A/N: mature content. ❤️🤪❤️

I've never seen two people with more obvious feelings for each other who are absolutely shit at expressing them than Harper Reynolds and Jake Harrison.

At Harper's announcement that the two were... Well, I had no fucking clue but neither looked happy about what she'd said. The same disappointment that flickered in Jake's eyes hung heavy in hers, even when she looked down at her lap.

My primary concern, demonstrated by the strong arm I wrapped around my tiny girlfriend's frame, was how stiffly she sat next to me. The longer I glanced down at her, the more color drained from her cheeks. Even her full, pink lips paled as they parted open but her eyes looked less shocked than I would've expected.

Maybe she saw this coming.

Bad choice of words, Logan.

"Ellie?" I squeezed her opposite shoulder with my palm.

Her dark brown, doe-shaped eyes fluttered a few times, then she leaned over and pulled her phone out of her purse. All three of us watched curiously as she typed out what I already knew was a message to our group chat with Wes and Charlie.

Ellie: Switch?

Her one-word question flipped around what the four of us usually arranged for our away games. As one of the team's trainers, and currently the only female student trainer this season, Charlie Montgomery ended up with her own hotel room for road games. Usually Ellie stayed with her while I shared a team room with Wes Brown but occasionally we shifted around without question.

Full honesty, we've switched in both away games so far this season.

Still no one else I'd rather celebrate with... And not just because Wes eats my leftovers and snores like a chainsaw.

I snorted myself at Charlie's responses, related to swiping free hotel food for Wes' bottomless stomach.

Charlie: 👍

Charlie: Wes wants me to ask if you brought your 'large purse' for breakfast tomorrow.

Charlie: Because it's not like we have an all you can eat buffet. 🙄

None of me minded the room switch because I slept better with Ellie next to me. Not even her violent sleep thrashes deterred me, unlike how Wes thought the bathroom walls were soundproof by the mushy conversations he had with Charlie. While Wes was my go-to wide receiver and closest friend on the team that returned this year, one fact remained obvious.

Even living together, I can't get enough of my girl.

I really need to cement this relationship down, before Mom disowns me.

During the summer break, Ellie and I still lived in our miniscule apartment since we'd signed a 12-month lease. She worked in the library oncampus and I attended football camps while we both took two summer classes. Once our lease ended in August, neither of us had the energy to move what little belongings we owned. We renewed the agreement for nine months since we were both on track for May graduation.

And if all goes well this season, then the combine in February and draft in May, then I'll ask her the big question.

After I buy a ring.

Even without an engagement ring, I had the sense that I wasn't going to wait until the NFL draft in May.

Fuck, I'll kneel down in the middle of the Coliseum and ask her before tomorrow's game starts using a rubber band but I don't think that'd go over too well.

Ellie and I had both reached a point in our college lives where our future plans were on hold while we enjoyed the rest of college together on autopilot. I'd never been happier in my life because our relationship was rock solid and steady. I loved her more I thought I was capable of loving someone else, she made me feel loved more than I deserved most days, the sex was beyond amazing...

And don't get me started on her cooking.

Right now, my priorities were that I set aside my future plans with Ellie. In a perfect example, at this very moment, she just gaped at the giant reveal that her best friend and brother just dropped onto the middle of our dinner table. My free hand absently scratched at my chin while Harper and Jake looked at Ellie for her reaction.

I'll say one thing, they're not subtle.

Explains why his hand has been on her thigh since we sat down though.

Since I had no idea how long I'd been distracted by my own thoughts but the way Harper squirmed slightly in her seat and Jake coughed dryly, I assumed Ellie still sat silent. My fingers stroked over her upper arm gently, I leaned over, and murmured in her ear, "Ellie?"

"So..." Ellie's voice came out tiny, weak, and strained with the same tension I felt in her shoulders. "You're just screwing around again?"

By the slight inflection of Ellie's voice around the word 'just,' I knew she suspected what I did.

Ellie has to see what I see. I'm not the most observant guy but it's written over both of them.

Okay, well it's written all over Jake. Harper is...

My hand scratched harder into my chin.

I like my guy parts still attached, so I'm gonna sit this one out.

Harper's shoulders lifted slightly and she shrunk back like Ellie's words had struck her. Even with her chin tucked down, she nodded silently. At her movement, Jake clenched his mouth into a firm line but also nodded and left me completely unconvinced.

"I..." Ellie's lower lip rolled under, where she held it in place with her teeth. "Will one of you please just say something?"

"Not really sure what else there is to say," Harper mumbled quietly and kept her head low. "I don't think you want the details."

None of me related to their reactions, because Ellie was lucky I still lived on a student stipend budget. Otherwise, I would've hired a private plane that wrote how much I loved her over every home game at Husky Stadium. Still, I found myself sympathetic to their...

What did they call it? Situationship?

On that thought, in probably not the most sensitive move, I leaned further over and murmured in Ellie's ear, "I think they're afraid of you right now, baby."

"They should be!" Ellie snapped in a shrill voice that jolted me in my seat.

Since I was the last person fit for family and best friend dynamics mediator, I fumbled with my next words, "I mean... They're telling you up front this time. That's good, right?"

"It's..." Ellie mumbled the rest of her sentence, a string of profanities, as her arms crossed over her chest. I reached under the table, threaded my palm under her closest hand, and squeezed gently. Her fingers interlocked with mine until she choked mine at the hilt.

Ouch. That's... my throwing hand.

Man up, Hightower.

"What exactly are we calling this..." Ellie waved a hand between Harper and Jake. "This."

The poster couple for actions that screamed louder than words reacted similarly as they had before. Harper looked at our blonde wood table like it was the most interesting thing she'd ever seen. With a slight cough, Jake rubbed the back of his neck so hard I was surprised he had any skin left there.

"Harper's my girlfriend... for appearances," he responded.

At Jake's last two words, I coughed on the dry air I inhaled. Tears welled up in my eyes and my cheeks flushed warm as one of Ellie's hands pounded on my upper back. Understandably, Jake and Harper looked at me like I was insane but, in my defense, I wasn't the one who lived in utter, complete denial.

I'd laugh if I wasn't afraid Ellie locked me out of the hotel room for doing so.

Ellie's hand lifted off my back then pulled her phone back out. She pulled up a website that lurched my stomach since we'd agreed that its existence stayed between us.

"So..." she crooned in a sugary sweet voice that I was internally grateful wasn't directed at me. "That explains this."

"Jake's ghost of a girlfriend," Harper muttered off the title. "Fan-fucking-tastic."

Ellie and I found the site, which had been posted on her food blog site. She'd quickly deleted it and the page obviously offered more speculation than facts. The only pictures up looked like TV screen shots of Harper at USC games.

Better publicity than the tomato-throwing video, I guess.

I kept my gaze locked on Jake for his reaction and he sure didn't disappoint me. His lips rolled inward but a small flash flickered in his eyes. While I probably looked like my eyes wanted to pop out of their sockets, mentally I threw Jake my unsolicited advice.

Tell her, you moron. Tell her!

Since my girlfriend now chewed on her lower lip harder than she'd eaten any of her actual food with, my left hand lifted off her shoulder and I stroked over the back of her head. Momentarily distracted by how her soft hair slipped in between my fingers, I rubbed down her head a few times. "Do you need some non-greasy air, baby?"

"No, I don't need..." Ellie sat upright, then shifted her eyes back and forth between Harper and Jake. "Anything. Neither of you owe me a single shred of an explanation. Just tell me that this... detachment is what you want... What both of you want."

"It's what we want," Jake quickly parroted in a flat, almost blanched voice and absolutely no change in his blank expression. Ellie could've asked if he wanted an entire plate of onions for dessert and gotten a stronger reaction.

I think my brain just cramped from all the denial.

He's an obvious no.

"Yeah..." Harper finally lifted her head but I noticed her eyes subtly focused on Ellie's nose, not straight into her eyes. "It is."

Second no.

I blinked blankly between the two because neither of them had convinced me either, but I still had no idea what each actually wanted. By the "Nrmph" sound Ellie pushed out and her hand's death chokehold on mine under the table, she believed them as much as I did. My lips pressed together tightly at how my fingertips tingled from their cutoff blood supply.

Awkward.

Ellie's chest lifted with a slow inhale, then she puffed her cheeks out with a sharp exhale that sank her chest. "Then it doesn't matter what my opinion is."

"Ellie..." At the flicker of pain that showed in Harper's eyes, I warned her with a slight shoulder squeeze that earned me a hard pinch of my other hand's fingers in between hers. "That's not true. They told you because they care about your opinion."

At my narrow-eyed look up at both of them, Jake coughed quietly. "Uhh, right."

My eyes rolled so hard I was surprised they hadn't fallen out of their sockets and onto the table next to our water glasses. I shot him a 'I'm trying here" looked that pained my face the longer I stared at him with it.

"My opinion is they are going to do whatever the hell they want without caring about what I or anyone else thinks," my tiny girlfriend growled at me.

"Stop and rewind, Ellie." Jake's dull eyes finally flashed with life. "You told me Harper was here and that I should contact her. What did you think would happen?"

Uh-oh. Abort that bad move Jake.

Ellie's eyebrows shot up high. "So, this -" she wagged the index finger on her hand that hadn't turned my fingers purple back and forth. "- is my fault? I didn't put your dick in her vagina."

I... didn't realize how much I didn't want that visual. Good to know after it's too late.

My eyebrows drew together while I internally suppressed a groan because this conversation seemed like it had detailed into miscommunication station quickly.

And I'm beyond confused, so I'm just going to sit here, look smoking hot, and play the supportive boyfriend role.

"No!" Harper's eyes narrowed into thin slits at Ellie. "But I forgot about that. You weren't supposed to tell dick-for-brains I was attending UCLA. I didn't get out of my driveway before Penis Flytrap over here texted me a picture of his frank and beans."

That definitely falls under the details we weren't supposed to get.

Despite that obvious thought, my shoulders shook gently at the laugh I stifled at Harper's colorful choice of words.

"Jake," Ellie groaned, leaned over, and pressed her forehead into my side. Her voice muffled warmth into my armpit, "You're... And Harper you... Ugh, you two deserve each other. In whatever the hell capacity you are, just please don't kill each other."

At those words, Harper relaxed back in her seat and her lips curled up into a smirk. "No promises."

"I can't believe they're just... screwing around together," Ellie confessed to me quietly as she toed off her shoes with a grunt and kicked them across the hotel room. I wasn't sure she planned to but her lips twitched when both hit the bathroom wall with a thud. "Again."

"How do you feel about that?" I sank down onto the pillowy, white comforter-topped bed, which creaked under my weight.

"Frustrated," was her gritted out response, followed by a low groan. "Ugh."

While my tiny girlfriend was adorably cute when she was irritated, as long as it wasn't directed at me, this wasn't a teasing situation. Ellie had been understandably hurt when Harper and Jake screwed around behind her back in high school and the last thing I wanted was that her old feelings resurfaced.

Or worse, those two hurt her again.

"You can come over here and work out that frustration on me, baby," I offered with wiggled eyebrows.

"You're shameless," she groaned quietly but stepped closer until my knees straddled her thighs. "But yes, I would like nothing more than that."

My gut clenched at her forwardness, while my cock lifted itself up like it high-fived my suggestion. "Ellie..." Now I was the one that groaned as my hands latched onto her jawline and brought our lips closer together.

Almost a year after she became my girl again, Ellie was still the most beautiful girl I'd ever seen. Her long, straight, dark brown hair that looked much better on her than when snaked around and clogged up in our shower drain, shone as it fell down to her lower back. Her dark brown eyes pooled darker as she pulled slightly back and looped her small arms over my shoulders.

The slight part in her full lips before they pressed warmly against mine reminded me that every time I'd felt and tasted them since we'd gotten back together wasn't enough. Greedy and impatient, I tugged her face towards mine and nearly grinned like a fool when she pushed all of herself flush with me.

Like usual, her fingers threaded up the back of my neck and nestled in the hair at the back of my head. She never tugged or pulled my hair, just held on or pressed the tips of her fingers into my scalp.

A groan rumbled through my chest as I covered her mouth with mine. Her tongue met mine in between, stroke for stroke, and my insides roared with heat. My hands moved on their own, cupped her ass outside her leggings, and hoisted her up onto my lap. Since she weighed less than half of my weight, I easily ground my heels and pushed us further back on the bed. Once settled, the warmth of her pelvis hit mine as her knees widened and straddled my hips.

I pulled back and murmured into her lips, "I love you, Ellie."

"Love you too," she teased back, a nod back to the conversation we'd had a week before this semester's classes started.

During a 'digital cleaning day,' which I never knew existed until Ellie pitched it at me, I hadn't realized how much I'd dropped off the 'I' in my old text messages to her. She'd found that hilarious for some reason, hence the teasing.

"Hilarious," I grumbled but rolled us over until her back hit the bed. With quick hand movements, I rolled her leggings and underwear down her hips. "These need to be off."

"Yours too," she quipped, propped herself up on her elbows, and studied me with an intensity that warmed my skin like her fingers still ran all over me.

I sat upright, removed my clothes into a crumpled heap, and sent her a casual smirk. "Satisfied?"

"Umm, no," she deadpanned, dipped her chin so she looked up at me from under her thick, black lashes, and spread her bare legs wider. "Still waiting."

Fuck, she's sexy when she's forward.

My cock liked Forward Ellie as much as the rest of me and announced its readiness by the bead of precum that dribbled over the head. I cupped myself like a fucking caveman over Ellie while she removed her shirt and bra, then laid bare below me.

I wasn't sure what I wanted to focus on but fuck, I loved everything that I saw. My eyes darted between the slight glisten of arousal between her legs to each pale pink nipple centered in her round, firm breasts to the beautiful smile pulled across her lips and love that radiated from her eyes.

A groan left my mouth as I leaned forward, where my chest bounced into the mattress and my shoulders opened her thighs. Her nipples, peaked in excitement, pitched in uneven, ragged breaths that matched mine and her eyes were dark with a desire that never ceased to ignite my insides like an inferno.

She's so fucking beautiful. And mine.

Despite the rock-hard erection that skimmed up the sheets with me, I started slowly. My lips pressed into the skin near her left kneecap, then I moved them and my tongue up a slow trail. Her natural scent hits me first, followed by the glisten of how much I still affected her. I pressed my nose right against the cleft at the top of her folds and lapped a long stroke from the bottom of her entrance upwards.

Ellie was beyond quiet when we were intimate but the soft pants that alternated with inward rolls of her lips and tight fists into the bed sheet were the only signs of encouragement I needed. The first, and only, girl I'd gone down on, I was borderline obsessed with Ellie's pussy. With all the time between us tonight, I stroked, nibbled, and licked until her hips writhed under me and warm fluid seeped out of her.

"Logan..." she quietly moaned out my name, her cue she wanted me. Happily, I climbed over her knees, lowered my hips, angled my tip at her entrance, and pushed in slowly.

Warm, wet heat suctioned around me and I pressed deep until my pelvis met hers. Tension strained my arms as I paused for her adjustment. She gasped a few uneven breaths as her insides choked down tight. When an exhale melted her head down, I leaned forwards until my elbows caged her shoulders and suspended my weight.

With wavelike movements, I bucked into Ellie until her hips lifted slightly and her hands gripped my hips. I nestled my lips into the side of her neck, where I planted a few sloppy kisses that turned into pants of my own.

When Ellie's shoulders trembled below me, my thrusts grew deeper, uneven, and I pressed my chin into her shoulder. Perspiration slicked my chest and back, dotted my forehead, as I pushed in and out.

With no barrier between us, I felt her lower heartbeat along my shaft and the soft ridges as my cock massaged along her walls. Her insides clamped down and the upward pressure in my shaft hinted I was close.

"Fuck, you feel so good. I love you," I murmured over and over words that I truly meant. Even a year after we'd gotten back together, every time with Ellie felt more because of the feelings that welled up inside me every time we were physically intimate.

One soft moan from her in my ear drew my balls upwards and I spilled my relief inside her warmth. Ellie's back arched with my last slow, deep thrusts and lifted my chin upwards. Her eyes shone up at me before my lips met hers again. I kissed her gently, more times than I counted, before I rolled off onto her side with a soft grunt.

Like she always did after sex, Ellie sat upright and walked into the bathroom. Out of the cracked open corners of my eyes, my lips curled up at the sight of my cum as it slipped down her inner thighs. By the sound of water from the bathroom, she used the toilet and cleaned herself off. Once finished, her small frame crept back to bed, where I flipped open the sheet I'd already slid under.

"Stop smirking." Her eyes rolled but she slid in next to me and kissed me sweetly. My lips spread into a grin when she rolled over right where she belonged, as my little spoon.

"You like my smirking." With one scooted movement, I tucked my knees under the back of hers, curled my torso around her back, and cupped her top hip in my palm.

Her upper back expanded and contracted against my chest as she huffed out her exhale, but we both knew I was right. During a summer week where we'd been apart for one of my football camps, Ellie had mistakenly told me one heated look and smirk was all she needed before she wanted to, in her words, 'climb me like a tree.' After that, I'd smirked so much I was surprised my face hadn't gotten permanently stuck like that.

"But seriously..." My lips met the warm, smooth skin on the back of her shoulder. "I want to know you're okay with Harper and Jake."

"Not like we can do anything," she mumbled as her eyes fluttered closed. "They also do whatever the fuck they want. I'm glad they told us this time but I'm worried. I don't want either of them to get hurt."

"Maybe they'll surprise you," I murmured and pressed one more kiss into her bare skin. My eyes traveled over the curve of her shoulder, where she disappeared under the white sheet.

Warmth glowed in my chest the longer I studied the back of Ellie's head and slight dip in her slender neck. Given at one point in time she was so closed off, I was beyond grateful at how openly my girl now expressed herself.

Since I'd assumed she drifted off to sleep, Ellie surprised me when she rolled over. Her eyes stayed closed but, like she knew exactly where my heart space was, palmed her hand onto my chest.

"Forget surprises..." Her lips parted in a whisper. "I have everything I could ever want, need, or even dream of right here."

My chest tightened painfully, right where her hand rested. I leaned forwards, brushed a kiss into her forehead, and vomited out the absolute damn truth.

"It's all yours."