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thenightgodess-feyrearcheron · 2 years

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Oh my god!!!!! This was so nice!!!!!

And Rhys being his charming self does things to me he should definitely be doing (hehe)

Thank you so much for writing this my dear❤❤😘

Heyyy love

Prompt for feysand please❤❤

"Whoever stood you up is a real

What’s this??? LB doing prompts again?? I have so many in my inbox and I’m sorry I haven’t been keeping up with them! I should be working on ACoFD/LVeR but the words have not been wording for me this week so i thought doing something light hearted may help! (Surprise, surprise the words also didn't word well for me here, but at least i had fun).

Word count: 3,710

Just give me one more chance.

Two drinks ago, Feyre had thought the plea was almost romantic. Didn’t it go this way in rom-coms? Guy meets girl, guy loses girl, guy gets his ass humbled, and then he crawls back to prove that he’s changed.

Feyre had wanted Tamlin to fight for her. She walked away prepared for him to call her bluff and when he asked for another chance, she’d been relieved to provide it.

Now that relief was starting to taste bitter. She scowled at the empty seat across from her where the rim of her glass circled it like a telescope. Almost as though it were mocking her, saying: hey, remember how Tamlin was supposed to be here over an hour ago?

She couldn’t decide if she was more angry or humiliated. The passing glances from the surrounding tables were obvious and as her waiter circled to ask if she wanted another drink, the masked pity was as thin as Feyre’s patience.

It was well past the point where she should leave—but everytime she convinced herself to ask for the bill, a little voice in her head begged her to reconsider. What if he has a good excuse?

Two drinks ago she might have blamed that part of herself on the Feyre who had been lovestruck by Tamlin the moment she’d knocked on his door asking for help in jump-starting her car. Her naive, romance-addled brain had been convinced it was fate, that electricity was thrumming through more than just the jumper cables.

Now Feyre nursed her third glass of wine and decided to be a little more honest with herself—she was not staying because she was in love with Tamlin. She was staying because it was terrifying to think that she was so easily cast aside. An old wound was chafing and she was begging for Tamlin to walk through those doors and prove her wrong.

A glance at her phone showed her where are you?? text had been read and left unanswered.

He was supposed to be the one who was not good enough, proving that she should give him another chance. Yet she was the one shifting underneath the weight of his blatant rejection, feeling humiliated and… and insufficient.

Swinging doors caught Feyre’s attention in her peripheral vision, and she swung her head hoping to find shoulder length blonde hair and a damned good explanation. As though there were a higher power with a truly sadistic sense of humor, Feyre was instead greeted by waist length red hair and dark onyx eyes that glinted in recognition.

Amarantha sauntered over with a cruel smile twisting her blood-red lips, and Feyre wished she could opt out of her 23-year trial of life, because the experience so far was less than satisfactory.

“Feyre, darling,” she crooned, and it sounded just as condescending as Feyre remembered. “It’s been an age, how are you doing?”

Feyre’s eyes darted to the rolled silverware on the table, genuinely contemplating shoving a fork through her hand if it would get her out of conversation with Tamlin’s ex-girlfriend. She was certain it would be less humiliating than letting Amrantha put together that she’d been stood up.

“Amarantha,” she greeted, not even bothering to fake enthusiasm. “I’m doing great, thanks for asking.”

The conversation withstood an awkward beat of silence. Amarantha waited for Feyre to reciprocate the question, and Feyre sipped her wine in the unrealistic hope that the redhead would get the hint and move on.

Instead she smirked at the empty chair. “Where’s your date?”

Given that Feyre and Tamlin had shared a fairly public breakup only a few weeks prior, Feyre didn’t doubt this was some attempt to rub it in her face. She might have felt smug in telling Amarantha that Tamlin had come crawling back on his knees, if she weren’t sitting across from the evidence that every promise had been empty.

Feyre was searching for something that could help her save face in this moment, but everything she came up with was so obvious an excuse that it would be more embarrassing to lie than admit the truth.

Time to swallow her pride. “I—”

“Thanks for letting me take that.” Feyre blinked, turning in time to watch a dark-haired man slide into the seat across from her. He wore an easy smile as he dangled his phone between his fingers. “The production team has been circling like vultures to get that contract signed, but I’ll be sure to give them hell tomorrow for interrupting our date.”

He was easily the most beautiful man she’d ever seen, and Feyre had absolutely no idea what he was talking about.

That heartbreaking smile faded as he took in Feyre’s stunned face, and then the woman who stood beside her with slitted eyes. “Oh.” He leaned forward, extending his hand toward Amarantha’s. “I’m Rhysand, it’s a pleasure to meet you. I assume you’re one of Feyre’s friends?”

How did he…?

“So it’s true,” Amarantha purred, slanting her eyes towards Feyre as she accepted Rhysand’s outstretched hand. “You and Tamlin have officially ended things.”

Feyre shot her a look that she hoped was an appropriate mix between duh and don’t be rude, though it was a wonder she was able to express any emotion outside of the shock that was thrumming through her veins. She couldn’t decide whether to be relieved or creeped out by her saviour.

Rhysand seemed exceedingly charming, and obviously very clever to have put so much about the situation together so quickly. A smooth tongued liar was the last thing she needed to associate herself with, even if he was saving her from a mortifying situation. It didn’t help that he had exceptionally pretty eyes—so vividly blue that in the dim restaurant lighting she could have sworn they were violet.

“Anyway, Am, it was great catching up with you,” she dismissed in a sickly-sweet voice. “But Rhysand and I should really get back to—”

“Sure,” she said, adopting a tone of disinterest as though she hadn’t pointedly come up to Feyre’s table. With a flick of red hair, and a mumbled, “enjoy your dinner,” she hurried off to join the group of friends she’d come in with. Feyre noted with no small measure of dread that they were in clear view of Rhysand and Feyre’s table. It seemed there was no escaping this with her dignity intact.

“So…” she turned back to the grinning man leaning back in the chair across from her, looking so comfortable she’d have never guessed he wasn’t meant to be there.“Rhysand, huh?”

“You can call me Rhys,” he offered. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Feyre darling.”

So he’d overheard the entire conversation with Amarantha. Great. At least the nickname was only half as grating when it came from his smirking lips.

“It was nice of you to intervene,” she said, feeling at a loss of where to go from here. “You don’t have to stay here, though. You can… go back to wherever you came from. I was planning on leaving soon, anyway.”

He quirked a brow, jutting his chin toward the direction Amarantha had wandered off. “And let her have the satisfaction? No way. The only way you’re getting out of this date is if you throw that glass of wine at my shirt and storm out of here with your chin held high.”

Feyre studied the glass in her hand as though she were considering it. “Do you often threaten your dates this way?”

“Only the ones with pretty smiles,” he said smoothly.

Feyre nearly pointed out that he hadn’t seen her smile yet. Instead, she asked, “Why?”

“Well I can’t let just anyone throw wine at—”

“No,” she interrupted, brows furrowing. “Why would you help me like that?”

“Why?” he repeated, studying her curiously. “Why else does a man help a beautiful lady? It’s not merely because I am a kind, charitable, delightful gentlemen—”

“Humble, too,” she muttered.

That only seemed to widen his grin, but after holding her gaze for a long moment it lost some of its luster. “Because I noticed you as soon as you stepped into the room,” he admitted. “Which means I know that you’ve been here for nearly two hours, staring at your phone. And whoever stood you up is a real jerk.”

“That’s none of your business,” she said, a touch too defensively.

Rhys tipped his head in acknowledgment. “You’re right, it’s not. And I didn’t mean to capitalize on a shitty situation. I genuinely just wanted to help. No one deserves to be stood up, even less so to be mocked for it.”

A dry lump formed in her throat. Was it so far-fetched? She likely would have done the same if she’d seen a lonely girl about to have something terrible rubbed in her face. And the kindness of a stranger was making her emotional, especially when she considered that Rhysand was putting more consideration into their fake relationship than Tamlin had put into their real one.

Since Rhys had already seen her at such a low point, she figured there was no use disguising it. Her shoulders slumped, and she stared blankly at the rim of her wine glass as she confessed, “Today sucked.”

Sympathy danced in his eyes, swirling with the flecks of silver and the reflected candlelight. “Allow me to try to make it suck a little bit less? I’ll buy you dinner and you can tell me how much of a prick this Tamlin guy is—or, or we can talk about whatever you want. I just want to see if I can make you smile by the time I pay the bill.”

Feyre chewed her lip in thought. The cynical part of herself, the one who’d just been stood up and couldn’t help but doubt the intentions of a strange man, asked, “And you, what? Came here by yourself in case someone needed you to play knight in shining armor?”

Rhys pointed towards a table in the corner, graced by four ridiculously attractive people that seemed to be in the middle of an energetic conversation. One of his friends—a big, bulking man with shoulder length dark hair—noticed their attention and smirked, waggling his fingers in greeting.

“I came here with friends,” Rhys explained. “Though, I’m certain they’re relieved to be rid of me.”

It was an effort not to feel embarrassed that Rhysand’s entire friend group knew she’d been stood up. Feyre couldn’t help feeling like she’d been made out to be a charity case, and half-wished it had been one of the girls at the table—either the blonde with warm eyes or the short, slightly more intimidating looking one—that had come to rescue her. At least then she could be comforted by female solidarity and not feel so exposed by the fact that her savior was unfairly gorgeous.

Given that Rhys had been here for two hours, and his friends looked about ready to pay the bill, she was certain he’d already had dinner. That didn’t stop him from making pointed eye contact with her waiter and ordering as though he truly were on a first date. Feyre could admit that she’d been starving waiting for Tamlin to show up, and when those encouraging violet eyes turned to her, she caved and ordered the dish she’d had her eye on in the time she’d been waiting. Rhys looked immensely pleased that she’d decided to go along with it.

“So,” Rhys began once the waiter left. “How likely am I to have a fight on my hands if this other guy shows up?”

Feyre frowned at her phone, still open to her messages with Tamlin. Those blue checkmarks beside her last message were practically glaring at her. “If he shows up, he’ll likely puff his chest and try to make a scene.”

The rolled up sleeves of Rhysand’s dark button-up shirt provided Feyre with a generous display of golden brown skin stretched over muscular forearms. Given his broad frame, and the size of his two male friends in the corner, Tamlin would have to have a death wish to pick a fight.

“Sounds like a catch,” Rhys said dryly.

“He won’t show up.” She spoke with a confidence she wished she’d possessed an hour ago, so that she could have left the restaurant with a little more pride in her step and avoided this situation altogether. “Knowing Tamlin, he’ll wait until my anger cools, then show up with a spectacular excuse and a thousand apologies.”

“Ah. Sounds like you’ve been down this road with him before.” Rhysand’s voice, and expression, lacked the judgment Feyre had come to expect in these conversations. There was none of the exasperated why are you still with him?? undertone that so many of her friends seemed to take. It was refreshing.

“And it will be the last time,” she promised, more to herself than him. Feeling suddenly emboldened—most likely by the wine—Feyre snatched her phone and blocked Tamlin’s number.

“Good riddance, then,” Rhys said, the corners of his mouth peeking into a smile. He grabbed his glass full of amber liquid and raised it into the space between them. “You deserve someone who shows up.”

Feyre raised her glass to meet his, watching the wine slosh with the movement. “Or swoops in,” she added, without really thinking.

Those dark brows raised, probably wondering if Feyre was flirting with him. So was she.

Rhys met her eyes levelly. “Shows up,” he insisted. “Otherwise the grand gestures are meaningless.”

Out of everything that happened in the space of an evening, how was that what made her eyes finally begin stinging with tears? She knew the answer. It was because every grand gesture Tamlin made—the gifts and flowers, the romantic weekends away, even the way they’d first met… They’d always been Tamlin swooping in, convincing Feyre there was an effort being made even when he never showed up when it counted.

Her vision swam, and Feyre fixed her eyes on the candlelight as she blinked furiously. Crying would only add to the dumpster fire that had become of her romantic evening, and Tamlin didn’t deserve her tears.

“Are you a painter?” Rhys asked suddenly, in what she was certain was an attempt to distract her.

Feyre’s eyes snapped to his face. “What?”

He pointed to her arm, at a streak of dried paint she must have missed in the hours she’d spent getting ready for the date. Hours, she reminded herself. To look pretty for a man who never showed up. Though she supposed it wasn’t a fruitless effort, since she’d apparently caught Rhysand’s eye from the second she walked into the restaurant.

Her eyes trailed a path over his strong jaw and sharp cheekbones, then to where his sensuous lips tugged into a wickedly endearing smile. It wasn’t the worst thing in the world, to have ended up sitting across from him.

“Unless the paint is a fashion statement,” he teased lightly, unperturbed by her staring. He was so beautiful, she wondered if he was used to it.

“Yeah,” she answered, unable to keep the astonishment from her voice. Feyre would have been lucky if Tamlin noticed her hair was curled. “I was working on a piece earlier today.”

“What were you painting?” he asked, leaning forward. His eyes glimmered with what she perceived to be genuine interest, and her heart ached to realize how low the bar was, to be so shocked by Rhysand’s attentiveness.

“A mural,” she said, feeling a smile tug at the corners of her lips. “At a school. I’m an art teacher, and I’ve been working on a project with my students over the last few months. It’s been—incredible.”

His expression softened into something like wonder, and Feyre wished she could freeze time so that she could spend hours openly admiring how expressive his eyes were. It was almost a relief when the waiter arrived with their food, preventing her from gawking at the pretty man.

Feyre’s mood lifted significantly after the first mouthful. Was it wishful thinking to pin most of her anguish on hunger? It couldn’t have helped.

“Tell me about it.” Rhys said, picking at his second dinner with noticeably less enthusiasm. “The mural, I mean.”

For a moment, she hesitated. Meals with Tamlin were typically quiet once the food arrived, but she supposed Rhys wasn’t very hungry. So she did. Around very unlady-like mouthfuls, she explained how each class had voted on what to include in the mural and how she’d spent months collaborating with the students to help their visions come to life.

“They get so excited each day more is added to the mural,” she said, fully grinning at the memory. Rhys was smiling too. “I like to stay late so I can add to it when no one is watching. Their eyes go so wide when they see it in the morning.”

“Do you have a picture of what you’ve done so far?” he asked.

Feyre nodded, opening her phone to the album she’d created for the project so that he could scroll through the progress—and the student-drawn references. His smile widened until she could see his brilliant, white teeth.

“This is—wow. Incredible is the right word.” He handed the phone back, having looked through the entire album. “You’re very talented. As are your students, of course.”

“Thank you,” she said with a laugh. “I promise I can do serious paintings, as well.”

“Well I am officially a fan,” he said. “And if you and your students are ever open to commissions, I have a wall in my office that is looking very bland at the moment. It could certainly use more pegasi and faeries painted onto it.”

“No office is complete without them,” she deadpanned, and when he laughed it was like someone had filled her blood with helium.

By the time the bill came, which he insisted on paying despite her protests, Rhys had certainly made her smile. She’d even go so far as to say she had a good time.

His friends in the corner were long gone, so they walked out together as he continued his story on the origin of his friend group.

“So we like to come here at least once a month,” he finished, tucking his hands into his pockets. “You should join us next time.”

Some of her smile faded as she imagined what it would be like to meet them, given they all knew exactly how she and Rhys had met.

“We’ll see,” she said, not having the heart to deny him outright. And, if she was being honest with herself, not wanting to lose the opportunity to see him again. His responding smile was tight, and she knew he was clever enough to take the hint. “Also—thanks. For taking pity on me.”

“It wasn’t pity, Feyre.” Even when he was being earnest, she was struck by the way her name rolled off his tongue like a lover’s trill. “Like I said, you caught my eye the moment you walked into the restaurant. I prayed it wasn’t a boyfriend you were here to meet—though, if this were the result of my wish, I regret the pain it caused you. Even if I very selfishly enjoyed your company.”

She could have blushed, were it not for the cool evening air caressing her face. “Here.” She extended her hand. “Give me your phone.”

He obliged eagerly enough that she had to hide her smile as she added her number and handed it back to him.

“So that I can return the favor if you ever get stood up,” she breathed, meeting his eyes and suddenly feeling very reluctant to leave.

But if Rhysand had proved anything today, it’s that he was a gentleman. Feyre almost wished he wasn’t as she watched him hail a cab and open the door for her. After four glasses of wine and a freshly broken heart, perhaps it was better she didn’t invite him to come home with her. Even if she did regret it the entire ride home.

Even more, the next morning. When Tamlin arrived at her door with a bouquet of roses and a half-hearted apology, how satisfying might it have been for Rhysand to be standing behind her in all his irresistible glory? It made slamming the door in Tamlin’s face feel almost bittersweet.

It took a week for her phone to light up with a call from an unknown number. She’d nearly given up on the idea of hearing anything back from Rhysand and when Feyre answered, she convinced herself it was going to be a spam call.

“Feyre darling,” purred a familiar, silken voice.

“Rhysand,” she said, straightening up in surprise. “Calling for an art commission?”

“Actually,” he drawled, humor dripping through the speaker. “I’m calling because, in an unforeseen set of circumstances, I’ve been left stranded by myself in a restaurant. I’ve been here for hours and the situation is quite dire, so I’ve been left with no choice but to call in a favor.”

A startled laugh escaped her. “I see. What are the odds we would each be stood up in the same week?”

“Dismal,” he agreed. “And I desperately need you to come take pity on me.”

Feyre couldn’t help smiling as she wrote down the address and told him she would be there soon. Sure enough, she walked in to find Rhys sitting by himself in a busy restaurant. His face lit up when he saw her.

She couldn’t help stopping a waitress to ask, “has he been here long?”

The waitress glanced at his table considerately. “I sat him down hardly ten minutes ago.”

Feyre smiled, thanking the girl before she went to join Rhys.

“Been waiting long?” she asked coyly, sliding into the seat across from him.

His answering smile was shameless. “For you, darling? All my life.”

⟡ ⟡ ⟡

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