Im Still Here

SUMMARY: Headcannons of Joe Burrow being your best friend, but he likes you much more then friends than you realize.

WARNINGS: Second person point of view, fluff, and painfully oblivious reader.

Since you and Joe are just friends you guys do everything together! Like let’s say shopping or even staying at each other’s house just for the night.

Almost every person who see you guys together they can’t help but ask, “Are you guys together?” but you’re always quick to cut that idea off. Unlike Joe who doesn’t say anything, slightly tensing when you say no.

You guys are always together, rather you standing next to him or you coming to every single one of his football games you’re able to make it too.

Anytime you complain to Joe about your relationship issues, it always goes something like: “I mean he just stopped talking to me as soon as I brought you up. This happens like every time!” And Joe would only respond in nods and murmuring ‘Sorry’. But it’s almost as if every guy wouldn’t want to date a girl with a 6’4 NFL Qb ‘bestfriend’.

He always buys you stuff, hating at the fact you even think to pay for your own things.

Every time you go to his games you give him a hug, not a short little side hug— no a longish proper hug while you’re telling him “good job” && “you got this”

Whenever you tell people how close you and Joe are, and all things you do together they just give you a weird look, but to your knowledge you think they don’t believe you

Anytime Joe subtly hints to you about even being more than “friends” you always say that “we are more than friends!” Which obviously is you not understanding what means, and he just laughs, not bothering to continue on with that conversation.

Missing him😔

---

A decent pic! 🖤🤍

Posted by Matt Siegel on IG

Back when he was called "Sunshine"

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.

Back when he was called "Sunshine"

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.

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 😮‍💨

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 ;)