Chapter Text
Belly Conklin pulls open the door to the dimly-lit bar and is immediately hit with a wall of sound.
It’s a cold and snowy Thursday night in the middle of January, but the bar is warm with laughter, flowing alcohol, and people packed at wooden tables and booths.
The bass beat to an unfamiliar pop song practically rattles the floorboards.
Belly pulls off her hat (a rainbow knit monstrosity that her brother declared the “ugliest thing I’ve ever seen” but that she loves with her whole entire heart), and oh, God, she immediately wishes she hadn’t. She can barely hear herself think over the noise, let alone scan the bar for the person she’s looking for.
“Do you see him?” Belly’s roommate, Agnes, has to yell into Belly’s ear to be heard over the noise. “He said he’d be here.”
Belly shakes her head, takes a deep breath, and starts to walk towards the back of the bar. She knows he’s here, because he texted their group chat fifteen minutes ago, just as she was heading to the subway station near work.
I’m here. Snagged our favorite table.
Agnes replied immediately. The one underneath the giant picture of that pigeon with fries in its beak?
His response came seconds later. Yep, like always.
The bar—which doesn’t actually have a name, only a sign out front practically shouting BAR! in bold, neon-pink block letters punctuated by an enthusiastic exclamation point—is a long, wide room with exposed brick walls, cracked vinyl booths, and rickety tabletops.
BAR! is, by New York City standards, relatively unknown. It’s popular with Belly and her roommates not only due to its proximity to their Brooklyn apartment, but also the incredible happy hour options.
And Thursday night trivia, which is why they’re here tonight.
Belly pushes her way through a very enthusiastic bachelorette party, dodging a sparkly tiara as it’s thrown in the air and narrowly avoiding having tequila spilled down the front of her coat.
There’s the giant picture of the pigeon (it’s printed to look like a painting, hilariously, inexplicably), like Agnes had asked, and beneath it, there he is.
Conrad Fisher.
Belly and Agnes’s third roommate.
Tall, with pale skin, dark hair that sweeps over his temples, and frustratingly green eyes. He’s wearing his glasses tonight, the silver, thin wireframes that Agnes always teases him about and Belly says, softly and a little too earnestly, I think they look nice.
Tonight, Conrad’s sitting at the high-top table, the kind that has a booth on one side and chairs on the other. He’s wearing a pale blue button-down, the top two buttons undone and exposing the column of his throat.
His back is to the wall, his elbows uncharacteristically pressed into the sticky tabletop, his large hand wrapped around a brown bottle that he’s currently lifting to his lips.
His eyes meet Belly’s, and around the top of the bottle, his lips quirk into a grin.
Her breath catches, and she stops in her tracks.
The music fades.
Time slows.
The world narrows until it’s just Conrad, eyes on hers, the lip of the bottle pressed into his bottom lip. His head tilts back as he takes a swig from the bottle, and he maintains eye contact the whole time.
Fuck.
Belly’s stomach tightens. It’s erotic. It might actually be the hottest thing she’s ever seen. She’s tempted to reach for the nearest glass of cold water and douse herself in it, because she shouldn’t—can’t—be thinking this about Conrad.
She’s pushing that thought out of her head, locking it in a box titled Thoughts Not to Have About Conrad (a box that is, unfortunately for her, overflowing) and throwing away the key when Agnes crashes into her with a “dude, what the hell?”
“Sorry.” Belly shakes her head to clear it of those thoughts. Thoughts she can’t be having about Conrad. All he’s doing is looking at her, for fuck’s sake. “He’s here.”
She’s not even sure Agnes hears her, but it doesn’t matter, because Conrad’s looking at her.
In a dark, cobwebbed corner of Belly’s mind, a Taylor Swift song starts playing. If she kept listening, she’d recognize that it’s Lover, but she doesn’t inspect it long enough to know that. The music stops.
The music in BAR! cuts out suddenly, but Belly’s heartbeat is loud. Louder than the song that was just playing, louder than her boots thumping across the wooden floor as she stands there in the middle of the bar, several feet from Conrad.
“I can see that,” Agnes says on the edge of a laugh, pushing Belly forward a little and prompting her to walk forward.
Somehow, Belly finds her footing, and she practically floats across the room to Conrad, to their group’s favorite table underneath the pigeon picture.
“Hey,” he murmurs, his voice low as he looks away from Belly to nod at Agnes. “How was your day?”
The loss of his gaze on hers knocks the wind from Belly’s lungs. She misses it like an ache, like something she longs for.
Agnes sighs heavily, her chair scraping across the floor as she sits across from Conrad.
Belly slides into the booth next to Conrad, the vinyl creaking as she sits. She glances at him, but he’s already looking at her.
“Twenty bucks that she and Phil are fighting again,” Belly says.
Conrad groans, his glasses reflecting off the dim light. “I’m not falling for that again, Isabel. We know they’re fighting. Phil and Agnes are always fighting.”
Isabel.
He’s the only one that calls her that. It’s the only name he calls her. To everyone else, she’s Belly.
Every time he calls her Isabel, it sends a tiny tendril of heat down her spine. A spark that doesn’t catch into a flame, because she won’t let it.
He’s her roommate.
She can’t be in love with him.
She can’t.
“Not while they’re fucking,” Belly counters, and then taps her chin while she considers this. “Actually, sometimes while they’re fucking, too.”
“I’m right here,” Agnes says wearily, “and I need a drink.”
“Our apartment needs thicker walls,” Belly mumbles.
Conrad snorts, sets his beer down with a soft thud. “You can say that again. What’s going on with Phil, Agnes?”
Agnes tosses her wild red hair over both of her shoulders, her eyes narrowing as she glances from Conrad to Belly and back. “What if nothing’s going on with Phil?”
At that moment, their waitress appears. Takes their order (a margarita on the rocks for Agnes and a strawberry daiquiri for Belly), then disappears again.
“Something’s always going on with Phil,” Belly says. “Is it his sister’s wedding? Does he not want you to go?”
Phil, Agnes, and Conrad all met in medical school, but where Agnes and Conrad became best friends, Agnes and Phil became friends with benefits.
They’ve been on-again-off-again fuck buddies for at least two years, since Belly moved in with Conrad and Agnes. Conrad doesn’t know when Phil and Agnes started things, and Agnes refuses to say.
The thing about Agnes and Phil is that when they’re on, they’re on. They have loud, passionate, bed frame rattling, sex, which would be great if the walls in the apartment were thinner. More than once, Belly or Conrad have had to knock on Agnes’s door and ask her to keep it down. She listens. Usually.
And when Agnes and Phil are off, it’s, well, not great. Drinks at BAR! and pints of ice cream and Agnes’s cold I don’t care anyway even though Belly and Conrad both know that isn’t true. Agnes spends happy hour or trivia night talking about Phil, and how she misses the sex. Agnes usually cries even though she insists she’s not a crier, and after a week or so, she and Phil make up.
(Belly and Conrad have a bet going to see who confesses their love first: Agnes or Phil.
“It has to be Phil,” Conrad said, the last time they talked about it, which was three weeks ago, while Agnes was at work (or at Phil’s place—it was hard to keep track), “I’ve known Agnes forever. She’s so deep in denial that she doesn’t want to admit it, so if he wants her to believe him, he’ll have to confess first.”
“That’s a strong argument,” Belly acknowledged, “but I think it’ll be Agnes. I don’t know why, I just have a gut instinct.”
He smiled, and it was fond. But, like, platonically. Obviously. “You and your gut instincts.”
“I’m usually right.”
“You are,” he conceded, although he was still smiling fondly. In a friendly way, of course.
The box in Belly’s mind labeled Things Not to Think About Conrad creaked open, covered in dust, but she quickly slammed it shut.)
“Okay, fine,” Agnes says now, bringing Belly back to the present. “You’re right. It’s about Phil.”
“What about him?” Conrad asks, leaning back against the booth, his arm draped over the back of it. His fingertips brush Belly’s shoulder, and she stiffens at the unexpected contact. He shoots her an apologetic look, his hand moving away. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay,” she says, smiling at him briefly, nudging his shoulder with hers before turning to Agnes. “Lay it on us.”
“So, we’re fighting, but his sister’s wedding is in Italy next month. He’s not sure if he wants me to go.”
Conrad’s eyebrows furrow. “Aren’t you already his plus-one? When is the wedding?”
“Yeah.” Agnes sighs heavily. “It’s over Valentine’s Day.”
Belly shrugs. “A week in Italy sounds like a dream. Dump him when you get home.”
Agnes rolls her eyes. “I can’t dump him if we’re not dating.”
Belly and Conrad haven’t talked about what happens to their bet if it turns out Agnes and Phil aren’t in love, but that doesn’t matter right now. What matters is that Belly is already envisioning a future where Agnes is happier, where she isn’t hot and cold with Phil, where her three a.m. screams of Phil’s name don’t keep the whole block awake. “He won’t even define the relationship—”
“It’s not like that—” Agnes insists.
“—And now he’s trying to uninvite you from his sister’s dreamy destination wedding, even though that wedding is, like, next week?” Belly shakes her head. “Hard pass. Break-up worthy, honestly.”
“I like him,” Agnes says, and Belly’s jaw drops. She glances at Conrad, who’s looking at her with wide eyes. “Oh my god, you two, stop. Not like that. I like the sex. It’s good.”
“Good?” Belly raises both eyebrows. “Three days ago, I had to text you during a work call because you were moaning so loudly that I could hear it from my room. My room is down the hall, Agnes. Not sure good is the word I would use. Mind-blowing, maybe. Earth-shattering, perhaps.”
“And last weekend,” Conrad adds, “I was on the couch, doing my once a year phone call with my dad, when the two of you stumbled through the door, your tongue all the way down his throat.”
Agnes rolls her eyes, but she’s smirking. “You’re just jealous because neither of you have been having sex.”
“This isn’t about us,” Belly says, “and besides, how would you know that? I’m not home all the time. Maybe I have secret one-night stands that include hours and hours of steamy, passionate sex.”
Agnes snorts. “Belly, I love you, but there’s no way you’re having one-night stands. You’re terrible at keeping secrets. You would've told us the moment you got home.”
She opens her mouth to protest, but Conrad beats her to it.
“It’s true,” he says, taking a sip of beer as he shrugs one shoulder, casually, like his knowledge of her isn’t going to burrow into her brain so she can replay it over and over while she tries to fall asleep tonight. They’re friends. Friends know things about each other. “You’ve never been able to keep secrets.”
“You’re wrong,” Belly says. She isn’t defensive, is merely stating a fact. Agnes’s hair is red, Conrad has a dimple above his left lip, Belly is good at keeping secrets. “I’m great at keeping secrets.”
She’s been keeping a secret this past year: she has a crush on Conrad.
It’s tiny, and will, in the grand scheme of things, likely be unimportant.
She isn’t going to do anything about it, because they’re roommates and friends, and taking that leap, confessing her feelings, scares her. She doesn’t want to lose him as a friend or a roommate. She won’t lose him.
Which is why he can never know about her crush.
Conrad shakes his head, oblivious to Belly’s feelings (by design), his eyes sparkling through the lenses of his glasses even in the room’s dim light. “Okay, Isabel. Keep telling yourself that.”
Before Belly can answer, their waitress brings their drinks, and then the lights dim even more. A single spotlight appears on the tiny stage near the front of the room.
As Belly lifts her drinks to her mouth, she nudges Conrad again, giddy. “It’s starting.”
He laughs, low and steady, like he only wants her to hear. “Trivia is why we’re here, Isabel.”
She can’t help but grin around her straw. “I know.”
From across the table, Agnes shushes them.
Trivia passes in a blur. Usually, Belly’s competitive streak comes out, and she’s joining in with Agnes and Conrad: furiously whispering answers, giving the other teams dirty looks, cheering on Conrad as he writes the answer and then Agnes as she runs it up to the trivia host, but tonight, her mind isn’t in it.
Tonight, her mind is on Conrad. How he looked at her once he saw her from across the room. How he teased her about not being able to keep secrets. How he said her name in that low tone of voice, meant only for her.
His thigh presses against hers, warm even through the layers of their clothes. He looks at her in the dim light, gaze focused solely on her, and she feels drunk.
Her strawberry daiquiri is still half-full, a melted mess now that she hasn’t finished it quickly enough.
During the third round of trivia (the pop culture round, Belly’s favorite), the host accidentally turns the music up too loud, and while they’re fixing it, Conrad leans in close, his lips almost brushing the shell of Belly’s ear as he asks, “What do you think, Isabel?”
He’s doing it just to be heard over the obnoxiously loud music.
She knows this, and yet.
And yet, her breath catches anyway.
Her stomach tightens with want, and immediately, her brain supplies her with Conrad asking her that question in an entirely different context: with his head between her thighs. She’s lying on his bed with her legs hooked over his shoulders, soft golden light spilling from the lamp on the nearby nightstand.
The sheets rustle beneath her as she tries to get closer to him, but he gives her a knowing smirk and slides his arm across her stomach, keeping her pressed into the mattress as his slow, steady breaths fan over her cunt. He palms her breast, thumb brushing over her nipple, and she covers his hand with hers, clutching at him to ground herself to this moment.
Fuck, that’s so hot. He’s so hot.
His eyes are piercing as he looks at her, utterly wrecked with want, his hair a mess from her fingers, his lips so close to where she wants them, where she’s wanted him for a long time.
“What do you think, Isabel?” he’s asking in this fantasy, his other hand hooked around her thighs, keeping her spread open for him. His voice is low, the same way it was in the bar, and her exhale shudders through her. “Do you want me to fuck you?”
“Belly,” Agnes prompts, like it’s the second or third time she’s said her name.
Belly blinks, hard, and the fantasy dissolves as quickly as it had appeared. She’s back at their favorite table in BAR!, her heart pounding in her ears, Conrad’s gaze still on her. Agnes’s gaze is pinned on her from across the table, too, sharp and analyzing.
Belly swallows hard. “I think the answer’s Stephen King.”
Conrad hums softly, but somehow, even over the thud of the music and her heart, she can hear it. He pushes his glasses up with his index finger, his eyes moving from hers to look at Agnes. “What do you think?”
“I think we should get another round of drinks,” Agnes says, her words slurring. Her cheeks are flushed and her bright eyes are glassy. She’s had three margaritas, and, for the past two minutes, has been eyeing Belly’s melting strawberry daiquiri.
“How about we get you some water?” Conrad suggests. “You’ll feel better.”
“But I want another drink.” Agnes crosses her arms, sticks her bottom lip out in a pout. “Should I text Phil? I think I should text Phil.”
Belly reaches a hand across the table. “Why don’t I text him for you? Save you the hassle of looking at your bright phone screen.”
Agnes looks delighted at that and, almost immediately, presses her phone into Belly’s hand.
Which Belly drops into her purse.
Agnes groans, buries her face in her hands. “I should’ve known you were going to do that. Give it back.”
“No.”
Agnes peeks out from between her hands. “Please, Belly.”
“Still no. I’ll go get you some water.” She turns to Conrad, who blinks rapidly, like he’s startled, and taps the slip of paper they use to write their trivia answers with her finger. “Write down Stephen King, and then—”
Agnes gasps. “You can’t demote me from being the runner.”
“No one was demoting you, Agnes,” Conrad says, writing down Stephen King in his messy scrawl and then passing it to Agnes. “C’mon, I’ll go with you while Isabel gets you some water.”
“I don’t need a babysitter,” Agnes says.
Conrad doesn’t even blink. “I didn’t say you did.”
Agnes waves her hand between Belly and Conrad, looking rather pleased with herself. “I know what the two of you are doing, by the way.”
Belly leans back in the booth. “What’s that?”
“You think I can’t handle my liquor.”
“No,” Belly says evenly, “we know that you’re drunk. It’s okay, though. I have some ibuprofen in my purse, and I’ll get you some water. You can deliver the answer.”
She glances at Conrad with a look that he hopefully interprets as follow behind her, just in case. Not too close, though.
He nods. “We’ll be okay.”
With that, she leaves to go get Agnes a water.
There’s a line at the bar, and while she’s waiting, she watches Agnes walk up to the trivia host and hand her their answer, Conrad lingering a few feet away, giving her space but still making sure she’s okay.
His eyes find Belly across the crowded room, and he gives her a soft smile, lifting one hand in a wave.
She smiles and waves back.
She takes out her phone and opens their text chain, the one with just the two of them that she has to scroll to find, because whenever they text, it’s in a group chat with Agnes.
Belly (8:37 p.m.): Should I get her something to eat? Pretzel bites?
She watches as he reaches in his pocket for his phone, the blue glow of the screen brightening his features. Their text chain reflects off of his glasses.
Agnes reaches across the table and taps his arm, says something that Belly is too far away to hear.
Conrad looks up, raises his eyebrows, and laughs before he answers Agnes, then he looks back down toward his phone. His thumbs fly across the screen as he types.
Belly’s phone buzzes in her hand.
Conrad (8:38 p.m.): That’s a good idea. She’d love that.
Belly stares at the words for so long that the person next to her taps her on the shoulder.
Her head snaps up.
“It’s your turn,” he says, nodding at the bartender.
“Thank you.” Belly winces, apologetic, and places her order.
While she waits, she’s quietly reeling about that fantasy she just had about Conrad. It isn’t the first time, and it isn’t even the filthiest, most vivid one she’s ever had of him (these are usually sex dreams), but it is the first fantasy featuring something he’s said to her in real life.
The top of the box labeled Things Not to Think About Conrad flies off the hinges, and her mind runs wild.
Her mind usually spins these fantasies at night when she’s alone in bed, her cunt pulsing with want. Whatever he’s saying is something he has never (and would never, probably) say in real life:
You’re so good for me, whispered in her ear while he fucks her from behind, a groan punctuating each slow drag of his cock against her walls.
Fuck, that’s it, baby, his long fingers tangled in her hair as she sucks his cock.
Will you come again for me, Belly? with his lips against hers, her orgasm reaching its peak as she rides him. His satisfied grin as she clenches around him at the question, warmth threading through his words as he says, Fuck, look at you, coming just because I asked, while she comes.
(That last one is for sure a fantasy, because he’s never called her Belly. He’s never called her baby, either, further proof that these are nothing more than fantasies designed to drive her wild and then get her off.)
And now, the newest addition to her collection, from tonight, featuring something he actually said: What do you think, Isabel?
What does she think?
I think I might combust if he doesn’t kiss me. She leans against the bar, trying to give off a vibe that she’s Calm, Cool, and Collected and not at all thinking about her roommate kissing her or making her come. I think I might combust if he does kiss me.
She wants it so badly that she can practically feel the weight of his tongue in her mouth, the slide of it hot and excruciatingly delicious.
But he’s her roommate.
If he finds out, he’ll be embarrassed, or awkward, and she’ll have to move out, and then they'll slowly stop being friends. Their friendship will be nothing but an insignificant blip in their lives.
Or he’ll kick her out of the apartment and also his life.
Belly can't have that. She doesn't want that.
Which is why none of this will ever happen.
A few minutes later, she’s balancing three glasses of water and a red plastic basket of pretzel bites, when it occurs to her that carrying all of this back to their table across the room is a terrible idea.
It takes her five minutes to walk halfway across the room because she’s trying not to fall or drop anything or jostle the food.
If she had a free hand, she’d call Conrad to come help her, but as it turns out, she doesn’t have to.
Because as soon as she thinks that, he materializes in front of her.
“Isabel,” Conrad says, with an endeared laugh, taking two of the glasses from her hands, leaving her with just one glass and the pretzel bites.
“Hi,” she says, a bit dumbfounded that he noticed how long she was gone. Did he see her tiptoeing across the bar like it was a sheet of ice and she expected to slip at any moment?
“You could’ve texted me,” he says gently, knowingly. It takes Belly a second to process that he’s standing here, that the sound issues are fixed so the music isn’t playing loudly anymore. “Agnes started drooling when she noticed you were carrying pretzel bites. And then she nearly cried because she was worried you’d drop them.”
“Oh.” Belly blinks once, still not processing that he’s standing in front of her. “Well, at least she wasn’t crying about Phil.”
Conrad hums. “True.”
“Thank you,” Agnes says, when they return to the table, once Belly sets the glass of water and basket of pretzel bites in front of her. She takes a bite of her pretzel and groans. “Belly, you’re a lifesaver.”
And then Agnes bursts into tears.
“Hey, it’s okay.” Belly pats Agnes’s shoulder as she rounds the booth and slides back into her seat next to Conrad. “You’re okay, Agnes.”
“I want to go to Phil’s sister’s wedding,” Agnes says, the words slurred from the alcohol and thick from the sudden onslaught of tears. “Not to, like, be in his family photos, but because—”
Slyly, Belly meets Conrad’s eye, and she knows they’re both thinking the same thing.
Is she about to drunkenly admit her feelings for Phil?
That doesn’t happen.
Instead, Agnes claps her hand over her mouth and rushes off to the bathroom.
“Shit,” Belly murmurs, as she and Conrad follow hot on Agnes’s heels. “Maybe the pretzel bites were a bad idea.”
“That’s not your fault, Isabel,” Conrad says, immediately, like soothing her is an instinct, his shoulder brushing against hers as they weave through tables to get to the bathrooms, which are located at the back of the bar. “We didn’t know she’d get sick.”
At that moment, someone spills their drink, and it splashes all over Belly’s sweater and her hair.
She freezes.
When she blinks, her eyelashes stick together for a second, and she’s hit by the overwhelming scent of strawberry. Blended ice slides down her face.
A few steps ahead of her, Conrad glances over his shoulder to see why she’s no longer next to him, and he’s in front of her in an instant, fingertips lightly pressing into her upper arms, eyes searching hers.
“Shit,” he murmurs, his hand moving to brush her wet hair out of her face. “Are you okay?”
She doesn’t have time to react, because he’s unbuttoning his shirt with mesmerizing quickness to reveal a white t-shirt underneath.
Then, Belly’s eyes stay on his hand as he slips it under his shirt, brings the shirt up to her face slowly, and wipes the spilled drink off of her face.
Around them, everything fades.
The world is only comprised of Conrad, swiping his t-shirt gently, so slowly, across her mouth, heat radiating from his palm.
Nothing else matters.
His head is bent towards her, his other hand cradling her jaw as he tilts her face up to his, his shirt moving from her mouth and brushes over her cheeks, her nose, her jawline.
It’s instinctual.
It’s the hottest thing he’s ever done, and that’s coming from someone who has fantasized about him fucking her slowly by candlelight.
Belly is buzzing, her eyes wide, her lips parted. Her stomach is in knots. She is so turned on, just from the press of his hand through the cotton, and she has never wanted someone this badly.
“Isabel,” he murmurs, staring at her with a quiet intensity that pulses through him, that makes her legs tremble.
His hand drops.
The loss of his touch fills her immediately, so intensely that she almost whimpers.
Luckily, she swallows it just in time.
Belly blinks, and the spell is broken.
The sounds of the bar rush in dizzyingly quickly: peals of laughter from a nearby table, glass clinking against wood as shots are thrown back, the shuddering bass beat of this song.
“Agnes,” she gasps, like she’s resurfacing from underwater. She’s dazed, floating, locked in the moments where all she felt was warmth: from his hand, from his eyes. “We should get to her.”
Conrad slips on his button-down as though nothing happened. “Right.”
Nothing did happen, she tells herself sternly, even as heat settles in her stomach and snakes down to her cunt.
She shoots him a quick smile, though her pulse is still fluttering. “Conrad, I’m fine. I’ll clean myself off in the bathroom. Let’s go.”
The bathrooms in this bar are tiny one-person, gender-neutral stalls, closed off from everything else via large, wooden doors. Agnes disappears into the bathroom on the left. The lock clicks into place behind her.
Belly pounds on the door with the side of her fist. “Agnes, please! Open the door!”
Conrad tries once, too, but it’s no use.
The door stays locked, so they stand in front of it.
“We’re going to get disqualified from trivia,” Conrad says, as they watch the next round pass, the players rushing to hand their answers to the trivia host. He buttons up his shirt, hiding the evidence of the most sexually charged moment Belly’s had in months, possibly years. It’s as though it never happened.
The worst part is, she’ll be thinking about this all night, and he probably isn’t going to think twice about it. He won’t think back on that moment while he fucks himself, the way that Belly will.
She swallows hard, pushes those thoughts away for now. “Is that what happens if you don’t answer for a round?”
“Yeah. Happened to me and Agnes a few months ago, when you had to work late. We got stuck on a clue and didn’t realize the time was up.”
“Shit. How did you handle it?”
“We got consolation tacos.”
She snorts. “Something tells me that won’t be happening tonight.”
Conrad’s lips quirk up in a faint smile. A fluorescent light buzzes loudly above them, and damn, he looks beautiful in this light, too. It accentuates his features even more: his sharp jawline, his hair falling perfectly at his temples, the eyebrows he doesn’t need to do anything to.
He pushes his glasses higher onto his nose with the tip of his index finger, his gaze on her intense and analytical. She’s not sure what he’s looking for, but he must find it, because he says, “I don’t think so.”
A few seconds later, the door behind them opens, and Agnes appears. It’s clear she splashed water on her face, because there are a few droplets clinging to the hair framing her face, but she still looks drunk. Her eyes are still glassy, her cheeks are red, and she looks like she doesn’t want to be in this bar anymore.
“Can we go home?” she asks. Then she notices Belly’s margarita-drenched sweater, and her nose wrinkles. “Belly, what happened?”
“Someone spilled their drink on me. I’ll be a minute,” she explains, glancing at Conrad. “If you want to take her home, I can—”
He’s already shaking his head. “We can wait a few minutes, Isabel. Don’t worry about it.”
Agnes slumps against Conrad’s side with a groan. His arm immediately wraps around her shoulders and holds her against him so that she doesn’t fall.
Conrad looks down at her, concern clear in his expression. “Are you okay to wait for Isabel?”
“Yeah,” Agnes says. Her eyebrows furrow. “Why do you call her that, anyway? Everyone else calls her Belly.”
Belly’s stomach tightens. For some reason, she doesn’t want to hear his answer. While yes, it’s jarring to hear him call her Isabel, she likes it, even if he’s the only one that does so.
Probably because he’s the only one that does so, her mind whispers smugly.
She jerks her thumb behind her to the bathroom door, which is still open. “I’m going to clean up.”
Conrad nods at her. “We’ll wait for you by our table, okay?”
“Okay. Thank you.”
One corner of his mouth tilts up. “Of course.”
Agnes taps her foot, impatient, her jaw set as she looks up at Conrad. “Well?”
Belly shuts the bathroom door so she doesn’t have to hear his answer.
She’s not entirely sure why she doesn’t want to know.
Yes, you do, her brain singsongs. It’s because—
She crosses the room and turns on the tap, drowning out that thought. She splashes water on her face to rid it of the frozen marg, then attempts to blot out the stain on her sweater with wet paper towels. That doesn’t quite work, and after a few minutes, she gives up.
Conrad and Agnes are waiting, after all.
They’re standing next to the table when she reaches them, both already in their coats. Well, Conrad’s standing; Agnes is leaning against him the same way she was outside of the bathroom.
His arm is wrapped around her shoulder, and Belly’s jacket and hat are draped over his other arm, her purse dangling from his fingers.
“Everything okay?” Conrad asks, taking in the wet spots on her sweater. He studies her face for a beat too long; her mascara’s probably smudged under her eyes.
“Yeah,” Belly says, and suddenly, she’s exhausted. It hits her out of nowhere, and all she wants to do is curl up in bed and sleep for a long time. However, she and Conrad have to deal with getting Agnes home first.
“Agnes tried to break into your purse so she could steal her phone and text Phil,” Conrad tells her, handing over her purse.
“Tattle tale,” Agnes grumbles. “You said I could have it back when I had water, which I did.”
A jolt of electricity zips up Belly’s arm when her fingers brush Conrad’s, but she doesn’t think anything of it. It’s just because her shirt’s cold and sticking to her skin from the tossed margarita, and his fingers are warm.
“Yeah, and then you promptly threw it up,” Belly says gently, slipping on her jacket and zipping it, then tugs her hat over her ears. “You can have your phone back when we get home.”
“Promise?”
Belly holds out her hand, pinky out. “I promise.”
Agnes is overjoyed at the prospect of a pinky swear.
“That’s a sacred bond,” Conrad says seriously, as they walk out of the bar. Agnes is between them, walking mostly on her own but held up by Belly and Conrad, who each have an arm around her back. “You better be careful not to break it.”
“Oh, I know,” Belly says, glancing at him over the top of Agnes’s head. He meets her gaze, his eyes sparkling from a nearby streetlight. Her breath comes out in white puffs from the cold, and her mouth is already frozen from the bitter air, otherwise she’d smile at him. “Don’t worry, I don’t have plans to.”
They walk in silence after that, murmuring words of encouragement to Agnes every few steps. The subway station isn’t that far, but it feels even further away than usual, on account of the cold. Just before they reach the subway station, it starts to snow.
“Oh my god,” Agnes gasps, drunkenly delighted as she tilts her face toward the sky and grinning wildly. “It’s snowing.”
“Yeah,” Belly says softly.
Her eyes meet Conrad’s again, and he’s smiling.
“What?” she asks him.
He shakes his head, still smiling. “Nothing. Come on, it’s fucking freezing.”
A few minutes later, they’re standing on the subway platform, when Agnes starts to cry again.
“I miss Phil,” she says, sniffling, and then she pauses, shakes her head. “Well, that’s not entirely true. I’m actually mad at him. I know his sister’s wedding is a destination wedding in Italy, but, like, he doesn’t even want me there.”
She rambles until the train arrives, and miraculously, the subway car is nearly empty.
Agnes sits immediately and Belly sits next to her, with Conrad on Agnes’s other side.
“Do you think Phil misses me?” Agnes asks, leaning her head on Belly’s shoulder.
“I’m sure he does,” Belly replies, yawning. She’d fall asleep right here, if she could.
“Conrad,” Agnes says suddenly a few minutes later, breaking the lull of silence that had fallen over the train car. It’s as though she’s just remembered something, and she quickly lifts her head from Belly’s shoulder to look at him. “Don’t you have to work tomorrow?”
“I do,” he answers. “So does Belly.”
Belly pictures the color-coded whiteboard calendar stuck to their fridge, Conrad and Agnes’s shifts written on it. In Conrad’s messy handwriting, tomorrow’s shift is written in bright green dry erase marker: 8 to 8. In Agnes’s handwriting, it says OFF in bold, red letters. Belly’s written book club in purple marker. She usually just goes for the snacks, but she read and loved the book this month. That being said, some of the people at book club like to nitpick the book regardless of if they liked it or not, and she’s not sure she wants to hear them tear apart a book she loved.
“Thanks for staying out late with me. And I’m sorry I got us disqualified from trivia,” Agnes says, biting her lip. Her words aren’t slurred anymore, and she looks more alert than she had coming out of the bathroom. Relief courses through Belly. “Oh my god, Conrad. I forgot about the consolation tacos.”
“Next time,” he replies, smiling softly at her.
When they get home, they’re barely through the front door before Agnes is holding her hand out to Belly, palm up, one eyebrow arched expectantly.
“I promise I won’t immediately text Phil,” she says.
Belly can’t help but laugh at that, and passes the phone over. “We both know you will, but that’s okay. Thanks for not fighting me too much on that.”
Agnes shrugs. “You were right to take it. I would have drunk texted him, and it would’ve been embarrassing.”
“We’ve all done embarrassing shit,” Conrad says. “I’ll get you some water, come on.”
“I’m going to shower,” Belly says, and then Agnes and Conrad head off to the kitchen, which is just off the living room, and Belly heads in the opposite direction, down the hall to the bathroom.
The hot water and steady shower spray is immensely relaxing, releasing all of the tension from the past few hours.
Belly is still reeling from that fantasy she’d had about Conrad eating her out. And from the way he wiped her mouth with his shirt.
It’s not a shock, necessarily, considering she’s had a crush on him for the past few months—or, she finally admitted her crush to herself a few months ago, but it had started long before that. Probably. She’s not entirely ready to admit when, exactly, it started.
Until tonight, Belly had thought it was a minuscule crush. That it would pass with time, with each day she didn’t spend one on one time with Conrad.
It didn’t mean anything, because it simply couldn’t.
But now . . . Now she’s fantasizing about him fucking her. Not only that, but also, it felt so real. More real than every other fantasy she's had about him.
She’s never even slept in his bed, but the sheets were cool beneath her skin. Sunlight streamed in through the blinds, painting him with soft, golden strokes. His hands were warm against her bare skin, his eyes burning as he touched her, as he leaned in and nearly pressed his mouth against the lips of her cunt.
And the want. It had fizzled through her quickly, like a sparkler, and as Fantasy Conrad asked, What do you think, Isabel? Do you want me to fuck you?, all she wanted was his mouth on hers, his hand kneading her breast slowly, his eyes never leaving hers as he ate her out slowly, methodically.
That was a one-time thing, she tells herself as she steps out of the shower and dries off with a fluffy pink towel. She wipes steam off the mirror with her towel and stares at her reflection, watches as steam leftover from the shower rises from her skin. You can’t think about him that way, not again.
In fact, she thinks, as she changes into her pajamas, listens to Agnes’s laughter floating in from her room (which is right next to the bathroom), You should probably get over this crush. It’ll only end in heartbreak.
It’ll be easy. She just won’t spend any time alone with him, will make up excuses not to go to trivia, will even dust off the dating app profiles her best friend (and sister-in-law) Taylor made for her back when they still lived together. Every once in a while, Belly looks at those apps before getting incredibly overwhelmed by the lack of people she’s interested in and closing them. She finally deleted them from her phone a few months ago.
With a deep breath, she hangs her towel, gathers her stuff, and heads to her room.
She can do this.
Okay, maybe it won’t be easy, but it’s doable. People get over crushes all the time, surely. Belly has even gotten over her fair share of crushes.
This one will just be a blip in her love life. A fun fact to laugh at in a few years, once she’s moved out and has moved in with the love of her life.
After she dries her hair, she lies in bed for a while, in the dark, thinking through her plan to get over this crush. Does she even need a plan? Sure, she thrives on having a to-do list and practically lives by the color-coded calendar on the fridge, but a to-do list for getting over a crush seems excessive.
Belly tosses and turns for what feels like hours. When she checks her phone to see what time it is, she’s so sure that hours have passed.
It’s just past midnight.
With a groan, she gets out of bed and heads to the living room. Maybe watching reruns of Great British Bake Off will help her sleep, and instead of dreaming about Conrad’s mouth, she’ll dream about baking an incredibly intricate dessert.
This plan is immediately thwarted.
Belly stops in her tracks at the end of the hall.
Conrad’s sitting on the couch, scrolling through Netflix. The living room is dark, but it’s unmistakably him. And then, with a sigh, he turns on the lamp next to the couch, which bathes him in soft light.
He’s changed, too, into a crewneck she recognizes as his favorite one, gray with Stanford printed in block letters. His hair is tousled, presumably from pulling the crewneck over his head.
Belly is mesmerized by him.
Maybe getting over this crush will be harder than she thought.
As she turns back towards her room, the floorboards creak beneath her feet, and Conrad looks over his shoulder, his gaze on her.
“Hey, Isabel,” he says. “Can't sleep?”
She sighs. “Nope.”
“Me either. Want to watch something?”
This is How to Get Over A Crush 101. This is step 1 in the list Belly just spent an hour crafting. Don’t spend time alone with him.
She should say no.
She should lie and say that she’s just getting a glass of water, that she’s heading back to bed.
The thing is, she doesn’t want to say no, she doesn’t want to lie. She wants to spend time with him. Getting over her crush on him is possible while still spending time with him, isn’t it? It has to be.
They can be friends.
“Yeah,” she replies, already walking towards the couch. “What are you thinking?”
He looks at Belly as she rounds the couch, already handing her the blanket off the back of the couch, because he knows she’s always cold.
He hums. “Something fun, easy. Got any suggestions?”
“I was thinking Great British Bake Off, but we could do something else if you want.”
He smiles at her, his eyes crinkling at the corners as she settles beneath the blanket—a patchwork quilt Agnes’s grandma made that lives on the back of their couch—and pulls it over her legs. “That’s perfect.”
“How was Agnes?” she asks, as he searches for the show.
“She’ll be okay. She immediately called Phil, but she also took the ibuprofen, so overall, I’d consider it a win.” His smile morphs into a grin, twinged with a wickedness that absolutely does not send ribbons of heat unfurling in her stomach. “I’m surprised you let her have her phone back.”
“I did pinky promise,” Belly says, stretching her legs out on the ottoman. Their couch and the matching ottoman are made of soft, black fabric; they’re Belly’s favorite, even though both pieces of furniture are technically Agnes’s. She hugs a polka-dot throw pillow to her chest, sets her chin on it.
Conrad laughs softly. “I know.”
She bites her lip, unsure if she should say this. “Was I too hard on her with taking her phone away? We’re her friends, not her parents.”
“No,” he says, shaking his head. “She needed it. Tough love is okay sometimes.”
“Yeah. I just wonder if we’re too hard on her, especially about Phil. She can do whatever she wants, but I worry, I guess.”
“You’re a good friend, Isabel,” he tells her seriously. “But don’t worry about Agnes. We can give her all the advice in the world, that doesn’t mean she’ll take it.”
A good friend.
He wouldn’t say that if he knew about her fantasy, about her months-long crush. In fact, he’d probably say she’s a bad friend. He might even ask her to move out.
Relax, she tells herself, before she can further spiral about him while sitting next to him. None of that is going to happen. All you did was fantasize about him. He wiped frozen margarita from your face in the hottest way possible. Nothing happened. It’s not going to. You’ve got this.
“Hey,” he says softly, reaching over and poking her upper arm. “Where’d you go?”
She sighs, resists the urge to set her head on his shoulder. Between the three of them, Agnes has always been the one most comfortable with physical touch, and she isn’t afraid to show it. Belly and Conrad are more restrained in that regard, but there are sometimes, like right now, where she wishes she could be more like Agnes. Wishes she could lean her head on his shoulder for comfort and not wonder if it means anything to him.
“I’m here, sorry,” she says. “I’m surprised you’re still up. Usually you’re asleep by now.”
He shrugs. “I’m not tired.”
“Conrad.” Her voice is soft, serious, her eyebrows raised a little bit.
His eyes darken when he looks at her, although he’s smiling. “Isabel.”
She laughs softly, ignoring the way he says her name sends a shiver down her spine. “I’m just pointing out how exhausted you’re going to be tomorrow, that’s all.”
“Sitting with you is better than staring at the ceiling, trying to fall asleep.”
“What do you think about before you fall asleep?” The question bursts out of her, because she doesn’t quite know what to do with what he’s just said.
Sitting with you is better than staring at the ceiling, trying to fall asleep.
Yeah, that’ll help her get over her crush.
She and Conrad have had many deep talks, just the two of them, in the two years since Belly moved in, and she always loves them, holds them close like they’re precious. Every once in a while, however, she worries that she’s said too much, asked a question that prods at a topic Conrad doesn’t want to discuss.
He’s always quick to reassure her that it isn’t too much, that he likes having these deep conversations.
Still, she worries.
This time, he hums thoughtfully, like he’s never considered the question before, then shifts so that he’s facing her, his back against the arm of the couch, his legs folded against his chest.
“That’s a good question.” The floor lamp behind his head outlines his hair in soft, golden light. It looks nice. In a platonic way. Because he and Belly are friends. “There isn’t one specific thing, now that I’m thinking about it. Sometimes it’s things I have to do at work the next day, or something that happened during the day that made me laugh, or something I want to tell you or Agnes in the morning. My brain just goes until suddenly, I’ve fallen asleep, and I don’t realize it until the next morning.”
“I feel that way, too. My brain is so crowded with stuff that it tires itself out, and I don’t even realize it until I’m waking up the next morning. I think through scenarios that haven’t happened yet, that likely won’t happen, and then, before I know it, I’m waking up with my alarm.” A beat of silence passes. “Recently, I’ve been reading before I go to bed. That helps quiet my thoughts.”
He raises an eyebrow, smiling. “What have you been reading?”
“Honestly?”
“Yeah, Isabel.” He laughs softly, amused. She’s struck by the sudden urge to ask him why he only calls her Isabel, but she doesn’t. “I always want the honest answer.”
She groans, buries her face in her hands. “I was hoping you wouldn’t ask.”
Her hands fall from her face just in time to see him roll his eyes, a playful smirk dancing at the corners of his mouth. “I don’t believe that for a second.”
Her breath hitches. Is he flirting? No, there’s no way he’s flirting. Conrad Fisher wouldn’t flirt with her. She’s his roommate. That’s all. “What?”
“You brought up reading,” he says, with a shrug, though his eyes twinkle with mischief. “And I think you wanted me to ask about it.”
“I didn’t,” she says honestly, “but I read a lot of books that, to me, are really boring. Books about math, mostly. The history of numbers, or why statistics is what it is. That kind of thing. I just don’t want you to think I’m being rude by saying I read books that are boring.”
His smirk grows, his eyes still sparkling. “Why, because they sound like books I’d enjoy?”
“That’s not what I meant.”
He turns back to the TV, smirk still playing at his lips. “Okay, Isabel.”
“Even though you would probably like them,” she admits, biting her lip. “That’s why I said they’re not for me! They could be for you, though.”
“I believe you.”
Conrad isn’t one to lie. He sounds like he believes her.
Which is why she can’t explain what she does next.
“Stay here,” she says, standing from the couch and leaving the room before she can glimpse his reaction.
The books are piled on her nightstand, crammed next to a half-empty glass of water, hair ties of various sizes, and an alarm clock that always blinks 4:59 because the power went out once and she’s yet to change it.
She slides the books off her nightstand and into her arms, then returns to the living room quickly, like Conrad will disappear if she doesn’t get to him as fast as possible.
Once she reaches the end of the hall, she exhales.
He’s still there, one arm draped over the back of the couch.
The floorboards creak as she walks toward him, announcing her presence.
“What do you have there?” he asks, amused. He already knows, is reaching out to take the books from her.
She passes him the stack of books, then sits down next to him, one leg tucked beneath her. “Some light reading for you.”
He laughs, once, short and staccato, the way he always does when he finds something unexpectedly funny.
They sit in silence for a few moments, while Conrad reads the back cover copy on the books and Belly sits next to him, pointedly not looking at him and instead becoming very interested in a piece of lint on the floor.
Just in case he takes her looking at him as signs of a crush. A crush that, if he knew about it, would make him flush and say something like, That’s nice, but I’m not interested. Will you please move out?
A crush that Belly is going to get over. She swears.
Not looking at him lasts about half a second.
Need thrums through her, buzzes under her skin, a yearning to look at him so strong that her eyes slide over to him before she can remember that she’s supposed to be getting over him, not studying him in the glow of the lamp next to the couch.
He’s gorgeous.
His hair is tousled, and Belly’s hands clench into fists so she doesn’t run her fingers through his hair, see if it’s really as silky and as smooth as it looks. A vein in his neck jumps as he reads, a result of concentrating so intensely on what he’s reading.
Her mind takes this as an opportunity to conjure a mini-movie of her tongue, licking slowly over that vein in his neck, her nose pressed into the hinge of his jaw. He tilts his head to give her better access to his skin, his hands drifting over her back to hold her close, her name (Isabel, always Isabel, this time murmured reverently, his voice thick with pleasure) falling from his lips in a breathless exhale.
Fuck.
Her plan to get over this crush catches flame and turns to ash, her eyes still glued to the long column of his neck.
Conrad turns to her and Belly quickly averts her eyes, the mini-movie shuttering as she looks toward the floor again.
“You know me so well,” he says, casually, like it’s nothing. Like it’s the easiest thing in the world, that she knows him. “These are great picks. It’s like you knew I’d want to read them.”
A piece of hair falls into his face, and he looks at her for a heartbeat, an inhaled breath, before he reaches up and brushes it away.
“Yeah,” she says, dazed, utterly enchanted by him. When she blinks, it’s slow, like she’s waking from a dream she hadn’t wanted to wake up from. That moment in the bar, him wiping her mouth with his shirt, plays on loop. Then she remembers where she is, that she’s at home and not in the bar, and it’s like she’s been drenched in a bucket of cold water. “I mean, I didn’t, obviously. Some of them are from the library, but for the ones I bought, you can have.”
“If you’re not reading about math, how else will you fall asleep at night?”
She shrugs. “I’ll just order different books. I want you to have these ones. You seem actually interested in them.”
“Isabel,” he says, shaking his head as he leans over to the armchair next to the couch to set the books down. Then he turns back to her, his back still against the arm of the couch, his arm draped over the cushions. He looks mystified, but that softens with each moment he looks at her. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
They sit there for a heartbeat, smiling at each other, until Conrad shifts so he’s facing the TV and says, “Ready to watch Bake Off?”
She grins. “Let’s do it.”
He turns off the floor lamp next to the couch, bathing the living room in darkness, and then turns to her. She can feel the weight of his gaze even in the dark. “Should we start from the beginning?”
“Yeah,” she says, yawning, moving so she’s facing the TV instead of him. In the darkness, under the warmth of the quilt, contentness washes over her. Exhaustion seeps into her skin like frigid air. “That’s a good idea.”
Conrad laughs softly. “Twenty bucks that you won’t even make it ten minutes into the episode.”
“That’s not a fair bet, because I’m going to win.” Her voice is thick with sleep, and she curls further under the blanket.
The grin is evident in his voice when he says, “Okay, Isabel.”
“I’m serious.” She’s already fighting to keep her eyes open.
“I know.”
Belly doesn’t realize she’s fallen asleep until a phone’s alarm cuts through the silence.
She wakes with a jolt.
Morning light filters in through the window, blanketing everything in soft, gray light: the TV paused on the Netflix are you still watching? page, the armchair, the ottoman.
Next to her, Conrad groans and reaches for his phone. The alarm quiets.
She blinks blearily, still mostly asleep. This might be a dream. “Conrad?”
“Sorry,” he whispers. He looks apologetic in the morning light, his hair tousled from sleep. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
She yawns, her jaw cracking. Tries to burrow under the quilt and frowns, because it’s not there.
“Here,” he says, standing and then draping the blanket over her. “You dropped this.”
He stretches, his crewneck riding up to reveal a sliver of his skin between the hem of his crewneck and the waistband of his pants.
Quickly, Belly averts her gaze and wraps the blanket even tighter around her. “Where are you going?”
“I have to start getting ready for work.”
“Oh.” She glances to her left, can just barely make out the glowing red clock on the stove. 6:15. In the morning, presumably. “Have you been up this whole time?”
“No,” he says, still whispering, but she hears it anyway: how rough his voice is from a few hours of disuse, how it’s thick with sleep. “I fell asleep, too.”
It’s pretty ironic, how she decided not to spend time alone with him and then they both end up falling asleep on the couch. Or maybe she’s overthinking it. She's probably overthinking it.
Her eyes drift shut. “I’m going to sleep for a little bit longer. Have a good day at work. I’m going to get up and go to bed any second now.”
Once she’s awake, she’ll likely be mortified that she clarified that she’d like to be in her own bed, because she wasn’t suggesting they share one.
Conrad doesn’t seem to think anything of it. All he does is say, “I’m going to pick you up and carry you to your room, okay?”
“That’s okay. You have to get ready,” she says, but she’s already falling back asleep. “I’m getting up right now.”
“I want to,” he says, waits a second before he pushes the blanket aside, then slides one arm under her back and the other under the backs of her knees. “Ready?”
“Yeah.” Her arms wrap around his neck instinctively, and he lifts her off the couch easily, like he’s done it a thousand times. He hasn’t.
He's never done this before.
He moves quietly down the hall, likely trying not to wake Agnes (even though she’s such a heavy sleeper) or jostle Belly too much.
“Thank you,” she says, her ear pressed against his chest. His heartbeat is steady and calm, and he’s warmer than she expected. Heat radiates from him, and she burrows even closer without thinking, her nose brushing his collarbone. He smells like his citrus soap and something so uniquely him that, if she were more awake, she’d be lost in. “You smell nice.”
“Any time,” he whispers back, and it sounds like he’s smiling as he nudges her bedroom door open with his foot. He flicks on the light, and then he’s setting her on the bed, pulling the comforter over her and tucking the sides in so she doesn’t get cold. “See you later.”
“See you later, Conrad.”
Belly’s alarm goes off an hour later, and she turns it off, then lies there for a moment.
Last night replays in her mind like something out of a dream: Conrad making intense eye contact as he drinks from his beer, then later wiping his shirt over his mouth like it was nothing.
It was nothing to him, Belly’s sure, and it has to be for her, too.