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what are joe and songbird doing rn
a/n: im ovulating so here’s a smutty little blurb for everyone this fine evening
warnings: smut, hint of munch joe
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his shoulders were pressed firm between her thighs, broad and warm and unwavering as he buried himself between them like a man starved. the room was dim—just the soft amber glow of the hallway light spilling in, casting a glow across the sheets—but everything about the way he touched her felt lit from within. like reverence. like worship.
she was already breathless, one hand gripping the comforter, the other buried in his curls, fingers curling instinctively every time his tongue flattened against her clit. slow, calculated licks that made her toes curl and her hips rise, only to be pressed back down again by those damn hands of his—one on her stomach, the other hooked under her thigh to keep her right where he wanted her.
“joe—,” her voice caught, high and airy, already dissolving into a moan.
he hummed in response—low, satisfied, the sound vibrating through her—then did it again, lips sealing around her like she was the only thing he’d ever wanted. and maybe she was. because in the quiet of the off-season, with no film to study, no meetings to rush to, no weight of the world on his back—he could just have her. take his time with her. and god, did he ever.
he pulled back just enough to look at her—his mouth shiny with her arousal, jaw flexing as he dragged two fingers through her slick and pushed them in slow, curling just right. “this okay, baby?”.
she nodded, too breathless to speak, the answer written all over her face. pupils blown, lips parted, chest heaving like she couldn’t quite remember how to breathe unless he told her to. “good,” he murmured, kissing her thigh. “been thinking about this all damn day,”.
then he was back on her, tongue flicking over her clit while his fingers fucked into her slow and steady, coaxing her right to the edge. her thighs shook. her back arched. and he just kept going—murmuring sweet nothings against her, telling her how good she tasted, how pretty she looked like this, how much he loved making her fall apart for him.
his pace was patient, but purposeful. like he had nowhere to be but here. like every slick, shivery sound she made was carved into his ribs. his fingers curled just right inside her, slow and rhythmic, dragging pleasure from her in long, aching pulls. and his mouth—god, his mouth. open and warm and relentless, lapping at her like it grounded him.
when she finally came, it was with his name on her lips—long and trembling and sacred—and he didn’t stop. just held her through it, kissed her through it, licked her through every last wave until she was gasping, tugging at his hair, whispering, “too much, too much,” even as her hips chased after him.
“i’ve got you,” he whispered, kissing her inner thigh. his voice was thick with heat, with love. “you’re so good for me, sweetheart,”.
he didn’t pull away right away. no—he pressed slow kisses along her inner thighs, soft and worshipful, fingers still grazing her skin in lazy, grounding strokes. her body was still trembling beneath him, soft and undone, but when she finally opened her eyes, he was already looking up at her. flushed, lips swollen, eyes dark with affection and something much deeper.
and when he finally came up for air, chest rising with every breath, mouth still warm from her, he grinned. lazy and smug and in love. his hands smoothed up her sides, easing her into his chest as he kissed the sweat-damp skin at her temple. he nudged her leg open again with his thigh, voice rough as he muttered, “still thinking about the way you sounded when you came for me,”. his fingers trailed along the inside of her knee, then higher, “can i have you now?”.
she gave him a look—already dazed and cushy against his body, but still managing a soft, teasing smirk. “you already had me. but okay,”.
he just grinned, leaned down, and kissed her slow. a kiss that was tongue and heat and the kind of need that burned steady in the chest, sinking deep and winding tight. she melted under him, legs parting wider, fingers sliding back into his hair like it was instinct. his body pressed flush to hers, chest to chest, heartbeat to heartbeat.
he reached between them, teasing her first—his fingertips slipping through the slick mess he’d made of her, gathering it on his fingers and bringing it up to circle her clit. slow. soft. just enough to make her whimper and arch, to make her eyes flutter open and lock on his like he was the only thing keeping her tethered to the earth. “that’s it,” he murmured, watching every shift in her face, every breath she stole. “just like that,”.
when he finally guided himself to her entrance, he didn’t rush. he rocked forward gently, dragging the thick head of his cock through her folds, back and forth, until she was gasping—hips twitching, hands clawing at his back like she couldn’t take another second of teasing. and he loved it. he loved the way she came undone beneath him, the way her body responded to his every move like it was made for him.
he pressed in slow. deep. inch by inch until he was fully settled, both of them gasping at the stretch, the closeness, the overwhelming rightness of it “fuck,” he whispered, forehead pressing against hers, one hand braced beside her head, the other holding her hip tight. “you feel so good. always so good for me,”.
he held still for a beat, savoring the way she clenched around him, how warm and wet and perfect she felt. her nails scraped down his back, not to hurt—but to feel. to ground herself in him “please move,” she whispered, voice cracked and pleading.
he did, slowly at first, dragging his cock out until just the tip remained before pushing back in, groaning low as she fluttered around him. she moaned, head tipping back, exposing her throat—and he kissed it, again and again, as he built a rhythm. unhurried. deliberate. aching with intimacy.
he watched her like she was the only thing in the world, every flicker of pleasure, every shiver, every moan feeding something greedy and tender inside him. his hips moved with purpose, grinding deep, rolling into her like he wanted her to feel him for days.
his hands slid down to cup her ass, pulling her into him, making each thrust hit just right. she clung to him, body taut and trembling, mouth parted on soft cries he swallowed with his own. he murmured filth into her skin, love into her mouth, worship into her bones.
“mine,” he growled against her throat, fucking her through the steady build of her next climax. “you’re mine. all of you,”.
her body tightened around him as she came, mouth open in a silent cry, tears pricking the corners of her eyes as the pleasure rippled through her. he held her through it, cursed softly into her skin as he thrust through her release—and then he came too, hips stuttering, cock pulsing deep inside her as he moaned her name like a prayer.
they stayed like that—locked together, slick and shaking and breathless—until the world stopped spinning. his fingers traced patterns along her side, soothing and slow, grounding her again.
“you okay?” he murmured, voice gone rough from their activities.
she nodded, lips curling, eyes heavy with exhaustion and something sweeter. “more than okay,”.
he kissed her again—deeper this time, slower—and whispered against her mouth, “good. because i’m not done with you yet,”.
More Posts from Joeyshiesty0 and Others
any (lsu) joe fic recs?
yes ma'am this is my favorite genre!
horns down 1-4 - @ladyluvduv
on your doorstep - @yelenasbraid
guilty as sin - @joeyb1989
study date - @eternalsunrise
goodies - @v6quewrlds
too proud - @v6quewrlds
we never tell - @honeyncherry
back to friends - @joeyb1989
and there's a good bunch of lsu joe in my so high school fic and nghyb series ;)
what are joe and songbird doing on this beautiful day?
a/n: wrote this on the way home from the beach <3
they’re doing everything and nothing, again. wrapped in that honey-gold kind of day that stretches on forever, like time has softened just for them. everything slows in this pocket of the world, tucked into the sleepy rhythm of her home state’s coast. it’s the kind of place where the sea smells like memory—salt and driftwood and sunscreen—and the warm wind combs gently through her hair like an old friend. the beach house is perched just above the shore, all sun-bleached shingles and sea glass tones, with crisp white curtains fluttering in every window and wood floors warmed by the morning light. everything inside smells like coconut, linen, and a trace of her vanilla lotion—soft and familiar, like the inside of a hug.
they wake tangled up, limbs strewn carelessly, skin warm from shared body heat and yesterday’s sun. joe’s voice is gravel-soft as he murmurs a lazy good morning against her shoulder, breath fanning over her skin. he’s shirtless, golden shoulders touched by the sun, a pair of charcoal drawstring shorts slung low on his hips. his hair’s all fluffy from sleep, sticking up in tufts she immediately runs her fingers through. she’s wearing one of his old cotton t-shirts, so long it brushes the tops of her thighs when she pads barefoot into the kitchen. her legs are warm and tan, her lips still kiss-bitten from the night before.
breakfast is quiet and unhurried, bare toes brushing beneath the counter, sunlight pouring across the countertops. she makes toast with honey and soft scrambled eggs while he digs through the fridge for juice, drinking straight from the carton. an old playlist—summer anthems from their high school years—plays from her phone on the windowsill. they slow-dance barefoot on the cool tile, orange juice forgotten, his hands splayed on her lower back, hers looped loosely behind his neck. when her favorite summer song comes on, everybody wants to rule the world, he lifts her off the ground like it’s instinct, spinning her in slow, giggly circles until she’s breathless and flushed.
by late morning, they’re wandering down to the beach. the air is thick with salt and heat, the sand warm and soft beneath their feet. he’s carrying a speaker and their little red cooler, she’s tucked under his arm with a paperback novel in one hand and their striped beach towels over her shoulder. they set up beneath the wide umbrella—she sprawls on her stomach in a bikini with her sunglasses sliding down her nose, he stretches out beside her, head tilted toward the sound of her voice. they take turns reading aloud from her book, her cadence smooth and musical, his voice low and scratchy, a little shy at first until she nudges him with her foot and smiles.
when he gets hot, he drags her into the ocean with a laugh, the water biting at their ankles before soothing into something balmy and blue. she wraps her legs around his waist, arms looped behind his neck, squealing when he pretends to lose balance in the surf. he kisses her, deep and slow, the taste of salt clinging to their lips. then he dunks her, and she comes up shrieking, hair stuck to her face, swatting at him with all the strength of a seaweed-wrapped noodle. he swears he didn’t mean to. they make up with kisses and clumsy sand angels, their backs damp and sticky with sun and sea.
in the afternoon, they throw on easy clothes, her in denim shorts and a loose tank, him in a worn tee and flip-flops, and head to the boardwalk. the wood planks are hot beneath their feet, the scent of funnel cake and fried shrimp thick in the air. they stop for soft serve—chocolate-vanilla swirl with rainbow sprinkles, melting too fast under the heat—and take turns feeding each other, licking stray drops from fingers and grinning like they’re on their first date. they wander into little beach shops, trying on matching sunglasses, holding up cheesy t-shirts that read “i’m with him ➡️” and “i’m with her ⬅️,”. she ties a cheap woven bracelet around his wrist—bright blue and yellow—and he pretends it’s designer. he wins her a tiny stuffed dolphin at the ring toss, and she squeals like she’s never been given anything more precious.
as the sky begins to dim, they board a little rented boat just in time for the sunset. her legs are slung over his lap, head resting against his shoulder, hair tousled from the breeze. he’s one hand on the wheel, the other on her thigh, lazy and warm. she hums along to her favorite songs—her voice soft and sweet over the gentle lapping of the waves. the sky turns gold, then pink, then a deep lavender, like something straight out of an album cover she’d dreamed about, and she turns to catch his profile against it and swears she’s never loved him more than in that exact moment.
they eat dinner tucked into the back corner of a dockside restaurant, the scent of citrus and garlic in the air, the glow of string lights overhead. her legs are draped across his, her foot tracing idle patterns on his calf. he feeds her a bite of his seafood pasta and makes a face when she steals one of his fries. they split a slice of key lime pie, the crust buttery and the filling cold on their tongues. she wipes whipped cream from the corner of his mouth with her fingertip and kisses him soft and slow, just because.
when they’re home again, windows open to the lull of waves, they light a candle on the kitchen table and play cards with their shoulders bumping every time they laugh. she beats him at uno, twice, and talks so much shit he throws a pillow at her. they settle into the couch with mario kart and fuzzy blankets, legs tangled and heads tipped together. every time he loses, he turns to press a kiss to her temple, and she pretends it doesn’t melt her every time.
they fall asleep like that, blankets pooled at their feet, her hand splayed over his chest, the wind whispering through the open windows, and the ocean just beyond, steady and constant. a day full of heat and kisses and sugar and sand, the kind of day that stitches itself into their bones and stays there forever.
A decent pic! 🖤🤍
Posted by Matt Siegel on IG
HOT IN HERRE, JOE BURROW.
pairing⠀⁎⠀joe burrow x reader. word count⠀⁎⠀6.8k.
in the wise words of nelly, "looking for the right time to flash them keys. then, i'm leaving."
author's note⠀⁎⠀coming up with a summary actually almost ended me so pls excuse the lack thereof. inspired by wedding joey <3 warnings⠀⁎⠀18+ mdni, smut, 2nd person [she/her], semi-public sex, quickie, wall sex, both protected & unprotected sex lol, fingering, teeny tiny hint of exhibitionism, mirror sex, dom/sub dynamics but not really, language, praise.
She loved this part of weddings—the moment when the formalities gave way to the raw, unfiltered joy of coming together to celebrate. It was cheesy, finding meaning in the men loosening their ties and rolling up their sleeves, the women ridding themselves of their heels and dancing barefoot, but she couldn’t help it.
It certainly didn't hurt that both she and Joe were unconstrained by the responsibilities of being part of the wedding party. No unflattering bridesmaid dresses to wear or awkward groomsmen to coordinate with. No raging bridezillas to talk off the edge in the bridal suite. And most importantly, the freedom to leave whenever they pleased.
The open bar was a delightful sight, and Joe had already taken advantage of it a few times. His cheeks were flushed with the loss of his inhibition, pale blue eyes shining with the relief of being rid of the self-consciousness that often crept up his spine. The off-season had been good to him. Without an injury to rehab or games to train for, Joe had been able to indulge in the simple things—like drinking at a wedding without worrying about a laundry list of consequences.
The proof of the off-season's benevolence lay in Joe's relaxed posture, shoulders pressed back, one hand resting comfortably in the pocket of his well-tailored navy blue dress pants, the other loosely gripping an empty champagne flute. She watched him from a few feet away, sandy blonde locks perfectly styled and gelled into place, his tall frame a show of masculine grace amidst the sea of wedding guests.
"Here's your drinks, Miss," the bartender's voice cut through the buzz of the reception, handing her two highball glasses filled with fruity, dangerous drinks. She took the glasses with a grateful smile, the cool condensation leaving a light sheen on her fingers. One of the groomsmen was in the middle of a story, Joe's shoulders shaking with laughter, when she approached. The scent of his cologne mingled with the air, twisting in the air like invisible vines that wrapped around her senses and drew her closer.
"Thirsty?" she asked, her voice low and playful, sliding one of the drinks into Joe's waiting hand. His eyes lit up as he took a tentative sip, the alcohol playing a dance of sparks across his tongue.
"Thank you, beautiful," Joe murmured, setting the flute down on a table nearby, leaning over to kiss her cheek. The warmth of his breath sent a shiver down her spine, and she felt his hand sneak around to her lower back, smoothing down the fabric of her dress before moving to rest gently on her hip. The music grew louder as the DJ switched to a more upbeat playlist, and the dance floor began to fill.
She took a sip of her own drink, watching the crowd sway and mingle. The lights cast a warm glow on everyone's faces, and the chatter of conversation filled the air like a symphony of laughter. She felt Joe's hand tighten on her hip as they conversed with the groomsmen, unconsciously bringing her closer. The open back of her floor-length laurel green dress revealed smooth, brown skin that ached to be touched. His palm was warm, his fingers firm as they danced just above the fabric, hinting at the desire that simmered beneath the surface.
Selfishly, she was relieved when the groomsmen were pulled away by another member of the wedding party, leaving Joe to her mercy. She turned into him, her body fitting against his like a puzzle piece that had been searching for its match. "Can barely taste the alcohol in this drink," Joe said, his voice low and gruff. "You tryin' to get me loose?"
Her grin grew wicked as she leaned closer, her breath tickling his ear. "Maybe." She whispered, her fingers tracing the line of his jaw before trailing down to smooth over the fabric of his dress shirt. "You're pretty slutty when you're loose."
Joe's eyes widened for a moment before a smirk took hold of his lips. "I'm slutty?" He laughed, the sound a mix of surprise and delight. "I think you might have that backwards." His hand slipped from her hip to the small of her back, his thumb brushing against the bare skin.
"No, I don't think I do," she shot back with a tilt of her head. "You know exactly what I mean."
Joe took another sip of his drink, the corner of his mouth quirking upwards. "What do I do that's 'slutty'?" He challenged, his voice dropping to a teasing tone, an eyebrow cocked.
"The way you tousle your hair, you start rolling up your sleeves, these buttons," she said, her eyes sparkling as she gestured to his quarter undone shirt. "Everything about you screams 'slutty' when you let go."
Joe's smirk grew into a full-blown grin as he took another sip of his drink, eyes filled with that familiar intensity. "Is that so?" He took her hand and placed it over his heart, feeling the steady thump beneath her fingertips. "You're the one who brings it out of me." His lifted her fingertips to his mouth, kissing each one, holding her gaze. "I'm pretty sure it's your favorite version of me."
The music changed to a rhythmic beat that made her hips sway involuntarily. She took a step back, pulling Joe with her. "C'mon, let's get those hips moving." He attempted to resist, protests spilling from his lips, but she was insistent, her eyes alight with glee. So he followed suit, allowing her to lead him to the dance floor, the alcohol loosening his joints.
As they found a spot amidst the writhing bodies, Joe felt a rush of warmth spread through his chest. The way she moved was mesmerizing, her curves swaying to the music like a serpent charmed by a flute. His hands found their way to her waist, and he pulled her closer, their bodies fitting together like they had been yearning for this moment. She turned around, pressing herself against him, her back arching so that her ass rubbed against his crotch. The heat from her body was like a brand, searing his desire into his very soul.
Under the haze of the dim lights and the pulse of the music, she felt Joe's hands wander over her body, the fabric of her dress gliding and rising under his touch. She leaned back into him, feeling the hard wall of his chest and the rapid beat of his heart. His breath was hot on her neck, his whispers a sweet symphony of want. "You're drivin' me crazy," Joe murmured, his voice a low rumble that sent shivers down her spine. "Gonna tear this dress off you later."
"Is that a promise?" She teased, breathless as Joe's hands slid down her sides. Her skin was hot to the touch, her breathing quickening with each caress. She leaned into him, her hips moving in time with the music, creating a delicious friction that had them both on the edge.
The air grew thick with desire as Joe's hands roamed, just ghosting over her chest. Not enough to draw any attention from the others nearby, but just enough that the message was clear. She gasped, her eyes fluttering shut, the sensation making her core tighten. "You're so fuckin' sexy when you're like this," he whispered, his lips grazing her ear as his arms settled on locking around her waist.
Her laugh was light, the music drowning out any sound of impropriety. "Like what?" She asked, challenged, the words slipping out between her teeth as she leaned back against him. "Tell me."
Joe took a deep breath, his voice a harsh whisper in her ear. "The way you move, the way you look at me like you're about to devour me whole." His hand traveled up to find her underboob, squeezing gently. "Tryin' so hard not to bend you over right here and fuck you senseless."
"See? Slutty." She giggled.
The music shifted, the opening chords of "Hot in Herre" by Nelly blasting through the speakers as the DJ announced a special request. His grip on her hips tightened instinctively, and she felt Joe stiffen behind her. She knew that reaction. Joe didn't sing, swore he had the voice of a dying cat, but there were a handful of songs that got him moving, and this was one of them. She'd snuck it onto a playlist before and watched him let loose in their kitchen, shirtless and overjoyed, singing horribly but indisputably free. She turned to look over her shoulder, grinning at the mix of amusement and horror on his face.
"Did you have somethin' to do with this?" Joe's eyes narrowed playfully at her, the corners of his mouth tugging upward.
She feigned innocence. "I don't remember." She shrugged, though the smile tugging at her lips betrayed her.
He leaned closer, his breath hot against her neck as he murmured, "You're the devil, you know that?"
Her smile grew as she felt his body begin to sway to the music, the tension in his arms giving way to a playful grip. She couldn't help the burst of laughter that escaped her as she turned around, her arms looping around his neck.
"Caught," she conceded, her eyes lighting up as he swung her around to press his crotch against her ass. The beat grew heavier, and she felt her heart race in time with it. They danced, Joe's hands on her hips, guiding her movements, the heat from his body scalding her through their clothes. His mouth found her ear, echoing the lyrics of the early 2000s hit. She felt his teeth graze her earlobe, sending a shiver down her spine. "I've gotta get you out of here," he growled, turning her around, his hands moving lower to squeeze her ass.
She could feel the muscles tensing under his shirt, his body responding to the rhythm of the music and the proximity of hers. "Oh?" she breathed, playing coy, her voice syrupy.
Joe's grip tightened, his hips moving in a slow, deliberate grind against her. "You know what I mean," he murmured, his voice thick with lust.
"But what about the wedding?" she wondered aloud, her breath hot and sweet with the scent of her drink.
"They won't miss us," Joe said, his voice gruff and commanding. "Gonna find us a bathroom, get a little taste of what's to come." His hand slipped down to the back of her thigh, giving it a firm squeeze before he took her hand and led her through the crowd.
The bathroom was tucked away in a quieter corner of the venue, impeccably clean and isolated from the noise of the celebrations. The moment the door clicked shut behind them, the playfulness evaporated into the air. She felt Joe's hands on her again, but this time they were insistent, urgent. He pinned her against the wall as he kissed her, stealing her breath away with a fervor that was anything but innocent. His tongue danced with hers, his hands exploring her curves with the confidence of a man who knew exactly what he wanted.
What he wanted resulted in her dress pooled on the floor around her ankles, his hands on her hips as he hoisted her into his arms. The cold press of the wall against her bare back sent a shock through her body, making her gasp. His eyes were dark, his pupils blown wide with need. "Quiet," he murmured against her mouth, his teeth scraping her bottom lip as he kissed her again. His mouth moved to kiss the soft skin of her neck, her collarbone, his teeth grazing her sensitive flesh.
Her legs wrapped around his waist, the fabric of his pants rough against her skin. She could feel his erection pressing against her, the feeling of anticipation inevitably soaking through her panties. He kissed her neck, her jawline, his hands moving to cup her tits, squeezing them firmly before his thumbs rolled over her nipples. She moaned, her eyes closing in pleasure. The sound seemed to spur him on, his hips moving in a slow, deliberate grind that had her panting.
"You like that?" He whispered, his voice a dark promise.
She nodded, unable to form coherent words as Joe's thumbs continued their torturous dance over her sensitive peaks. Her breaths grew ragged, her body begging for more.
"Tell me what you want, baby," Joe murmured into her skin. Her breath hitched as she felt his hand slide down her stomach, his fingers hooking into the waistband of her panties. With a quick tug, they were on the floor, joining her dress. He stepped closer, brandishing a condom before aligning himself with her, and she could feel the heat of him, thick and insistent, pressing against her.
"You," she managed to say, her voice a shaky whisper. "I want you."
Joe's smirk grew as he positioned himself, the tip of his cock teasing her slick folds. "Good," he breathed, taking in the way her eyebrows scrunched together as his tip slid through her wetness. "Always get what you want, huh?" He pushed in slowly, watching her face contort as he filled her. She was so tight around him, her muscles clenching and releasing, urging him deeper.
Her legs tightened around his waist as Joe pushed in to the hilt, a soft whine escaping her as her back arched. She threw her head back, exposing the line of her neck, and he took full advantage, his teeth scraping against her skin as he began to move. The sound of their hips slapping together filled the small room, mixing with their muffled moans and gasps. The mirror across from them reflected their image, her eyes locked onto her reflection, watching Joe's strong arms flex as he held her up, the muscles in his back rippling with each thrust.
Her nails dug into Joe's shoulders. His hips moved faster, the sound of their skin echoing in the tension-filled air. "So fuckin' tight, goddamn," he murmured, his voice strained. She moaned, her eyes fluttering closed as she felt the rush of pleasure building deep inside her.
Her walls clamped down on him, her pussy tightening around his cock. "Oh, fuck," she muttered, tensing as Joe hit a spot that made her eyes roll back. Her thighs were slung over his forearms, spreading her wide open for his mercy, but Joe showed her none of that. He pumped into her, relishing the way she bit her lip, trying to muffle her cries of pleasure.
"You like that?" He ground out. She nodded, unable to find the words as his cock slammed into her over and over. Her eyes glazed over with lust, and she felt a tremor in her core. "Say it," he ordered, his voice gruff. "Lemme hear you."
"Yes," she panted, her eyes snapping open to meet his in the mirror. The sight of Joe's blue eyes, dark with lust and focused solely on her, sent a jolt of desire through her body. The pleasure grew, each stroke bringing her closer to the edge, her walls pulsing around him. "I love it," she moaned, her voice a sweet surrender to his dominance.
"Fuckin' spoil you, don't I?" Joe whispered, his breath hot against her neck as he increased his tempo. Her legs tightened around him, her body moving in sync with his rhythm, a silent plea for more. "Can't get enough of this pussy," he murmured, his teeth sinking into the flesh of her shoulder. "Fuckin' made for me."
She threw her head back, her mouth opening in a silent scream as Joe slammed into her, hitting that perfect spot that sent her soaring over the edge. Her pussy clenched around him, a wave of pleasure washing over her, leaving her trembling in his arms. He held her up, her legs shaking, her breathing ragged as the orgasm ripped through her. She felt his cock thicken, his hips stuttering before he groaned and filled her with his release.
For a moment, they stayed like that, Joe's forehead resting against her shoulder, their chests heaving in unison. The world outside the bathroom faded away, leaving them in their own little bubble of passion. Then, with a final kiss, he set her down gently, his hands steadying her by the hips until she was stable on her feet. "Bathroom sex," she murmured, a hint of a laugh in her voice as she caught her breath. "We're so cliché."
Joe tucked himself back into his pants with a smug smile, zipping up as he stepped away from her. He bent down to pick up her panties, dangling them in front of her face before stuffing them into his pocket with a grin. "My trophy," he said, winking.
She rolled her eyes but couldn't hide her own smile. "You're a caveman," she teased, her palms pressing into his shoulders to find her balanced as he helped her back into her dress. The fabric whispered against her skin as it slid back into place, the sensation heightening the post-orgasmic glow that washed over her. She stepped away from the wall, her legs wobbly from the intense release, and Joe couldn't help but admire the way she looked, her hair slightly disheveled, her eyes glazed, her lips swollen.
"Listen," Joe began, his own voice a little rough from their encounter. "You go touch up your makeup. I'll go tell the groom we gotta head out early, tell 'em you're not feelin' well." His eyes danced with excitement as he took her hand, leading her to the bathroom door. "I'll meet you by the elevator," he leaned down, brushing the strap of her dress aside to press his lips to her shoulder. "So I can fuck you properly before the night's over."
She nodded, biting her tongue as she watched him leave, closing the door behind him. Looking in the mirror, she smoothed down her hair, her breathing still uneven. Her makeup had held up well, just a slight smear of lipstick from their kisses. She swiped it away and washed her hands. Giving herself a stern look, she straightened her dress and left the bathroom, slipping back into the throng of the reception.
She weaved through the crowd, ignoring the curious glances thrown her way. When she reached the lobby, the cooler air was a shock to her flushed skin. She took a moment to compose herself, leaning against the grand staircase that led up to the hotel's upper levels.
Joe emerged from the reception hall, cheeks flushed and a smug smile playing on his lips. He made his way over to the groom, clapping him firmly on the shoulder. "Hey, man," he said, his voice as earnest as he could muster. "My girl's not feeling too hot. Think we're gonna head up to the room. It's been a long day for her." The groom, a friend of Joe's from college, looked at him with a knowing smirk, but Joe played the concerned boyfriend well. "Send our apologies to your wife, yeah?"
With a nod from his friend, Joe turned and headed straight for the lobby, his eyes scanning the area for any sign of her. He spotted her leaning against the grand staircase, her hand idly playing with the fabric of her dress. She looked up, their gazes locking, and a silent understanding passed between them. The air was thick with the promise of what was to come.
The elevator doors slid open, revealing an empty car, and they didn't waste a second. Joe stepped in and pulled her with him, pressing her against the mirrored wall before the doors had fully closed. His mouth found hers, his hands roamed over her body, rekindling the flames that had only just been extinguished in the bathroom.
"Mm, god, I need you," Joe murmured against her neck, his teeth grazing the sensitive skin as his hand slid down to cup her ass. The elevator chimed softly, signaling their ascent to their floor. She felt her core tighten in anticipation, her breaths coming in short gasps as his kisses grew more insistent.
When the doors slid open, Joe took her hand, leading her down the hallway. The plush carpet muffled their footsteps as they approached their suite. He shut the door firmly behind them, the sound of the lock clicking echoing through the room.
"Strip," he demanded, his hands already reaching for his belt.
Her eyes widened at his command, but she didn't argue. She stepped away from him, her movements slow and deliberate as she removed her dress. It fell to the floor with a soft whisper, leaving her in nothing but her bra and heels.
Joe's eyes roved over her body, his cock twitching in his pants. He stepped closer, his fingers tracing the line of her bra before unclipping it. It fell away, leaving her torso bare. He took one in his hand, kneading it gently before leaning down to suck on her nipple. She gasped, her hand coming up to his hair, her nails scraping his scalp.
"Bed," he murmured, his voice thick with lust. She nodded, leading the way. The room was bathed in a soft glow from the dimmed lights, the plush king-sized bed in the center of the room beckoning them closer.
Her heels clicked against the floor as she made her way over, Joe following closely behind, his eyes never leaving hers. When she reached the edge of the bed, she turned to face him, her heart hammering in her chest. He took a step closer, his hands reaching out to trace the lines of her collarbones. His thumbs brushed her breasts, sending a shiver down her spine as he pushed her back onto the mattress.
He climbed onto the bed, straddling her. His eyes searched hers for a moment, his pupils wide and dark. Then, with a predatory smile, he leaned down to kiss her, his teeth grazing her bottom lip. She wrapped her legs around him, pulling him closer, feeling his hardness pressing against her thigh.
He sat back on his heels, unbuttoning the rest of his dress shirt, holding her gaze as the fabric parted further. She took a deep breath, her eyes drinking in the sight of him as he appeared before her, pants still on. He reached down to undo his belt, his movements slow and deliberate, watching her every reaction. Her thighs were splayed open, the point of her heels digging into the mattress as she anticipated his next move. Her lips parted, pulling her bottom lip between her teeth as his shirt fell away, revealing his broad chest and his arms, corded with muscles and veins from years of training.
Joe reached down and tugged at his pants, his cock springing free, already hard and glistening at the tip. Her eyes went wide, and she sat up, reaching for him, but he stopped her, placing a hand on her thigh, squeezing gently.
"Patience," he whispered darkly. He slid down the bed, his mouth watering as he took in the sight of her bare center, still swollen from their bathroom encounter.
He leaned down and took a deep breath, the scent of her desire making his head spin. "So sweet," he murmured, his tongue darting out to taste her through the fabric of her panties.
Her hips bucked upwards, a moan escaping her as she felt him tease her through the thin barrier. She tried to wiggle them down, but Joe's hand on her lower stomach kept her in place. "Please," she begged, her voice a desperate whine.
"Need it that bad?" he questioned, a flicker of amusement in his eyes. she nodded frantically, her breaths coming in short gasps. With a chuckle, Joe slid her panties down her legs, taking his sweet time as he revealed her to him. He tossed them aside, the fabric landing on the floor silently. Then he sat back on his heels once more, pulling her toward him by her ankles, pushing her legs open, and moving to sit between her thighs.
"Go 'head, touch yourself," Joe murmured, his voice rumbling deep in his chest. "Let me see how bad you want it."
Her chest heaved as she hesitantly reached down to touch herself. Her fingertips glided over her folds, the slickness making her shiver. Joe watched, his own breathing growing more ragged as he watched, his left hand finding her left leg, his thumb digging into the muscles of her calf.
Her eyes never left his as she slid a finger inside herself, her hips lifting slightly to meet her own touch. His gaze darkened, his grip tightening on her leg. "That's it," he encouraged, his voice hoarse. "Make yourself feel good, baby."
Her hand moved slowly at first, exploring her own wetness, her thumb pressing against her clit. She whined softly, the sound low and needy. Joe's eyes were glued to the sight, watching as she grew bolder, her arousal sticky on her fingers. His hand tightened on her calf, his cock jutting upwards, pushing against the seam of his slacks, demanding attention. He shifted her leg, pulling it to rest over his shoulder, forcing her to open herself more fully to him.
"Look at you," he murmured, his voice thick with desire. "So fuckin' pretty." His right hand reached out, his thumb tracing the line of her slit, spreading her wetness, watching as her pupils dilated. He turned his head to kiss the calf that rested on his shoulder, his teeth nipping at the soft skin before his gaze returned to hers. "Keep goin', baby."
Her hand picked up the pace, her eyes fluttering as she watched him watch her. She felt the beginnings of another orgasm building, the heat spreading through her core. Joe's eyes never left hers, his breathing shallow and quick. His thumb brushed her clit, sending a jolt through her body, and she moaned, her hand moving faster.
"So fucking close, aren't you?" he murmured. She nodded, her eyes squeezed shut, her fingers buried knuckle deep in her pussy as she chased the high of her second orgasm. Joe leaned over her, his breath hot against her cheek as he whispered, "Let me have it, baby. Let me see you come for me." His words were a command and a plea wrapped in one, and she felt her body responding, her walls clenching around her fingers as she approached the edge.
Her left leg slung over his shoulder pressed closer to her chest as he leaned over her, the heat from his breath on her skin making her quiver. His thumb circled her clit, the pressure increasing steadily. "Fuck, fuck, fuck," she chanted, her body tightening as she felt the peak approaching. The stretch of her fingers inside her, the slickness of her arousal, and the firm pressure of his thumb on her most sensitive spot drove her to brink of insanity. Her hand was a blur, her eyes screwed shut, and her teeth dug into her bottom lip.
Joe pulled back, his left hand still holding her calf tightly, his fingers digging into her skin. With his right hand, he replaced her own, his thumb pressing harder into her clit, his index and middle fingers sliding into her pussy. Her eyes flew open, the sudden sensation of his larger, more demanding touch making her moan.
"Hmm, better?" Joe smirked, his fingers still working their magic on her clit. She nodded frantically. She swallowed shallowly, his voice low and husky as he whispered, "You're so fuckin' wet for me. I can't wait to feel you squeeze around my cock." His thumb didn't relent, the pressure unyielding, pushing her closer to the precipice.
Her eyes fluttered shut again, her body trembling with the effort to hold back her climax. "Don't get lost on me," he whispered, voicing a demand she couldn't ignore. His fingers danced over her clit, playing her body like a maestro conducting a symphony of pleasure. She felt the wave cresting, ready to crash down on her.
"Fuckin' perfect," Joe groaned as her orgasm washed over her, her body convulsing with pleasure. He watched as she rode the wave, her eyes screwed shut and her mouth open in a silent scream. He didn't stop, his thumb circling her clit even as she came down from the high. When she had recovered enough, he pulled away just enough to replace his fingers with the slide of his cock into her, filling her up in one smooth stroke.
"Joe- fuck," she cursed under her breath, her voice faltering and breaking as Joe began to thrust into her slowly. Her eyes shot open, locking with his intense gaze as he filled her completely. He pushed in deep, hitting that spot that had her seeing stars, making her toes curl and her legs quiver.
He paused to lift her right leg over his shoulder, changing the angle of his penetration. "Feel good?" he asked, checking to make sure she was still feeling it. She nodded, gasping low in her throat each time his hips pulled back. The drag of his cock was slow, deliberate, and maddening. "Good," he murmured, his eyes hooded as he watched her process the sensations.
His hands moved to her hips, holding her in place as his thrusts grew more forceful, his strokes deep and powerful. His hips rolled slowly into hers, drawing out her gasps of pleasure. The bed frame groaned in time with their rhythm, the soft slap of skin echoing in the quiet room. Her nails dug into the sheets as she arched her back, her breasts bouncing with every impact.
Their eyes remained locked, their breaths mingling as Joe leaned down to kiss her, his tongue delving deep into her mouth. The kiss was fierce, a silent declaration of ownership and desire. Her hands roamed his back, tracing the lines of his muscles as she tried to get closer, to feel every inch of him. His hands found hers, tangling their fingers together, pressing them into the mattress above her head.
He picked up the pace, his cock sliding in and out of her with a steadfast rhythm that had her moaning uncontrollably. She threw her head back, her eyes squeezed shut as she whispered his name. "Joe, Joe, Joe," the syllables falling from her lips as if that was all she were made to say.
He could feel her tightening around him, the walls of her pussy gripping his shaft in a vice-like embrace. He knew she was close, but he wasn't ready for it to end. He wanted to draw it out, to savor every second of her unraveling beneath him. He leaned down to kiss her neck, his teeth scraping against her skin as he considered his next move.
Then he saw it, the mirror to the right of the bed reflecting their entwined bodies: her brown skin glowing against the stark whiteness of the sheets, his tanned arms flexing with each thrust, their faces a blend of pleasure and determination. The sight of them together, captured in the reflection, was too much to resist. He pulled back, breaking their kiss, and ordered her onto her knees.
He tapped her ass gently—once, twice—as he angled her body, positioning her just right for his view. Her breath hitched, her eyes meeting his in the mirror as she settled onto her elbows and knees, her back arching as she pushed her ass up towards him. Joe took a moment to appreciate the sight: her ass in the air, the way her thighs glistened with their combined juices, the way she looked at him with a deceiving mix of innocence and lust.
"Beautiful," Joe murmured, his voice thick with lust as he took in the view of her on all fours, her back arched, presenting herself to him. He palmed her ass, giving it a firm squeeze before he lined up the head of his cock with her entrance. With a single, powerful thrust, he filled her, watching in the mirror as she took all of him in, her eyebrows furrowing in pleasure.
She moaned weakly, her chest falling forward as he held her hips firmly, his grip unyielding. The mirror reflected the way Joe's body moved over hers, the power and control in each stroke. He watched her face, her eyes screwed shut in ecstasy, as he pumped into her from behind. The sound of their flesh colliding filled the air, his hands squeezing and releasing her hips in time with his thrusts.
"Look at yourself," he whispered, his voice gruff and demanding. Her eyes fluttered open, meeting her own gaze in the mirror. She saw the passion etched on her features, the way Joe's eyes devoured her body as he claimed her. She watched as she pushed her ass back to meet his hips, gasps and sighs leaving her lips with each deep, possessive stroke.
"Fuck, you're so tight," Joe growled as he pumped in and out of her. She moaned, feeling his eyes on her, feeling his cock stretch and fill her. It was an exquisite mix of pleasure and vulnerability, knowing that he could see every part of her, that he had complete control over her body.
"Love your cock," she whimpered, the words spilling out of her unbidden. The sound of Joe's skin slapping against her ass grew louder, his movements more urgent. He leaned over her, pressing her down into the bed as he slammed into her, his fingers digging into her hips.
"Yeah?" Joe grunted, a smirk playing on his lips as he watched her squirm under his touch. "You like how it feels, baby?" He knew she did. The way she was pushing back against him, the little sounds of pleasure she made, the way she tightened around him—it was all clear as day. "Tell me," he demanded, his voice a low rumble in her ear. "Tell me how much you love it."
Her face heated as she stared into the mirror. Her eyes were half-lidded with pleasure, her mouth parted in a silent moan. "I love it, babe," she managed to say, her voice strained. "I love it so much. Feels so good."
"That's my girl," Joe murmured, his strokes becoming faster, harder. The headboard of the bed thumped rhythmically against the wall, each impact sending a shockwave through her body. Her eyes grew wider as she watched Joe's face in the mirror, his jaw clenched and his cheeks flushed with arousal. "Fuckin' yourself back onto me like that," he groaned. "So hot. So fuckin' hot."
Her movements began to falter, her hands digging into the bedsheets in frustration as she fought to stay upright. "Baby," she whined, "I can't... I- fuck, it's too much."
Joe's response was a low, dark chuckle. "You can," he assured her, his voice a gentle rumble. "You can take it, baby. You want my help?" He reached around her, pulling her body upright until her back pressed against his chest. The shift in position drew a long, desperate moan from her throat as his cock hit a new angle, rubbing against her g-spot with each thrust.
"That's better," he hummed, his breath warm against her neck as he wrapped his arm around her waist. With her back against his chest, Joe's cock remained buried deep within her, his thrusts now shorter but no less intense. He nuzzled her neck, his nose nudging against her earlobe. "Need my hands too?"
With a nod, she leaned into him, her hips stuttering against him. He chuckled, his right hand creeping up to squeeze at the sides of her throat. She gasped, her head falling back to rest against his shoulder, and he took the opportunity to kiss her, his tongue demanding entry to her mouth. His left hand found its way between her lips, sliding two fingers into her mouth, coating them with her saliva.
Suddenly, she felt those same fingers slide down her body, tracing a wet path to her clit. She moaned, her eyes flying open to meet his in the mirror again. He watched her face as he began to rub slow, torturous circles around her swollen bud. She reached down to grip his wrist, silently begging for more, for harder, faster, anything to get her over the edge again.
"Not yet," he murmured, his teeth scraping against her earlobe. "We're gonna make this last." He pinched her clit lightly, making her jolt and whimper. She could feel him smiling against her skin, his breath hot and ragged in her ear.
Their eyes locked in the mirror, his fingers working her clit in time with his thrusts. The pleasure was unbearable, a delicious torment that had her squirming and bucking her hips back against him. He groaned, his eyes dark with desire, and she realized he was just as lost in it as she was.
Joe's grip tightened on her throat, not enough to cut off her air, but enough to remind her of his control. It was a heady feeling, one that sent a fresh wave of arousal through her body. "Gonna come inside, baby," he whispered, his breath hot against her ear. "Gonna fill you up. Get you all warm. Sound alright?"
She nodded frantically, her eyes glazed over with need. She felt Joe's cock swell, knew he was close, and she met his every thrust with an eager push of her hips. His fingers worked her clit in a relentless rhythm, the pressure building until she thought she would burst. "Do it," she choked out, the words barely audible. "Please, Joe."
"Beggin' so sweetly," Joe chuckled, the sound vibrating through her as he thrust into her with a new urgency. His fingers circled her clit faster, the pressure building until she was teetering on the edge of release. Her eyes rolled back in her head, and she bit down on her lower lip to muffle her cries. The room spun with pleasure, the mirrored image of their joined bodies blurring as she felt herself climbing towards ecstasy. "Can't wait until it's our wedding night. Gonna fuck my pretty little wife right outta your wedding dress, just like you deserve."
And then, it hit her—a powerful, shattering orgasm that ripped through her body. She stuttered his name, her back arching and her muscles tightening around his cock. The pressure on her throat increased just enough to make her gasp for air, which only served to heighten the sensations flooding through her.
In the mirror, she watched Joe's face contort in pleasure, his eyes squeezed shut as he felt her pussy convulse around him. He grunted, his own climax following swiftly. With a final, deep thrust, he came inside her, filling her up with his warmth. His grip on her throat loosened, and she took a deep, shaky breath, her body going limp against him before falling forward onto the bed, Joe's cock still buried deep within her.
They stayed like that for a moment, their breathing ragged and mingling. Then Joe leaned down, kissing the back of her neck, his tongue tracing the line of her spine. "Fuck," he whispered, his voice still thick with desire. "We should do that more often."
She laughed, her body still trembling from the aftershocks of her orgasm. "Ditch parties to go fuck?" she teased, turning her head to look up at him, wincing when his cock slipped out of her.
He reached a greedy hand forward, squeezing the soft flesh of her ass, hypnotized by the sight of his spend leaking out of her, painting a warm trail on her inner thigh. "Every fuckin' time we get a chance," he murmured, his voice low and filled with satisfaction. "Could get used to this."
She flipped onto her back, yawning and stretching out, her body boneless with satisfaction. "What was that about 'our wedding night'?" She asked, her eyes half-closed. She smiled when she felt his head find her chest, his cheek pressing into the softness of her breast.
Joe lifted his head, blue eyes tracing over her features. "Just planning ahead," he said with a happy sigh. "I meant it. If that's what you're asking."
Her hand found the crown of his head, fingers threading through his hair as she considered his words. "I want that too." The admission was soft, but it filled the space between them, full and warm.
Joe pulled away slightly, looking at her with a sudden seriousness. "Yeah?" he asked, his voice hopeful.
She nodded, her hand stroking his cheek. "More than anything," she said, her voice strong and clear.
The smile that spread across Joe's face was like the sun breaking through storm clouds. He tilted his head up to kiss her, a gentle press of his lips that spoke volumes. When he pulled back, he whispered, "Good to know."
Hello?!
In NYC for Bodyarmor
we never tell - joe burrow
summary whatever’s happening between you and Joe was always a bad idea—too tempting, too reckless, too addictive to stop. tahoe just made it impossible to hide.
content 18+, smut, angst, fluff, alcohol, language, all of the warnings
DAY ONE
Well… even if something did go catastrophically wrong this week, at least no parents would be around to witness the fallout.
Your dad got pulled into covering a partner’s trial at the last minute, and your mom had used it as an excuse to spend the week with her friends in the city. The only reason that worked out so conveniently was because Jimmy and Robin had somehow scored a Hawaii trip—Robin’s sister bailed and handed off the all-inclusive package like some benevolent tropical fairy godmother.
Whose bright idea it was to leave a cabin full of twenty-somethings alone with a liquor cabinet older than all of you… unclear. But they insisted you’d be fine. Dan and Carrie were technically around to “supervise,” and you’d promised your parents no injuries, no disappearances, and definitely no tequila-fueled hospital visits—before boarding your flight to Reno.
After landing, Dominic made a beeline for the rental lot and immediately picked out the most expensive SUV available, high off the thrill of having full credit card access for the first time in years. He hadn’t been trusted with it since the infamous boy’s trip to the Keys, an event so chaotic you still get silenced anytime you try to bring it up.
So, in a shiny new Rover (probably not the smartest pick for mountain roads, but at least it had all-wheel drive), you shared a gas station breakfast and made fun of each other’s playlists the entire drive. He made sure to grab a pack of powdered donuts (stale, of course, but sacred tradition), and some hot chocolate (lukewarm, but still a must), before you started the final stretch.
The drive was calm. Almost idyllic in that blurry, half-sweet way that made you feel fourteen again. Your knees ached from being curled up too long, your stomach from the processed sugar crash—but still, it felt familiar. So much so in the way that made you feel like something good might happen if you let it.
And then you pulled into the driveway and the feeling started to fade.
The house looked the same as ever with its vaulted peaks framed in snow and warm golden windows flickering behind tall pine trees, all seeming a little too much like a frozen memory waiting for you to step back in.
You hadn’t been here the past two winters. First it was a senior trip to Europe—bouncing between hostels, starting in Rome and ending in Paris. Then Arizona with your new college friends, chasing desert sunsets and overpriced concert tickets. You didn’t regret either trip. But pulling up now, in the cold breath of early evening, you realized just how much had changed. Or maybe it was just you.
And the Joe thing didn’t help. Whatever it was. Whatever you two were.
You’d kept in touch… sort of. A few texts, scattered across the month. Some flirtier than others. A couple photos exchanged during finals week. One very late FaceTime you both quietly ignored the next morning. You weren’t dating. You weren’t a thing. But something lived in the quiet between those conversations.
And now, you were about to spend a full week under the same roof.
Dominic cut the engine, glancing over as you stare at the house like it might swallow you whole.
“You good?” he asks with a lopsided grin. “C’mon, it’s gonna be a good time.”
You nod, fixing a smile on your face like it might just hold everything together. The last thing you needed—what no one needed—was for you to get tangled up in your feelings. He pats your arm in that same brotherly way he always does, trying to play it cool even though you know he clocks every shift in your mood.
Shoving the last of your nerves down deep, you step out into the cold, zipping your coat up to your chin as the mountain air sinks its teeth in.
“Cincy?” a voice calls out from somewhere near the garage. “That really you?”
With a Busch Light already in hand and that same boyish swagger in his step you remembered a little too well, Connor strolls toward the car like it hasn’t been years. He looked good—windswept and red-cheeked from the cold, hair messily tucked under a backwards hat, ski jacket half-zipped like the cold didn’t bother him. He stops long enough to dap up your brother, slipping easily into small talk.
While they caught up, you move around to the backseat and pop open the door, reaching for your weekender bag. “Thought you ditched us for good,” the voice came again, closer this time, just behind your shoulder.
You nearly jumped out of your skin, and by the time you turn, Connor is already reaching past and grabbing your bag with one arm like it weighed nothing. His fingers brush yours in the process but he doesn’t pull away instantly. His gaze flicks across you, lingering just a second too long before his grin is tugged back into place.
“Still pack like you're running away,” he teases, hoisting the bag easily onto his shoulder. “What do you have in here, bricks?”
You roll your eyes but felt the heat creep up your neck anyway. Some things never change.
Connor has been a fixture in Tahoe since you were kids—his parents owned one of the ski resorts up the road, and he’d practically grown up on the slopes. Your brother met him at a little skiing workshop when they were both eight and declared him his best friend within twenty-four hours. From that moment on, Connor was everywhere. Sitting across from you at pizza nights, rigging up makeshift ski jumps in the backyard while you made snowmen, tagging along for movie nights and always calling dibs on the beanbag chair you liked first.
He was also the one who used to chuck snowballs at you during your ski lessons, making dumb faces from the lift while you wobbled your way down the bunny hill. And when you were younger—maybe eleven or twelve—that teasing turned into something else. Something you couldn’t name at the time, but you felt it every time he ruffled your hair or called you “kid.” Something fluttery and stupid and way too intense for someone who barely looked at you twice once the older girls from his school showed up.
You zip your coat a little higher and try to ignore the way he still makes your stomach flip.
“You coming in,” he asks while glancing back at you with a grin, “or just gonna freeze out here?”
Then, with a playful edge, “Unless you still do plan on running away.”
At that exact moment, Dominic passes by, rolling his eyes as he hoists a duffel over one shoulder. “Don’t encourage her,” he mutters to Connor, loud enough for both of you to hear. “She’s been one minor inconvenience away from bailing since we landed.”
Connor barks out a laugh, looking over his shoulder at you with a grin that only widened. “Noted,” he said, then winked. “Guess I better behave.”
You shook your head but your face was already warm and you hated that he could probably tell. Connor holds the door open and you mumble a quick thanks. The second you step inside, you’re instantly met with a flood of familiar faces.
Jamie and his fiancé, Emily, are curled up on the loveseat, waving with cheerful smiles. The last time you’d seen them was at the Fourth of July barbecue—one of those chaotic afternoons where you barely got more than a hug in before they were pulled away by someone bombarding them with questions about wedding plans.
By the fireplace sits Nate, another Tahoe local, and Caleb, whose family rents the place just down the mountain. Nate had become part of the group years ago after overhearing one of Dom, Joe, and Connor’s brilliant plans to sneak out and meet a group of out-of-towners. He tagged along, and somewhere in the chaos of the teens getting lost, they met Caleb—brother to one of the girls they were trying to find.
Now, the five of them—Nate, Caleb, Dom, Connor, and Joe—are practically a package deal. Wherever one went, the others followed. Most of the time, anyway.
There’s always been a weird thing between Joe and Connor. Not outright fighting, but something just under the surface. A quiet competitiveness. Clipped comments. The occasional sideways glance that made everyone else fall awkwardly silent. No one ever explained it and no one dared ask—but the tension was always there.
You’d gotten used to it over the years, but that didn’t make it any less noticeable.
“We’re here! Nobody cry.” Dom shouts the moment you’re able to gather yourself.
“Speak for yourself. I’m already regretting this.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he says, waving you off as he kicks snow off his boots. “You say that now, but give it two drinks and you’ll be sobbing about how much you missed me.”
“I never said I missed you.”
“That’s rude, considering I brought you here.”
“You brought me here because Mom made you.”
Dom gasps, “wow. Throw me under the bus in front of the boys.”
“Don’t worry,” Nate says from his spot. “She’s already doing great.”
“Shut up,” you mutter, cheeks warming as you shrug off your coat. The room was way too quiet with too many eyes looking your way.
“Okay but seriously,” Caleb adds, eyes flicking over you. “When did Dom’s little sister become an actual person?”
Dom turned so fast, you thought he might throw his bag at him. “Nope. Stop. Don’t even finish that sentence.”
Connor passes by then, beer still in hand, his mouth twitching like he was trying not to smile. “You’re already losing control, bro.”
“Already regretting everything,” Dom sighs then jabs a finger at you. “Don’t even think about joining their side.”
You grin. “No promises.”
The group laughs, all descending into chaos as you reach to grab your bag from Connor, lugging it up the stairs.
Your room was exactly the same. Same patchy quilt. Same old Polaroids pinned to the corkboard, some faded beyond recognition, others showing unmistakable evidence of braces, bad bangs, and someone (likely one of the guys) photobombing in every other one.
You didn’t unpack so much as toss your things across the bed and pretend you felt fine. Voices could be heard faintly rising from below, laughs layered over old stories, the low thrum of a speaker someone connected to, the dull creak of floorboards that never stopped giving everyone away. For a moment, it felt like you’ve slipped back into something you’d aged out of. Like the walls were waiting to see who you were now, to figure out if you still fit.
Right as you were considering whether anyone would notice if you just stayed up here for the rest of the night, you heard the front door open. And even from upstairs, even without seeing her, you knew.
By the time you (begrudgingly) made it halfway down the stairs, you could already feel the energy shift. Conversations hadn’t stopped, but they’d slowed—tilted in her direction. You see her first from the back, brushing snow from her coat sleeves with that same effortless grace that always made her seem way older than the rest of you even when she wasn’t.
Bridget moved like she had somewhere more important to be and had just chosen to show up here anyway. Her dark hair was tucked into a sleek braid that rested against one shoulder and her gloves were shoved neatly into her pockets instead of tossed carelessly to the side like the others.
“Hey,” she says, gaze moving around the room like she was cataloging who made it this year and who didn’t. “Sorry I’m late. I came straight from practice.”
Of course she did.
Dom let out a low whistle from across the room. “Damn, look who finally decided we’re worth her time.”
Bridget rolls her eyes but her smirk gives her away. “I’m not the one who missed two years in a row.”
You step the rest of the way down, fighting the urge to bite back. Not that she said anything cruel—Bridget didn’t do cruel. She didn’t need to. Her silence said plenty.
She’d never been unfriendly but there was something in the way she looked at you that always made you feel like she was waiting for you to grow into something you hadn’t quite become. She was all mountain air and early mornings and first-place medals.
You huff an exaggerated laugh, “nice to see you too, Bridget.”
She doesn’t take the bait, instead giving a small, practiced smile alongside a nod that somehow still feels condescending even though it wasn’t. She wasn’t being cold. She wasn’t being anything, really. That was the thing about Bridget—she never needed to try hard to make her presence known. She was gracious, polite, perfectly warm in the right places, but always seemed to exist just slightly above the rest of the group. Not on purpose. Just naturally out of reach.
You use the moment to make your quiet exit from the edge of the living room, slipping past the group and heading towards the kitchen. You cross the floor to the counter, reaching for one of the unopened seltzers and cracking it open as you stand with your back to the chaos just beyond. The hum of the fridge kicks on. Someone laughs in the other room. You take a slow sip, breathing in through your nose, letting your shoulders drop for the first time all evening.
“Didn’t think you’d actually show.”
The voice comes from just behind your shoulder, low and close enough that you jump—hard enough to almost spill your drink. You turn fast, already teetering between a laugh and a scowl.
“Jesus. People have got to stop doing that to me.”
Joe stands there, looking slightly amused, arms crossed like he’s been leaning there the whole time. And even though you’ve seen his name light up your phone more times than you could count, something about seeing him in person now made your heart stutter in your chest.
It’s stupid how quickly it hits you.
He smiles, a little crooked. “Doing what?”
“Sneaking up on me,” you say, turning back toward the counter, fingers picking at the tab on your can. “Connor did it earlier and I nearly fell on my ass.”
You glance over your shoulder, expecting a laugh from him. Maybe a grin. What you don’t expect is the way his smile falters. It doesn’t come back. His jaw is tight, eyes a little harder than they were a second ago. Your gaze lingers longer than it should, then you turn away again, suddenly too aware of how exposed your back feels.
His footsteps don’t echo but you feel every one of them—the soft shift of the floorboards, the presence behind you pulling closer. You stay rooted where you are, frozen somewhere between wanting to say something and knowing better.
He stops behind you and you feel it before you process it. The shift in air. The slow pull of warmth at your back. The way your breath stutters like your body remembers this before your mind can catch up. His arm lifts above you, smooth and unhurried, and it’s not until it lowers again that you realize what he was reaching for.
A bottle of bourbon. Probably stashed from a past trip, maybe even the last one you skipped. His fingers curl around the neck, knuckles white against the dark glass, grip tight enough to draw your eyes without meaning to. The bottle hangs at his side as he lingers there, shoulders loose, weight tipped into one hip like he’s in no rush to go anywhere.
You feel him watching you.
His tongue clicks softly, the sound sharp in the quiet.
“Old habits die hard, huh.”
The words land behind you dryly. Almost bored. Like he’s amused with himself, or maybe with you. You turn your head again, slower, but just in time to catch the flick of his eyes as he rolls them.
And then he walks out, leaving you in the kitchen with the sting of all the things you didn’t get to say.
DAY TWO
If there’s such a thing as peace after tequila and half a bag of marshmallows, you’re pretty sure it looks something like this.
You’re not sure when the night started to blur. Maybe right after Dom and Caleb came barreling in from the garage, triumphantly holding up a dusty box of leftover fireworks like they’d just unearthed buried treasure. That part was actually kind of impressive. The problem, of course, was that no one could find a single lighter in the entire house. Dan (supposed chaperone) was storming through the kitchen like a man possessed, opening drawers, tossing aside old candles, muttering something like, “In a house that’s hosted teenagers and middle-aged moms for fifteen years, how the hell is there not a single lighter?”
You’d finished your drink, still holding the empty can because it felt easier than figuring out how to escape unnoticed. Everyone was talking over each other, laughing too loud, spinning off into side quests about flammable household objects. You remember leaning against the wall, half-listening, half-hoping no one would pay attention when you finally slipped up the stairs silently.
Apparently, no one did.
It wasn’t the plan to end up skiing alongside Bridget. The group had naturally split on the last run and the two of you had found yourselves carving lazy paths through powdery snow.
She could actually be kind of easy to talk to—when she was like this, anyway. You’d never had a problem with her. It was just that being around Bridget for too long felt like trying to keep up with someone who was always three steps ahead without ever looking back to see if you were still there.
Bridget coasts ahead a little, then drifts back to match your speed. She tilts her head like she’s considering something, and then says, “You’d like this guy I’ve been training with.”
You blink over at her. “Training?”
“Yeah, out in Utah. He’s been helping me with form drills. Super technical but like... laid-back about it. Kind of annoyingly perfect, honestly.”
“Wait. Who is this?”
“This guy Max. Works up at Copper full time. He’s kind of a freak athlete.”
“Sounds like a nightmare.”
Bridget smiles. “He kind of is.” She slows and adds, “I almost wiped out last week trying to impress him. Took a jump I had no business touching.”
You laugh under your breath. The idea of Bridget trying to impress anyone didn’t quite compute. She was the one people chased after, not the other way around.
“So is that a thing, or...?”
“What, me and Max?” She lets out a breath that was more of a laugh. “No. Definitely not. He’s, like, wildly older. And has a mullet.”
You grin. “That’s not necessarily a dealbreaker.”
“Maybe in the summer when I lose my standards.”
There was a second of quiet, just long enough for you to register the fact that she hadn’t mentioned Joe at all. Not that it was weird she hadn’t. But still. You’d spent the better part of your teenage years watching them share this unspoken bond. Joe and her always talked like they shared some secret competitive sport language that none of you quite understood. And even though neither of them were flirting, you’d spent years pretending not to notice how easily she made him laugh. How his shoulders relaxed around her in ways they didn’t around anyone else.
It had driven you a little insane.
You coast a bit further alongside her, snow brushing softly beneath your skis. It was impossible to not feel the question forming before she asked it.
“What about you? You seeing anyone?”
Your answer comes too fast.
“No.”
She raises an eyebrow. “That was definitive.”
“There’s just… not anyone. Not really.” You fix your gaze down as you say it. “No one important.”
Looking back down the slope, the others were already halfway into taking their skis off. It looks as if they’ve been waiting a minute or two, milling around near the trees, voices carrying faintly over the wind. You hadn’t realized how close you'd gotten.
The two of you glid the rest of the way down in silence, but right before you reach them, she nudges you with her elbow.
“No one important, huh?”
You don’t get the chance to answer—Dom turns toward you both with a smirk already forming.
“What’s that? Bridget talking about a boy?” He pops one ski off with the edge of the other and leans in like he’s ready to stir the pot. Caleb jumps in before you can deflect.
“Multiple boys,” he adds, eyebrows bouncing.
“I heard training with a guy and no one special,” Nate shares, which was absolutely not what had been said.
Bridget groans, stepping past them to unclip her bindings. “Jesus. You children are exhausting.”
“Max, was it?” Dom asks, twisting to look at her. “Can he come visit?”
“He has a mullet,” you say, deadpan, pulling your goggles off and resting them on your helmet.
That earns a full wave of groans and fake gags.
“Oh, so you are talking about guys,” Nate beams, pointing at you like he’s cracked a code.
Bridget doesn’t even blink as she peels off one glove. “I was talking about drills.”
“Same thing,” Nate mutters under his breath, just loud enough for Caleb to elbow him.
You’re unbuckling your helmet when Connor slides in beside you, catching just enough of the exchange to grin like he’d been listening the whole time.
“Wait, wait,” Connor says with a smirk. “You talking about guys too, Cincy?”
“Absolutely not,” you say, already starting toward the lodge with skis in hand. “Bridget was talking. I was listening.”
“Mmhmm,” Dom calls out. “That’s why your face is all red.”
“It’s the wind,” you sigh.
“Sure,” Joe says from in front, not looking at you. It’s the first thing he’s said since you got down the mountain, like he’s been waiting for the perfect moment to make a dig.
You shake your head, not sure when everything started feeling off. Racking your skis next to Dom’s, you’re the first one inside the lodge. The windows are fogged over with steam, coats hung heavy on every hook, air thick with the scent of chili and burnt coffee. Someone’s boots squeak on the tile behind you.
There’s already a short line at the café counter, but no one seems stressed. Connor waves to the girl behind the register like he’s here every weekend. Which, you guess, he kind of is.
“Put it on the family tab,” he grins, throwing an arm around Dom’s shoulders.
Dom grins, overjoyed. “Must be nice to be ski royalty.”
Caleb clutches his chest dramatically. “God, the burden of generational wealth.”
“All that inherited trauma,” Nate adds with a grin.
“Shut up,” Connor laughs, nudging you forward in line. “You want anything, Cincy?”
You grab a water and something light. You know you won’t finish it but that doesn’t really matter to you right now.
The group shuffles toward a long table in the middle of the room, benches lining either side. You’re just settling into a seat between Dom and Bridget when Connor slides in beside you, nudging Bridget over without a word. He leans forward, grinning at something Dan’s saying from down the line.
But it’s not Dan you’re looking at.
Your eyes flick up, maybe out of habit. Maybe instinct.
Joe’s the one sitting across from you—elbows planted lightly on the table, fingers brushing the edge of a napkin he hasn’t touched. His food sits untouched too. Forgotten, possibly. Or never wanted in the first place.
And he doesn’t flinch when your gaze catches his. Doesn’t look away or pretend he wasn’t already watching. He just stays there, fixed and silent in that nerving way that makes it hard to tell if he’s calm or coiled tight beneath it all.
Like a shadow cast too cleanly. Too perfectly still to be natural.
You try to hold it, but it’s too much. There’s something about the way he tilts his head at you that makes your stomach turn.
Your fingers twitch around the edge of your water bottle, and you drop your gaze before he can see the heat climbing up your neck. Pretend you’re focused on the plastic, on the food, on anything other than the feeling of being seen and measured and maybe a little bit punished.
You pick up your fork with jerky fingers, trying not to look obvious about how your throat’s too tight to even swallow.
“So,” Connor starts, nudging your elbow gently with his own. “How’s Cincy?”
You blink at him, still caught up in your own mind. “Cincy?”
He grins. “School. You still call it that, right? Or have you sold out and started calling it UC?”
A smile tugs at your mouth before you can stop it. “Still Cincy.”
Dom’s already halfway through his sandwich, talking with his mouth full. “Only person I know who’s ever actually wanted to go to Cincinnati.”
“Since she was, like, ten,” Connor adds in, looking oddly proud he remembers.
“Because she’s a psycho,” Dom adds.
“That’s not news,” Bridget mutters.
“Hey,” you say, pointing your finger at her. “You’re the one trying to impress a guy with a mullet.”
“Oh my God, we’re still on this?” Bridget drops her head into her hands dramatically.
“You’re the one who brought him up,” Caleb points out, reaching across the table to steal a fry from Dan’s plate.
If this were a few years ago, you would’ve been a mess.
Connor sitting next to you, talking to you like this? It would’ve short-circuited your teenage brain. You would’ve been red in the face, barely able to breathe, too caught up in every shift of his eyes, every word.
He was golden back then. Untouchable. Everything.
Now you barely register the way his knee bumps yours beneath the table.
Because across the table, Joe is watching you like he sees everything. And no matter how hard you try not to, that’s where your attention keeps drifting.
Connor leans a little closer, voice low. “I’m serious though. You still like it?”
You nod. “Yeah. I do.”
“And classes are good? Professors not ruining your life yet?”
“Only two of them.”
He grins. “Name names. I’ll handle it.”
You shake your head with a soft laugh, about to say something back when Dan’s voice cuts in from further down the table.
“Hey,” he says, loud enough to pull everyone’s attention. “Do we wanna try to hit the far ridge after this? Or are we too lazy?”
“Too lazy,” Bridget answers immediately.
“I’m in,” Dom says, licking mayo off his thumb. “We’ve got like two hours of sun left.”
“I’m not hiking back,” Emily says, frowning. “Y’all can meet me at the lodge bar after.”
Carrie, from beside her, hums in agreement.
“Some team spirit,” Nate mutters. “What happened to unity?”
“It died with my motivation,” Emily shoots back, popping a fry in her mouth. “Bridget, you down?”
Bridget raises an eyebrow, considers. “If someone carries my poles.”
“I’ll carry your skis if you promise not to pass me next time,” Caleb says through a mouthful of sandwich. “My ego still hasn’t recovered.”
“You need to let that go,” Jamie chimes in. “It was one run.”
“One run too many,” Caleb mutters.
Connor’s shoulder brushes yours when he turns toward you again. His thigh presses against yours under the table, but he doesn’t seem to notice. Or maybe he does and just doesn’t care. He nods toward the others. “So, team far ridge?”
You give a soft shake of your head, fingers curling tighter around your water bottle as you lean back slightly. “I think I’m gonna skip it,” you say, voice just loud enough to carry across the table. “Got a bit of a headache.”
A few heads turn, mild concern flickering across their faces. “Probably from hanging out with us,” Nate says, tapping his temple like he’s discovered something. “We’re loud as hell.”
“That or altitude,” Jamie adds helpfully.
“Or the mullet talk,” Bridget mutters, and Connor snorts beside you.
You smile politely, already reaching for your stuff. “I might just head back to the house for a bit.”
“You want a ride?” Connor asks, already shifting like he might stand.
“I have to head back anyway.”
Your head snaps up so fast it actually makes your vision blur for a second.
Joe’s voice cuts through the noise of the table so cleanly it leaves an echo.
Oh God.
You pale instantly. You know it. Feel it. That slow, heavy drop in your stomach is like a missed step in the dark. Heat claws at your neck and then recedes just as fast, replaced by a tight, uncomfortable chill.
“Team call,” he adds, not looking at anyone in particular.
Bullshit.
You don’t know how you know, but you know.
Dom jumps in to say, “Oh, that’s right. They moved it up for East Coast time.”
Joe stands, his chair scraping just slightly as he pushes it back. His eyes catch yours but he doesn’t say anything as he waits expectantly.
Your heart thuds once, too loud. You hesitate for a breath, then slowly stand too, ignoring the way your legs feel a little like water.
Dan looks up, already sliding his tray aside. “We’ll grab your skis for you guys.”
Jamie nods, wiping his hands on a napkin. “Yeah, don’t worry about it.”
Joe doesn’t say anything as he leads the way out.
The snow crunches beneath your boots in that slow, late-afternoon kind of hush, the parking lot half-shaded, frost settling heavier now that the sun’s started to dip. Dom’s Rover is exactly where they left it this morning, next to Connor’s Bronco—windows streaked with melt lines, black paint dulled under a fine dusting of powder.
Joe tosses the keys in one hand, catches them in the other, then climbs into the driver’s seat without a word. You follow, tugging the passenger door shut with more force than necessary, the thunk of it feeling louder than it should.
The engine turns over. The heat kicks on. But neither of you speak.
You stare out the window, counting fence posts or pine trees or whatever flashes by fast enough to keep your thoughts from spiraling.
You're thankful the drive is short. And quiet.
By the time he pulls into the driveway, you’re already reaching for the door handle. He hasn’t even shifted the car into park before you’re out, feet hitting the ground in one sharp step. Your hand fumbles with the passcode at the front door, thumb too cold and a little too shaky to press the numbers right on the first try. The keypad blinks red. You curse under your breath and try again.
You can hear his door close behind you.
God. You’d just wanted a few seconds of space with a clean escape. A quiet slip into the room, maybe the illusion of stillness long enough to breathe without the memory of his eyes on you. Watching. Unrelenting. Like he wanted you to choke on your silence.
The door beeps green. You grab the handle.
But then his hand wraps around your arm.
Low and close behind you, almost gentle: “Nuh uh.” The sound of it is soft, but it stops everything. Your pulse stutters. You freeze in place, body angled toward the stairs, one foot forward like you could still outrun this.
“I thought you had a call,” you say flatly, not bothering to mask the bitterness clinging to your throat.
Joe shakes his head once. “I lied.”
You turn slowly, chest tight. “Well, I have a hea—”
“No you don’t.” There’s a flicker in his jaw. He looks... tired. And tense. Like he’s been holding something back all day and it’s finally cracking through. “You were fine ten minutes ago,” he says. “And if it really was about a headache, you’d have gone with Connor.”
You blink. Heart picking up again. “That’s not—” He steps in before you can finish. Not touching, but close enough that the distance shrinks and your folded arms suddenly feel childish. Defensive. You drop them, and regret it instantly.
“I’m not trying to fight,” he murmurs, like it’s a line he’s rehearsed but still isn’t sure will work. “But I can’t do this fake shit.”
Your teeth find the inside of your cheek, holding down the rest. “Then what do you want, Joe?”
His eyes flash. There’s something angry there, but it’s not really at you. “I want to know what’s going on. With you. With Connor.”
You stare at him. “There’s nothing going on.”
“Then why does it feel like there is?”
You open your mouth. Close it. Shake your head once and look down. “There never has been. Never will be.”
His hand twitches at his side like he wants to reach for you but thinks better of it. “Okay,” he says, after a long pause. “Okay.”
“Why?” You finally glance up at him. “Are you seeing someone else?” The question barely makes it out. It’s too thin, too careful, like it’s not supposed to be heard. But it is. And worse, it’s understood.
Joe doesn’t flinch, but you can see the answer in his eyes before he speaks. “No.”
It knocks something loose in your chest. “Oh.”
Small. Stupid. And way too late to hide the disappointment layered in it.
Joe exhales hard, like he’s been bracing for that exact reaction. “You don’t believe me.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
Your jaw tightens. “I just—I don’t know what you want me to say.”
He moves again. Two steps this time. Barely a breath between you. “Say what you’re thinking,” he says. “Because I’m standing here trying not to lose my fucking mind, and you’re looking at me like I’m a stranger.”
“You’re not a stranger,” you say too fast. It sounds like a correction, doesn’t come out the way you meant it.
“I just don’t get it,” you say finally. “We were fine the other week. Texting. Talking. And then last night in the kitchen... it felt like a switch flipped.”
“You were talking about Connor.”
You blink. “What?”
He looks down, then back at you, almost sheepish. “You’ve always liked him.”
Your mouth parts in disbelief. “Joe. That was years ago.”
He doesn’t answer.
You stare at him, stunned. And then, slowly, you blink again. A breath catches in your throat—and for the first time in hours, it isn’t from tension. “Oh my God,” you whisper, realization blooming too fast to contain. “You were jealous.”
Joe’s eyes snap to yours. “No—”
“Yes,” you laugh, breathy and stunned, almost too surprised to stop it. “You were.” He steps back like the sound stings, shaking his head, but it’s too late—you already see it. The crack in the armor. The flustered look. “You were jealous of Connor.”
“I wasn’t—” he starts, but the sentence crumbles before it’s finished, and the silence that follows says everything.
You watch him now with something softer beneath your expression, lips curving despite yourself. “That’s what this has been about?”
He doesn’t say yes. But he doesn’t say no, either. Just looks at you with that restless kind of guilt behind his eyes like maybe this whole time he thought you knew. And it’s worse somehow, that you didn’t.
His hand lets go of your arm for the first time since it was placed there and he runs it down his face. “Look,” he sighs, “can we just forget about this. Move on?”
You don’t say anything. Not because you’re angry—not anymore, but because you’re too tired to pretend it didn’t land a little sideways. The words are easy, clean, wrapped in that kind of practiced detachment people use when they’re trying to keep the water from rising any higher.
Can we just move on.
You know what he means. You know he’s not asking you to forget the last hour, or the way he treated you, or how much weight actions carried. He’s asking for a truce. For the part where this doesn’t spin out into something bigger than either of you can hold.
So you nod, almost imperceptibly. Just enough to let the tension drain without needing more than it already took.
“I’m gonna go lie down,” you say finally, softer now, your voice falling back into your chest where it feels safest. Your eyes flick up to his one last time, catching a shift in his stance like maybe he thought you’d say something else—invite him in, maybe.
But he doesn’t speak. He just nods once, and lets you go.
You head upstairs slowly, legs sore from the slope runs and muscles humming with a kind of tired that has nothing to do with skiing and everything to do with restraint. The stairs creak faintly under your weight, and when you get to your room, you close the door behind you without turning the light on.
The air inside is still, touched by the faint scent of the vanilla apricot lotion you’d used the night before and the eucalyptus from someone’s shampoo. You tug your base layers off one at a time—your fleece top, the long-sleeve thermal you’d worn beneath it, both damp around the cuffs and collar. The sports bra peels away last, cold against your skin from where it’s clung too long to your spine. You strip everything until you’re bare in the quiet, toes curling briefly against the wood floor as your body adjusts to the sudden chill.
You think, for a second, about the shower. You should rinse the sweat off your chest, the faint the smell of snow and fabric and old pine lodge air. But your legs ache, and the thought of standing makes your shoulders fold in on themselves.
So you don’t.
You pull on the first t-shirt you find at the top of your drawer, soft from too many washes, long enough to hang past the tops of your thighs—and crawl into bed without another thought. Your limbs fall limp against the mattress as you stretch out sideways, not even bothering to pull the comforter over you, the weight of the day collapsing all at once into your spine. Your cheek sinks into the pillow, the fabric still faintly cool from the draft near the window. You exhale through your nose, slow, and for the first time in hours, it doesn’t feel like something is sitting on your chest.
You’re just starting to drift, eyes still half-open, when you hear the soft creak of your door. No knock, just the low groan of the hinges and the sound of someone shifting their weight through the threshold. You don’t move or lift your head, you stay in that stillness like, maybe, if you breathe slow enough, the moment will tell you what it wants.
Then the bed dips behind you.
A hand, light and tentative, skims the curve of your thigh, just above the knee where your skin is bare. His fingers trail up slightly, barely there, before settling in place. You can feel the heat of his palm through the cotton of your shirt.
“Is this okay?” Joe asks, low. Not careful in a nervous way, but in a way that sounds like he means it. Like he knows you could still say no.
Your body reacts before your mouth does. You shift back slightly, enough for the warmth of him to press against the backs of your legs, for the weight of his hand to settle more firmly into your skin.
“Yeah,” you breathe, eyes fluttering shut. “It’s okay.”
You feel him nod against your shoulder, feel the way his breath fans against the back of your neck when he exhales. His hand doesn’t move again. It stays there, a quiet, steady anchor while the room fills with the hush of something finally letting go.
DAY THREE
At some point in the night, long after the air in your room had gone still, after the shadows had stretched across your walls and settled—something stirred you from sleep. You weren’t sure what pulled you from that heavy sleep. Maybe it was the way the temperature had dipped slightly, the faintest chill creeping beneath your blanket. Or maybe it was him.
You barely had time to register the warmth pressed into your side before you felt the first soft kiss pressed to the inside of your arm, just above the bend of your elbow. Another followed it, barely there, grazing the edge of your bicep, then trailing up toward your shoulder like he was mapping his way across skin he already knew by heart.
A third kiss landed just beneath the slope of your neck, lips brushing against your collarbone, then higher—along the side of your throat, against the curve of your jaw, right up to the corner of your mouth where he paused, hovering. You could feel the ghost of a smile on his lips, the quiet hesitation. “They’re pulling in now,” Joe murmured, the words warm against your skin.
You froze for half a second, piecing it together—headlights flashing against the walls, the distant crunch of tires over fresh snow. “Oh. You should probably go then,” you whispered so low the words almost got lost between you.
Joe exhaled a heavy breath against your skin like he hated the thought. His hand squeezed lightly at your thigh, and he stayed there just long enough to press one final kiss to the side of your mouth. Then the weight shifted, the bed lifted, and the room grew quiet again.
You didn’t fall back asleep right away.
You laid there, tucked into the same tangle of sheets, tracing the warmth he left behind. Eventually, sleep crept back in, heavier this time.
By the time you wake up again, the kitchen smells like cinnamon and coffee—warm and alive in that way only Tahoe mornings ever feel. You pad in quietly, still in socks and a fleece you pulled off the floor, sleeves shoved to your elbows, hair a mess. Your eyes sting from sleep, but the house is already wide awake. Chairs scrape. Music hums low from a speaker by the window. Half a stack of pancakes sits on a plate that’s definitely cooling, but no one’s claimed it yet.
Connor is the first to notice you. He glances up from the stove, spatula in hand, grinning like he hasn’t just cooked enough food for a small army. “There she is,” he says, raising his voice just enough to turn a few heads. “Thought we were gonna have to send search and rescue.”
You blink against the brightness of the kitchen and open the cabinet slowly. “For what, pancakes?”
“Rescuing you from your beauty sleep,” he fires back, somehow flipping a pancake with difficulty. “Though clearly you didn’t need it.”
That earns a chorus of “ooohs” from somewhere near the island. You smile against it, tucking your chin slightly as you reach for a mug, trying not to let your eyes flick too obviously toward Joe. Your fingers brush the handle of the coffee pot but Dom beats you to it, appearing out of nowhere to pour you a cup without asking.
“You’ve got like three minutes before Connor burns the last pancake out of spite,” he warns, handing you the mug.
“I’m letting them get crispy,” Connor calls defensively, already plating another with too much confidence. “Some of us have taste.”
“Or just ego problems,” Bridget murmurs, walking past with a plate and the world’s most casual eye-roll.
You slide into the stool beside Joe without even thinking, your leg brushing his beneath the table as you sit. He’s still in the same hoodie and sweats from last night, curls faintly dented from sleep. But he looks more present today. He works on peeling his clementine, knee not moving away from yours.
He’s not quite smiling, but close. His shoulders are more relaxed than they were yesterday, his eyes softer at the corners. You’re not the only one who notices.
“Okay, not to be weird,” Jamie says from across the counter, tilting his head like he’s squinting at a strange animal in a cage, “but you’ve been, like… shockingly normal today.”
Dom snorts. “That’s just cause no one’s brought up his fantasy team yet.”
Jamie keeps going, undeterred. “No, I mean mood-wise. You’re not giving cryptic rage goblin. It’s… unsettling. Like, should we be worried?”
Joe, still peeling a clementine with slow precision, doesn’t even glance up. “Guess I’m more in the vacation mood.”
Bridget lifts an eyebrow. “Since when?”
“Since the call.”
You sip your coffee to hide the way your lips want to tug into a smile.
Connor slides a pancake onto a plate with unnecessary ceremony. “This one’s yours. It’s shaped like a heart.”
You glance at the lopsided blob, head tilted. “Because you made it with love?”
“No,” he says, flashing a grin. “I just flipped it too soon.”
You smirk into your plate. “Sounds like a personal problem.”
“I’m starting to think you’re ungrateful,” Connor says, mock wounded. “That’s fine. I’ll just save my next masterpiece for someone who appreciates culinary excellence.”
“Oh my God,” Bridget mutters. “It’s literally a pancake.”
Nate raises his hand. “Connor, I love your work. Got one that’s, you know… anatomically bold?”
“Already spoken for,” Connor says solemnly. “Joe called it first thing this morning.”
Joe just shakes his head, smiling into his clementine like he’s above it all—like his free hand isn’t slipping beneath the table to curl around your upper thigh, palm warm as it settles high, dangerously high, just shy of where you’d really feel it. His thumb strokes once, barely-there pressure against the soft skin inside your leg.
That he’s still able to touch you like this.
Still able to make you feel like this.
Still the one who does.
And he doesn’t need to look over to know you’ve gotten the message—clear as day, deep as the ache he already knows how to leave behind.
But of course he does.
That’s the whole point.
DAY FOUR
“Missed this,” Joe mumbles against your mouth, the words low and husky, nearly lost in the soft slide of his lips over yours. His hands are already on your waist, pulling you in close, his body warm and solid beneath the thin cotton of his t-shirt. You don’t even remember reaching for him—just the sleepy shock of waking up to the weight of his palm dragging slowly up your body, the dip of the mattress under his knee, his mouth on yours before your brain could even register the time.
It’s still dark outside. The kind of deep, pre-dawn quiet that blankets the entire house, where even the floorboards seem hesitant to creak. No one else is awake yet—not Dom, not Jamie, not any of the couples still tangled up in shared beds across the hall. The only sounds are the faint rustling of blankets and the rhythmic hush of your breath catching every time Joe kisses you a little deeper, a little more certain. He must’ve snuck in through the hallway door while the others were still sleeping. You think you heard it open once, maybe twenty minutes ago, but you’d rolled over, assuming it was the wind or someone heading to the bathroom. Not him. Not like this.
His hands are firmer now, sliding up beneath your oversized tee—his, left at the cabin from a few winters ago, worn and soft, the hem rising with every graze of his knuckles. He shifts closer, one leg wedging between yours as he guides you back into the pillows, his mouth trailing from your lips to your jaw. Then lower. Hot breath brushing your collarbone. The tip of his nose nudging against your neck like he’s trying to remember how it all felt last time.
“Couldn’t stop thinking about you,” he murmurs, voice just rough enough to make you shiver. You feel the words more than you hear them—right at your throat, where his tongue darts out to taste the spot just under your ear.
Your fingers twist in the back of his shirt. You should say something—ask what time it is, ask what he’s doing, ask if someone might hear—but your body reacts before your mind can form the words. Your hips arch into his, your leg wrapping around his waist to hold him there, to feel the heaviness of him pressing down. He groans softly at that, the sound barely contained, buried into the crook of your neck like he’s trying not to lose too much control this early.
“Locked the door,” he mutters, as if reading your mind, lips brushing your skin between each syllable.
His fingers drift lower, teasing the waistband of your sleep shorts as he kisses his way down your chest—just soft grazes at first, until he pushes the shirt up high enough to find bare skin. His eyes flick up to meet yours then, even in the darkness, and you swear he can see everything. Every thought you’re trying to suppress, every ache that’s already started to bloom low in your stomach.
“Still so fuckin’ pretty like this,” Joe whispers, voice thick with that same need you remember from before—the kind that made you reckless last time. The kind that makes you reckless now.
And then his mouth is on you again, lower, slower, no space between his lips and your skin. And you don’t even care what time it is anymore.
His tongue moves in lazy, open-mouthed kisses along your ribs, pausing to suck lightly at the soft skin beneath your breast. He hums against you like he’s tasting something forbidden, something he’s missed dearly. Your breath stutters when his teeth graze your skin, enough to make you clench beneath him. His hand slides under the waistband of your sleep shorts, knuckles dragging up the inside of your thigh so slowly you feel it everywhere.
You gasp, hips twitching toward him, already too warm and too wound up to pretend this isn’t exactly what you wanted the second he walked in.
He glances up at you, fingers stilled just shy of your center. “You wet for me baby?” The question comes low but it’s not him teasing. He’s not smirking. He’s watching you like he’s starved.
“Yes,” you whisper, hand curling in the sheets beside you. “Joe—please.”
His mouth drops to your stomach, teeth skimming along the soft curve of it as his fingers finally touch where you need him. You suck in a breath when he brushes over your clit, gentle at first, like he’s reminding your body how to respond to him. But you remember. God, you remember. And your hips lift into his hand almost instinctively, thighs starting to tremble.
“Jesus,” he mutters under his breath, slipping his hand lower. “It’s like you’ve just been waiting for me.”
You have.
Before you can say it, he’s tugging your shorts and panties down your legs in one motion, discarding them somewhere behind him. Then his hands are on your thighs, spreading you open like he has every right to, like it’s muscle memory. He settles between them with that low, grounding exhale that lets you know he’s not in any rush.
When his mouth finally meets you, you almost cry out. His tongue is slow and deliberate, licking up the length of your folds before flattening against your clit. He hums again, content, and the vibrations make you whimper. Every flick is purposeful like he’s worshipping something. You try to stay still, try not to lose it so quickly—but he knows exactly what he’s doing.
One arm hooks under your thigh, holding you open as the other snakes up beneath you, palm lifting your hips off the bed so he can keep you right where he wants you. When your head tips back, mouth open in a silent moan, Joe groans into you and tightens his grip.
“Let me hear it,” he says, voice rough and muffled. “Let me hear what I do to you.”
“I missed you,” you whisper, breathless. “Missed this.”
That’s when he loses what little patience he was holding onto. His grip tightens. His mouth moves faster, more intense. And it only takes seconds before you’re unraveling for him, thighs clamping around his head as a sharp, staggering orgasm rips through you. You don’t even try to be quiet. He didn’t tell you to.
When it finally fades, you’re twitching against the mattress, breathing like you’ve just run a mile. Joe licks you once more, slow and possessive, before he pulls back, chin slick, eyes blown dark as he pushes himself up onto his knees.
But he doesn’t reach for you right away. Instead, he presses one large hand flat on your lower belly, right above where he was just inside you.
“Right here,” he mutters, almost to himself. His thumb strokes lazily over your skin. “Fuck, I’ve thought about this every night. Every time you sent some picture, every time you fucking called me like nothing was happening—this was what I wanted.”
“Joe…” you breathe, not sure what you’re asking for.
His hand stays there, firm against your belly. His other tugs his sweats low enough to free himself, cock already hard, flushed, aching. You look down at where he’s touching you like he’s imagining himself inside you already, feeling the outline of it before he’s even entered.
“You’re mine like this,” he murmurs. “You’ve always been. You just don’t wanna admit it.”
Your heart stumbles in your chest.
“I don’t wanna share you,” he whispers, leaning down to kiss your shoulder, your collarbone, your jaw. “Don’t want anyone else to even think they’ve seen you like this.”
Your mouth falls open but no words come out. You can’t think. Not when his cock slides through your folds, teasing the entrance, already soaking in your release.
“I wanna feel myself right here,” he breathes, pressing down on your stomach again, just above your pelvis. “Wanna watch you take every inch, feel how deep I am while you fall apart for me.”
Finding it hard to form any words, you tilt your hips up into him, eyes half-lidded as you slide a hand to the back of his neck and pull him down to you.
And he takes it. All of it.
The first thrust is slow, agonizing, his hand never leaving your belly. He watches you the whole time, eyes dark and locked on the place he’s disappearing into you, his breath catching when he feels your walls flutter tight around him. You let out a choked moan, back arching helplessly as he pushes deeper, deeper, until there’s nowhere left to go.
“God damn,” he groans, forehead falling to yours. “This pussy’s mine.”
You whimper at the filth of it, at the claim in his voice, at the way you know—deep down—it might actually be true.
He stills for a beat, thick and pulsing inside you, letting you feel the weight of him. The stretch. The heat. Your mouth falls open around a gasp, hips twitching involuntarily as your body tries to adjust. You’re full to the point of ache, dizzy from how careful he’s being. How much he’s giving you just by holding still.
But it’s when he leans back on his knees, still fully inside you, and plants one broad palm flat against your lower stomach—right over where he’s buried deep—that your whole body jolts.
“Right there,” he murmurs, pressing just a little, just enough to make you feel it. “Feel me, baby?”
You choke on a breath.
“Joe—oh my god.”
Your hands scramble to hold onto something—his wrist, the sheets, your own thighs—because the sensation is unlike anything else. It’s too much. His cock thick and throbbing inside you, his palm heavy on your belly, eyes dark as they watch the way your face falls apart under him.
He groans when he sees it. Like the sight alone might ruin him.
“Fuck, that’s it,” he mutters, breathless and wrecked. “You feel that? That’s how deep I am.”
Your thighs try to close around him instinctively, too overwhelmed, too full, but he slides his hand down to your hips and pins you open again, shaking his head like he’s not done showing you.
“No, lemme have it. Been thinking about this every night, don’t get to run now,” the way his voice dips on the word now nearly makes you cry out again. “You let that stupid fuck talk to you like I’m not the one that gets to have you like this.”
He thrusts once, slow but hard, his hand never leaving your stomach, his thumb grazing across your skin again like he’s trying to brand you there. You cry out, hips twitching, back arching up off the bed.
“I can feel you—”
“I know you can.” He leans forward then, catching your face in his free hand, brushing his nose against yours. “No one else gets this.”
Another thrust—deeper, meaner, sending you gasping into his mouth.
“You feel so good,” you pant, barely able to form the words.
His lips part over yours, but he doesn’t kiss you. Mouth hovering over yours, breathing with you, losing it with you.
“You were made for me,” he whispers, drunk on it now. “Your body fuckin’ knows me. Look at you.”
Your eyes flutter open just in time to catch him looking down between you both, still pressing into your stomach while his cock rocks slow, devastating circles inside you.
And that’s what breaks you.
The orgasm rushes in without warning—hot and overwhelming and pulsing through every part of you. Your body locks down around him, helpless under the weight of his touch and his words and the filthy possessiveness still dripping off his voice.
“Jesus—there you go. Let me feel it, baby. That’s my girl.”
You cry out, clutching at him, every muscle tight and trembling as he fucks you through it. He drops his head to your shoulder, groaning against your neck as your release milks him, his rhythm stuttering.
“Fuck—” he chokes out. You wrap your legs around him tighter, nails digging into his back. He shudders, thrusts a final time, and then you feel it. His whole body tense above you as he spills inside with a low, broken groan.
When it’s over, he collapses half on top of you, chest heaving, skin damp. But his hand doesn’t leave your stomach. If anything, he presses a little harder, still circling with his thumb as if trying to feel it all settle.
“You should see how you look like this,” he murmurs into your neck. “Might lose my mind.”
You don’t answer because you’re still floating. Body limp, your legs spread open and shaking, your mouth parted like you forgot how to close it.
And he’s still inside you, holding you like the whole fucking house doesn’t exist beyond this bed.
The memory lingers longer than it should. Even after he’s gone you’re still floating somewhere between sleep and whatever this is.
When you finally peel yourself out of bed, the world outside your window is already blinding white, heavy with fresh snow. Just from one look you already know what the plan is for today.
It’s always been the same, ever since you were little—after a big storm, nobody needed to say anything. You’d all spill outside, wrapped in lumpy coats and mismatched mittens, throwing yourselves into the snow like it was your only job. Even the parents used to join in back then, when you were all still toddlers, chasing each other through the drifts, laughing like they didn’t have a care in the world.
Somewhere downstairs, the familiar thud of boots and shouts of laughter echo through the walls, pulling you back into the day whether you’re ready for it or not. You layer up slowly, thick socks and leggings and your warmest jacket, hiding Joe’s hoodie from this morning underneath because it's a secret you can’t quite part with yet.
The cold hits you the second you step outside, biting at your nose and cheeks as you stumble down the front steps into chaos. Old toboggans scatter across the slope like wreckage from a lost battle. Shouts and laughter tear through the freezing air, ricocheting off the trees.
Dom’s halfway down the hill already, somehow managing to sled backward while pumping his fists in the air like an idiot. Emily wipes out spectacularly near the bottom, her body flipping into the powder with a high-pitched scream, and Caleb’s patrolling the top with an armful of snowballs, throwing them indiscriminately at anyone who looks too happy.
You barely have a second to take it all in before a snowball whizzes past your head.
"Incoming!" Nate hollers, already loading up another.
You duck instinctively, laughing, and when you straighten up again, Joe’s there.
He’s tugging his gloves on tighter, cheeks red from the cold, a ridiculous wool hat jammed over his messy hair. He steps up beside you and nudges your shoulder with his own, "you're late."
You barely have a second to take it all in before one of Caleb’s missiles whizzes past your head, startling you into a squeaky laugh.
"Incoming!" Nate hollers, already loading up another.
You duck instinctively, heart pounding from the surprise and the cold, and when you straighten up again, Joe’s there. Tugging his gloves on tighter, cheeks flushed deep pink from the cold, a ridiculous wool hat jammed low over his messy hair. He steps up beside you without a word, bumping your shoulder with his like you’re already mid-conversation.
"You're late," he says, voice thick with that gravelly sleep-laced tone that makes your stomach flutter.
You roll your eyes, burying your smile in your scarf. "Slept in."
Joe just huffs a small laugh under his breath and starts down the hill. You watch him for half a second too long before forcing yourself to follow.
By the time you’re flying down the hill for the third—or maybe fourth—time, your gloves are soaked straight through, your cheeks are numb, and your ribs ache from laughing so hard you can barely breathe. The air feels even more frigid every time you trek back uphill, boots slipping on slick patches of churned-up snow, but nobody’s slowing down. Everyone's too busy throwing themselves onto sleds like kids, shrieking and tumbling and crashing with reckless abandon. Somewhere behind you, Dom’s yelling about how he “beat the course record," even though there’s absolutely no course. Emily and Carrie are rolling around in the snow near the bottom, cackling so hard you can hear them from halfway up.
You’re halfway through adjusting your scarf when Joe’s hand brushes yours, fingers grazing yours through the gloves in a touch that could be called an accident—if he wasn’t looking at you like that. Like the world could crash and burn around you, and he still wouldn’t look away. You blink hard, dragging your gaze down to your boots, pretending to kick the packed snow off, pretending your heart isn’t trying to beat a hole through your ribs.
You barely catch your breath before Connor jogs up beside you, cocky grin flashing bright as ever, “We’re going doubles," he announces. "Me and you, Cincy. Let’s show these amateurs how it’s done."
You open your mouth to object, something about not wanting to end up concussed, but he’s already grabbing your hand and dragging you up toward the ridge, laughing like this is all so easy. Like nothing’s changed.
You go along, heart pounding, casting one quick look over your shoulder where Joe still stands a few steps back. His face gives away nothing, but the way his gloved hands flex once at his sides says enough.
Connor shouts something about steering as you settle awkwardly behind him, barely managing to hook your arms around his waist before he kicks off.
The sled shoots forward with a violent lurch, snow spraying up around you as you barrel down the hill at a reckless speed. Your laughter bubbles out of you unrestrained, half-pure joy, half-desperate adrenaline as you cling to the sides and try not to tip into the nearest drift.
When you finally crash into a snowbank at the bottom, you can barely breathe, your lungs burning from the laughter and the cold. Connor flops onto his back beside you, both of you wheezing and shaking snow out of your sleeves. You push yourself up, brushing powder from your leggings, your fingers still tingling from the ride.
You dust the snow off your leggings, still catching your breath, and when you glance toward the slope, Joe’s still there, standing a little ways up, watching you with a look you can’t quite read. Before you can even think deeper into it, Nate tackles him from behind, knocking him into the snow with a triumphant yell that has the whole hill erupting into laughter.
You force yourself to laugh with them, letting Connor haul you to your feet, heart still hammering painfully against your ribs.
The afternoon drifts in slower after that, like the mountain itself is exhaling.
The sun dips lower behind the peaks, bleeding gold and pink into the snow-covered world. The cold sharpens, biting harder at exposed skin, and boots start dragging heavier across the churned-up slope. You huddle into your jacket, arms wrapped tight across your chest, but you don’t think it’s the temperature making you shiver anymore.
Someone starts another half-assed snowball war, shrieks and shouts fill the air as bodies dive behind sleds and trees and piles of snow, everyone too exhausted to aim properly, too happy to care.
You’re mid-sprint, trying to dodge a flying iceball from Dominic, when a hand closes around your wrist and yanks you down behind a flipped sled. You land in a heap, boots tangling, Joe’s chest bumping against yours with a solid thud.
You gasp a breathless laugh, and so does he, both of you frozen there in the shadow of the sled, breath fogging between you. His hand lingers at your wrist, thumb brushing absently against the curve of your hand. You don’t pull away. You don’t even think about it.
"Told you," he murmurs, voice low and warm in your ear, "you’d be better off staying with me." Your mouth opens automatically, some sarcastic reply ready to fly—but the words die somewhere in your throat, because just over his shoulder, you see Bridget.
Sitting cross-legged on a snowbank, arms looped around her knees, watching. Not the hill, not at the chaos—at you.
At you and Joe.
Your stomach plunges so fast it makes you dizzy.
Joe must feel it, the way your body stiffens, feels the sudden snap of the moment because moves without hesitating, his body angling slightly to shield you from view, his hand squeezing yours once before standing.
You let him, not daring to look back at Bridget again.
Joe’s tugging you gently to your feet just a second later. You dust the snow from your jacket, trying to gather yourself, heart still rattling somewhere too high in your chest. "You good?" he asks, voice low enough that it doesn’t carry. His eyes skim your face, reading it way too easily.
You force a small laugh, tucking your chin into your scarf like it’ll hide anything he might see. "Yeah," you lie, slipping into the smile you’ve worn a thousand times before. "Just cold."
Joe watches you for another second like he doesn’t quite buy it, but then his mouth tilts into a lazy smile. He leans in, crowding your space just enough that his shoulder brushes yours, his mouth brushing the shell of your ear when he whispers, "Keep your door unlocked tonight, yeah?"
DAY FIVE
The next morning passes in a kind of lazy sort of cozy haze, the whole house moving slower after the endless chaos of the last few days. Even Bridget decided to spend the day recovering at her own home. When you finally drag yourself out of bed, the kitchen’s a mess of platters of cinnamon rolls, mugs of coffee, and people slumped in chairs still wearing pajama pants.
Nobody seems in a rush to do anything, which honestly feels kind of perfect.
By late morning, a few of you pile into cars and head down to the frozen lake to skate, bundled up and carrying thermoses of hot chocolate and clunky old rental skates. It’s nothing like sledding yesterday—more scerne and less tumultuous. You skate in crooked loops with Emily and Carrie for a while, occasionally glancing across the rink to catch Joe tripping over his own skates and laughing like a little kid. He catches your eye once or twice and your stomach does that stupid swoop it’s been doing more and more lately.
Connor sticks close too, always finding ways to drift near you. It should feel simple. It should feel normal. But you catch Joe watching again once or twice, that same unreadable look flashing across his face before he turns away. Each time it happens, it leaves you feeling strange and unsettled in ways you can’t quite explain.
The rest of the afternoon is spent back at the cabin, sprawled out in front of the fire (because someone did eventually find a lighter), half the group napping, the others playing old board games someone found buried in a closet.
You let yourself get pulled into a game of Monopoly, losing spectacularly to Dan within the first hour, and you spend the rest of the time curled into the corner of the couch, pretending not to notice the way Joe’s socked foot occasionally bumps yours under the blanket.
Further into the night you end up retreating to your room not long after Dan and Carrie disappear upstairs, Emily and Jamie trailing close behind them with lazy goodnights. The house is quieter now, the only real noise coming from the living room where Dom, Caleb, Nate, and Connor have planted themselves on the couches, arguing loudly over which video game to start next.
Joe stays downstairs with them, slouched low in one of the armchairs, a half-empty beer bottle dangling lazily from his fingers. You try not to pay too much attention as you pass through the kitchen, stacking a few stray mugs from this morning into the sink, pretending not to notice the way his eyes follow you across the room.
It’s only when you reach the bottom of the stairs, turning to glance back over your shoulder one last time, that you catch him sinking lower into his hoodie, tugging it up to hide the stupid, suggestive grin threatening to give him away completely. You bite down on a smile of your own, heat sparking low in your stomach as you turn quickly and slip upstairs before you can make it any worse.
You end up lying across your bed, room dimly lit, with a book in hand, trying to read like you promised yourself you would over break. Your legs are tucked under the blanket, your hair still a little damp from your quick shower, the air cool and crisp against your skin. You’re just starting to sink into the quiet, starting to believe you might actually get a few pages in, when you hear the faintest creak of the floorboard just outside your door.
Joe slips inside your room earlier than expected, earlier than he promised. He closes the door behind him, ensuring to lock it before he turns back to you with his hair sticking up in messy, reckless tufts. The second your eyes meet, the little smile you tried so hard to bury earlier comes rushing back to the surface.
"Hi," you whisper, voice barely a breath.
Joe smiles back and reaches for the hem of his hoodie, dragging it up and over his head in one smooth pull. His hair sticks up in staticy tufts afterward, cheeks flushed, eyes already darkening in that way that makes your stomach flip.
You barely have time to react before he’s on you, closing the space between you in two long strides. His hands find your hips easily, and his mouth is slanting over yours, tasting, teasing, like he’s got all the time in the world.
Your fingers find his t-shirt instinctively, clutching at the soft fabric just to have something to anchor yourself to, and when he deepens the kiss, you barely notice yourself shifting closer until he’s pulling you straight into his lap.
His thighs bracket yours, wide beneath you, and his hands slip under the hem of your cami to find your waist, splaying wide like he wants to touch as much of you as he can at once. You kiss him harder, your chest brushing his with every ragged breath. When you try to pull back to catch your breath, Joe chases you, one hand sliding up your back, the other cradling your jaw, keeping you right where he wants you.
"Uh-uh," he murmurs against your mouth, the sound rough, almost pleading. His fingers press a little firmer, dragging you closer again. "Come back."
You laugh, breathless against him, a little overwhelmed in the best way—and then you push lightly at his chest, guiding him back until he lets you tip him onto the mattress without resistance. Joe falls back with a low grunt, head hitting your pillow, one arm lazily splayed out above his head, the other reaching for you without hesitation. His shirt rides up slightly with the movement, exposing a sliver of warm, toned skin that makes your mouth go dry.
There’s no hesitation as you swing your leg over him, straddling his hips, the look on his face enough to steal the last bit of air from your lungs. "Where you goin', huh?" he teases, voice low and lazy, but there’s a heat in his eyes that sharpens when you start crawling down the length of his body.
You settle between his knees, palms dragging up the strong lines of his thighs, your breath catching at the way he’s looking at you. Joe’s chest rises sharply, his jaw clenching once as your fingers find the waistband of his sweatpants, and slowly, start to work them down. "You sure about this, baby?"
You just look up at him, feeling your cheeks heat, feeling the nervous excitement ripple through you in a way that somehow only makes you braver. And when you nod Joe lets out a broken, desperate noise that makes you feel like you could set the whole goddamn cabin on fire.
Joe’s hips lift slightly, almost like he can’t help it when you tug his sweatpants and boxers down, freeing him with a soft hiss of breath. His cock slaps up against his stomach, thick and flushed and already leaking precum, and you swear you feel yourself clench just at the sight of him.
Still perched on his lap, you lean back just enough to drag your fingers lightly down the center of his chest, feeling the way his muscles jump under your touch. Joe watches you like he’s starving, blue eyes nearly black with how blown out his pupils are.
He props himself up on his elbows, breath catching audibly when you press your mouth against the sensitive head of his cock, licking a slow, deliberate stripe up the underside. "Jesus—fuck," he groans, hips twitching forward before he catches himself.
You hum softly, pleased, and wrap your hand around the base, stroking him lazily as you lick and tease and explore. You don’t rush, wanting him to feel every second of it. Joe lets out a wrecked sound and sinks back onto the bed completely, one hand dragging through his hair, the other blindly reaching for your shoulder, gripping lightly like he needs the contact to stay grounded.
When you finally sink your mouth properly down on him, taking as much as you can in one slow glide, Joe’s hand tightens. "Fuck, baby," he pants, his voice so raw it sends a fresh jolt of arousal straight through you. "Just like that. Don’t stop."
You don’t plan to. You build a rhythm, steady and deep, hollowing your cheeks and working your hand where your mouth can’t reach. Joe’s hips start to move without thinking, small, helpless thrusts you know he’s trying to control but can’t, not when you swirl your tongue on the way back up and suck gently at the tip.
"God, you’re gonna kill me," he rasps, the words punching out of him in a broken laugh.
You pull off for half a second, smirking against his skin. "Maybe."
Joe groans like you’ve physically hurt him, a laugh breaking through, but it dissolves quickly into a shudder when you take him deep again, until you feel the head of his cock brush the back of your throat. He bucks once, hard enough that you gag slightly, but you don't pull away, steadying yourself to let him feel it, let him hear the desperate, slick sounds filling the room.
"Shit—oh my god—fuck, baby, you’re—" Joe cuts himself off with a sharp gasp, hand fisting the sheets now, his thighs shaking under your palms. "You’re gonna make me—" You hum again, needy, encouraging, and that’s all it takes. Joe falls apart with a choked groan, thick ropes of cum spilling into your mouth, his hips jerking once, twice, before he forces himself still. You keep stroking him through it until he finally slumps back against the mattress, panting like he just ran a marathon.
You wipe at the corner of your mouth with the back of your hand, cheeks flushed, chest still rising and falling with the effort of everything you just did for him, and when you glance up—he’s already watching you like he’s starving all over again.
His tongue darts out to lick his lips and before you can process it, he’s sitting up, reaching for you. His hands find your waist easily, lifting you like you weigh nothing, and before you can even think about protesting, he’s placing you back into his lap, settling you so you’re straddling him.
You let out a soft, surprised sound, laughing under your breath as your hands come up to his shoulders. "Joe," you murmur, pressing your forehead lightly to his. "This was supposed to be about you."
Joe shakes his head, the corner of his mouth tilting up as he slides one big hand up the length of your thigh, over your hip, settling dangerously close to where you’re already soaking through your panties. "This is about me," he says like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.
You’re only wearing your little cami and panties yet the heat radiating off of him makes you feel practically bare. Your heart’s racing so fast you can barely hear yourself think, but none of it matters because Joe’s pulling you into another kiss—deep, possessive, and so full of something heavier that it nearly knocks you breathless.
You feel it immediately—the way he’s already hardening against you again, the warmth and thickness of himself insistent under the thin material separating you. Joe groans into your mouth when your hips rock down against his, the friction shooting straight through both of you. His hands drag down your back, gripping your ass firmly, pulling you tighter against him until you can’t move without feeling him everywhere.
And then, with almost no warning, you feel him tug the crotch of your panties to the side, rough and desperate, exposing you just enough—and before you can even gasp properly, he’s sliding into you in one slow, searing thrust.
Your breath catches violently in your chest.
The stretch is deep and overwhelming, the sudden fullness making your whole body tighten, but Joe’s there—his hands steady on your hips, his forehead pressing to yours, his mouth brushing your cheekbone like he’s trying to tether you through it.
"Fuck," he pants against your skin, voice cracked open with feeling. "God, you feel—"
You can’t answer. You can’t even breathe. You just move with him, rocking your hips slowly, clumsily at first, finding the rhythm together.
It’s soft. And rough.
Messy and urgent.
Kisses at the edge of bruising, hands everywhere at once, Joe’s mouth finding your throat, your collarbone, your jaw, like he can’t decide which part of you he needs more. And then, when your nails rake lightly up the back of his neck and his hips stutter hard into yours, he presses his face deeper into the crook of your neck, voice ragged against your skin. "I’ve always thought about this," he confesses hoarsely, like the words rip themselves free before he can catch them. "Always."
You barely manage a nod, your fingers tangling tighter in the hair at the base of his neck. "Me too," you whisper, so quietly it feels like a secret.
But Joe shakes his head slightly, the movement brushing his mouth against the side of your throat. "No, baby," he breathes. "Since before Thanksgiving."
You choke on a gasp, the sound swallowed by the overwhelming grind of his hips into yours, the drag of his cock hitting places inside you that make the whole world go fuzzy at the edges.
The words hang between you—too big, too fragile to touch again right now—and neither of you tries to. Instead, Joe kisses you again like he’s trying to apologize for all the time you wasted, like he’s trying to promise something without saying it out loud.
You cling to him, rocking into each other harder now, faster, chasing the high you both know is coming. Your forehead presses to his, your breathing tangled, the filthy, wet sounds of your bodies filling the room.
It hits you first—your orgasm sweeping up out of nowhere, sharp and searing, making your thighs clamp around his hips, your nails dig into his skin. Joe follows right after, a grunt ripping from his throat as he thrusts deep one last time, pulsing hot and thick inside you, his whole body going rigid underneath yours.
Slowly, carefully, Joe shifts his hands, still moving like he doesn’t quite want to let go yet. He glances down, and you feel the way his body tenses slightly when he sees his release already starting to slip out of you, slick and glistening between your thighs.
Joe mutters something low under his breath and then he reaches down, gently tugging your panties back into place. He covers you carefully, dragging the soft fabric up and over your sensitive skin—and then his palm presses firm against you, right over where you’re already soaked through, holding you there like he needs to feel it.
You jolt slightly at the pressure, hips twitching instinctively into his touch, and a shaky little sound slips out of you before you can catch it. Joe just hushes you softly, brushing his nose along your jaw, his hand staying there for a long, heavy moment like he’s trying to sear the memory into both your bodies.
When he finally moves it away he does it by pulling you tighter into his lap, wrapping both arms around you and burying his face against your neck, breathing you in like it’s the only thing keeping him together.
The room is warm and quiet, the only sound the slow, even drag of your breathing against each other. Joe’s fingers trace lazy, absentminded patterns on the small of your back, and you let your eyes flutter closed, soaking in the grounding weight of him under you, around you.
You don’t know how much time passes—minutes, maybe more—before Joe finally speaks, asking, "What were you reading?"
You lift your head slightly, blinking down at him. It takes a second to remember, and then you glance over at the rumpled comforter where your book lies half-buried. "Pride and Prejudice," you say, your voice soft from how close you are.
Joe hums, tilting his head back to look at the ceiling like he’s trying to remember. "That’s the one where... they fall in love but like, hate each other the whole time, right?"
You snort, laughing into his chest. "Kind of," you grin, pulling back just enough to see his face. "They misunderstand each other a lot. Prejudice and pride getting in the way and all that. It’s actually a lot sweeter than it sounds."
Joe smiles too, "I dunno," he says, brushing a strand of hair out of your face. "Sounds like our group trips."
You laugh again, curling further into his embrace. "You remember that one snow day when we were kids?" he says after a while, sounding almost like he’s thinking out loud. "The year it snowed like, two feet overnight?"
You smile against his chest, the memory surfacing easily. "Yeah. Dom tried to build that giant igloo and it almost collapsed on him."
Joe chuckles, his hand smoothing up your spine. "Not that. Before that. You—" He pulls back a little to look at you, a soft grin tugging at his mouth. "You got nailed right in the face with a snowball."
You groan, dropping your head dramatically against his shoulder. "Oh my god, yes. Right in the nose. I thought I was dying."
"You were," Joe laughs, the sound low and fond. "You looked like a horror movie. Blood everywhere. Dom freaked out, Jamie made it worse somehow—and me and Dan ended up carrying you back up to the house."
You lift your head just enough to give him a skeptical look. "You were laughing the whole time," you accuse.
Joe’s smile tilts crookedly again, but then he shrugs, and something flickers behind his eyes—something quieter. "I was," he admits. "But I was actually scared shitless."
"You were?"
He nods, his thumb tracing lazy circles against your waist . “Yeah," he says, voice softer now. "You were so little. And you were just... lying there, crying, not even fighting Dom about it. I didn’t know if you broke something. I don’t know." He laughs under his breath, like he’s laughing at himself now. "I just remember thinking, like... I couldn’t fix it. And I hated that."
You stare at him, the warmth blooming in your chest almost too much to hold.
"I didn’t know that," you say, your voice thinner than you mean for it to be.
Joe just shrugs again, looking a little sheepish now. "I didn’t want you to."
You nuzzle into his neck instinctively, breathing him in, and for a little while, neither of you says anything else. You stay there, talking about nothing and everything—the worst injuries you ever had, the dumbest dares Dominic ever made you do, the time you tried to snowboard and nearly dislocated your shoulder.
Joe laughs so hard he almost falls backward when you remind him about it, his head tilting back, his whole body shaking under you. You think you could stay like this forever. You know you can’t.
The moment’s too good, too easy. It can’t last.
And sure enough, a few minutes later, after your second yawn (one you can’t even pretend to hide), Joe catches it, a soft laugh rumbling low in his chest.
You shift a little on his lap, snuggling closer, but mumble against his shoulder, "M’getting tired."
It’s not even a suggestion but Joe hears it for what it is anyway. He squeezes your thigh gently like he’s reluctant to let go. "Alright," he says quietly, "I’ll let you get some sleep."
You press your forehead against his for a second longer, breathing him in, trying not to make it a big deal even though it feels like one. Joe shifts carefully beneath you, helping you settle back onto the bed. His hands linger at your waist for a moment longer before he finally pushes up.
You stay curled up against the pillows, watching through heavy-lidded eyes as he crouches to grab his clothes, tugging them back on.
Then he crosses back to the bed, leaning in, one knee pressing into the mattress. He kisses your forehead so light and careful it barely even counts as a kiss at all. "Goodnight, baby," he whispers against your skin.
You whisper it back without even thinking. "Night, Joey."
You let him go, having no idea that the second Joe eases your door closed behind him—hoodie rumpled, hair a mess, that wide, dorky smile still lingering at the corners of his mouth—he turns.
He turns and locks eyes with Connor, fresh out of the bathroom. Frozen, stunned, eyes narrowed slightly. Was it out of confusion? Jealousy?
Joe doesn’t stay long enough to find out. He just turns down the hall, disappearing into his own room without a word.
And you, tucked safe in oblivion inside your room, don’t see any of it.
DAY SIX
By the time you all pile into the hot tub this evening—drinks in hand, cheeks already pink from the cold and the cocktails—the whole day feels like one long, lazy laugh. Someone’s set up the same trusty speaker on the porch, muffled music carrying over the snow. Steam curls off the surface of the water into the night air, stars barely visible through the haze.
You wedge yourself between Dom and the edge of the tub, tucking your knees in close as you nurse your drink and try not to slide too much on the slick plastic seats. Joe’s stretched out across from you, arms slung wide along the back ledge of the tub like he owns the damn thing, his shoulders loose, head tipped lazily toward the sky, a tipsy smirk tugging at his mouth.
Bridget, next to him, bumps her leg against his accidentally, though he barely seems to notice. You, however, notice everything—including the way Bridget’s gaze slides briefly to you when it happens, something unreadable flickering across her face.
You drag your drink to your mouth and smile into it, playing dumb.
Dom’s mid-story about Caleb eating shit on the hill earlier, hamming it up with wild hand gestures and half-wrong details, and you’re laughing too hard to care when Connor practically spills his beer trying to one-up the chaos. His arm bumps yours with every exaggerated point he makes, and you just grin and shake your head.
It’s sloppy, harmless fun. Caleb's shouting half-formed jokes over the music, Bridget’s laughing into the rim of her drink, Dom’s slapping the surface of the water dramatically every time he gets worked up. At one point, Connor, still ragging it on, tries to reenact Caleb’s crash by standing half out of the tub to mimic the tumble. The drunk boy nearly busts his ass slipping on the slick plastic, sending another tidal wave of water over the edge. Everyone roars laughing, even Joe, who tips his head back against the ledge and watches it all unfold.
Your drink is sliding dangerously in your hand from laughing so hard, and when you look back across the tub to find your balance, your gaze catches Joe’s.
The second your eyes meet, something inside you stumbles; because without a word, without even a twitch of effort, Joe shifts spreading his legs a little wider beneath the surface, tilting his head slightly, his smirk curving into something darker. Like he knows exactly what he’s doing to you. Like he’s been waiting for you to pay closer attention.
Heat rushes up your neck before you can stop it, your drink stalling halfway to your mouth. You should look away—someone could see—but your body forgets how to listen. You’re caught, helpless, your lips parting slightly in reflex when his gaze dips lower, the lazy weight of it making your skin prickle.
Time sort of thins around you for a second, the outside noise fading into nothing except for the low churn of water between. You swear he’s about to smirk wider, about to pull you under completely, when his eyes flick past you.
You blink out of the trance, following his glance over your shoulder—and feel the pit drop straight out of your stomach. Connor’s still next to you, but he’s not paying attention to the chaos Caleb’s causing across the tub, not even half-listening to Dom’s drunken rapport. His focus is pinned on you. On Joe. His face is loose with alcohol but his eyes are sharp, mouth set in a way that feels wrong, almost territorial, like he’s just realizing something he can’t figure out how to name yet.
You don’t know what to do, pinned there awkwardly between the weight of Connor’s staring and the buzz still ringing in your chest from Joe’s. You flick your eyes back on instinct—and find Joe looking at you again, already smirking, already dragging his tongue lazily over his bottom lip before rolling his eyes, all dry, unimpressed, like the whole thing isn’t even worth acknowledging.
You don’t get a chance to wonder what it all means before Dom slaps a hand over his mouth and lets out a strangled groan. "Ohhh no. No no no—bad—"
You jolt forward instinctively, half-rising out of the water, your drink sloshing dangerously onto the deck.
"I’ve got it, Dom, come on—"
"No," he croaks out desperately, waving you off with both hands. "No, stay—you do not wanna see this."
Bridget’s already climbing after him, shaking her head with a grin as she loops an arm through his and hauls him toward the house. "You’re disgusting," she chirps, steadying him as they stumble toward the door.
Connor, suddenly snapped out of his own trance, drunkenly slaps Caleb’s shoulder as they go crashing in after them, shouting something about needing to "witness the carnage."
You barely have time to catch your breath before the water stirs behind you. You glance forward just in time to see Joe rising from where he’d been lounging, the movement languid, water dripping down the ridges of his chest and arms as steam curls up around him like smoke. His hair is damp and wild, sticking to his forehead, the ghost of a smirk playing at the corner of his mouth like he’s already decided exactly how this is going to go.
Your heart kicks hard in your chest as he prowls toward you, his body cutting through the steam, casual but predatory, like he’s stalking something he knows already belongs to him. Without a word, he reaches out and plucks the drink from your hand, his fingers grazing yours briefly, then sets it carefully on the ledge behind you. His touch, his gaze, his entire presence pins you to where you sit, and even though you know you should say something, should break the spell, you can’t seem to make yourself move.
Joe’s hand slides easily under the water, fingers tracing a slow path up your shin, your knee, the sensitive inside of your thigh, leaving a trail of heat in his wake. You squirm instinctively, breath catching in your throat, but you don't pull away—you can’t—and that’s all the encouragement he needs. His other hand finds your waist, steadying you, guiding you closer to where he wants you, his touch firm and possessive in a way that makes your blood simmer.
"Joe, someone could—" you whisper, the words barely making it out, half a warning, half a plea. Joe doesn’t pay much mind as he leans in closer, brushing his mouth against your ear in a way that makes your whole body tense with anticipation.
"I’ll be the lookout," he murmurs, like it’s the simplest solution in the world.
You barely have time to react before he’s kissing you like he’s got nowhere else in the world he needs to be. His lips press against yours with an intensity that steals every rational thought from your head, pulling you deeper, drawing you into him like gravity. His hand slips up your back under the water, dragging you closer until you’re practically molded against his chest, heat and need swirling dizzyingly between you.
You can feel the smirk tugging at his mouth when you gasp against him, feel the low hum of satisfaction rumbling through his chest when his other hand slips beneath the band of your bikini top, teasing, kneading, driving you out of your mind. His mouth trails down the line of your jaw to your throat, open-mouthed kisses marking a slow, devastating path along your skin. You tilt your head back instinctively, granting him better access, your body arching into every brush, every scrape, every insistent pull of his hands.
It’s almost too easy to lose yourself in it. In him. In the way every part of you seems to fit against him like you were made for this. You can feel him hard and heavy against your hip, the water sloshing quietly around you, the world narrowing to nothing but the desperate beat of your own heart.
So caught up in it all, you barely notice the moment he goes still.
At first, it’s just a pause, hesitation so small you could almost miss it, but the sudden tightness in the way his hands grip your hips gives him away. His mouth freezes against your throat. His whole body tenses.
And as quick as it happened, he continues on his path, except this time he’s rougher. Hungrier. His teeth scrape harsher against your throat, his hands dragging you into him like he's staking a claim, like he doesn't care who sees. His mouth finds yours again, rougher now, desperate in a way that makes your mind fuzzy.
Something’s wrong.
Breathless, you force your eyes open and turn your head blinking against the steam—and that’s when you see it. Through the glass door, barely visible through the fog, Connor stands frozen, his expression hollow, his eyes locked on you.
Panic invades your mind and you jerk instinctively, but Joe’s hand tightens around your waist, holding you against him like he doesn’t care, like it doesn’t matter who’s watching.
"Joe," you whisper, your voice cracking on his name as your hands press lightly against his chest.
"It’s fine," he drags his mouth back to your jaw. You freeze for a second, overwhelmed by the heat of him, the pull of him, the way your body almost believes him even when your head is screaming otherwise.
But then the brutal reality of it all comes rushing back in.
"No—Joe," you breathe, quieter this time, shaking your head as your hands push against his chest again, firmer now but still not enough to move him—just enough to make him realize you're serious. "Stop."
Joe finally pulls back, his hands falling stiffly to his sides, but not before a laugh slips out of him. A sharp, bitter sound that slices through the heavy air between you.
It stings worse than anything else could have.
You blink hard against the burn rising in your throat and shove at him again, water sloshing up against the edges of the hot tub. It’s a desperate attempt to ease the unbearable pressure between you, a push you know won’t move him—he’s a solid wall of heat and muscle and frustration.
When you meet his eyes, you nearly flinch. There’s something simmering there, a little hard and angry. A little hurt. Something that makes you shrink back as the cold night air gnaws at your wet skin.
"What the fuck were you thinking?" you hiss. Even though there’s no one around anymore, it still feels like if you talk too loud, the whole house will hear.
Joe scoffs immediately and drags a wet hand through his already messy hair, stepping back from you like he can’t believe you’re the one asking. "What do you mean, what was I thinking?"
You stare at him, chest tight. "Joe, you can’t just—" You break off, throwing your hand toward the house, toward the dark shape of the sliding door. Toward the invisible imprint of Connor’s stunned face, still burned behind your eyelids. "He saw us. Connor saw us."
Joe snorts like he can’t even entertain your panic. "So what?" he fires back, voice growing louder, harsher. "What, you scared he’s gonna tell someone?"
You gape at him, stunned. "Are you serious right now? He’s drunk, Joe. You’re lucky if he’s not already running around telling everyone!"
Joe laughs another harsh sound that you feel all the way down your spine, and something twists so violently in your gut you have to physically brace your hand against the side of the hot tub to stay upright. "Yeah," he mutters under his breath, "you’re real mad it was him, huh?"
Your heart stutters like it’s tripping over itself. "What?"
"You heard me," Joe says, stepping closer again, chest rising and falling fast. "You’re mad it was him that saw. Not anyone else. Connor."
The accusation hits you like a slap, and you blink hard. Not from sadness, but fury. "That’s not—it’s not about him," you snap, forcing the words out before they get stuck. "It’s about you almost blowing everything. For what, Joe?"
Joe tips his head back with yet another disbelieving laugh. His hands brace on his hips like he’s physically trying to hold himself together. "Yeah. Sure," he bites out, sarcasm dripping from every word. "I’m the selfish one. Meanwhile you’ve been sitting here the whole fucking trip—acting like he doesn’t fucking matter to you."
You open your mouth to fire back, but nothing comes out. You’re rattled by the way he says it as if it’s been rotting inside him all week. "What are you even talking about?"
"You know exactly what I’m talking about. You treat this like it’s some dirty fucking secret."
"Joe, that's not—" But he cuts you off, his voice sharp, words tumbling out like he can't stop them anymore.
"You’re so worried about what everyone else thinks. What, you just settling for me? Next best thing?"
The world tilts, his insult cutting deeper than you want to admit. "Joe," you emphasize, fighting for calm even though you can feel yourself unraveling, "where the hell is this coming from?"
But he’s already spiraled, far past rationalizing. "I mean, fuck. I see the way you still look at him."
"I don’t," you fight back immediately, stepping toward him. "I told you before—there’s nothing there. Nothing!"
Joe lets out a short, cold sound that sounds like it physically hurts him. "Yeah? You sure about that?" His mouth pulls into a twisted smirk, like he’s daring you to lie to his face again.
Exhausted, you throw your hands up. "Why are you twisting this into something it’s not? You’re mad because someone saw us—and you're blaming me for it."
Joe shakes his head like he pities you. "Mad? Blaming you?" he echoes.
But then his voice sharpens even more, the real crack slipping through. "Y’know, actually, who even said this was a secret anyways?" Joe snaps. "Cause it sure as hell wasn’t me. Never once remember saying that. In fact—" he laughs, steel eyes pinning you in place, "you’re the one who ran off the first time. Remember?"
The air leaves your lungs so fast it feels like whiplash. You just stare at him, furious and wounded and so goddamn tired, the heat behind your eyes blurring your vision. "You’re so full of shit," you whisper, the words splintering in your throat.
For a long moment, neither of you moves, the air crackling between you, so thick you could drown in it. Joe's chest heaves, and you can see the stubborn set of his jaw, the way his fists clench and unclench at his sides.
"You think I’m settling?" you snap suddenly, emotion boiling over. "You think this has been some second choice bullshit for me?"
Joe doesn’t answer you. "You’re the one who never asked me to stay," you pause, needing to catch your breath. "That night—you let me walk away like it didn’t mean anything. Like I didn’t mean shit beyond a quick fuck to you."
Something new crosses Joe’s face then but it’s gone almost as fast as it comes. He scoffs harshly, backing up a step like he needs the distance.
"You think I didn’t want you to stay?" he mutters sourly. "Maybe I was too busy fucking reeling over the fact that I finally got you."
The words hit harder than anything else could have. You freeze, the cold forgotten, the sting of biting wind on your skin meaningless compared to the ache splitting open somewhere inside your chest. Your hands tremble at your sides, the air burning in your lungs, but you can’t move, you can’t even think past the way he said it.
Finally got you.
Joe turns without another word, shoulders tight with something new you can't decipher, and makes his way to the house. His footsteps leave heavy, wet imprints across the slick deck, each one louder than it should be like they’re hammering into your skull.
You barely register the way he grabs the handle, yanks the sliding door open so violently it rattles on its track. The door slams shut behind him with a sharp, brutal crack that cuts through the night like a gunshot. It echoes once, then fades into the deafening silence.
DAY SEVEN
The kitchen is packed wall-to-wall, the music loud enough to rattle the floorboards, and you’re already some drinks deep, still painfully aware of yourself. You linger near the island with a couple of local girls you know well enough, but mostly, your attention keeps drifting—scanning the room before you even realize you’re doing it.
The house had felt heavier this morning, like even the walls knew something was brewing.
Jamie and Emily, Dan and Carrie, had been the smart ones—ducking out early, treating themselves to a night at Connor’s family’s resort hotel down the road. You couldn't even blame them. If you could’ve rented a new life for the night, you would have.
The rest of the group spent the day nursing hangovers in various stages of death. Caleb hadn’t moved from the couch. Nate kept pestering him however he could. Connor vanished upstairs with a Gatorade and a hood pulled over his head. You took the opportunity to vanish too, holed up in your room under too many blankets, replaying last night in your head until the edges blurred.
At some point you must have dozed off, because the next thing you knew, Dom was kicking your door open, proudly announcing he'd invited “some friends” over. Which, translated from Dominic-speak, meant a full-blown rager by ten o’clock.
You hadn’t wanted to come down but somewhere deep inside you, you’d convinced yourself that if you looked better, felt put together, maybe the rest would follow. So you pulled on your best jeans, a black top that hugged just enough without trying too hard, tamed your hair, and put on just enough makeup to feel like a disguise for the night.
About an hour ago you caught sight of Joe for the first time since last night hovering around the beer pong table, a little tispy already. His sleeves were shoved up to his elbows, his drink tucked lazily in one hand, the other tossing a ping-pong ball back and forth between his fingers. He looked good. Too good.
The kind of good that made you painfully overthink for reasons you didn’t want to examine.
His cheeks were pink from the alcohol or maybe the cold, his hair a little messy, that cocky smile flashing every time Dom missed a shot. He looked...happy. Relaxed in a way that made your stomach twist up because you weren’t sure if you felt relief or jealousy.
Relief that he seemed okay, jealousy that he seemed okay without you.
You almost went to him, almost closed the distance without thinking, driven by some desperate, aching need to fix it, to fix everything. The words were already clawing their way up, the apology you hadn't even figured out yet ready to spill out. But before you could take a single step Leah spotted you from across the room. Her face lit up and within seconds her hand was wrapping around your arm, tugging you into a conversation you weren’t ready for.
She was so excited to see you, so eager to catch up, that it caught you completely off guard. By the time you glanced back over your shoulder—
Joe was gone.
And just like that, you’re stuck with the last people you intend to be around. You try your best to stay engaged as Leah and a few other girls from town chatter around you, but it’s a losing battle. You sip your drink idly, your eyes slipping over the crowd without any real direction, drifting through clusters of bodies and bursts of laughter, searching for a head of messy blonde
You pretend to be present, but your mind’s already wandered too far. You barely register the music thumping low from the speakers, the sharp scent of jungle juice pungent in the air—because that’s when you see him.
Not Joe.
Connor.
He’s across the room near the fireplace, sitting on the arm of the couch and nursing a drink while laughing at something the girl next to him says. You don’t mean to stare, but your eyes catch on to him anyway. Maybe out of old habit.
Connor glances up, mid-laugh, and his gaze snags immediately on yours. You look down fast, heart thudding and heat rushing to your cheeks. You stare hard at your drink like it holds the secrets to life itself, willing yourself to act normal.
After a few seconds, you peek up again—just a quick, cowardly glance to see if he’s still looking. He is. Of course he is.
He’s not just looking, he’s already pushing off the chair and patting one of his friends lightly on the back, flashing some easy excuse you can’t hear but can imagine. His drink dangles from his hand as he starts making his way through the crowd toward you.
Every instinct screams at you to move, to slip deeper into the crowd and pretend you didn't notice—but it’s like your feet are cemented to the spot, the noise of the party dulling around the edges as you watch him weave closer. You force yourself to look normal, to laugh at something one of the girls beside you says even though you don’t hear a word of it.
Your stomach flips sickly when you catch him closing the distance, the crowd parting naturally for him because he belongs here.
When he finally reaches you, he tips his head slightly, a silent suggestion you feel before you even register it. His mouth lifts at the corners, a ghost of a smile that might’ve fooled you once, back when you were younger and still thought you knew him inside and out.
You hesitate long enough for the cool condensation of your drink to seep against your tightened knuckles, long enough for the pounding of the music and the rush of your own pulse to blur together in your ears. Still, somehow, you manage to nod, forcing your body to move even as every part of you braces for whatever comes next. He leads you away from the music and the crowd down a dim, narrow hallway where the air feels colder and thinner and the noise from the party fades into something faint and far away.
You don’t realize you’ve been holding your breath until he stops a few feet ahead of you, framed in the soft spill of light from the main room and blocking half the hallway. Connor’s figure cuts sharp against the dimness, all restless tension and unsettled energy, the kind of posture that makes it impossible to tell if he’s about to laugh or pick a fight.
His fingers tap an uneven, distracted rhythm against the side of his plastic cup, and your eyes catch on the movement without meaning to, tracing the jittery beat like it might give you some clue about what he’s thinking. You force yourself to meet his gaze, lifting your chin even though it feels heavy, your shoulders stiff, the knot in your stomach pulling tighter until it feels like you can barely stand upright against it.
Connor’s the one who breaks first, his gaze dropping to your cup, a half-smirk tugging at the edge of his mouth like he can’t help himself. "You're a brave soldier for drinking that.”
You huff under your breath, tilting the drink between your fingers just to have something to look at besides him. "Needed something strong," you mutter.
You feel him watching you like he's waiting for you to say more, like he’s measuring every second of hesitation that passes between your words. The weight of it prickles at the back of your neck but you keep your eyes down until his voice cuts through again, quieter now, less certain. "I haven’t said anything.”
You blink, caught off guard for a second longer than you should be, before lifting your gaze and giving a quick, sharp nod. The movement is jerky with all the words you don’t trust yourself to say.
"I know," you tell him, keeping your voice as even as you can even though you can feel your throat tightening. "I’d already know if you had."
His mouth presses into a tighter line, something complicated flickering in his expression. "I'm not going to, either.” Somehow that simple promise cuts even deeper, lodging inside you as something between gratitude and guilt.
You nod again, the tension bleeding out of your shoulders just enough to breathe. "Thank you.”
For a moment it feels like maybe that’s it. Like maybe you can walk away from this with the fragile threads of your dignity still intact. But then Connor moves, just a fraction closer, enough that you feel a warning bell ringing low and dull in your gut.
"Look," his voice is firm, no more hesitations softening the edges. "I'm not telling you what to do. It’s none of my business." You can hear the ‘but’ coming before he even says it, can feel the way his body tightens with the effort of holding it back, and still, you stand there, bracing for impact like a fool.
"But your brother is gonna lose his shit," Connor says, and the words land exactly where they’re meant to, digging in deep.
You straighten your spine, meeting his eyes without flinching this time. Anger sparks under your skin, not because he's wrong, but because you are so fucking tired of everyone acting like your life is some delicate thing they have to protect from yourself. "Sure. But, my brother does not dictate my life," you hope to God your voice cold and clear, canceling out room for any questions. "And neither do you, Connor."
Connor’s mouth tightens, his expression shifting into something colder, something that almost dares you to take it back. For a second you think he might. That he might just shrug and let it drop, let you keep whatever scraps of pride you have left. But then he says it, aimed right where he knows it will hurt the most. "So what, Joe does?"
Your stomach twists sharply, a sickening coil that makes your knees threaten to give out. Heat flashes behind your eyes, anger and embarrassment tangling so tightly you can’t tell where one ends and the other begins. "Go screw yourself," you snap before you can think better of it. Your hand tightens so hard around your cup you’re amazed the plastic doesn’t splinter in your grip.
Before you can shove past him, before you can storm away and leave the wreckage in your wake, a sharp click cuts through the hallway.
Your head turns instinctively toward the sound, your heart stuttering in your chest as the guest suite door swings open. Joe stumbles out into the hallway, eyes heavy-lidded and dazed, and for a moment, you forget everything. You forget Connor still standing there, forget the words you just flung like knives, forget how cold the house feels away from the party. You see him, and he sees you.
His gaze locks onto yours across the hallway, and it’s like a tether snaps taut between you, pulling something urgent inside your chest. There’s a flash in his expression—something that looks dangerously close to regret, or guilt, or maybe something worse—and it roots you to the floor more effectively than any conversation with Connor previously could.
You’ve been looking for him all night. Not for some confrontation, not for some dramatic outburst, just for a chance. A singular conversation to fix what had frayed without either of you wanting it to. And standing there, staring at him, you let yourself believe for the briefest, stupidest moment that this is what that could be. That maybe he’s been looking too. That maybe he’s just as lost as you are.
You hold onto it like a fool, that tiny, stubborn flicker of hope, even when every logical part of you knows better. You let it bloom reckless and bright and a little bit desperate in your chest, let it wrap around your heart and pull you up onto your toes like maybe if you just reached far enough, you'd find your way back to him.
But then Bridget stumbles out after him, her fingers fumbling clumsily. She mutters something under her breath, a slurred curse you barely catch, too busy with the button on her pants to notice the way everything just fell apart. She doesn't see you. She doesn't see Connor. She doesn’t see anything except her own drunken struggle, and somehow, that’s what makes it worse. That’s what drives the knife in clean.
Lines We Cross - Joe Burrow
Summary: A small lie in the heat of the moment leads to unforeseen consequences. Sometimes, pretending feels a little too real.
Warnings: fem!reader, fluff, mentions of injury
Author’s note: This fic was inspired by the events of Bengals vs Steelers game. This is only a work of fiction. Also not proofread.
The stadium buzzed with electric energy as you settled into your seat at the paycor stadium. The air was crisp, the perfect night for football, and the roar of Bengals fans clad in orange and black, on their feet, waving banners, faces painted with tiger stripes, echoed through the stands. The smell of beer, popcorn, and adrenaline hung heavy in the air. It was chaos, but it was also magic—the kind of energy that could make you believe anything was possible.
You couldn’t help but feel the excitement coursing through your veins as you watched Joe step onto the field, his usual confident swagger on full display. The crowd erupted, chanting his name, and you couldn’t help but feel proud of him. It was a big game, and the stakes were high.
It had been a wild ride for him since his LSU days, and you’d been there every step of the way. Watching him thrive in the NFL felt surreal.
To the rest of the world, Joe Burrow was the golden boy quarterback, the face of the Bengals. To you, though, he was just Joe—your best friend since elementary school, the guy who put glue in your hair as a prank, then spent the whole afternoon trying to fix it with water and paper towels.
You sat in the stands with your Bengals jersey pulled tight and your heart beating harder than it probably should. This wasn’t your first time at one of Joe’s games, but something about tonight felt different. Maybe it was because every time he threw a pass or took a hit, you felt it like it was happening to you.
Being Joe’s best friend was hard enough—being secretly in love with him was a whole other level of torture.
Not that you’d ever admit it to him.
The game was intense. Joe was in the zone, moving the ball downfield with precision, but the opposing team wasn’t letting up. You cheered with the rest of the crowd, your voice hoarse from shouting. The Bengals were up by three points in the third quarter when it happened.
The pocket collapsed in a split second, and before Joe could release the ball, he was hit. Hard. One defender wrapped him up around the waist while another came barreling in from the side, slamming him to the turf.
The stadium fell silent as he stayed on the ground longer than he should have.
Your stomach dropped.
The medical staff rushed onto the field, and your world narrowed. Without a second thought, you stood, your legs moving before your brain could catch up.
You wove through the stands, brushing past strangers who barely seemed to notice you, all their attention fixed on the field. You didn’t care about the looks you got, didn’t care about the rules. Your heart pounded against your ribs, a frantic rhythm driving you forward.
By the time you reached the tunnel, your breath was coming in short gasps, your pulse roaring in your ears. But just as you tried to push forward, two security guards stepped in front of you, hands raised to stop you.
“Sorry, miss, you can’t go through,” one of them said.
“I need to see him,” you said, voice trembling. “I need to know he’s okay.”
“I'm sorry but only medical personnel and team staff are allowed- ”
“I have to see him. I’m his girlfriend!” you blurted, the lie tumbling out faster than your brain could stop it.
Your heart pounded in your chest, and your palms grew clammy as you felt the weight of what you’d just said. The words felt foreign, wrong even, but they were out there now, hanging in the air like a challenge.
The staff exchanged glances, their expressions a mix of skepticism and uncertainty.
“Wait here,” one of them said curtly, before disappearing down the dimly lit tunnel.
You let out a shaky breath as he walked away, but the relief was short-lived. What were you going to say to Joe? That you’d panicked and lied to get back here? That you couldn’t bear the thought of not seeing him? The lie had spilled out before you could stop it, but there was no taking it back now.
Minutes stretched into what felt like hours. You shifted your weight from foot to foot, wringing your hands, every nerve in your body wound tight. And then, at last, you heard footsteps echoing down the tunnel.
Joe emerged, limping slightly, his gait uneven but otherwise he looked fine. Relief crashed over you like a wave, and a shaky breath escaped your lips before you even realized you’d been holding it.
His gaze found yours instantly, locking onto you with an intensity that made your pulse quicken all over again. Even from a distance, you could see it—the faintest curve of a smirk pulling at the corner of his lips, equal parts mischief and reassurance.
“They told me my girlfriend was demanding to see me,” he said, his grin widening as he approached.
Your arms folded across your chest, more out of reflex than defiance. You could feel the heat creeping up your neck and settling on your cheeks, but you ignored it.
“I had to say something,” you replied quickly, your tone defensive. “They weren’t going to let me through otherwise.”
He stopped a few feet in front of you, his head tilted to the side in mock curiosity, those blue eyes of his sparkling with mischief.
“So, you’re my girlfriend now?”
You rolled your eyes, trying to keep the upper hand despite the flutter of nerves in your stomach.
“Don’t get used to it, Burrow,” you shot back, your voice sharp, though the edge was dulled by the waver you couldn’t quite hide.
His laugh—soft, low, and undeniably boyish—filled the space between you, and your resolve nearly cracked. That grin, the one that had been the undoing of countless defenses, was aimed squarely at you. It made your heart ache in a way you’d never admit, not even to yourself.
“Well, girlfriend,” he teased, leaning slightly closer, “I’m fine. Nothing to worry about. Just got the wind knocked out of me.”
You frowned, refusing to let him charm his way out of this.
“You didn’t look fine when those guys landed on you,” you muttered, your eyes darting to the trainers hovering just a few feet away. “You should’ve been more careful.”
His amusement softened into something gentler, and he took a step closer, closing the already small distance between you. His voice was quieter now, meant just for you.
“You were worried about me.”
“Of course I was worried.” The words slipped out before you could stop them, and you cursed yourself for how raw they sounded. Desperate to cover the slip, you stumbled over your next sentence.
“You’re my—” You hesitated, your heart thudding in your chest. “You’re my best friend.”
Joe raised an eyebrow, his smirk returning. He didn’t look convinced in the slightest. “Uh-huh. Sure.”
Your frustration flared, partly at him but mostly at yourself. “Don’t read into it, Joe. It’s not a big deal.”
“Oh, I won’t,” he said smoothly, though his tone told you he already had. “But for the record, you’re a pretty convincing girlfriend. Might have to keep you around for emergencies.”
You scoffed, but the way his eyes softened when he looked at you made it hard to stay mad.
“You’re impossible,” you muttered, turning slightly to hide your face and the heat you knew was there.
“And you care more than you want to admit,” he countered, his voice following you.
Before you could muster a response, one of the trainers called Joe’s name from the sidelines, motioning for him to return. His head turned in their direction, but he didn’t move right away. Instead, he lingered, eyes still on you like he wasn’t quite ready to let the moment go.
“Hey,” he said, his voice low enough that it felt like it was meant for you and you alone. “Since you’re my girlfriend now, I think it’s only fair you give me a good luck kiss before I go back out there.”
Your heart lurched, a sudden fluttering that stole your breath and left you momentarily stunned. You narrowed your eyes, hoping to mask the way his words sent a thrill through you.
“Don’t push your luck, Burrow,” you shot back, your voice steadier than you expected.
“Come on,” he teased, his tone as smooth as silk. “Just a little one. For good luck. You don’t want me going out there unlucky, do you?”
For a second, you hesitated, your heart pounding in your chest. The moment hung between you and then, without thinking any further, you leaned in and pressed a quick kiss to his cheek.
The second your lips made contact, Joe froze, his body stiffening slightly as if your touch had short-circuited his usual easy confidence. His eyes widened, and for a moment, he didn’t move, the surprise in his expression almost comical.
You pulled back quickly, your pulse racing in the quiet that followed.
“There. Happy now?” you said, your voice slightly breathless, hoping to deflect the sudden wave of uncertainty washing over you.
Joe blinked a few times, as if trying to recalibrate, before his lips curved into a slow, dazed smile.
“Yeah,” he said softly, his voice almost a whisper. “I’m more than happy.”
Before you could let yourself process the way his words sent a fresh wave of heat through you—the trainer called his name again, more insistent this time.
Joe sighed dramatically, throwing one last glance your way. “Duty calls,” he said.
“Try not to get sacked again, Joe.”
“I’ll do my best, girlfriend,” laughter in his voice.
As he jogged back leaving you standing there, you caught the way he glanced over his shoulder, that grin still firmly in place.
As you made your way back to your seat, you couldn’t stop replaying the moment in your head. You told yourself it didn’t mean anything—that it was just Joe being Joe. But deep down, you knew better.
And from the way he’d looked at you, you couldn’t help but wonder if he knew it too.
im still here
can you pick ONE body part of Joe’s that turns you on the most?
His back. His back. His back. His back. His back. His back. besides his like whole face & smile His back. His back. His back. I want to lick his spine. Nibble at his shoulder blades. Press my palm into the small of his lower back just to feel him shiver at the touch. Hiiiiiissssss bbbbbbaaaasccccckkkkk 😮💨
we never tell - joe burrow
summary turns out moving on takes exactly eleven months. the twelfth is for remembering why you tried to leave in the first place
content 18+, smut, angst, language, alcohol
part four
JANUARY
Regret doesn’t announce itself.
It seeps in, slow and stupid. Not the knife to the chest you now brace for, but something sneakier. The kind of pain that sits in your bones like cold air and doesn’t leave when the heat kicks on. It’s there when you wake up in a bed that doesn’t smell like pine and aftershave and him. It’s there when your thumb hovers over his contact, then backs away. It’s there when you realize you haven’t told anyone, not really, what happened.
Maybe because you still don’t know.
The cabin felt too quiet that night, like the walls knew something they weren’t saying. Every creak in the floorboards, every shift of snow off the roof, felt like accusation. You thought maybe they’d all found out—that someone had heard something, maybe Connor said something, passed it along. That the shame inside you had somehow stained the air.
But the next morning, Dom and Caleb wandered in, half-asleep and hungry, asking for pancakes like nothing had cracked. Like the world hadn’t changed while you were busy pretending it hadn’t.
So no, maybe you weren’t dealing with the fallout of them knowing.
You were just dealing with the weight of you knowing.
The final day passed gently, almost too gently, like the house was trying to apologize. The Burrows had left early—flight times and long drives. Connor and Nate didn’t stop by; maybe they’d already said their goodbyes to Dom the night before. Bridget was a ghost, vanishing with the same quiet pride she always carried, as if she’d never been there at all.
But it wasn’t that day that wrecked you.
It was the day after. And the one after that. And the next one, too.
Because the silence doesn’t hit all at once. It builds. It builds in the pauses between texts you don’t send, in the ache of rerunning the last thing he said to you. It builds when you walk past someone wearing his cologne and your body stiffens like a warning. When your Spotify shuffle dares to play a song that played in his truck that second night together.
Can it be heartbreak if it was never real? If there was no claim, no label, no promise?
You don’t know.
But it feels real enough. And so does the way his face won’t leave you alone—flickering behind your eyelids every time you close them, wearing that same expression he had when he walked out.
Not guilty. Not sorry. Just gone.
And that’s when it hits you, really hits you—what regret actually is.
It isn’t the moment you messed up. It’s every minute after. Every morning you wake up and wish you’d said something different, stayed a little longer, walked away a little sooner. It’s the echo of a choice you can’t undo, stretching itself across your days like shadow.
It doesn’t announce itself.
But it never leaves, either.
FEBRUARY
Loneliness wears red this month.
Not the pretty kind. Not the red of candy hearts and roses and lingerie and wine lips and declarations. A different red. The kind that pulses behind your eyes after too many nights of pretending everything meant nothing. The kind of red that coats the back of your throat when you say “I’m fine,” and it tastes like copper. You scroll past his name like it’s nothing. You put on mascara like it’s armor. You laugh when you need to. You bleed in private.
Valentine’s Day falls on a Thursday this year. You wake up late. The sky is gray and spitting snow. The girl across the hall is wearing heart-print pajama pants when you pass her in the bathroom, and someone’s taped a glittery construction paper heart to the inside of the elevator.
You go to class. You wear red. Not because you’re in the spirit of it—just because you like how it looks with your jacket. Someone hands out Hershey’s Kisses in your afternoon lecture.
You say yes when Maggie invites you out that night. It’s a casual thing for all the lonely singles; beer pitchers, half-priced mozzarella sticks, a handful of people from your program talking about anything but love. Someone passes around a bag of candy hearts, you get one that says “CALL ME” and pretend to laugh.
It’s not a bad night.
When you’re walking home with Maggie, able to do so without feeling sorry for yourself. You unlock the apartment door and kick your shoes off, saying goodnight to Maggie as she rushes off to her room. You brush your teeth. You wash off the mascara. You almost feel normal.
Laying in bed, basking in the comfort of your plush pillows and blankets, you open your phone to do one last scroll for the day. Clicking through stories on Instagram, your mind goes blank as the face in front of you finally registers.
Bridget sits in front of her vanity mirror, dressed in red with a vase of red roses hidden off in the corner. The Steve Lacy song that plays over her picture is almost mocking:
I haven’t seen you in a while, you know I miss you, babe
When you hear this song, feel flattered, it’s about your face
And how I miss it, and I wish that I could see it more
But you’re in college now, and—
You swipe out fast, mind spiraling before you can stop it. You tell yourself it’s nothing. That it’s just a song, it doesn’t mean anything.
But she looks like she’s loved. Like she’s celebrating. Like the red she’s wearing means something different entirely. And for one second, you wonder if the song was meant for someone. If it was meant for him.
You set your phone down, rolling to your side. You stare at the wall until your eyes adjust to the dark.
Loneliness wears red this month—for you.
But maybe for Bridget, it wears roses. Maybe it wears a pretty dress. Maybe it wears a smile.
You wonder what color red wears for Joe.
MARCH
Memory is not kind.
You don’t get to choose which parts come back. It’s never the softness. Never the way he held you in bed, palm warm against your back, or the way his laugh dipped low when you said something stupid just to make him smile. That’s not what lingers.
What lingers is the door swinging open. Her face—smudged, startled, trying not to cry. Lipstick blurred at the corners, mascara pooling like guilt. His expression, pale and unmoved. Like he didn’t expect to get caught. Like he didn’t care that he had.
That’s the part that loops. Over and over. Not the sound. Not the context. Just the image. That stillness. That nothingness. The moment before you turned around and left, and he didn’t call after you.
And the worst part is, sometimes you wonder what you would’ve done if he had.
Would you have stopped? Would you have listened? Would you have forgiven him?
You hate that you don’t know the answer. You hate that it even matters. You hate how long it’s taken to pull yourself out of the wreckage of someone who never actually said the words you built your world around.
Maybe Connor was right. Did Joe dictate your life?
No.
You won’t let him have all your memories.
So you start reaching for different ones. You think about the morning sunlight in your kitchen, the way it hits the counter just right when you’re making coffee. You think about Maggie, about how she once showed up with flowers and Red Vines after a shitty week, no questions asked. You think about how it felt to walk home from class with your headphones in, coat zipped to your chin, breathing in cold air and not feeling like you were suffocating.
You let yourself remember things that have nothing to do with him. You let yourself feel good in them.
You cook more. Dance around your apartment with a wooden spoon in one hand, music too loud. You call your brother and laugh until your face hurts. You read a book in one sitting, curled into the corner of your couch with coffee gone cold on the table beside you. You forget to check your phone sometimes. You remember to moisturize daily. You take a picture of the sky on your walk to class—not for anyone else. Just because it was pretty. Just because you wanted to remember.
You make space. Not always successfully. Not always gracefully. But you try.
And slowly, slower than you’d like, but steadier than you expect, something shifts.
The memory of the door still comes back. Her face, his silence. But now it’s just one memory.
Not the only one.
And maybe that’s what healing actually is. Not erasing him, just letting more exist.
APRIL
Healing is boring.
It’s not cinematic. It’s not loud. It’s slow and silent and filled with more questions than answers. You drink tea instead of texting him. You go to class. You wear headphones. You almost kiss someone at a party and spend the whole Uber home wondering if not doing so makes you a coward or just human. And when his name lights up your phone for the first time in months, your hands shake like he never left.
joe b: Do you ever miss me
You stare at it until the screen goes dim and you don’t respond. Not because you don’t know the answer, but because you do.
Later that week, Maggie and some other friends drag you out. Somewhere crowded and too warm, where the music pulses like a second heartbeat and everyone smells like sugar and sweat and spilled vodka cran.
You don’t want to be there. You’re wearing a dress you used to love but now feel strangely detached from, like it belongs to someone else. You sip something pink through a straw and nod when you’re supposed to, half-listening to Brynn explain how she’s finally cut things off with that guy from her 8AM.
You feel like you’re not standing in your own body.
And that’s when Jalen shows up.
You don’t notice him at first. He slides into the space beside you like it’s always been his, leaning against the bar, glancing sideways like he’s trying to decide whether you’re worth interrupting.
“You look like someone who hates it here,” he says finally, and it makes you laugh, just a little, more out of shock than amusement.
“I’m just...tired.”
“You and me both,” he says, taking a sip of something brown and overpriced. “This place feels like if Grown Ups was a club instead of a movie. Everyone’s thirty and sad and pretending it’s still funny.”
That makes you laugh for real. The first time all night.
You turn to look at him. Really look.
He’s tall, warm-eyed, loose-limbed. His mouth is a little too pretty, like it’s used to getting what it wants. He doesn’t look like someone trying to impress you. He looks like someone waiting for you to notice him.
And now you have.
You talk longer than you mean to. About nothing. About everything. His childhood dog. Your favorite cereal. The weirdness of getting older and not feeling like it. You don’t flirt. Not intentionally. But something starts sparking underneath the words. A closeness that wasn’t there before. The way his knee brushes yours and doesn’t move. The way he watches your mouth when you speak.
Eventually, Maggie reappears and tugs at your arm, mouthing we’re leaving over the bassline.
You nod and reach for your phone to check the time, but Jalen’s hand is already out.
“Here,” he says, taking it gently. His fingers graze your palm like they’ve been there before. He types something, saves it, and hands it back.
“Let me know if you ever need anything.” He says the words like he means more than a favor. Like he knows something about you you haven’t said out loud yet.
Jalen gives you a once over, really making sure you understand his message before finding his group of friends again.
Maybe healing doesn’t need to be boring.
MAY
Some silences feel like punishment.
Not from him—though maybe partly. From the universe, maybe. From yourself. Because you were supposed to be over it by now, supposed to be fine, supposed to be laughing at brunch and flirting at bars and deleting the playlists you made in your mourning time without hesitation. But all it takes is someone saying the wrong thing in passing—Joe, Joey, Jalen, whatever, the quarterback—and you forget how to breathe for half a second. You twist up and can’t decide whether to curl into a ball or text him back.
You settle on going through your old messages instead. It starts as a reflex. Just something to check. Something to prove to yourself that you’re over it. That you can scroll through without feeling anything.
You pass by the one you never answered, the words that still haunt you some nights more than others: Do you miss me.
You scroll further, thumb moving slower the deeper you go.
Old messages. Fragments of flirtation. A photo of him on a hotel bed, shirtless and half-asleep, room service untouched in the background. One of you in your kitchen, grinning with a spoon in your mouth. Another—you’re in bed, cropped tight to your lips and collarbone. He’d sent a text that made your heart race after seeing it that first time. You’d pretended not to care.
But you remember exactly how it felt.
Your body does, too.
That slow, molten feeling creeps back in—uninvited but familiar. You shift onto your side. One hand under the pillow, the other slipping low. The screen glows beside you. You’re breathing heavier. You know where this is going and you don’t stop.
Not at first.
But then your eyes catch on a different text—something stupid. Something casual. A joke he made about one of his classes. And just like that, the heat flickers out.
You freeze, pulling your hand away like it betrayed you.
You stare up at the ceiling, chest tight, jaw clenched. You’re not turned on. You’re angry.
Because you wanted to forget and instead you let yourself want.
Again.
You lock your phone and roll to your back. You try to stop imagining what his hands would feel like now, whether he’s thinking of you too. Whether he knew you wouldn’t answer, and sent his message anyway.
You don’t cry. But you don’t sleep either.
JUNE
Desire makes fools of everyone.
It doesn’t matter that you know better. That you’ve played this game before, and lost. That the heat of June makes skin easier to forgive, and voices harder to trust. He walks in and the whole room tilts.
Like when you were a kid, sitting in the backyard with Dom, each of you placing an ice cube at the top of the picnic table. Watching them melt in the sun, water pooling beneath them until they began to slide. Your parents would yell that you were ruining the wood, that the moisture would warp it, rot it—but you never listened. You watched, and you waited, held your breath as gravity took over.
That’s what this feels like now.
You sit still. You don’t move. You let the heat creep into your skin, let the weight shift in your chest, let the air change around you.
Because for one second, just one, you want to see if gravity still works the way you remember.
And when his eyes land on you, something inside you starts to slide.
It shouldn’t. Not after Tahoe. Not after everything. But your skin remembers. Your body remembers. And even though you break the gaze before it lasts too long, something in you still wants to see how far it’ll fall.
The kitchen’s quieter than the backyard—where someone’s yelling about the grill and Dom’s playlist keeps skipping. You offered to grab drinks mostly because it meant coming inside, away from all that sun. You open the fridge and start stacking bottles against your chest, balancing two sodas in your fingers, one water bottle pinched between your forearm and ribs. Not your best system.
The bathroom door opens just as you’re trying to nudge the fridge closed with your hip. You don’t turn, but you hear him step into the doorway.
“…Figures.”
“You say that like I planned it,” you murmur.
“I wouldn’t put it past you.”
That makes you pause. The weight of his words is heavier than the drinks you’re trying not to drop.
“Charming,” you say, shifting your grip. One of the sodas starts to slip.
One of the bottles wobbles, threatens to slip. You move to catch it, but his hand gets there first. He catches it without effort.
Joe glances at the bottles, then at you. “You’re gonna drop all of these,” he says flatly.
“You think I don’t know that?”
He huffs, taking them from you one by one like he’s punishing you with helpfulness. You let him. Mostly because you don’t trust your voice if you keep holding eye contact.
When your arms are empty, you finally look at him. “You didn’t have to help.”
He shrugs. “Didn’t want to watch you make a mess.”
Your mouth twitches. Not quite a smile.
He always did say things that made you want to hit him. Or kiss him. Or both.
“You’re still such an asshole.”
That gets him. Just a flicker of something across his face. Annoyance. Memory. Something else entirely.
He nods toward the counter. “You gotta get the last one though.” You reach for the stray bottle, already lukewarm from the heat. When you look up, Joe is already walking away.
Feeling embarrassed, you follow behind him and listen as everyone praises him for carrying all the drinks. You sit through the rest of the evening in a fog, tuning in and out of conversations. He never looks at you again, not that you catch.
The worst part is that you keep hoping he will. Not for any reason that makes sense. Just to feel chosen in the smallest way. A glance, a flicker of attention. Something that tells you that moment in the kitchen meant more than what it looked like.
It’s not that you want him back. It’s just that wanting hasn’t stopped. And maybe that’s worse. Maybe that’s what keeps catching you off guard—how easily your body confuses recognition with permission. How familiar he still feels, even when he’s indifferent. Especially when he’s indifferent.
The next morning, when Maggie texts about a last-minute trip, you say yes before she even finishes asking. You don’t ask who else is going. You don’t care. Somewhere near the ocean. Somewhere that feels different. Somewhere he won’t be.
You pack like you’re in trouble—shoving things into your bag with no order, no plan. The kind of trip you say yes to just to escape the aftermath of something that doesn’t look like a mistake but still feels like one. You don’t want to be near him if all you’re going to do is hope he looks at you. If all you’re going to do is wait to feel that sick, slow heat under your skin again.
Because desire makes fools of everyone, and you’re not ready to be looked at like one. Not again.
JULY
Some people are best seen from a distance.
Like fireworks. Like wild animals. Like him. Too close and you get burned, or bitten, or worse—disappointed.
You don’t plan to talk to him. You don’t even plan to look at him. But the Fourth of July always blurs lines. It’s the sweat of bare shoulders and bug spray, the sound of glass bottles clinking and flip flops scraping across concrete. Too many people crammed into one backyard, the sun already sinking, turning every surface gold.
You’re leaning against the side of the house, halfway behind a hedge, pretending to scroll through something important. The popsicle in your hand is already dripping, syrupy red pooling along the curve of your thumb. You lick it before it can reach your wrist, tongue dragging slow along the stick.
Your swimsuit is still damp beneath your jean shorts, clinging in places you’d rather not think about, and your hair is half-dry, curling wild in the humidity. You threw your Birks back on without adjusting the straps, and the soles are gritty from walking across the driveway barefoot.
You don’t know why you’re hiding. You’re not twelve. You’re not the kind of girl who corners herself at parties.
“Hey!” Dom calls out for you, voice carrying from the back porch. “Tell me you didn’t take the last cherry one.”
You glance up slowly, popsicle still resting against your mouth, and spot him through the hedge. He’s standing near the cooler, squinting against the light, shirt wrinkled, backwards cap tugged low. Joe is beside him, one shoulder propped against the rail, beer bottle in hand, half-listening until Dom points at you.
“There she is,” Dom says, mock betrayal thick in his voice. “Took the last one and disappeared.”
You raise your eyes in silent acknowledgment, about to offer something sarcastic back, but your mouth stalls when your eyes catch on Joe.
He’s watching you.
Not glancing. Not bored or aimless or letting his eyes wander the way people do when they’re just passing time. He’s watching.
Chin slightly lowered, mouth slack, one hand wrapped around the neck of his bottle like he’s forgotten it’s there. The sun catches in the pale strands of his hair near his temple, and the shadow from his cap cuts clean across the top half of his face—but you still feel the weight of his stare. Your skin starts to burn from it. He’s looking at you like you’re interrupting something. Like you are something.
Your legs shift instinctively, adjusting your weight. Not because he’s staring. Because of how he is.
Slow. Unbothered. Bordering on emotionless except for the way his eyes drag down the column of your throat, over the scoop of your chest, to where you still have beading water drying down.
You feel the sweat start to build behind your knees again. The popsicle in your hand drips noiselessly onto the dirt.
Dominic stops across the yard, jerking your attention away. “You really did take the last one?” he asks as he comes up beside you, mock scolding in his voice.
“Yup.”
He leans against the siding, forehead shiny from the July humidity. “You’re the worst.”
You shrug. “Should’ve gotten here earlier.”
Dom keeps talking—something about sparklers and the battery pack he left in your car. You nod along, but it’s like your hearing’s gone soft. Muffled like your brain’s still catching up.
You can feel Joe’s gaze like it left indents on you.
“Whatever,” Dom says finally, pushing away. “Just be ready to go by eight.” You hum in reply, eyes flicking once toward the porch. Joe hasn’t moved. Not until Dom disappears again, only then does he step down, one slow, measured step at a time.
The popsicle drips again. Sticky, cherry red tracing a slow line down the inside of your wrist. You feel it curl along the groove of bone, catch on the crease of your knuckle. Your fingers twitch slightly in response, and then you lift the stick to your mouth and lick it once, just to keep it from slipping further down.
His gaze moves like it’s walking a tightrope—starting at your mouth, tracing the popsicle, your fingers, the trail of juice that’s already dried sticky in a half-moon across your hand. It drops lower. Over the slope of your collarbone, the red bikini top that hugs our tits just right. Your damp shorts, open at the button. The space between your thighs.
You hold still, but not from confidence. It’s something more precarious than that—curiosity, maybe. Your mouth is too sweet. You can still taste the syrup, the artificial dye clinging to the roof of your mouth. It makes you suddenly aware of your tongue, the shape of your lips, the heat of the sun still trapped behind your knees. You think about your posture, your breath, how long your hand’s been hanging at your side. Too long.
You shift, just slightly, more weight to one leg, a quiet reset. His eyes come back to yours.
“You’re dripping.”
Your breath catches before you can stop it, a stutter in your chest, but you feel it everywhere. In your throat, in your spine, between your legs. Your eyes flick away and then back again, sharp with instinct, like you’ve just been accused of something.
He sees it. He sees everything.
And you know it because of the way he tilts his head, how the expression on his face changes. A half-beat of silence follows, stretched thin and unbearable. Not because of what he said. But because you both know what you thought he meant.
He cocks his head again, almost amused.
Like: That’s where your mind went?
Like: You still want me that bad?
You feel heat bloom under your skin in an instant, slow and shameful, curling into your cheeks and collarbones. You don’t respond. You can’t. There’s nothing safe to say when your body has already spoken for you.
Joe wordlessly turns and walks away from you, leaving you hanging, yet again. Embarrassed, you turn and throw your half finished popsicle away, using a little more force than necessary when slamming the trash can shut.
You swipe your wrist against your shorts, smearing the cherry into denim. It leaves a pink shadow above the seam. You stare at it for a beat longer than necessary, just to avoid looking up. Avoiding the realization that he’s gone. Just like that.
You don’t go near him again.
While everyone else filters toward the front yard, claiming coolers and towels and extra sweatshirts for later, you stick inside. And when you’re ushered out of the house by your parents, you stick close to the adults.
At eight, when Dominic yells your name from the driveway, you ask if there’s room anywhere other than the backseat of Joe’s truck.
“No?” he says, like it’s obvious. “Just get in.”
You hesitate, and maybe it's long enough for him to notice this time. Then you nod once, like it’s fine. Like it doesn’t matter. Like your legs haven’t gone hot and restless at the thought of climbing into that seat again.
Dom’s already sliding into the passenger side, fumbling with something in the glove compartment. You open the back door and duck in, keeping your knees close together, hand bracing against the doorframe. You sit carefully, knees angled toward the window, shoulder pressing into the cool glass. The seat is sun-warmed, sticky at the back of your thighs, and you remember too much.
So you keep your distance.
For the rest of the night, you say only what you have to. You keep more space than necessary between your body and his, and between your thoughts and the temptation to fall back into whatever you used to be.
You don’t look at him during the fireworks. You don’t sit near him at the bonfire. You don’t stay in the same room longer than necessary. It’s the safest route, probably the only route, before you get pulled even further into a person who’s made it clear he has little care for what happens after he gets his fix.
You stick to that choice through the rest of July.
Even when he shows up unannounced at your house two days later, standing in the kitchen with you while waiting for Dom. Even when you pass him in the hallway and pretend not to notice the way he smells, or how close his hand comes to brushing yours. Even when he stays late on nights you weren’t expecting him, lounging on the couch like he belongs.
There are moments, small ones, where you almost forget. Where you let your guard slip, just for a breath. But each time, you catch yourself and you remember why you won’t let him get close again.
Because Joe is the kind of person who looks better from across the room—where you can still pretend he’s everything you wanted him to be. Where the edges stay clean and the coldness doesn’t sting. Where you can admire the shape of him without feeling the sharpness.
Some people are safest when they’re just out of reach.
And he’s always been most beautiful just before he ruins you.
AUGUST
Discipline frays faster when the body remembers what the heart is trying to forget.
You held the line in July. You were careful, measured, distant. It worked… until now.
It’s not the heat that gets to you. It’s him in it.
Tan like he lives in the sun, hair longer than you’ve seen it, curls damp from the lake or the shower or the sweat at the nape of his neck. Shoulders loose, posture lazy, that half-lidded gaze he tosses around like he doesn’t know what it does to people. To you.
He looks like summer the way movies pretend summer looks—golden and a little wild, like rules don’t apply to him, nothing bad ever sticks. His shirt is off, like always. Swim trunks sit low on his nose, his wrist lay limp over the back of a lawn chair, laughing at something someone said.
You tell yourself not to look. You do anyway. You always do.
It doesn’t matter how careful you were in July. That kind of effort doesn’t hold when he’s tan and sweat-slicked and sprawled out, sunglasses slipping down the bridge of his nose like gravity wants to give you a better view.
And maybe you were strong once. But strength doesn’t last where lust settles.
And lust, this month, is everywhere he is. Which is always too close, and never close enough.
You can only muster enough courage to watch his chest ripple with a boisterous laugh once more, feeling it bloom in your throat before it settles lower, and by the time your thighs draw tight you’re already standing.
Around you, no one notices. They’re sunk into that golden-hour haze, drunk on cheap beer and warm seltzer. It’s the last night before everyone scatters again—to separate towns, separate campuses, separate versions of themselves.
Your dress catches the breeze as you cross the yard, rising just enough to make you glance down, hands smoothing the fabric back into place.
The coolers are half-sunken in melting ice at the edge of the deck of someone’s house, you’re not even sure whose. You crouch and sift through the cans, fingertips brushing condensation, vaguely searching for a flavor that’s probably long gone. Strawberry. Lime. Tangerine. Your hand lingers near the bottom, searching.
Then the fabric tightens against your thighs, the hem of your dress is jerked back into place.
You shoot upright, ice clinking behind you, heart spiking. Turning, you can feel the warmth of him before your eyes really focus. His cheeks are flushed, whether from sun or alcohol or something else you don’t want to name. He looks down at you, head tilted, lips twitching.
“Do you need something?” you ask, more bite in it than you intended.
“Just being helpful,” he says. “You bend over like that, someone’s bound to see what color you got on under there.”
“No one—” you start, but he cuts in, smooth.
“Pink. Not bright. Kind of pale. Little lace at the top, maybe?” His eyes flick downward, hinting. “Real cute.”
Your face burns. The kind of heat that crawls up your neck and settles beneath your skin like a warning. You scoff, because you don’t know what else to do. Because it feels safer than admitting he’s right.
You push him, hand firm against his chest—not hard, but enough. Enough to clear a path and get away. The kitchen is a mess of red cups and empty bottles, someone's abandoned pizza boxes stacked on the counter. You open through the sliding door harder than necessary, the glass rattling in its frame.
The Kirkland vodka bottle sits half-empty next to a tower of solo cups, and you grab both with shaking hands. The pour is too generous, clear liquid sloshing near the half-way point, but you don't care. You tip it back and drink like it's water, like it might wash him away.
It burns. Good. You need something that burns worse than the humiliation crawling up your spine.
"Classy."
You freeze, cup still pressed to your lips. Of course he followed you. Of course he couldn't just let it go, couldn't let you have even this small moment of peace.
"Go away."
"Cute tantrum." His footsteps echo behind you. "Very mature."
You slam the cup down. "I'm not having a tantrum."
"No? What do you call storming off like that?"
"Smart." You turn around and immediately regret it. He's closer than you expected, and the sight of him makes your pulse spike. "Staying away from you."
"Funny. You never were good at that."
Heat flashes through you—anger and something worse. "Fuck you."
"Been there." His eyes drop to your mouth for just a second. "Done that."
Your face burns. "You're disgusting."
"And you're being a brat."
"A brat?" The word comes out strangled. "For what, not wanting you to announce my underwear to everyone?"
"I was helping." He takes another step closer. "But I guess you prefer the attention."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"You tell me." His voice drops lower, rougher. "Bending over like that. Real innocent."
"I was getting a drink."
"Sure you were." That infuriating smirk tugs at his mouth. "Just happened to give everyone a perfect view."
"You're unbelievable."
Silence stretches between you, thick and suffocating. You turn away from him, hands fumbling with the empty cups on the counter, stacking them with shaking fingers just to have something to do. Anything to avoid looking at him, to pretend your pulse isn't racing.
Maybe if you ignore him, he'll leave. Maybe if you just focus on cleaning up this mess, he'll get bored and walk away. But then you feel him move closer. The heat of him at your back, the way the air shifts when he steps into your space.
His hand touches your calf first, barely there, fingertips trailing up the back of your leg with agonizing slowness. Your breath catches in your throat as his palm slides higher, pushing the fabric of your dress up with it, and every rational thought in your head evaporates.
"Tell me to stop." His voice is low, rough, spoken against the shell of your ear.
But you can't. Your whole body is trembling, caught between the urge to run and the terrible, traitorous pull that's been eating at you all summer. It all brings you back to that night before Thanksgiving all those months ago, in the parking lot of some dingy bar but stuck completely in his orbit.
Your body remembers. It remembers the weight of his hands, the way he used to touch you like you were something precious and dangerous all at once. It remembers how he tasted, how he sounded when you made him lose control, how perfectly you fit against him in the dark.
"Don't," you whisper, but even you can hear how broken it sounds.
His hand slides higher, fingers splaying against your thigh, and you can feel him everywhere—his chest against your back, his breath on your neck, the familiar scent of him making your knees weak.
"Don't what?" His thumb traces a slow circle on your skin. "Don't touch you? Don't remind you?"
You can't answer, can barely breathe, because eight months of pretending you don't want him is finally catching up to you, and you're drowning in it.
His hand moves to grip your thigh fully, fingers pressing into the soft flesh, and then he's turning you around. You let him, helpless to resist, until you're facing him with your back pressed against the counter and nowhere left to run.
He's so close you can see the flecks in his eyes, you can feel the rapid rise and fall of his chest. Close enough that when he breathes, you feel it. "I hate you," you whisper, but your voice cracks on the words.
"I know." His forehead drops to rest against yours. "But that doesn't change anything, does it?"
You should push him away. Should remind him about Bridget, about Tahoe, about all the reasons this can never work. Instead, you find yourself gripping the front of his shirt, holding on like he's the only thing keeping you upright.
One second you’re clinging to him like the floor might give out, and the next you’re backing into the hallway, his mouth finding your sweet skin with the kind of reckless urgency that makes everything else fall away.
He follows you blindly, hands on your waist like he’s scared you’ll vanish if he lets go. Your back hits the wall outside the bathroom as he opens the door and nudges you inside.
The bathroom is small, dim, sterile in the way guest bathrooms always are, like no one’s supposed to see too much of themselves in the mirror. But you do. You catch a flash of your reflection as the door clicks shut, and it's dizzying. Kiss-bitten lips, wide eyes, dress askew. Him behind you, his jaw tight, his eyes locked on yours in the mirror like this could be the last time and he’s trying to burn it into himself.
“You shouldn’t be here,” you murmur, even as he crowds you from behind, fingers brushing the inside of your wrist before sliding up your arm.
“I know.” His breath is hot against the side of your neck. “Neither should you.”
You close your eyes when his hands settle on your hips. There’s a second of hesitation. One more second where either of you could stop this. Could walk away. Could pretend it was just a lapse, a mistake, another almost.
But then you feel his lips at your shoulder, the drag of his teeth, the low sound in his throat when you tilt your head to give him more, and that second is gone. Forgotten.
Your hands are at the hem of your dress before you can think, dragging the fabric up with shaking fingers. He helps, wordlessly, his hands replacing yours, pushing it higher until it bunches at your waist and your thighs are bare against the cold counter edge.
With maddening care, knuckles brushing the insides of your thighs. You watch his eyes light up, a faint smirk tugging at his lips as he drags your baby pink, lacy panties down like he wants to feel every inch of you on the way. The fabric peels away from your skin, damp and delicate, and he lets it fall to the tile without looking.
He lifts you onto the counter in one fluid motion, fingers digging into your thighs as he spreads them apart like your body still belongs to him. The marble is cold against your skin, but his mouth is hot, the contrast making you shudder as he sinks to his knees and pulls you to the edge.
His breath ghosts over you once before he presses in, as if he’s been starving for this. His tongue drags through your slick with unbearable slowness, savoring every inch like he wants to memorize the way you taste before the world takes this away again.
You gasp, head falling back against the mirror with a dull thud, eyes fluttering shut as your fingers knot in his hair. He groans when you tug, the sound vibrating through you, hips instinctively canting forward, chasing more.
He licks into you again, deeper this time, and when he pulls back just enough to speak, his voice is hoarse. “I missed this.” His fingers flex on your thighs, pulling you open wider. “Fuck, I missed—”
“Don’t.” You cut him off, sharp and breathless, the word slipping out before you can catch it.
His eyes flick up to yours, unreadable in a way that makes you second guess your words. Your chest heaves.
“Don’t say that,” you whisper, softer now. “It doesn’t mean anything.”
Something flickers across his face—hurt, anger, understanding. You don’t know. Maybe it’s all three, but he doesn’t argue back. Instead, he shoves your legs over his shoulders and buries his face between them like he’s punishing you for the lie.
It’s not slow anymore. Not gentle. His tongue moves with a rough insistence that makes your thighs shake, your breath come in ragged little gasps. His hands are locked tight around your thighs, holding you open and in place, the pads of his thumbs pressing bruisingly into your skin, dragging you against his mouth each time your hips try to lift.
Your fingers claw at the edge of the counter for something—anything—to hold onto that isn’t him.
All you can do is feel. The pressure building, winding tighter and tighter, his mouth relentless. He must be able to tell you’re close between the way your thighs are trembling around his head, your breath breaking apart in tiny whimpers, body so tight you feel like you might snap. One more flick of his tongue, one more second, and you’d fall.
But he pulls back.
Just like that—gone.
Your hips lift instinctively, chasing his mouth, but he stands, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, eyes unreadable and burning. It’s not satisfaction you see there. Not pride. It’s something sharper. Something that carves straight through you.
"Why—" you start, voice hoarse, but you stop yourself. Because you already know why.
Because you told him not to talk. Because you said it didn’t mean anything. Because even if your body begged otherwise, your words cut deeper than you meant them to.
You blink up at him, wide-eyed, your chest still rising and falling like you’ve just been yanked from underwater. For a second, you think he’s going to leave. That this was about control, about proving something.
But then his hand drops to his waistband, pulling down in one firm motion. His cock is already pink and swollen, glistening at the tip from the precum that leaks down his length. He steps between your legs, and for a second, he just looks at you.
And it’s unbearable.
Your dress is still bunched high around your hips, panties discarded somewhere on the tile, your thighs wet from what he started and refused to finish.
His eyes drop to where you’re aching for more, and when he reaches between you and drags the tip of his cock through your folds, your whole body jolts. You feel the slick of it catch against his skin, hear the sharp inhale he can’t quite swallow.
"Still doesn’t mean anything?" he asks, voice rough, almost mean. But his hand trembles slightly where he grips himself, and that’s how you know, he’s not as composed as he pretends to be. Not even close.
You don’t answer. You can’t.
Not when he pushes in, splitting you open with a stretch that knocks the breath from your lungs. You cling to his shoulders, nails digging into his skin, teeth biting down on the inside of your cheek just to keep from making the sound that wants to rip out of you. He fills you too perfectly, too easily because your body remembers him even when you tried to forget.
He hasn’t kissed you.
He leans in, forehead pressing to yours, and stays there—buried deep inside you, unmoving. The air is thick with the sound of your breathing, the way it catches and staggers and syncs. It feels like a countdown. Like the silence before the storm.
Then he pulls back, pushing in again with a choked breath.
And it’s not soft. Not sweet.
It’s all the things you never said. It’s the ache of wanting him every day since Tahoe and hating yourself for it. It’s the sting of seeing him with Bridget. It’s the guilt, the jealousy, the desperation, the need. His hips slam into yours, dragging you forward on each thrust like he’s trying to drive the memory of everyone else out of your skin. His hands grip your hips hard enough to bruise, his mouth skimming your cheek, your jaw, but never your lips.
He still won’t kiss you.
You whisper his name once and his rhythm stutters, but he doesn’t stop.
He just fucks you harder.
And you let him. Because even if it’s not love—especially because it’s not love—it’s still the closest either of you have felt to something real in months.
SEPTEMBER
Shame has a rhythm.
It follows you through crosswalks and crowded hallways. It settles in the bottoms of coffee cups and the breath between text vibrations. It shows up when your roommate says, “You seem lighter lately,” and you smile like it's true.
You should not have let him touch you.
You tell yourself it didn’t mean anything. That your body doesn’t miss him. That your heart is healed enough to not pick at that scab.
But then you find yourself lying in bed at night, replaying it in your head. Just once. But then maybe it’s twice. But is it really only twice if it's all that clouds your mind day by day?
“You sure you’re not feeling it?” Maggie’s voice filters in through the mirror, distorted by the haze of your own reflection. You nod anyway.
Truth is, you were feeling it. For a second. It felt good to be somewhere loud and alive, to forget for a little while. But like clockwork, he crept in—soft-footed and cruel—until his name was curled around your ribs again, pressing from the inside. You hate how easily he gets in.
“Yeah,” you murmur, rifling through your purse until your fingers close around your phone. “I’m just gonna call an Uber. Head back.” She sighs, one of those deep, knowing ones, and nods without pushing. She always knows there’s more. You just never say it.
You push through the crowd together, the bar thick with sweat and too-sweet perfume and limbs that don’t know their boundaries. Maggie squeezes your arm in goodbye, yelling something about texting her when you get home. You nod again, already pulling away.
Outside, the air hits your skin like a slap. You lean against the brick wall of the building, opening the app. The screen loads slowly, painfully so, and then:
No drivers available.
You tilt your head back, eyes stinging. Of course. Of course.
Could you not catch a single goddamn break?
Other options flash through your mind. Bus, walk, call your parents—but they all shut themselves down. You're a broke college girl with parents who agreed to fund your safety, not your night life. We don’t care if you go out, just get home in one piece.
Sweet, in theory. Tonight it makes you want to scream.
You start walking.
Your boots slap the sidewalk with more anger than rhythm, muttering under your breath about Ubers, the price of gas, the way every man’s eyes seem to follow you just a beat too long. You throw in a curse for good measure—for the cold, for the ache in your feet, for the stupid, stupid boy eight-hundred miles away who still manages to ruin your night.
Tears sting again. You don’t wipe them away. You try to think of a movie. Something warm, something distracting.
What a Girl Wants? No, too wistful.
10 Things I Hate About You? Close. Too on the nose.
Grown Ups?
The title sits in your brain, stubborn. Familiar.
Oh.
Jalen.
The memory hits: lustful honey eyes, crooked smile, the echo of his voice—“Let me know if you ever need anything.”
You shouldn’t, but maybe you will. Blame the tears. Blame the night. Blame everything.
Your thumb finds his name before your brain catches up. You press call. It rings. Once. Twice. The voice that answers isn’t Jalen’s. It says your name—soft, surprised, a little hoarse.
You freeze.
This is not Jalen.
This is not Jalen.
This is not—
“Hey,” he says again, quieter. “You okay?”
Your throat closes. “Yeah. Wrong person.” You go to hang up. You almost do.
“Wait.” Urgent, a little breathless like he knows. Like he felt you about to disappear. “Where are you?”
You roll your eyes, the burn of tears sharpening again. You bring the phone back to your ear, voice flat. “About eight hundred miles away from you.”
Joe lets out a short laugh and you can feel his eye roll through the phone. “No shit,” he mutters. There’s a shift in the background, the faint rustle of sheets. Was he in bed? On a Friday night?
“You downtown?” he asks.
“Yeah.”
“You alone?”
The word sticks, but you let it out. “Yeah.”
There’s a pause. Not long, but long enough for it to mean something. You hear the pull of breath through his teeth, like your answer displeases him.
“You can hang up,” you offer quietly.
“I know I can.” Another shuffle. That sound again—cotton on cotton, something heavy creaking beneath him. Yeah. He was in bed. Probably still warm under the covers, one arm slung over his face, already regretting picking up.
Your eyes close for a second, the weight of everything creeping up your throat. That old shame curls tight around your chest. The kind that sinks into your skin and clings to your bones. Is this what the rest of your life is going to feel like? That sinking pit of regret you carry just for sleeping with Joe Burrow?
You don’t even remember how the conversation turned. He’s asking something again, why you’re alone, maybe, and it drags you back from the tide of your own thoughts.
“I wanted to leave, so I left,” you say, and your voice is steadier than it should be.
He hums, a noncommittal sound that makes your stomach twist. “You almost home?”
It hits you wrong. You don’t know why, but it does. Something in the way he asks it, like he’s just checking a box. Like he’s waiting for the right moment to hang up.
You swallow hard. “Goodnight, Joe. Sorry for bothering you.”
You move to end the call but his voice cuts through, harsher than before. “Can you fucking stop?”
It startles you, makes your hand jerk back from the screen. You stare at the phone like it’s betrayed you.
“What?”
He exhales—aggravated and heavy. “How far are you from your place?”
You glance down the road. Your building is in sight, a little washed-out box beneath the glow of a flickering streetlamp. “Not far.”
Silence drags again. You don’t know what he’s thinking. You don’t know what you’re thinking.
“Who were you trying to call?” he asks eventually.
You hesitate. The answer’s right there, ready to spit out like venom. But instead, you say it plainly. “Someone I met last year. Said to call if I ever needed anything.”
You step through the front door, the musty lobby swallowing the noise of the street behind you. The elevator groans when you press the button, that familiar mechanical cough echoing like it’s about to give out.
He doesn’t say anything at first. You glance at your screen just to make sure the call’s still connected.
It is.
Then his voice rumbles back through the speaker, lower now, like he’s sitting up straighter. Like the question costs him something.
“What’d you need?”
The words catch you off guard. Your breath hitches before you can stop it, and your body betrays you completely—knees softening, warmth pooling low. You hate that he still does this to you, with nothing but his voice.
You lick your lips, lean back against the elevator wall, and let the bitterness curl around your next sentence.
“Nothing that concerns you,” you snap, fingers tightening around your phone as you step into your apartment, the door clicking shut behind you.
There’s a pause, and then his voice comes through, quieter now, but edged with something sharper, cool amusement that wraps around your spine.
“That right?” he murmurs. “Didn’t sound like nothing a second ago.”
You can hear it in his tone, the way it slants downward—dangerous, suggestive, just shy of mocking. Like he’s picturing you. Like he’s already figured out the angle of your hips and the heat in your voice.
You toss your keys on the counter, letting the silence stretch, then ask like you’re bored, like this is nothing: “What did it sound like, then?”
“Sounded like a girl who was two seconds from begging.”
Your jaw tightens. You sink down onto the edge of your bed, the phone still pressed to your ear. “You think everything’s about you.”
“Only when you make it that way.”
He sounds tired. And a little smug. And a lot like someone who’s spent the last few weeks trying to forget how your skin feels under his hands and failing. You shift, thighs tightening together. There’s no point lying anymore. Not when your body’s already moved ahead of your mind.
He exhales, the sound grating, like he’s rubbing a hand over his jaw. You can picture him pacing, shirtless in whatever shitty Baton Rouge apartment he calls home now, hair mussed, boxer waistband rolled down from where he dragged a hand under it but didn’t follow through.
“You touching yourself?”
The question hits hard. Not crude—just honest. Familiar in a way that’s worse than filthy.
You don’t answer right away. You slide your hand down your stomach, the cotton of your panties is already damp, sticking to you.
“I could be,” you murmur. You can hear him suck in a breath. Then nothing. You imagine him gripping the phone harder, refusing to speak. Refusing to give you that. “I didn’t mean to call you,” you add, softer now. “But then I heard your voice and…”
You trail off. Let him fill in the rest. “You drunk?” he asks finally.
“A little.”
“Figures.”
“Does it matter?” You drag your fingers lower, past the waistband. “If I’m the one doing it?”
The silence that follows is long enough to sting—and maybe that’s the point. When his voice returns, it’s quieter, but sharp.
"It does if I have to hear it."
You press your thighs together like that will help. "No one asked you to stay on the phone."
"You called me. Remember?"
"And you picked up."
“Yeah,” he mutters. “Stupid decision.”
But he doesn’t hang up.
You shift against the sheets, one hand still resting low, just barely applying pressure. The room feels warmer now. Maybe it’s you, maybe it’s the voice in your ear. You don’t know why he hasn’t hung up. Maybe he wants to hear you fall apart. Maybe he wants to punish himself for still wanting to.
You let your fingers slide lower, tracing over yourself lightly, just enough to tease. Just enough to make your stomach pull tight.
“You gonna tell me to stop?” you ask.
Another pause. Then—
“You gonna tell me what you’re doing?”
His voice is lower now, not softer, but heavier. Like it’s dragging something with it.
You don’t answer, not right away. You breathe, slow and deliberate, pressing down harder with your fingers until your hips lift slightly into the touch. The friction isn’t enough. Not yet. But it’s starting to pull something out of you. Something slow and burning.
“I’m thinking about your hand,” you say eventually, almost to yourself. “How it felt the last time. How deep you got. How easy it was.”
He groans, sharp and quiet, and you can picture him now—flat on his back, knuckles white around the phone, trying not to touch himself but failing.
“You’re impossible,” he mutters, but there’s no real bite in it.
“No,” you whisper. “You just make it really hard to forget.”
You hear him shift—fabric scraping, a breath sucked through his teeth.
You press the phone between your cheek and shoulder, lifting your hips quick, one hand slipping beneath the waistband. The fabric drags over your thighs, past your knees, and hits the floor softly.
The air against your skin is just sharp enough to make you flinch. “Joe,” you say, just loud enough. “That sound you just heard? That was me being helpful.”
He breathes hard, like that alone costs him.
“You can touch yourself,” he says, “but you don’t finish until I say.”
His words echo through your head. You obey, fingers slipping back down, sliding between wetness and pressure and the memory of what he used to do better than anyone else ever tried to.
You keep your eyes closed. Pretend it’s his hand. Let it feel like that.
“I bet you’re soaked,” he murmurs.
You hum, a sound low in your throat, your back arching into the motion. “Wish you could see.”
“I do too.”
He sounds almost disappointed, like this wasn’t the plan, like none of this was, and he’s just riding it out the same way you are.
“Joe?”
“Mm.”
“Do you still look at those pictures I sent you?”
The question slips out quieter than you meant it to. Almost an afterthought. But not really.
He doesn’t answer right away, and the silence that follows is taut, intimate in the way only silence like this can be. You know him. Know that delay means he’s considering whether to lie.
You circle your clit slower, lighter, letting the stillness thicken in your bedroom while you wait.
“Sometimes.”
It hits harder than yes.
“Late at night,” he adds, voice rougher now, like the words drag up something in him he didn’t want to offer. “When it’s too quiet. When I’ve had a shit day. Or a good one, doesn’t matter. I see your name in my head and I—I look.”
Your breath hitches. The rhythm of your fingers falters for a second before picking up again.
“I think about how you looked that last night,” he murmurs. “In the bathroom. When you had your legs all spread for me, you were dripping for me. But then you told me not to talk. Said it didn’t mean anything.”
Your whole body flinches like he touched you.
“That’s not what I meant,” you whisper, but it sounds more like breath than admission.
“I know,” he says. “But you said it anyway.”
You press your palm harder, try to drown it out with sensation, with pressure, with the way your thighs are already trembling. But the memory won’t let go. Him on his back, your hands on his chest. His mouth silent beneath you. His eyes not.
You’re wetter now. Messier. The slick sounds echo faintly in your bedroom and you wonder if he can hear them, if he’s picturing it—your fingers sliding over skin in the same way his once did.
“Are you touching yourself?” you ask, trying to redirect, to shift the weight of whatever just cracked open between you.
He breathes out, short and low. “Yeah.”
The sound you make in response isn’t quite a moan. It’s something needier than that. “Tell me how,” you whisper. “Tell me what you’re doing.”
You can hear the faint shift of fabric, the subtle friction of skin. He’s quiet for a moment, maybe working through how much he wants to give you, maybe too far gone to hold anything back.
“Got my hand on my cock,” he mutters finally. You can tell he’s holding back, maybe he’s scolding himself for already reaching this point. “Been hard since you started talking.”
Your stomach pulls tight. Heat creeps up the back of your neck. You picture him clearly—sprawled somewhere dark, one hand wrapped around himself, jaw clenched. Hair mussed. Eyes closed like he’s trying not to see your face but can’t help it.
You bite your lip and press your fingers down again, sliding through the slick at your center. It’s almost too much now, every nerve raw and waiting.
“You trying to come?” you ask, not quite steady.
“I’m trying not to,” he says. “But you make it impossible.”
You breathe in through your nose, shaky. “You did this too,” you say. “You didn’t hang up.”
“Don’t remind me.”
You arch your hips, just a little, and your fingers catch that perfect spot—pleasure meeting need in a way that makes your breath stutter out. You shift your weight on the bed, angling deeper. The sound you make is half-moan, half-exhale.
It feels good, yes, but it also doesn’t. Not really. Not in the way it should. Because it's not his hand. It’s not the way he touches you—slow at first, then greedy, like he’s owed every inch of you and plans to take his time collecting. Your fingers are just fingers. His were something else. You burn with it. That sharp, aching, hollow feeling of want that only ever follows the wrong version of closeness.
“Joe—”
“Yeah, baby?” he asks, voice strained.
You hesitate. Not because you don’t know what to say, but because it hurts to say it. Your fingers don’t stop. They can’t. You’re too far gone now, teetering at the edge—but this slips out anyway, softer than you meant it to.
“It doesn’t feel the same,” you whisper.
He exhales hard. You can hear him falter, hear the grip he has on himself weaken. You sink your fingers deeper, try to chase what’s building, even as the words tumble out, cracked and breathless.
“It should feel good, it—does, I guess. But it still hurts.”
Your voice shakes. You hate that it does.
“Because it’s not you.”
There’s silence on the other end, thick and loaded. You can picture him frozen, his hand maybe still, his jaw locked. You imagine his chest rising too fast, his eyes closing like they always did when things got too real.
“Yeah,” he says finally. “I know.”
And that ruins you more than anything else.
The confirmation. The knowing. That he feels it too. That he’s still buried in all the same places you are, and neither of you can do a thing about it except this—except moan into a phone line and pretend it matters.
Your fingers don’t stop. They move faster now, chasing something you don’t want to name. It builds low in your stomach, deeper than before, more painful somehow. Like it’s not just your body tightening—it’s everything else. Every breath you ever took with him in it.
“I hate you for this,” you whisper, not expecting him to answer.
But he does.
“I hate me too.” He swallows. “You can come now, baby.”
Your orgasm comes sharp, deep, curling in on itself. It doesn’t explode; it implodes, drawing every sound and breath and thought into that one unbearable second where nothing is real except the pain of needing him and the fact that he’s not there. Your back arches. A broken moan claws out of your throat. You choke on his name. It tastes like blood and memory.
You go still. Just for a second, and then you realize he’s still breathing, heavy. Shaky. You hear the slick sound of his hand moving faster now, more frantic, like the sound of you finishing distorted him the way he knew it would.
And you hate yourself for waiting to hear it, you should hang up.
You lie there, eyes shut, hand still caught between your legs, sticky with proof of something that shouldn’t have happened. Your mouth is dry. Your heart is hammering.
Then, through the speaker—so faint you barely catch it:
“Fuck. Fuck—fuck.”
You’ve heard it before. Felt it in your skin, your jaw, your hips. You know that sound like the back of your hand. It crashes through the line like thunder and you feel it everywhere.
Neither of you speaks for a moment. The air hums with breath and static and tension.
“I think about the pictures,” he says then, slower now. “But not the ones you sent.”
You freeze. “What do you mean?”
“I think about the ones I never took,” he says. “You under me. That shirt of mine you always slept in at Tahoe. No makeup, hair a mess. You used to look at me like I was it. That’s what I see.”
Something about that unravels you, makes your chest cave in and your throat burn.
And then, like you always do when the high fades and the shame creeps in, you run.
Only then do you hang up.
OCTOBER
Jealousy wears a crown in October.
It drips down Joe's back, lazy and regal, settles to him like it belongs there. He watches your Halloweekend stories through a cracked screen, thumb hovering, breath caught somewhere between his chest and his throat.
You're dressed as something slutty and ironic—he doesn't even know what, exactly. All he knows is that your skirt barely covers the curve of your ass, your smile is sharp and wine-drunk, your eyes glassy under purple club lights. And some guy's hand is resting on your waist in the mirror picture you reposted, fingers splayed like he owns that piece of you.
His face is half out of frame, but that smug tilt of his jaw is enough to make Joe want to hurl his phone across his shitty apartment.
You look happy. You look free. You look like you've forgotten all about him.
And maybe you have. Maybe you should.
But he still taps through every frame like a man starved, rewatching the same five-second clip of you dancing until his screen burns the image behind his eyelids.
You always were good at pretending.
There's glitter dusted across your collarbones and fake blood streaked down your thigh, and Joe doesn't know if he wants to text you or block you. Doesn't know if he wants to book a flight to Cincinnati just to prove you still go breathless when you see him.
But there it is, out there for anyone. For whoever that guy is, grinning at you like he doesn't know he's standing in Joe's grave.
He shouldn't care. But he does. He cares so much it makes him physically sick, bile rising in his throat as he watches some stranger's hand rest where his could.
Because it's not just jealousy—it's grief. Grief dressed up like ego. Wrapped in what-ifs and laced with things he won't admit, even to himself.
He's tried to convince himself you didn't mean anything. That Tahoe was just lust and bad timing. That Thanksgiving was a fluke born from loneliness and too much alcohol. That none of it ever had a real chance. But every lie tastes worse than the last, because he remembers exactly what it felt like the first time you kissed him in that dark parking lot.
How it felt less like a surprise and more like finally.
The wanting had been there for years, buried under friendship and circumstance. Best friend's sister. Too awkward at first, then too off-limits after. So he forgot it and told himself it was just proximity, just familiarity. When things finally turned physical, he convinced himself that was enough. That having you in any way was better than not having you at all.
But then Tahoe happened. You laughed at his terrible jokes. Fell asleep curled against his chest. Looked at him in those quiet moments like maybe he was worth keeping, worth more than just stolen kisses and a quick fix. And he let himself hope for something he'd never dared to want: not just your body, but you.
You were in his lap in the back of his truck, breathless and desperate. You were sprawled beneath him in bed, saying his name like a prayer. You were whispering dirty things over the phone that made his blood run hot and his chest tight with something that felt dangerously close to love.
But then Connor appeared in that hallway at Tahoe, looking at you with those knowing eyes, and Joe saw the panic flash across your face. Saw how quickly you pulled away, how desperately you wanted to hide what was happening between you. How easily you made him feel like a dirty secret you couldn't afford to keep.
And Joe, jealous and spiteful and suddenly seventeen again in the worst way, did the one thing guaranteed to make it all worse.
Walking into that guest room with Bridget was like a dare he was making with himself. Let her kiss him though it felt like betrayal from the first brush of her lips. Let her hands roam over him though every touch felt wrong, foreign, like his skin belonged to someone else.
It wasn't about wanting her. It was about punishment—for him, for you, for the hope he'd been stupid enough to feel.
Sleeping with her was supposed to prove he didn't care. That he could move on. That whatever the hell had happened between you two didn't matter as much as it felt like it did.
All it did was light the match to everything he actually wanted.
Walking out of that room, seeing your face—the way it crumpled before you turned away—he knew he'd put the final nail in his own coffin. There was no fixing it by explaining how empty it felt, how he'd barely been present for any of it. Couldn't tell you he'd been picturing your face the whole time, your hands, your voice saying his name. That every sound Bridget made felt like a lie his body was telling. That he'd wanted to crawl out of his skin the second it was over.
You were gone in seconds, and part of him stayed frozen in that moment forever.
He could have followed you. Could have called, texted, shown up at your door with the explanation burning in his throat. But that would mean admitting he'd been trying to forget you and failed spectacularly. Would mean confessing that every touch with Bridget was just him trying to prove he didn't need you, only to discover he needed you more than breathing.
So he swallowed his pride and told himself time would fix it. That eventually this ache would fade into something manageable, that wanting someone who didn't want him back was just another phase he'd outgrow.
The semester was hell.
He told himself the distance was good. Better not to see your face, better not to be reminded of how badly he'd fucked it all up. But silence has a way of growing teeth when you're already bleeding, and the absence of you wasn't quiet—it was deafening. It filled every corner of his apartment in Baton Rouge. Followed him to practice, to class, to bed. Made him dream about apologies he didn't know how to make.
By April, drunk and stupid and tired of carrying the weight of it alone, he finally cracked. Typed the words he'd written and deleted a hundred times:
Do you ever miss me?
You didn't answer, but it felt good to finally let the words go.
Summer brought him back to Ohio, and with it, hope he didn't want to feel. He started looking for your car in driveways. Felt lighter when your laugh carried across a crowded backyard. Died a little every time you looked through him like he wasn't there.
But then he started noticing other things. How your eyes would linger on him just a beat too long to be casual. How your breath would stutter when he walked into a room. How you'd disappear the moment it was just the two of you, like you didn't trust yourself alone with him.
You were still in it. Just like him.
August proved it.
All that tension finally snapped. Mouths on skin, desperate and angry and everything he'd been dreaming about. Hands fumbling with the urgency of people who don't know how to say I miss you any other way. The way you felt around him was like coming home and falling apart all at once.
For those stolen moments, he thought maybe this was it. Maybe you'd finally opened the door to let him back in.
But then you looked at him like he was a mistake you didn't want to make again. Snapped at him with words that cut deep, made it clear you were still trapped in Tahoe. He wanted to scream, to tell you it didn't mean anything, that you were the only thing that ever did.
But he didn't. He just watched you walk away. Again.
In September, when you called him—accidentally, you said, trying to reach someone else—he let himself believe it anyway. Maybe you'd changed your mind.
It was stupid. But he stayed on the line, letting the sound of your breathing lull him into old rhythms. He let the silence between your words feel like forgiveness because it felt right again.
Now it's October, and you're posting pictures with fake blood on your thighs and someone else's hand on your waist, and Joe realizes he still hasn't learned how to let you go.
He tells himself you were always meant to be temporary. A moment. A mistake. A lesson in wanting things he couldn't have.
He tells himself you were just lonely, and maybe he was too. That it wasn't about him specifically. That it was never real.
But then he sees you, even through a phone screen, even with glitter in your hair and someone else's fingers on your skin, and his heart beats so loud he forgets how to lie to himself.
You are real.
And he's still completely fucked.
NOVEMBER
Longing is quieter when the leaves start to fall.
It doesn’t thrash. It doesn’t scream. It curls into you instead—slow and soft like the corner of a blanket tucked too tight, pressing into your skin just enough to leave a mark. It moves through the day like breath, like static. You don’t notice it until your fingers still halfway through folding laundry, or your eyes blur at the end of a text you’ve read four times over.
And the worst part is how welcome it feels.
How easy it is to fall back into the thoughts you swore you were done having. The versions of things that never happened. The moments you could’ve changed, if you had just paid better attention. If you’d known what to listen for.
You pull away from them like you would from a hot stove—fast, instinctive, ashamed of the reflex.
But they always find a way back.
Because there’s a particular cruelty to this time of year, when everything is winding down and you’re still wound too tight. When the air smells like memory and the sky keeps offering the illusion of softness. When even your body betrays you by remembering what it once wanted. What it once had.
Thanksgiving without him feels like trying to breathe through gauze.
Dominic mentioned it over dinner—casual, like it wasn’t supposed to sting. Joe’s staying at LSU this year, something about keeping focus, getting ahead on training. Dom said it like it made sense. Like Joe had always been the type to choose football over family.
But you know better.
You know it’s because of you.
The realization hits you low in the stomach, leaving behind guilt, but also something dangerously close to relief. Because if he’s avoiding you, it means he’s still thinking about you.
It doesn't help that Dan and Jamie couldn’t make it either. Dan’s in Chicago with Carrie’s family. Jamie’s stuck at the office, buried under some end-of-year deadline. The Burrow side of the table feels decimated, just Jimmy and Robin, smiling too much, trying to fill the space where their boys should be.
You catch Robin’s eyes going soft when she glances at the empty chairs. See how Jimmy’s laugh comes out too fast, too thin, when your dad tells the same joke he’s been telling since 2002. Everyone’s pretending not to notice that something’s missing.
And you’re pretending not to notice that it’s your fault.
If you hadn’t played your part in wrecking everything, Joe would be here. Robin would be laughing, dabbing her eyes at some stupid story. Jimmy would be yelling about the Lions. Dom wouldn’t be so eerily quiet beside you, stabbing his green beans like they wronged him personally.
Later, when the dishes are done and your family is passed out in front of a game no one’s actually watching, you slip outside. Wine in hand. Coat forgotten. Just the cold and your silence for company.
The wind is chilling, November at its meanest, but you don’t go back inside.
Your phone buzzes—some guy from class asking about drinks tomorrow—and you delete the message without opening it. No one else’s voice makes your pulse skip. No one else knows how to touch you in the ways you pretend you don’t miss. No one else ever looked at you like you were worth the risk of ruining everything.
The wine makes you bold. Or stupid. Or honest.
You scroll to the thread that hasn’t lit up since April. His last message is still there, waiting like it knew you’d come back eventually.
Do you ever miss me?
You hadn’t answered. Not because you didn’t want to, but because the wanting hurt too much. Because the question felt like a trap, like a door creaking open you weren’t sure you were allowed to walk through.
Your thumb hovers. There are a thousand things you could say. You’ve drafted them all in your head; lines about timing, about mistakes, about how badly you wanted to say yes but couldn’t.
But in the end, the truth is smaller than all of that.
you: sometimes.
You hit send and you hate how immediately your chest tightens with hope. How quickly your eyes flick back to the screen.
Because deep down, you know: No matter how far you try to push it down, you’re still that girl who would’ve chosen him. Every time.
DECEMBER
Ambiguity sits easier than it should.
You don't feel good, exactly. But you don't feel ruined either. There's something strange in your chest now—not quite the crushing weight of before, but not emptiness either. You imagine it's like soot after a fire that didn't take the whole house. It's in your breath, your bloodstream, the backs of your knees. A hum that doesn't hurt the way it used to, just reminds you of everything that was, like smoke clinging to fabric long after the cigarette is stubbed out.
For two weeks, for the first time in close to a year, you aren't stuck in emotional turmoil.
Well. That's a lie, and your body knows it even when your mind tries to pretend otherwise.
You are. The restless anxiety still pulses beneath your skin some nights, different now but familiar in its relentlessness. Your fingers still search for something to hold when conversation lulls—a pen, the edge of your sleeve, anything to fill the space where certainty used to live.
Just, maybe not the same sort of turmoil. The kind that used to send you spiraling into frantic, desperate acts of self-destruction has mellowed into something you can almost manage, like learning to walk with a limp instead of crawling.
The first text came the morning after Thanksgiving.
Good morning.
You'd stared at it for twenty minutes, your heart doing that complicated dance between hope and self-preservation, fingers hovering over the keyboard like you were defusing a bomb. The simple act of typing back felt monumental, each letter a small act of faith.
morning
From there, it's been careful. Tentative. Like two people learning to walk on ice that might crack at any moment, every step deliberate and measured. He sends you funny videos sometimes. Memes that make you laugh despite yourself, the sound startling in your quiet apartment. You send him pictures of your coffee when it's particularly terrible, complaints about your professor who assigns last minute papers. Normal things. Safe things. The kind of conversation that feels like putting on clothes that used to fit perfectly but now hang slightly wrong.
joe b: This smoothie place spelled my name jow
you: honestly an improvement
joe b: 😕
you: could’ve been worse
you: joey
joe b: Stop while you’re ahead
It's become some unspoken rule between you and Joe; no one mentions Tahoe, no one mentions where it all fell sour. The silence around it has weight, sits heavy in your throat like words you've swallowed too many times.
joe b: You ever finish that paper?
you: barely. used the same paragraph twice
joe b: That’s called resourcefulness
joe b: Proud of you
It feels almost normal.
Almost.
joe b: Someone walked past me wearing that perfume you used to wear
you: which one?
joe b: The vanilla one
you: lol that doesn’t narrow it down
you: i’ve got like five versions of vanilla
joe b: Nahhhhh it was yours tho
joe b: Knew it straight away
You don't know how to name what's left. There's no label for this, whatever it may be. The rhythm of almost-healing feels fragile as moth wings. The dull throb of things not being broken enough to hurt in that sharp, immediate way, but not whole enough to forget the ache. You sleep better. But not well—still wake sometimes in that liminal space between dreams and memory, your chest tight with the ghost of things unsaid. You feel more like yourself. But not quite. More like who you're trying to become, which is terrifying in its own way.
There are still landmines everywhere, buried just beneath the surface of every exchange. He mentions practice, and suddenly your skin remembers his hands on your waist, the phantom touch sending heat crawling up your neck. You tell him about work, and he asks if you're still at that apartment downtown, and you both know he's remembering that call in September, the weight of everything that went wrong hanging in the digital space between you. The subtext lives in every conversation, humming underneath it all like tinnitus—constant, inescapable, a reminder of damage done.
But it's manageable. This thing you're doing. This careful friendship built on the bones of everything you're not talking about. Some days the effort of it exhausts you in the same way quitting smoking did—that constant vigilance against your own instincts, the deliberate choice to be different than you want to be.
Some days you almost forget why you were so afraid to text him back in the first place. Those are the dangerous days, when the scar tissue feels strong enough to bear weight.
In the library, fluorescent lights buzzing overhead like trapped insects, you're scrolling through Instagram, trying to catch more stories people post for Joe's birthday. The screen's blue glow makes your eyes water, or maybe that's something else entirely. You'd already texted him this morning, a simple happy birthday with a cake emoji that felt safe enough. He'd sent back a smiley face and a thank you, and that was that. Clean. Uncomplicated. The kind of interaction that doesn't leave you bleeding.
The notification slides down from the top of your screen, interrupting your scrolling.
joe b: so I know this is random but we play Oklahoma in a couple weeks. The 28th. Big game and all that. Was wondering if you'd maybe want to come? Could be like a birthday present or something lol
Your heart does something complicated—not quite the violent thrashing it used to do, but a stuttering rhythm that reminds you why you learned to be careful in the first place. This would be crossing a line. Moving from safe texts into something that looks suspiciously like real life, with all its messy, uncontrollable variables.
But maybe you're ready for that. Maybe two weeks of easy conversation has healed something you didn't know was broken, the way a bone mends stronger in the place it breaks.
You're about to swipe up to respond when the story timer runs out and automatically flips to the next one.
Two kids bundled up in snow gear, arms thrown around each other like they own the world. Joe's gap-toothed grin. Bridget's pigtails poking out from under a knit hat. Years old, but posted today. The image hits you like a physical blow, air rushing out of your lungs in a way that's becoming familiar again.
The caption makes your stomach drop, that sickening lurch of free fall: happy birthday burrrrow 🎂 can't wait to c u
You stare at the screen until your eyes water, the letters blurring together like looking through tears or smoke.
Can't wait to see you.
Present tense. Future plans.
The careful balance you've built these past two weeks suddenly feels impossibly fragile. You've been trying so hard to convince yourself you didn't need an explanation. That you could heal around the wound instead of cleaning it out.
Maybe some things are meant to stay broken. Maybe pretending otherwise is just another kind of lie you tell yourself.
Your phone buzzes again, the vibration sharp against the table.
joe b: Is that a yes??
The eagerness in his message makes you want to do something impulsive. Destructive. Watch something shatter against the library wall just to hear it break like everything suddenly did.
Because this is the thing about almost-healing: it only works if you don't look too closely at what's still broken underneath.
You delete the text thread without responding, hands shaking as you hold down his name. All of it disappears—the late night texts, the careful small talk, the invitation that made your chest flutter with a stupid pipe dream.
It vanishes in seconds, all of it, like it was never there to begin with.
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