FNL Fic: on your way back
on your way back
lyla; lyla/tim- r
2701 words
general spoilers
for thatlldopig. lu.
It’s how dangerous intimacy can be at seventeen, where you can fall in love with the world and then hate it too.
For a long time, I went to bed early. Marcel Proust, Swann's Way
-
Her second-to-last bag refuses to close, the zipper snapping.
Lyla curses; this can’t be a sign.
-
She drops her keys in the middle of the driveway, after the fourth trip for boxes with her brother as help.
“Hey!” She calls as he leaves the boxes behind. He snorts, rushing back and saying something about a television show.
She shakes her head, rolling her eyes as he lunges over the porch and dropping the boxes as her mother peeks out from the door. She sighs, sweeping her keys in her hand and smiling tiredly at her mother.
“Your father called, baby.” There’s a hesitation as she steps forward, her mother’s thumb skimming her cheek. “You don’t-”
In the garage, there’s a bang and her sister’s making attempt number four on her volcano project for the year’s end. Lyla kisses her mother’s cheek as she sighs, cracking an amused smile at her brother’s echoing laughter.
“It’s just dinner, Mama.” There’s another sigh and months and months of different weekends and different houses are still pretty hard to get used to. Lyla grins and bears it for her brother and sister and maybe even her mother too- Buddy Garrity always know how to hurt his family more.
He’ll probably cancel anyway, she doesn’t voice this. She grabs her boxes instead, pressing them to her side and heading upstairs. Boxes, boxes, boxes- college swept into her life faster than she expected; another coast, another few weeks, and she doesn’t know if she should be excited.
It is strange, however, to walk into her room and to be greeted by bags and her trunk. Her room’s strangely empty and everything goes away. Pictures of Jason, of friends she’ll only talk to once every few years (if) when she comes back to Dillon, and some of Daddy- it’s the right thing to do, break away clean and clear, because really that’s what she’s been looking for.
It’s just time to go.
-
“Sure you don’t want me comin’ up with you?”
Lyla’s gaze is on the other side of the room with the people that she doesn’t recognize, but waves to her father anyway. She shrug, her fingers picking at her keys as she re-crosses her legs for the third time.
“I’ll be fine,” she murmurs, turning back.
His hair’s grayer than she remembers, circles stretching under her eyes, and it’s weird to see her father as somewhat human, the spark that he tosses to the town and the team simply not there. She gets that he loves her and her siblings, but there’s something that everyone else gets that they don’t. She used to be angry.
“Do you know your roommate?”
“Nope.”
He sighs and her eyes close as she leans forward. She shifts something to say through her head, remember her mother’s quiet plea for her to be cordial. Our problems are ours, she had said tiredly, but he loves you kids. She wonders if she believes her mother yet.
“Baby-”
She shakes her head, dropping her keys into her purse. “I love you, Daddy. I really do,” she tells him. She’s surprised at how firm she is. “But it’s gonna take time with me because I understand how you screwed up.”
He draws back, older again and a chastised child. She wants to tell him that it isn’t supposed to be fair, that she spent a long time trying to get through that lesson herself. But he’s been doing this a lot longer than she did and Lyla, if anything, protects the pieces that she has left.
She softens, out of habit. “I’ll call you when I get there.”
His lips purse. There’s a terse nod. “Fair enough.”
-
Tim’s in her driveway when she’s home by eleven.
She tenses, blinks, and shifts out of her car with her arms crossed over her chest. She’s defensive, but shouldn’t be, and can’t remember when there was a last time they actually had something to say to each other.
“Hey,” he calls.
She licks her lips. “Hey back.”
He studies her and she looks away, pasting her gaze against the driveway and the intensity shifting from him to her. It’s always unnerving, even before everything happened, the way he seemed to quietly pick her apart without ever saying a thing. She could hide things from Jason with a smile, slow and coy, but Tim seemed to call her bullshit without blinking.
“Got some time?”
There’s more, but he doesn’t elaborate and she hopes this isn’t another attempt to mend the out of control mess she and Jason decided to stop being. Fairytales and small towns, everybody here’s got a hobby. She bites her lip and she looks up, watching his hands dig hard into his pockets.
“If this is about-”
He snorts. She’s predictable. “Not about J.”
He tilts his head to the truck and she’s silent, her fingers unwrapping from the straps of her purse to dig out her keys. The invitation spills over her head and she sighs, nodding and moving forward to the door.
“Give me a minute to tell my mom.”
She doesn’t want for his yeah, okay.
-
Dillon is a bad romance novel at night, the space between the houses and the eerie glow of a really sleepy town almost disheartening. It’s always amazed her, the sense of disorientation and the way it seems to shut down at night.
But it’s home, Lyla reminds herself, it’s always gonna be home.
She’s pressed against the window in Tim’s truck, the radio occasionally scratching as they pass certain parts of town. She doesn’t ask where they’re going, doesn’t think she feels the need to, but still the same, she’s wondering what this is about.
“You look kinda worried.”
Her blush is faint when she looks at him, she’s been caught, and she’s smiling a little as she turns her gaze to the passing road and the few cars littering. “Watchin’ me?”
He’s smiling when she turns back, briefly, his hair brushing over his eyes as his fingers tighten around the steering wheel. She thinks she likes when he smiles, when he’s Tim and not what everybody wants to know him as.
“Lately,” he shrugs.
She doesn’t know what to say to that, leaning forward and twisting her fingers around the radio knob. She doesn’t find anything and he snorts, pulling off to the side of the road, moments later, and stopping.
She blinks. “Where are we?”
“Nowhere.”- The answer is amused and his voice sticks around her as he slides out of the truck and walks around back.
She sighs and mutters boys, following and stepping out. It’s colder than she remembers, but she forgot her sweater, so she steals his football sweatshirt that stretched between them on the ride down.
He hands her a club. “You’re still a pretty girl.”
She snorts. He smirks. It could be an insult, affectionate at best, but she realizes that Tim is still Tim and, for once, it seems to calm her.
“I don’t play golf.”
He smirks again. “Don’t matter.”
Tim hesitates, but his hands curl around her hips as he positions her away from the truck. He says something like don’t want you near my girl and she laughs dryly, slipping on the opportunity to shoot something back. His hands slide from her hips to her hands and she lets him, watching as they settle.
His mouth almost brushes her ear, but she can feel him breathing. She remembers that time, a series of several, the way he talked to her and really talked to her. It’s how dangerous intimacy can be at seventeen, where you can fall in love with the world and then hate it too. He still gave her something.
“You look like you needed to hit somethin’ hard.”
She snorts. “So a ball’s gonna do it?”
“Best I could do, princess,” he shoots back dryly.
He starts to guide her through several swings, straightening her, but never saying a word about posture and her angle. He simply lets her be.
She’s cold when he starts letting her hit by herself.
-
Lyla doesn’t know how long they’re there.
It could be hours, the sun still hasn’t peeked and there’s not a day to tack off her leaving time yet. But it’s something, something good, and she’s almost afraid to consider it.
She likes to watch him though, like when he plays football, the way he hits and follows through- it’s almost romantic, his sense of focus. She stops when her fingers feel like they’ve been curled too long.
She yawns.
“Wuss,” Tim murmurs.
“Shut up,” she says.
He laughs softly and turns, taking her club and going back to the truck. She follows him, maybe to watch, and curls her hands in the sweatshirt pocket instead. He turns and leans against the door to the back.
“An entire coast, huh?” He’s careful, too careful, and she wonders why. He’s never been like that with a question; the strange and open honesty between them has been subjected to stills and stutters, but they’ve never been careful.
But she shrugs, turning and sitting next to him. She doesn’t answer yet, her legs stretching in front of her with her sneakers kicking the dirt as she settles. She looks off to the side, remembers that this was a make out point before a landfill; kids like change, embrace it, and hate it too.
“Yeah,” she starts. “An entire coast.”
I need it, she thinks. The vibration of her thought almost hits her mouth, but nothing leaves. She promised herself never to succumb to that kind of desperation, the rare shots of it since Jason’s accident and the year that followed, the summer and everything after that, nearly tore her into bits. She’s come to terms with a selfish need to break apart, but all the same, she still hates it.
“Good.”
She blinks. “Good?”
He laughs easily, his lips curled into something- she’s seen him smile once, awhile back, but it’s kind of indistinguishable now.
“You look,” he wavers, a little, “- excited?”
Her lips turn and she laughs, shaking her head. “I guess.” She shrugs. “More anxious, if anythin’ at all. I’ll still miss Dillon, a little.”
“Liar.”
She laughs again, thicker this time. There’s a sureness to the sound and it’s a little unsettling, but the thought passes quickly as she eases back onto her hands. She cocks her head to the side, meeting his gaze.
“I said a little.”
His hair drifts over his eyes again and she can’t help it, her hand lifting and dusting it back. He doesn’t flinch, like first time, and it’s nowhere near that awkwardness that seemed to loom over them before. It’s almost striking how much older he seems, how open and easy his posture is. It can’t be her, she tells herself, because it’s been awhile for any sort of anything- but it makes her comfortable still the same.
“I-” He stops, looks away, and seems to be turning something around in his head.
She waits because she knows how to wait, her hand dropping from his face and to her lap. She picks at the hem of her skirt, her ponytail skipping against her neck. She wishes, really, she knew what to say- it makes Tim intimidating, has always really. She’s been fighting jealousy at how easy it is for Jason and Tyra to talk him.
“Listen,” he starts again.
She turns to watch him and his palm presses against her cheek. She blushes, but he kisses her before her reaction emerges to settle. Her hands drop and his mouth is almost too warm, his tongue brushing inside and against hers. She thinks she moans, but there’s a vibration of sound between them and she presses forward, her hand curling around his jacket.
At some point, she slides into kissing him back and their collective earnestness slips into the spurts of something they had back then for those few days. She dips back or maybe he lowers her, but the metal of edge of the truck presses against the back of her thighs. They slide forward; Tim grunts and she laughs, tugging him over her.
She doesn’t know what she’s doing, the response of control slipping from her. Something about this seems right, something more is a little scarier, but he’s looking at her like she means something and she can’t help but admit a tiny fall.
“You sure?”
Her skirt rides up her thighs, his jacket slips from his shoulders, and her lips turn as his mouth grazes her throat.
She breathes. “Why’re you asking me?”
His eyes are dark. Her legs part and his weight shifts as they curl slightly around his waist. He kisses her throat, her breathing is heavier.
“It matters,” he murmurs.
She can feel his hand sliding up her shirt, but it stops and his palm presses against her hip. It’s warm, sweaty, and she wiggles her hips against his as she peers up with her mouth brushing against the corner of his lip.
She nods. “I’m sure.”
He kisses her then, his mouth hard and the ache uncurling inside of her. She presses back, her teeth scraping against his bottom lip because she remembers he likes it and almost coos when he releases a gruff moan.
All they become are hands and limbs- she peels his jeans past his hips, his boxers causing her to tug more than once, but she gasps when his cock presses against her thigh. She can’t remember what happened to her underwear. It was brief, maybe there was a tear, but she’s sure it’s a pile of fabric somewhere off on the road.
“Oh,” she breathes.
Nothing happens yet, they stay rocking against each other and she’s trembling a little because even here, she doesn’t know what to make of the extension of sensation. His mouth brushes over hers again, against her throat with his teeth picking at the dip in her shoulder after. She moans and he laughs huskily.
“Again.” His voice skims against her jaw, his hand curling around her thigh as he shifts and leans forward. It’s almost a slur. “Want- hear it again.”
She mews, her hips bucking forward as his cock pushes inside of her. She claws at his back, her leg tighten around his waist. Oh god, she thinks. Oh god. The memory of him and her and the spread of moments that they had once comes back to her every now and then; but hits her hard, almost viciously, right now.
She crushes her mouth against his as they start to kiss with teeth as he thrusts inside of her and her hips rock to follow. She doesn’t think, but breathes into him and clings hard as she dives into the need for more. He might’ve said her name, once, maybe twice, but she’s just aware of him, aware of how they’re moving, and the fact that she craves much more than this.
“Ly-”
Her hips buck hard against his and she moans when he pushes deeper, the truck door squealing underneath them.
She won’t remember who’ll fall first, but when it hits, it hits and it hits hard. She falls back and he stays inside of her and pressed against her. Her nails still mark his jacket and his mouth is at her throat, wet as he breathes. She doesn’t mind and keeps her legs wrapped around him as she closes her eyes.
“You gonna come visit me?” She breathes finally, biting back a sigh as he rolls off of her. Her ponytail sticks to her throat.
She tries again. “Really.”
She’s surprised when he tugs her forward a little bit, his mouth grazing her neck again. She doesn’t look at him and he doesn’t urge her to, finding her hand and letting it rest against his chest.
He snorts, but the invitation elevates over the sentimental moment. There’s that honesty from her again and she means it, shyly, because she’s not used to reaching forward like this. Still, but give her time.
A car skirts by. They don’t move.
“Maybe,” he murmurs. And then thoughtfully: “I’ll still be here.”
end.
lyla; lyla/tim- r
2701 words
general spoilers
for thatlldopig. lu.
It’s how dangerous intimacy can be at seventeen, where you can fall in love with the world and then hate it too.
For a long time, I went to bed early. Marcel Proust, Swann's Way
-
Her second-to-last bag refuses to close, the zipper snapping.
Lyla curses; this can’t be a sign.
-
She drops her keys in the middle of the driveway, after the fourth trip for boxes with her brother as help.
“Hey!” She calls as he leaves the boxes behind. He snorts, rushing back and saying something about a television show.
She shakes her head, rolling her eyes as he lunges over the porch and dropping the boxes as her mother peeks out from the door. She sighs, sweeping her keys in her hand and smiling tiredly at her mother.
“Your father called, baby.” There’s a hesitation as she steps forward, her mother’s thumb skimming her cheek. “You don’t-”
In the garage, there’s a bang and her sister’s making attempt number four on her volcano project for the year’s end. Lyla kisses her mother’s cheek as she sighs, cracking an amused smile at her brother’s echoing laughter.
“It’s just dinner, Mama.” There’s another sigh and months and months of different weekends and different houses are still pretty hard to get used to. Lyla grins and bears it for her brother and sister and maybe even her mother too- Buddy Garrity always know how to hurt his family more.
He’ll probably cancel anyway, she doesn’t voice this. She grabs her boxes instead, pressing them to her side and heading upstairs. Boxes, boxes, boxes- college swept into her life faster than she expected; another coast, another few weeks, and she doesn’t know if she should be excited.
It is strange, however, to walk into her room and to be greeted by bags and her trunk. Her room’s strangely empty and everything goes away. Pictures of Jason, of friends she’ll only talk to once every few years (if) when she comes back to Dillon, and some of Daddy- it’s the right thing to do, break away clean and clear, because really that’s what she’s been looking for.
It’s just time to go.
-
“Sure you don’t want me comin’ up with you?”
Lyla’s gaze is on the other side of the room with the people that she doesn’t recognize, but waves to her father anyway. She shrug, her fingers picking at her keys as she re-crosses her legs for the third time.
“I’ll be fine,” she murmurs, turning back.
His hair’s grayer than she remembers, circles stretching under her eyes, and it’s weird to see her father as somewhat human, the spark that he tosses to the town and the team simply not there. She gets that he loves her and her siblings, but there’s something that everyone else gets that they don’t. She used to be angry.
“Do you know your roommate?”
“Nope.”
He sighs and her eyes close as she leans forward. She shifts something to say through her head, remember her mother’s quiet plea for her to be cordial. Our problems are ours, she had said tiredly, but he loves you kids. She wonders if she believes her mother yet.
“Baby-”
She shakes her head, dropping her keys into her purse. “I love you, Daddy. I really do,” she tells him. She’s surprised at how firm she is. “But it’s gonna take time with me because I understand how you screwed up.”
He draws back, older again and a chastised child. She wants to tell him that it isn’t supposed to be fair, that she spent a long time trying to get through that lesson herself. But he’s been doing this a lot longer than she did and Lyla, if anything, protects the pieces that she has left.
She softens, out of habit. “I’ll call you when I get there.”
His lips purse. There’s a terse nod. “Fair enough.”
-
Tim’s in her driveway when she’s home by eleven.
She tenses, blinks, and shifts out of her car with her arms crossed over her chest. She’s defensive, but shouldn’t be, and can’t remember when there was a last time they actually had something to say to each other.
“Hey,” he calls.
She licks her lips. “Hey back.”
He studies her and she looks away, pasting her gaze against the driveway and the intensity shifting from him to her. It’s always unnerving, even before everything happened, the way he seemed to quietly pick her apart without ever saying a thing. She could hide things from Jason with a smile, slow and coy, but Tim seemed to call her bullshit without blinking.
“Got some time?”
There’s more, but he doesn’t elaborate and she hopes this isn’t another attempt to mend the out of control mess she and Jason decided to stop being. Fairytales and small towns, everybody here’s got a hobby. She bites her lip and she looks up, watching his hands dig hard into his pockets.
“If this is about-”
He snorts. She’s predictable. “Not about J.”
He tilts his head to the truck and she’s silent, her fingers unwrapping from the straps of her purse to dig out her keys. The invitation spills over her head and she sighs, nodding and moving forward to the door.
“Give me a minute to tell my mom.”
She doesn’t want for his yeah, okay.
-
Dillon is a bad romance novel at night, the space between the houses and the eerie glow of a really sleepy town almost disheartening. It’s always amazed her, the sense of disorientation and the way it seems to shut down at night.
But it’s home, Lyla reminds herself, it’s always gonna be home.
She’s pressed against the window in Tim’s truck, the radio occasionally scratching as they pass certain parts of town. She doesn’t ask where they’re going, doesn’t think she feels the need to, but still the same, she’s wondering what this is about.
“You look kinda worried.”
Her blush is faint when she looks at him, she’s been caught, and she’s smiling a little as she turns her gaze to the passing road and the few cars littering. “Watchin’ me?”
He’s smiling when she turns back, briefly, his hair brushing over his eyes as his fingers tighten around the steering wheel. She thinks she likes when he smiles, when he’s Tim and not what everybody wants to know him as.
“Lately,” he shrugs.
She doesn’t know what to say to that, leaning forward and twisting her fingers around the radio knob. She doesn’t find anything and he snorts, pulling off to the side of the road, moments later, and stopping.
She blinks. “Where are we?”
“Nowhere.”- The answer is amused and his voice sticks around her as he slides out of the truck and walks around back.
She sighs and mutters boys, following and stepping out. It’s colder than she remembers, but she forgot her sweater, so she steals his football sweatshirt that stretched between them on the ride down.
He hands her a club. “You’re still a pretty girl.”
She snorts. He smirks. It could be an insult, affectionate at best, but she realizes that Tim is still Tim and, for once, it seems to calm her.
“I don’t play golf.”
He smirks again. “Don’t matter.”
Tim hesitates, but his hands curl around her hips as he positions her away from the truck. He says something like don’t want you near my girl and she laughs dryly, slipping on the opportunity to shoot something back. His hands slide from her hips to her hands and she lets him, watching as they settle.
His mouth almost brushes her ear, but she can feel him breathing. She remembers that time, a series of several, the way he talked to her and really talked to her. It’s how dangerous intimacy can be at seventeen, where you can fall in love with the world and then hate it too. He still gave her something.
“You look like you needed to hit somethin’ hard.”
She snorts. “So a ball’s gonna do it?”
“Best I could do, princess,” he shoots back dryly.
He starts to guide her through several swings, straightening her, but never saying a word about posture and her angle. He simply lets her be.
She’s cold when he starts letting her hit by herself.
-
Lyla doesn’t know how long they’re there.
It could be hours, the sun still hasn’t peeked and there’s not a day to tack off her leaving time yet. But it’s something, something good, and she’s almost afraid to consider it.
She likes to watch him though, like when he plays football, the way he hits and follows through- it’s almost romantic, his sense of focus. She stops when her fingers feel like they’ve been curled too long.
She yawns.
“Wuss,” Tim murmurs.
“Shut up,” she says.
He laughs softly and turns, taking her club and going back to the truck. She follows him, maybe to watch, and curls her hands in the sweatshirt pocket instead. He turns and leans against the door to the back.
“An entire coast, huh?” He’s careful, too careful, and she wonders why. He’s never been like that with a question; the strange and open honesty between them has been subjected to stills and stutters, but they’ve never been careful.
But she shrugs, turning and sitting next to him. She doesn’t answer yet, her legs stretching in front of her with her sneakers kicking the dirt as she settles. She looks off to the side, remembers that this was a make out point before a landfill; kids like change, embrace it, and hate it too.
“Yeah,” she starts. “An entire coast.”
I need it, she thinks. The vibration of her thought almost hits her mouth, but nothing leaves. She promised herself never to succumb to that kind of desperation, the rare shots of it since Jason’s accident and the year that followed, the summer and everything after that, nearly tore her into bits. She’s come to terms with a selfish need to break apart, but all the same, she still hates it.
“Good.”
She blinks. “Good?”
He laughs easily, his lips curled into something- she’s seen him smile once, awhile back, but it’s kind of indistinguishable now.
“You look,” he wavers, a little, “- excited?”
Her lips turn and she laughs, shaking her head. “I guess.” She shrugs. “More anxious, if anythin’ at all. I’ll still miss Dillon, a little.”
“Liar.”
She laughs again, thicker this time. There’s a sureness to the sound and it’s a little unsettling, but the thought passes quickly as she eases back onto her hands. She cocks her head to the side, meeting his gaze.
“I said a little.”
His hair drifts over his eyes again and she can’t help it, her hand lifting and dusting it back. He doesn’t flinch, like first time, and it’s nowhere near that awkwardness that seemed to loom over them before. It’s almost striking how much older he seems, how open and easy his posture is. It can’t be her, she tells herself, because it’s been awhile for any sort of anything- but it makes her comfortable still the same.
“I-” He stops, looks away, and seems to be turning something around in his head.
She waits because she knows how to wait, her hand dropping from his face and to her lap. She picks at the hem of her skirt, her ponytail skipping against her neck. She wishes, really, she knew what to say- it makes Tim intimidating, has always really. She’s been fighting jealousy at how easy it is for Jason and Tyra to talk him.
“Listen,” he starts again.
She turns to watch him and his palm presses against her cheek. She blushes, but he kisses her before her reaction emerges to settle. Her hands drop and his mouth is almost too warm, his tongue brushing inside and against hers. She thinks she moans, but there’s a vibration of sound between them and she presses forward, her hand curling around his jacket.
At some point, she slides into kissing him back and their collective earnestness slips into the spurts of something they had back then for those few days. She dips back or maybe he lowers her, but the metal of edge of the truck presses against the back of her thighs. They slide forward; Tim grunts and she laughs, tugging him over her.
She doesn’t know what she’s doing, the response of control slipping from her. Something about this seems right, something more is a little scarier, but he’s looking at her like she means something and she can’t help but admit a tiny fall.
“You sure?”
Her skirt rides up her thighs, his jacket slips from his shoulders, and her lips turn as his mouth grazes her throat.
She breathes. “Why’re you asking me?”
His eyes are dark. Her legs part and his weight shifts as they curl slightly around his waist. He kisses her throat, her breathing is heavier.
“It matters,” he murmurs.
She can feel his hand sliding up her shirt, but it stops and his palm presses against her hip. It’s warm, sweaty, and she wiggles her hips against his as she peers up with her mouth brushing against the corner of his lip.
She nods. “I’m sure.”
He kisses her then, his mouth hard and the ache uncurling inside of her. She presses back, her teeth scraping against his bottom lip because she remembers he likes it and almost coos when he releases a gruff moan.
All they become are hands and limbs- she peels his jeans past his hips, his boxers causing her to tug more than once, but she gasps when his cock presses against her thigh. She can’t remember what happened to her underwear. It was brief, maybe there was a tear, but she’s sure it’s a pile of fabric somewhere off on the road.
“Oh,” she breathes.
Nothing happens yet, they stay rocking against each other and she’s trembling a little because even here, she doesn’t know what to make of the extension of sensation. His mouth brushes over hers again, against her throat with his teeth picking at the dip in her shoulder after. She moans and he laughs huskily.
“Again.” His voice skims against her jaw, his hand curling around her thigh as he shifts and leans forward. It’s almost a slur. “Want- hear it again.”
She mews, her hips bucking forward as his cock pushes inside of her. She claws at his back, her leg tighten around his waist. Oh god, she thinks. Oh god. The memory of him and her and the spread of moments that they had once comes back to her every now and then; but hits her hard, almost viciously, right now.
She crushes her mouth against his as they start to kiss with teeth as he thrusts inside of her and her hips rock to follow. She doesn’t think, but breathes into him and clings hard as she dives into the need for more. He might’ve said her name, once, maybe twice, but she’s just aware of him, aware of how they’re moving, and the fact that she craves much more than this.
“Ly-”
Her hips buck hard against his and she moans when he pushes deeper, the truck door squealing underneath them.
She won’t remember who’ll fall first, but when it hits, it hits and it hits hard. She falls back and he stays inside of her and pressed against her. Her nails still mark his jacket and his mouth is at her throat, wet as he breathes. She doesn’t mind and keeps her legs wrapped around him as she closes her eyes.
“You gonna come visit me?” She breathes finally, biting back a sigh as he rolls off of her. Her ponytail sticks to her throat.
She tries again. “Really.”
She’s surprised when he tugs her forward a little bit, his mouth grazing her neck again. She doesn’t look at him and he doesn’t urge her to, finding her hand and letting it rest against his chest.
He snorts, but the invitation elevates over the sentimental moment. There’s that honesty from her again and she means it, shyly, because she’s not used to reaching forward like this. Still, but give her time.
A car skirts by. They don’t move.
“Maybe,” he murmurs. And then thoughtfully: “I’ll still be here.”
end.