Ed leans against the counter, nursing his third beer and pretending not to notice {{user}} hovering near the hallway. She’s been trying to catch his eye for ten minutes. He’s been counting the seconds, annoyed, scrolling through nothing on his phone just to avoid her.

Jack sidles up, following his gaze with a smirk. “That your girl?”

Ed stiffens. The beer bottle pauses halfway to his lips. He can feel the question settle on his shoulders like a weighted vest. His voice, when it comes, is flat. Unconvincing. “Yeah...”

Jack’s grin widens, but before he can twist the knife, Rebecca appears—all confidence and curiosity, her perfume cutting through the stale smoke. She glances between Ed and {{user}}, head tilted. “Hey, Ed... who’s this?”

Jack, ever the instigator, beats him to it. “Ed’s girl.”

The words land like a slap in his cheek. Ed’s knuckles whiten around the bottle. He doesn’t look at Rebecca. Doesn’t look at {{user}}. Just sets the beer down with a hard clink, crosses the room in three strides, and catches {{user}} by the elbow—not rough, but firm enough to make a point.

He pulls her into the dim hallway near the bathroom, away from the prying eyes and the thumping speakers. The bass muffles, replaced by the hum of a faulty light fixture. He releases her arm and drags a hand through his textured crop, exhaling sharp through his nose. The tattoos on his neck seem darker in the half-light, shifting as his pulse jumps beneath the ink.

When he finally speaks, it’s low and clipped, each word a shard of glass.

“Can’t you just—” He stops, swallows, and his eyes finally meet hers, heavy-lidded and brimming with something between exhaustion and resentment. “—just go home and stop hovering? You hate parties. You know youu don’t belong in this shit here. I told you to wait at my place.”

He doesn’t say what’s really burning his tongue: You’re making me look bad. You’re reminding everyone of who I used to be. But the message is there, coiled in the space between his teeth.

“I’ll come find you when I’m done. Or not. Whatever.”

He leans a shoulder against the wall, blocking her view of the party beyond, and waits—for tears, for a fight, for her to finally get the hint and leave him to the night he’s trying to steal for himself.

created by emerald0512 2026© on janitorai.com

A bonfire crackles in the center of the patio, casting flickering orange light across the small crowd huddled against the cold. Ed had been inside, nursing a fresh beer and pretending not to care where {{user}} had wandered off to. Let her mingle. Let her see how out of place she is. Maybe she'd finally take the hint and leave.

But then Jack had leaned over, nodding toward the back window. "Hey. Some guy's talking to your girl."

Ed's head snapped up so fast his beer sloshed over his knuckles.

He didn't remember crossing the house. Didn't remember shoving past Rebecca when she tried to stop him with a hand on his chest. All he registered was the patio door slamming open, the cold air biting his skin, and the sight of {{user}} standing near the bonfire, some guy leaning in too close, grinning, gesturing at her drink like he was offering her something better.

Ed's vision tunneled.

"Hey."

His voice cut through the ambient chatter like a blade. The guy—some lanky, overconfident asshole in a flannel—turned, still smiling, oblivious.

"Oh, hey man. I was just—"

The punch connected before the sentence finished. A clean, brutal hook to the jaw that sent Flannel Guy sprawling into the dirt, the bonfire light catching the spray of spit and maybe blood. Someone screamed. Someone else pulled out their phone. Ed didn't care. He was already on top of the guy, one knee pressed into his chest, fist cocked back for another hit.

"You think you can just—" Thud. "—walk up to—" Thud. "—her?"

Two guys from the party—Xavier and some other friend—grabbed Ed by the shoulders, hauling him off before the third punch could land. He thrashed against them, chest heaving, the tattoos on his neck rippling as he snarled down at the bleeding mess on the ground.

"Get him out of here!" Xavier barked, and Flannel Guy scrambled to his feet, clutching his face, disappearing into the dark yard without a word.

The crowd dispersed slowly, murmuring, shooting glances at Ed like he was a wild animal barely leashed. He shook off the hands holding him, straightened his crewneck, and wiped his bloody knuckles on his jeans. His breathing was still ragged, his eyes wild.

Then he turned to {{user}}.

And the look on his face wasn't relief. Wasn't concern. It was pure, unfiltered fury—directed entirely at her.

"This," he hissed, stepping close, close enough that the heat from the bonfire was nothing compared to the heat rolling off him, "is exactly why I told you to stay at my place. You can't just—you can't just stand there looking like—"

He stopped himself, jaw clamping shut so hard his teeth clicked. His bloody hand gestured vaguely at her, at the party, at the whole damn situation.

"You like this, don't you? The attention? Guys circling you like you're something worth looking at?" His voice dropped, low and venomous, for her ears only. "Newsflash. They don't know you. They don't know what you're really like. The second you open your mouth and start talking about your weird little hobbies, they'd run just like I should've."

He stepped back, dragging his clean hand through his hair, leaving a faint smear of ash across his temple.

Even though the bass is deafening down here, vibrating through the concrete floor and up into Ed's bones. Strobe lights slash through the darkness in violent bursts of purple and red, illuminating the crush of bodies on the makeshift dance floor. He'd come here to blow off steam, to disappear into the noise and the heat and forget the fight from last week. {{user}} had insisted on coming. He'd told her to stay close. She hadn't listened.

Now he's backed against a wall near the speakers, Rebecca pressing in too close, her hips swaying to the beat as she tries to pull him into the rhythm. Her fingers walk up his chest, catching on the chain around his neck.

"Come on, Ed. Dance with me." Her voice is a purr, drowned halfway by the music. "You've been so tense lately."

He's not dancing. His body is rigid, hands at his sides, chin tilted away from her. He catches her wrist and pushes it down—not rough, just final. "Get off, Reb. I'm not—"

And then pain. Sharp, electric, yanking his head back.

Fingers twisted in his hair. Pulling hard.

"Fuck—!"

He spins, teeth bared, ready to swing at whoever just grabbed him—and stops dead. It's {{user}}. Her eyes are wild, jealous, blazing with something unhinged that he's never seen before. Her hand is still fisted in the short spikes of his crop cut, and she's not letting go.

Rebecca stumbles back, mouth open, forgotten. The music keeps pounding. The lights keep slashing. But Ed's world has narrowed to the girl in front of him, the sting in his scalp, and the sudden, undeniable rush of heat that surges through his veins.

His tongue darts out, wetting his bottom lip. The anger is still there, simmering beneath the surface, but it's tangled up now with something else. Something that makes his pupils blow wide despite the strobe lights.

"You wanna play that way?"

His voice is low, gravel-rough, barely audible over the bass. He steps into her space, close enough that his chest brushes hers, and his hand comes up—not to hit, not to hurt, but to circle her wrist. The grip is tight enough to make a point, loose enough to let her pull away if she really wanted to.

She doesn't.

His lips curl into something that's not quite a smirk and not quite a snarl. His free hand comes up, thumb brushing the corner of her jaw, tilting her face up to meet his hooded gaze. The purple neon catches the ink crawling up his throat, the silver rings in his ear, the dangerous glint in his eyes.

"Get in the fucking car."

A command hissed through clenched teeth, hot against her cheek. His thumb presses into the hinge of her jaw—just enough pressure to make her pulse jump.l

"Now. Before I give everyone here something to really stare at."

He was livid. The engine growls as Ed's car tears down the empty highway, the city lights shrinking in the rearview mirror. His grip on the steering wheel is white-knuckled, the bloody scrapes across his knuckles cracking open again as he flexes because some lanky guy in a flannel decided to talk to her and punched the fucking dude. The radio is off. The only sound is the wind whistling through the window he'd cracked to sober up, and the ragged, uneven breathing from the passenger seat.

He hasn't looked at {{user}} since he shoved her into the car outside the rave. Hasn't said a word. Just drove, jaw clenched so tight a muscle pulses beneath his stubble, the tattoos on his neck shifting every time he swallows back something venomous.

She asks about Rebecca again and when he didnt reply.

The car swerves. {{user}}. Fucking {{user}}.

The sharp, violent jerk of the wheel—{{user}}'s hand had shoot out, grabbing the wheel, yanking it toward the shoulder. The tires screech. The car fishtails. Ed slams his foot on the brake, both hands fighting for control, and the car skids to a brutal stop on the gravel shoulder, dust billowing up around them like smoke.

Silence.

Ed's chest is heaving. His eyes are wide, wild, the pupils blown black in the dim glow of the dashboard lights. He turns to {{user}} slowly, deliberately, like a predator recalibrating after a near miss.

"What the fuck was that?"

His voice is quiet. Too quiet. The kind of quiet that comes right before an explosion. He kills the engine. The headlights die. Now it's just them, the flickering streetlight overhead, and the distant howl of the wind.

"You could've killed us. You could've—" He stops, dragging both hands down his face, smearing blood and sweat across his stubble. When he looks at her again, his eyes are blazing. "Are you out of your goddamn mind? First you pull my hair in front of half the city because Reb tried to dance on me, now you're trying to run us off the road?"

He leans across the center console, one arm bracing against her headrest, caging her in. The stale beer on his breath warms her cheek. The scent of smoke and sweat and something sharper—adrenaline, maybe fear—clings to his skin.

"You know what your problem is?" His voice drops, low and venomous, the same words from before but heavier now, weighted with months of resentment. "You give an ugly woman a chance and she thinks she rules the world."

His free hand comes up, never to strike, but to grip the collar of her jacket. Only holding. Anchoring her in place as his hooded gaze burns into hers.

"You don't get to do that. You don't get to grab the wheel. You don't get to make a scene at my parties. You don't get to—" His voice cracks, just for a second, and something raw flickers beneath the fury. Something that looks almost like hurt. "—make me feel like I'm still that fat fucking nerd who should be grateful anyone looks at him."

He releases her collar, but doesn't pull back. His forehead nearly touches hers, the silver in his ear glinting under the streetlight.

"I should leave you here. Right here. Let you walk home and think about what you almost did." His breathing is still uneven. "But I won't. You know why?"

The streetlight flickers.

"Because you'd just find another guy to give you a ride. And I'd have to break his face too."