Archive of Our Own

Please. A choked sob. A sharp, wet inhale that feels like it was ripped right out of Conrad’s lungs from three thousand miles away. Please, just come fix it.

Belly’s voice cuts out and the shuffling static of her surroundings linger until the running grey line of the voicemail reaches its end. Conrad’s heart constricts and his breathing stalls as he presses play again.

Conrad. Everything’s…everything’s all wrong.

Her voice is slurred and wobbly, her words coming out in quick bursts like she’s afraid the phone will disconnect in the time it takes to draw another sniffling breath.

Jere.

She sucks in a deep, hiccuping inhale that turns halfway to a sob and Conrad’s blood goes cold and rigid in his veins.

Jere’s not here and he…he fucked someone else and I—

He can hear her crying. He can picture her face crumpling and her body doubled over as she tries and fails to get the words out. Conrad’s knuckles turn white as he grips his phone.

No one’s...No one’s ever loved me like…

Conrad tries to listen harder. He finds himself instinctively leaning closer as if she’s right in front of him and he’ll somehow be able to catch the words deftly in his hands this time before a sob steals them away like a harsh tide eroding a handprint in the sand.

Conrad. N-nothing’s like how it’s supposed to be. I’m at the summer house, but it’s not…Please.

Belly and Conrad take matching shaky breaths between a barrier of digital static, a three hour time difference, and the last hour and a half of clinical rotations that left him with no access to his phone.

Please, just come fix it.

Conrad’s heart beats and beats and beats in the time it takes the audio to cut out, his eyes monitoring the smooth grey line running on his phone like a flatlining EKG. He waits until it reaches the end again, willing his mind and body to be back at Stanford. And then he is, for half a second at least, before he’s pressing the call icon next to Belly’s name. His fingers drum frantically at his side as the phone rings and rings and rings.

“Come on, Belly,” he says out loud, as if willing her to hear him all the way in Cousins. “Come on, pick up. Pick up.” Belly doesn’t pick up.

Conrad mutters a curse and drags a hand through his hair as he presses into his phone again, his finger applying extra pressure over her name as if it will change the outcome this time. It doesn’t.

“Fuck,” he groans after the third attempt and the third resulting voicemail prompt.

Belly wakes to the smell of frying bacon and the raucous noise of frat boys trying to work kitchen appliances downstairs. She hears a blender rev and whirl and imagines a sludgy, grey protein shake that’s supposed to taste like chocolate, but only manages to taste like chalk. Her stomach churns and her head aches.

She’s still in her mini dress from last night, her hair half up and half plastered to the side of her face where makeup still sits, heavy and oily on her skin. She looks over at the sooty black mascara smeared across her baby blue pillowcase and groans, knowing she’ll have to clean it up, just like she’ll have to clean herself up and then whatever mess was being made downstairs. She’ll have to. And she will. At some point.

She tosses in covers that don’t smell right. She’d washed them only a day ago, but there was something she’d missed. Some special detergent or fabric softener or room spray that had always made them smell…blue, is all she can think to describe the intoxicatingly airy, elusive scent. Blue, like summer and ocean waves and nights in the pool when she’d pretend to be a mermaid under pale moonlight and dim, scattered stars.

Belly groans, thinking she might be sick.

She doesn’t remember crawling into bed. She doesn’t remember making her way back to the house from the deserted beach, where she’d let her feet bathe in the ocean a while as she’d waited under a waxing moon for someone who wouldn’t come to find her.

She vaguely remembers being upset that Jere hadn’t come to the beach to pluck her from the water and take her half-empty bottle of tequila and throw her over his shoulder when she didn’t heed his warnings about drowning or getting murdered while walking all alone at night. She must have walked back alone, she thinks, because she’s certain Jere had not done any of those things. He hadn’t yelled at her or lifted her in the air until her world turned upside down and she felt dizzy and out of breath and thrumming with electricity. He hadn’t come like she thought he would, to save her from drowning.

Belly shakes her head and then slowly starts to realize that probably wasn’t the brightest idea when her head starts swimming.

It wasn’t fair of her to be upset at Jeremiah for not coming out to drag her back inside. She didn’t need saving from two feet of water sloshing around her ankles or from an empty, quiet beach where bright moonlight shone to guide her safely back to the house. It hadn’t even been cold last night, as far as Belly can remember. Just a bit chilly with a light sea breeze that rifled through her hair and made her dress flare and cling to her body in turns. It hadn’t been cold, so why would she have needed Jere to offer her his sweater? Why should she be mad that he hadn’t?

She remembers being mad at Jere. She might not remember what he’d done or if her anger had been justified — though she suspects now that it most likely wasn’t — but Belly does remember being frustrated and crying. She remembers calling him and wanting him to come get her, maybe? She remembers crying and being mad and wanting. She remembers wanting. And aching. And crying.

Belly makes herself get up, groaning her way off the bed and into the bathroom. She makes herself turn on the shower. She makes herself wash smeared makeup off her face, a little too roughly, until her skin is clean and tinged a splotchy red. She makes herself brush her teeth and use mouthwash that God knows she needs. All the while, wishing someone could just do it all for her.

More than that, Belly wishes someone could sense every little thing she needs or could want in this moment and give it to her. She wishes someone could intrinsically know her next steps before she could herself. She wishes someone could know every cell in her body and make a study of her every movement — as if every boring, minute detail of her being mattered and was worth memorizing. She wishes someone could read her mind and her moods and still want to be around her.

Belly knows that wanting or expecting all that from one person is stupid and unrealistic and selfish. She knows it would be unfair to ask all that of another human being. She’s not mad at Jere for not being that person. She decides that she won’t even truly want any of that once she gets her bearings and some caffeine in her system. And for the time being, Belly can will herself not to want it.

She does a good job, she thinks. She gets dressed. She puts on sunscreen. She does her makeup. She brushes her hair and doesn’t think about how nice it would feel if someone else were to gently comb through it for her as she sat back and closed her eyes and rested.

She smiles and makes her way downstairs to her friends and Jere’s as they concoct hangover food from whatever’s in the fridge. The house is full and loud and ringing with conversation and laughter and the magic is there, Belly thinks. She’s in her favorite place in the world, it’s summer, she’s surrounded with friends, and she’s going to marry her best friend in a few days.

Belly is happy and whatever she was feeling last night could be put down to an ill-advised bottle of tequila and some pre-wedding jitters. And whatever she’s feeling this morning can definitely be put down to a hangover and to the pungent, earthy smell of marijuana filtering into the kitchen as she tries to nibble at a piece of toast.

“Belly,” Conrad murmurs gently, as if trying to catch a particularly skittish cat he doesn’t want to scare off. He clears his throat and waits for her to respond. He tries not to hold his breath as he listens for her voice on the other end of the line.

“Hey, Conrad…,” Belly says, her voice reassuringly level and normal. Normal is good, he tells himself. “Hey, so I just got up a little while ago and I saw you tried to call a few times last night? Sorry I missed you, it must’ve been after we all passed out.”

“No, yeah, I umm…I figured,” he laughs, hoping the edge in it is just his imagination. “Belly, do you, uhh…do you remember calling me?”

“Oh, God,” Belly groans after a few beats. “Taylor was right, I can’t handle alcohol to save my life.”

Conrad smiles despite himself. “No, you never could,” he agrees.

“Well, umm, Conrad. Whatever— whatever I said…,” she stammers.

“It’s okay, Belly,” he tells her, as if saying so can make it true. “You sounded pretty wasted so I figured you were, uhh…having a good time?”

Belly laughs and it’s partly a groan. He can imagine her dragging a hand over her face and swiping hair from her shoulder and rubbing at her neck until it turns slightly pink. He clears his throat at the same time she does.

“Yeah, yeah a bit too much fun,” she groans. “It’s uhh, it’s too bad we didn’t have some responsible doctor guy nagging at us to drink water after every shot.”

“That was one time, Belly,” he says, indignant. “And yeah, you’re probably dehydrated, so…drink some water.”

Belly laughs again. “Whatever are we gonna do without you all weekend? Steven’s trying to be the designated responsible tight ass, but I’m pretty sure he’s more hungover than I am right now.”

“Yeah…yeah, about that,” Conrad says, clearing his throat. “I don’t know if I trust Steven to plan these things by himself. I mean, as a doctor, I don’t know if I should let him. Lives could be lost…,” Conrad trails off and he thinks he can hear Belly’s breath hitch through the phone.

“I thought…I thought, umm, you were busy with that internship, or whatever…”

“Yeah, well, I actually got a little extra time off,” he lies. “So, I figured I’d, uhh, I’d go see how the poor house is holding up against you guys.”

“Really?” Belly breathes and he’s not sure if he’s imagining the poorly contained excitement in her voice.

“Yeah, I’m…I’m actually on my way there now.”

Belly doesn't respond for a few beats and he barely has time to worry that he’s said the wrong thing before she lets out a squeal and he has to take the phone away from his ear to keep his eardrum safe. Conrad smiles.

“Yeah, yeah,” he says, keeping his voice calm and steady. “Just do me a favor and make sure there’s no frat boys camped in my bed, okay? I’ll see you soon.”

“Aye aye, captain,” she replies, giggling, then hangs up, but not before he hears her yelling for Jere to tell him the news.

He tries not to picture her skipping to the next room to find him. He tries not to imagine her throwing her arms around him and telling him that his big brother is coming to help clean up their messes and make sure they drink water. He tries to convince himself he doesn’t want to be doing exactly that. Conrad sighs and pulls on his headphones as he waits for his flight, wondering what the hell he thinks he’s doing.

“I thought you said he could only get time off for the wedding,” Taylor says and Belly can hear the suspicion in her voice, as if Belly had something to do with Conrad’s change in availability.

Belly shrugs as Taylor wraps a strand of her hair around the curling iron. “He said he was able to get here a bit sooner. Probably wants to make sure we haven’t burned the place down yet. Not that Redbird hasn’t already tried,” Belly mutters with a roll of her eyes.

“And is that a good thing?” Taylor asks warily.

“That Redbird almost started a fire trying to light his joint in the kitchen? Probably not,” Belly replies flatly and receives a yank in her hair from Taylor. “Why wouldn’t it be? He’s gonna be in the wedding. Gives him more time to prepare, probably. You know Conrad,” Belly sighs and she’s sure she’s kept any trace of fondness out of the statement. At least until she looks up from applying her lip gloss to see Taylor shooting her that textbook Taylor Jewel judgmental stare through the mirror.

“Well, as long as you know what you’re doing,” Taylor says in a tone that suggests she absolutely does not. Belly chooses to ignore it.

The house is crowded when she and Taylor make it downstairs. Belly resists the urge to ask one of Jere’s ‘brothers’, who she can’t bring herself to remember the name of at the moment, to use a coaster on the wood coffee table. She tries to enjoy the loud music playing from the speakers and convinces herself it’s not slowly giving her another headache after she’d just spent the better half of the afternoon nursing her first one. She tries to enjoy the laughter and the lived-in smell of marijuana seeping into the throw pillows on the couch that are supposed to smell like fresh flowers and brownies and popcorn as an old black and white movie plays on the TV. All that’s playing on the TV now are video games. She decides to get some fresh air.

Belly wanders her way outside past the pool, seeking the comfort of dark wood and gently rocking water and warm string lights hanging from rafters. The music from inside starts to die away when she reaches tall, swaying grass and a long wooden bridge, giving way to the sound of chirping crickets and lapping water. She slowly starts to feel like she can breathe again. Until she sees him.

Belly’s heart hammers a little in her chest when he turns around at the sound of her footsteps on the wooden deck. He’s wearing blue, because of course he is, with a hand tucked into one of the pockets of his beige pants. He barely moves when he sees her. He only blinks at her, with soft sea green eyes, as if he’s hesitant to break some secret silence they’d both agreed to keep.

Belly finally lets out a long exhale and so does he as she steps forward to greet him with a hug. She tries to keep it short and sisterly. She tries to ignore the impulse to reach up and sink her fingertips into warm, brown hair. She tries not to sink into the soft, blue fabric at his shoulders. She tries not to notice that it smells blue.

“Hey, Belly,” he murmurs into her hair as he starts to pull away. She drops her arms from his shoulders and she tells herself that it isn’t too soon.

“Hey, yourself,” she says and hopes her voice isn’t as high and breathy as it sounds to her own ears. “I didn’t see you come in.”

“Yeah, Steven said you and Taylor were upstairs. I just dropped off my stuff in my room and made my way out here. It’s umm…a lot quieter out here.”

“Yeah,” she breathes, walking over to the wood railing overlooking the water. “Yeah, I was kind of craving some quiet, too.”

Belly hasn’t really seen him, hasn’t really talked to him, since Christmas. Belly and Jeremiah had both called him the day they told their families about the engagement. They hadn’t actually planned out exactly what they’d say in advance, though, and there were more than a few awkward pauses where Belly had waited for Jeremiah to speak and he’d waited for her to do it until they’d finally managed something resembling a conversation. There were tight-mouthed silences and awkward laughter and terse congratulations and, before Belly could stop it, a ‘sorry’ whispered aloud to the speaker phone. They’d called and texted a few times since then, short conversations and questions about the wedding and when he’d be able to make it to Cousins and if he'd need a plus one. Belly wishes, not for the first time, that they could have told him in person. She wishes there hadn’t been so much time and space between them until now.

“Full moon tonight,” she whispers into lukewarm summer air.

 “It’s actually a blue moon,” he murmurs as he moves to stand beside her. His voice is low and even and entirely too soothing after the noise from inside the house.

“Yeah?”

He hums in agreement and softly drums at the wood railing under their hands, creating a gentle rhythm that feels like it belongs with the rocking of waves and chirping of crickets and the warm, comfortable softness of a summer night.

“Belly?” he whispers.

“Yeah?” she asks, not taking her eyes off the moon and its scattered light dancing across the water.

“There you are!” a voice calls from behind them and Belly starts a little before she turns to see Jere jogging down the bridge towards them. She puts on a smile, the action feeling like she’s turning on a light switch in the middle of the night. “I’ve been looking for you guys! Steven said you got in,” he huffs, clapping Conrad on the back as he pulls him into a hug.

“Yeah, I landed a little while ago,” he says above Jere’s shoulder.

“You should’ve called! Belly and I could’ve picked you up.”

Conrad looks pointedly at the beer bottle in Jeremiah’s hand, but doesn't mention it. “Nah, man, it’s fine. Look, I’m actually feeling a little beat. Still on California time, so I think I’m gonna just…,” he gestures toward the house and waves a quick goodnight to both of them before making his way back in.

“What time is it in California?” Jere laughs as he watches Conrad disappearing past the shrubbery around the pool. Belly can’t help but notice how loudly he’s speaking against the quiet, peaceful sounds she’d been wrapped in like a blanket just a moment ago.

“Eleven,” Belly answers. “I think.”

“Well, old men need their rest, I guess,” he smiles and Belly makes herself smile back and giggle a little as he pulls her in for a kiss.

He doesn’t play the message again during his morning run, with his headphones conveniently on in case he does decide to listen to it. He doesn’t play it before he showers. He doesn’t play it when he cleans up plastic cups and beer bottles from the kitchen island or when he cleans the pool or goes to get muffins or when he makes coffee. The words still play in his mind, regardless.

Please, just come fix it.

Conrad tries not to think about how easily a few drunken, carelessly spoken words were able to bring him here, to the place he’d spent the last few years avoiding as if his life depended on it. He tries not to think about how easily he’d abandoned that life he’d worked so hard to build in California just so he could be here, cleaning up after his brother and his…

“Belly,” he murmurs as she makes her way into the kitchen. “What are you doing up?” he asks, keeping his voice low as he checks his watch. It’s still early and everyone else in the house is asleep.

Belly shrugs. “I smelled muffins,” she mumbles groggily as she walks over to the table, taking the glass cloche off the serving dish and grabbing one.

“Of course you did,” he smiles, watching the early morning sunlight begin to filter through the window and illuminate Belly’s face as she takes a large bite. “You’re like a bloodhound for those things.”

“Shut up!” she yells clumsily around a full mouth and he laughs. Belly rolls her eyes. “Like you didn’t get these just for me,” she grumbles.

Conrad swallows a lump in his throat. “Okay…well, consider them an early wedding gift, then.”

“Hey! No! That doesn’t count,” she garbles excitedly around another bite, pointing at him accusingly. “You still have to get me a real present!”

“Okay,” he says, making his way over to her. “What do you want me to give you, then, Belly?” he asks, reaching up instinctively to brush away the crumbs that had accumulated at the corner of her mouth with his thumb.

Belly looks up at him with wide, dark brown eyes and he doesn’t look away from them. He doesn’t fidget or clear his throat or avert his gaze, the way he’s done so many times in the past. He’s forced himself to look away from Belly too many times, he thinks, like she was the sun and he knew he wasn’t allowed to stare directly at her. He isn’t supposed to look, even now, but he does and Conrad decides he doesn’t care about the damage it might cause him.

Belly’s mouth is full, puffed out a little from the large bite of muffin she’d been trying to talk through just a second ago. She isn’t talking now, just staring up at him with a comically full mouth and Conrad lets out a small laugh at her ridiculous, cartoonishly cute expression.

“Swallow,” he reminds her gently and he watches as her eyes widen slightly and her throat reluctantly works against the bite of the muffin she’d been holding onto without thinking. She tries to stifle a small cough as she chokes a little on it and Conrad drops his hand from her mouth to grab his glass of water off the kitchen counter. He brings it to her mouth and tells her to drink and she grabs for it eagerly as her eyes start to water a little.

“Better?” he asks when she drains the glass.

Belly doesn’t answer. He smiles a little and uses the end of his shirt to dry the water dribbling from her chin.

“Try not to bite off more than you can chew next time, huh?” he sighs, a touch condescending, and she looks good and angry as he reaches up to fix an unruly strand of her unbrushed hair.

“What?” Conrad chuckles at her annoyed expression. “Just don’t want to have to perform CPR on my day off because you can’t behave around a little sugar.”

She looks like she’s going to tell him to fuck off, but it’s Steven’s voice he hears booming down the staircase instead. Conrad breaks apart from Belly reluctantly and grabs Steven a muffin before he can steal Belly’s. He tosses it to him on his way into the kitchen and Steven clumsily catches it and moans loudly when he takes a bite.

“Thank GOD you’re here, Fisher,” Steven groans happily with his mouth completely full and Conrad smiles and shakes his head, wondering if it’s a family thing. “What would we do without this guy, huh?” he asks, sandwiching himself between Conrad and Belly and throwing an arm around each of them. Belly shrugs him off and rolls her eyes.

Conrad shoots them both a smile before going back to tidy the still somewhat messy kitchen.

Belly doesn’t think about Conrad when she sits soaking her feet in the pool and sunbathing between Anika and Taylor. She doesn’t think about Conrad when she applies sunscreen to her shoulders and struggles to reach her upper back where the white bow of her bikini sits against slowly reddening skin. She doesn’t think about Conrad when she asks Jere for the thirtieth time to make sure his ‘brothers’ smoke their stash outside so the smell won’t linger in the house, knowing it probably will anyway despite her efforts. She doesn’t think about Conrad when she showers and shaves her legs until they’re smooth and slick under the warm, running water. She doesn’t think about Conrad as she puts on pink, rosy lipstick and a clean, white mini dress that shows off her tanned legs and the freckles at her thigh that he’d always liked to trace shapes out of.

If there was an Olympic medal for not thinking about Conrad Fisher, Belly would be taking it home tonight. Along with her fiancé and soon to be husband.

“You pacing yourself?” Conrad asks in a wary tone as he eyes the glass she’s been sipping from.

He’s wearing her favorite shade of blue, the color of an early, misty summer morning and a pair of khakis that would look more at home on a much older man in the middle of a golf course. He smells like clean, fresh water and the intoxicating blue liquid of the cologne she tells herself she wouldn’t know anywhere. His hair is neat and brushed because Conrad was never one for half measures and Belly wishes she could reach up and mess it up a little.

“It’s one drink, Conrad,” she replies, rolling her eyes. She starts to second guess why she’d even wanted him here this weekend. She might as well have invited her fifty-six year old Psych professor. Or her mom.

“Okay, just remember to—,”

“Drink water,” she finishes for him. With him.

“Look at you. You’re learning,” he murmurs with a smile before Steven grabs him and pulls him along to join the other guys.

She doesn’t think about the heat going straight to her belly as she finishes her drink, with Conrad’s genuinely proud tone still lingering in her head like a particularly annoying song. Or, more pleasantly, like the familiar smell of his cologne. She takes a deep breath and joins Taylor and Anika with a big, beaming smile she tells herself isn’t forced.

Conrad has been avoiding his brother since the moment he stepped foot in Cousins. It’s taken some effort, but never more so than tonight. He wants to be anywhere else, with anyone else — or maybe just one specific someone else. Someone with pink lips and long, dark hair he could drown in and a short white dress that makes her legs look long and perfectly sun-kissed. Conrad sips at a glass of icy lemon water, trying not to think of Belly’s breathless, broken voice.

Jere— Jere’s not here and he…he fucked someone else and—

“Hey, man,” Jere says, clapping him on the back and sloshing a bit of his drink perilously close to Conrad’s shoulder. “Thanks for being the sober one tonight. I owe you, man. Always looking out for me and my girl.”

Well, one of us has to, he thinks, before realizing he’s said it aloud.

Conrad stammers an excuse through gritted teeth to Jere, who only seems to be half listening to him anyway, and drains the rest of his water just so he can go replace it. The cold, icy liquid shoots straight to his head and Conrad rubs at his temple as he weaves through the crowd packed inside like sardines. He starts to make his way over to the bar, but finds himself stepping outside onto a moonlit sidewalk with soothing, quiet conversation and soft footsteps replacing the loud, thumping music that was beginning to wear on his nerves. He takes a deep, steadying breath and counts the seconds for the inhale and the exhale out of habit.

One. Two. Three.

“Hey, Stranger!” a cheery voice greets him and he turns to see Belly outside a candy shop because of course she would be. She chews on a piece of salt water taffy and he tries not to watch as her mouth works at it.

One. Two. Three.

“You shouldn’t talk to strangers,” he tells her as he steps closer to her.

“God, you’re worse than my mom,” she says, rolling her eyes and laughing.

“Well, Laurel’s usually right so, I’ll take that as a compliment,” he shoots back with a smug smile.

Belly’s own grin wilts a little when he says it, though, and he feels ridiculously guilty. He knew Laurel had been upset about the wedding — she’d texted him about it more than a few times — but he figured Belly and Jere would’ve been able to sway her at some point before the big day.

“Belly?” he murmurs, but he can’t find the right words to follow. What could he say? I’m sorry? Your mom loves you and so do I and you’re making a mistake marrying my baby brother? I’d fix all of this for you, if you’d let me?

Before he can think of any appropriate words to offer Belly, Taylor comes out to check on her and to shoot Conrad a suspicious glare from her lofty height of five feet.

“Hey, Taylor,” he sighs in an attempt to remind her that he isn’t actually some random lowlife on the street trying to pick up her slightly tipsy best friend. Taylor only rubs Belly’s shoulder and ushers her back inside with all the strange territorialness he’d come to expect from her over the years. Conrad sighs again into the warm, quiet night and rakes a hand through his hair.

One. Two. Three.

Belly breathes in sharp salt air and cold sea spray and it feels as if it’s the first real breath she’s drawn all day. She inhales and exhales with the tide breaking against her shins. She tries to match its constant, steady rhythm, willing her thoughts to be as simple and consistent as the rushing water. She tries to think of her fiancé, who’s supposed to meet her here. She edges further into the water so the waves crash against her knees and wet the hem of her dress.

“Belly?” a voice calls loudly to be heard over the static of the rushing tide and Belly wants to cry because it’s the wrong voice and it's the one she knows she’d wanted to hear.

“Belly, what are you doing out there? You’re going to ruin your dress,” he calls and she wants to laugh because of course he’d find a way to scold her about messing up her clothes, even now.

“Well, then you’ll get to clean it up!” she calls back, taking another step into the water. “Nothing will make you happier!”

“Belly!” he yells, anger seeping into his voice that was pleading just a moment ago, and she takes another step. She takes another and then another.

One. Two. Three.

Large hands grab her by her hips and lift her from the water. She screams and kicks her legs in the air, splashing at saltwater until both of them are soaked. He throws her over a broad shoulder and her ragged breaths feel like fire in her lungs, as if she’s just run a marathon.

“Put me down!” she pants, beating at him feebly as he walks her silently and surely back to shore.

“Let go,” she huffs when they reach dry sand and Conrad finally does. He deposits her neatly into cool sand and she kicks some of it up just to spite him and dirty his clothes and wear at his careful control. She might as well have stuck her tongue out at him for all the good it does.

“Why are you here?!” she asks instead, and that finally does seem to phase him.

“You asked me to come,” Conrad breathes, barely audible over the roar of the waves before he raises his voice to match them. “No, actually, you begged me to come here! To save you from this ridiculous fucking joke of a marriage.”

Belly glares at him, her mouth agape, her nostrils flaring and her heart beating faster than she thinks it’s ever beat in her life. “In your dreams,” she scoffs.

“I—,” he swallows and he looks pained, as if it’s hurting him to speak and, spitefully, she thinks, good.

“Fine,” he finally sighs, closing his eyes, as if in surrender. “You’re right. I’ve— I have dreamed about this. About you. I wished for it. I—I prayed for you to leave him a thousand times, Belly. And I spent years fucking hating myself for that. I spent years,” he laughs bitterly, his eyes brimming with tears now. “I spent years loving you and forcing myself to stay on the other side of the country because I thought it would be easier for everyone. Because I wanted you…I want you two to be happy,” he says and she hates how his voice is still gentle even when he’s angry. “Just to get a call from you crying and telling me Jere fucked somebody else and begging me to come fix it all for you.”

Belly’s mouth opens and closes and she shakes her head as if it will somehow put his words back where he’d been keeping them. She can feel a tear falling and she wills that back inside too.

“So that’s what I’m doing here, Belly,” he says, sniffling and stepping closer. He moves slowly, gently edging forward, as if not to spook her. “I want to fix this for you. Just…just let me. Please,” he whispers.

Belly shakes her head because he’s wrong. She hadn’t called him. She’d called Jere. She’d called her fiancé and best friend and soon-to-be husband, not his brother who she’d barely spoken to in months. She laughs hysterically as bitter tears fall and he steps closer, instinctively reaching out to wipe them away.

“Don’t,” she seethes and he hesitates a moment before brushing at them anyway.

The action, infuriatingly gentle and torturously reassuring, only makes more hot tears flood into her eyes and run down her cheeks so his thumb can deftly catch them. Warm fingertips glide over her wet skin and Belly wants to hate it. She wants to hate him. She pushes at his chest and then beats at it, willing him to leave her, to hate her, to stop comforting her. Conrad only stands there, though, stoic and solid and cleaning up her tears as soon as she can make them.

Belly vaults forward into him, pressing her face into his chest as his arms reach up to hold her. She can feel a large hand at the back of her head as she begins to sob into his shirt. It’s already half wet with ocean water and Belly feels like she might soak it through the rest of the way. She sobs and hiccups and he shushes her as one hand strokes her hair and the other her shoulder. She takes a deep breath when he tells her to. He counts aloud as she inhales — the blue scent of his shirt calming her as much as his voice or his hands — and then exhales wetly into his chest.

One. Two. Three.

Conrad makes her count out loud until it feels like the oxygen is actually reaching her lungs.

“It’s okay, Belly,” he whispers into her hair and she wants to laugh because it absolutely is not okay. It’s not even remotely okay, the way he’s holding her and the way she only wants to burrow further into him, to crawl inside his skin until it belongs to both of them.

“Shhh, it’s okay. You’re okay,” he murmurs and it’s sick, how quickly his words seem to make it true. Belly melts against him, a pool of hot tears, as his voice rushes in her ears like the steady tide to wash away all her fear and guilt and anger.

Conrad holds the wet, sodden thing in his arms. She clings to him, her nails digging painfully into his chest, so she feels more like an anxious, feral cat he’d saved from drowning than the proud, confident girl Belly is always so eager to show the world. He doesn’t try to loosen her grip or disentangle himself. He only hugs her closer, letting her ruin his clothes and his flesh as she takes ragged, hot breaths that feel nice and warm against his chest.

“I—,” she gasps between sobs. “I just feel l-like I’ve been doing this all alone. Like I’ve been carrying all this by myself.”

“I know,” he murmurs, wishing there was a way to absorb her pain as easily as the tears bleeding into his shirt. “Tell me what you need and I’ll do it,” he says and he knows it’s true. He knows that right now, with Belly crying and trembling in his arms, he’d find a way to give her the moon if she asked for it.

Belly doesn’t ask for the moon. She only asks him to kiss her forehead and tell her he’s still proud of her. Conrad huffs a small laugh into her hair, but kisses her forehead as instucted.

“I’m always proud of you,” he tells her, truthfully.

“Do you think…I’m still a good person, if…,” she trails off.

“Yes,” Conrad answers firmly.

“You don’t even know what I was going to say,” Belly argues, sniffling.

“Belly, you could have said anything and I don’t think it would change the answer.”

“Yeah? What if I told you I’ve killed three people and you’re next?” she asks, still hugging him, with her cheek pressed solidly into his sternum.

“I’d say…that’s very impressive,” he chuckles, stroking her hair. “To get away with that all by yourself.”

“I could do it,” she says, as if in challenge to his amused, placating tone.

“I know you could,” he agrees with a smile against her hair as he rubs up and down her arm. “I believe in you.”

She hums into his chest and the sound reverberates there, making his heart pound and ache a little against her closed mouth.

“Conrad?” she whispers after a few beats.

“Yeah, Belly?”

“Would you still want me if—,”

“Yes,” he sighs before she can finish.

“Conrad,” she groans, smacking his chest and looking up at him through watery eyes he would gladly drown in.

“Okay, okay, fine,” he relents, trying hard to concentrate as she looks at him with red cheeks and puffy eyes and wet lips. “If, what?” he asks earnestly, though he's certain he knows the answer.

“Would you still want me if…if I said I don’t care about doing this the right way? I mean…,” she sighs as he drags a thumb over a tear-stained cheek. “If I don’t care about doing the right thing for once? If I’m too tired to tell Jere and everything and to wait till….,” she trails off quietly.

“Of course I’d still want you, Belly,” he whispers. “And I don’t want to have to wait either.” He’s surprised by the truth in the latter half of his words as they come spilling out in a hushed whisper.

Conrad had spent years feeling guilty at even the thought of being with Belly. Every stolen glance or accidental brush of her skin against his during their few encounters over the years had made Conrad feel as if he was brutally betraying someone. Every time he looked at a picture of her on his phone or traced the edges of a polaroid between study breaks or remembered a private joke or the smell of her sugary sweet perfume, Conrad felt like he’d committed some unforgivable sin.

But now, with Belly here in his arms — looking up at him with wide, wet eyes and slightly parted lips — Conrad can’t seem to feel guilty for looking at her and wanting her. He can’t seem to remember why he’d ever thought it would be possible for him to not look at her and want her. He can’t find it in himself to feel shame for something that comes as easy to him as breathing. Easier, if he’s being honest.

Wanting Belly has always been much easier than breathing for Conrad. Wanting Belly has always taken infinitely less effort and practice than the oftimes difficult and overwhelming task of drawing breath and filling his lungs and funneling oxygen to his brain. Wanting Belly has always been an involuntary response to the intoxicating stimuli of her smile and her touch and her laughter.

So there’s no guilt whatsoever when Conrad finally leans in and kisses her before Belly is forced to voice what she wants. There’s no guilt when he tastes the salt on her lips mingling with the sugary sweetness from the taffy that had rested on her tongue earlier. There’s no guilt when he sighs her name into her mouth and cradles her head in one hand as the other pulls her impossibly close. There’s no guilt because she wants this too and Conrad never could refuse Belly anything, least of all now.

“Conrad,” Belly whimpers when she breaks apart from his lips for half a second. A thin, delicate cord of spit ties him to her until her whispered plea breaks it. “Conrad, I want…I want you.”

“You have me, Belly,” he tells her with a smile and a sigh, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world, because it is.

Belly reaches up, frustrated, and throws her arms around Conrad’s neck to pull him roughly back down to her lips. She kisses him harder, greedier, and he has to break apart for just a second to laugh at her impatience that’s verging on violence. She huffs and tightens her grip around him, clearly not quite as amused as he is.

Belly bites his lip, hard, and Conrad grabs the scruff of her neck until she reluctantly breaks apart from him half an inch or so.

“Conrad,” she whispers and he swears her eyes get a little glossier, a little wetter as they widen and look up at him in a wordless plea to give her whatever she wants.

“Fuck, Belly,” he groans and her face is all innocence as he leans down to trail a hand over her thigh and up the hem of her dress. “Is this what you want?” he asks into her neck as his hand moves higher and she clings tighter to his shoulders.

“Conrad,” she gasps when his hand reaches the warmth between her legs. He kisses along her neck as her nails dig into his shoulders and he moves aside cold, wet fabric to feel the slick heat inside her.

“Christ, Belly,” he hisses into her hair as she makes small, sweet noises against his shoulder. “All this for me?”

“S’from the ocean,” she mumbles, though her denial is undercut by the way she whimpers and rocks her hips against his hand.

“Okay,” he murmurs softly and makes sure to thrust his fingers particularly hard and deep until she yelps and he’s sure her fingernails are going to leave deep gouges into his skin.

Conrad lets her use his hand and claw at his back and bite at his neck because the noises she’s making so close to his ear are worth ten times whatever pain she can possibly inflict. “That’s it, baby,” he tells her in a husky voice as she rocks and shudders against him.

“Conrad,” she gasps, pulling her mouth off his neck long enough to form breathy, slightly coherent words. “Conrad, I w-want you inside me.”

“I am inside you, Belly,” he sighs and chuckles when she looks up at him in frustration. He doesn’t stop thrusting his fingers inside her, though. “Jesus, Belly, you want us to do this here?”

“Well, we,” she starts, sucking in a deep, ragged breath as his hand brushes against her clit. “We can’t— can’t go back to the house.”

“Jesus, okay,” he groans and he takes a second to appreciate the pained, desperate whine she makes when he takes his own hand back. “Come here,” he says and drags her down by the wrist into cold, feathery soft sand.

She stumbles on top of him, giggling, and he takes a second to admire the view of her in her pretty white dress before slipping its straps from her shoulders. He unhooks a white, strapless bra from her back and she’s in his lap, half-naked, bathed in moonlight, long hair clinging to wet cheeks and cascading past her shoulders and tangling into his hand. Her lips are swollen and puffy, her eyelashes wet and clumped together with saltwater tears that glisten like diamonds in the moonlight, and he thinks, absurdly, that she must be some siren sent to lure him out to sea. And Conrad thinks, even more absurdly, that he would let her even if she was.

“What?” Belly whispers conspiratorially, fidgeting under his heavy gaze.

“You’re beautiful,” he says because he can’t find an adequate enough word for what she is.

Belly giggles and rolls her eyes and Conrad rolls her onto her back, driving still more giggles from her. He kisses her, teeth skating over her neck as she murmurs a slurred “so are you” into his hair.

“Belly?” Conrad pushes himself up to look at her as a sudden wave of panic seizes him. His muscles tense as he looks at her and she raises her eyebrows in question. “Are you…you’re not drunk, are you?”

“Conrad, I had like two drinks,” she giggles and rolls her eyes and he feels his heart start up again in his chest. Belly laughs loudly at whatever she could see playing across his face. “What, would you have, like, stopped if I was?”

“I mean…I don’t know, yeah?”

“So noble,” Belly sighs and he can hear the mocking sarcasm in her tone.

“Shut up,” he grumbles, rolling his eyes as he goes back to kissing her neck and Belly laughs against him. She doesn’t shut up.

“My hero!” she sighs dramatically in her best damsel tied to the train tracks voice.

Conrad looks up at her in exasperation and she bats her lashes at him in her best imitation of a doe-eyed princess locked in a tower, pure sweetness and innocence that’s so convincing he can almost forget it’s feigned. The worst part is that Conrad can’t seem to stop the heat from rushing to his neck or the blood from rushing to an aching pressure against the heavy fabric of his trousers. And Belly, of course, doesn’t miss it either.

“God, that really does do it for you, huh?” she breathes between giggles, tightening her arms around his shoulders. “I knew it.”

“You knew it, huh?” Conrad murmurs, reaching up to stroke her cheek where he can still see glistening tear tracks catching in the moonlight. “You spend a lot of time psychoanalyzing me, princess? Is that why you came here with your little crocodile tears? So I’d come rescue you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says, chin up and proud as he stares her down with raised brows. “Why are we making this about me?” she finally huffs when he doesn’t respond and doesn’t return to kissing her. “You’re the one with the weird fucking fetish!”

“Mmkay, Belly,” he murmurs and kisses her cheek that still tastes faintly of saltwater.

Belly squirms under him as he kisses her, slow and languid and clearly not up to her impatient standards. “Come on,” she whines, trying to rock against his fully clothed body until he pins her hips back down to the sand.

Belly lets out a petulant huff of warm air he can feel rifle through his hair. “You can fuck me now,” she tells him and then, “or wait, you probably wanna get off on me, like, fainting or— or wait!” she breathes excitedly and he sighs heavily against her neck. “Save me, Obi-wan Kenobi, you’re my only hope!”

Conrad can’t stop the laugh from bursting out as he stops kissing her to look up at her ridiculously proud, eager face. “What?”

“You know…Lord of the Rings,” she explains.

“Belly, that’s….,” he starts, then sighs. “Yeah…yeah, good job, sweetie,” he tells her, though how anyone could get a sci-fi space movie confused with high fantasy Tolkien is absolutely beyond him.

Belly beams at him as he strokes her chin with his thumb, though, so Conrad only kisses her. He kisses her again and again and again, until she’s more concerned with rocking her hips in a maddening rhythm against his waist than she is with poking fun at him.

“Conrad,” she whines.

“I know, princess,” he whispers. Belly blushes prettily at the endearment and Conrad swallows a lump in his throat as he watches the rosy flush creep up her neck. “Gonna take care of you, I promise.”

Belly moans and the sound is so devastatingly sweet, he wonders how he ever could’ve managed to live without it for four years.

Belly squirms a bit and lets out quick, breathy little moans, but the frantic urgency she’d had just a moment ago is replaced with a pliancy he’s not quite used to seeing in her and Conrad knows she’s taken his promise to heart. He knows that she trusts him to take care of her and it makes him so hard he has to take a deep breath to steady himself before fumbling at his belt.

Belly tries to help him, but he tells her not to worry and that all she has to do is lie there and look pretty and she closes her eyes and smiles so sweetly it takes his breath away.

“Like Sleeping Beauty?” she murmurs and he kisses her lips gently and whispers a quiet “sure, princess” that makes her smile deepen and soften at the same time.

Conrad stares at her a moment, a beautiful beached mermaid, wet and glowing under bright moonlight, before making himself tear his eyes away to finish undoing his belt and the buttons of his pants.

Belly keeps her eyes closed, but they twitch and scrunch a little as he trails a hand up her thigh. He shushes her gently as he pulls off her wet, ocean soaked underwear and then again when he takes a nipple into his mouth and bites at the tender, stiffened flesh. He blows on the slick, wet skin the moment he releases it from his mouth and Belly shivers and moans and closes her eyes tighter, as if determined to remain his sleeping beauty in truth — though Conrad, of course, can tell from the hardness of her nipples and the goosebumps on her skin and the tensing of her abdomen, that all her nerves are fully awake and fully responsive to his touch.

“Shhh, baby,” he reminds her as he enters her without preamble and she gasps and cries out against him. Her eyes scrunch tighter and he kisses her forehead through it. 

“You’re okay,” he tells her and he can see her soften slightly at his whispered words, though her arms reach up to hug him closer to her.

Conrad thrusts into her, murmuring encouragement and endearments and praise against her skin and he can see from every tiny expression that Belly trusts him when he tells her he’s got her and that she doesn’t have to ever worry about lifting a finger and that he’ll take care of everything for her and, finally, that he loves her.

“That’s it, princess,” he tells her encouragingly when he feels her clench around him.

Belly’s mouth latches onto Conrad’s clavicle and her tongue brushes against the skin there as she lets out a muffled moan. She sucks at the tender flesh and he wonders how it’s going to look if she leaves a mark. He wonders how it’s going to look when they both return to the house, clothes soaked up to their waists, sand clinging to every inch of them, tears cutting through makeup, eyes puffy and lips swollen and violet splotches of skin the shape of open mouths.

In the back of his mind, Conrad knows it should make him feel guilty. He knows he should worry. He knows he’s worried over much less. But Belly’s lips are on him and he’s thrusting deep inside her, driving stifled moans into the collar of his ruined shirt, and he’s told her it’s okay so many times he’s starting to believe it himself.

“Conrad!” she cries, tightening her grip on his shoulders when his pace picks up against his will.

“Fuck, Belly,” he groans into her hair. He slips a hand between them, determined to make her come before he lets himself. “You’re doing so good, princess, so good. Just need you to do one little thing for me, okay? Just need you to come, princess.”

Belly bites him and he cradles her head, tells her it’s alright, she can bite him as hard as she wants, and she lets out a stifled moan into his skin and the collar of his shirt she has stuffed in her pretty mouth. She rocks against him and shudders and he’s sure he can feel fresh tears brushing against his neck.

“That’s it, Belly,” he tells her when she cries out and buries her face into his shirt collar. He can feel her clenching around him as he circles and strokes at her clit. “That’s it, get it all out,” and Conrad isn’t sure if he’s talking about the tears or her orgasm he can feel pulsating around his cock.

Conrad keeps thrusting into her as she gasps and moans and grinds against him, whimpering his name against his neck.

“Mmmy hero,” Belly mumbles and there’s nothing mocking in the way she cries and rubs her tear-stained face against his neck as she hugs him to her.

Conrad spills into her as he thrusts hard and deep, whispering a thousand things he’d wanted to tell her over the last four years, but never could.

He’d meant to pull out of her. He should’ve probably pulled out of her. But with the way Belly clings to him as he comes inside her, he isn’t sure she’d even have let him if he tried. Conrad doesn’t try. He only slows his pace inside her as every last bit of built-up pressure releases from the head of his cock and he suddenly finds it an effort to hold himself up.

Conrad grunts and exhales into Belly’s damp hair as he slumps against her, drained and panting and buried so deep inside her that the thought of disentangling himself now seems genuinely painful. Belly doesn’t seem in a hurry to part with him either, so he stays there a moment, breathing in sync with her, as if they truly are one body now, joined at the seams and impossible to separate.

“I don’t wanna go back,” Belly murmurs into his neck after their breathing slows to a somewhat steady rhythm.

Conrad laughs softly. “I don’t think we can stay out here all night, Belly.”

“Why not?” she challenges, hugging him closer as if to keep him in place, though he wasn’t planning on moving.

“You’ll get cold,” he answers, knowing it’s true. The summer night is still slightly warm, but their clothes are wet and the cool sea breeze will surely drive them inside eventually.

“No, I won’t,” she argues because Belly would argue with just about any stone cold fact, as if she could bend reason to her will as easily as she could him. “I have you. You can keep me warm.”

“You have me,” he agrees and he can feel her smile against his skin.

Belly laughs as they lay on their backs in the pale sand, looking up at the moon and the stars. Conrad’s shirt is draped over her like a blanket, though it’s still partly soaked in saltwater. She clutches it to her chest, anyway, because she likes the scent that clings to its collar, faint but somewhat stubborn against the salty beach air.

“What?” Conrad asks, the corner of his mouth turning up.

“Nothing, I was just…this feels almost like a dream I had. The other night,” she whispers. She can hardly remember it, even now. Her brain had been a painful fog when she’d woken, but there were traces of blue ocean and moonlight and Conrad that had made her close her eyes tight and try to will herself back into peaceful, dream-filled sleep in the middle of her too warm bed, in the too loud house.

“Yeah?” he murmurs, playing with her left hand absently. He strokes the spot where her ring had been. Conrad had taken it off with his teeth earlier and spit it onto the sand next to where they lay and when Belly had told him to be careful and that she had to be able to find it so she could give it back, he’d told her that if they couldn’t find it in the sand later it probably wasn’t big enough. Belly had gasped and hit his shoulder and tried not to giggle because she knew it would only encourage him, but Conrad had shushed her and told her not to worry and that if they really couldn’t find it he’d reimburse Jere himself and then he’d gone down on her just to ensure there were no hard feelings about it. Belly couldn’t say she was all that upset when her bare fingers were twining in Conrad’s brown hair as he licked and sucked at her upper thigh. She knew he would take care of it. And her. 

“Yeah,” she echos.

“Belly?” he asks quietly and Belly knows she has to wake up, though she wants nothing more than to stay in this peaceful, quiet, blue moment with him forever. “I don’t want to break the spell, but it’s…,” he sighs and turns both their hands to check his watch. “Jesus. It’s 4:00 A.M.”

“Yeah, but that’s like…only 1:00 A.M. in California,” she says, turning to burrow her face back in his warm, bare chest.

Conrad snorts. “Yeah and still past my bedtime.”

“Okay, Grandpa,” she sighs heavily and he tugs at a strand of hair that he’d started to play with.

Belly groans. “Do we have to tell Jere? Like, could we maybe just leave a note or something?”

“Belly,” he says sternly, but immediately kisses her hair to take the sting out of it.

“A nice note,” she argues. “I got some nice, pretty stationary recently that I need to use.”

“I could talk to him for you,” Conrad offers and his tone isn’t joking or playful or wistful, as hers had been. He really means it and Belly knows he’d actually do it for her if she asked him to. She wants very badly to be the kind of person who would let him, but Belly sighs and drags a hand over her face, knowing he can’t actually do everything in the world for her, as tempting as that might sound to both of them.

“No,” Belly groans. “No, I’ll do it. I’m gonna figure out what to say and everything,” she yawns. “Just…five more minutes?”

“Five more minutes,” Conrad agrees, kissing her hair.

Before her five minutes are up, though, Belly looks up at Conrad, his misty green eyes lowering to meet hers as she shifts on top of him.

“Conrad?” she asks. He hums a response and her cheeks feel hot, but she makes herself say it anyway. “Can you call me your princess again?”

Conrad blinks at her, but doesn’t laugh the way she feared he might at the ridiculous request. He strokes her shoulder with his thumb. “Alright, princess,” he says, so earnestly she can almost believe that’s what she is.