#(we have only been here since 2020 lol)

[johndonneswife]

#i’ve been too depressed to do anything…the world is shit #colorado springs #club q #gun violence #the way this is the second time since we moved here that our family and friends have had to reach out after a shooting to see if we were ok #(we have only been here since 2020 lol) #this cover really broke me idk

[writingonleaves]

don't wanna scrape you off the pavement (i can't be your savior) - jack hughes

pairing: jack hughes x original female character (reckless driving au)

warnings: swearing, angst, fluff, hopeful ending (bc its me), possibly inaccurate dynamics of the 2020 - 2024 umich hockey squads but i tried, some biphobia (not from any main characters), an awful lot of talking about michigan for someone who’s never been there (the college or the state)

inspired by + title: "reckless driving" by lizzy mcalpine and ben kessler

word count: 23.7k

author's note: after about 7 months in the making, it’s Finally here lol. this piece means a lot to me, and not only because it took so long. a labor of love, if you will. i'm very proud of it, so i sincerely hope you all enjoy it as much as i loved writing it! please do let me know your thoughts <3 takes place the summer of 2024

~*~*~

day one - amelie

Amelie Fishel has a love-hate relationship with the state of Michigan. 

She loves it enough that she stayed in the state she was born and raised in for college. But even she knew she would’ve been an idiot if she denied the offer four years ago when University of Michigan offered her an academic scholarship that ended up covering her full tuition. She enjoyed her time at college enough, making a smattering of friends that she really does want to keep in contact with for the rest of her life and developing a solid foundation academically with various experiences that will hopefully help her out to get her dream job, which is on the horizon.

It’s a dream job because it falls in line with what she enjoys doing. But it’s also a dream job because it’s taking her the fuck out of this state. That’s the only request she’s had when trying to close in on an NHL photographer offer — it can be in any state except for Michigan. 

But despite her feeling that she’s outgrown this state, she’s sticking around for one more summer. One more summer of no internships or responsibilities before she has to be a working adult for the rest of her life. A few more months to enjoy the few perks this state does have before getting to leave.

Currently, she’s sitting in the backyard of her grandparents’ new lakehouse. It’s admittedly beautiful and in a wonderful location that offers the tranquility that they’ve been searching for. The lake in their backyard glistens under the sun and the sunsets are stunning. 

It’s a hot day in mid-July and she spent her first full day catching up with her grandparents in the backyard. After she had graduated, she splurged on a trip to Europe with some friends that definitely made a dent in her bank account. When she voiced getting a job for the summer, her parents and grandparents immediately said no. Enjoy the summer, they said. 

After dinner, when the sun’s rays are barely peeking out, she volunteers to walk Susie, her grandparents’ golden retriever that is far too energetic for Amelie’s liking. Amelie grabs the leash, beckons Susie over, and they’re on their way to a walk around the neighborhood. 

She forgoes her Airpods for whatever reason and shoves both her hands in her sweatshirt, walking leisurely behind Susie. She’s so lost in her own head that she almost misses the sound of her own name. 

“Amelie?”

She blinks, stopping at the end of someone’s driveway. Susie trots happily to the guy who’s holding his hand out to pet her. “Luke?”

“Yeah,” Luke clears his throat and bends down slightly to pet Susie, who is loving the attention. “Hey buddy. What’s your name?”

“This is Susie.”

Luke chuckles as Susie’s tail wags crazily. “Hey girly. What a cutie.”

Amelie gently tugs the leash. “Easy, Suz. We don’t wanna kill him.”

She watches for a few seconds as Luke keeps petting her. Yankees hat atop his head and wearing a white t-shirt and swim trunks, it’s been over a year since Amelie’s seen Luke Hughes. The last time she saw him was after the devastating loss against Quinnipiac at the Frozen Four. He had jetted out to Boston that night, but not without giving Amelie an unexpected but genuine hug goodbye. 

As a photographer for the Michigan Athletic Department during her entire college career, she became at friendly with many athletes, especially the guys on the men’s hockey team, since her boss put her on assignment with them a good amount. But she hadn’t expected Luke to remember her or recognize her.

“You live around here?” Luke asks, standing back up as Susie calms down.

“My grandparents just bought a place a few houses down and I just got here. You live here?”

“Kinda,” he gestures to the house behind him. “My brothers bought this place a few years back.”

“Small world,” she remarks. 

He nods with a small smile. “It sure is.” 

“Who’s your friend, Moose?”

She turns her head to the open garage to see a shorter, tanner version of Luke. This guy is wearing a black t-shirt with sweatpants, his hair less curlier than Luke’s. He must be one of his brothers, and even if Luke didn’t just tell her it was his brothers’ place, she would’ve put it together. They both have the same half-smile. 

He’s also beautiful. Almost annoyingly so.

(If her sisters were here, they’d immediately point out that Jack is exactly her type. Well, Charlotte would point out that he smiles similarly to Cooper and Colette would immediately scold Charlotte.)

The guy walks over and Susie gets excited at a new presence. He also bends down to pet her. “This is Amelie,” Luke says. “She photographed a lot of the games back at Michigan.” He turns back to Amelie. “Did you just graduate? Or do you have one year left?”

“I just graduated.”

“Congratulations,” the guy stands up and sticks out his hand. “I’m Jack. Luke’s brother. Well, one of them.”

She shakes his hand with a polite smile. “It’s nice to meet you, Jack. And thank you.”

“You said you’re gonna be here for the summer?” Luke asks. 

“Most of it, yeah.”

“Where do you live?” Jack asks.

“My grandparents are a few houses down. 118.”

Jack perks up. “Stanley and Ruth are your grandparents?”

“Yeah,” she narrows her eyes. “How do you know them?”

“They ran into our parents golfing last week. And I’ve waved at them a few times driving down the street.”

“That sounds about right,” she chuckles. “They love their golf and they love sitting on the front porch.”

Luke straightens up, and with Amelie’s previous interactions with him, that means that he’s about to suggest either a great or horrendous idea. “You should come over for dinner this week. You and your grandparents. Our parents are still here for a few days and we’re going a bit stir-crazy with each other, I think.”

So it’s a horrendous idea this time. She immediately tries to deny the offer politely. “Oh no, that’s okay. I wouldn’t wanna intrude your-”

“We’d love to have you. And your grandparents,” Jack says with an air of finality. “And I know our parents would say the same. They’re sick of also just having us around.”

“I still have your number from when you used to send me pictures after games,” Luke says. “I’ll text you details and we’ll find a time that works?”

“Okay,” she says after a few seconds. As if Susie understands, she barks. 

Jack gives her one last pet with a grin. “This floofer’s welcome as well.”

After one last smile, she and Susie are on their way as the brothers head back into the house. Once they’re out of earshot, she sighs. 

She has no idea how she feels about this. 

day three - jack 

Jack Hughes is convinced he’s going insane.

Well, that’s not exactly true. He’s perfectly fine, great, even. Recovery is going well. He’s back with his family in one of his favorite places in the world. Even in July, the season still seems so far away. Some days he itches to get back to The Rock in front of the fans. But most of the time, he’s enjoying his off-season rehab and training, being on the water and being on the golf course. 

But Amelie – which first of all, an incredibly beautiful name — and her just as beautiful dog Susie have been at the back of his mind for two days straight now. That’s weird. Jack doesn’t usually think about girls like this, especially girls he’s barely met.

All he’s gotten from Luke so far is that she’s a year older than him, which makes her a year younger than Jack, she photographed a bunch of the Michigan games during Luke’s two years there and she’s a bit quieter than some of the social media team’s counterparts Luke knows she worked with. 

And she’s so, so cute. But Luke didn’t tell him that one. 

A few hours before she’s supposed to come over with her grandparents, Jack’s lounging on the boat, as Quinn, who’s in the driver's seat, and Luke are talking about…something. But he’s deeply focused on his phone, trying to do what every Gen Z person does when they see someone cute. Find their Instagram. The fact that he’s held off for over 48 hours is already impressive. 

He finds it relatively easily, as some of Luke’s former teammates who Jack follows follow her, and Amelie isn’t a common name. She’s private, but linked in her bio is her photography account, which is public. While there’s no pictures of her on there, it proves to him that she’s an insanely good photographer. Not just hockey, either. There are some beautiful shots of divers, gymnasts, soccer players, etc. You name the sport, it seems like Amelie’s photographed it. 

“Whatcha lookin’ at?” Quinn asks. 

Jack quickly locks his phone. “Nothing.”

Luke, like the pest he is, narrows his eyes. “Sure.”

“Don’t make me push you into the water, Moose.”

An empty threat, Jack knows, but he starts leaning forward and Luke yelps. “Quinn!”

Quinn rolls his eyes, “You’re both annoying. We gotta head back though. I wanna shower before dinner.”

Dinner. Right. Amelie. Coming into him and Quinn’s home. Great. 

Something must change on his face, because a shit-eating grin grows on Luke’s face. “Oh. That’s what this is about.”

“What?” Jack feigns cluelessness. 

“Amelie’s pretty, isn’t she?” Luke says. Jack just shoves him and Quinn chuckles, catching up. 

“If you think she’s pretty, why didn’t you make your move first?” Jack retorts back. “You had two years.”

Luke shrugs. “Just because she’s pretty doesn’t mean I’m interested. She’s cool though. Way too cool for you.”

“Is that a challenge?”

Luke rolls his eyes, “For once, no.”

“Was she friends with the guys?” Quinn asks. And Jack’s silently grateful that he doesn’t have to be the one to dig for more information.

“I don’t know if I would say friends, but definitely very friendly with everyone,” Luke says. “I think she was a TA in one of Rut and Adam’s classes or something. She seemed to get along with them the best. And I feel like she had a soft spot for Eddy, for some reason. I think it’s that thing where we just all are around each other all the time and the more we saw of her at the rink, the more we got to know her.”

Huh. Interesting. He doesn’t know anything about Rutger McGroarty except that he went to the program a few years after Jack did and was drafted to the Jets. Ethan Edwards is one of Luke’s closest friends from Michigan and could be signing with the Devils organization this upcoming season, and Jack likes him. Adam Fantilli trains with the guys in the summer so Jack’s gotten to know him decently well. That one might say the most. 

Luke gives him a pointed look. “I’m serious. Don’t mess with her. She’s too nice for that. And she can put you in your place.”

And Jack’s downright offended that Luke would even insinuate something like that. But as Quinn guides them home, he thinks. Luke’s never given an opinion on any girl Jack’s dated or had a thing with. He’s spoken maybe three sentences to Amelie, didn’t even directly express his interest and Luke is already all up in his ass. 

He hears when Amelie arrives hours later, Susie barking and the sounds of Stanley and Ruth talking with his parents. He tries to be nonchalant as they all come out into the backyard, when he sees her conversing with Luke, instead making himself busy by introducing himself to Stanley and Ruth. 

But her pink linen pants match her headband and her smile is dripping with gold and Jack is going insane. 

They have dinner outside surrounded by the sound of the rippling lake, the view of a cotton-candy sunset, the feel of light breeze and the warmth of easy laughter. Jack sneaks a few small pieces of chicken to Susie and Amelie catches him, glaring at him from across the table. Jack just smirks as she rolls her eyes, chomping away at her corn and tuning into whatever conversation is going on. 

His parents ask about her background and her time at Michigan and he can’t help but smile when she talks about her double degree — communications and design — and how going to an activities fair turned into working as a photographer for the athletics department. She talks about her first time photographing a hockey game and how hockey is the fastest and in a way, hardest sport she’s ever photographed. But it’s become her favorite. That puts a smile on the faces of the entire Hughes family. 

She gets asked what her plans are post-grad, and she just breezes through it casually, saying that she’s been talking to US Soccer and the NHL but nothing finalized yet. She says it so casually that Jack’s almost in awe. 

Jack never believed in love at first sight, and still doesn’t, thank you very much, but the sound of Amelie’s laughter has him feeling so nervous and stupid and ridiculous. 

Whatever. He’ll unpack this later.

day six - amelie

Amelie’s cameras and her camera equipment are her babies, which, duh, considering her passion and career. Which means she’s very excited to take out the vintage 35 MM film camera she got for a graduation gift from her parents. 

After lunch, she takes one of the many outdoor chairs her grandparents have, plopping herself decently close to the lake to fiddle with some of the settings. She has her trusted DSLR camera next to her as well, the sounds of the birds and a Michigan summer her soundtrack. One of her neighbors must be playing the guitar outside and Amelie finds herself at peace. 

The peace is slowly shattered as she hears a motor coming from the lake. She rolls her eyes to herself. Fucking boats and boatowners who think they’re the shit. 

She does point her camera towards the boat though. It’s a cool shot. 

She doesn’t realize it’s slowing down until it practically stops. She squints and sees someone waving their hand maniacally. She tentatively walks a bit towards the lake. 

“Luke?” 

He nods enthusiastically and Amelie kinda finds it endearing. She quickly takes note of Quinn at the helm and sees Jack’s head popping up from behind Quinn. The boat slows to a stop and she comes to the edge of the lake. 

“Morning. Or afternoon, I guess.”

“Hey,” Jack says with a friendly smile. “What are you up to?”

She holds her camera. “Testing this out. I actually just got a pretty cool shot of the boat.”

“Is that a special kind of camera?” Quinn asks. 

She nods. “Mmhmm. It’s a vintage 35 millimeter film camera, which is the exact opposite of what you want when photographing any sport. What are you guys up to today?”

Luke shrugs. “The usual. Probably gonna be on the boat for a few hours.” He lights up. “Do you wanna come on?”

She opens her mouth to say something but Jack pushes on before she can get a word out. “Yeah, come on!”

“If you don’t already have plans, that is,” Quinn adds. 

She closes her mouth and thinks. She doesn’t have plans today and hasn’t ever been on a boat. Plus, even though she partially chose to spend time out here to reflect on herself and be by herself, she knows it’s good for her to be talking with people that aren’t her grandparents. And, they’ve been nothing but nice to her so far. 

“On a few conditions.”

Jack tilts his head. “Which are?”

“I don’t have to get in the water and I get to bring my cameras.”

“Deal,” Jack says quickly. 

Amelie gives a close-lipped smile. “Give me two minutes.” She sets her cameras down carefully by the chair side and jogs back into the house. She grabs her favorite Michigan crewneck in case it gets cold and grabs her tote bag which has sunscreen, sunglasses, her keys and wallet. When she comes back out, the boat is docked as close to the edge as possible. Without hesitation, Amelie takes off her flip-flops, wades into the water and hands Luke her bag and cameras carefully before Jack pulls her up into the boat. 

She wobbles a bit and Jack’s hands hover behind her back in case she falls. “You ever been on a boat?”

“Not in awhile,” she says, settling down in a seat next to Luke. “I prefer having my feet on the ground.”

Luke’s eyebrows furrow. “You can swim, right?”

“What?” Amelie jokes quietly. “Are you planning on pushing me in?”

“No one is getting pushed in,” Quinn assures, sending a light glare at his two brothers as he starts steering them deeper into the lake. “Especially with those expensive cameras on board.”

“Are you really the one responsible for every photo of Luke playing hockey taken at Michigan?” Jack asks. 

She blinks, absolutely taken aback. “Not every photo, I’d say.”

“Definitely a good amount though,” Luke says. “I feel like you were always at every game.”

She shrugs, “Well, my boss started putting me on hockey more because I’m pretty sure I was the only one who could do it well.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Hey, it’s a tough sport to photograph. It’s fast and unpredictable and you have to have a sense of where the puck is going before it gets there.”

Amelie internally cringes at that last part. She sounds like a coach. 

“Did you like hockey before?” Quinn asks.

“Not really, to be honest. The first game I ever watched was at Michigan when I was shadowing.”

“You must’ve figured out pretty quickly where the puck will go, then, if you didn’t know much about hockey before,” Jack says with something like respect in his eyes.

Amelie smiles. “I guess.”

Quinn nods to the film camera that Amelie had picked up the second she got on the boat. “Can we see the picture you took of the boat?”

“I wish. I’m gonna get the film developed at the end of the summer and that’ll take a few weeks.” Quinn hums in understanding. She takes out her regular camera and pops off the lens cap, shoving it in her back. Luke��s eyes light up in recognition and she can’t help but chuckle. “You recognize this one?”

“How could I not?”

She points it at three of them. “Smile. All of you.” She snaps a couple before putting down her camera and playfully glaring at them. “Geez. At least act like you guys like each other.” She looks quickly at the photo with a satisfied nod, before turning her camera towards the brothers so they can see. 

They continue chatting, talking about various things from Michigan (the state and the school) to one of their cousins who just got engaged to where Amelie’s parents are (they also live in Michigan, though further south, but are currently visiting family in France that Amelie had seen last year when she studied abroad in France) to the upcoming season. Amelie mostly keeps quiet on that front, because she doesn’t need to let them know that she got a call yesterday with news that the NHL is closing in on a job offer that will determine where she spends the next few years.

The thought that she could be seeing these three multiple times throughout the season when she’s currently on their boat right now is just downright weird. She just met Quinn and Jack six days ago. She hasn’t seen Luke in two years. 

This whole thing is just weird. 

But whenever she feels too much in her own head, she just picks up her camera and points it at one of them or out at the lake, fiddling with lighting and focus settings. Sometimes she forgets that photography isn’t just going to be her career and that she can love it differently with no pressure and in a different light, no pun intended. 

With time, she gets more comfortable, sunglasses perched on her nose, chin tucked on her knees and laughter flowing out lighter and easier. It’s easier to pick up her camera when they start taking turns wakesurfing, her eyes widening when Jack jokingly tries to drag her out, and she’s either semi-impressed at their ability to make it look easy or laughing her ass off when they flail and fall. 

As she’s shutting off her camera — contrary to popular belief, she does need to put it away after a certain amount of time — Jack plops down next to her. Quinn and Luke are entranced in their own conversation towards the front. 

Jack runs a hand through his damp hair, “Do you mind handing me my shirt next to you?”

She hands it over with a weary look. “It’s boiling out.”

“Oh, so you want me to keep my shirt off.”

The smirk on his face has Amelie rolling her eyes. Boys. “You’re gonna wanna take it off again in like, 5 minutes. I just think you’re being dumb.”

Jack puts a hand over his heart in mock offense. “Ouch. That might be the harshest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

“I met you six days ago.”

“And my point still stands.” She scrunches her nose a bit when Jack shakes out his hair and some water droplets land on her. He just smiles that half-smile that she’s not sure if she likes or hates. “Are you sure you don’t wanna get in the water?”

“I’m not wearing a bathing suit. And even then, I’m not a huge fan of being in the water.”

“Well, then, what are you a huge fan of? Besides being behind the camera.”

She tilts her head so that it’s leaning against her seat, turning to face him completely. “I used to dance competitively and continued dancing a bit in college. I read a lot. At school, I used to love just camping out at a cafe for hours for the vibes.” She shrugs. “Nothing much else though.”

He nods, before looking at the cameras in her bag. “Why photography?”

She smiles, like she always does when talking about photography. “Taking photos is really cool, I think, because you’re the middle man. You frame the story. And if you frame it well, people will look at the photo and know exactly what’s going on. With sports, it’s all about the timing and the moment. You can write an article describing a game with quotes from the players or whatever, and no disrespect to that. I have a good amount of friends who are journalists. But photo is different, because you can see it, you know?”

Jack nods. “I think I get what you mean. You got a boyfriend waiting for you somewhere? Or a significant other?”

Her eyes widen and a sharp laugh erupts out of her. That’s random. “What?”

Jack just shrugs like he didn’t just completely throw her off. “It’s a valid question, no? Don’t wanna assume or give off an unwanted vibe if we’re gonna be hanging out all summer.”

“Well, uh, no. No boyfriend or partner of any sort like that.”

“Really?”

“I don’t know why that surprises you.”

“Because you’re pretty. Nice. Talented, clearly. Surely the guys and gals and pals at Michigan aren’t stupid enough to turn you down.”

She bypasses all the compliments because that’s too much to think about right now, instead focusing on the latter half of his sentence. She wraps her arms around her legs to clasp her fingers together. “I dated a girl for a bit freshman year. Nothing happened. It just fizzled out. We’re still decent friends. And then I dated this guy for about a year. But that fell to shit pretty extraordinarily.”

“Most of them do, don’t they?”

Amelie unintentionally chuckles. “Oh yeah? And what about you? How’s your love life looking?”

Jack looks out into the distance, breaking eye contact for the first time this whole conversation. “Was in a relationship around two years ago. It didn’t work out because of distance. Nothing much since then.”

Amelie highly doubts that, but she keeps her mouth shut, leaving it alone. “Fair enough.

“So why Michigan? Anything in particular draw you in?”

“Well, I think Michigan is on anyone’s radar who grew up in this state,” she twists her ring around. “And then, uh, when I got offered a full ride, I knew I would’ve been an idiot to turn that down.”

His eyebrows shoot up his forehead. “A full ride? You serious?”

“Yeah. Academic scholarship.”

He lets out a low whistle. “Jesus. You’re smart smart. Even I know full academic scholarships aren’t given out easily.” Amelie ducks her chin down. She can feel herself blushing and she hates it. “Was it your first choice? Going to Michigan?”

“No,” she admits softly. And she knows she’s talking to someone who may not have gone there, but who might as well have. He might love the college more than she does and she’s the one who actually is an alum. “NYU was my top choice. And I got accepted, but I couldn’t afford it.”

He nods, and then Quinn asks Jack to take over so he can go on the water and the moment passes. She does move closer to the front partially so she’s under the sun again, mostly so she can be closer to everyone. Luke tosses her a bottle of water and she chugs a good half of it, shooting him a thankful smile.

Amelie’s missed this, to be honest. Despite deeply cherishing her alone time, she’s always enjoyed being around a small group of people, observing them and their dynamics to evaluate what kind of people they are. It reminds her of when she used to tag along with her two older sisters and their friends. 

And these three are easy-going. They don’t allow Amelie to get in her head because they’re always talking about something and asking for her two cents. In Amelie’s 22 years of life, she’s become quick to notice if people are being nice to be nice or being nice to be kind. 

The Hughes brothers are being nice to be kind. And Amelie hates herself a bit for thinking it would be the other. 

She sits back and relishes in their company.

day seven - jack

Jack’s had a great day. 

Practice this morning went well, he beat Quinn at ping pong (though that’s not hard to do) and the three brothers have confirmed who’s coming to the lakehouse in a few days after they’re back from their mini trip to visit their grandma for her 90th. There’s gonna be quite a few of the guys and Jack’s pumped. He always likes combining different groups of friends. 

After dinner, he’s feeling a bit restless, so he decides to go out on a drive. Maybe he’ll grab some ice cream, though if he comes back with ice cream and none for Luke or Quinn, they’re gonna bitch about it. He puts on his summer playlist, which is filled with country, and rolls down the windows before backing out. 

He’s probably driving too fast for what’s acceptable in a residential neighborhood, so it’s at the last moment does he stop when he recognizes Amelie in front of her grandparents’ place walking Susie. He slows down, and she looks behind her as he rolls up. 

He leans his head out of his window just as he hears her say, “Hey Char, I’ll call you tomorrow, okay? Yeah. Bye. Love you.” She takes her phone away from her ear and shoots him a small smile. “Hey Jack.”

“Hi. Was that one of your sisters?”

“Yeah, that was Char. Or Charlotte I guess. The middle one.”

Susie paws up to the window and he scratches her head. “Hey cutie. You’re such a good girl, aren’t you?”

“She’s been off the rails the whole day, so she actually hasn’t been.” Amelie says dryly, making him snort. 

“You up to anything right now?”

She narrows her eyes. “Why?”

He nods to his car, “Get in.”

“You sure?”

“Of course.”

“Gimme a second to let Susie back in. Pull into the driveway.” Jack obeys, idling the engine and unlocking the doors as he waits for Amelie to come back. 

While he’s waiting, he thinks back to yesterday, being on the boat for hours with Amelie, learning more about her. Jack’s been told that he can be pretty excitable and eager, which is probably how he has acquired so many friends throughout his life. But, despite what a lot of people may think, he isn’t that stupid. He’s been around Amelie the last week enough to know that she’s a tougher nut to crack. And he knows there’s more to her than what she’s shown so far. 

So he’ll take every chance, every moment, to get to know her better. Because September will come around sooner than he thinks. It always does.

She comes back out and climbs into the passenger seat, buckling her seatbelt as he backs out of the driveway. She’s thrown on a Michigan Hockey sweatshirt over herself, settling her small bag on her lap. “You’re not gonna kidnap me and bury me in the woods, are you?” She asks. 

Jack turns down his music with a chuckle. “No. I don’t have the brainpower for that. Have you eaten?”

“Yeah.” 

He nods, starting to navigate them towards his favorite ice cream place around here. “Where’d you get the sweatshirt?”

She looks down at herself, as if she didn’t realize what she threw on. “Oh. I don’t remember, to be honest. Either it was given to me or one of the guys let me borrow it and I never gave it back.”

“Luke mentioned you were a TA in some of the guys’ classes?”

She leans back in the seat, leaning her head on the seatbelt so that she’s facing him. “Yeah. I was a TA my junior year for one of Adam, Rutger and Gavin’s classes. Senior year Luca and Nick, who I think came in after Luke left so you might not know him, took the class.”

“Were they good students?”

Amelie snorts. “Good enough. Though one time Rut tried to bribe me into extending an assignment since they had a big game away that weekend — I think it was Ohio State. I also had to go on that trip and I had to grade all of their stuff plus deal with my own classes, so I told him, in polite words, to fuck off and submit his fucking paper on time.”

Jack laughs. He can picture it in his head, Rutger with his good looks and childish smile turning on the charm to 100 to a skeptical Amelie, bored but amused eyes as she watches him plead his side. Maybe she’s wearing a headband. Maybe she’s not. 

(She’s wearing one right now. A tiny white one that you’d miss if you weren’t looking) 

“Those boys…were they good?”

“You’re the hockey player. Shouldn’t you know?”

“No. I mean, like, were they good to you? Nice to you? Because if they were dickheads…”

“No!” Amelie is quick to assure him. “They were great. Honestly. During my entire four years working with the team, I never really had a problem with any of the guys. And I can’t say that about every team I had to photograph.”

“Oh?” Jack sneaks a look over to her as she’s looking at her hands. 

“Yeah.”

Jack wants to dig, but he doesn’t. He just doesn’t like the idea that people could be outwardly rude to Amelie when she’s just doing her job. He doesn’t like the idea that people could be outwardly rude to Amelie at all. 

They climb out of the car and he locks it with a click as they walk side by side to the counter to order. He smiles to himself as he lags behind a few steps, watching her bounce on her toes to try and see the flavor options. 

His attention is brought back into the moment as he feels Amelie tug the sleeve of his sweatshirt. “Is the Chocolate Delight good?”

“That’s Quinn’s favorite. It’s super chocolatey.”

“Perfect.” They both step up to the window. Jack orders himself a small Strawberry Cheesecake in a cup. Amelie orders a small Chocolate Delight in a cup and before the girl at the window can even finish listing out the total price, Jack practically shoves his credit card into her hand. 

Amelie gives him a scathing look. “Jack. Come on. You didn’t even give me a chance.”

“Precisely.” Her glare stays on her face. “It’s not a big deal. My treat for kidnapping you on our boat yesterday and kidnapping you tonight.”

“So you are kidnapping me,” she says, referring to her earlier comment. She relaxes and Jack calls it a win as they’re given their ice creams. They snag a high-top table that’s a bit away from the other crowded tables. He watches as she digs in, a small satisfied smile on her face, turning sideways to look at the sunset.

He’s not the photographer, but he wishes he could take a picture of her right now. 

They eat their ice cream in relatively comfortable silence, and he feels satisfied when he plays with her foot under the table and it causes her to chuckle. She does kick him back hard enough to make him flinch though.

20 minutes later, they’re sitting in the back of Jack’s car at a lake lookout catching the last streaks of the sunset when he pipes up. “Colette. Charlotte. Amelie. Very French.”

“Well, that’s what happens when your mother is French.”

“What do they do?”

“Col’s doing some cool stuff with fashion merchandising in New York. Just got engaged and getting married sometime next year. Char’s at Stanford getting her PhD in…something that involves physics and is over my head.” 

Jack chuckles. “I feel that. My sister’s doing her residency at NYU and no matter how hard I want to understand, when she gets on her tangents, I can never follow.”

Amelie’s eyebrows furrow. “Sister?”

“Oh, well, not actually. It’s Clementine. One of us must’ve mentioned her yesterday,” Jack says. “She’s not my sister by blood, but our parents have been best friends since forever and we all grew up together, so she might as well be. Went to UCLA and then, also Stanford, actually. So for eight years, I didn’t really get to see her that often.” Jack digs out his phone and flickers through his photos before clicking on the one his mom took of him, Quinn, Luke and Clementine in New Hampshire earlier in the summer.

“She’s pretty,” Amelie remarks softly. 

Jack smiles. “I don’t think I’d be the same if I didn’t have her growing up. We actually live together in Jersey now. Me, her and Luke. It’s a fun time, even if she pretends it’s not.”

“She’s doing her residency, you said?”

“Yeah,” he takes his phone back. “This I do know. Combined residency with pediatrics and the ER. Just finished her first year out of five.”

Amelie whistles. “Good for her. So she’ll be in New York and Jersey for the near future?”

“Yup,” Jack’s smile seems to always be permanent on his face when talking about Clementine. “Though now she’s dating Hisch so that’s a whole thing.”

“She’s dating your captain?” Amelie chuckles, eyebrows raised in amusement. “I sure hope you like him.”

“I love Nico,” he defends himself. “I was rooting for them to get together. They were tiptoeing around each other all of last season. But now that they’re actually dating I just like being a bitch about it to give them a hard time.”

Amelie shoves her hands in her sweatshirt. “That’s what siblings do.”

“I can’t imagine you being a bitch to your sisters’ significant others they’ve brought home.”

She shrugs, “I don’t think I am. I’ve been told I can be a bit closed-off when you first meet me though.”

“Hey. Nothing wrong with taking time to feel people out.” 

“Some people don’t have the patience for that, though.”

“For what?”

“I don’t know. A lot of people just assume people who aren’t outwardly charismatic aren’t worth their time.”

Jack blinks, thinking about her words over and over again like a broken record. “Well, then they’re missing out.”

She looks at him and he’s momentarily distracted by the way her white headband creates a sort of halo around her. She lets out a small smile. Jack wants to frame it and put it on the wall of his room back in Jersey. She chuckles, and Jack feels defensive all of a sudden.

“What?” He asks, trying not to sound indignant. 

“Nothing, it’s just…I don’t know. That’s such an interesting thing coming from someone who I imagine is exactly just that.”

“Just what?” He’s not doing a great job today at keeping track of where a conversation goes. 

She huffs. “Outwardly charismatic. You’re telling me you’re not?”

Jack’s hands suddenly start to sweat. “I mean, I guess. But that doesn’t come easy to everyone. I still don’t think it comes easy to me. I’ve just been forced to be okay at it because of what I do.”

She starts swatting at bugs so they hop out of the trunk and start driving back. She doesn’t miss a beat in their conversation. “That’s another reason why I love photography. No one expects anything out of me or pays attention to me.”

Jack can’t help but laugh, thinking back to his rookie year and all the damn expectations that were placed on him that he didn’t surpass. It’s water under the bridge now, but he would be lying if he said that he doesn’t think about it once in awhile, especially when the draft bust comments come back after a stretch of bad games. 

“I don’t know what that’s like, having no one expect anything out of me,” he admits, carefully pulling out on the main road. 

“Do you like that? Having a chip on your shoulder?”

“Yeah, in a way. Definitely lights a fire under your ass and motivates you. But, I don’t know, it can get to be a lot, I guess. But I’m used to it. People have been expecting things out of me since I was 16. Younger, even.”

Amelie hums, adjusting her headband. “Must be a lonely place to be at times.”

“Where?”

“The top.” 

Jack mulls over her words in his brain. Once. Twice. A third time. He clears his throat. “I’ve never thought about it like that.” 

When he’s about to sleep that night, he replays their conversations in his head until he finally drifts off. 

day twelve - amelie

Amelie’s a bit glad to have had a few days away from Jack — from any of the Hughes brothers — as they went on a mini trip to Canton to celebrate their grandmother’s birthday. She’s been filling her time by taking walks with Susie, tagging along to help Ruth with groceries and humoring Stanley when he wants to go sit at his favorite diner for hours to talk. Retirement’s pretty nice, Amelie thinks, but even she’s starting to get a bit restless. 

So when she gets a text from Jack after finishing her morning coffee — she forgets when they exchanged numbers or if they ever even did. Luke could’ve given it to him — she’s actually excited.

Weird. When’s the last time Amelie has felt excited to get a text?

Jack Hughes

amelie my amelie 

we just got back last night

and a bunch of your boys are here for a few days 

you should come by and say hi

Amelie furrows her eyebrows as she responds. 

Amelie Fishel 

my boys?

Jack Hughes

beniers, briss, blankenburg, fants, brindley and eddy 

i might be leaving someone out but you get it 

Amelie blinks. She hasn’t heard some of those names in years. And they’re just all over the house right now? 

Hockey players are weird. Their friendships and circles and how they overlap are even weirder. 

Amelie Fishel 

that’s a lotta boys 

Jack Hughes 

yeah and that’s not even all of them 

luke mentioned that you’re nearby and they’re kinda harping on me to get you to come over 

i also just wanna see you 

“You should go,” Amelie jumps out of her seat. Luckily, Ruth isn’t directly behind her. She doesn’t particularly want to be nursing her grandma’s injuries. 

“Don’t eavesdrop on my conversations, Grandma.”

“You should go,” Ruth repeats. “Those boys were sweet and polite over dinner. And you know their friends?”

“Yeah. Photographed quite a few of them at college throughout the years.”

“Then you should go.”

“Aren’t we about to go to lunch with some of your friends?”

Ruth tuts. “They’d perfectly understand you ditching us old gossips to hang out with your friends.”

“I’m going to lunch with you. I haven’t seen them in awhile either and I like your friends,” Amelie says firmly. One look from Ruth and Amelie relents. “I’ll go see the guys after dinner. If they even want me.”

Amelie Fishel 

won’t be around until after dinner

dunno if that changes your invite

Jack Hughes 

see you after dinner 🫡

i’ll try to hold off your fan club in the meantime 

(As Amelie goes upstairs to change, Ruth chuckles to herself. She remembers the middle Hughes brother unable to keep his eyes off Amelie at dinner that night.)

After dinner comes, and she shuffles through her dressers before reminding herself that it doesn’t matter what she wears. She throws on her favorite pair of jean shorts and tosses on a Stanford sweatshirt she stole from Charlotte ages ago. She grabs her tote bag, kisses her grandparents goodbye and pats Susie on the head before walking out the door. 

As she approaches the Hughes home, she rolls her eyes at all the cars parked in their driveway and lining down the street. Exactly how many people are here? 

She hears voices coming from the back and decides to forgo the front door and paddles over through their side yard into the back. Amelie pauses at the sight, taking in what must be at least ten people by the firepit. She tries to be discreet, figuring out where or who she should head to first. But a voice calling out loudly stops her. 

“Mimi!” Before she knows it, Adam Fantilli crashes into her body. She grunts into his chest as he lifts her up. 

“Call me that one more time and you won’t have a season to get back to in Columbus.”

Gavin chuckles from behind Adam, before reaching out for his much tamer hug. Good. “Nice to know some things don’t change.”

She huffs, but her heart does feel lighter. “I saw you, like, three months ago, Brinds. No one changes that much in three months.” She lets the two boys each swing an arm around her shoulders and gets smushed in the middle, both simultaneously talking her ear off. She’s not really catching what they say, and she thinks they don’t actually care, but it’s nice to be around them again. Really nice. Familiar. 

She’s led to the fire, and feels her smile grow as Nick Blankenburg, Brendan Brisson and Matty Beniers all bounce over and give her enthusiastic hugs and greetings. God, it’s been so long since she’s seen them. Even though she was younger and more naive when photographing them her freshman year, they were on her first roster. And there’s always something special about the first one.

“The fact that you decided to stick around the boys for four years says a lot,” Nick says with a smile. “Did you like them as much as the guys during your first year though?”

“You never forget your first!” Matty chimes in and Brendan throws his head back in laughter. Amelie’s sick of them already, rolling her eyes as she greets Luke with a tight side hug. 

She beams at Ethan, whose smile is just as big. “Hi Eddy.”

“Hey Ami,” She lets out a laugh as the smiley Canadian smothers her in a hug. “I didn’t think I’d be seeing you so soon. I’ve missed you.”

“Me neither,” she mumbles into his chest before pulling away. “Missed you too.”

“Well, we obviously know who the favorite is.” Someone pipes in and her eyes track toward the voice. This guy definitely didn’t go to Michigan, but has one of the most contagious smiles she’s ever seen. “I’m Trevor. Friend of Jack’s. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

Ah, yes. She remembers Jack mentioning him a few times. “Nice to meet you, Trevor.” She turns to the last person she doesn’t know. Dark brown, curly hair and pouty lips. “You must be Alex.”

Alex’s eyebrows shoot up and Amelie kinda likes that he doesn’t hide his surprise. “Yeah. Jack talk about me too?”

“Yeah. Mostly Ellen though. Said that you’re the favorite.” Alex grins as Trevor howls in laughter. 

“He is,” Jack grumbles from behind her. “Even to this day, It’s quite annoying.” Jack shoots her a quick smile and Amelie smiles back before thanking Quinn quietly as he passes her a cider. 

She looks around to see that all of the guys have beer in their hands. She had mentioned off the cuff on the boat that she hates beer. She’s touched that they remembered. She takes a seat in one of the adirondack chairs, Jack on one side and Adam on her other. 

“I saw Luke’s story. How was golfing?”

“Good,” Quinn says. 

“You a golfer, Mimi?”

Again, Amelie glares at the young Blue Jacket. “I think I’d rather do anything else.”

Brendan chuckles. “I recognize that glare. I’ve almost missed it.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Amelie says, sipping her drink and wrapping her arms around herself. Jack tosses the large blanket over both their legs and she nudges his foot with hers as a thank you. 

The boys are loud and talk over each other and Amelie can’t remember the last time she’s rolled her eyes this much. She takes the bag of chips that Ethan passes her and finishes it off, much to Luke’s dismay. And of course, true to herself, she takes out her camera to snap a few photos. As the sky darkens and fire blazes, Amelie feels warm, chiming in occasionally when she sees fit but mostly listening. 

Amelie’s attention is pulled back to the present with Ethan asking her a question. “You mentioned at the end of the season that you were looking at jobs with some different sports leagues.” She doesn’t remember telling him that, but if there’s anyone she would tell, it would be him. “Did any of that, you know, go anywhere?”

Amelie smiles. “I’m in the final stages of, uh, figuring out something with the NHL.”

Jack’s eyes widen. “No US Soccer anymore?”

Amelie shrugs. “Maybe in the future. But no, not right now. Least not full-time.”

“Wait,” Ethan pushes with wide, excited eyes. “Ami. Are you gonna be-”

“I don’t wanna jinx it,” Amelie says with her hand up, but a smile peeks through. “It’s not a sure thing yet. They’re trying to figure out with what team or area of the country. Or that’s what they told me.”

Cheers erupt and she kinda wants to hide her face behind her hands. Popcorn is thrown at her and she swats it away. She turns to look at Jack, who smiles and picks a kernel out of her hair. 

It’s a beautiful smile. She wishes she saw it more often, instead of the half smirk half smile he always does. 

“Any chance you’d be in Jersey?” Luke asks as Ethan grins and Jack nudges her elbow.

“Columbus also works!” Adam calls out, high-fiving Nick and Gavin.

“California sunshine is nice,” Trevor sings out. 

“Just the west coast in general,” Quinn adds as Brendan, Alex and Matty all nod emphatically. 

“Your pitches all need some work,” Amelie snorts, before shrugging. “Honestly, I’ll be fine anywhere. Just not Michigan. I need to get out of here.” Everyone laughs, but she catches Jack’s inquisitive look. She quickly lets herself get dragged into a conversation with Quinn, Nick and Adam instead. 

She eyes the pool table through the window of the sunroom and Jack catches her, challenging her to a game. She, along with Jack, Adam and Ethan decide to go in for a quick game. They split up into teams, her and Jack on one, Adam and Ethan on the other.

She eyes the chalkboard and grimaces at Jack’s less-than-desirable record. “Do I really want you on my team?”

Jack follows her eyeline and rolls his eyes. “Ignore that.”

“Kinda hard to,” she squints. “Damn, I should’ve dragged Quinn in here.” Jack pouts as Ethan snickers, her waving at Adam to break. 

What Amelie failed to voice when she saw the pool table is that she is pretty damn good at pool. During the few times she went out in college, it’s how she and her friends liked to get free drinks. She would challenge a few of her overconfident guy friends or acquaintances and bet a free drink or two. Though actually, she remembers she played against Adam at least once and absolutely destroyed him. She’s surprised and amused that he doesn’t remember, if his wide eyed indignation at her sinking a seemingly-impossible shot says anything, much to Jack’s amusement. 

“Holy shit,” Jack says, impressed. “Who taught you to play? Can you give me their number?”

Amelie shrugs with a small smirk, watching Adam take his turn. “There was a diner I grew up nearby that had a table. I honestly can’t remember who taught me. I just played against my sisters a lot.”

“We should’ve placed a bet on this. You two didn’t know about this secret talent?” Jack says, directing the question to the former Wolverines. 

“Yeah, Adam,” she eggs on, laughing as his shot misses. “You should remember. I got you and Truscott to buy me a drink out of it once.” Adam curses in realization as Ethan cackles. 

“Wait, I remember that,” Ethan says. “I was even shocked that you were out and about, considering all the times you turned our invites down. Imagine me hearing that not only are you out, you also just single handedly took down the two best pool players on the team.” 

“Turning down invites to parties, huh?” Jack chuckles.  

Amelie rolls her eyes, watching Jack take his shot. “No. They were all just up in my business when I was trying to be professional.”

Ethan scoffs. “Professional? Yeah, okay.”

“Professional,” Amelie repeats. “I was working for you guys, technically.”

“Ew, no you weren’t,” Adam says, crinkling his nose. “Don’t say that. God. You were just as much part of the team as we were.”

“I don’t know about that,” she watches Jack mess up his shot and just rolls her eyes. “All I did was take pictures of you all.”

“Part of the team,” Ethan emphasizes, also messing up his shot. God, Amelie thinks. These boys are bad at pool. “Stop pretending we weren’t your favorites to photograph.”

“Yeah, admit it!” Adam chimes in. “You were easier on me when grading papers too.”

“I was absolutely not,” she says. “The fact that you treated pre-game as office hours made me grade you harder.” They just wave her off and Amelie huffs. 

“Look where being professional got you,” Ethan smirks. “Some fun friendships, eh?” She smacks his shoulder. 

“You’re lucky I like you,” Amelie warns, before sinking in the 8-ball with a smirk. Adam and Ethan groan as Jack cheers, placing an overzealous kiss on her cheek before going to the chalkboard. “You’re welcome for the win.”

When the fire starts to die out and more people start yawning an hour later, Amelie decides to call it a night. She gives everybody a hug, promising more than once that she’ll see everyone at least one more time before they leave in five days. Jack offers to walk her home and she doesn’t even bother fighting. 

They start walking. Amelie flips her hood up and Jack shoves his hands in the pockets of his shorts. “You lied to me.”

She furrows her eyebrows. “Huh?”

“Said the guys were just nice to you. They love you.”

“I don’t know about that.”

“And you love them.”

Amelie stares down at her shoes with a shrug. “Like I said, they’re good guys.” She looks back up and tugs at his sweatshirt sleeve. “Thanks for the invite.”

“Of course.” Jack says. “You’re always welcome.”

“I don’t think you mean that.”

“I never say things I don’t mean,” he says lightly. “Waste of time and energy.”

Amelie swallows, Jack’s woody cologne filtering through her nose and all of a sudden, it feels like he’s too close, but she can’t pull herself away. “Thank you though. Seriously. You’re right. I-I’ve missed them.” 

She lets him pull her into a side hug and doesn’t say anything when he keeps his arm swung around her shoulder. “Do you have any plans tomorrow?”

Amelie chuckles. “What are you thinking?”

“Well, turns out some of the guys want a rematch because they’re mad I beat their asses so we’re golfing again tomorrow, but we’re starting early.”

“I’m not going golfing. Even the best bribe couldn’t bring me out there.”

“I’m not asking you to come golfing,” Jack laughs. “It’s just, contrary to what you may believe, I’m kinda annoying in the morning and need caffeine and fuel to deal with that many people, especially before going on the course.”

“Jack, what are you-”

“Do you wanna grab breakfast tomorrow? Just the two of us? Those fuckers never get up in time.”

“So you’re gonna let them starve?”

“They can figure themselves out.”

They stop at her front door and she turns around. Him being on the step below causes them to be at the same height. “Sure.”

The left side of his lips quirk up. “Yeah?” 

“Yeah. Though subjecting me to your pre-caffeine self seems like you’re trying to sabotage me.”

He rolls his eyes. “Does 9 work?”

Despite herself, Amelie grins. “See you then.” She reaches behind her to twist the doorknob. “Thanks for walking me home. Goodnight Jack.”

“Goodnight.” 

She watches through the window until he walks out of sight. She then looks at the lone light still on in the kitchen and has an idea. 

day thirteen - jack

Jack’s not an idiot, despite what his brothers and teammates may tell you. He knows this isn’t a date. 

But it sure feels like one. 

Jack’s looking at the suitcase he probably should’ve fully unpacked by now, figuring out what to wear. It’s literally just breakfast with a girl he met not even two weeks ago, so he shouldn’t really care what he’s wearing. 

Breakfast. With a girl he met less than two weeks ago. A girl whose company he really, really enjoys. 

He shakes his head at himself, pulling out a black t-shirt and khaki shorts. He decides to clasp on a watch before he can overthink himself out of it. 

At 8:57, he quietly paddles downstairs and grabs the keys off the hook before jumping into his car. He barely pulls into her driveway before her front door opens. A smile spreads across his face at Amelie, her floral pink dress flying behind her as she rushes out, quickly checking she has what she needs in her tote bag before opening the car door. 

“Good morning,” he says. 

“Hey,” she breathes out. She scans him up and down really quickly. It makes him swallow. “You look nice.”

He backs out of the driveway. “You do too.” When he gets to look at her again, he notices the matching hair scarf hanging from her ponytail. “I like the thing in your hair. You look like a fairy.”

“A fairy?”

“Yeah.”

She blinks. “Oh. That’s…really nice, I think? Thank you.”

“Definitely a compliment.” He bites his lip to stop his smile from growing too wide. She hums along to the song on the radio and looks out the window. He rolls it down for her and watches her lean her elbows at the edge, her head peeking out. 

Jack has to drag his eyes back to focus on the road. The sight of Amelie sitting shotgun while he’s driving brings a feeling in his stomach he’s never felt before. At least not to this depth. 

She turns to him. “Where are we going?”

“Sunny Side Up right off Beecher Ave.”

She chuckles. “That’s Grandpa’s favorite place. We might catch him come in as we leave.”

He freezes a bit as he slows the car down with a stop at the light, at the thought of Stanley coming in to see him with his beloved granddaughter, both semi-dressed up on a Wednesday morning, just the two of them. 

When they arrive, he holds open the door for her, and breathes in the smells of coffee and eggs and everything good coming out of the kitchen of Sunny Side Up. The place is emptier than he expected, but he also knows the typical brunch crowd rolls in a bit later. The hostess tells them to sit wherever they like and he follows Amelie to a spot by the window. They barely slip into their seats before he hears a familiar scratchy yet comforting voice. 

“Amelie!” The woman then turns her head and doesn’t even hide her surprise as her grin grows. “And Jack Hughes. What a nice surprise.”

“Hey Sherry,” Jack nods with a grin.

He sees Amelie’s eyes light up, even if it’s subdued. “Hi Sherry.”

The older woman that Jack has seen here every summer since he moved here sets two menus down. She offers Jack a pointed look that looks awfully like his mother’s. “I haven’t seen you here this summer as often as past summers. You cheating on us with some other cafe?”

“I’m a loyal guy, Sherry,” he charms. “I would never.”

Sherry narrows her eyes, “Mmhmm. I’ll get you two some coffee while you decide what you want.”

Amelie nods and flashes a warm smile. “Thank you.” They watch Sherry scurry away. The sound of Amelie’s gentle laugh pulls his attention back to her. “You come here often, huh? Well, clearly not often enough this summer.”

“Hey, you can’t even say that,” Jack whines. “Clearly you come here often too.”

She shrugs, “Like I said, it’s Grandpa’s favorite place. I come here with him at least once a week.”

“Do you have any friends around the area?” Amelie’s eyebrows shoot up and Jack immediately backtracks. “Not that-I didn’t mean it like that. I just-”

Amelie snorts, leaning back in her seat. “Chill Jack. I know what you meant. The ones who are in Michigan aren’t close by and the rest are spread out across the country. I came to my grandparents’ knowing that I wouldn’t see a lot of my friends. Kinda purposeful on my end, in a way. But then Luke saw me walk Susie and now here we are.”

“Don’t pretend like you haven’t enjoyed our company.”

“It’s definitely made my summer more eventful.” Their coffees come and neither of them look at the menu before ordering. Jack orders the french toast with strawberries and blueberries and she gets the house omelet. Jack ignores the pointed look that Sherry gives both of them, because he’s right with her and kinda has no idea what to make of this but is trying to enjoy it while he can. 

He feels her nudge his feet under the table. He snaps his focus back to her as she nods to the cup of creamers next to him. “Pass me two?”

He nods, obliging. “Sugar?”

She shakes her head. “I’m good. Thanks.”

Jack watches her stir the creamer in before a sudden thought pops up. “Yesterday, when you said that you don���t care where you went as long as it wasn’t Michigan, what did you mean by that?”

Amelie, to her credit, doesn’t seem surprised by the sudden question. “Exactly what I said. It’s nothing against the Red Wings. I just need to get out of here.”

“Why?” 

She stares at him for a few seconds, and Jack gets nervous. Before he can take back the question, she answers. “When you haven’t really gotten the chance to travel or live anywhere your whole life and a job offers you to go anywhere, you take the chance.”

Jack nods slowly. He’s gotten to travel to a lot of places through hockey, but he still considers Michigan his home and often feels an urge to come back during the season — as much as he thoroughly enjoys living and playing in New Jersey. It’s hard for him to wrap his head around the fact that someone could want out of Michigan. 

She smiles and chuckles a bit suddenly. Jack raises an eyebrow in question. She just shakes her head. He thinks she’s adorable. “Sorry, I’m not laughing at you. I just thought of something.”

“Do share with the class.”

“I’ve been so excited at the prospect of leaving Michigan, but it’s so clear you and your brothers love it and I don’t know. It’s nice to be reminded of the good parts of this state.”

He shrugs, “I don’t know. I guess throughout the season I don’t really get to be around Quinn or my friends and family that often, so when all of us have the off-season, we all naturally gravitate towards home, which nowadays, is here.”

“You don’t have to defend yourself about why you like this state, Jack,” she says with a small chuckle. “I get it. My family’s technically all here too, so I can’t escape it completely.”

Their food arrives soon after and they spend a few silent minutes just digging in. He cuts a piece of his french toast for her and she in turn cuts him a portion of her omelet. He’s hoping that she’s not catching the fact that he can’t keep his eyes off of her. 

When they finish, Jack shoves his card into Sherry’s hand when she grabs the check, they’re walking out of the diner, full and content. The sun is beating down but not too hard that Jack feels gross. Hopefully it stays that way when he and the boys go out golfing in an hour. 

“Do you have a second to come inside?”

Jack’s eyebrows immediately shoot up his forehead, killing the engine. “Yeah. Why?”

“Just come inside,” Amelie rolls her eyes. “I’m not gonna kill you.”

“Reassuring,” he deadpans, following her through the front door and immediately bending down to pet Susie and prevent her from running out. He watches Amelie disappear into the kitchen for a moment before she comes back out with a tupperware container filled with…cookies?

“For you,” Amelie hands him the tupperware. “And the other guys.”

“What are these?”

“I kinda got a burst of energy after I came home last night and wanted to do something with my hands. You’re gonna tell me you guys are gonna turn down fresh cookies?”

“No,” he says, looking back at her. “Thank you.” 

She smiles. “You’re welcome.”

Jack opens his mouth and then closes it. He wants to ask why she made the cookies. Why she’s giving a large container of them to him and their friends. If it means anything.

Instead, he backs towards the door. “See you around?”

“Yeah,” she says. “Have fun golfing with the boys. I don’t want to hear a single thing about it.”

He laughs. “I won’t subject you to that. Promise.”

“I’ll hold you to it. And thanks for breakfast.”

“Of course.”

“Stop paying for me though.”

“Never.”

She playfully shoves him out the door with an eye roll. He thinks he could see that eye roll for the rest of his life and feel content.

day fifteen - amelie

As she’s pouring herself a second cup of coffee, she hears someone knocking on the front door. Ruth’s out walking Susie and Stanley’s out golfing with friends the day, so Amelie trudges over to the front door. 

It’s Quinn, in a Canucks sweatshirt and basketball shorts, his hands shoved into his pockets.

Amelie smiles easily, albeit confused. “Hey Quinn.”

“Morning.”

“What’s up?”

He shifts on his feet. “Are you busy?”

“Not really,” she opens the door wider for him to come in. “I was just editing some photos. Coffee?”

“Please.”

“Anything in it?

“A bit of milk if you have some.”

She hums, preparing his coffee and carefully sliding it over to him as he rests his forearms on the island. “Where are the rest of the guys?”

He shrugs. “Either asleep or just hanging out. We had a tough practice this morning.”

“And you decided to come here?” She teases. She doesn’t want him to think he’s not welcome, because she actually really likes Quinn, despite spending the least amount of time with him compared to his brothers. 

“Kinda wanted some peace and quiet, to be honest, which is hard to find in the house when there’s so many people,” he admits, before nodding to her open laptop. “You said you were editing photos? What for?”

“Partially to update my portfolio. Partially to brush up on my skills.” She moves the laptop so he can see it. Pulled up is a picture she took last year at a Michigan swim meet. “See how it’s a little too bright here?” She clicks on the dodge tool in the open Photoshop tab and quickly edits. “There.”

“Do you do this with every photo?”

“Sometimes I switch between different softwares, but it’s generally the same process. The big differences that I have to be aware of are lighting and composition when editing.”

Quinn nods. “This is sick. Like, super cool.”

She quickly saves her work before turning her full attention back to Quinn, smiling. “Thank you.”

“Do you have any photos you’ve taken of us the last few weeks?”

With that, Amelie scoots herself closer to him and slowly scrolls through a bunch of photos, starting from that day onto the boat and then to the fire the other night and other miscellaneous ones inbetween. Quinn lingers on a picture that’s one of her favorites, one that makes her smile everytime she sees it. It’s of Jack the night of the fire. The light from the fire is illuminating the front of his face while the dawn of the Michigan sky behind him casts him in a subtle light. 

He’s looking away from the camera — at Gavin, if she remembers correctly — in the middle of laughing. His hair is all tousled over his forehead, some loose strands going over his eyes. His blue eyes are bright and if she showed this photo to anyone who didn’t know Jack Hughes, she’s sure they would be able to hear his laughter anyways.

He looks radiant. Everything like the bright and intense first-overall draft pick he was projected to be. As she watches Quinn’s eyes flicker over the photo, she thinks there’s something incredibly intimate about the way the camera captures the middle Hughes brother. 

(“The subject of the camera makes up less than one percent of the photograph,” Professor Yang, one of her most trusted mentors said to her once. “The majority of the beauty of a photograph comes from the photographer themself and how they see the subject.“

It’s always at the most inconvenient times does Professor Yang’s voice ping through her head.)

She watches Quinn click through other photos, some edited, most of them raw. He makes small comments here and there asking about the mechanics of photography and how she knows when and what to shoot her lens at. She tries to explain in a way that would make sense to someone who knows little to nothing about photography and Quinn, to his credit, is keeping up the best he can. She goes to pour Quinn another round of coffee as Ruth comes back in through the side door, Susie trotting over to Quinn happily, who pets her. Ruth merely smiles as she’s sliding off her shoes at the sight of the eldest Hughes brother. 

“Good morning, Quinn.”

Quinn grins. “Good morning. Sorry for interrupting.”

Ruth waves him off, coming to kiss the top of Amelie’s head. “Not at all. I see Amelie here has offered you some coffee. Would you like some chocolate chip cookies? Also courtesy of Amelie.”

“Not on the meal plan, I’m sure,” Amelie comments dryly. 

Quinn laughs loudly. “No, but it is the summer.” He reaches into the container in Ruth’s hands. “Thank you. I actually had some of the ones you gave Jack last night. They’re really good.”

Amelie ignores the look she knows her grandmother is giving her. “Thanks. I could teach you how to make them, if you’d like. My, uh, an old friend of mine taught me a trick his mom taught him that make it extra gooey.”

She, again, ignores the look her grandmother is giving her. Quinn doesn’t need to know that old friend is her ex-boyfriend. 

(Humans are interesting in the way that they’re mosaics, made up of the pieces — people, in this case — they’ve encountered in their lives. Amelie hates what Cooper did to her, but she will never forget the methods he taught her about making the perfect chocolate chip cookie)

Quinn grins. “I’d love to know, actually. I’ve been wanting to figure out how to bake simple things to, like, bring to events and stuff. I should, right? Being captain and all.”

Amelie snorts as she starts getting ingredients. “If you say so.”

Quinn and Ruth start chatting inbetween Amelie telling Quinn what to do. She can tell her grandmother is absolutely charmed by Quinn’s politeness and overall presence. And to be honest, she is as well.  

It makes sense that he’s captain, in the way he speaks, listens and guides. Amelie thinks if she were on a sports team, she’d ride into battle with, for and alongside him. 

Quinn spills a bit of flour on the counter and Amelie just snorts, waving away his apologies and telling him to crack the eggs. She just eyes him to make sure he isn’t fucking that up while listening to Ruth talk about something Charlotte told her on a call the other day. 

“You know,” Ruth starts and Amelie immediately doesn’t like where her tone is going. “My granddaughters are pretty great people, present company included. Colette’s engaged, but Charlotte’s single.”

Amelie bursts out in laughter as Quinn starts blinking, no doubt trying to think quickly about how to respond to that. “Grandma, at least try to be subtle about it.”

“Why? I’m too old for that.”

“With all love, I don’t think Quinn is Char’s type. Char only dates assholes, remember?”

Quinn laughs in surprise as Ruth taps her chin with a small smile. “I suppose that’s true. The boy she brought back last summer wasn’t too bad.”

“He told me photography wasn’t a real career and that I was wasting my time,” Amelie deadpans as the oven beeps. She nods at Quinn to put in the trays. “I get that he’s in academia like Char, but what a shitty take.”

“Maybe introducing Quinn to her will break her streak,” Ruth suggests. 

Amelie rolls her eyes to humor her. “How do you even know if Quinn is single?”

Ruth eyes him. “Are you?”

Quinn clears his throat, “I am. Newly single though.” 

Amelie didn’t know that, and it’s not her place to pry. She grimaces as she pulls him into a side hug. “That settles it, then. I’m keeping Quinn to myself.” Luckily, that gets him to smile.  

Just as the oven beeps and Ruth moves to start preparing lasagna, (“Sit down, Quinn. You’re not going anywhere.” Ruth had said with a firm voice as Quinn was trying to leave, not wanting to intrude for lunch), the doorbell rings. Amelie blinks. She has a feeling she knows who’s on the other side of the door. 

It’s a slightly smaller group than the night by the fire. Jack, Luke, Adam, Ethan, Alex and the sweet smile of a guy who wasn’t here last time. But Jack has shown her enough pictures and he’s talked about Cole Caufield enough that Amelie is 99% sure it’s him. 

“Hey Mimi!” 

“Don’t call me that,” she automatically responds to Adam. “You all here for lunch?”

“Ruth invited us,” Luke pipes up. Well, that explains why she was taking out such a large portion of lasagna sheets. “Susie saw Jack getting the mail and kinda mauled him. 

“Of course she did,” Amelie steps aside as one by one, they greet her with a quick hug. She hugs Cole for a bit longer. “Cole, right? It’s nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you too,” Cole beams. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

She chuckles softly as they follow everyone else. She tries to ignore Jack behind them, knowing he’s listening in. “Anything Eddy says about me is 100% true. The others you can take with a grain of salt.”

“Even when Jack tells me he thinks you’re one of the prettiest and talented people he’s ever met?” 

Amelie’s eyebrows jump up as she looks at Jack, who doesn’t even look ashamed. He even shoots her a quick wink and she’s for sure blushing. She turns back to Cole with a shy grin. “I don’t know about that.”

They walk towards the kitchen, where Ruth is shooing everyone out with the plate of cookies Amelie and Quinn just made. Amelie leads them all outside, squinting against the sun as she quickly grabs a few chairs so everyone has a place to sit. She leans her head on her chin as she focuses on what seems a continuation of a previous conversation about relationships, or lack thereof. She rolls her eyes. Typical. She’s honestly surprised this didn’t come up at the fire the other night in the Hughes backyard. 

She munches on a cookie and merely smiles as Jack finds his way to the seat next to hers. He nudges her knee with hers and she bumps him back.

“Hey,” he says softly so that only she can hear him. 

“Hi.”

“I like your bow. You look pretty.”

Amelie reaches up to touch the black sheer bow clipped atop her ponytail. “Thank you. Sorry Suz attacked you earlier.”

Jack shrugs, the sunshine painting his cheeks an endearing rosy pink. “Gonna get lunch out of it, aren’t I?”

“You flash your smile at Grandma and I’m pretty sure she’d bake you a cake everyday.”

He only smirks before they both tune back into the conversation. Though from where Jack is sitting, Amelie has a perfect peripheral view of him. He has a Yankees cap on backwards, his curls peeking out at the ends. His summer tan is obvious against the white t-shirt he’s wearing with light-washed jeans. 

It’s not the first time that Amelie has noticed how attractive he is. It’s the first time that she has to swallow and force herself to focus on Adam’s voice because she wants to…kiss him. Shit, she really wants to kiss Jack Hughes. 

Horrible.

“What do you think, Amelie?” Her head whips at the sound of Luke’s voice. 

“What are we talking about?”

Luke smirks and Amelie wants to slap him. “Past relationships, to sum it up. Mostly Adam’s.” And Quinn’s, Amelie fills in in her head, because it’s true, even if it’s unspoken. 

“What about them?” 

The air suddenly feels a bit heavy, the most solemn it’s been since Luke saw her at the end of his driveway two weeks ago. 

“Do you think it’s a thing to lose feelings for someone? Like is it real?”

Some sort of noise erupts out of her mouth before she can stop it. If the guys weren’t intrigued before, they are now, as they fall silent, waiting for her next words. She chooses her next words carefully. 

“I think it’s more of an excuse that people use when they don’t want to justify or dig into the real reason why they’re feeling the way they are.” Someone whistles. She thinks it’s Alex, but she’s not 100% sure. Amelie winces. “Sorry, did I just attack someone?”

“Just my ex,” Adam says. 

“Oh good. No one here then.” Amelie offers him a sympathetic look. “I’m sorry though. I know how much that sucks to hear.”

“It does.”

“I had to learn that it’s rarely your fault that they supposedly lost feelings. It took me awhile to figure that out, but I did.” She turns to Adam and tries to give him a reassuring smile. “It sucks. Agonizing over everything you could’ve done better and asking yourself why you weren’t enough for them to stick around. At least that’s how it was for me.”

“That’s…kinda exactly how it felt,” Adam admits. “Feels, even now, sometimes.”

Amelie shrugs. “There’s no set timeline for the process of moving on. And it ebbs and flows too. Also no fault in that.”

“You seem awfully knowledgeable about breakups,” Luke states. Amelie catches Ethan’s subtle but pointed glance. How much does she want to tell them about that part of her life? 

“A story for another time,” she says with a dry smile. Cooper Volt and his douchebag ways are not a conversation she wants to have before noon. Or really ever. “But I’m serious, Adam. And whoever else needs to hear it. Feelings can shift and feel and look different overtime, but losing them completely? I don’t know. It’s heartbreaking to hear from someone who used to be such a big part of your life.”

“Commitment is scary,” Cole pipes up. “And it’s hard. Especially, I feel like, with what we do.”

It’s like getting a bucket of ice cold water dumped on her when she suddenly remembers who exactly she’s surrounded by. 

“Do you even want commitment?” Amelie blinks. “Sorry, that’s harsh. That’s not fair of me to ask.”

“It’s a fair question though, I think.” Jack says. Amelie suddenly feels her hands clam up. “I mean, for me at least, I think it’s changed throughout the years. You know, at the start, like five years ago, when it was still chaotic and still an adjustment period, a relationship probably wasn’t on my mind.”

“But now?” Cole presses. 

Jack shrugs. “I think so. But you can’t force it, you know?”

“A relationship would do you well, Jacky.” Luke says, taking a sip of his water. “Don’t know who’d want to deal with you though.” Jack throws his half-filled water bottle at him and Luke squeaks as everyone laughs. Jack nudges Amelie’s knee with a light smile and she has absolutely no idea what to make of that. 

“I didn’t know you were dating someone, Adam,” Amelie comments.

Adam shrugs. “It was for most of last season. Met her through a mutual friend of a mutual friend. I thought it was going well. Clearly it didn’t work out.” 

“But you tried your best?”

“Of course I did. Well, what I thought was best at the time.”

“Then that’s all you can do,” Amelie curls up in her chair. “Sometimes our best isn’t enough. It sucks to hear, but it’s true. And that’s not on you.” She avidly avoids Jack’s eyes that she can feel boring into the side of her head. She should probably stop talking before she reveals more than she wants to. 

Luckily, the conversation steers elsewhere with courtesy to Jack. “Well, what do you look for in someone, Amelie?”

Amelie snorts. “You trying to matchmake for me, Hughes?”

“Maybe.”

Everyone laughs and she puts her chin on her hands in thought. “I mean, tough question.”

“One thing. That shouldn’t be hard.”

“It’s not. Just give me a minute to think. I wasn’t prepared to be talking about our love lives today.” Amelie bites her lip, staring out at the lake in thought. But in reality, it’s an easy answer. “I think, honestly, the biggest thing for me is someone who’s just, kind. Kind to the point where they care about the people around them and how they treat others and the world and….I don’t know. It sounds dumb.”

“It’s not,” Jack says. “Being kind and considerate is underrated, I think. It’s hard to find people like that.”

“Or maybe you’re not looking in the right place,” Alex adds.

“That too.”

Amelie summons some courage. “Well, I’ll flip the question back to you then. And anyone else who wants to answer. What’s one thing you look for in a partner?”

It’s like Jack makes sure she doesn’t break eye contact before answering. “Honestly? Someone I can have fun with and feel completely comfortable around. Which I know isn’t a real trait, but I think if I feel like I don’t have to pretend at all with somebody then they’re worth keeping in my life.”

“That’s quite sweet, Rowdy,” Quinn comments, Jack just shrugs, her eyes still on hers. 

Okay, yeah. Amelie needs space. Or water. Or three shots of vodka. 

The universe listens to her, because Ruth is suddenly calling them all in. Amelie bolts out of her seat and rushes in to help set up utensils. Thankfully, no one outwardly calls her out on it as they all trickle in after her. The conversation shifts to easier topics, and she relishes in being more of an observer than a contributor. 

Along with the delicious lasagna, Ruth somehow found time to make some brownies which Amelie is almost sure is not allowed in any of their diet plans. Nonetheless, she watches them devour the gooey treats and shower Ruth in praise. She herself has one before standing up to put dishes away. She and her grandmother stop any of them, either with their eyes or words, from getting up and they all reluctantly sink in their seats and continue their conversations. Ruth asked them about going to Michigan a few minutes ago and they’re still on that, with Cole and Alex talking up Wisconsin even though no one asked. 

Amelie’s putting the last dish in the dishwasher when someone’s voice in the kitchen causes her to yelp in surprise. She whips around to see Jack’s wince. “Jesus, Jack. Warn a girl next time.”

“Sorry,” he comes around the counter. “I just wanted to see if you needed any help, but it seems like you got it covered.”

“Grandma let you get away?”

“I might have told her I was gonna use the bathroom,” he admits. 

Amelie snorts, shutting the dishwasher. “Why lie?”

“I wanted to see you without everyone’s eyes on us.”

When someone just says that, so honestly, almost rushed out as if he wasn’t thinking of saying it in the first place but it just slipped out, how is she supposed to react, really?

She resorts to what she knows best. Apathy. “Well, here I am.”

“Here you are. Quinn told me you taught him how to make those cookies.”

“I did,” a smile peeks out at that. “He did pretty well. And we made a lot, so please take them with you when you guys leave.”

“Kicking us out so soon?”

“No,” she sighs. “But as much as she’s gonna pretend not to, Grandma doesn’t have as much energy anymore, so I will at some point in the near future gently kick all of you out so she can rest.”

“No worries,” Jack says. “We have plans to head out on the boat anyways. You wanna join?”

She actually does want to, but she already had her own plans to have a day for herself, and those days are important. “I think I’m good. I’ll leave you boys to it. But thank you for the offer.”

“Anytime.” They’re practically touching now, but Amelie doesn’t mind. She doesn’t ever feel like Jack is encroaching on her space. “Earlier, outside, when we were talking about relationships…”

“What about them?”

If he catches her clipped tone, he doesn’t take note. Instead, he tilts his head to the side in curiosity. “You mentioned wanting someone that’s kind.”

“I did.”

“A bit of a low bar, no?”

She scoffs, leaning her back against the kitchen counter. She crosses her arms and looks him straight in the eye. “Well, maybe I’ve just dated some shitty people.”

He holds the eye contact steady. She’s not sure why it surprises her. “Maybe you have.”

Despite herself, she’s amused. “You’re awfully nosy sometimes, you know that?”

“Not the first time I’ve heard it.”

“Does it usually work for you? Being nosy?”

“I call it just being interested.”

She swallows, deciding if she wants to push. She takes note of the voices in the other room. If she wants to push, she needs to do it fast. 

Amelie’s 99% sure this is where her and Jack are the most alike. They’re stubborn and can never back down from a challenge. 

She steps even closer to him where she thinks she catches a whiff of his deodorant. Jack’s eyes are still trained on her, passive, but with something in them that she can’t quite read. “I did, by the way.”

“Hm?”

“Date someone shitty.”

“I’m sorry about that.” He sounds sincere about it. 

“Not your fault.”

“Not yours either.”

She chuckles, “Debatable.”

“Nah,” a smile curls at his lips and she thinks it’s beautiful. “Don’t think you’ve done anything wrong in your life.”

“Does the charm usually work for you?”

He lets out a loud laugh. The sound of it spreads warmth on her skin. “You tell me.”

Oh. That’s a challenge if Amelie’s ever heard one. But even with his close proximity, this building tension of sorts that’s been present ever since they’ve met and his watchful but kind eyes, waiting for the next move, she’s still not sure. 

Fuck it. 

She kisses him anyway. 

Jack responds immediately, his hands finding a home on her hips in a way that has her smiling into his lips. She thinks he’s smiling too, but she pulls away too quickly to really know. He is grinning when she pulls away though, a sparkle in his eye she hasn’t seen quite yet.

He pouts playfully and she wants to kiss him again. But she restrains herself and glares at him instead. “What’s the pout for?”

“What’s the glare for?” He shoots back, squeezing her hips lightly. “You kissed me yet I feel like you’re about to accuse me of killing Suzie.”

“Suzie would probably kill you first,” she replies absentmindedly, before stepping away. Mostly so she doesn’t lose control again and kiss him. 

Amelie might be starting to question her decision, but Jack’s smile is easy. Light. “You gonna let me kiss you again?”

She snorts, but it’s more fond than anything. “Next time.”

He sticks his bottom lip out in displeasure, but he backs away. “I’m holding you to that.” 

She follows him back to the kitchen with a light pep in her step paired with an alarm bell in her mind.

day twenty - jack

Jack automatically smiles when Clementine Sandoval’s face appears on his phone screen. “Hey Clee.”

“Jacky!” She exclaims. “You look tan.”

He gasps in delight. “Really? Thank you.”

His pseudo-older sister rolls her eyes, “Nevermind. I take it back. How are you? What’s up? How’s Michigan? Where are Q and Lukey?”

He chuckles at her onslaught of questions, a pang of guilt in his heart because he hasn’t called her that much since he left New Jersey mid-June. To be fair, he didn’t want to interrupt her trip to visit her new boyfriend in Switzerland — Jack still has to remind himself sometimes that his captain is dating someone who he’s considered a sister ever since he can remember. He loves it, but the fact that Nico could basically become his brother-in-law is a fact he still hasn’t wrapped his head around.

But that pang of guilt washes away quickly, like it always does, as he looks at her warm smile. “I’m good. Michigan’s great. Quinn’s out getting groceries and Luke’s probably still napping. Are you busy?”

“Not at all. I’m just making dinner. I actually do miss you guys at the apartment a lot.”

Jack grins. “We miss you a lot too, Clee. Wish you were here.”

“So what’s up?”

“Hm?”

“You’re chewing on your drawstrings. You only do that when something’s on your mind.”

He lets the drawstrings fall from his mouth as he narrows his eyes. “How do you know that?”

She snorts, “Because I know you, Jack. What’s going on?”

The sound of her sink water running fills the air as Jack takes a deep breath. “I met a girl.”

He snickers as Clementine, with her back towards the camera, freezes. Slowly, she turns back around. “You met a girl?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay,” she starts chopping some garlic. “Tell me about her.”

“Her name’s Amelie. She’s a year younger than me. Just graduated from Michigan. She knows Luke, actually, used to photograph the hockey games.”

“She knows Luke?”

“Yeah. Her grandparents just bought a place two houses down from us and she was walking the dog one day and…yeah.”

Clementine hums, clearing the chopped garlic off her knife and into a small bowl. “What’s she like?”

“She’s a bit quieter, but quick and sarcastic as hell when you get to know her. She’s creative, because, you know, photographer. She’s really pretty. Hang on, I’ll send you a picture,” Jack does just that, sending one he took of her and Adam the other night, waiting for Clementine to look at it before he continues. “She’s always saying something really interesting and cool. I don’t know. We’ve been hanging out a lot the last two weeks and she’s just, really great.”

“You met two weeks ago?”

“More or less.” Jack bites his lip, trying to read the abnormally-unreadable look on her face. “What?”

“Nothing. She just graduated? Any plans after post-grad?”

“Said she’s talking to a few NHL teams for a photographer gig.”

Her eyebrows shoot up. “For real?”

“Yup.”

“Damn,” Clementine says. “That’s awesome. So what? You like her?”

“I think so?”

“It’s a yes or no question.”

“Fine. Yes. I do.”

She smirks. “That wasn’t so hard, was it now?” Jack glares at his phone as she giggles. “Okay. Does she like you back?”

“She kissed me the other day.”

“Oh,” Clementine’s eyes sparkle and Jack feels bashful for some reason. “Did she now? So she must.”

“Hopefully.”

She gives him a look. “Jack.”

“What?”

“You’re being annoying on purpose.”

“I’m not being annoying,” Jack responds instinctively. Okay, maybe he is. “I just, I don’t know. I haven’t felt like this in awhile. Maybe ever.”

“Felt like what, exactly?”

And this is why Jack called the older brunette. She pushes him in a way that isn’t overbearing, but just the right amount where she’s not gonna take getting brushed off. Sometimes, Jack thinks he gets away with brushing things off too easily. Blame it on growing up with two brothers. Luckily, Clementine doesn’t let that happen. 

“Felt this excited about someone.”

“That’s a good thing, Jack.” She says. 

“Yeah.” Suddenly, it’s like a dam breaks. He hasn’t really talked to anyone about how exactly he feels about Amelie yet. “She’s…..I think I really like her, Clee. Like, I just want to be around her all the time. When I’m around her, I just, I don’t know. I can’t stop smiling. 

“She must be some girl.”

“She is,” he responds confidently. 

“So now what? You two have kissed. What’s next? Labels or no?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know.”

“No. I don’t.” Silence. Clementine stops the movement on her end and looks at Jack. He swallows. It’s the kind of look that she only pulls out when she’s about to say something he might not want to hear. “What?” He says defensively. 

“Nothing. Well, that’s not true. It’s okay to not know. You guys literally just met. Really. Just…be careful. I’m sure she’s lovely, but I don’t..you seem to really like her. I’d hate to see you get hurt over this.”

“I won’t,” Jack says confidently. “Clee, you know me. I don’t get my heart broken.”

“You also don’t get like this about girls,” Clementine points out. “And you know how I know that? You’ve known Amelie for two weeks and you’re already telling me about her. It took you three months for you to even mention to me that you had a girlfriend last time. Just…be careful, okay? You’re only in Michigan for so much longer.”

“I will,” Jack says. 

Clementine only nods, before they switch the conversation back to her trip to Switzerland. But the rest of the conversation, Jack can’t help but keep seeing Clementine’s worried look in her mind. 

Clementine’s usually right. He hopes she’s wrong this time. 

day twenty three - amelie

Amelie takes a deep breath before accepting a good luck hug from her grandparents and shutting the front door. She smiles at the sight of Jack’s car and slides over into his passenger seat with practiced ease. 

“You really didn’t have to do this.”

“We’re literally going to the same place.”

“Still.”

Jack backs out of her driveway with an easy smile. “You nervous?”

Like, yeah. But she shrugs. “Even if I am, nothing I can do about it now.”

“You’ll get the job,” he says confidently. “I know it.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” she chuckles. “Where are Quinn and Luke? Don’t you all practice together?”

“Yeah. I forced them to take another car.”

“You didn’t have to kick them out.”

“I think I did.” She just gives him a look. Jack smiles easily. “Don’t worry about it. Remind me of the address again?”

She wordlessly connects her phone to his car and puts in the address of the cafe she’s meeting Heather at. 47 minute drive and she has to be there at 10 a.m. sharp. She’ll have around ten minutes to spare. 

It’s clear they both woke up not long ago, content to spend most of the drive in comfortable silence with her occasional humming to whatever song she has playing from her phone. It’s mostly softer tunes to accompany the earlier hour, Maggie Rogers, Lizzy McAlpine and Noah Kahan appearing the most frequently. She’s 99% sure this isn’t close to Jack’s style of music at all, but he doesn’t seem to mind. 

As he turns off the highway, she takes a deep breath, smoothing down her silk navy short-sleeved blouse she’s deemed her good-luck shirt — she wore it during her first interview with the NHL months ago. Luckily, it’s different people this time. 

“I’m serious,” Jack says. “You’re gonna be great and you’re gonna get that job and get the fuck out of Michigan.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I am.” They pull up to the cafe and she turns to face him with a grateful smile. “Thank you for driving me.”

“I’ll come by as soon as practice is done.”

She waves him off. “Take your time.”

He leans in to kiss her cheek sweetly. “Good luck. You’re gonna kill it.”

Her stomach is flipping now for a whole different reason. She quickly opens the passenger door and looks at Jack’s sweet smile one more time before shutting it. 

The interview goes…so well. So well that she has a job by the end of it, with a promised contract being sent to her email within the next hour. But she barely has to answer any questions before they’re asking her if she’ll take it. It catches Amelie by complete shock and happiness that it takes so much for her to keep her cool in front of Josh, her possible future manager, and Sasha, the recruiter she’s been in touch with this whole time. 

All of her hard work has accounted for something? She wants to pinch herself as she shakes both of their hands and watches them walk out. 

But something settles in her stomach when she looks down at the notes she took. In her cursive-like handwriting. 

Main coverage teams: Rangers, Islanders, Flyers, Devils 

Staring at the last word on the page, she swallows. The Devils. She’s gonna be photographing Jack. 

Realistically, she knew that this always would’ve been a possibility. But she never let herself entertain the idea. 

But now it’s real. And it’s terrifying. And she kissed Jack eight days ago. She wants to throw up.

With shaky hands, she texts Jack that she’s done. He doesn’t respond right away so she takes a deep breath, tapping her fingers against her coffee cup, her brain going a million miles an hour. 

She’s responding to her family’s texts before Jack’s name flashes through with the alert of a call. “Hello?”

“Well?” Jack’s voice echoes through her ears. “Did you get it?”

“Come pick me up and find out,” she tries to tease. She hopes he can’t detect her shaky voice over the phone.

“Amelie,” he whines. “Come on. You can’t leave me hanging like that.”

She lets out a quiet chuckle. “Do you think I’d be this happy if I didn’t get it?”

A pause. And then, “Let’s fucking go, baby! I knew you had it in the bag.”

“Come pick me up so I can tell you more about it,” she mutters 

“You got it.” 

11 minutes later, she sees Jack park by the curb and she walks out of the cafe, willing her hands to stop sweating. He quickly comes around the car and gives her a giant hug. She laughs as he lifts her up. 

“So,” he sings as he starts the engine. “Do you know with what team? Or teams?”

Amelie hopes her poker face is intact. “Actually, not yet. That’s the only thing they haven’t fully settled on yet. And I might not know until, like, a month before I start.”

He tuts. “That’s a bit annoying. They just expect you to move to wherever on such short notice?”

She swallows roughly, hoping he doesn’t notice. “I guess. They said they can help me find housing though, which is helpful.”

He hums, before shaking her thigh with a laugh. “Amelie. This is amazing. You should be so proud of yourself.”

“Thanks, Jack.” Instead of turning onto the highway, Jack takes a right. “Where are we going?”

“Do you have anywhere else to be today?”

“Not until like, 4.”

“Perfect.”

She has to laugh out loud when the USA Hockey arena comes into view. “You forget something?”

“No,” he says simply. “Have you ever skated before?”

“I photographed your younger brother at Michigan.”

“But that doesn’t mean you’ve skated.” 

Fair. “I have. I’m not very good though.”

He kills the engine and flashes her a charming smile. “Come on. To celebrate.”

Amelie lets Jack charm the person working the rentals and watches him tie the skates on her feet, smiling softly as he does it carefully, making sure they’re tight enough. She takes his hand as she steps onto the ice, wobbling a bit but quickly gaining her balance. There’s no one else at this particular rink, which she’s thankful for. People would have questions, and she doesn’t have any of the answers. 

She lets herself laugh and have fun as Jack spins them around. She takes a deep breath, letting the smells and sounds of an empty hockey arena fill her senses again. 

This is gonna be her future for the next while. If she thinks too hard, she can picture herself in Newark, in the Prudential Center, with Jack across from her, just like this. She swallows at the sight of Jack’s bright eyes. 

Main coverage teams: Rangers, Islanders, Flyers, Devils 

“You’re amazing,” Jack says a bit later, as they’re gliding in the middle of the ice, her hands in his, facing each other. “I’m serious. You’re going to crush it.”

She tries not to tear up, looking down at their skates. “I’m really excited,” she says. “This is, kind of, everything I’ve been working towards.”

“I know,” Jack smiles, tugging at her hands lightly. “You nervous at all?”

“A bit. Is that weird?”

He snorts. “No. I was scared shitless my rookie year, despite trying to act like hot shit.”

“I don’t doubt that.”

“But you’re not me, because you’re healthily humble and you have the talent to back up your skill. It’s okay to be nervous, but it’s all gonna work out just fine.”

She hums, hands boldly reaching out to cup his face. She only has so much time left. She swears he softens into her touch. “Quite good at the pep talks, huh?”

“Not usually,” he murmurs, leaning closer as his lips ghost hers. “But, I don’t know. You seem to bring out a different side of me.”

“That’s sappy as shit.”

“I can be sappy.”

“Sure you can.” She hums as he presses a delicate kiss on her lips. She chuckles airily as he pulls away only to start peppering kisses on her cheeks. 

For a bit, Amelie squashes her overthinking and just breathes in everything Jack Hughes. 

(Unbeknownst to both Amelie and Jack, Jim sees them from the offices upstairs. He smiles to himself, as he watches his son spin the brunette girl around the ice, the joy palpable on both their faces)

day twenty five - jack

He doesn’t even bother to come up with an excuse anymore when he shows up on Stanley and Ruth’s front door the next morning. He accepts a cup of coffee when Ruth tells him Amelie’s in the shower, chatting casually with them both about the weather, golf, his family and the upcoming season. 

When Amelie comes down the stairs, she doesn’t even look surprised, simply waving before tossing her hair up and grabbing her bag. She mentioned over text that she just had to run some “boring” errands today. He jumped at the chance to join her. 

With some argument, she relents and lets him drive. He has to stop himself from looking over at her, overwhelmed at…her. Just her. 

The grocery store first to get groceries for Stanley and Ruth, which causes Jack to swallow because God, the way Amelie takes care of the people in her life reminds him of Clementine, who always saw the best in Jack before he was anything. 

Then a stop by at a farm to table place for lunch where Amelie says she’s been dying to try. Then Target, then CVS, then the bank. They never really hold hands, but they’re always in each other’s orbit comfortably. That’s enough for him.

Before being done for the day, a quick detour to a small beach that Amelie claims has “incredible sunsets.” He follows her obediently as she jumps out of the car with her film camera. The sunset is beautiful, but, and it’s so cliche and gross and he would get chirped to hell if his friends could read his mind, Amelie’s prettier. 

He can’t help but take out his phone to take a picture of her back against the cotton candy sky. He always posts some sort of a summer dump on his Instagram. Maybe this picture will go in there. 

day thirty two - amelie

“Who’s gonna be there again?” 

“Honestly, who knows at this point?” Jack’s voice floods her ears through her airpods as she takes Susie on a walk and Jack’s driving back from who knows where. 

“And this is tonight?”

“Yup. Because it’s someone’s birthday? Ethan’s, maybe?”

“Not Eddy,” she responds automatically. “His birthday’s in June.”

“I forget how close you two are.”

“To be fair, the only reason I remember is because he’s like, five days older than I am,” Amelie shushes Susie, who’s barking at a squirrel. “And you’re all gathering at some sort of sports bar at fucking Ann Arbor of all places to… celebrate? Reminisce?”

She can practically hear Jack’s pout. “You don’t have to come if you don’t want to.”

“That’s not what I’m saying,” she chides gently. “I, just, I’m just confused about-”

“Confused about what?”

“About why you’d want me there.”

“Why wouldn’t I want you there?” Jack says softly. 

She swallows, playing with Susie’s leash. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Awesome,” she knows Jack’s smiling through the phone and she can’t help but smile as well, even though she feels a pit forming in her stomach. “I’m DDing because I lost a bet against Luke on the course yesterday, so you can go as hard as you’d like.” A rustle on his end of the phone. “I gotta go, but I’ll see you later?”

“What time are you coming?”

“Around 7:30?”

“Perfect.”

“See you soon.”

Amelie hears him pull up at 7:23 as she’s scrolling on her phone. A deep breath before opening the door and she doesn’t expect Jack to be walking up her steps. 

“Oh,” she blinks. “Hi.”

Jack smiles up at her. “Hey.”

She looks beyond his shoulder and sees some movement in the backseat of the running car. “You didn’t have to step out.”

“Feels impolite just honking.” She lets him wrap her in a quick hug before she slips into the passenger seat. She turns around immediately to smile at Ethan, Luke and Dylan. “Hi boys. You sure none of you wanna take the front seat?”

“We are under strict orders from Jack that as long as you’re in the car, we will be banished to the back,” Luke snickers. 

Jack blindly reaches back to smack his brother’s leg. “I’m already driving you losers. Don’t make me regret it.”

Luke gasps. “I’m not the one who lost the bet.” Another slap to the leg from Jack and another yelp from Luke. 

Once they reach the bar and Jack somehow finds street parking, the boys pile out quickly and head to the bar. Her and Jack stray behind, and he locks the car before swinging an arm around her shoulder, sneaking a kiss to her temple. 

She shouldn’t, but she leans into it. Leans into him. The bustling bar is coming into view and she’s getting nervous. 

He pokes at her side. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

He offers her a skeptical look but lets it go. “You’ll know most of the people there. No need to be nervous.”

“I’m not nervous,” she lies. 

He snorts, but doesn’t respond. He does pull her closer to his side though. 

Immediately when they walk in and Amelie realizes she has been here before. Not many times, maybe only three or four, but enough for the environment itself to not be unfamiliar. She surveys the scene while letting Jack steer them both towards a corner where both people she knows and doesn’t know are gathering. The first person she makes eye contact with happens to be Carina Scholl, a girl she went to high school with. Because of course. This state is so damn small. Before she can spiral over it, Amelie’s quickly distracted by the sound of Mark Estapa’s voice.

And then it’s like a floodgate opens. Members of the Michigan Men’s hockey team, present and past, greet her, standing in a sort of messy line, almost like they’re queuing to hug her. It starts with Mark, then Rutger and Kienan and Luca. Then Mackie and Nolan, who she hasn’t seen in far too long and didn’t realize she missed until now. 

She feels quite touched that they all seem so excited to see her, wrinkling her nose when Rutger pulls her ponytail lightly.  When everyone calms down, Jack slides her favorite cider towards her. She smiles at him in thanks and he just winks before being pulled into a conversation about hockey that honestly has Amelie immediately tuning them out. 

She ventures to familiar territory — a booth housing Ethan and Luke — and they happily let her slide between them, introducing her to the faces she doesn’t recognize as she politely nods. She does brighten up when one of the girls, Sarah, she notes, says she recognizes her from her photography. (“I was on the gymnastics team. My family might have one of your photos framed in the house.”). 

Photography and Michigan. Those are topics Amelie can talk about. 

After a bit, the boys slide out and she finds herself gravitating towards Sarah and two of her friends Amelie doesn’t know, content with sitting back and listening into their conversation, with some comments here and there. She spots two more girls she went to high school with — Shannon and Abby — and swallows roughly. She’s pulled back in the conversation with a call of her name from Madison. 

“I saw that you came in with Jack Hughes,” Madison says. Immediately, Amelie wants this conversation to end. But Madison’s smile is curious, not malicious. “Are you two…you know?”

Amelie blinks, stomach suddenly dropping. “Are we…”

“Together,” Sarah finishes with a teasing eye roll. “I don’t know why you didn’t just say it, Maddy.”

“I didn’t want to be impolite!” Madison exclaims as Ellie, the third girl, laughs. “I mean, we just met. It’s none of my business, really.”

“We’re not,” Amelie says, softly but firmly, even though she wants to crawl under the table right now. “Friends through Luke, I guess. Found out my grandparents live by him and Quinn’s place just a few weeks ago.”

“You hadn’t met beforehand?”

“Nope.”

“Huh,” Ellie says. Amelie follows Ellie’s eyeline to where Jack is talking to Adam. With a High Noon in one hand, the other shoved into the pocket of his jeans and that stupid backwards cap on his head, Amelie can’t look away. “I wouldn’t have predicted that. It seems like you’ve known each other forever.”

Amelie laughs shakily. “He’s like that with everyone.”

The girls let it go, but Amelie can’t. Is it that obvious to people? Should it be? Is he like this with everyone? It wouldn’t surprise her if he was. Just because they’ve kissed, doesn’t mean she’s anything special. 

After a bit, she excuses herself to go grab another drink. If Jack is also at the bar as she approaches, that’s just a coincidence. 

It’s interesting. She simultaneously wants to be away from him, especially because it seems like “Main coverage teams: Rangers, Islanders, Flyers, Devils” is flashing through her mind at all times. But she also wants to be around him because he makes her feel at ease

She nods at Luca, who Jack was talking to, with a wry smile. “Luca.”

“Amelie,” he sings in the same tone. Amelie considers herself closer to the younger Fantilli, but Luca’s constant positive energy was always a welcome sight when she entered Yost. “You look beautiful.”

“That’s kind of you to say.”

“I feel like you’re about to yell at me for not answering the question again.”

“That was one time,” she says dryly. “Let it go.”

Jack looks between the two of them with interest. “Amelie being a strict TA? That doesn’t surprise me.”

“She wasn’t strict, perse,” Luca teases. “Just didn’t want to deal with our shit.”

“Because I dealt with it enough at the rink,” Amelie says. She brightens up momentarily when Jack shoves another cider in her hand. Without thinking, she presses a quick kiss on his cheek as a thank you. Luca, to his credit, just raises his eyebrows before Gavin beckons him elsewhere. 

She pokes at Jack’s chest. “You trying to loosen me up? You didn’t have to buy me another.”

“I told you to go crazy, didn’t I?”

“I think I’ve spotted three people here who went to my high school.”

Jack just raises an eyebrow casually. “No shit. Did you say hi?”

Amelie snorts. “No.”

“Why not?”

She gives him a look and realizes he doesn’t understand. She doesn’t want to get into it. “I just don’t feel like it.”

“You sure?” He nods at something behind her and she turns around, making eye contact with Carina. 

She turns back around to face Jack again. “I’m sure.”

(She’s not. She’s not sure about anything all of a sudden. It’s starting to feel like too much for her. But that’s not Jack’s problem to deal with)

“Okay,” he stops pushing. “Who should we tackle talking to next?”

“Didn’t know this was a team effort,” she teases lightly, the weight on her shoulders deflating by the second. 

He readjusts his hair under his hat with a roguish grin. “Hey. I dragged you here. And these are mostly Luke’s friends. Of course we’re in this together.”

She rolls her eyes. Because he’s a liar. But she humors him, nodding over to a group consisting of Rutger, his girlfriend Kayleigh, Nolan, Mackie and Mark. “They seem safe.” Jack snorts, but obliges, letting her lead the way. 

More time passes, and Amelie’s buzzed. Jack mutters in her ear that they’re probably gonna head out within the next 20 minutes or so, which she could’ve predicted, as their crowd is getting smaller and smaller. Adam already smacked a kiss on her cheek as a farewell. She figures she should probably go pee before the drive back. 

After a quick trip to the bathroom, she walks out and pauses suddenly in her tracks. She watches a girl blatantly flirt with Jack, which is fine, it is. The frog she has in her throat isn’t anything. The prickling she feels in her spine is because of the heat, not because of the girl’s hand placed on his bicep. She can’t even let herself feel any sort of satisfaction when Jack casually shifts himself a bit away from her politely. 

It suddenly all hits her in the face. It’s like the bubble she’s been living in for the last however many days has immediately popped. 

Of course he’s being flirted with. This probably happens everytime he goes out. How could she be so stupid?

Jack’s never going to be anything more than a friend. He’s based out of New Jersey for most of the year — which, to be fair, Amelie might also be in a few months, which he still doesn’t know — and Amelie’s 99% sure it just wouldn’t work. They’re too…he’s him and she’s who she is and this isn’t how it all works. 

Sure, she kissed him first. But she didn’t mean for it to go this far. And sure, he kissed her back. But he’s one of the biggest up and coming superstars in the league that she’s about to work for. To some degree, she knows how this is gonna end. She’s lived through it. 

(Sometimes, she’s relieved that MLB never got back to her. The idea of having to photograph Cooper almost makes bile creep up her throat._

She has to stop this before it crashes at their feet.

Amelie takes a deep breath and straightens her shoulders, before making her way back to Jack. He looks towards her and brightens up, excusing himself from the girl before jumping off his stool with her jacket she asked him to hold while she went to the bathroom. 

“Ready to go?” He mutters. 

Amelie nods stiffly. “Where are the others?”

“I told them to wait by the car. Do you need to say goodbye to anybody else?” 

She looks around. “No. I did my rounds before I went to the bathroom.” He hums and she follows him out of the bar. ignoring his outstretched hand. 

(She misses the flash of hurt that passes by Jack’s eyes. But it’s gone as quickly as it came) 

“Thanks again for coming with me,” Jack says, his voice suddenly sounding so loud contrasting with the quiet Ann Arbor air. “Really. I know it’s not your scene but I appreciate it anyways.”

“You’re welcome,” she says, hoping he doesn’t pick up on her sudden change of mood. 

He does, furrowing his eyebrows. “Is everything alright?”

“Fine. Everything is fine.”

“You’re lying to me.”

She doesn’t quite snap back, but it’s close enough to it. “How would you know that?” 

He blanches slightly, but they’re at the car. So he just wordlessly opens the door for her. She smiles softly at Ethan, who ruffles her hair from the back and snorts at Dylan and Luke, who are sleeping with their mouths wide open. 

The drive goes by extremely quickly yet painfully slow at the same time. Amelie actively avoids eye contact with Jack, busying staring out her window and making mindless conversation with Ethan. If he feels the tension. he ignores it. 

Jack pulls up to his place first, rolling his eyes as Luke, Dylan and Ethan clamber into the house. As soon as the door shuts, Jack turns to her. She reluctantly turns to him.

“Are you okay?” His eyes hold so much concern. It makes Amelie bite her lip. “And please be honest with me.”

“I’m fine, Jack,” she croaks out. She’s a bit tipsy. She’s very tired. Her resolve is crumbling fast. She feels like she’s running out of time. “I think I’m just overstimulated.”

“I’ll drive you home,” he says softly. He places a gentle kiss on her forehead and it takes everything in Amelie not to let her eyes tear up. 

He’s barely backed out of his driveway when she can’t take it anymore. “Rangers, Islanders, Flyers, Devils.”

Silence. “What?” He says.

“Rangers, Islanders, Flyers, Devils,” she repeats, trying to keep her voice steady. “Those are the teams I’m covering.”

He parks in her grandparents’ driveway, killing the engine. “Did you just find this out today?”

She squeezes her eyes shut. “No. I’ve known since I got the official offer.”

The silence washes over her like the most destructive tidal wave. “You lied to me?” He whispers. 

“I’m so-”

“Why did you lie to me?” He asks in a hurt voice. 

“Jack-”

“Were you ever gonna tell me?” She snaps her mouth shut. That gives him his answer. He swallows roughly, running a hand through his hair. “So what? You were gonna just walk in during media day and pretend we haven’t met before?”

“That’s not fair,” she manages to get out. 

“Pretend we haven’t kissed before?” Jack presses on.

That makes the fire in Amelie’s stomach flame. “We’ve known each other for like, a month, Jack. I don’t owe you anything.”

He scoffs. “You don’t think so?” She flinches at his harsh tone and he softens a bit with a sigh. “I just don’t understand why you didn’t tell me.”

There’s plenty of reasons why. Many of which Amelie doesn’t want to say out loud. She settles for: “I mean, would it have mattered?” Her voice cracks. “You were always going to go back to Jersey and I was always gonna leave Michigan and whatever this was would’ve only lasted for so long.”

“Whatever this is?” Jack repeats, tilting his head back against the headrest in frustration. “So what? You thought that we’d go back to our regular lives and all of this would just…be forgotten?”

“I don’t know,” she says, frustrated. 

“But you clearly thought about it.”

“Of course I did,” she squeezes her eyes shut. “Jack, you’re…you’re Jack Hughes. I don’t necessarily care about it like that but I know you have a franchise on your shoulders and you’re the best of the best and we met under weird coincidences and I’m glad we have, believe me, but this always had a timer on it.”

“What exactly is ‘this?’” The roughness in his voice has Amelie simultaneously feeling like she wants to cry and scream. Jack laughs humorlessly. “And it’s funny you bring up all that shit now, considering you never for once cared about who I was and all of that since the day we met.”

“I don’t care,” Amelie insists. “In fact, it’s probably the thing about you I care the least about, in the nicest way possible. But whether we both like it or not, it’s a huge part of who you are. And I don’t know if I…”

“If you?”

“If I have a place in your life when it comes to that.”

“Because of what I do? Because of my job?”

Amelie scoffs. “Stop trying to underplay what you do and the impact you have on the league, Jack. I may have just met you a month ago but I, in some way, work in the same fucking industry you do. I’m not stupid.”

“I know you’re not stupid,” he rolls his eyes. “You’re probably one of the smartest people I’ve met in my life. I’m not trying to underplay anything. At the end of the day, hockey is just my job. LIke photography is yours. I don’t see how that has anything to do with us.”

“Well, maybe that’s exactly the problem.”

Jack huffs. “It’s my life. Shouldn’t I have a say in if I want you in it or not?”

And sure, Amelie thinks, Jack has a point, but so does she, even if she’s not explaining it well. She turns in her seat to fully face him and tries a different angle. Tries to get him to understand. “Have you thought about this at all? Like, sat down and really thought about what’s gonna happen when we both leave Michigan? Jack, you know I don’t want to come back unless I have to.”

“What does that have to do with us at all?”

“Jack,” she deadpans. “You love this place. You feel the most comfortable here, you told me that yourself. All I want to do is get out here and all you want to do is stay.” She deflates. “You really didn’t think about the future of any of this?”

“Yes! No. Maybe?” Jack raises his voice in frustration. “I just-I enjoyed, enjoy, spending time together. You kind of make me forget how to think when I’m around you in the best way possible. And I want to be around you all the time. Isn’t that enough?”

“I still don’t even know what we are! Friends? Friends who kiss sometimes? Dating? Hooking up because it’s convenient?”

He blanches. It’s the most hurt he’s looked this whole conversation. “Amelie-” he whispers.

“I know I’m being unfair, but please try to understand my reasoning,” she wipes her tears with the sleeve of her top. “I was already up for this job before I met you. And then I met you. And then I thought, oh, maybe I do care about where I end up. Wouldn’t that be nice and convenient? But we’ve known each other for a month. And I’m not gonna let someone I’ve only known for so long dictate the start of this really important moment for me.”

“I wouldn’t have ever asked you to do that,” Jack says meekly. “I know how important your career is to you.”

“And I believe that,” Amelie softens with a swallow. They’re not getting anywhere productive. “I-I’m sorry, Jack. I shouldn’t have lied to you.”

“But you did,” he says. He runs his hand roughly through his hair again. The curls are beginning to become very unruly.  “Was this whole month just, I don’t know, were we not on the same page?”

“Maybe we weren’t,” she bites her quivering lip. “I like you, Jack. I do. But I can’t…I can’t do this. Us. Whatever this is.”

Silence, before his voice cracks. “Now or ever?” 

“I don’t know,” she sniffles. “I’m sorry.” She cries, rubbing her eyes roughly with the palms of her hand. She knows this is all her fault. She knows this isn’t the only thing he kept from him. She knows that she’s been cautious telling him important things about herself this whole time, where he’s been nothing but fearless and honest. She knows she fucked up. 

But she can’t say any of that out loud. He wouldn’t get it. And maybe she doesn’t really want him to. Isn’t ready for him to

She feels his hand on her cheek, which causes her to cry harder, her tears falling cascading onto his fingers. Through blurry vision, she can see him swallowing roughly. “Can I say one last thing?”

She can’t help but let out a weak laugh. “Sure.”

“A few weeks ago, you asked me if the top was a lonely place to be. And you know, it can be a lot,” he admits. Her heart aches at how vulnerable he’s being. “My brothers and teammates and friends understand mostly, but it’s not the same. Y-you’re the first person in a long time who's made me feel like it doesn’t have to be lonely.”

That causes Amelie to cry even harder. Every part of her is fighting her to fight for him. To keep groveling, even though it doesn’t even seem like he wants that, which is somehow even more heartbreaking. To fill in the gaps for him about why she can’t fully let go and let him in. But she can’t. “I-I’m sorry I lied to you. And I’m sorry it had to be this way,” she croaks out.

“Me too,” he says, backing away slightly. She misses his touch instantly. “I-I’ll give you some space and n-not contact you for awhile. Um, you have my number. When…if you ever wanna reach me, you know how to.”

Her heart splices in half completely. She’s the one who lied to him and he’s the one offering space. Amelie knows she’s selfish for asking her final question, but she does it anyways. “And you’d pick up?”

Jack laughs with a watery smile, “Every time.”

It takes all her willpower to not kiss him one last time. She unbuckles her seatbelt and rushes into her grandparents house. She closes the front door and leans her back on it, sliding down and muffles her cries into her hand. 

day thirty three - jack 

Everything hurts. 

That’s the first thing Jack thinks when his eyes blearily open with the sun. His eyes hurt from crying too many freaking times the last few days. His ribs hurt from where Luke checked him into the boards yesterday. It wasn’t even a particularly hard hit, but Jack’s head was anywhere but the ice and he didn’t see it coming until it was too late. 

And his heart just…hurts. 

Luckily, they have the day off today so he can sulk without feeling too guilty. Maybe he’ll take the boat out into the water by himself and just lay there. He hears some voices downstairs and squeezes his eyes shut to try and decipher them. Quinn, Luke, Dylan and Ethan. The latter two obviously don’t know him as well, but Jack knows them well enough that they’d probably actually be really nice about Jack’s situation. Especially because Ethan’s close to…yeah.

Jack launches himself out of bed, quickly brushes his teeth and splashes some water in his face before stumbling downstairs, his pace faster once he smells a fresh pot of coffee. 

“Mornin’” Jack croaks out, nodding at Dylan and Ethan who are sitting around the island with Quinn, who just slaps his shoulder in greeting. Luke wordlessly pours out a mug for him and Jack smiles at him gratefully. 

“You look like shit,” Luke says bluntly. Jack would face wash him for that if he had the energy. And if he was wrong. 

“Luke.” Quinn chastises. 

Jack waves his older brother off. “It’s fine. He’s right.” His eye catches the sight of an envelope at the end of the table. “What’s that?”

It’s silent for a few seconds too long until Ethan clears his throat. “Uh, Amelie said she developed the shots for her film camera. Dropped some by that she said you guys might want.” 

Jack swallows with a curt nod, chugging the whole cup of coffee in one go. He nods at Luke to pour him more. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” Quinn asks tentatively. 

Immediately, Jack wants to shoot that down. But then he looks up, and he sees all four of them looking at him with varying degrees of worry in their eyes. Jack shoves down the instinct to avoid — like he’s been doing the last few days. “I don’t even know where to start.” He whispers.

“Anywhere that makes sense to you.” Quinn suggests, because Quinn’s always been the one who directs. Who guides. 

So Jack lets it all out. He talks about how he purposefully didn’t want to cling to her all night because he didn’t want to come off that way but how he couldn’t take his eyes off her no matter where she was in the room. He talks about how beautiful she looked (“I mean, you guys aren’t stupid. That top with her eyes? Lethal combo.”) and how he had a moment where he felt like all was right in the world. He talks about that subtle shift in her mood after he lost her for a bit and how quiet she was in the car ride home. 

That’s the easy part. 

Jack inhales a muffin from a box that someone must’ve gotten this morning from the local bakery before continuing to recall him and Amelie’s conversation in the car after he dropped off everyone. When he drops the revelation that Amelie’s actually going to be around the Tri-State area covering the Rangers, Islanders, Flyers and the fucking Devils, all four of them look shocked, but don’t say anything. He talks about how his initial reaction was that he was hurt that she hadn’t told him because he thought that they had something going on between them. He talks about how he felt like the conversation escalated so quickly but also calmly because Amelie doesn’t raise her voice and Jack is not a yeller and how it almost would’ve been easier had they been screaming at each other. He talks about how he can’t really remember when Amelie started crying but how he can remember how he felt his stomach dropping to his feet when she did. He can barely remember how they fucking got there in the first place. 

Jack sniffles, hastily wiping his tears away before they can fully fall. “All I know is that I fucking made her cry and whatever we had is probably ruined, which is extremely fucking convenient considering I’m gonna be seeing her around during the season.”

“It’s not ruined,” Ethan speaks up after a few seconds of silence. 

Jack snorts. “No offense, man, But how would you know that for sure?”

“I know you two have gotten close in the last month or so, but besides that, I would argue that out of everyone here, I’m the closest with her.” And Jack swallows, because shit, Ethan has a point. Ethan continues. “Despite her lying to you and everything falling to pieces, it’s not ruined. Amelie isn’t like that. You have to really fuck up for her to cut you out.”

And like, yeah, Jack knows that, to a degree. But, “I don’t think she’s ever gonna wanna see me again.”

“Well, did you say anything that was particularly horrible?” Luke asks. 

Jack swallows. “No? Maybe I was snappy at some points, but I don’t think so”

“I mean, it’s fair,” Quinn says. “Even though it’s harsh, you were right to be mad about her lying to you.”

“Did I give off that impression that she couldn’t talk to me? Like yeah, we practically just met, but I feel like, I don’t know. I just don’t really get why she’d hide that from me.”

“I might have an idea,” the guys turn to Ethan as he swallows and debates something in his own head. “Uh, this is random, but hear me out. Did she ever tell you about her ex?”

“Which one?” Jack asks.

“Cooper Volt. Baseball player at Michigan. Drafted to the Mets, I think.”

“A bit but not much. Why?”

“Look, I’m not trying to, like, spill her secrets or anything. I think it just might put things in context.” Jack nods and Ethan sighs. “So basically, she was dating him, right? Pretty serious. Lasted for a little over a year. Anyways. I don’t know the details, but I know that the break-up wasn’t pretty. Or, I just assume it wasn’t, because I only found out they broke up after I saw Cooper with another girl on his arm and was confused and literally asked Amelie about it. Apparently, it had only been two weeks since they broke up and he had already gone out and found someone else?”

“What an asshole,” Dylan says, his first verbal participation in the conversation. He’s been munching on cheerios, intensely listening. Quinn’s eyebrows are furrowed in a way that only appears when he’s concerned or really pissed off and Jack’s kinda fuming that someone put her through that.

“Right? Yeah, so that’s that. And typical Amelie, you know, said she was fine and I knew that she had her own friends checking up on her.” Jack’s nodding, following on to his every word, even if a bit confused on where Ethan is going with this. “Okay. So, this is, our sophomore year, so her junior year. The seniors are hosting a party and we convince her to come for once. You know how those parties go. They get big. People are filtering in and out. I just remember coming to the kitchen to refill my drink and seeing Amelie looking so fucking dejected as Cooper and his new girl are talking to her.”

“Did you hear what they said?” Luke asks. 

“No, but I didn’t need to, not with that look in her eye,” Ethan scoffed. “I caught the tail-end of their conversation though, which, like, I don’t even wanna repeat, but it was basically Cooper just saying shit about how he never liked her anyways and he took a shot at her being bi? I don’t think I remember it quite accurately to be honest because the second I heard him say that shit I just saw red.”

“He threw the fact that she’s bi to her face?” Jack asks sharply. He’s trying his best not to throw his cup at the wall.

“Something like it,” Ethan says. “Yeah, I know. Absolute piece of shit. I kicked him and their friends out of the party, because, like, there was no fucking way they were staying.”

“How did I not know about this?” Luke asks. “I’m pretty sure I was at that party.”

“You were. If they had refused to leave or whatever or put up more of a fight, I would’ve gotten backup. But they didn’t. And you know Amelie. She begged me not to make a big deal out of it. So I just kept an eye on her for the rest of the night.” 

“That’s so shitty,” Quinn says softly. “Putting that against her. With his new girlfriend there too.”

“Yeah, but…anyways. The point is, a week or so after that I kinda caught her after a game or something and I drove her back to her place and she kinda exploded. Went on a whole rant about athletes and sports culture from what she’s observed and all that, which I’m not saying isn’t true, but basically, I think the situation with Cooper was kind of the nail on the coffin.”

“That what?” Luke asks. “All athletes suck?”

Ethan clears his throat. “I think getting fucked over by Cooper, and then meeting Jack and realizing she has feelings for him then thinking back to the last time this happened and how it ended…can you blame her for being a bit scared?”

“She should’ve told me she was covering the Devils when she found out where she was gonna be placed.” Jack says firmly, and he stands by it. 

“Probably,” Quinn agrees. “But Jacky, think about it. Even just some of the guys we’ve played with. Not saying they’re all assholes like this guy…it’s just, even if it’s unfair she might place you in the same category, that might be how she feels.” 

“She should’ve told me,” Jack repeats. He squeezes his eyes in frustration. 

“But did you tell her you were serious about her?” Luke says. Immediately, Jack wants to snap back at his younger brother, because he’s a pest and who is he to doubt Jack about his own fucking relationship, or lack thereof. But then, Jack realizes and a whole new pit appears in his stomach. 

“She kept interrupting me,” he whispers. As he puts his head in his hands, he misses the sympathetic looks the other guys exchange. “Fuck. I never-I should’ve been clearer.”

“Jack-”

“I should’ve made that clear from the start,,” Jack says as Luke immediately shuts his mouth. “She had to have known. She had to.” Jack swallows roughly. He’s not the smartest, but he knows now. She didn’t know. And he never clarified what she meant to him. 

“I’m sorry, Jack,” Ethan says softly. Jack just waves his apology away. This is all on him. He excuses himself, putting his dish and mug in the sink. 

“We’re heading out on the water later. You should come,” Quinn gently urges. Jack just nods, before clamoring up the stairs to take a shower or do something, anything to get rid of the feeling in his stomach. 

The feeling that he’s fucked it all up. 

day fifty six - amelie 

Amelie’s at the Prudential Center by 6:30 a.m. The players start rolling in just after 8, while she’s finishing up helping to set up equipment and lighting. She has two cameras on either shoulder and one hanging by her neck and she has a headband in her hair and she feels happy. She feels at home. 

She gets introduced to the guys that she’s been researching for a month now. All of them are pleasant and patient. She does let out a genuine smile when Luke reaches out for a hug in greeting. What happened between her and Jack has nothing to do with him, and she hopes he knows that as she gives him an extra squeeze before pulling away.

When she introduces herself to the captain, she swears there’s a spark of recognition that flashes through Nico’s eyes, but it leaves just as quick as it came. Within their first few minutes of conversation, she concludes that Nico is almost unfairly kind. No wonder Jack loves him. 

It’s 10:19 a.m., and she still hasn’t seen Jack yet. She knows he’s scheduled in for his on-ice media shots sometime in the late morning. She purposefully didn’t grab herself a second cup of coffee after finishing her first one. She can’t be shaking when she’s trying to get pictures of him. 

Jack comes in and shakes everyone’s hand. He just waves at her with a polite smile and she waves back, her stomach dropping. They can play it off as Amelie being across the ice and too far, but in reality, she’s not sure if she would try to fake a handshake and pretend they’ve never met, hug him and never let go, or do something incredibly fucking stupid like kiss him. 

He looks so handsome. He must’ve cut his hair recently, in a shorter style that makes him so carefree and young. 

His stuff takes around 20 minutes, and she doesn’t really have to talk to him, instead just taking direction from Mira, head photographer / videographer.

He’s not directly interacting with her, but she feels her stomach swirling and her palms sweat, causing the camera to almost slip out of her grasp multiple times. She wants to smile at the comfort he brings her just from being near him and wants to cry at how they left things in her grandparents’ driveway. At how bad she still feels for lying to him. At how much she’s missed him, as pathetic as it sounds.

It’s neither of their faults that things fell to pieces the way they did. But now, as she snaps a silhouette shot of Jack, she’s deathly afraid that this is just what it’s gonna be. 

Jack’s the last one before lunch, so while everyone is taking their lunch break, Amelie takes a few moments to head to an empty room. She braces her hands on a table and takes three deep breaths. Her heart is beating fast. Her mind is starting to get away from her. She needs to focus. She cannot fall apart at work.

“Amelie?” She whips around to see Jack, dressed back in his Devils hoodie and shorts, looking at her in concern. 

She wipes her sweaty hands on her jeans. “Jack. Hey. Can I help you with something?”

“No,” Jack shuffles into the room. “I just heard your sighs. I- I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

It feels like she has molasses in her throat, but she manages to respond. “I’m okay. Thanks.”

“Okay. Good.” 

He’s about to walk out of the room but her brain thinks before her mouth. “Jack!” He turns back around and she takes a breath.

“Yeah?” His face is unreadable. 

She forces herself to keep eye contact. “Would you wanna maybe grab dinner or something?”

Jack blinks. Amelie wonders if he’s ever been rendered speechless. His voice doesn’t give anything away either. “Like, on a date?” She nods. Her stomach is dropping and she feels shame cripple up her spine until-”

“Yes.”

Her stomach drops, but for an entire different reason. “Really?” She asks in a small voice

“Of course,” His eyes glow and the light smirk on his face doesn’t feel arrogant. It feels light. Fond, even. “That sounds..perfect.”

“Oh, okay.” She whispers and her throat closes up as he steps closer. 

“I’ll text you?”

“I’ll text you.”

He smiles brightly, and she can’t help but smile back. She’s missed that smile so much. “Okay,” he whispers. “I can’t wait.”

“Thank you,” she croaks out. “I’m sorry about…well. I’m sorry.” 

Jack chuckles, and it makes her heart feel a bit lighter. He gingerly grabs both her hands, looking right into her eyes as he brings them up to his lips and kisses them softly. She bites her lip, overwhelmed. “Nothing to be sorry for,” he says. “Promise.” 

“Jack,” she whispers. 

He walks backwards shyly, but his eyes stay on hers stubbornly. “You know, with you, it’s always gonna be a yes.”

“Jack.”

He just winks. Amelie’s breath hitches. “I’ll see you later, Amelie.”

She smiles as he walks out of her sight. 

~*~*~

tag list (lmk if you wanna be a part of it!): @ru-kru

#k writes #hockey fanfic #hockey writing #hockey fic #nhl #nhl writing #nhl fic #nhl fanfic #hockey blurb #nhl blurb #jack hughes x oc #jack hughes x ofc #jack hughes #new jersey devils #luke hughes #reckless driving au

[dear-ao3]

Question for the mods....

HOW IN THE FUCK DID YOU MEET???

Like what???

How??

I am so god damn curious about you two. I wanna study yall under a microscope lol

Also ngl kinda envious of how close of friends you two seem to be. (Being an introverted shy af mofo sucks lmao)

I would actually probably read a whole ass book or watch a sitcom or something of the seemingly ever present weird-ass shit that seems to happen on a day-by-day basis.

/gen /lh /nf /pos

2018 newsies fandom. we weren't overly close but we bonded over race and albert a little and then katya dropped off the face of the earth for about a year.

during 2020 lockdown we both independently got into the witcher fandom and somehow ran into eachother again and had the fingers pointing OH MY GOD Y O U !!! moment in our dms. we bonded over hating jaskier. during this time we realized we were both dancers and katya was looking at dance colleges, i was already in college for dance and since it was lockdown and we couldn't go anywhere i told katya my experience auditioning at places to give him a good idea of places. and then i broke every internet safety rule known to man and said hey what if you had applied to my college but didnt know it?? and then one thing led to another and i dished out all the tea on my school. (only After that did we face reveal and give eachother our names lol) and then katya applied. mostly as a joke. until it wasnt a joke because that school gave katya a shit load of money and actually had stuff katya wanted to do. katya ended up coming to one of my zoom ballet classes and it took everything we had to not loose our shit on camera.

during this time we mostly kept eachother sane in lockdown writing witcher fanfic, and sending eachother awful thirst traps on instagram to pitbull music. one of our awful bits was using the dilf filter to make bad frat boy edits.

come august of 2021 we both moved into college. the same college. in the same building. it was wild. i pinched myself several times in shock. we went on a walk around campus with some worms on strings and were like what the hell how did we get here.

we continued to hang out and did weird insane things together. we took a class on the french revolution together where i had to put up with katya and fennec awkwardly flirting (read: making finger guns at eachother).

and then, since i was 2 years older, i was graduating and was going to stay in the area for a job and was like hey. what if we got an apartment together? and then we did. several adults agreed to this. idk why they let us. but now we live together in a real life apartment and we haven't even killed eachother yet. neither of our parents know that we met online. each of them have a different fake story as to how we know eachother and we really just hope they are never in the same room long enough to ask eachother about it. but its insane. 12/10 would recommend.

katya wanted me to include old tumblr screenshots of us talking, heres what i found from circa 2020:

we've always been like this lol

and heres some ancient greatest hits from instagram, i dont have context and trust me you dont want it:

every now and then the two of us look at eachother and go. how the fuck did we end up here??? (we have no idea)

#not a tag #from saph #storytime ig lol #sorry for the god awful quality #essentially we are basically dan and phil which is insane

[zegrasdrysdale]

Thinking of: reader going to one of Ethan’s games with their son/daughter and once the kid sees his dad he’s so excited! Jumping up and down and screaming “daddy!! daddy!!”

AHHH IM HAVING BAD BABY FEVER!!!!!

[ memorable ] e. edwards

paring : Ethan Edwards x fem!reader

summary : Ethan plays first game as a Devil in October 2025 after signing his entry level contract over the summer so his fiancée brings their three year old son to the game to surprise him

warning(s) : none really (a suggestive comment it were getting picky)

author’s note : i also had baby fever so here we are lol

༺═──────────────═༻

The day Ethan came home one afternoon and told her that he made the Opening Day roster for the Devils, there was excitement in the air. She couldn’t be any prouder of her fiancé than she was at that moment, except for maybe when he was drafted by the Devils in 2020. There were a handful of days between the end of the preseason and the start of the regular season so that excitement only grew as Opening Day got closer.

Ethan can’t wait to get on NHL ice with the Devils for the first time. He’s looking forward to sharing the ice with Luke and Seamus again for the first time since the three of them played at Michigan.

No one is more excited than their three-year-old son Chase though. He has told everyone at his preschool over the last few days that his “daddy is gonna be on TV”. He can’t wait to watch Ethan play hockey on TV.

Or so he thinks.

She hasn’t told Chase yet because she knows he’ll tell Ethan but she isn't taking him to preschool because they're going to spend the day getting ready for the game. She's taking Chase to the Prudential Center tonight so he can watch Ethan play in person. Both of them have no idea of her plans.

Yes, Chase has seen Ethan play in college, but playing in the NHL is so much bigger than playing in college. Plus, she's not sure if he even remembers watching Ethan play in college. He was barely a year old when she took him to Tampa in the spring of 2023 for the Frozen Four.

Now he's three and all he can talk about is how excited he is that his dad is playing in the NHL. It makes her heart so warm and she can't wait to bring Chase to the arena for the game. Ethan's parents came in too as part of her surprise. All four of them will be at the glass for warmups to celebrate his first NHL game.

Her alarm goes off on game day at the usual time so nothing seems off to Ethan, though he's already up and in the mini gym doing his pre-practice workout by the time her alarm goes off.

At seven, she leaves her shared bedroom to go wake Chase up like it's a normal day. She throws on a hoodie on top of her tank top and boxer shorts she usually sleeps in before she goes to get Chase up.

She walks into his bedroom and he's already sitting up in bed like he's been up for a few minutes already. She turns the lights on and smiles. "Good morning, Chasey," she says.

"Hi, mommy," Chase giggles. "Daddy's music woke me up."

She leans down and presses a kiss to her son's head. "I'll let daddy know that he needs to turn down the music in the morning so he doesn't wake you up," she promises. "Should we go tell him to turn it down?"

Chase nods and sprints out the door at the suggestion. She lays out his outfit for the day and quickly walks out after him. When she gets down the hallway to the gym, Ethan has Chase in his arms and Chase is hugging his dad.

"Good morning, buddy," Ethan greets Chase. "Sleep well?"

"As well as I could with your music too loud," Chase comments. She covers her mouth with a smile as she watches her fiancé and son. "Mommy said she'll tell you to turn it down."

Ethan smiles and turns his attention to her. "Did she?" he asks. "I'll make sure keep it down in the mornings when you're sleeping, okay?"

Chase smiles and hugs his dad. She bites her lip and looks at her boys. It's the little things that make her happy, and watching her son and her fiancé together makes her incredibly happy.

"Chasey, why don't you go get ready?" she suggests. "I'll make sure you get to say goodbye to daddy before he leaves for practice. I laid out your jersey so you can wear it to school today."

Their son nods and Ethan puts him down. Chase giggles and runs back to his room, leaving her alone with Ethan for the first time that morning. She kicks the door closed, but not all the way so she can hear Chase run back down the hallway.

She takes a few steps toward Ethan as he turns down the music. She wraps her arms around her sweaty fiancé's neck. "Good morning to my favorite NHL player," she comments. Ethan's hands rest on her waist. "Excited for tonight?"

"I feel a lot of things about tonight," Ethan admits. "Excited, nervous. I have been looking forward to my first NHL game and I wish you could be there so it's going to be a bittersweet moment."

"You know I'll be cheering you on from wherever I am, even when I'm home," she tells him with a frown to sell her lie. "Both Chase and I will be rooting for you tonight, and every game after."

Ethan shoots her a sad smile. She surges up to her tiptoes to press a quick kiss to his lips because she hates seeing him so sad.

When she lowers herself, Ethan cups her jaw and pulls her back into the kiss. It's a deeper kiss than the last one they shared and neither of them pulls away this time. Her arms slide from around his neck to around his bare torso so he can't go very far.

"I'm so proud of you," she mumbles against his lips.

He hums and deepens the kiss even more. She laughs as Ethan's fingers curl in her messy locks. "Love you," Ethan tells her between kisses. "Both of you."

There are quick footsteps in the hallway so she pulls away quickly. Ethan runs his fingers through his hair as they step away from each other so they don't traumatize their three-year-old. "Mommy, can we have chocolate pancakes for breakfast before school?" Chase asks as he pushes open the door. "Pretty please?"

"I think it's a special day so I think we can have chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast," she replies. "You look handsome in your little Devils jersey. Do you think your friends will like it?"

Chase nods and does a little spin. A little "Edwards 73" being on his back could make her cry. This is truly Ethan's moment, and she can't wait to celebrate at the arena with their son and Ethan's parents.

"I'm going to go shower really quick but we can eat some breakfast together before I leave for practice and you leave for school, okay?" Ethan says to Chase. Chase nods and grabs her hand. "I'll be out in a few minutes. Maybe mommy will let you help her with breakfast if you listen to her."

She shoots Ethan a look as Chase drags her out of the room. Her three-year-old pulls her down the hallway to the kitchen. She grabs ingredients for pancakes and the chocolate chips. As much as she would love to have Chase help with breakfast, she doesn't want his jersey to get dirty so she puts him at the table with some coloring books so she can cook breakfast in peace.

Down the hallway, she can hear Ethan in the shower as she mixes the ingredients together. Chase gets her attention to show her one of the pages that he colored. She tells him it looks good as she begins to pour the batter into a pan to cook some pancakes. She makes some smaller pancakes for Chase and full size pancakes for her and Ethan.

He emerges from the hallway in a Devils hoodie with his number on his chest and compression shorts that don't hide much. She's piling the already made pancakes on a plate for the three of them. She grabs plates out of the cabinet and puts them on the table for them.

"They look amazing, baby," Ethan tells her. He presses a kiss to her cheek before he sits down at the able.

"If I didn't have to bring Chase to school in a little bit then I would have cooked something healthier for you since it's game day," she replies.

Ethan grabs two pancakes and starts to cut them up. "It's okay," he says. "I'll make it up with a healthy lunch. I'm pretty sure that Luke, Jack, Shea, and I are going to lunch so I'll suggest something on the healthier side. Maybe Chipotle since I know Luke and Jack love it. I'll probably head to Shea's to hangout before the game, maybe nap. I don't know yet."

She cuts some pancakes up for Chase. "Sounds good to me," she tells him. "I think I'm going to do some shopping today. Grab some groceries, maybe some new outfits for when I do attend games this season." Ethan smiles at the last comment. "Then I'll pick Chase up from school at the normal time and we'll both be here for the game."

She hands Chase's plate to him and takes away his coloring book and crayons so he can eat. He shoves some of the pieces into his mouth.

Her phone dings with a text. She pulls it out of her hoodie pocket and glances at the nofication.

from: tara edwards - 7:38 am lee and i are landing in about 30 mins. has e left? does chase know about the surprise?

to: tara edwards - 7:40 am eating breakfast w the boys rn. eth is leaving when i "leave" with chase at 8. i'll tell him in the car about the surprise

"Who's texting you so early this morning?" Ethan questions.

"The groupchat I'm in with the other wives and girlfriends," she lies. "They're all excited for you to play in the game tonight and they wish that Chase and I could be there."

Ethan smiles and swallows a bite of pancake. "I'm happy you're getting along with them," he tells her. "Especially since I have no idea what's going to happen this season. I'm on the roster today but I could be sent to Utica any day. I think you could use some extra support just in case."

She matches his smile and nods. "It's nice to have a group that was so welcoming too," she replies. "The girls really welcomed us with open arms, and they adore Chase."

His phone starts buzzing and he realizes what time it is. "Oh, I gotta get going," he tells them. "It's almost eight and Keefe wants to hold a meeting before practice. I don't want to be late today."

Chase finishes eating as Ethan talks. "Time to go to school?" he asks. He looks at his mother.

"Time to go to school," she confirms. "All done?" Chase nods and she takes his plate. She grabs Ethan's plate as well as her own and puts them all in the sink. Ethan goes to grab his things and she pulls Chase out of his seat.

She holds Chase on her hip as she grabs his backpack sans lunchbox since he's not actually going to school. She slides on her slippers by the door as Ethan emerges with his new equipment bag with the Devils logo on the side. She smiles as he puts on his slides with his socks that go halfway up his shins. "Wow, you look like a hockey player on his way to practice, E," she teases him.

He rolls his eyes and opens the door for the two of them. Chase has been put down but holds his mother's hand so he doesn't go running down the hallway. Ethan follows close behind them.

Their apartment is on the third floor so they just take the stairs down to the first floor. Ethan struggles a little bit with his large equipment bag. He's good once he's on solid ground on the first floor.

Ethan throws his equipment in the trunk of his car. She stands next to him with Chase as the trunk is shut. He picks up Chase and holds him on his hip. "Good luck tonight, daddy!" Chase says. "Score a goal for me and mommy!"

"I always do, Chasey," Ethan tells him as he presses kisses to his son's cheek. "You look good in your jersey. Have a good day at school and I'll see you in the morning." Chase wraps his little arms around Ethan's neck. She smiles at the two of them.

He holds his extra arm out for her and she steps into a hug with her son and fiancé. Ethan presses a soft kiss to her forehead as she wraps an arm around his waist. "I can't wait to see you in Devils red, E," she tells him when she looks up at him. "We'll be looking for a 73 on the ice."

Her fiancé presses a quick kiss to her lips before he hands Chase over to her. "I love both of you," he says as he walks around to the driver's side of the car. "I'll be thinking of both of you while I play tonight."

She blows a kiss in Ethan’s direction, and Chase mimics her. She laughs as Ethan catches both kisses then gets in his car. She and Chase wave goodbye to him since it will be the last time either of them see him before they see him on the ice tonight.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*

Needless to say, Chase was estatic when she told him the plan for the night. In the car on the way to pick up Ethan’s parents, she told him that they were going to go to the arena to watch him play. She has never seen him so excited for anything in his very young life. He was even more excited when grandmom and grandpa got in the car. He wouldn’t stop talking about seeing Ethan on ice.

She leaves Chase with his grandparents to actually go shopping for groceries and an outfit for that night. She wasn’t lying when she said she needed to go pick up a couple of groceries and outfits.

Plus, she needed some time alone since the day is already super chaotic.

Ethan does text her after lunch to tell her while she’s out that he is going over to Seamus’ apartment before the game to hangout and maybe nap so she doesn’t have to tell his parents to take Chase out since he’s supposed to be at school. She tells him to let her know when he’s up from his nap, if he naps.

When she gets home, Tara and Lee are playing with toys in the living room with Chase. Her son greets her at the door despite her hands being full with bags. “Hi, my handsome boy,” she says when she drops her bags and embraces Chase. “What are you playing with?”

“Animals,” he replies. “All my favorite animals. Lions and wolves too.”

She smiles when she sees the setup on the coffee table. “I’ll join in the game in a little bit, okay?” she tells him. “I have to put away the food.”

Chase nods and runs back to his toys. She hauls the bags onto the kitchen island and begins to unpack them.

It’s not until she’s nearly done when Tara walks up to her. “He’s so excited to watch Ethan play hockey at the arena tonight,” she tells her. “It’s all he’s been able to talk about since you left. I’ve never seen him so excited.”

She smiles. “You should’ve seen him in the car,” she tells Tara. “I mean, he went from looking miserable because he thought he was going to school to being the happiest kid in the world when I told him. He was so excited and asked so many questions. I think this is going to be a core memory for him.”

“It’s going to be memorable for all of us,” Tara replies. “I mean, it’s Ethan’s first NHL game after four years of college. I didn’t think he was going to sign his contract for the longest time, especially after Chase was born. It makes me so happy that he has the life he wants. A beautiful baby boy, a beautiful wife-to-be, and an NHL career.”

The women both laugh and she wipes away tears that have rolled down her cheeks. “I can’t wait to see Ethan’s reaction when he sees all of us there tonight,” she says. “He has no idea that we’re coming.”

“Thank you for flying us in for this,” Tara says. “It means so much to me and Lee that we’re here.”

“It was no problem,” she replies as she pulls Ethan’s mom into a hug. “I’m going to start getting ready. I have one of Ethan’s Michigan jerseys if you want to wear it?”

Tara pulls back from the hug. “I think his wife and son should wear his name and number,” she tells her. “Lee and I will be just fine in our Devils gear.”

She smiles and nods. Tara goes back to playing with her grandson and she takes her outfit into her bedroom to get ready for the game since it’s about three. She was out a lot longer than she thought she was going to be so she has less time to get ready since she wants to be ready and have Chase fed by five.

Knowing that Chase is occupied by his grandparents and Ethan isn’t coming home before the game, she takes an everything shower and takes her time. She shampoos and conditions her hair, washes and exfoliates her face and body, and then shaves all necessary parts of her body.

She has some soft music playing as she showers to calm her nerves about tonight. All she wants is for Ethan to have the best game and all she wants is for her son to have fun at the game. She hopes for the best tonight.

A Devils win with an Ethan goal is the ideal outcome for the night, but as long as Ethan has the best time on NHL ice then she’ll be happy. If Chase has the best time at the game watching his dad then that’s a win in her book, no matter what the score of the game is.

Once she’s out of the shower, she wraps a towel around her body and secures it under her arms. She blow dries her hair before she leaves the bathroom.

She throws on a robe to check in on Chase and Ethan’s parents. Tara is in the kitchen while Lee and Chase are at the table. “Hi,” she says, confused. “What’s going on in here?”

“I thought I would make some dinner,” Tara replies. “Just some chicken nuggets before we leave. Chase requested chicken nuggets.”

She kisses the top of Chase’s head. “Ah, okay,” she says. “Thank you. I was going to make something before we left.”

“I got it,” Tara says with a smile. “Go finish getting ready. I’ll have some chicken nuggets for you when you’re done.”

She looks at Chase. “Are you being good for grandmom and grandpa?” she asks. Chase nods and looks up at her. “We’ll leave when I’m done getting ready. Make sure you eat whatever grandmom makes for you, okay?”

He nods again and goes back to playing with his animals with Lee. She runs her fingers through his dark locks and decides in that moment to take him to get a haircut over the weekend. She goes to do her hair, put on her makeup then get dressed.

She straightens her hair and does some neutral makeup when she gets ready. She puts on a pair of loose ripped jeans that she bought today and black ankle boots with a two inch heel to give her some height. She puts on the red Devils jersey that Ethan got her and tucks in the front of the jersey into the waist of her jeans.

“Mommy!” Chase calls. “I’m done my nuggets! Can we go see daddy?”

“Yes, Chasey,” she calls back. “We can go see daddy!”

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*

The ride to the Prudential Center is the most exciting and nerve wracking experience of her life. Ethan has no idea that the four most important people in his life life are on their way to watch his first NHL game.

Chase basically vibrates in the backseat as she drives to the arena. He is very awake and didn’t take his nap after lunch because of how excited he is.

They pull into the player parking lot and sees Ethan’s car parked next to Seamus’. Chase is on her hip and Ethan’s parents walk behind her when they walk into a back door to get into the arena. She plays with her engagement ring as they get their credentials so they’re free to watch warmups with the other wives, girlfriends, and families.

“Have a good time,” the security guard says as soon as the three adults in the group get badges that hang on their neck. She puts her on and checks the time.

Warmups start in ten minutes. She quickly walks through the hallways with Chase still on her hip. The four of them come out at the glass in the opposite corner of where the players will come out.

She looks around at the stands that are filling up and puts Chase down for a few minutes since she’ll have to hold him once warmups start.

Fans are gathered at the glass to watch warmups. A sea of red, white, and black jerseys are lined up with signs. A handful of families, wives, and girlfriends are standing in the corner, and she sees Seamus’ parents at some point.

Then warmups start. Per NHL tradition, the rookies get a lap when warmups start. Seamus and Ethan take their lap before the the lights come up. As soon as they do, the other Devils players come out onto the ice, as well as the other team. Ethan takes a shot and skates right by the four of them without a second glance.

Chase notices though. He bangs on the glass in front of him and yells, “Daddy! Daddy!”

She pulls out her phone to get a picture of this moment. Chase has the biggest smile on his face as he tries to get his father’s attention. She even manages to grab a video of Chase banging on the glass.

Once the boys start stretching and taking line rushes instead of shooting pucks at the net, she notices Ethan standing with Seamus and Luke at the blue line. The trio talks about something but she has no idea what.

It just ends with Ethan looking directly at them. His jaw drops and he glances at his friends before he skates over to them.

Curtis Lazar stands at the glass talking to his wife and kids when Ethan skates up to them. Chase is moving so much in her arms that she stands him up on the boards. Lazar says something to Ethan that she can’t hear but it makes Ethan smile.

“Daddy!” Chase yells. Ethan waves at his son and Chase happily waves back at his dad. She has one arm around Chase so he doesn’t fall. She presses her lips in a line and holds back tears as she watches the interaction they’re having.

Ethan waves at his parents then makes a hand heart at her and Chase. She blows him another kiss and he smiles at her before he skates away to warm up. She smiles and watches her fiancé as he does his warmup routine.

The moment when Chase saw Ethan was everything she wanted. Her boys interacting at a game was a beautiful experience.

Tears roll down her cheeks and Chase asks, “Mommy, why are you crying?”

“I’m okay, Chasey,” she tells him as she wipes them away. “They’re happy tears, I promise. I’m very proud of your daddy. That’s all.”

Chase smiles and hugs his mom. She wraps her arms tightly around her son. Her eyes fall on Ethan as he takes a line rush. He is already proud to wear the Devils logo and she knows he’s about to put his all into this game.

Her son turns her attention back to his dad on the ice. He is so fixated on watching Ethan. It’s like he’s mesmerized by Ethan skating around on the ice. He passes the puck back and forth with Seamus for a second before he leans down to grab it.

Ethan skates back over to them and holds the puck up for Chase to see. He smiles and giggles as Ethan gets the puck between the net and glass. She catches the puck for Chase and hands it to their son.

While Chase is preoccupied with the puck, Ethan puts his hand up to the glass. She rests hers on his and smiles at him. “Love you,” Ethan mouths.

“Love you too,” she replies before he skates off.

One by one, players begin to leave the ice. Ethan is one of the last players to leave the ice and he makes sure to stop by one more time before he does.

She puts Chase down so she can get herself together. It was a very emotional moment for her, and it was everything she expected and more. She’s incredibly proud of Ethan and can’t wait to see what he does during the game.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*

Because it’s so late when the game ends, she takes her son home to try and put him to bed. Chase isn’t going to sleep anytime soon because of how exciting the game was. He watched his dad score his first NHL goal from the blue line and a Devils win. It was a 2-1 win over the Wild.

There’s no way he’s sleeping any time soon. She’s almost a hundred percent sure that he’ll still be awake when Ethan gets home. It was truly an exciting and memorable game for her, her son, and Ethan.

Tara and Lee stayed behind at the arena to come back to the apartment with Ethan while she went home with her son.

She looks back in the rearview mirror at Chase and he’s holding his puck. He’s turning it over and over again as he looks at it. “Did you have fun at the game?” she asks.

“Yeah!” Chase giggles. “Daddy scored a goal for us.”

With a smile, she nods. “Daddy did score a goal for us,” she replies. “His first NHL goal. Are you proud of him?”

Chase nods. “Yeah,” he replies. Then he yawns. “Will I see daddy before I go to sleep?”

“I don’t know, Chasey,” she tells him. “You look a little sleepy.”

He smiles as she pulls into the parking lot of their apartment building. She parks the car and gets out before she gets Chase out. The spot next to her is still empty so Ethan isn't back. She assumes he's doing media since he had an incredible NHL debut. He'll probably be back late, but Chase will probably force himself to stay awake anyway.

She pulls Chase out of his carseat and takes the elevator up to their apartment with Chase on her hip. His head rests on her shoulder. He really is tired.

Once inside their apartment, she kicks off her shoes and walks right to Chase's room to at least get him into his pajamas. He puts the puck on his pillow. "I wanna sleep with the puck daddy gave me," he tells his mom.

"That's all up to you, Chasey," she laughs as she pulls out a pair of pajamas for her son. "You can sleep with the puck or put it on your table. Whatever you'd like to do, my love. Get changed and we'll wait for daddy to get home together, okay? Maybe watch his interview." If he did any interviews.

Chase gives his mom a little thumbs up and she laughs as she leaves the room to let him get into his pajamas. She changes out of her own outfit into one of Ethan's old Michigan hoodies that she stole and checkered pajama pants.

When she emerges from her room, she sees Chase on the living room couch already. She smiles and shakes her head as she joins her son. She grabs her laptop and goes to the Devils’ YouTube page to see if Ethan did any media after the game.

He did. The most recent video was uploaded ten minutes ago and is titled “Edwards, Hischier, J. Hughes, Keefe talk about Wild win over Minnesota”. She smiles and clicks the video. Ethan does his interview first, and it’s about two minutes long.

“Ethan, how did it feel to get your first NHL goal so early in the season?” one of the reporters asks.

“Really good,” he replies. “Takes a lot of pressure off of me early so I don’t focus on that and focus on bettering my play this season.”

He looks around as another reporter asks, “Was there anyone special in the building for your first NHL game? We saw you interacting with a group behind the glass during warmups.”

A smile grows on Ethan’s face as he says, “Yeah, uh, I had a few people here today. it was a surprise that my fiancée planned at some point. She flew in my parents from Canada and brought our son to watch the game. Chase had so much fun during warmups. I could see him from every angle on the ice and it was a really special moment for me to have them all here tonight.”

“Daddy said my name!” Chase exclaims. “He mentioned you too, mommy.”

“Yeah he did,” she replies. “Keep watching, buddy.”

The first reporter asks another question. “Do you consider your roster spot safe after tonight?”

Ethan shakes his head. “I will keep fighting hard every single game and practice to keep my spot,” he explains. “I scored one goal tonight and blocked a couple of shots throughout the game but I don’t believe my spot is safe. I’m aware I could be sent down at any moment and I want to make sure that doesn’t happen. As long as I keep fighting and producing then I don’t see why I couldn’t be on this roster for all 82 games.”

She smiles at Ethan’s response. He’s told her so many times over the last few days that he’s worried about his roster spot. It sounds like he knows what he has to do to stay on the NHL roster.

“How was the locker room before the game?” another reporter asks. “Was it intense or were the boys ready?”

“Oh, the locker room was buzzing before the game,” he replies. “I mean, everyone was ready to start this season on a winning note, especially after getting knocked out in the first round last year. I came in and realized what kind of team I’m on this season and I’m ready to fight with them to get further into the playoffs and get the Cup.”

The reporters thank Ethan and it cuts to Nico’s part of the interview. She pauses the video and looks at Chase. He has a proud look on his face, like he’s showing how proud he is of his dad.

“Mommy?”

“Yes, Chasey?”

“Will daddy have an interview after every game?”

“I think it depends on what he does during the game,” she explains. “If he scores then he’ll most likely do an interview. If he has a good game then he might do an interview. I don’t think it’ll be after every game.”

Chase nods in response.

The sound of the door opening sounds behind them and they both look behind them. Tara and Lee walk in first. Ethan follows them in his game day suit. Chase is off the couch immediately as he goes to greet his dad.

She’s slower to approach them so the boys can have their moment. Tara and Lee say their good nights and go down to the extra bedroom. Ethan picks up Chase and hugs his son. “Did you have fun at the game, buddy?” he asks Chase.

“Yeah!” Chase giggles. “Thank you for the puck.”

“You’re very welcome,” he replies. “Let me say hi to your mom and we’ll go put you to bed. Can you go get ready for bed? We’ll be right in.”

Chase nods as he is put down. He scurries down the hallway and Ethan turns to his fiancée.

She smiles. “That goal was very sexy of you, E,” she tells him. “I’ve never found you hotter than when you scored in the NHL.”

“I have a bone to pick with you,” Ethan laughs. “I did not know that you guys were coming to the game. Of all days to surprise me at a game.”

As she drapes her arms around his neck, she says, “I was able to surprise both you and Chase. I wanted the game to be memorable for both of you.”

“It was,” he tells her. “I’ll never forget my first NHL game. It makes it so much more special since you and Chase were there.”

She smiles and surges up to press a lingering kiss to his lips. Ethan’s hands rest on her waist and he holds her there for a second. “We’re going to end up having another baby by the end of the season if you think me scoring goals is sexy,” he mumbles against her lips.

“It wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world,” she tells him without breaking the kiss. “Having another little Edwards running around. Plus, I’ve always thought you scoring goals was sexy.”

Ethan laughs.

“Mommy!” Chase calls. “Daddy! Come put me to bed!”

༺═──────────────═༻

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[merrybloomwrites]

A Podcast Love Story

Summary: The story of Shayne & Y/N, as told through a series of podcasts

AN: This story was inspired by a request from someone that tumblr isn't letting me tag, so that's dumb lol

Also, I tried to follow the actual timeline of when these podcasts were posted but I did take some creative liberty, so some things might not match up with when the were really posted irl

Wordcount: 3.4K

CW: very light mention of smut, talk about pregnancy

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

SmoshCast #75 – How Shayne and Courtney Feel About Being Shipped Together

Dating someone who’s in the public eye was not entirely unexpected. You live in Los Angeles after all. When you and Shayne started dating in 2019 you decided to keep it a secret for a while. Neither of you were ready to share your relationship with the Smosh viewers yet.

This became more difficult when you decided to quarantine together in 2020 during the pandemic. Two weeks after he returned from Australia, when you were sure that neither of you had Covid, you packed your necessities and headed to Shayne’s. It was nice being together, but it did get complicated when he needed to film videos.

Sometimes you would go for a walk while he was filming. Other times you would hide in the other room. He’d triple check all his footage before submitting it to make sure you, and any of your belongings, weren’t in frame.

One day, a few months in, he and Courtney are recording an episode of the SmoshCast. He sets up at the small dining table in the corner of the living room. You’re on the couch, meaning you can’t be seen on the camera, but you are in Shayne’s view. It might not have been the smartest decision since you’re now stuck there for the entire time they record, but you have a book and a snack, so you get cozy.

You can only hear Shayne’s side of the conversation, so you’re not fully paying attention. That is, until you hear Shayne say, “If we so much as say hi to each other, Shartney fans poop themselves.” The mention of this ship between him and his castmate has you more focused on the conversation. Not because you’re jealous, because that would be ridiculous, but because all of you find it quite funny how hard the two of them are shipped.

He can’t stop looking over to you for the entire ten-minute segment. It’s subtle, but there’s definitely a connection between the two of you. It’s obvious that he’s reassuring you that there’s nothing to worry about. You especially like when he says, “You can ship me with anything. Ship me with bananas.” And you nearly lose it when he says, “I am begging you, please, make a ship edit of me and Kathy Bates.”

They continue to talk and the conversation steers towards how fans make assumptions based on what they see in videos. Shayne brings up how people were concerned about him for a few weeks at the beginning of quarantine. He starts to explain, “I was very quiet in those early podcasts, but the reason was, one, I was not getting enough sleep. I kept staying up late,” here he looks at you before quickly saying, “playing video games.” You again struggle to keep quiet, knowing that was not the truth. Unless “playing video games” has now become code for “having intimate moments with my girlfriend”.

He continues to talk about how his setup for recording was less than ideal and finishes by saying, “I wasn’t sad at all, I was actually having great days.” Again, you share a quick look, showing that you agree with him about how wonderful it’s been since you started living together.

They wrap up the podcast a little while later and Shayne is officially done with work for the day.

“Playing video games, huh?” you say teasingly.

“Oh yea, totally a pro gamer now,” he replies.

“You think so?” you say with a laugh.

“I mean, I could always use more practice,” he answers as he lifts you from the couch, carrying you to the bedroom.

SmoshCast #85 – American Horror Story: Adulting

A few months later and things are looking better in the world. This means a return to the office for everyone. You’d landed a job at Smosh, working in post-production, so now you and Shayne work together. You were nervous about being around each other all the time, but luckily there’s still a fair amount of the day when you’re apart. Shayne is often filming or in meetings or busy writing, and you spend most of the time at your desk working on the next video.

But sometimes, you get a break to see him. Shayne, Damien, and Coutney are filming a new SmoshCast episode, and you sneak in to watch from the back. The theme is “Adulting”, and they somehow start by talking about how they interact with the younger generation. You can’t help but smile as Shayne talks about his niece, endeared by the relationship he has with her. He also mentions grandchildren, which makes your imagination run away thinking about your future together.

You stay for a little while and just watch your boyfriend. He’s not saying anything crazy, or doing anything special, but you love listening to him give advice. You also love how attentive he is to his friends, how closely he listens to everything they say. When you do go back to your desk you take a moment to think about how lucky you are that this man, with a solid head on his shoulders and more emotional maturity than you’ve ever seen before, is your other half.

Smosh Mouth #5 – Shayne and Y/N Share Their Love Story

“Welcome back to Smosh Mouth, I’m Shayne.”

“And I’m Amanda.”

“And today we have a very special guest. We have my lovely wife, Y/N Topp,” Shayne says, smiling at you as he finished the introduction.

“Hello everyone,” you say into the microphone.

It’s weird being in front of the camera. It’s only happened a few times in the years that you’ve been with Shayne. Even though you also work at Smosh, you’re always behind the scenes. You’ve only really been in videos that highlight the crew, so the focus has rarely been on you.

But today you’re finally sitting down to do a podcast for the channel. They’d just revived the podcast after a nearly three-year hiatus.

So much has happened in your personal life since then. At the time that SmoshCast was airing, your relationship with Shayne was fairly new, and you weren’t ready to share it yet. Within a year of that last episode going live, you two had gotten engaged. This led to you guys getting married, and as of 22 weeks ago, you being pregnant with your first child.

“Well, I for one am very excited to have you here today,” Amanda says. “I cannot wait to grill you on every last detail of your relationship.” You all laugh at that, knowing that while you’re sharing more personal information than you ever have before, no one is going to push you or Shayne too much.

“So,” Amanda continues. “Tell me, how did you meet?”

You look to Shayne, encouraging him to start the story.

“We met in 2019,” he begins. “Someone had recommended a book to me, so I was at the library to pick it up. While I was looking through the shelf Y/N came over and started looking through the section as well. We kind of started at opposite ends and moved to meet in the middle. Turns out we were both looking for the same book.”

“No you were not!” Amanda interjects.

“We really were,” you say to confirm. “We basically have the most cliché meet-cute story.”

“Ya, no kidding! So, what happened next?” she asks.

“Well, I had picked up the book first and noticed Y/N glance at it. So we started talking and I told her she should take the book first and I’d read it when she’s done.”

“And then he very smoothly said he could give me his number so I could tell him when I was returning the book,” you add.

“Look at you,” Amanda says. “Making the bold moves.”

“I had to give it a try,” Shayne says with a laugh.

“And it worked. I texted him a couple weeks later, the day before I returned the book.”

“I didn’t have her number,” Shayne says. “And I was kicking myself for not getting it because waiting to hear from her was pretty torturous I’m not gonna lie. So as soon as she texted about the book I asked her on a date.”

“Which actually shocked me at first. I really though he only was interested in the book.”

“Did you know who he was?” Amanda asks. “Like, had you watched Smosh or seen him on TV before you met?”

“I did know who he was. I had just started watching Smosh, so I recognized him but really didn’t know much about him.”

“Did you start watching old videos and try to get to know more about him after you met? Or after he asked you out?”

“I tried not to. I wanted to get to know him naturally, not through videos online. But there was a video posted after he asked me out but before our date called ‘Why We’re Bad at Dating’ and I couldn’t resist. And I truly think it helped us hit it off on that first date.”

“How so?” Amanda inquires.

Shayne takes that question, saying, “In the episode I talked about what I do on dates that kind of lead to there not being a second date. And Y/N/N called me out on that.”

You chime in, adding, “He said he puts on a ‘CW’ version of himself. I told him not to do that. And I admitted to being just as anxious about the date as he was so we should just forget the pressure and hang out and get to know each other.”

“Well, that’s adorable,” Amanda says. “So obviously you started dating and kept dating. When did you take the next step?”

Shayne takes this question and says, “I asked her to be my girlfriend a couple months later. And then we moved in together shortly after the start of the pandemic. Which was slightly challenging when it came to filming at home for Smosh since we wanted to keep the relationship a secret for a while.”

“Yea, how in the world did you make that work?”

“We were very, very careful,” you say. “I definitely hid in the bathroom more than once to stay out of frame.” At this you all laugh, and you add, “Totally worth it, though.”

“Ok, next juicy question. Shayne, how did you propose?”

“So, I hired a sky writer,” he says before laughing and continuing, “No, just kidding. We’d been dating for a year and a half, living together for almost a year at the time. We rented a cabin in Colorado for a few days and on the second day we went on a hike. Packed a picnic, did the whole thing. And I uh, I proposed at the top of the mountain.”

“You guys are literally a romcom,” Amanda quips.

“Would a romcom do a hike proposal? I feel like they’re always at fancy restaurant or the beach. Or like, yelling ‘Will you marry me?’ As the girl walks away down a street in the pouring rain,” you say.

“Oh, a hike proposal is very Lifetime or Hallmark.”

“Good point, it’s totally been in at least one of those movies.”

“Did you like that it was on a hike?” Amanda asks.

“Yea, Y/N/N, did you like it?” Shayne says, pretending to be truly concerned and worried about your answer.

“Hated it,” you say jokingly. “No, honestly, I loved it. Shayne and I always bonded over how much we love nature, so it was perfect for us. I can’t imagine it being any other way. I know a lot of girls want to make sure their nails are done so they get that perfect ring picture, which totally fine, not judging at all. But it definitely felt right that I literally had dirt under my nails and scrapes on my palms from slipping up the hill. Much more authentic that way.”

“And the wedding, anything you want to share about it?” Amanda asks.

“We actually got married in New Mexico,” you say. “It was the central spot for both our families. It was last April, so, beautiful weather during the day. And we lucked out that the temperature didn’t drop too much at night.”

“Very nice,” Amanda replies. “Shayne, anything to add?”

“We kept it pretty small, just family, and close friends. I feel like it was a very typical wedding, but it was ours, you know? So, it was special.” Shayne blushes and you know that your wedding day means more to him than he’s letting on. And that’s fine with you. It was a private event, and even though you’re sharing your relationship now, neither of you want to give away too much about your wedding.

“Aw, he’s getting red,” Amanda jokes. “Did you go on a honeymoon?”

“We did. We went to Hawaii. Neither of us had been before so we knew it would be special for us. We wanted to experience something new together,” you answer.

“Cute!” she replies. “Now, dedicated fans know you guys are together, know you’re married and all that. But there is some news you two have to share that no one knows, is that correct?”

“That’s right,” Shayne says. He looks at you, silently asking if you want to say it. But you can tell he’s bursting to tell everyone, so you give him a nod to continue.

“Y/N and I are having a baby,” he says.

“Hell yea you are! Smosh baby!” Amanda cheers. “Congratulations to you both! Y/N, how are you feeling?”

“Pretty good right now. I’m in the second trimester so my morning sickness is mostly gone, thank god. We’re very excited, got some classes we’re planning to take and we’re reading all the books so I’m sure we will still be extremely unprepared,” you say with a laugh.

“If there’s anyone I trust to figure it out and be great parents, it’s the two of you,” Amanda replies earnestly.

“Thank you, Amanda,” Shayne says.

The podcast continues with Amanda continuing to ask questions and you and Shayne sharing more stories about your time together.

You wrap up recording by mid-afternoon. You have an appointment with your doctor scheduled and since it’s so close to the end of the day, Shayne was also given time off to join you. Everything goes well and as he drives you both home you can’t help but be grateful that the two of you were brought together.

Smosh Reads Reddit Stories: Office Nightmares

It’s been a month and a half since recording your episode of SmoshMouth, and three weeks since it aired. The news that you and Shayne are expecting a baby spread faster than anything you’d experienced before. You’d both received messages of congratulations from more people than you had ever expected: from Smosh fans to Disney fans, and even Goldbergs fans. You never imagined the amount of support you’d receive.

You had the morning off for yet another checkup with your doctor. You get back to the office early, but technically you’re still scheduled to be off, so you opt to sit in as they record the next Reddit Story video/podcast. It’s one of your favorite series currently, and you love listening to Shayne read all the stories.

He begins the third story, reading the title, “Am I the asshole for telling my wife that I’m not taking off of work to be present at our daughters’ birth?”

They joke around for a bit, and then he dives into the story, reading how the man explains that he couldn’t take off work cause there’s a project and they need him there. The wife finds out that’s a lie, and it mad that he didn’t take time off. He says he wants to work more so they’d have more money after the birth, and that the baby wouldn’t even remember him being there. He finishes by saying he doesn’t know why it’s such a big deal to be there at the birth, and even blames the wife’s hormones for her being upset about it.

Shayne, along with Spencer and Tommy begin to share their thoughts on the story. You smile and nod as Shayne makes the point of, “He keeps saying the baby’s not gonna remember, but you’re fucking wife will!”

They even give reasons why they’d understand him not being there, with Tommy saying, “If they were really desperate for cash then I’d get it,” and Spencer saying he’d understand if he were terrified of being around childbirth.

The boys then look over to you and Spencer says, “Y/N, you’re pregnant, how do you feel about this story?”

“Yea,” Tommy adds, “would you kill Shayne if he did this?”

“Oh, for sure!” you call out.

“C’mere,” Shayne says. “You’re probably the one most qualified to give an opinion here.”

You look to Kiana who’s directing the video and she gives you a nod, so you walk onto the set and stand behind Shayne, leaning down so your face is next to his and your voice will get picked up on his microphone.

“What are you’re thoughts on this?” Tommy asks.

“You guys definitely made a lot of great points. I mean, childbirth is terrifying, and I keep trying to ignore the fact that I do have to actually, you know, birth a human. But I know that Shayne will be there and is studying to be the best support person. I mean, he’s read enough books about it, I think he could deliver the baby himself if necessary,” you say with a laugh.

“I will add, if this was the father of my child, I’d wonder what he actually deems important. Because this is arguably one of the biggest days of everyone’s life. First of all, it should be important to him. It’s literally his child entering the world. It’s a privilege to be one of the first people that baby will ever meet. And then, what will be a big enough deal for him to take off work in the future? Baby’s not gonna remember her first birthday, is he gonna go to that? She has a dance recital at three years old, is he going to think that’s silly and not go?”

“Oh, I didn’t think of that, but it makes sense,” Spencer replies. “He definitely seems to have his priorities and being there for his family isn’t one.”

“I truly cannot imagine not being there when our kid is born,” Shayne says. “My worst fear would be if something kept me from being there.”

“Because you’re a good person,” Tommy says bluntly, and everyone laughs.

You head back off camera as they continue on.

After a few more stories Shayne begins another entry, titled, “And I the asshole for eating the last doughnut before my pregnant coworker could have one?” He looks at you once he reads it and laughs before saying, “Y/N’s face says, yes absolutely you are.”

He reads the story which explains that the young employee ate his allotted two doughnuts, and when the pregnant coworker didn’t show up after half an hour, he ate her two as well. She gets there shortly after and explains she had car trouble and is upset to see everyone had a treat but didn’t save her any. Later, the boss pulls aside the employee to tell him he’d been rude to his coworker.

After he finishes the post the boys discuss the etiquette of eating communal snacks in the office before Shayne says, “Also, if there is one thing I know, it’s that you never mess with a pregnant woman’s food unless you want to die.” You laugh so loudly at this that you know for sure the mics picked it up from across the room.

“Y/N, anything to add?” Spencer says.

You walk over again and state, “Listen, all I’m say is that I’m mad you guys are just talking about doughnuts when we don’t have any. Cause cravings are a bitch and now I am literally not going to stop thinking about doughnuts until I get one.”

After moving offscreen you realize you need to pee, again, so you leave the studio to head to the bathroom. Once you’re out of the room Shayne says, “Hey Kiana, can I have my phone a second?”

“Why do you need your phone?” Spencer asks.

“I gotta doordash some doughnuts.”

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

AN: Thanks for reading! Let me know if you have any requests for Shayne stories!

Taglist: @american-girl001 @tatumrileyslover @queenofcaradelle @1nkm0nster

#shayne topp x reader

[pseudophan]

hi getting back into these guys and random question. obviously it seems like Dan and Phil (whilst keeping their private life private which good for them) also don’t care about people thinking what they want. Have they ever given a reason for moving into a ‘forever home’ together?

They used to use the excuse they were both YouTubers so easier to live with someone to help with videos back in the day. ‘no homo days’ I guess. But nowadays they both can’t really keep using that excuse since their personal videos don’t realllyyy require the others help as much as back then. Gaming channel again not an excuse it was on hiatus. Dan even still using his ‘Phil is messy and stressful to live with’ bit. (y you living with him then Dan?)

So Have they ever given a reason to still living together for 10+ years, in their 30’s gay & now home owning together? or have they just been vibing along, fine with letting it be known the fact they have bought a home, homosexual homeowners, and are just letting people think what they think? (They know what people think)

I guess I’m just remembering around 2012 times when they were changing the how they met story (mutual friend in Manchester anyone. Bumped into Phil in town one day? Editing tips?) and using YouTube excuse for living together. Seems crazy that 10 years later here we are. Both out, not hiding they bought and designed a home together and (as far as I’m aware) aren’t using needing the other to help with videos as the only reason for still living together.

Good for them either way. love them <3. sorry this got long!

honestly they started talking about a forever home and we all just kinda went along with it. i think there came a point where the vast majority of phannies were assuming they're together in some way shape or form, and for a few years we had this mutual understanding of we know and they know we know and we know they know we know but outside of fan circles nobody's Saying it. i suppose we still have this, except hilariously there are now a lot more people falling over themselves condemning people for saying they're an item lol

because of this it didn't really feel like a big thing when they announced that they'd bought a house, like i don't even think the majority of people were talking about how that means they're gonna live together forever because at that point we already assumed as much, it felt so inevitable

but as far as what dnp have outright said, i think the interview responses from dan during his we're all doomed press tour are the most blatant quotes we've got. like, he's not saying it, but he's also not Not saying it

..well actually he kind of is just saying it. lol.

edit: oh and of course we can't forget the iconic attitude 2020 interview

#annoyingass reporter in the second one but then again dan could've just not answered so i suppose it's fine #answered

[project-sekai-facts]

After seeing the fun fact about Becoming Potatoes, I now wonder how far back does the process of one event is from conceptualizing it to fully releasing it. Is it months? Years? I know development and planning can be long but how far back are things planned for Proseka's events in spesifics.

i have an extra fun fact about that song that i don't think i've mentioned before: it's the only song to never have a teaser before it's released in-game, probably because there was no point in it since the vocaloid version had been released months prior. annoyingly, neru never did a corocoro producer interview, so it's basically impossible for us to know what exactly went down in the development of that song.

here's some stuff i can tell you about event planning and such (most is song related lol bc there's far less interviews with the writers):

in an old Q&A around the 1st anniversary, the writers said it takes around 6-12 months to complete an event after conception

in the same question, they said they immediately have to prepare a summary after commissioning so they can pass it on, suggesting the commissioning stage comes first

i know i usually don't mention leaks but these aren't leaks anymore. back in early 2023 around the time of Little Bravers, the song titles and producers for commissions up until Samsa leaked. The producers for Hug and Regulus also leaked 1-2 months in advance. p sure there used to be a staff leaker LOL but at least they confirmed the comms are finished a fair amount in advance

for early events though, some accounts make it sound like vocaPs were being commissioned like years in advance. PinocchioP, Oster Project, NayutalieN did not receive a story summary.

NayutalieN also said that he was contacted very early on in development, only being shown character designs for MMJ. He literally says that "nothing had been decided and he was fed more details as they were finalised". and later in his interview mentions that the "omoi no kakera" lyric was not an intentional reference [to what is known as wish pieces on EN], since those didn't even exist yet.

Syudou says that Jackpot Sad Girl was made in 2020, not very long before the launch of the game, so there's a little less time there.

Surii said he was commissioned ~6 months before launch, so around a year before Pale Color ran. It's also worth noting that he was given story details at this point in time, meaning Pino/Oster/NayutalieN were commissioned before this point.

The designs were completed in early 2019 according to CGWorld's prsk feature, so we can assume that the vocaPs who weren't given story details were commissioned around this time

The story has a planned ending and has had this since early development. The overall story has always been decided but only as an outline, more specific details and the actual events are written as the game goes one.

However certain details, such as Mafuyu running away, were planned in advance.

Apparently it takes about a week to get to the final draft of an event story, after going through checks with other staff and re-drafting (same source as the "specific details" link)

Additionally: card art. According to that 1st anniversary q&a i mentioned earlier, the art team takes two months or more per card. might be longer now because of the higher art quality. The art team sometimes bases set themes off the commission (such as Hitsuji ga Ippiki & kiuan set), or off the event story, which again gives us an indicator of how far in advance this stuff is finished.

#asks

[accio-victuuri]

ONE NIGHT IN BEIJING & other sweets 🌃

when i first saw this song being discussed earlier, i was confused cause i don’t know what’s happening. lol. what’s with the song. i cannot trace where the screenshot is from but it says one of WYB’s favorite song is this, one night in beijing.

then a fan commented that XZ sang this in our song before ( not main performance ) and someone found a recording. did he discover the song because of that? was it on zz’s playlist at some point in the past and became his fave?

the song itself tho. very 👀👀👀

Don’t wish to ask where you have been

Don’t wish to wonder if you are ever returning

I’m thinking of your heart, I’m thinking of your face

I’m thinking of your embrace – I won’t let go, I just won’t

that’s just the first few lines and i’m here nodding my head that this fits his style of bittersweet song.

but this not even the interesting part….

Fans are thinking about how this relates to what’s been happening in the past few ways. The way we have speculated about 11/19 and WYB acting as the mystery driver again. Then him sharing a post on his weibo. One night in Beijing? Does he love that particular title cause it sometimes describes their meetings? They are often busy and one night is all they can get.

People are also pointing out the change in ZZ’s work schedule today. His LOCH sched starts early and ends in the evening or very late but the 5:30-6:00 AM call time for him is almost fixed. Yesterday, 11/22, WYB posts and we think they are together. What happens today? ZZ comes in “late” to work at 11:30 AM. So why the change? Was he spending time with Bobo? This reminds me of that time he was out of his schedule too when Bobo was sick.

A common argument from haters is how is a relationship between them possible. They are busy! Well.. this is how. since 2020, they have been meeting (allegedly) and even going to each other’s workplace ( allegedly lol repeating this to be safe ) It doesn’t matter how long, they make it work. You will always find time for the important people in your life.

Next, let’s move on to XZS post. On a Thursday. Also it perfectly coincides with their WB account reaching 10 million followers. The photos shared are behind the scenes content from ad shoots but the contrast of the photos stands out. Day & Night. The kadian they use, 14:23 loving zhan forever. Which goes to show that they do use it!

The caption gives us more insight on the choice of photos. Sun & Moon. Another symbolism that is popular with CPFs Sun/Sunshine & Moon.

“It is the perfect moment, just like when the gentle light meets the rising moon.”

I think the english translation doesn’t give that much deeper meaning that we clowns love. so we gotta take it to the next level 🙃🙃🙃

"Fuguang" and "Wangshu" are both important elements in Chinese culture. "Fuguang" comes from the works of Song poets in the Southern Dynasties, which means sunlight or sunlight."Wangshu" is a god in Chinese mythology and legend, representing the moon and can be used to describe moonlight'. The two can be combined to show that lovers support each other and move towards a bright future together.

This caption aligns to WYB posting a photo yesterday that shows the 🌙. So does this mean WYB is the Moon & ZZ is the Sun/light? I have to say that it fits with their personality ( tho Bobo is warm and ZZ has his moments of being cold too but you know what I mean, for symbolic purposes only ok. ) I am loving this imagery between them! I hope we can have more reference in the future.

I’m cackling at this tho. The progression of posts, WYB’s caption was a reminder that it’s getting colder > YBO reposts and says to wear warmer clothes > XZS posts and GG is wearing a cozy sweater 😂 As if saying that yep, he has worn warmer clothes. LOL.

and xzs and ybo are at it again, the photo ybo shared yesterday was showing wyb’s back and xzs shared something similar today as the last photo in the grid. i’m sure they have lots of photos that show his face or close ups of his body like his hand but they had to choose this as the finale.

i mean thank you, this will make it easier for us to edit them together 😂😂😂

Bonus, the “light” photos appear to form an 8 = bo. (p1) is a himalaya episode about the 8 of diamonds card forming an 8. What a coincidence!

-END.

#yizhan #bjyx #there is no science here i’m just clowning like i always do #my god the past days are so sweeeeet so much candies!!!!!!

[zjpg]

just a girl

'birthday'

prev - m.list - next

[2020 - celebration posts + texts]

claire do you have something to tell me???? a secret lover perhaps??

addi huh??? oh! no lmfao fans just like shipping me with every man under the sun 😀😀

claire attractive men!

addi i don't trust your taste. you're dating my brother. besides, i'm here to race, not date.

claire ikik and i'm so happy for you. but you and arthur have been driving me nuts for the past 5 years.

addi nothing is going on between arthur and i !!!

claire 15th birthday. if i remember correctly, i gave you alcohol behind your moms back because you were sad that arthur couldn't make it to your bday. 16th birthday, the day after you slept over while your brother was away and i gave you wine, you told me you thought arthur was cute. age 17, arthur started talking to a girl and you got upset.

addi arthur IS cute. i tell him that all the times. and ofc i was upset about him not coming to my bday party!! the only reason i was upset about him talking to that girl was because she didn't want him talking to me. you've proven nothing.

claire charles didn't come either and you were only crying about arthur the whole night?? what about pierre?

addi what about him?

claire louis told me you used to like him??

addi omg clai, when i was 10😭😭 put me next to any blonde boy with the jb haircut when i was 10 and i would've sworn we were soulmates i love gasly, and i love arthur. but i've never seen myself dating either of them. esp not at the start of my career!

claire mhmmmm, you're so real for that blonde boy statement btw.

addi ikr, i had such a strong thing for blondes when i was younger.

claire i'm not done talking about these boys!

addi ofc you're not.

claire lando.

addi bestie.

claire false. since when has lando norris ever congratulated another driver on social media after a DNF?!?!!??!?!

addi he prob did it because i did on his first win.

claire flirting on twitch? facetime during lockdown???

addi flirting?? i wasn't flirting.

claire oh bby ofc you didn't. you and your brother share the same level of flirting skills. zero he was flirting, granted i don't think he is much of a pro when it comes to flirting either.

addi okay 1. rude. i can flirt.

claire no you can't.

addi and 2. he wasn't flirting.

claire denial denial denial. maybe there's nothing going on with pierre. maybe. (that man looks at you with the biggest fucking smile but that's my only evidence) but arthur and that british bitch? there's something there.

addi british bitch😭😭 there's nothing there but friendship 🥰

claire mhmmm whatever you say. i'm rooting for arthur.

addi why-

claire arthur's a cutie patootie

liked by charles_leclerc and 2,590,392 others

addilynleblanc happy birthday my forever friend❤️❤️❤️

tagged: charles_leclerc, arthur_leclerc

view all 23,393 comments

charles_leclerc i love you dearly -> addilynleblanc i love you more, charlie

arthur_leclerc the last three images, you're making the same face hahahaha -> addilynleblanc we are the same person🫡

user1 everyone say thank you addi for these pictures.

user2 the pic of them together when they were little 🥹🥹🥹 -> lori.rynolds.leblanc She will murder me, but Charles was her first kiss😊😊 -> addilynleblanc mama! -> landonorris Aweeeee

nolanleblanc Happy birthday Cha! -> charles_leclerc thank you!

pierregasly Why is he in a closet? -> arthur_leclerc Intense game of hide and seek.

user3 i love how you added pics with jules and arthur as well🥹

user4 you used to be blonde??? -> louisjuliusleblanc She ruined her hair when she was 13.

addi it's 12 am. happy birthday charlie. i love you did i beat arthur this year?

charlesthank you chérie❤️ i love you too and yes you did

addi SCORE!!!!

charles lol speaking of... is there something you wanna tell me?

addi noooo not you too🥲 did nolan or claire talk to you??

charles clair and louis this time. but louis was drunk so he didn't make any sense.

addi sounds about right. nothing is going on with me and arthur. or me and pierre. or me and lando.

charles lando's a new one. you've already told me how you feel about pierre before. does that still stand?

addi yes.

charles idk why you never talked to him about that?he was confused for so long.

addi idk how he could be. i don't wanna talk about him.

charles okay. what about arthur then? nothing going on at all?

addi why? do you know something i don't?

charles if i did would it make a difference?

addi probably not.

charles because you don't like him at all or because of something else?

addi because i told myself i would focus on my career i don't want to lose focus.

charles i've never seen you lose focus in anything but math class. having feelings and dating people won't make you lose focus, take it from me. charlotte and i are doing just fine.

addi too bad your strategist is fucking you over😁

charles addilyn. i'm being serious.

addi lando's cute and sweet. but i still don't know enough about him. arthur and i grew up together, he was my first friend, he used to tattle on the kids in karting who would bully me. i don't want to ruin the life long relationship that's there. and then pierre... yeah. i also just don't think i'm ready.

charles okay, chérie. that's fine. but don't suck up all your feelings. that's when you'll start to lose focus.

lando Hey! Wyd right now?

addi i was gonna watch a movie and then facetime charlotte to talk about charles' birthday

lando Sounds boring Wanna play COD??

addi sure, why not.

taglist: @love4lando @fairiepoems @leilanixx

#˗ˏˋ LUCIE. ❝ just a girl ❞ #f1 x female reader #f1 #f1 x reader #f1 imagine #f1 fanfic #formula 1 #charles leclerc #pierre gasly #lando norris #arthur leclerc #f1 x oc #just a girl

[callmewrinkles3]

Long story short - DR3 x Fem!OC

Masterlist.

Summary: Summer break 2023 means a trip back to Perth to see how construction is going on the farm and but especially to spend Em’s birthday with family.

Warnings: Mentions of past abusive family dynamics, mentions of sex, past pregnancy loss.

Words: 6k

A/N: Hey hey! We know you’ve missed oneshots so here’s Em’s birthday for you to enjoy. We may have cried multiple times writing this, just very normal. It was pretty great lol. Hope you enjoy it and let us know what you think! All our love, Alex and Cíara.💜

August 2023

The summer break every year - with the exception of 2018 and 2020 - had involved being in the States. It was usually LA and sun for a few days, or a week somewhere in the mountains for Dan to do altitude training to prepare for races like Brazil and Mexico. But that summer things were different. With the farm construction happening fast thanks to the baby’s due date coming so soon, and Blake and Charlie being adorable, the three of them were flying back home to spend the full two weeks of the shutdown in the Australian winter. It was still milder than a European one, Em giggling as the boys changed into thick hoodies before ending the journey that had started in Italy.

Dan wanted to take full advantage of the time off, conspiring with Charlie to plan Em’s thirty third birthday. She knew it was happening and just let him plan it. Even with her dislike of parties she knew Dan wouldn’t go too overboard, so she just laughed and told him to do what he wanted. Having it surrounded by people felt strange. The year before had been just the two of them in their little bubble, and before that it had always been with Dan. She hadn’t had her parents involved since she was ten and had her final birthday party before secondary school. Because she was a summer baby her parents had acted like she didn’t need a party. The kids in school wouldn’t realise there was no party to be invited to.

She insisted it wasn’t necessary to organise anything but he wouldn’t take no for an answer. Dan wanted his pregnant wife to be as happy as she could be before the chaos of the last half of the season happened so it was a full thirteen days surrounded by their people before the flight back to Faenza.

Em had to admit that it was a perfect idea. Ever since she’d found out about the pregnancy and told Grace she needed her mother there for all the questions she had. It was a blessing to spend time and to ask the questions she was embarrassed about - even when Michelle butted in and made jokes at her expense. It was there with her family and she felt good. She could call either of them any time that she wanted but it was no substitute for actually being there. She needed the hugs and physical contact that only a mum could give.

What Em had needed the entire time was for the woman who’d promised to love her as her own to wrap her in a cuddle and remind her that everything was going to be fine. That she was going to spend Christmas with her beautiful newborn baby girl. And when Grace said it Em believed it.

They got to spend the two weeks with family and eating good food, being looked after before the world could intervene. That’s what Grace and Joe had always done for Dan and they pulled Em into that world, looking after their kids when they needed it the most.

But the best thing about staying with her in laws and not the building site that was currently their farmhouse was getting to stay in Dan’s childhood bedroom. Grace hadn’t redecorated since he’d left for Italy half his life ago, the old school NASCAR posters on the wall and karting trophies on shelves. The photos of his family and friends were there to surround Dan with reminders of his childhood. Em refused to mention the one of Dan and Michael on their school football team that had disappeared when she was in the shower one morning. She couldn’t ruin their time at home talking about something like that. As far as she was concerned the picture was never there. It was the same way they were all pretending Michael had never been in their lives. Grace and Joe knew better than to ask about him.

That whole situation hurt a little less every day, but it still ached. It was easier when they weren’t in the paddock. The plan was to spend more time in Italy so Dan could be at the factory more where Michael wouldn’t really be. In London and Perth they could avoid his neighbourhood and the places he liked to go. But race weekends it was impossible. They shared the same garage, the same hospitality. They turned left to go into Dan’s driver room at Budapest and Spa and knew that he was the other side of the too flimsy wall having turned right. They could and did run into him at any time. Em wanted to tell him how she was, how the baby was. How his niece was. But Lulu wasn’t going to be his niece. She wasn’t going to even know him. It gutted Em that her brother wasn’t in her life anymore but he’d made his decision and it didn’t hurt as much. But it hurt the most during the parties Dan held in Perth.

The first one was ridiculous and unexpected, held two days after they arrived in Australia. It was part Charlie’s idea and part Dan’s, the decision made between them to celebrate Blake and Em. Neither of them realised that it was happening when they arrived back at the Ricciardos that afternoon. Blake had brought her to take a look at kitchen fittings for the farmhouse, the plan to bring Dan back to look at her top picks before they were put into the rebuilt kitchen. She was getting the kitchen of her dreams and she was taking advantage, copper fittings and marble countertops on the wooden cabinets. There was all the storage she wanted, the plans were ready for her to show Dan and see what he thought. It was their forever home and she couldn’t wait.

She arrived back to Grace and Joe’s to their family there, Charlie’s brother Cal and his boyfriend standing near the back nervously. Blake’s parents had flown out to be there too. Dan stood on a rickety kitchen chair, his hand on Blake’s shoulder to stay steady.

“I’m usually good at saying stuff but this is really hard. The last…the last year or so has been really hard. And there’s two people who could have walked away but didn’t, and this is to make sure they know how loved and appreciated they are. Blake, you’re my brother. You more than anyone else had a reason to yell at me and tell me to get my shit together - sorry Ma.”

“Just this once!” Grace called as Dan collected himself.

“Emmy, you married me and you love me and we’re having a baby and I still don’t know why you decided to stay through everything that was said about you. But you are the best woman I’ve met in my life, and I love you to pieces. You know. But this is just to say thank you to all of you for being there and helping. Cause I wouldn’t be in a seat again without you all.”

It was scattered applause and Em reached for her husband to give him the biggest hug, pulling him tight for a moment as Lulu kicked against him.

“You’re gonna be the best dad, Dan. We love you so much. And I’d do it again in a heartbeat.”

The words were completely true, even with everything that had happened. The emotional and physical pain. The embarrassment being turned away from the paddock in Spa the year before thanks to stupid mind games. The hospital visit and the therapy and the near screaming match with her parents. Because they were home with their baby coming soon and in love. It was hard and worth it.

She spent that day swapping between Isaac and Isabella on her knee, Cal and Ryder taking the other child and playing. The last thing she said to Cal before he left was that Ryder was a keeper, watching the younger man blush. He was a sweetheart like the rest of their family.

Blake and Charlie were the last ones to leave, hugs to everyone the order of the day. Finally they left, Em going nearly straight to bed to sleep thanks to missing her usual afternoon nap.

Em told Dan not to make a huge fuss of her birthday, that a relaxing day would be fine. But she knew really that there was no chance her husband or family would let her birthday pass like that. It was the one day where they could shower her with love and affection without her complaints so they took full advantage.

She woke up that morning to Dan covering her in kisses, pulling her in for slow birthday sex that had them both gasping for breath and desperate to keep quiet. Her husband held her even tighter for a few moments before they got up, Dan leading her to the kitchen where Grace and Joe sang Happy Birthday as she came in. There were pancakes and bacon waiting for her with a candle lit on the top of a lavender iced cupcake. She started tearing up immediately, not even attempting to pretend that it was the pregnancy hormones that caused her emotions. It was happy tears. She was happy and loved and that was what she cared about. She and Dan had made it through, and the joy that morning compared to the worry of the previous year was so different.

It felt like a dream compared to the year before, her husband by her side and she was pregnant with their baby. They were getting everything they wanted and life was good. Nobody was taking this from her and she spent her morning curled up against Dan on the couch as he kept whispering how much he loved her, making her grin and kissing her cheeks with each smile.

Nothing had prepared her for the birthday party that Blake, Charlie, and Dan had prepared for her at the Clarke’s farm. Dan led her into the barn where they’d held their wedding, a shout of “SURPRISE” ringing around the room. She loved it so much, lavender decorations everywhere as their families were all there. She started tearing up of happiness again, tears spilling over as Isaac and Isabella came running over to her yelling “happy birthday Auntie Emmy!”.

She honestly didn’t expect gifts from people. Dan had been the first person to give her gifts just because, but there was a table tucked away in the corner with presents for her to open later. It was insane to her how many there were, everyone saying she could open them later. Charlie’s parents hugged her and pulled a chair out to urge her to sit, Em watching as Isaac and Isabella brought over their presents for her.

The first one that Isaac insisted on her opening had Toy Story wrapping paper, and inside was a huge box with everything she could ever want to make friendship bracelets with. They had a tradition to make new ones every time they were in Perth with the kids, weaving thread and beads together to make cute ones. Isaac explained how he wanted new ones, and he wanted them to make new ones for the baby too.

“They’re gonna be teeny tiny cause the baby’s gonna be like Iz’s dolly, but we need them to have lots so they grow!” He explained to Em, clearly happy to have a new cousin to play with.

“You’re so right, Baby. I love it, thank you! You’re gonna come over at the weekend and we can make some before I go back to Europe?”

With a nod and a kiss on his aunt’s cheek Isaac ran back to his uncle Dan, the promise of getting to go look at the cattle on the farm too alluring. Instead his little sister took his spot on Em’s lap, handing over a box wrapped in lavender unicorn paper. Inside it was a bright pink Barbie box. The doll had brunette hair like Em, complete with a travel set. There was a neck pillow, a suitcase that looked like Em’s own one, and everything else Barbie her could need.

“It’s just like you!” Isabella exclaimed as soon as the paper was ripped away and dumped on the other side of the table. It really did nearly look like her.

“Oh my God, I love it.” She kissed her niece’s curly hair, holding on tightly as Isabella pointed out the phone and camera. “Thank you so, so much, Baby girl. I love it so, so much. It’s the best.”

“Can we play tomorrow?” The little girl asked, looking up with big eyes and an angelic face. It was nearly impossible for Em to say no.

“After school, ok? But then we can, promise. And we’ll have some more cake, but don’t tell your Mum and we’ll make sure to save some for her.”

At the start she didn’t ask why a Barbie doll, it came from her niece and that was what she cared about. But while during the party Isabella kept asking about the baby and patting Em’s tummy, she couldn’t stop wondering why. Once Isabella was safely occupied with one of Charlie’s nieces she decided she had to ask, walking over to her sister in law and getting the words out. As soon as Michelle began to speak Em regretted asking.

“We were in the kitchen and she came to tell me and Mum that you come up with the best stories for the Barbies while you play, but you never had one growing up so you didn’t have a favourite Barbie. She thought because you travel so much Travel Barbie would be your favourite. I couldn’t say no, Em. I’m sorry you never had one.”

Em never thought Isabella would remember that single conversation. It was months ago, the week before her wedding. If she’d realised Isabella would think about it she wouldn’t have said it.

Part of the therapy that Mildred was working on with her was giving her that allowance to be a kid. She’d never gotten to be, but Mildred told her to do the things she wanted to. Spend time with her niece and nephew and play with them. She’d made a bundle of friendship bracelets before seeing Taylor Swift as part of it. So when Isabella asked if she wanted to play Barbies Em said yes immediately.

She and Dan were on babysitting duty, the four of them were downstairs playing with Isaac’s cars. Instead of playing he and Dan had fallen asleep thanks to exhaustion and a sugar crash from the final wedding cake tests. The two girls were alone and Isabella pulled Em upstairs before taking out a Barbie carry case and asking Em to do braids in Skipper’s hair.

It was while Em was twisting the slick strands of plastic hair when Isabella asked her about her favourite Barbie as a kid. She couldn’t tell the truth and break her niece’s childhood. The truth was that her parents thought dolls were ridiculous and she was never allowed to have them growing up, that she had puzzles and non fiction books. Even fiction books had to be by certain authors or she couldn’t read them because they wouldn’t “develop her brain”.

The short answer, the easy one, was “Oh, I didn’t have any Barbies.” Followed by asking if Isabella wanted her hair to match Skippers and a child sitting in Em’s lap to get her french braids put in the subject matter was closed. She was convinced that Isabella had forgotten about it. The next topic of conversation was how pretty her flower girl dress for the wedding was and how she looked “like a fairy princess” in it. But she hadn’t.

Her thoughts were pinned on the topic after she spoke to Michelle. Em went mostly through the motions for the rest of the party, hugging her friends and talking to everyone. Chloe and Scotty made a surprise appearance for her, a giant hug and a promise that Em was coming out with Chloe and Charlie in a couple of days for lunch.

The box with the doll stayed in her hand and all she could imagine was a couple of years time when her daughter started playing with it. She couldn’t imagine having a baby, going through pregnancy and labour to not even want the result. To never really want a baby like her parents never wanted her. Even thinking about her baby girl not having the entire world hurt so much it made her want to cry. It was still four months until she’d arrive and Em and Dan would do anything to keep her safe and love her. Her nursery in London was ready to go, the last thing a photo collage Em wanted to make of all the adults who would love Lulu. The only reason her room in Perth wasn’t ready was because of the construction, but the furniture had been delivered and was sitting in an outbuilding. They already had enough to fill the playroom and the nursery even though Lulu would sleep in their room for the first few months. The travel arrangements were ready to go. They even had Lulu’s luggage all set.

Em had never really understood how someone couldn’t love their own child, but as she counted down the days to her due date it was even harder. She knew there was reasons why, she knew some people weren’t pregnant in good situations. But when she was pregnant and married and had tried for a baby? It was irrational to her that you wouldn’t want that child.

But while the birthday party continued she refused to let herself go there. She wouldn’t let herself think about why her parents were the way they were and how much that hurt. And she definitely wasn’t thinking about how the last time she came home from this room her former best friend had left her life in the most unceremonious of ways. That wasn’t raining on her parade, not today. So she walked over, hugged her husband, whispered how much she loved him and how thankful she was for the wonderful day she was having.

“Remember when you weren’t the party kind and I had to drag you anywhere?” Dan joked, kissing her cheek as she smiled.

“I reckon you were the one who dragged me to different ones ever since we met. But you know me, Dimples. I still don’t like big things much but this? This is nice. These are the ones I like.”

Even at 33 she hated when she was the centre of attention and people sang happy birthday to her. She wasn’t sure if anyone actually liked being surrounded by friends singing off key and out of tune, but for the first time it didn’t feel weird. The people who were around her had been supporting her through every single good and bad moment in the last five years. They loved her no matter how broken or weird she felt. They made sure that she knew how loved she was, no matter what. Every single person had wormed their way into her heart when she’d tried to keep people out. So when the singing ended and she took a deep breath to blow out the birthday candles in one breath she had one wish in her mind. To keep every single person in this room in her life forever.

The winter meant the sun was setting early, exhaustion hitting Em hard. She’d needed naps more and more since she’d become pregnant and this was the second time in a week that she hadn’t had one. After her third yawn and as the kids were getting cranky they all decided to head home. It took Dan to make her sit down and not help clear up, Charlie’s parents half shooing them out of the barn warning that the cleaning was sorted, to go home and rest. Joe drove them back, Grace in the front seat as Em rested her head against Dan’s shoulder and half dozed while the other three made conversation in low tones.

Her husband had to shake her to wake her up when they got back to the house, Em stretching as she undid her belt. It was tempting to stay and sleep in the car, but her back was sore enough after a night in a comfy bed. Sitting up in a car would be worse.

Dan didn’t want to wake her when they arrived back at the house, but it was safer for her to get out of the car on her own instead of Dan lifting her out. He helped her up and closed the door behind her.

“Did you have a good day, Kiddo?” Joe asked a half awake Em as they walked back into the house. Dan’s arm was around her waist to help keep her up and stop her from tripping up with tiredness.

“Best birthday of my life. You didn’t need to do it, but thank you for doing it for me.”

“It’s what you deserve, Darling,” Grace insisted. Her mother in law pushed a kiss to her forehead before Dan brought Em up to bed.

Before they made it into their room Dan dragged her into the bathroom, getting Em to sit on the toilet as he took her makeup off fully and helped rub her moisturiser in. She was too tired to do it, almost deciding to just sleep without washing her face. But as delicately as possible Dan wiped it off, using crouching in front of her as an excuse to stroke her cheek and steal kisses from his wife.

Once they were ready to go to bed Dan lifted her off the toilet and across the hallway to deposit her on the bed, Em giggling at his actions. It didn’t take long for him to pull her dress and leggings off, replacing them with clean underwear and one of his old, worn shirts that was soft enough for Em. She laughed as he kept stealing kisses from her as he pulled the shirt over her bump, rubbing gently

“I’m lazy and sleepy but I can still change my clothes on my own, Babe.”

“You know very well that I love undressing you. Even if you actually have to wear something to bed because we’re at home.”

If they were in the apartment or even on the farm they wouldn’t be wearing anything. The skin to skin contact in bed always made Em relax and help her sleep better but considering they were at Dan’s parents they had to be semi decent. Em wore one of his shirts and Dan would at least keep his underwear on. Even when he complained more than once.

“Any excuse to see me naked, right?” Em smiled before kissing his cheek and finally laying down to be able to rest. “C’mon Dimples, your wifey is exhausted. Come to bed.”

She patted the mattress beside her to wait for Dan to crawl into the bed and she could get into his arms. She knew it’d take him longer to fall asleep than her. Every night since she’d gotten that positive pregnancy test he’d started his own little night time ritual of telling the baby a story while kissing and stroking her bump. He wasn’t joking about wanting to be a hands on dad, so since day one he did everything in his power to connect with their baby. It didn’t matter how long was left until she was in his arms, he wanted his daughter to know who her daddy was from day one.

From all the things he did or could do those five or ten minutes as they wound down for bed were some of his favourite of the day. Most nights Em stayed awake listening to what her husband was saying while she read. Other nights like this one she fell asleep easily and left her loves to have their late night chats.

“Before I get in I have one last thing for you.” Dan pulled a colourful Happy Birthday gift bag that was hidden in the bottom drawer of the wardrobe. “I know you’re going to say I’ve given you too many gifts, but it’s your birthday and our anniversary so birthaversary rules mean I get to spoil you. If you let me I’d spoil you every day. I’m so lucky to get to love you and be your husband. I couldn’t say this earlier cause I’d start crying, but I just…thanks, Emmy. I couldn’t do any of this without you. And you’ve made me the happiest man in the world. I love you.”

“I love you too, Danny. So much. Marrying you is the best thing I ever did. And this better not be lingerie that won’t fit me anymore.” He laughed at her words and handed over the bag, sitting up beside her in the bed. It was six years of being around Dan, of him getting overexcited and determined to spoil her rotten at all times. She’d jokingly complain about how he got her too much, but he was like that for everyone. She learned to get used to how Dan showed his love with gifts and making life easier for people. This was another one of those occasions so she sat up on the bed with a pillow supporting her back, looking at her husband as he smiled.

“You’re the hottest mama in the world, Baby girl. But no, it’s nothing like that. Just open it, ok?”

The second Em opened the bag and saw the stuffed crocodile inside she started crying. Pregnancy hormones couldn’t be blamed for these tears.

When she was three her parents brought her on a trip to a holiday camp in Wales. She barely remembered any of it apart from a little playground beside the pub there, but it was the kind of place that was where they could take her for a weekend to prove how normal they were. An hour from Liverpool, two nights and enough photos to prove they took their daughter away on holiday.

One of the few things she did remember was how much she loved Captain Croc, the crocodile mascot that wandered around. They’d gotten her a teddy, the first one she remembered having. He was vivid green and yellow, blue dungarees with yellow interlocking Cs and big white eyes. He was her comfort toy, hugging him in her tiny arms and bringing him everywhere until she started primary school.

She thought she remembered the feeling of having a new best friend to play with and make up games. Now she knew it was probably her brain trying to make a memory to help her cope with a messed up childhood.

The one definite memory that Em did have was how thirty years later she watched her husband tear up as he looked at a photo of her tiny self holding Captain Croc. Dan held it together until they made it back to the hotel after they left her parents house with the final box of things she was taking. Once they were in that room he started sobbing because he didn’t understand how nobody was there to hold that little girl and tell her how perfect she was. He sobbed because he knew that it was one of the few really happy moments she had in her early childhood. Not that she realised that it should have been better then.

But above all Dan sobbed because that’s what their baby might have looked like. It was the week after she should have had their first baby. They should have been parents. Imagining how their baby could have been hurt like that by anyone cut him to the core and he sobbed in Em’s arms as she held him and promised that they would do better. They would make sure their baby was so loved. She was used to the casual cruelty of her own parents, the way they used words as weapons. Dan who’d never known anything but support and love didn’t understand it.

This teddy meant more than just a gift from her husband to remind her of a bright spot in her life. It was the reminder of slowly healing wounds that still weren’t fully scabbed over. That photo had opened them up more again, and the teddy reminded her more. The day she told Dan the story he held her as they both sobbed. He’d have done anything to have a little girl who looked just like his Emmy. Anything to see his Emmy holding their mini me baby but life was unfair and cruel. Instead of holding their baby that day they held each other, promising that one day it was going to happen. They were going to get to have their family and be happy, no matter what.

But in the final hours of her birthday, thirty one years after she first held her teddy, Em started sobbing again. She had no idea how Dan had found an exact copy of the Captain Croc she’d loved so much but he did. Hers was too delicate, kept in a box in the apartment in London to be shown to her kids as a memento. But he’d found a brand new one, making child and adult Em sob with happiness.

“I knew that a certain little lady wanted to give you a Barbie because you never had one, so I thought that Barbie could do with having a friend. And in a couple of years when our little lady is able to she’ll want to play with them too.” Dan helped Em pull him out of the bag. It should have been easy but her hands were shaking so badly that she couldn’t get him out fully.

The adrenaline and relief flowing through her body made her shake like a leaf in Dan’s arms. Em didn’t know how she had gotten this lucky. She had friends who flew hours to see her for her birthday, a family who loved her enough to make a big deal of her. And the most loving and caring husband in the world. She still didn’t know what she did to deserve it and get it, but she was so thankful for it. It was yet another day where even with everything that had happened, even with the way her parents acted and her family was it was worth it because she had Dan. She’d have done it over and over if this was the result. She was married to the love of her life, she was having their baby, and they were happier than she thought possible.

It took longer than she expected to calm down her sobs, Dan holding onto her tightly. He ran his hand against her back, whispering how much he loved her in between pressing kisses to her face and head. It was whispers of how proud he was of her, how much he loved her, how wonderful she was. And most importantly how he knew that their baby loved her already.

“Marrying you a year ago was the best decision of my entire life, you know that, right?” Em whispered, her voice still shaking with sobs. “Y’know, right?”

“I know. We’re still a couple of hours away from exactly a year.” Dan checked his watch, it was ten in Perth, two in London. This time a year ago he was waiting for Em to come back and pick out wedding rings with him before their four pm appointment.

“Happy anniversary, my Love. It was the best idea we ever had.”

Her birthday overshadowed the fact that it was their first wedding anniversary. A year ago they were running around London, Em buying her wedding dress in Marks and Spencer as Dan wore a suit she loved him in. The two of them standing in the registry office in Kensington and promising to love each other, desperate to keep the other happy and get through the next few months together.

It was hard to believe that 365 days had passed since she finally became Mrs Ricciardo. She loved it. She’d loved being his wife every single day, even the horrible ones. It was a year where she’d woken up at her husband’s side every single morning and she could never take it for granted.

“Happy anniversary, Baby girl. You and our little one here are the greatest things that ever happened to me,” Dan whispered as he pulled her up, close enough to finally give Em a kiss while he rubbed her bump.

“Happy anniversary, Danny. Here, for you.” Em reached across and pulled the wrapped package out from under the bed. She’d been wracking her brain about what to get him, but in the end it was an easy decision. Dan opened it quickly, Em watching as he realised what it was.

Traditionally the first anniversary was paper, and she found someone on Etsy who made star charts of the night sky on important dates. It was the sky above London the night they met, Monaco the first night they spent together, Spa when they said they loved each other for the first time, and London when they’d got married. The poster was their important moments highlighted and she saw the grin spread across his face.

“You are amazing. Thank you. This is…it’s everything.” He put it to the side as he pulled her in, holding her as she began to lull to sleep.

“You know what’s crazy? Next year we’re gonna be celebrating our birthdays and anniversaries with her.”

“That’s all I want. The three of us snuggled up together doing nothing all day.”

Em couldn’t help but smile, imagining how it would be to wake up with their baby and her husband right there. No plans needed except spending the day with the loves of her life. She didn’t want anything else and it felt greedy to even consider asking to get anything else. She got to marry her Dan and love him openly, and their baby was strong and healthy and growing. It was more than she could have imagined.

“We’ll cuddle and eat cake. She better like lemon drizzle. I mean I’ll settle for chocolate fudge if I have to.”

“She might not. I mean I’ve been eating it so much she might hate it. Or she’ll be obsessed.”

“Lulu’s half you, Emmy. She’s obsessed already I think.” Em laughed at his tone, curling into Dan.

“Can I sleep like this?” She asked, hiding her face against Dan’s chest. She felt ridiculous holding Captain Croc in her arms as she could feel sleep hitting her while her husband was holding her tightly. But she felt just as defenceless as the little girl in the photos. The big difference between the Em of thirty years ago was that now there were people who looked after her and hugged her on the bad days. Who made sure she was eating and cared for. She’d never had someone love her unconditionally like that until Dan was in her life.

“Anything you want, birthday girl.”

Em’s wishes were Dan’s commands, so she fell asleep in her husband’s arms, head on his chest as her teddy was between them with Dan’s low whispers to their baby echoing in her ears. It might be immature, a grown woman and soon to be mother getting that comfort, but she wanted and needed it. The rest didn’t matter. She and Dan were happy and that was what was important.

—

Taglist: (Let us know if you wanna be added!)

@dr3lover @sabrinaselina55 @majx00 @tall-tanned-tattoo @lovingdennishauger @lauehr @msolbesg @f1medlife @idkwtfimdoing2 @leclercsbae @hiphopdancer101universe @mehrmonga @lewispool @saintandrea-droidsmuggler @coldheartedmar @sugarbabygirlofdaddy @nonsensical-nonce @a-distantdreamer @tita010 @leslizzle @javden @mloyer @saintandrea-droidsmuggler @magical-imagination-kgp @danarysstormborn @kakorrhaphiphobia @g-l-o-b-e-w-h-o-r-e @elizanav @neiich @luckyladycreator2 @scotlynaurora @belledawnidk

#call it what you want fic #ciwyw writing #daniel ricciardo x reader #daniel ricciardo fic #daniel ricciardo fanfic #daniel ricciardo oneshot #daniel ricciardo imagine #f1 imagine #f1 oneshot #formula one fanfic #formula 1 oneshot #formula one imagine #formula 1 imagine #f1 fanfic #f1 fic #formula one oneshot #formula one fanfiction #formula 1 fanfic

[garmmy]

2024 jp trip report (food edition)

i had originally planned to visit tokyo in 2020, but covid happened and...finally this year i managed to go on the trip! ;w; i rarely go overseas but it was really fun just walking around and stumbling upon things. i want to save up for the next japan trip already...

i'm making the post mostly to remember where i've been! i'm splitting up the food and the sights because of tumblr's image limit per post 🙄 will be posting the food here!

(sights edition here)

Day 1 (13/5/2024)

we arrived at night so pretty much everything was closed, but before i went to bed i had some cold haikara udon...i love cold udon so much and wish there was a way to get it cheap back home 😭 i also added some chilli oil with garlic, but it wasn't spicy..only the first day in and i miss singapore's spicy food 😂

Nakau なか卯 (chain store, multiple outlets)

Day 2 (14/5/2024)

we spent day 2 at ikebukuro and nakano...mostly browsing weeb shit 😭

started the day with some breakfast at komeda's coffee, they have a morning set and auugfhjhghh the bread used in japan cafes' toast is always so soft and fluffy..obsessed

Komeda's Coffee コメダ珈琲店 (chain store, multiple outlets)

at nakano broadway, the basement had some supermarkets/grocery stores and one of them sold sashimi. i didn't end up buying from here, but...LOOK at this sashimi, for 580jpy?? omg 😭😭😭 i want

we had lunch at a hayashi rice place near nakano broadway! i had curry omurice myself while my friend got the hayashi omurice. the omelette was sooo good...society if i could cook an egg like this on my own

Hayashi-ya Nakano-so ハヤシ屋中野荘 164-0001 Tokyo, Nakano City, Nakano, 5 Chome-55-15

and for dinner we had monjayaki at ikebukuro..we've never tried like, actually cooking the monjayaki before? so it was a fun experience!

Monjaya Mon もんじゃや紋 170-0013 Tokyo, Toshima City, Higashiikebukuro, 1 Chome−12−10 ヤンズビル 3F

Day 3 (15/5/2024)

on my morning walk i decided to try a canned drink from a vending machine. satsuma-imo milk! so in singapore, there was recently a 'nutri-grade' rating introduced mandatory for all drinks to indicate the sugar level in the drink. i didn't think i would miss it in japan LOL i'm sorry but drinking this drink was like drinking sugar syrup T_TT i think as i got older my sugar tolerance has drastically dropped..

we started at akihabara, and had brunch at niku no mansei (yes the well-known building with like 10 floors of meat before it closed, i think it split into a couple of places?) we went to the akiba place branch for their hemborger hamburg steak...how am i supposed to go back to eating it in singapore after this?? 🫠 IT'S SO GOOD (i'm also laughing at the token broccoli though)

Niku no Mansei Akiba Place 肉の万世 アキバプレイス店 101-0021 Tokyo, Chiyoda City, Sotokanda, 3 Chome−15−1, Akiba Place, 3F

after akiba we went to asakusa, and since it's asakusa we had to have some tendon..we just went into one of the tendon places we spotted but i didn't realise it was akimitsu!? we have akimitsu in singapore too 😂 but loved the tempura eel!

Akimitsu 秋光 111-0032 Tokyo, Taito City, Asakusa, 1 Chome-29-11

Day 4 (16/5/2024)

i got some plum onigiri from famima for breakfast on my morning walk. oughgkhghjh i already miss conbini onigiri so much...affordable yet tasty! i really love onigiri, but our convenience store onigiri in singapore is a bit overpriced, which wouldn't be so bad if the onigiri itself wasn't also terrible with cold hard rice :')

we started the day at tsukiji outer market. SEAFOOD..... we finally got some sashimi today, my beloved,,, we had engawa truffle salt sushi and also a sashimi bowl of the day. and also it was my first time trying shiokara! apparently it's squid in a kind of sauce made from fermented fish/sea animal innards. i'm not sure if it might be an acquired taste, but for a seafood lover like me it was so good 🥺 the lady serving us food was also really nice and we had a little chat even with our terrible spoken japanese lol.

Taneichi たねいち 104-0045 Tokyo, Chuo City, Tsukiji, 4 Chome-9-5

i also found shirako in the market! it was my first time eating it (i think it can be found in singapore? but not particularly common). other than the shiso leaf it was served plain though, while i like the taste i kinda wish i had rice or something to go with it.

also we got some matcha latte from the market before leaving! i got the 'less sweet' which was perfect, when a lot of times the least sweet (without being zero sugar) option from drink stores are too sweet for me..

Matcha Stand Maruni マッチャスタンドマルニ 104-0045 Tokyo, Chuo City, Tsukiji, 4 Chome−14−18

some ramen for dinner at ryogoku! admittedly i'm not a super into ramen person 😅 but butter in noodles is always such a nice combo!

Tadokoro Shoten 田所商店 (chain store, multiple outlets)

and some parfait for supper. look at their logo!! so cute 🥹🥹🥹

Mayonaka Farm (Ryogoku Yokozuna Yokocho outlet) 真夜中牧場 両国横綱横丁店 130-0026 Tokyo, Sumida City, Ryogoku, 3 Chome-22-8

Day 5 (17/5/2024)

started the day with some zaru soba. it was nice but cold soba was kind of a mistake because it was raining that morning and so COLD lol

Yudetaro ゆで太郎 (chain store, multiple outlets)

we started at shinjuku today and walked our way down to shibuya. with my friend's recommendation we tried blue bottle coffee? the latte was nice and even had this natural sweetness(?) to it despite not adding sugar.

Blue Bottle Coffee ブルーボトルコーヒー (chain store, multiple outlets)

and then we went to takeshita street. i think marion crepes is the most well-known one, but the queue..??? so we ended up going to another crepe store. it's still a treat and has a variety of flavours! i got the regular strawberry whipped cream.

Santa Monica Crepes サンタモニカクレープ 150-0001 Tokyo, Shibuya City, Jingumae, 1 Chome-16-16-8

late lunch at yomenya goemon! i had the tarako butter one and i really liked it...i think i could try buying some mentaiko from donki back home and trying it out myself..

Yomenya Goemon 洋麵屋 五右衛門 (chain store, multiple outlets)

Day 6 (18/5/2024)

conbini haul for the morning. i would like to shoutout to famima's pudding in particular; i feel a lot of store-bought pudding tend to be closer to the jelly-like consistency, but i prefer my pudding to be closer to the creamy? eggy? like consistency and famima's pudding is perfect for the price ;w;

we went to miura peninsula in kanagawa for the day using the misaki maguro ticket (it's so worth!! highly recommend if you want a day trip from tokyo). for breakfast we had some coffee and toast at coffee house poem. their signature blend (kaigan blend) in particular was really unique and nice..kinda regret not ordering that for myself 😂 love the rustic interior too!

Coffee House Poem (Miurakaigan outlet) ぽえむ三浦海岸駅前店 238-0101 Kanagawa, Miura, Minamishitauramachi, Kamimiyada-3130

nearby there's a souvenir shop selling mainly jams, and pickles (including daikon, one of miura's specialties). did you know that i hated eating radish until japanese daikon changed my life 🤣 i also got some persimmon jam to try since i'd never really heard of it! and also some honey+daikon candy.

Temiyage Iroiro Miura Store 手土産いろいろ 三浦ストア 238-0101 Kanagawa, Miura, Minamishitauramachi, Kamimiyada-3255

and finally we got SUSHI...i could cry the maguro here is so good 😭😭😭😭😭 the place is called 'kaitenzushi kaisen', but the sushi does not actually 'kaiten'/revolve, the chefs just serve it 😂 we used the maguro ticket on this so we got some maguro and some local catch!

Kaitenzushi Kaisen 廻転寿司 海鮮 238-0101 Kanagawa, Miura, Minamishitauramachi, Kamimiyada-3372-18

we then took the train to misakiguchi station, and the bus to misaki port. there's a market there called urari marche, which sells seafood and veggies mainly. we got some skewer hotate (scallop) and maguro karaage there! i was not a big fan of the maguro karaage though..i still think maguro is best as sashimi lol

Urari Marché うらりマルシェ 238-0243 Kanagawa, Miura, Misaki, 5 Chome-3-1

right next to the port was a cafe i used my ticket on, for some danish loaf with pistachio ice cream and a coffee drink. the ice cream goes so well with the fruity loaf!

3204 bread&gelato 238-0243 Kanagawa, Miura, Misaki, 3 Chome-12-10

Day 7 (19/5/2024)

went for a short walk at ueno park in the morning. there were some food stalls there! we tried some of the freshly roasted hojicha, and also some mitarashi dango. there's some skewered fish that looked good but i didn't try because i was scared of the bones 😅 and other kinda matsuri-like foods such as kakigori and yakisoba, a bit higher priced i guess because of the tourists there but i'm not a fan of yakisoba so 😆

also there was an asian food festival going on near shinobazu pond! i didn't try the food (it seemed largely SEAsian food, we can get cheaper thai, viet food etc in singapore anyway), but also for some reason there is a food truck for US food? and the representative food is 'american long potato' 😂 is that a thing in US? (ok but i know US is huge)

i met up with a friend for lunch at akiba and they recommended ootoya! a restaurant chain for teishoku. i got the recommended fried fish and veg in sweet vinegar sauce and 🥺 the taste mix is so good! i also wanted to randomly bring up something i'll miss about japan: pretty much every eatery, whether cafe or restaurant, serves free water, or even green tea! you rarely get free water in singapore eateries even though we have friggin drinkable tap water here 🙄 (except in japanese chains like saizeriya or sukiya..lol) you'll have to buy overpriced bottled mineral water or something even if you just want water to go with your meal.

Ootoya 大戸屋 (chain store, multiple outlets)

after some walking around akiba (i.e. combing weeb stores), we stopped for some thick fluffy toast and drink (mine was cinnamon toast and almond cafe latte) at vault coffee. true it was a sunday, but we were surprised that it was some random cafe hidden in third floor of what looked otherwise like a normal commercial building on the outside, and it was still soo crowded, we had to wait a little while to be seated!

VAULT COFFEE 101-0021 Tokyo, Chiyoda City, Sotokanda, 4 Chome−5−1 3F

and this marks the end of our week-long food journey in japan 😆 i had to save a lot of funds for my splurging on weeb and stationery stuff LOL, but i hope the next time i come i can focus more on sightseeing and food maybe! but for now it's back to capitalism to save up first 🏃

#garm's trip repo

[almightyrayzilla]

I promise you, this is the only time I will ever willingly post AI generated imagery on any of my pages...but G-Fest is DEAD to me. I first attended in 2006, then again in 2009. I got my start doing artist alley tables at this show in 2010, then branched out to other shows. I even did the promo art for the 2019 show. I cannot tell you how much of my life was shaped from meeting the folks I have met because of this convention.

I'm not even mad. I'm sitting here along with my fellow artists, laughing our asses off. Not because it's funny, but because NONE of us are deeply surprised.

Let's go back a bit.

In 2018, the artist alley (AA) was moved to the lower floor of the hotel. Now I let this slide - the Crowne Plaza had just replaced the area that was used previously with the Caddyshack restaurant. Duh, we couldn't use that area anymore. There was some pushback, that maybe something else could be moved downstairs, but there was refusal to budge. Whatever, us artists actually did pretty good that year, despite a rather sequestered and tight space.

Then for 2019 - we were told a Toho rep was coming, and we were hit with a 30% limitation, which essentially meant that for every ten pieces of art we had, only three of them were allowed to be Toho related. Gamera, Ultraman, Kamen Rider - fair game. I mean, let's put aside that no one could enforce that (and no one tried) - the person in question wasn't even tied to Toho. And even if they were...they'd be more concerned about, say, bootleg DVDs and such.

Personally speaking, my sales were even better, so even with the limitation, people still did alright. Gee, it's almost as if AA is a big attraction at a convention, especially one as niche as this.

Then 2020, when our good friend COVID-19 came about. Someone decided it'd be a good idea to spread misinformation about the pandemic with G-Fest's Twitter page. Among those who spoke up were the artists who regularly attended through its artist alley. A Facebook page that was specifically set up for AA members to share info and whatnot was then told to no longer associate with G-Fest.

And for the record, G-Fest didn't happen that year because of a statewide mandate. No no, the con wasn't canceled it because they recognized the severity of things, it's because Illinois shut everything down.

Well, here comes prep for 2021 (which ultimately became the 2022 show, since it was pushed back again). That's when G-Fest hit us with the AA contract. It forbade artists from selling prints of Toho fan art (originals/commissions were okay, but not reproductions), unless we held a license to sell prints of that work. We could not sell Godzilla fan art prints at this Godzilla convention. We tried to speak with them, to see if there could be some compromise...which there wasn't. They kept saying that the reason for it was to stay on good terms with Toho, even citing a big C&D sweep Toho was doing (they were after bootleggers, not fan artists). Heck, even one of my good friends actually did get a C&D (prior to said sweep), and they have legal word that they were allowed to sell prints of Godzilla art. But apparently, that wasn't good enough for G-Fest. HMMMMM...

I was actually willing to abide by these tighter rules, even planning on trolling them with a few pieces of Jirahs and Gomess (though Jirahs without the frill might have been a bit too risky, lol). We were trying to talk with the head of the vendor room, who was not exactly being clear and timely with responses. Well, someone went to the head of the show to ask if they were being compliant with the rules - I guess they gave a different answer, because that's when the showrunners started bickering about not seeing eye-to-eye on some things, ultimately telling the artist it's best they not come.

That's when I backed out. A few of us had paid for our table/badge for the 2020 show, which was rolled over; with the option available, I asked for the refund. The head of the vendor room said the request was put in. Almost two weeks go by. I go to the showrunner, and within 20 minutes, I get the refund. Look, I know G-Fest isn't a big corporate show, and I try not to be a snob, but I expect SOME professionalism. that's why I've backed out and refuse to ever attend G-Fest ever again. But that's not where things stopped.

During the 2022 show, I was told an artist said screw it and put Godzilla prints out on their table to sell. I laughed and said, "Yeah, and how much of that was playing favorites?" I mean, G-Fest kicking this person out? That would be glorious. But someone like me? I'm pretty sure they'd have banned me on the spot. And I'm not even going to get into the vendor who was selling bootleg DVDs, so...yeah. And from what I hear, the 2023 show forbade ALL fan art prints, not just Toho IPs. I can't imagine how hard they're gritting their teeth trying not tell artists to get lost outright.

*deep breath* And that brings us to today's nonsense. After all that, they pull this. And of course they've turned off comments on the Facebook posts for these...pictures. I mean, after my turn in 2019, we had the idea of giving each AA artist a shot to do the promo art each year before all this crap reared its ugly head.

Like I said, I'm not even mad, I'm actually having a good laugh over all this. If I'm shocked by anything, it's how quickly this convention pulled its 180. The point of this post is to just be informative of what has been going on the past couple years, and why the artists who usually go haven't come back.

But most of all, if/when people ask if I'm going to G-Fest next year, here's the TL;DR version: NO.

#g-fest

[yaspup9000]

By Popular demand, here’s some of my LPS Hot takes

Some of the later pets weren’t That bad. Like yea I do agree that the tv show based toys from like 2013-2016 weren’t that great and kinda fugly looking, but with some of the 2020 pets, why yes not as iconic as the 2000s lps that we know and love, I still believe some people were really harsh on some of these pets cuz like they did look really cute tho! My only problem with the pets was the fact they had names tbh 2. Not every g2 lps molds were perfect. Some really good examples of older lps molds being kinda ugly were the first Jack Russel and poodle molds. I’ve also mentioned about the skunk/Squrriel molds were pretty lazy since it’s just the same mold . They didn’t even try to make them different from each other. Like say what you will but at least with some of the newer pets between 2013-2020 they were at least trying to make the skunk and squirrel molds different from each other. also the opossum molds was not all that great tbh..

3. The worse thing that ever happened to lps was the Blythe loves lps toy line. No joke idk why they thought this was good. I mean if you guys loved the Blythe dolls that’s fine, to me I always found them off putting since well, they just didn’t fit personally. Like you’re the one who’s caring the pets or this is a world where it’s run by pets. There was never any mention about humans tbh. Again this is prob coming from bitter younger me lol. But in all seriousness though, never really liked Blythe dolls tbh

4. People need to Chill out about the some of the rerelease of lps. Yes I understand, I’m just as nervous and excited as the rest of you guys however I genuinely feel as if people are really making a mountain out of a hill over some prototypes and a blind bag. Like I understand that everyone’s burned out by bad decisions after bad decisions within the lps Franchise. And yes blind bags are overused and annoying however, Guys.. they’re not just gonna make only just blind bags, they’re gonna do other stuff for lps soon just be patient. Not to mention at the end of the day, they’re still just silly little pets for kids. Can you critique the toys? Of course! But just remember that it ain’t that deep. 5. They should bring back that one brown poodle mold

yes this one! its cute as hecc! and i wish they would bring this back 6. This cat isn't a "Wolf-Cat" Its a maine coon. This isn't even an opinion or anything, i just wanna let people know that its suppose to be a maine coon. also the actual "wolf-cat" is called Lykoi and idk how that breed of cat would look as an lps.

7. the main reason back in 2013 Lps was having a reboot was due to MLP having a reboot. that's just my theory tho.

8. I feel like a lot of people keep forgetting that 90s LPS exist. Like whenever people say "g1" they don't think about the kenner Lps toys, they were thinking about the 2000's lps that was popularized by hasbro. and tbh that kinda sucks.. cuz why yes the kenner toys were more into realism, i still geninually, like the kenner lps figures they were rad.

9. The sticker eyes lps were cute, I actually liked them 10. One pet peeve I had with LPS popular, is that technically, Brook should of been arrested or at least suspended since she did attack Savannah first. Not to mention, doesn't this school have like cameras or something!? i know this has been years since I've watched LPS popular but like, bruh, Why don't her parents believe her!

Umm.. I dont really have any other opinions nor thoughts at the moment. idk feel free to ask me anything lps related and I'll give my honest opinions.

#lps #lpsblr #littlest pet shop #idk man #random ramblings

[the-somwthing]

Welcome to my little meta analysis essay called

Why do we misremember Flower Husbands as being “nicer” than it was?

Disclaimer: I’m not here to talk about whether or not FH is “toxic” or anything like that. It’s just a fact that many old fans rewatching FH POV and new fans who are watching it for the first time after seeing fan content tend to be surprised at how they actually behaved in the series compared to how everyone remembered them being back in the day. This will NOT go over whether or not I think FH is unhealthy or whatever and instead just discuss why I believe this phenomenon has happened.

So, if I try to make this a fancy well written essay, I’ll be here all day, so I’ll just get to the point. 3rd Life came out during the DSMP era of mcyt. MCRP has been around for ages, but the DSMP style of RP (which I’ll be calling “smp rp”) was pretty much popularized by DSMP, mostly towards the end of 2020. For reference, 3rd Life started early 2021, so there’s about a half a year between these two events, and DSMP kept going for years so 3rd Life was absolutely happening during the golden era of DSMP.

But what does DSMP have to do with this? Well, it sort of created this idea of “lore” and only specific things being “canon”. You can make fun of me for the way I worded that, but you know what I mean, DSMP was weird about that stuff. I don’t really blame them as it was kind of a new style of RP they accidentally spawned, but still, it was a confusing time for SMPs.

3rd Life was actually less like DSMP and more like the modern SMP RPs, where there’s no (known, lol) scripted events and the fandom itself deciphers what is or isn’t “canon” rather than it being told to them, with mostly everything being considered canon. HOWEVER, I do believe that DSMP’s style did still affect the fandom, specifically with the topic of this essay, Flower Husbands.

But why would it only really affect Flower Husbands? Now we get into a rough topic: shipping discourse. Back in those days, shipping in the mcyt fandom was heavily frowned upon. Moreso than it is today (I know it’s still around, but it was a lot worse the earlier we go lol). I’ve even seen old relics of ppl saying flower husbands should only be portrayed as platonic cuz it’s wrong to ship them, despite their team name literally being husbands. But more importantly, for A LOT of people, flower husbands was the One Ship people felt “allowed” to ship, BECAUSE it was canon. So they would allow FH and shun every other ship.

My point isn’t actually that, with it being the only “acceptable” ship everyone tried to make it more wholesome, though I suppose that could be a contributor. But my ACTUAL point is where all the things I laid out finally close in on each other:

Ships were a Dangerous territory in mcyt fandom, and ships being “canon” was something a lot of people weren’t prepared to deal with. People don’t want to get too close to RPF territory, but back in the day their ideas of c! vs cc! wasn’t as great, so they default to the DSMP Rule of “if it’s stated to be roleplay, then it’s canon to the characters, if not, it’s noncanon and just the CCs hanging out”.

You see where I’m going with this? When trying to follow this rule for a character relationship where they don’t explicitly state what is or isn’t RP, they hear “we’re married” and instantly mark that as canon to the characters since it clearly isn’t true to the CCs, and tend to block out anything else, otherwise you’re risking it not actually being true to the characters. Especially when it’s things like Scott saying something mean about Jimmy; that directly contradicts the “these characters are in love” thing, so it must not be canon, right?

But wouldn’t people still remember that these things happened, or did they actually straight up not process any of it? My answer to that is: of course everyone was paying attention, but with the context that it’s the CCs playing a video game, all of the teasing and other behavior seems WAY less serious. It just looks like average friends playing a hunger games smp together. And as I explained earlier, the fandom was ONLY processing this as a CC thing, so Scott’s treatment of Jimmy never stood out because that’s just how it is playing games.

Back to DSMP, I’m not active in that fandom anymore but I’ll see snippets sometimes, and I’ve seen the claim that beeduo was actually boring in canon and the fandom was the one that made it interesting. I feel like this is exactly what happened with FH. Nobody was actually expecting anyone to go hard into romantic roleplay, so the fans just take whichever pair says they’re getting married and fill in the blanks themselves. And that was normal back then, it wasn’t fans making stuff up for no reason, it was kind of expected of us.

So yeah, I personally believe that this whole confusion about FH is a result of its time. Whether you want to finally look at the actual substance of the relationship rather than following weird rules about what is or isn’t “canon”, or you believe that since FH was from a time where romantic RP was confusing and weird it would make the most sense to take into account the time period it came from and ignore the less appealing bits in favor of the fanon, I don’t really care honestly. But man isn’t this an interesting situation.

#trafficblr #life series #flower husbands #again this is NOT about whether or not FH is healthy. it’s only about the meta. #if you want to ask me my honest opinions on if FH is toxic you can ask but not on this post lol. #I do stand by my last paragraph that I honestly couldn’t care less if some fans choose to ignore canon due to the time period #tho I personally lean more towards ‘maybe now we should ACTUALLY look at what happened’ #I still think ppl have a right to focus more on the fanon. cuz that’s just how weird FH was. but I wanna focus on the canon personally. #this all sort of just comes back around to that ‘what is or isn’t canon is entirely different depending on who you ask’ #it’s usually pretty decently consistent what ppl consider canon or noncanon but FH was stuck in a weird situation so it’s the exception #like I said in an old post that still gets notes. regardless of ur opinion on FH it had to break thru so many walls for us and we should #thank it. the fandom would’ve PROBABLY made it to this point EVENTUALLY but without FH it would’ve been harder. thank u FH ur so weird.

[anamericangirl]

Hello.

If it's not too much trouble, can you name the specific sites that show abortion is the number 1 killer of babies?

Normally, I would Google it, but I'm worried I'll either find another set of statistics that don't show this or I won't find anything recent. Maybe if I looked through my liked blogs, I'd find the site, but... we're talking nearly 4,000+ liked blogs 😅

No worries I understand that’s a lot to sift through lol

And honestly, even using google it will be challenging to find a place that lists it as the number one killer because, as messed up as it is, nowhere that officially calculates leading causes of death even includes abortion in the statistics. They don’t count it as a cause of death for infants at all and that’s because if they did it would surpass every other cause at an alarming rate.

This is why to determine that we have to look at the numbers ourselves. Most places says SIDS or birth defects are the leading cause of death in infants (after birth, of course).

According to the CDC, there 3400 cases of SIDS per year in the US.

And for birth defects and congenital abnormalities they estimate about 3,963 deaths per year.

Here is a chart for the leading causes of fetal death in 2020 from the CDC

And we can see from this chart that in 2020 there where about 20,854 fetal deaths.

In contrast, if we look at the CDC for how many abortions were performed in the US in 2020, we see the number is 620,327. And anyone who can tell which number is bigger can see what the real leading cause of death for infants is.

But not only is abortion the leading cause of death in infants, it is the leading cause of death worldwide.

This snapshot from worldometer on Dec. 31 of 2021 shows that there were over 42 million abortions performed.

If we look at the current worldometer stat we can see there have already been almost 28,000,000 abortions performed throughout the world this year.

Here some articles that discuss abortion being the leading cause of death although they are not research sites.

Hope this was helpful!

#anon #answered

[fannyrosie]

I've followed you for quite a while and I've always loved your style plus I lived vicariously through your life in Japan lol. I'm sorry if you've already posted this I couldn't find the post but I was wondering why you left Japan. It's my dream to live there one day and I was curious what it was like.

I have answered that in my Instagram Stories, but here is the long story version (TL;DR: I came back mainly because of my poor health):

I left Japan after 6 1/2 years for several reasons, but one the main reason is because of my health. I've never been the healthiest person, even before moving there (I was even dubbed "the sick one" at my old job because I often had to suddenly leave work in the afternoons). I was constantly tired and had really bad abdominal pains. I saw several doctors in Montreal, and all I managed to get was a diagnosis for IBS and anxiety. However, I was functional most days, and managed to work and live relatively normally, as long as I rested a lot and stuck to my FODMAP diet.

During the few first years of my life in Japan, my physical health remained that way, with some random very bad health periods, but overall, I was fine. I even started to workout regularly to improve my posture and muscles. However, from 2020 onwards, my health declined significantly. On top of my worsening IBS, I started having really bad spine pains, radiating to my head, chest and arms, and making me so tired I had to take several days of rest every time I went out. I started to catch every little virus I got in contact with, and had to avoid taking public transport the most I could. I was working from home, and walked a lot, so that was manageable, but it made me more isolated.

I saw several doctors, but even though they did blood tests and x-rays, they couldn't find anything and just assumed it was stress. After reading about EDS, I thought I might have that (since I am also hypermobile), and had to wait 7 months to get an appointment at Todai's hospital. However, on the day of my appointment, I got told that Todai only deals with EDS related to heart issues, and my tests were all normal, including my x-rays. That was in June 2022, and was the final straw, as it proved that even the most advanced hospital in Japan couldn't help me. By that time, I had to wear a back brace to do the most basic things, like laundry or going to the supermarket, and was taking painkillers every day. I had to stop working because I couldn't work on my computer for more than 2 hours a day. Obviously, no work=no money.

Coming back to Québec, I had to wait 3 months to get back on the public health system, and as of today (6 months after being back), I managed to get x-rays and MRI showing I have: discopathy (degenerative spine disk disease), osteoarthritis (degenerative joint disease), several herniated disks in my cervical region and pinched nerves due disks collapsing. Basically, I have the spine of a 70 year old. I have been referred to a physiatrist, but we all know that Québec's public health system is very slow. so God knows when I'll see one. Nevertheless, they found something, which is better than all the doctors in Japan who told me it was just stress. Japan sadly has a big culture of having to "endure" pain (mental or physical), and it shows in their medical system.

Due to the degenerative nature of the illnesses they found up to now, my health is constantly getting worse. I used to have good and bad health days, but now, I have more bad health days than good health days. I still take painkillers every day and wear my back brace to do normal tasks, but most days, these are not enough. I am trying to make the most of my "good" health days by dressing up and doing nice things, but I never know how I will be the next day (or hour).

I had to take two breaks writing this; hopefully it makes sense haha

#questions and answers