Chapter Text
PART ONE:
DREAM GIRL
CHAPTER 1: MEET THE GIRL OF YOUR DREAMS
The bell above the door rang with the same tinny, derisive quality as the voice in her head telling her that now was not the time to purchase a box of condoms.
Gwyn ducked away from the noise, wincing as the cashier’s eyes were drawn to her entry. Normally, she wouldn’t feel so embarrassed at simply entering a convenience store, but Gwyn was still mentally berating herself at how stupid it was to waste her time here, when she was already running late.
In an attempt to behave somewhat normally, Gwyn offered the cashier a sheepish smile and wave. The cashier simply raised an eyebrow before returning to her magazine. As she adjusted the strap of her tote bag over her shoulder, Gwyn wound her way through the aisles towards the family planning section.
There were far too many items on her list to accomplish before the party, and—in terms of priority—procuring contraception was ranked incredibly low. A glance at her lock screen revealed that she was already ten minutes late for arriving home to help Nesta with her speech. And then there was Emerie’s dress to steam, and finding a dress for herself, and somehow she was also expected to fit in a phone call with her research advisor, Dr. Merrill. A call that would likely have to be taken in the backseat of Emerie’s SUV on the way to the art studio, where the party was being held.
This pit stop at the convenience store hadn’t been planned by any meaning of the word. It had been born of nervous energy, and strictly speaking, wasn’t even necessary. After the party, she was meant to catch a train all the way to the other side of the city to meet with her partner—and yes, fine, they would need contraception. But she was fully within her rights to expect that he would be supplying condoms of his own.
Gwyn just thought it might be funny. Some way of soothing her already frenzied nerves. She’d been walking home from the library when she saw the store front, and impulsively decided to duck in. Paired with a bottle of wine, she could pass it off as a host gift, just to break the ice. A joke, that would put both her and her partner at ease.
Some people bring flowers, she would say, I thought this was more appropriate.
As she turned into the aisle, Gwyn snorted lightly to herself. A host gift, right. She shook her head, squatting down in front of the section of shelves that displayed what seemed like hundreds of different varieties of condoms.
She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had to buy her own condoms. Of course, she’d had sex relatively recently—if six months ago counted as recently—but usually she relied on the other person to provide the condoms. But it couldn’t have been that long, and yet somehow the entire condom industry had unilaterally decided to adopt a sense of humor since the last time she’d had to do this.
Because as she scanned the shelves, picking up boxes and inspecting them before setting them back down—fingertip grazing over labels and price tags—she couldn’t find a single, sensible condom. The colorful boxes with their bold lettering advertised glow in the dark latex and warming sensations and googly eyes.
Okay, the last one wasn’t entirely true, but still. Another glance at her phone told Gwyn she had no time for this, and she still couldn’t find her partner’s preferred brand. And while, yes, she intended for the gift to serve mostly as a joke, she still wanted to be able to use the damn things. Just in case he miraculously didn’t have a single rubber to his name.
So engrossed was she in her task of searching through the shelf, that Gwyn didn’t even register the presence of another person entering the same aisle, or the fact that as he casually perused the shelves, he started veering closer to her. And when finally, mercifully, Gwyn’s eyes snagged on a box a few shelves above her head that was seemingly the right brand—she didn’t notice him right next to her. She didn’t notice him, until she shot up onto her feet, reaching for that box.
And promptly slammed her skull into his outstretched arm.
“Ow,” Gwyn hissed, rubbing the top of her head as she squinted over at the man that had materialized out of thin air beside her.
“Fuck,” the stranger said, similarly rubbing his elbow.
Gwyn’s first instinct was to criticize him for behaving so recklessly in the middle of the aisle, endangering other customers. He’d snuck up behind her—she wouldn’t admit that she hadn’t exactly been paying attention in the first place—and didn’t even have the decency to announce his presence. A simple ‘excuse me’ would have done just fine, but judging from the way this man was staring at her, mouth agape, it didn’t seem like he had many words to spare.
So her eyes were already narrowed into a glare, an insult burning at the tip of her tongue, when her gaze fell upon his tattoos.
Black ink swirled lazily across his deep brown skin in intricate, organic patterns. Like smoke curling in the air. It decorated his entire chest, it seemed like, because it spread out from beneath the collar of his black shirt and reached across the front of his throat to the edge of his jaw. The rest of the piece disappeared beneath his shirt, until she saw pitch black snaking out from beneath sleeves that had been shoved, not folded, up to his elbows. There, the tattoos seamlessly faded out into skin that was covered in burn scars flowing like rivers down to his fingertips.
She was so dumbstruck, that Gwyn simply stood there, staring at his arms and his chest, for a long and painfully awkward moment. Until he was practically forced to snap her out of it by clearing his throat.
Blinking, like awakening from a dream, Gwyn’s vision cleared. There had been a haze around her, but now instead of simply being awed by his heart-wrenching beauty, she could see that he was holding a box of condoms in his hand. The exact brand she had been looking for.
Gwyn’s eyes darted to the side to scan the—now empty—shelf to confirm what she already instinctively knew: He held the last box.
She didn’t know what her expression had looked like before, while she’d been rendered useless from admiring him. But she could feel her expression shifting, now. One eyebrow raised, she placed a hand on her hip, pointing with the other towards the box in his hand.
“Are you gonna use those?”
Gwyn was so easily swayed by beautiful things, that when he furrowed his brows at her, drawing her attention to his thick eyelashes and mesmerizing eyes, she almost gave into the urge to flagrantly admire him again. Let him walk away with the damn condoms—his eyes were so interesting. Like pools of actively crystallizing amber, this slow stir of ochre entrapping flecks of beetle wing green and conifer brown. If she wasn’t careful, she’d become trapped in that puddle too, as it cooled and petrified.
He cocked his head slightly to the side, mouth downturned almost in concern.
Fuck. Gwyn swallowed.
There was a clock ticking somewhere, she knew. And two roommates she’d be disappointing if she didn’t show up on time.
But there was probably a staff bathroom somewhere, too. And an indifferent cashier who certainly wouldn’t care, much less hear anything over whatever music she had blasting in her headphones. Even then, she was all the way across the store. Surely she wouldn’t notice Gwyn dragging this man by his wrinkled shirt collar—did he even own a clothes hanger?–-and into some filthy bathroom where no one could see her kissing up those tattoos to the corner of his frowning mouth. Where she would run her hands down his stomach and to his belt and—
The man took in a sharp breath, as if coming out of a haze himself, and glanced down at the box. He turned it over in his hand.
Her predicament became impossibly worse, at that moment. An audible squeak rose up from her throat before she managed to snap her mouth shut, trapping the sound. His eyes flicked up at her anyway, studying her face from beneath his eyelashes, his expression carefully neutral.
And if the sight of that wasn’t already enough, for the blush to creep up onto Gwyn’s cheeks, the sight of the back of his hand most certainly would have done it.
He had rings. Seven of them, glaring silver across his knuckles in the most obscene display that Gwyn had ever seen. The man couldn’t hang up his shirt, but he apparently put enough care into his appearance to stack an absurd number of rings on his incredibly skilled-looking fingers.
“The, uh…” he glanced at the label, “Trojan Magnums?”
To her credit, Gwyn managed not to collapse when his voice came out velvety and low. A deep baritone that sounded slightly rough, as if from infrequent use. She could feel it vibrating against her skin in a slow, indulgent buzz. He couldn’t possibly be real.
“Yeah,” she said. “And I’m kinda in a hurry, so…”
She trailed off, holding her palm out expectantly as if he would just bestow her with them. Perhaps he’d kneel before her like a solemn knight presenting his queen with the sword she would confer him with, and then he’d trace his hands up her legs and to her thighs and—okay. She really needed to stop reading historical romances. She’d have to cleanse her palate with good, old-fashioned porn. Entering keywords in a search bar like—tattoos, rings, choking, solo masturbation.
The negligible weight of the box landing in her open palm was enough to tear Gwyn away from her misguided fantasy. Staring dumbly at her hand, she lifted the other to swipe a thumb across the corner of her lips. Just to make sure she hadn’t actually drooled over him.
When she looked up, his eyes were heavy on her mouth, tracking the movement.
“Um,” she said. “Thanks.”
The man shrugged, reaching blindly for the shelf before selecting a different box. He didn’t look at it, not even as he brushed past her and headed towards the exit. And she could tell that this little interaction was over, even though his face remained placid and unreadable, but he didn’t spare so much as a glance at her. Or a parting word.
Gwyn’s nostrils flared, and she jogged to catch up with him. Her long legs easily matched his stride, but she’d been staring dumbfounded at his back for long enough that it took her a moment to reach his side. Once she finally did, she leaned forward slightly in an attempt to catch his gaze.
Nothing.
“You aren’t going to apologize?” she said.
Immediately after it was out, her teeth bit into her tongue. Was she stupid?
The answer was yes, but she couldn’t exactly do anything about it when this man’s brows screwed up again, and he came to a screeching halt right in the center aisle. Gwyn could see the cashier again. She’d moved on from eyeing the magazine to scrolling through her phone.
“Apologize?” he said.
“Yeah,” Gwyn said, rolling her eyes and doing a fine job of ignoring the way something tight and molten began to coil deep in the center of her abdomen at the sound of his voice. She crossed her arms over her chest, and said, “You bumped into me because you were being a careless idiot. It’s usually customary to—”
“Excuse me?”
His eyes narrowed, clearly puzzled, and then he just waited. Like he expected her to clarify.
Giving up, his mouth opened before he was able to form the words, “You bumped into me.”
Gwyn scoffed, “That’s ridiculous.”
“I tried to get your attention,” he insisted. He ran a hand back through his dark hair, mussing it up even further than it already had been. “I said excuse me.”
“No,” Gwyn said. “You didn’t. I would have heard you.”
He took half a step forward. Not even close enough to touch her, but his presence was so intense, that Gwyn stopped talking immediately. Her eyes drifted down his form, as if by looking at him long enough, she would find the source of that heat that seemed to radiate off of him in waves. She could feel his closeness, like the sensation of water rippling against her palm as she skimmed it over the surface. Except it was pressing against all of her. So strongly, that she almost felt like she might lose her balance.
“Except you clearly didn’t,” he was saying, while Gwyn was thinking of bathroom stalls and how he could easily pin both of her wrists up above her head with just one of those gilded hands. “How was I supposed to know you would choose that exact moment to headbutt—”
Gwyn’s jaw dropped. “I did not headbutt you.”
The corner of his mouth lifted into some sort of smirk, she guessed.
“You did,” he said. “But in an act of equal parts generosity and self-preservation, I decided to give you what you asked for. Excuse me.”
Clearly, he was dismissing her, which was absolutely unthinkable. Gwyn grit her teeth, immediately hastening to catch up with him again. He didn’t stop this time, and seemed to be intent upon reaching the register before her.
Which could not happen.
Gwyn broke out into a sprint towards the register and the poor, unsuspecting cashier. She heard his footsteps quickening after her, but she’d obviously hit her head a little too hard on his elbow, because she only pumped her legs harder and faster, so that she could beat him.
She had to slap her hands down on the counter to stop herself, or else she would have vaulted over it entirely, and her knees crashed against the boxes of candy just below it, sending a few bags tumbling to the floor. She hissed, bending over to rub at one of her knees as the cashier raised a nonplussed eyebrow at her blatant display of temporary insanity, and then actually popped her gum at her.
Her reluctant competitor came up behind her not a second later. And while her chest was heaving and her hand was clamped over a stitch in her side, he didn’t seem the slightest bit out of breath. He merely ran his fingers back through his night black hair—rings glinting-–and shoved his hands in his pockets. His calm expression completely unruffled.
It was infuriating.
“Very mature,” he mouthed at her.
With a middle finger cast over her shoulder at him, Gwyn turned back to the cashier, and handed her the slightly crumpled box she’d been holding. She scanned the barcode, setting the box back down on the counter, and then tapped the screen with a glossy black acrylic. Gwyn read the total: $18.09.
Only slightly annoyed that the cashier wasn’t even going to read the price aloud to her, Gwyn reached in her pockets. And then her tote bag, in search of her credit card.
And came up empty.
Dread dripped cold down her spine, as Gwyn widened her eyes, patting her pockets. The cashier was starting to grow impatient, not that anyone could tell from the way she kept smacking her gum, but Gwyn had nothing. She must have left her card in her purse at home, or by her desk at the university. Wherever it was, it wasn’t here, and her phone… she had just gotten a new phone. Hadn’t even set up mobile pay, yet.
“Um,” Gwyn said.
Slowly, she turned to find the man right where she left him, leaning back against one of the display racks. He had his arms crossed, biceps straining in such a maddening way against his shirt. He tipped his chin up, slightly. Waiting.
She finished, “Do you think you could…?”
He pushed away from the shelf, arms dropping to his sides. “You’re kidding.”
Gwyn only offered him a shaky smile, her gaze sliding away from his. Humiliated didn’t even begin to describe it.
“I forgot my card,” she muttered.
A muscle worked in his jaw as he strode up to the counter. As he dug his wallet out of his pocket, his arm brushed against hers, and then he pulled out a sleek black card and smacked it onto the counter along with his own box of condoms.
He grit out through his teeth, “You are the single most—”
“That’s $31.72,” the cashier said. Of course now she would suddenly seem interested, her eyes lighting in amusement as they flicked between Gwyn and this stranger.
Gwyn glared at her, even as the man tucked his card back into his wallet and accepted the plastic bag with their purchases. Nosy, Gwyn mouthed at the cashier before turning to follow the man out of the store. The cashier, unbothered, returned to her phone.
The bell gently sounded again, as the man held the door open for Gwyn. Together, they stepped out onto the sidewalk, and he immediately turned to face her, his expression very much resembling a thunderstorm pressed up against clear glass. Barely contained.
In an attempt to smooth the situation over, Gwyn smiled up at him, but he only held that hard look. The one that pulled the corner of his jaw so incredibly sharp, as he chewed on the inside of his cheek and assessed her.
Then, he shoved his hand in the bag, and pulled out one of the boxes, holding it out to her.
“Whoever these are for,” he said, and she felt the low waves of his voice rolling down the column of her spine in a shiver. “I hope it’s worth it.”
And with her expression schooled into one of casual indifference, Gwyn plucked the box from his grasp. Deliberately slow, and having less to do with her desire to get under his skin, and more to do with her desire to catch a glimpse of his rings again.
“I’m sure whoever those are for,” Gwyn said, glancing pointedly at the box that still remained in the bag, “they’re going to be really disappointed.”
That cruel little tilt of his mouth appeared again, in what she was coming to recognize as a smile. His fingers curled back into his palm, one by one, until he shoved that hand back in his pocket.
“You have a mouth,” he commented.
Gwyn only shrugged, brushing past him to saunter down the sidewalk and towards her house. As she walked, she tucked the box—like a spoil of war—reverently into her bag.
“Nice meeting you!” She called, without looking back at him. “Or whatever.”
And just when she thought that was it, that he’d finally slunk back to whatever miserable cave he’d crawled out of in the first place—to lick his wounds or nurse his pride—his voice called back to her.
“You know where to find me,” he said, “if you’re ever in the mood to be disappointed.”
Gwyn whirled on the spot, heart already racing as she rapidly tried to piece together what he’d said, and if it held the double meaning she thought it did. Her eyes roved the sidewalk, searching for him, but he was gone. She went to call out his name.
Before she realized she’d never actually asked for it.