugly ones?”

You’re not special; you, too, hate hospitals. Not the least because your parents ralphed up all that cash for med school and you tanked like a castiron anchor. But there’s so much else to feel guilty for. You feel guilty for being alive while people are dying. You feel guilty for wanting to die while people are being born. You feel guilty, and nauseated, by this sickly visceral fume of birth and babyflesh, and the fact that you’re so upset.

You’d marked it on your calendar, is the thing.

March eleventh, Doomsday, the purge, the end times.

Tashi Duncan’s Caesarean section.

Timely and clinical, fittingly so. You’d bought a little beanie for the occasion. The beanie is soft and grey and pink. It has a cartoon flower embroidered on the side of it.

But then this is the spawn of Art and Tashi Donaldson. The baby is inherently desperate, and eager, in that order.

It’s February twentyeighth.

It’s probably for the best, you think, while you and Art are on either side of the hospital bed, and he’s grasping Tashi’s hand more tightly than she is holding his, even though she is the one whose innards are being shat out. You don’t believe she could take another scar.

You grimace as she crowns. Art is sobbing and sniffing. He looks at Tashi like he’s getting to watch God populate the world with greenery. It makes your mouth tug sharply to one side, and you close your eyes, briefly, escaping the bright white light.

You watch the papery sheets go redder and redder with every gush from the cavity of her torso.

The baby is not rosy pink so much as she is carmine. Before this, as an idea, she’s existed mostly in black and white. Aminocentesis results on a MacBook screen. The sonogram on their coffee table. The concrete wall of your abject jealousy. The living colour of her, it shocks you more than her glass-shattering screech.

Art holds the baby first, of course, since Tashi is somewhat incapacitated. You soothingly caress her damp hairline.

“What was that like?” you whisper, wincing down at her.

Tashi sheds a few tears and manages a smile that’s part relief and all agony. “Remember…” she croaks, “Remember when Tre fuckin’… like, roundhouse kicked you up the crotch?”

You blink, quirking your brows. Then you snort in surprise, grinning. “Oh my God, yeah,” you giggle. “When Yas and Matteo got that trampoline.”

Tashi nods weakly, her desiccated mouth twitching at the memory, her eyes shivering gently closed.

The baby is tiny against Art’s body, cradled so carefully in his arms. He’s counting all her toes and fingers.

“Hey there,” he murmurs to her, like they’re the only two people on this earth Tashi made. Then he sinks down onto the stool by Tashi’s head, and holds this tiny, beautiful thing out toward her. “Say hi to momma,” he says, his voice soft as gauze.

Tashi reaches out. Her hands are trembling but all of her is trembling; both you and Art tried to get her on the epidural, but fuck if she’s not stubborn. She crooks the tip of her index finger into the fleecy receiving blanket, pulling it down just a little so she can see the baby’s entire pink face.

The baby opens just one bleary eye, only halfway, but it’s enough for her to see you, for you to feel yourself being seen.

Tashi sobs and Art sobs and you wonder, momentarily, if her obstetrician can reach up the cavity of your body, too, and tug out your heart.

So, of course you hate hospitals, and of course you feel guilty. For many reasons. Chief among them being how, the very moment your dear, gutted friend conks out, you’ve stolen to the hall to ring her ex. And he’s asking you, hopeful, if her fucking newborn is one of those ugly ones.

You sigh into the receiver, shaking your head all solemn. You’re sure any passersby think you’re delivering horrific news. “She’s beautiful,” you confess sadly.

“Fuck!” Patrick says forcefully, like he’s just stubbed his toe.

You can hear the hum of the highway on his end of the line, and he’s definitely a bad enough driver that he shouldn’t be calling you right now, because you don’t want to be back here at his bedside when he’s in a fullbody cast after a nearfatal accident—and you would come to visit, actually, if he were in the hospital; maybe that’d just be the guilt again—but this is pretty urgent.

You frown, tucking your hand under your armpit and managing a smile at a passing couple cautiously rolling their precious trolley to the NICU. “They named her Lily.”

Patrick scoffs. “Those fucking assholes.”

“Right?”

You appreciate his company in your deplorable sorrow. There’s a special corner in the firescape for the two of you, but at least it’ll be the two of you.

“That’s a beautiful name for a baby girl,” he says, practically insulted.

You sigh again. “I know,” you pout.

They’d planned the wedding, as they did all other things, a bona fide team. A well oiled unit. Art and Tashi. A&T. Handing off tasks with practiced efficiency, like another one of her hyperintensive drills, wherein he would sooner keel over heaving than drop the ball. The wedding planner was effectively ornamental once they really got into it.

And they really got into it.

Tashi was one of those little girls who stuffed a stream of toilet paper in her ponytail and pictured the vinyl flooring of her home’s warmly lit passage as a ceremonial aisle on the Amalfi Coast at sunset. Here comes the bride, aluminium foil wedding band, ramshackle wildflower bouquet picked from the backyard, et cetera.

Most times, she’d have you play groom.

But you don’t internalise that too much. Because she had you play a lot of things. And sometimes she’d have their senile Mastiff Mutt, Franklin, play groom, too. Really, the most important part was her having you at all.

And, apparently, as a little boy, Art used to page obsessively back and forth through the decrepit scrapbook of his grandparents’ Peoria union, the pictures frayed and hued dandelion. So it’s great that they found each other, and so many dreams were coming true, and everything was fine. Everything was better.

You’d been happy she was happy, really, you had. You hate big endeavours in your name. If she’d married you, you’d have made her elope to Puerto Rico.

And now she was all sprawled three-ring binders, pen behind each ear, Game Face On. And Art was there, talking place settings in full sincerity, so yeah. It’s fine. Better, even.

She let him intercalate all the mawkish, ubercorny bullshit—the Fleetwood Mac, the garter toss, the pictures of his grandmother at the centrepiece of every table. Because they were a team and it was his wedding as much as hers. And you’d told her, too. You’d told her that she’s going to have a mawkish, ubercorny bullshit wedding to a mawkish, ubercorny bullshit guy. But she’d waved you off with a dismissively sentimental smile. I just want to marry him, she’d told you, which had felt like a million and one serrated spurns all over.

A getaway car, really? you’d deadpanned. Then, leaning closer to her phonescreen, eyes narrowing at their shared twodozenpage Pinterest board, incredulous and disgusted, Are the cans really necessary?

Apparently so.

You were standing at the foreshore, toes all grainy, shoes in hand, pistachiorose and Patrick Zweig on your tongue, your ass still seadamp. Art and Tashi pulled up in front of you, cans rattling, like a justmarried Lyft order.

When you climbed into the backseat, they were in the middle of sharing in dulcet laughter over something or the other. Something that did not concern you. Which was fine, and better, and the flower arrangements were spectacular. And, anyway, you’re busy trying not to get sand on this vintage carpet.

“Shouldn’t you two be honeymooning?”

Art looked back at you, his arm outstretched, wrist resting on the bend of the wheel. He gave you this smile you couldn’t discern, which most of his smiles were, and are. He blew a raspberry from his rubicund mouth and tsked.

“What, without you?” he scoffed, wry but playful, and you realised that, though he teased, and wanted you to know as much, his goodnature was sincere.

And your fingers twitched to wrap his seatbelt—because he was wearing the seatbelt—around his rosy throat five or six or seven times and tug hard.

Tashi threw her head back and laughed into the humidity of the night, of their wedding night.

Tashi squirmed in the leather passengerseat of the ivorycoloured 1960 Ford Thunderbird convertible.

You were leaning over in between them from the back, straddling the armrest. And she watched Art turn his head and kiss you. His hand looked huge on the messy, delicate bone of your jaw. It felt cool and clammy, you remember. Tashi sucked in a breath. You two broke apart after a moment, laughing, your palm coming down on his forearm like he’d just made a joke.

“That,” you said, making a puerile face as he absently brushed a thumb over your cheek, “Was too far.”

Your eyes were still shining with tears.

Art nodded, grinning, slipping his hand from your face and running it through his sweaty shoresand hair. “Anything for you, baby, but maybe not that.”

Tashi was flushed and florid and tamping her thighs tighter together and she wanted you both to put your hands on her.

Her arm slunk across the centre console to press her palm into his chest. And she ran her nails along the tender skin of your inner arm. And Art looked back at you like he was asking for permission, which was the first time in a long time he’d done that. And probably the last time since. And you don’t know why you nodded, but you did.

He gave you another strange, cursory kiss on the corner of your mouth, then leaned across the centre console and nipped at Tashi’s earlobe. The whetted burst of pain sent a visible shiver through her bones. She bit her lip and sighed.

“Mrs Donaldson,” he’d murmured, all husky and low. His white buttonup was all sweatrumpled and unfurled. He looked handsome and disheveled like a fallen angel or those illustrations on the covers of erotic paperbacks.

You swallowed, overwhelmed by it all.

You pressed the seam of your lips to the skin where her neck met her shoulder and her lithe fingers encircled your wrist and guided it between her legs.

You and Art are friends—good friends, by now—but sometimes you feel more like business partners. Cofounders of Keeping Tashi Duncan Happy and Okay Inc.

So, when he cannot stomach all the vomit—so, so much fucking vomit—for all his earnest, anguished, tearful trying, he calls you. Because he and his hairtrigger loins can’t help her right now.

And you don’t tease, or berate, or say it should’ve been you.

And he doesn’t protest, or control freak, or remind you it wasn’t you, it was him.

He dips out to stock up on crackers and barley sugar sweets, and you stay with Tashi and stand sentry on emesis duty.

You hadn’t known that any one thing was capable of maiming her this way. Tashi Duncan, your impenetrable infanta. Fast to get up, faster, still, to dry her tears. But this baby is wringing her bone dry. She’s feeble, swollen, and practically debilitated.

You feel her spine shift as she shakes and heaves into the toilet. You hate her like this. At mercy to her bones.

You can’t help the archaic scorn. None of this, none of any of it, would’ve happened, had it been you. But it wasn’t.

You cradle Tashi’s feverish head in the bend of your knee. You thread your knuckles through her sweaty curls. You rub your fingers into her collar, tracing her bones where they have been swallowed by her plummy sallow skin. In college, you used to give each other lymphatic drainage massages.

You’re on Virginia Key Beach with T and her brothers, at the edge of the ocean. You’re, like, fourteen. Tevin’s mouth is a comically fluorescent shade of blue as he topes down a Slurpee. Tre hops over waves. Tre keeps saying the sharks will get you, they’ll smell it, blood in the water, blood in the water and Tevin keeps holding the Slurpee so high that the ultramarine of it obstructs the sun. And Tashi is yelling I’m not even on my fucking period! even though she is red and wet between her thighs, and give it to me, Tev, it’s mine, you took mine! as she reaches and reaches and reaches, unable to grasp what she wants.

There are some women unmoved by such trivialities as their own blood. Eightinch stilettos, eight months in. People will assume Tashi Duncan, pulchritude and powerhouse, to be one of these women.

But you’ll know better.

She’s so good at the tennis, ultimately, because she listens to her blood. She lets it move her. Lets it give her power. She is a mesmerising glass carafe of red.

But when it spills, it pours. When she breaks, she shatters.

Art Donaldson’s child writhes inside her, swills her blood. And you watch.

Patrick takes you home from the hospital. You were planning on sinking into the void of your couch while forking miserably into a whole tray of lasagna by yourself, but you feel bad. You feel guilty and lonely. So you invite him in.

You thunk your stoneware roaster on the granite of your peninsular countertop. He’s sat on a barstool and you’re standing across from him, and he wastes no time tucking in. You nudge at the broiled cheese with your fork.

You’re crying, which he doesn’t mind, but it’s a little distracting while he’s trying to eat, is all. He peers up at you, circumspect, as he chews.

You roll your eyes at him. “Please don’t make me cry alone,” you tell him.

He chews, swallows, licks some pasta from his gums. He rests the fork against the edge of the tray and dusts his hands off.

“I don’t cry,” he says, shrugging like it’s out of his hands. The corner of his mouth quirks up as you fix him with a sullen glare.

“I’ve seen you cry,” you say pointedly, dropping your own silverware.

He shrugs again. “Yeah,” he says, “One time. That was the only time I’ve ever cried. Ever.”

He has this way of saying things like he absolutely means them. This hamfisted sincerity, serrated deadpan. And, when you’re emotional like this, all husked and raw, it’s unfortunately an extremely effective way to make you laugh. His eyes gleam with victory as you duck your head and giggle wetly.

“You feel special?” he smirks.

You roll your eyes again, tears still trickling pools into the tender shadowed skin beneath your eyes. “I feel especially depressed,” you reply thickly.

He flits his eyes back and forth between the both of yours a few times. You’re reminded of the abject tedious torture of sitting through one of Art’s tennis games. “Are you really? Or are you just moping?” he asks you.

You reach into your pocket and pull out your little Effexor prescription vial, rattling it twice, and tossing it his way. It’s a sloppy underhand, but he catches it easily.

“Huh,” he muses, turning it between his fingertips. “That’s why you look so different? I thought you were just putting on sympathy weight.”

Your lips wobble, and your eyes burn and blur again, your throat swelling shut like fucking anaphylactic excoriation, and you catch your face with your hands and cry.

“Don’t be mean right now,” you blubber.

Patrick blinks, sobering with a smart, the humour seeping off his face and replacing itself with an almost comically disturbed frown.

“Okay, okay,” he says, his voice light with a culpable urgency reserved for a triggered, irate straitjacket patient. He reaches over the lasagna, the savoury brume warming his forearms, and he takes your wrists and peels your fingers from your eyes. “Hey, I’m sorry.”

You hiccup breathlessly. Your tears slithering down your cheeks in rills.

“I’m sorry,” says Patrick. He presses his thumbs into your pulsepoints, like he can quash your distress through your radial arteries. “You look hot, okay? Really, you do.”

For his part, he seems genuinely contrite, and utterly concerned, and he probably means it. He is rarely insincere, even when his tongue is in his cheek. But your sulky inner voice says he’s bargaining. How about I quit being an ass and you stop with the ugly crying and I can finish this pasta and hotfoot it out of here? But this is your house. And your pasta. And you think you should get to mourn his exgirlfriend’s womb, if you so choose.

You sob harder, shoulders quavering. His brows raise in quiet alarm when you wrest your arms from his fingers.

You snuffle and swallow. “Please stop,” you moan sadly.

Somewhere between the cake cutting—which walked that revolting, quintessentially Art and Tashi line between sweet and sexy; she daubed some frosting on his nose, he licked it off her finger—and your purloining of a slice or two for your and Patrick’s beachside bitchsesh, the speakers are thumping with ‘I Wanna Be Your Lover’.

Everyone is wasted.

You don’t even mean to, but one of Art’s cousins, who is clearly eking out his fraternity days that have long since started mouldering, keeps ordering you shots from the open bar. And you keep downing them, one after the other. He’s wearing a practically lurid red polo that really errs on the ‘optional’ side of Black Tie Optional, but he has a really charming smile, the light glistering off the white of his teeth as you dance.

And—fuck it—he’s hot. And he’s looking at you like he wants to kiss you in the middle of this dance floor, grinding against you like you’re teenagers at a CYO dance.

The lights are scintillating technicolour and the music is so loud you can feel it in your rib cage and it doesn’t take long for the room to start spinning like the world’s trippiest ferris wheel.

Cody—or Connor, maybe—goes to the bathroom to piss, and you track down the newlyweds on the other side of the room. Tashi’s beautiful eyes, already aglow, light up even more when she sees you.

“Hi, baby!” She kind of has to yell over the music. God, it’s been a while since you’ve seen her let loose like this. Either of them, really. They’re having a great fucking time. The Happy Couple. It makes you feel sick. “You good?”

“I’m fucked up,” you smile blearily, because all of a sudden the room’s spinning has increased in velocity.

You fight the urge to grab for her hand for some fleeting sense of stability. Because, if you do, you’ll tackle her to the ground and kiss her until someone hauls you off.

And her husband’s right there.

“Me too,” says said husband. He is flushed in the face, grinning elatedly, his eyes drunkenly disfocused, Tashi’s glossy, nudepink lip-print on his cheek.

Tashi, as ever, seems appreciably more put-together than Art looks and you feel. All silken and nitid. Art’s holding her with the desperate adoration of someone who knows, in the far far end of his bevvied mind, what you’re thinking right now. You narrow your eyes at him. Then,

“Do you wanna dance?” you ask on a whim.

“Sure,” Art shrugs, a sloppy smile curving on his lips. And by now Tashi’s turned to exchange polite smalltalk with some or other extended family member, so he impishly adds, “Let me ask the missus.”

He and Tashi have a short conversation that you can’t quite hear, and then she’s pulling you in by the wrist to whisper in your ear,

“Don’t let him drink anymore, okay?”

She pecks a kiss onto your cheek before you have time to question this rule, but you know her well enough to know she’s also surreptitiously telling you to slow down. You spitefully nab another shot on your and Art’s way to the dance floor.

Art’s a good dancer. You would certainly not have pegged him as one, if asked. But when he’s twisting and moving his feet and putting his hands on your waist in a halfway facetious impression of a slow dance, you realise it’s true.

“Congratulations, by the way,” you shout when you get close enough to his ear. “Happy for you.”

He winces at your volume, raising his fingers to his ear and laughing and looking at you and shaking his head. “No you’re not.”

Patrick watches you sob for a few more moments before smacking his hand against the counter.

“Let’s make one,” he says, declaratively.

You snivel and sweep some tears away, looking up at him. “What?”

“Let’s make one,” he repeats, more urgently now, “If we make one right now, it’ll show up before the end of the year, and we can still weaponise it. Come on.”

He’s sliding off the stool and reaching across the counter to grab your hand and tow you out of the kitchen.

“Patrick,” you whine in demurral, stumbling after him.

But he pulls you along even harder, making a decisive path toward the hallway. “Come on!” he insists, “I’m serious.”

“You’re broke.”

Which is true. He’s been snipped off from the trust fund, which you’d thought was purely the stuff of Murdochian nightmares. But he whipped out his Chase Mobile app and showed you the negative balance to prove it. He’d rather bum it out than suit up and schmooze. So he’s not spoiled for funds right now, nor is he spoiled for wins, and you aren’t equipped with great confidence in a potential future as his baby mama.

“They’re pissed, they’re not cruel,” he tells you, effectively shoving you into your room and kicking off his shoes. “I’ll be back on the payroll with a kid on the docket, I promise. My mom would love it, actually. My sister just had a hysterectomy, this’ll be like a family miracle. You’ll have the child support of a Kardashian.”

He grabs your head and kisses you sloppily—he tastes like tomatoes—clumsily walking you back into the bed.

You think he’s too old to be fingering you the way he is. Rubbing your clit all clumsy, like a faulty button on an old remote. You’re a little sticky, but not enough for what he plans to do here. He sighs and leans back.

“This isn’t working,” he says, all pensive, sitting back on his heels. It’s a little difficult, though, to take him seriously, when his cock is on the front end of halfmast and still rising.

When Tashi first started seeing him, you remember her barrelling into your room all stiff and saucereyed and clamorous. As though a particularly warhankering pigeon had just been elected president, or an alien society had been discovered in the thick of the Amazon. But no. She held your shoulders and shook them wildly and yelled, I’m telling you, it’s fucking huge!

She made a point to you that she’d never be caught dead gushing about his dick to his face. She said it was important to humble him.

So you want to maintain that tradition.

And, anyway, it’s a big dick, not the cure to cancer. You don’t even know what he needs it all for. It’s probably all he has left. You can’t imagine it even gets him very far.

People have frontiers. Parameters. Limits. To their patience, to their bodies. Patrick used to kill the sprinting drills, back in school. He likes going end to end, reaching those limits. But once you start pissing someone off and/or ramming into their cervix, everything else is probably a nonstarter.

You sit up, drawing your knees to your chest. “Uh, yeah. It isn’t.”

“Well, is there something I can do? Should I act like her? Will that get you going?” He asks, but he doesn’t wait for your answer. He huffs and crosses his arms and imitates Tashi’s angry moue.

And his dick is still hard, harder now, so you splutter into laughter. You laugh really, really hard. Then he guides your legs back open and swipes his fingers between them again.

And he grins and says, “Bingo.”

You got really into Pilates for about a month or two mid last year. You’re starting to think you should have kept at it. Your knees are hooked over his shoulders, the undersides of your thighs pressed to his chest. Your hips ache, but it feels, regrettably, really fucking great otherwise.

It’s eminently uncomfortable, sure. For your part, it hasn’t really occurred to you to let a man fuck you raw. Your lingering childishness still recoils a bit at the very idea. And it feels strange, that gauche drag of skin on skin. You’d need to be really wet for this to be working, and that hilarious necessity makes you wetter in response, and then he’s slipping in and out and fucking you raw and he doesn’t even seem to be trying too hard.

He’s a little relieved. You’re letting this happen and taking it like a champ and your pussy’s deep enough to give him room to work.

So he does. Because he knows how. He knows how to work things from here.

He’s had more sex than you’ve attended pilates classes.

The thought of you, splayed and tensile across a reformer, gets him pretty hot. Very hot, actually, and he can tell because the surface of his skin is bloomed pink, and your fingers blench away from his shoulders like he’s caught aflame.

He knows by now how tremendously warm he runs in these moments. He usually asks about a girl’s AC before things get going.

Should he say that aloud, or will it piss you off?

You probably see your appending to the convoluted list of unfortunate holes to sheathe the great penis of Patrick Zweig as a little beneath you.

This is his chance to remind you that Tashi Duncan doesn’t go back on her word for just any heavy pair of balls.

He angles your hips to get deeper, experimenting with ways to evoke a reaction. He’s working you like you’re paying him.

You’re trying really hard not to say anything too nice about his dick. But he’s plunging hard and fast into you, rolling his hips with all the dexterity of fucking Magic Mike, and—well—you wouldn’t be able to, even if you wanted.

The words you’re saying are not in the dictionary. You’re sweating, panting, tugging a little mercilessly at his hair. Patrick bends your legs and hoists your pelvis. He can’t keep a trainer right now, but some adrenalinefueled strength is allowing him to support your body like it’s nothing. He wasn’t bluffing about you looking hot. He’s groping you all over with the ferocious depravity of a necrophile.

There’s some real blasphemous perversion slipping off his tongue. Ersatz porno shit that should be giving you early onset morning sickness, but he’s going all Daniel Day Lewis with it, and you’re kind of buying it.

Fucking come-slut… fuckin’— fuck… gonna breed you… gonna put a baby in you.

You’re audibly wet. The air around you grows practically mephitic. You’re losing your fucking mind. If this shit falls flat, and he can’t get you pregnant tonight, and you dump and block him and never want to speak to him again, he at least hopes you remember this for a long time.

And—you know what—fuck it if that wasn’t memorable enough, he thinks, feeling his cock twitch as he slooshes molten litres into you. Because he’s pulling out, flipping you over, and hiking up your hips. Maybe this’ll be.

He fucks you, he comes in you. A lot. He needs a second to replenish.

You steal to the kitchen. Your inner thighs are chafed and viscid. You cover the lasagna dish and cache it away, and take a second to scoff at some vapidly controversial Twitter thread. You yelp when you feel his arms around you again, lifting you off the tile and carrying you back to the bedroom.

Patrick’s never really thought too hard about his come. It’s an ancillary deluge. A mess to clean most often. Maybe he’s considered meliorating his diet when someone’s gleaned a taste and gagged.

But right now it’s serving a purpose. And he is, among other things, relieved for that, too. He’s not gonna sit around and mourn this while it happens and ask you if you’d really have his child. He’d rather look you in your beautiful, milky pussy than a gift horse in the mouth.

He refuses to waste a drop of himself. He makes sure to coat your insides with it.

He lies sheathed inside you for many minutes after he comes, gripping your hips harshly to him, groaning like this were the real orgasm.

Afterwards, he holds your knees to his chest and lifts your ass and presses his palm to your cunt as if sealing an entrance, making sure nothing escapes. He’s trying to give his guys a fighting chance.

You were, at first—as in, after two or three rounds—a little amused by this stupid, elaborate routine. Something out of an old maid’s pastel mommy blog. You were amused, and frankly weirded out, by what seemed like a laughable lack of dignity on his part.

Now—now you’re feeling aroused by it. Because being aroused disrupts the dumb ritual and kind of annoys him.

When he is holding your knees up and your cunt twitches, he rolls his eyes.

“You already got off,” he chuckles, shaking his head. He sounds a bit spent, too. He’s usually flaked out by now, in his actual customary postcome routine. “Just stay still for a second.”

The fact that he doesn’t want you to come makes you almost desperately want to. He holds his palm over your cunt but he offers no friction.

The simple touch is enough, though. You can find your own internal rhythm.

Your head falls back against the pillow.

“Oh fuck.”

And maybe you’re being particularly loud and lewd in this moment, while he’s trying to be serious, and get something done. Because you’re still doing this longcon in calling his bluff. You don’t think he knows what he wants.

You don’t want to believe that you two are really so bitter as to start a life out of spleen.

You still don’t know if he knows whether or not he actually likes you.

“What the fuck?” he laughs, “I said don’t.” He squeezes your cunt like he wants to tear flesh from bone, trying to render you still again.

But it only makes you moan louder.

“Oh, fuck, that’s so good,” you mewl indecently, smirking a bit, because you’re joking, but you also sort of mean it, “It feels so good having your come inside me, I can already feel your little fuckass kid crawling around in there. He’ll grow up loving bagels, I just know it.”

These taunts are supposed to disgust him or hurt his feelings or simply turn him off, and Patrick does sort of look like wants to throttle you. Because he’s tired and a little grumpy and he knows you’re not letting him stay the night. But a part of him has always found you funny. So he just ends up getting hard again. Your crude, glib moaning brings him to such a pitch of want that he yanks you into his lap and fucks you roughly, gripping your jaw.

And you grin as he brings your head close. You feel it’s some kind of victory.

Even though you’re just prolonging this dumb, bitter, unfulfilling farce. Making sure there’s more of him inside you.

You two should not be parents.

By the eighth or ninth round, he starts getting conversational.

“I was one of those babies that never shut up,” he tells you, fucking up into you in cowgirl. He grunts and makes a thoughtful face. “Colic? Is that what it’s called? Yeah, I think I was a colicky baby.”

You make a face down at him. “I thought you said you’ve never cried,” you pant, rocking your hips back and forth.

He rolls his eyes again.

“Yeah, obviously I was lying. I cry all the fucking time.”

You consider this, your hips stilling, your palms resting against his hairy hotplate chest.

“Over what?” you ask, “Tashi?”

He blinks, scowling a bit, like he thinks you’re making fun. Then his grips your hips and starts to move you on his dick again. He doesn’t answer. Your pussy feels warm and raw.

Geez, how long have you two been at this?

He asks, absently, about baby names.

“I thought every girl had, like, a whole fucking list of them,” he says, pushing his semen back into your used cunt with his long fingers.

You don’t entertain that presumptuous conversation, but you don’t underestimate his commitment, either.

He’s back the next day, and the next, like clocking into a shift. He brings supplies. Sliced pineapple, fresh honey, ground cinnamon, cough syrup, two boxes of ClearBlue.

“I read acupuncture helps too,” he says.

“Absolutely not,” you say, but you let him feed you baby aspirin while you ride him in reverse on your couch watching Selling Sunset.

He feigns disinterest, but keeps tilting to look past your shoulder whenever the arguments start riling up.

“Ugh, Nicole’s a bitch,” he mutters.

Then he grunts and comes inside you, grasping your hips to sink you down and hold you still.

Her name, for the better or worse part of the first and second trimesters, was actually Stella.

Art’s grandma used to love that Philip Sidney poem, and Pam’s favourite film is Streetcar. It’s just that Tashi got sick of the name, and all other things, at a stage. So it didn’t stick.

They were oscillating between Lily and Rooney towards the end, and only made the final call when they saw her.

But, for a while there, she was Stella.

Stella’s craving peanuts, Stella’s the size of a rutabaga, Stella’s a kicker. And, boy, was she.

She’d ram her foetal feet into Tashi’s ribs over and over like she was on a treadmill. Which Tashi was starting to think of as karmic consequence for all the times she’d have Art doing cardio until he fainted.

You crouch down between her knees, resting your head against the amorphous motion of her distended stomach.

“Hey hey, Stella girl,” you whisper, “You wanna stop giving your mom a hard time?”

Tashi chokes out a wounded laugh from above you.

“That’s how Art talks to her.”

“Ugh, don’t ruin it,” you frown, moving to stand up.

But she sticks her leg out to halt you, grabbing your hand and tugging you back down, shifting her hips and spreading her thighs further apart.

You never could resist her sweet face when it was all crumpled up in asking. Because she got all soft and wet, like a flower caught in a gale.

She looks even softer now, over the horizon of her bloated body.

You gently tug her cotton shorts down and put your mouth on her and Stella stills.

“One more,” you say anxiously, eyebrows knitted in concern as Patrick sighs and unboxes a another pregnancy test—the fifth one—and you quaff down another glass of water to get your bladder teeming, because no way.

No way, right?

You’ve been taking him raw at all angles, and swigging shots of cough syrup, and weaning off the antidepressants, but no way.

“I don’t know what you thought was gonna happen,” he calls from beyond the bathroom door as you’re pissing on stick number six.

It’s just that you don’t feel anything.

You think you should be feeling more.

You think of Tashi, writhing and groaning like a bullet victim, miserably clutching her turgid body. You think of newborn Lily, her cottonsoft, tiny eye peeling open and seeing you. Deep steeped coffee, gleaming in the sterile light. Tashi’s eye. Tashi’s hair. Tashi’s baby. That tender absorption, that vivid creation.

If this kid is taking nothing from you, it’s gonna come out all Patrick. And—just—you don’t have the bandwidth to contend with such a prospect right now.

He drives you to the clinic every time. Every single time. One night, you rouse sharply from a morbid dream punctuated by the squall of wailing children. You call him. It’s 2 AM. He answers, and comes over, and drives you to the clinic, and tries not to nod off as you’re filling out the medical paperwork for the dozenth time. He also tries not to express any overt reaction to you changing your mind again.

Is it a kindness, to tease a man with the brutal decimation of his unborn progeny? No, of course not. His mum’s already preemptively enrolled the thing into a fancy German daycare.

But you hate that he’s given you an ultimatum and put it inside you. That’s the worst place, in relation to you, for an ultimatum to be.

If you tell Tashi, either he’s in, or you’re out. And those aren’t really odds you’re keen on rolling.

There are all sorts of ways to be a shitty friend. You opt for evasive gambits via claims of hectic work schedules and immovable errands. Any retching you do is that of guilt. You’re loathe to lie to her, to house this wretched zygote, to stay away. But she used to be able to tell when you’d changed your shampoo. She’d sniff him on you, in you, in a second. She’d just know. And she shouldn’t. She can’t. And if you could just unearth this presentient betrayal and toss it in a petri dish, she doesn’t have to.

You don’t know what matters more.

He drives you to the clinic. Teary teenaged girls, redcapped pickets out front. The receptionist knows you two by name by now.

Patrick slumps beside you. He’s still slogging through the first chapter of Last Child in the Woods. He’s pretty sure he’s never sat and read an actual, physical book to completion before in his life. But he’s too easily abstracted for Audible. So he’s working on it.

You’re groaning frustratedly and thunking the clipboard repeatedly against your skull. He absently slips a hand over your forehead, shielding the next few collisions before you huff and drop the board and turn to face him. He looks at you askance.

“You can change your mind,” he shrugs. Again, he generously omits.

You scoff at him, incredulous and a little irked. “I’m not gonna change my mind,” you grumble.

He shrugs again. “Okay.”

He knows what it’s like to have a mother in sackcloth and ashes. To be less of a son than a sentient thing of regret with little arms and legs. To not know what to do with that, or yourself. He wouldn’t do that to a kid.

You watch him thumb through Richard Louv for a few more moments.

Then, “You’re probably sick of me, aren’t you?”

He smiles a bit before schooling it stoic, slowly lowering the book and fixing you with this wry but incongruously tender look. “Of course I am,” he tells you.

“Get mad at me, then.”

He smiles again.

He knows what that’s like, too. Dad mad at mom. Stilted five course dinner. Dad telling him and Saskia what a goddamn headache mom is on the drive to school. Of course he’s sick of you, he’s always sick of you. But he likes you. And his head feels fine.

He turns back to the book, shrugging.

“Can’t,” he says simply.

You feel for baby Lily. She’ll never be able to get away with anything.

It’s Art who sniffs it on you, in you.

Tashi’s asleep upstairs when, after a fortnight and a bit, you rally up the guts to come over. Art opens the door and looks surprised for mere moments, and there is perhaps a flicker of concern, but then he smiles. And there’s only very mild ire there. The rest is fatigue and goodnature.

“Hello, stranger,” he smirks, turning to filch a set of keys from the marble catchall in the foyer. He is wheeling Lily out in the thirteenhundred dollar stroller he had lost six nights of sleep picking out. “You coming?”

So now you’re on a walk.

Lily lays on her soft belly in the stroller. The walls around her are a breathable mesh, and she fights to hoist her head and gawp at passing trees. This is, apparently, the only way she’ll do tummy time.

“And the only time she gets any sleep,” Art adds, jutting a finger over his shoulder in the general direction of their home down the street.

Lily’s wearing a ruffly lavender romper. Her skin is a healthy shade of linen and her hair is dark. Her fists have tiny moony fingernails that—when you comment how, Her nails are long. Like, sharp—Art explains how he keeps trying to cut them with a pair of tiny silver scissors. But they make Tashi nervous, their sharpness and its proximity to Lily’s fleshy hands.

“She said she wants her to get a grip on the world,” Art chuckles.

You snort, and you have to skip a bit to keep up with his brisk strides. “Oh, that’s definitely what she said,” you confirm.

Lily tosses and turns a bit in the strollerbed. She gurgles an impressive spit bubble, by Art’s standards. Most things she does are probably impressive to him, quite frankly. He tells you how, the other morning, she had thrown up breakfast onto his shoulder with such verve and accuracy that they’re already talking tennis lessons.

“Oh God,” you grimace. Not at the story, but at the memory of his nauseous pallor in the throes of Tashi’s own gravid sickness. “How’s that been for you?”

Art flashes a selfdeprecating simper. “I’m managing.”

When she casts her little coral taglet security blanket curbside, Lily scrunches up her face, grasping, gearing up for the Big Scream. Art sighs and says, “No, please?” as he stops to pick it up and give it back to her, and his arm, when he sticks it in, blooms with little ruddy strings as she claws at him.

He looks more than a little surprised she isn’t crying.

Apparently, in that meantime, you had jutted your fingers into the cot and offered her a pinky as a peace offering. Versailles-style, like you’ll be punished later.

But he seems content with how she’s chewing you and figures you guys can stop here, for a bit, beneath these treemottled springtime sunbeams. In the garden of the home in front of which you’re standing, huge orange bougainvillea loll their petaltongues in the breeze.

“I just…” Art flounders for his words, then scoffs a not unkind, but vaguely embittered, sort of laugh, shutting his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose. “Why him?”

You groan. “Don’t ask.”

“How is he?”

“He’s—” you waver, then shake your head, before finishing, “Ugh.”

“Patrick’s ‘ugh’? Patrick? Wow. Should we call all the outlets? I mean, that’s never happened before. Patrick. Ugh. You’re blowing my mind.”

You snort, and Lily laughs, and Art informs you that that is a very hard reaction to glean. And he rubs his temples, because all the wails sort of tremor at that same migrainous pitch. No matter if they’re amused or rabidly apoplectic. But you can enjoy it, the laughter.

“Can you just tell her for me?” you frown helplessly up at him.

That flicker in his tired eyes that wants to agree is purely paternal, but he sighs and shakes his head. “You know I can’t.”

He’s genuinely sympathetic.

“She’ll forgive you,” he tells you. You roll your eyes and hang your head, kicking piteously at the wheel of the stroller. He intercepts your foot with his, lightly shoving it away before bending to search for your gaze. “Hey,” he says, “She really will.”

You huff. “She’s never had to.”

You instinctively press your fingers into your womb, through your shirt. You feel the strange sensation of something starting to swell beneath the flesh.

“You’ll be a good mom,” says Art.

It’s a small relief, for you, to feel your face screw into its shut-the-fuck-up-Art expression. It’s something you know how to feel, a well trodden path. Maybe, once they drop you like a bad habit, he’ll still send you those furtive pictures he likes to take of Tashi sleeping. And you and Patrick can dualmasturbate to them, pretending your swollen belly isn’t in the way.

What you like about them, all three of them, is that they have all always loved you so simply. Tashi is severe, and Patrick is flippant, and Art is occasionally insincere. But they each care about you, to varying degrees, in their own ways. And they do so without reservation, even when you’ve been an ass.

You think that’s how you’re supposed to love your child.

You should probably figure out how he does it in the next five to ten seconds.

You ask, “What makes you say that?”

And his eyes flick down to where Lily is still gumming your knuckle like a dog with a bone, then back up to you, and he gives you one of those smiles. Your face screws. Shut the fuck up Art. Then, he tells you, “You love harder than you give yourself credit for.”

Lily gags around your pinky.