Chapter 76

Requested – prdly_livkon

The first text went out at 2:14.

Y/N: ‘how’s rehearsal going?’

You sent it knowing she was probably mid-count, hair slicked back, mirror reflecting a hundred versions of the sharp movement. You pictured her phone face-down in her bag, buzzing once, ignored.

By 4:30, you sent another.

Y/N: ‘starving. thinking thai?’

The little delivered check-mark sat there. Mocking you. You stared at it while scrolling through your own day – emails answered, laundry folded, a script you’d started and abandoned. The apartment felt too quiet, too full of her absence.

At 6:00 you tried calling. Straight to voicemail. Her recorded voice, bright and professional, grated against your mood.

“Hey, it’s Dani. Leave a message.”

You didn’t.

At &;45, you sent a third.

Y/N: ‘you’re alive right?’

Then a fourth, at 8:30, shorter, sharper.

Y/N: ‘cool’

Then nothing. You made pasta you didn’t eat. You sat on the couch with the TV on, volume too low, watching the door. Every creak of the building made you look up. Every car outside, every elevator ding.

By 10:00, you were in bed. Lights off. Back to the door. The sheets were cold where she should have been.

*

The door clicked at 11:23.

You heard her drop her bag, the thud of sneakers, the rustle of her jacket hitting the chair. You kept your eyes closed, breathing even, faking sleep so well you almost convinced yourself.

“Y/N?” Her voice was soft, cautious.

You didn’t move.

You heard her pad across the floor, felt the mattress dip as she sat on the edge. She smelled like sweat and studio air and the vanilla body spray she kept in her bag. Familiar. Distant. Yours and not yours.

“Babe?” She touched your shoulder, light, tentative. “You awake?”

You shrugged her off. Rolled further away, pulling the blanket with you.

Silence. Then “What is it? What’s wrong?”

You didn’t answer. Couldn’t, without your voice cracking, without sounding like the thing you hated – needy, clingy, the girlfriend who couldn’t handle a missed text.

“Y/N.” Firmer now. She reached for you again, and you sat up, sudden, violent, the blanket pooling around your waist.

“Don’t.”

She blinked. Her face was still flushed from rehearsal, hair wild, makeup smeared. She looked wrecked and beautiful and completely clueless, and that made it worse.

“What’s going on?” she asked, voice rising. “Did something happen?”

“You didn’t text me back.”

The words came out flat, ugly. You hated them immediately.

Dani just stared. “What?”

“All day. Three texts. A call. Nothing.” You were sitting up fully now, knees drawn to your chest, arms wrapped around them like armour. “I didn’t know if you were dead or bust or just-” You stopped, swallowed. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It clearly matters.” She stood, pacing to the dresser, turning back. “I was at rehearsal. You know how it is. We were running the new bridge for six hours. My phone was in my bag-“

“I know.” The words snapped out, harsher than you meant. “I know you were at rehearsal. I know you’re busy. I know all of it, Dani. That doesn’t change the fact that I sat here for nine hours wondering if you were okay, if you were eating, if you-” You broke off, pressing your palms to your eyes. “Forget it. I’m being stupid.”

“You’re not being stupid.” She crossed back, sat on the bed, close enough to touch but not touching. “But you’re being something. What is this actually about?.”

You looked at her. Really looked. The exhaustion in her shoulders, the way her fingers picked a loose thread on her shorts, the concern in her eyes that was real but edged with frustration.

“I just wanted to know you were thinking about me,” you said, quieter. “Even for a second. Even just.. busy talk later. Something.”

“I was thinking about you.” Her voice softened, but her jaw was set. “I’m always thinking about you. But I can’t always stop mid-rehearsal to prove it.”

“I’m not asking for proof.”

“Aren’t you?”

The question hung between you, sharp and true. You felt your face flush, anger and shame mixing.

“Maybe I am,” you admitted. “Maybe I needed proof today. Maybe I had a shitty day and I wanted my girlfriend and she wasn’t there and-” You stopped, breathing hard. “I’m sorry. I’m being unfair.”

Dani was quiet for a long moment. Then she stood, crossed to her bag, pulled out her phone. She scrolled, frowning, then turned the screen towards you.

“Dead,” she said, showing the black rectangle. “Battery died at 3. I didn’t even see your texts until we finished.”

You stared at the phone. The excuse was simple, logical, and you felt something in your chest loosen and tighten at the same time – relief that she hadn’t ignored you, embarrassment that you’d built a whole narrative around silence.

“Oh,” you said, small.

“Yeah.” She set her phone down, turned back to you “Oh.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I know.” She didn’t move closer. “But you could’ve just asked. Instead of-” she gestured at the bed, at your turned back, at the cold space between you, “-this.”

“I didn’t wanna be that girlfriend.”

“What girlfriend?”

“The one who needs constant reassurance. The one who freaks out over a dead battery.” You laughed, bitter. “The one who sits in bed at 10pm stewing instead of just… dealing with it.”

Dani was quiet again. Then she crossed the room in two strides, sat on the bed and grabbed your face in both hands. Her palms were warm, calloused from rehearsal, and she held you there, forcing eye contact.

“You are that girlfriend,” she said, firm. “You need reassurance. You freak out. You stew. And I-” She stopped, her thumbs brushing your cheekbones, her voice dropping. “I love that girlfriend. I love her because she’s real. Because she cares enough to sit in bed and worry. Because she cares enough to be mad.”

“Dani-“

“So don’t apologise for needing me.” Her eyes were dark, intense, the stage-light focus she turned on sometimes, the one that made you feel like the only person in the room. “Don’t apologise for being human. Just-” She leaned in, close enough that her breath warmed your lips. “Just tell me. Next time. Tell me instead of turning away.”

You felt it then – the shift, the crack in the anger, the flood of want that always lived underneath everything with her. You stared at her mouth, at the slight part of her lips, at the way her pulse jumped in her throat.

“I missed you,” you whispered.

“I missed you too.” Her voice was rough now, gravelly, the sound she made when she was tired and emotional and close to an edge. “All day. Every count, every step, I wanted to tell you about it. I wanted to come home and find you and-” She stopped, swallowed. “And here you are. And you’re mad. And I don’t know how to fix it except-“

“Except?”

She kissed you. Hard. No preamble, no gentleness – just her mouth on yours, desperate and claiming, her fingers sliding into your hair, gripping tight. You gasped against her lips, hands flying to her waist, pulling her closer, and she came willingly, climbing onto the bed, straddling your lap, her weight settling against you with familiar heat.

“Dani-” you breathed, but she cut you off, kissing you deeper, her tongue sliding against yours, messy and urgent. Her hands roamed – down your back, up your sides, under your shirt – touching like she was mapping you, reminding herself you were real, you were here, you were hers.

“You don’t get to turn away from me,” she panted against your mouth, biting your lower lip, hard enough to sting. “You don’t get to go cold and expect me to just-” She rolled her hips, deliberate, and you moaned, head falling back. “You don’t get to hide.”

“I wasn’t hiding-“

“Bullshit.” She kissed your jaw, your throat, teeth grazing the tendon there, sucking a mark that you know would bloom purple by morning. “You were hiding. And I found you. I always find you.”

Her hands pushed your shirt up, and you lifted your arms, let her strip it off, let her look at you in the dark, her eyes devouring. She leaned down, mouth hot against your collarbone, your shoulder, the swell of your breast above your bra. Each kiss was a brand, a claim, a response to every hour of silence.

“Tell me,” she demanded, looking up, hair wild, eyes blown. “Tell me what you need.”

“You,” you gasped, arching as her hand slid to your waistband, thumb brushing the sensitive skin there. “Just you. Always you.”

“Good.” She kissed you again, deeper, hungrier, and her fingers dipped lower, pressing against you through your shorts, and you cried out, hips bucking into her touch. “Because you’re stuck with me. Dead batteries and bad days and all of it. You’re stuck.”

“Show me,” you whispered, desperate, reaching for her. “Show me I’m stuck.”

She did. She pushed you back against the pillows, stripping your shorts, your underwear, until you were bare and trembling beneath her. She kept her own clothes on – somehow that made it hotter, the contrast of her fully dressed and you completely exposed, completely hers – and she used her mouth, her hands, every skill she had, every trick she knew you loved.

When you came, it was with her name breaking in your throat, her fingers curled inside you, her mouth pressed to your thigh, murmuring love against your skin/

After, she crawled up, gathering you close, tangled in sheets and sweat and the aftermath of fight and want. She was still in her rehearsal clothes, still smelling like studio and work, and you clung to her, face buried in her neck, breathing her in.

“I’m sorry,” you whispered again.

“Stop apologising.” She kissed your temple, your eyelids, the corner of your mouth. “Just stay. Just be here. Just-” She stopped, held you tighter. “Just don’t turn away again.”

“I won’t.”

“Promise?”

You looked up at her, at the exhaustion and love and fear in her eyes, and you kissed her, soft and slow, a seal and a vow. “Promise.”

She breathed out, long and shaky, and you breathed in, and the night nestled around you, quieter now, warmer. Her phone stayed dead on the dresser. The texts stayed unread. But she was here, she was yours, and that was the only message that mattered.

“I love you,” she whispered, half-asleep, smiling against your hair.

You pulled her closer, tangling your legs with hers, and didn’t bother saying it back.

Because of course you did.

———-

WOO that was a long one 😅

or not.. maybe my attention span is just cooked…