“But I’m not even practicing,” Roxanne lamented, tugging at the strap of her Loewe bag in a manner that her grandfather would probably call puerile. “Isn’t it disingenuous for me to be here?”

“It’s not disingenuous to pay your respects to a dead family member, no,” her grandfather responded, his tone matter of fact. “Some might even say it is kind, especially considering you missed the funeral. Your blouse is done up unevenly, by the way.”

She looked down, chin bumping her chest, and sure enough, her grandfather was right. She fumbled with it for a moment, her fingers pushing the tiny pearl buttons through their respective holes. It took far longer than it reasonably should have like her frantic morning had seemingly muddied her neural pathways. Her morning had been in a rush, in a way that she didn't feel particularly comfortable outlining to her grandfather. She desperately hoped that the flush of her cheeks didn't compel him to ask.

In a moment of privacy, as Oscar turned his back to her, puttering around by the driver seat door to find something, she took note of the battered, rust-covered vehicle in front of her-not the usual sleek, silver and red vehicle that both Luthers often drive. “Why did you bring the van?” she asked.

Oscar was rummaging through the glove compartment above the passenger seat, and after a few cursory expletives and sharp winces as if he had caught his finger on something, he broke off into a triumphant a-ha! He brandished a deep navy tie with an ivory trim, and delicately slung it around his neck, fingers deftly weaving the thin material under and over. “No reason,” he replied.

Roxanne paused. “Granddaddy, why⁠—“

“Let’s go,” he said abruptly, slamming the car door shut with a punctuating thwack. Oscar brushed his hands down his lapels before turning to cross the road towards the picturesque house-all white weatherboards and lush topiaries. A small flock of darkly dressed mourners followed suit. 

Roxanne, with far less composure than the rest of them, advanced behind her grandfather, heels clicking against the blacktop before she wrapped her hand around his shoulder in the middle of the road, yanking him to a stop. 

“Where’s he?” Roxanne pressed, voice stern like a mother telling off a toddler, and not like a fresh-faced twenty-one-year-old interrogating their grandfather. He shrugged her off, clearly guarded, and walked faster toward the house. 

“Wait, who died? Granddaddy⁠—“

“Daddy, “Roxanne squealed, the sound accompanied by the lewd slap of skin on skin and abrupt, masculine grunts. Her fingers were buried in dark, silky waves, speckled with silver and white throughout. A plush set of lips chased the soft peaks of her breasts, bounding with the momentum of her bouncing up and down on his lap. 

If someone were to walk in the front door to the apartment, it would look far more domestic than what the specifics of the situation themselves entailed. It was a large space, with the largest, street-facing wall consisting of a huge window that almost took up the entirety of the surface, welcoming in the late morning sunlight. The room itself was modestly furnished-a few side tables, a record player, a small silver trolley that held two crystal decanters and two matching glasses-which often led Roxanne to wonder whether he owned the apartment, or if it was some Airbnb intended to look like his own. In the center of the room sat a plush, navy couch, whose velvet surface had proven to be quite inconvenient for its most frequent use. From the sightline of the doorway, one would see the bare upper back of a dark-haired man, and a small, yet spirited girl sitting astride him. 

The sunlight cast a warm, yellow glow against the flourishing leaves of various plants that were scattered along the length of the windows-monsteras sitting in expensive-looking ceramic pots, an anthurium Vittarifolium sitting on top of a wooden stool, with its long, skinny leaves pooling at the floor, and Pothos dangling from the high ceilings. It was silent apart from the sound of distant traffic and labored breathing.

His arms held her almost like a frame, the length of his forearms running up the sides of her torso and his hands wrapping around her middle, holding her steadily upright. Both of his thumbs were slotted in the crease of the underside of her breasts while his other fingers splayed against the valley of her spine. It would have taken little effort for the tips of his fingers to touch each other at the center of her back.

It granted him enough control over her body to both guide her movements and tug her closer. Though Roxanne felt the muscles in her thighs strain as she refused to slow down, rutting more and more desperately onto his cock until she was a breath away from straining a muscle, his hands still seemed to dictate how fast she went, when he would tug her down until she was fully seated and holding her there, gyrating his hips up into her just so.

He must’ve left a window ajar, a stiff breeze blowing through the living room and licking at her skin until it became bumpy. It only made the wet heat between her legs feel even more pronounced, the thick, heavy weight of him sitting deep inside of her, his fingers pressing against the notches in her spine until she arched into him while his thumbs pressed up on the underside of her tits to plump them up for his wandering mouth. It’s then that the hot, liquid heat inside her starts spilling over the edges-his soft, wide lips encompassing the rosy, upturned points of her small breasts, trying to take in as much as he could make fit. 

Slowly, his palms grazed down her sides until he clasped one hand around the jut of her hip while the other skimmed the curve of her ass, his wrist bent casually as his long, thick fingers traced and brushed against her folds that accommodate him so desperately-pink, swollen and slick. 

“I love—“ his lips broke away from their spot around her nipple. The departure of his hot mouth caused the sensitive nub to pick up on the chill in the room tenfold, and with that and a particularly harsh thrust upwards, Roxanne broke out into a full-body shudder. “--This little pussy so much,” he gritted out each word as he finished his sentence, hips jerking on each syllable with emphasis, a few seconds apart. 

Roxanne gasps as one particularly harsh thrust upwards sent her toppling forward against his chest, his back propped against the back of the couch while Roxanne sat astride him, knees digging into the couch cushions. Their first time together-which happened a mere hour or two after their initial interview to see whether they were compatible, before ending up in some nearby hotel room-Roxanne was worried about how big was too big. Roxanne wasn’t a tiny girl, statistically a little taller than average, but her svelte, greyhound-like body required tremendous attentiveness to accommodate Jake in his entirety. 

Unlike her first sugar daddy-some guy called Matt who, on their first meeting, recounted a time when he once made a girl have an asthma attack halfway through sex, which Roxanne naively believed and took to be a promising anecdote-and all the boyfriends that had been in her life, Jake fucked her like they’d been doing it for decades. He brought with him some cocksure familiarity and confidence that was either the product of experience or sheer, dumb luck on Roxanne’s part. 

”So good, daddy, so full,” she warbled, voice girlish and sweet. 

He grabbed a fist full of her ass, the flesh bunching in his hand, looking down to where they were joined with reverence. “It’s like it’s sucking me in,” he groaned.

Roxanne leaned back on his thighs just slightly, his hand on her back aiding in holding her aloft. She impulsively broke the rhythm for a second, pausing at the precipice of his cock. His eyes snapped open at the interruption, and she felt her chest constrict at the depth of his gaze, the way his salt and pepper curls were pushed back against his forehead. She caught her bottom lip, red and plump, between her teeth, and clenched down on his cock as much as her exhausted muscles would allow. She rolled her hips in a slow, circular motion as she eased down, and when her ass finally met the bump of his hips, she gave a small, playful wiggle.

“Fuck,” Jake croaked, voice hoarse, flexing his hand against her ass before giving it a firm slap. “Don’t be cheeky.”

“I thought you liked it,” she pouted. Her lips bloomed into a lofty grin before her sentence was cut off halfway when Jake gasped her hips firmly, tilting her back just slightly as he undulated his hips against hers in a deep, slow roll. Whatever words lingered on Roxanne’s tongue evaporated into a broken cry when he hit something deep inside her. 

“You’re making a mess, baby,” he practically cooed, one of his hands spreading out so that he could thumb at her clit while the pads of his other fingers still brushed against her jutting hip bone. He watched, entranced, as Roxanne kept bouncing in the plains of his open thighs, her rhythm now sloppy as she felt utterly pushed to the precipice, the expanse of their upper thighs soaked. Staring at the point where their bodies met, a deep, satisfied rumble tore from Jake’s throat at the sight of the milky white slick that glistened in the sunlight on her every upstroke.

It was the endearment, really-the one that always made her feel both like she was made of static and warm putty-that broke her. Her lower body seized at the exact moment everything else from her belly up felt effervescent, and her hands scrambled to find purchase against his sweat-slick chest, fingers curving over the strong arch of his pectorals before she felt herself peak and break into a million pieces. Her hands scrambled up to wind in the curls at the back of his neck, and if she pulled too hard, he didn’t seem to care or notice. 

He rutted below her, hips accelerating, pushing through the ring of muscle that tightened enough to make his head spin. He made the most beautiful noises; deep rumbling groans that petered out into soft grunts. 

“Fuck,” he sighed, forehead falling against her collarbone as his hands summoned a vat of strength, holding her thighs tight enough to bruise as his thrusts lengthened out, before burrowing as deep as he could manage-a sharp exhale before his breaths slowed.

Her fingers in his hair slowed, their tension lessening as she felt her body ease with the orgasm that slowly left her body, like everything that was upturned and messy in her body was carefully adjusted, being put upright. His lips, previously ravenous and leaving small, speckled marks in their path, were now gentle. He peppered small kisses across the rectangle of skin above her breasts and below her clavicles, lingering at the hollow of her throat which housed a lone, lustrous pearl. The white, cloudy orb had a golden, horizontal line slicing through the middle in such a way that made it resemble Saturn, and across that horizontal line were tiny, delicate inlaid stones, green, red, and white, and at the very bottom of the spherical orb was a smaller, teardrop-shaped pearl. 

“Looks beautiful on you,” he mumbled, kissing upwards and upwards until he couldn’t crane his neck anymore. He propped his chin in between her scarce breasts, looking up at her with his clear, brown eyes. His hair, a deep, almost black brown that was speckled with grey wisps, was disheveled. “I’m glad you’re wearing it.”

“It’s too much,” she reprimanded, but gently, taking great delight in the way his eyes rolled to the back of his head when she moved her fingers to his temples, thumbs pressing in and moving in small, concentric circles in the tender divot. Roxanne stifled a laugh when the nostrils of his already large nose flared, a satisfied rumble coming from his throat. “But I like it very much. Thank you.”

His hands had moved to her ass, kneading the two globes in his palms absentmindedly. He lifted his chin from her chest and angled his head back down, his lips running across her warm skin like Morse code-short, chaste pecks interspersed with open-mouthed kisses, laving his tongue along the bumps of her ribs between her breasts. As her body went lax, Jake raised his knees so that Roxanne slid down further on his thighs-chest to the chest, both of their faces burrowed in soft, warm junctures of the other. “You have to leave?”

Roxanne made a sound of affirmation, her nose pushing through his mess of curls like a farmer through a cornfield, and when she finally tore her gaze from where they had focused on his face, watching the way his eyes moved slowly underneath the thin skin of his closed lids, she felt her body run heady with nerves when she saw the clock on the wall. 

“Shit,” she muttered, and immediately shifted to remove herself from Jake’s lap (which she did far too quickly and carelessly if his sudden gasp was anything to go by), before clambering across the shiny wooden floorboards to retrieve the items of clothing that created a small trail from the door to the couch. In the time that it took her to shrug on her blouse, pull up her pantyhose and properly arrange and tie her wrap skirt, Jake had only just stood up from the couch, tucking himself back into his pants. 

“What’s the hurry?” he mumbled, watching with hooded, inquisitive eyes as Roxanne lowered onto her hands and knees, looking underneath the furniture in search of her shoes. She found one of her Mary-Jane pumps, hooking her finger around the dainty little ankle strap and tugging it over. 

She faltered, feeling frantic at the realization that she had completely missed the funeral and was running the risk of being late to the wake, as well as lamenting that she had not thought of a convincing cover-up before waltzing into his apartment. He was just being kind, anyway, he wouldn’t want to know what she was doing. “Just a brunch thing.”

He hummed, and when Roxanne straightened up after coming to terms with the fact that the other shoe had to be in a completely different section of the apartment, she noticed that he had moved to perch against the kitchen island, tall enough that he was able to sit just on the edge, still shirtless, in nothing more than a pair of charcoal sweatpants and silver-rimmed glasses. 

“Could you give me a hand-“ she started, still peering around trying to get herself sorted, when two massive paw hands clasped her waist, tugging her to stand between his open thighs. When she stumbled over, quickly righting herself and ready to push against his chest because she was already two hours late and she could hear her phone vibrating against the table incessantly, both of his hands slid from her waist to wrap around her throat, pulling her closer as he kissed along the edge of her jaw, grazing his teeth against the soft spot behind her earlobe. 

“Daddy,” she whined, pawing at his chest, but she was more frustrated at having to rush and go to a wake for someone whom she couldn’t even remember the name of her family spanned too far back for her to ever keep track. She found it difficult, though, to stay frustrated, when his thumbs grazed against her jaw, his soft, wide mouth trailing hot wet kisses across the vulnerable parts of her throat. 

He hummed impatiently as if he knew what she meant, biting down on her earlobe gently. Roxanne stifled a laugh when he pulled back, his lips lilting upwards into the embryonic state of a smile. “I transferred a little more into your account,” he mumbled, brushing the tip of his nose against hers. 

Roxanne blinked, her fingers somehow having found themselves laid against his bare chest, tracing upwards to trace the line of his collarbones. “Why?”

He shrugged, hands slipping downwards to her hips once more. “I know the semester is starting soon, and I know how expensive textbooks are – “Roxanne felt a tiny ripple of guilt course through her gut at that, the warm glow all but gone,” and I want you to be as prepared as you can be, kid. No obstacles.”

That broke her out of her reverie enough to give him a tight smile, squeezing one of his biceps in a manner she hoped came off as appreciative, before breaking away to fetch her other shoe.

The first thing Roxanne did was hunt down the drinks table. It took a while, navigating through the narrow hallways and past inquisitive relatives with little regard for personal space, before she happened across a much larger room, situated towards the back of the lot and overlooking the backyard. Her victory came in the form of a long, narrow table sheathed with a lace trim cloth, populated with delicate coupe glasses filled to the brim with white wine. 

She plucked one up by the stem, throwing the astringent, ice-cold liquid back in one fell swoop. She returned the empty glass to the measured gap that it left behind and took another glass to the nurse. 

There were already masses of people navigating through the incredibly old, narrow house, featuring obnoxious creaky floorboards, very jiggly door handles, and high ceilings. She knew, vaguely, that this was the house of whoever's wake she was currently at some cousin of her grandfather’s brother’s wife who forgot to put their hearing aid in and didn’t wait to cross a busy suburban street. Black-clad figures milled in and out of rooms listlessly, as if they were trying to find something they put aside for later but forgot where it was. Now and then, one would break their trajectory, shifting their tracks to approach Roxanne. They’d take one of her hands in both of theirs, bow their heads despondently, mournfully, and as is custom, give her that moment of silence for her to fill with the recurring soundbites of I’m so sorry for your loss. Far too young. She would’ve hated this, wouldn’t she?

She was thankful her grandfather was such a tall, and generally liked individual. Rather than finding some secluded room to hide in, she took the less-trodden path of hiding in plain sight. As she stood beside him, one arm crossed over her chest while the other raised her coupe glass to her berry-stained lips, the passing mourners seldom noticed Roxanne. Instead, they inquired after Oscar directly, his research, his latest trip to Prague, and other pleasantries that now made Roxanne feel like she was underwater reverberating, blubbering nonsense. 

For now, Roxanne was not so much entertained but distracted by the unexpected arrival of her old nanny, Dina, whose fiery auburn curls made her immediately recognizable despite being so vertically challenged in her old age. Sure, she was just as pointed and interrogative as the rest of her relatives, but Roxanne had, over the years, become intimately acquainted with the conversational patterns that Dina often took. Though she had to endure years of interrogation into her love life, her grades, and extracurriculars, it now meant that she was always prepared, bracing for the strike. 

The strike, however, didn’t come from Dina, but in the form of the Johnson family brushing past Roxanne, her grandfather, and Dina’s small huddle. The Johnsons were and continued to be a thorn in Roxanne’s side over the years; they were an incredibly accomplished group of women; their father having passed away a year or so after Heather was born. It didn’t prove to be an impediment to their upbringing, though, with the eldest daughter Andrea having just passed the Bar, and Heather recently completing an internship with NASA, which, to Roxanne’s chagrin, went very well, if Heather’s gushing Instagram stories were any indication.

As they passed, Heather paused in front of Roxanne, her body language letting off a kind of familial nervousness. The shorter, dark-haired woman offered her a small smile-so friendly, so open. 

Roxanne hated herself for it but couldn’t bring herself to return the smile. Not for the loss of whatever relative she was currently here to mourn, not the …, but the suffocating feeling of inadequacy that Heather always brought with her. She had always been so good at picking out the worst parts of Roxanne, always pointing out times when she contradicted herself, the things she believed that were unfounded or just “silly”. Always the smarter one. The craftier one. The prettier one. 

The more affectionate one. 

At her lack of a greeting, Heather looked incredulous, shaking her head at Roxanne with a disbelieving laugh. Before she could say something biting to Roxanne, Andrea grabbed her arm and tugged her into the mouth of the crowd. 

Roxanne leaned over to Oscar, who may or may not have been listening, and prayed her voice didn’t crack with whatever splinter was digging into her chest at that very moment. “What are the Johnsons doing here?”

Unfortunately, Dina heard. 

“Ah, so nice of them to come,” she said gently, eyes trailing them in the crowd, Heather still sending disbelieving glances back at Roxanne. Her shoulders stiffened. “See, Heather -Heather has her priorities in order! Thought she might’ve rubbed off on you more when you were growing up,” Dina lamented, gently swirling her wine in her cup. Roxanne was either on the verge of a petty outburst or tears. “I don’t understand why you waste all your time in that garage, truly,” she mourned, seemingly more distraught about her lack of direction than the closed casket in the next room. “Oscar tells me you come home all grease-stained and exhausted, and you’re hardly even compensated.”

Said grandfather, who was only just in a conversation with some boring-looking suit a few paces away, seemed to tune into the conversation at that exact moment. “At least she’s picked up babysitting,” he states, sidestepping a passing woman with a handkerchief attached to her nose before facing the two women, in a little triangular huddle. “That seems to be tiding her over quite nicely.”

“Oh, babysitting?” Dina asked, all incredulity, and Roxanne stiffened. “I didn’t know you were good with children.” 

Dina and Oscar looked at her intently, their eyes seemingly holding the power of petrifaction; at the mention of Roxanne’s offhand, transparent cover-up, everything around her stilled, every ambient sound in the vicinity of the house lessening to a murmur, not including the sound of her beating heart. 

She remembers that first night, when he was a perfect gentleman all up until he closed the apartment door behind him, holding her throat with one hand while the other cradled the back of her head so she didn’t get hurt too badly when he pinned her to the door. She remembers when he gave her a small pillow to kneel on, so the wooden floorboards weren’t too hard, when her nose brushed the soft skin of his belly, mouth full of him, his words burned permanently into her untrustworthy, lust-fueled, brain-good girl, taking such good care of me.

“Mmm. Yes. Love kids.” She gave a tight nod at Dina’s genuinely impressed smile at that. “Learned from the best.”

Roxanne desperately tried to concoct some segue, something to change the course of the conversation, or at least some measly piece of stimulus that she could focus her attention on while Dina recounted the days when it was just her and Roxanne. Although Roxanne could practically hear the gears turning at high speed in her brain, she could hear Dina telling Oscar, for the millionth time, how she had to consider buying one of those toddler harnesses because Roxanne just wouldn’t stay where she was supposed to. As her eyes grazed the room, taking in small huddles of people who were directly related, close friends, and the like, it was easy for every scrap of her attention to be taken away from Dina’s nostalgia. It was also particularly easy for her to spot him, in all his tall, redwood glory across the room from over Dina’s shoulder.

It was like the Earth had all but suddenly tilted on its axis and began slowly rocking back and forth like a bassinet, and Roxanne was certain that she looked as white as a sheet. As her grip on the stem of her glass tightened and her jaw wobbled in the beginning stages of either an expletive or a warbled cry, she wondered whether running would cause more or less of a scene, or if it was idiotic for her to stay where she was next to the one man whom everyone seems to love and the tiny, female embodiment of a foghorn. Each option screamed in both of her ears and ultimately left her stunned, glued to the spot.

There was something supremely discomforting about seeing him in the ‘real world,’ ripped from the safe, familiar walls of his apartment building. Watching him interact with actual people around her only further cemented the charm that she had become so well acquainted with-the half smiles, the crooked teeth, and his strong features that were as uncommon as they were arresting. Now, though, his shoulders that normally gave off the impression of confidence were hunched in on themselves, as if he were trying to make himself smaller. Not the self-assured, prowling thing Roxanne knew so well. 

She couldn’t look away, even as his handsome, cleanly shaven face was turned to the woman beside him, his dimples making their mark as he smiled at whatever someone was saying to him-not too big of a smile for a wake, but just the right amount to be polite. His hair was pushed back and styled in neat, consistent waves, but from where she stood on the other side of the room, his hair still looked as soft as it felt on his lazy, unsettled days, just like it does a few hours after a shower.

The woman came into full view. She was tall, taller than Roxanne, but still a little bit shorter than him. Her glossy, pin-straight hair was immaculately groomed into a side part, ending right above her breasts. She had, perhaps, one of the most symmetrical faces Roxanne had ever seen in real life, and when Roxanne saw Jake’s hand snake around to rest at her lower back.

She felt like she was going to throw up. 

It didn’t take long for him to sense the weight of someone else's gaze. It took a few seconds for him to spot the intrusion, eyes flicking around the small, cramped space, but when he locked eyes with her, it felt like a physical blow. From where they stood on opposite ends of the room, over the shoulders and heads of others, it was as if they had formed a passageway between them, making it easy for her panic to flow into him. 

She could hear Dina saying something in her general direction, her tone growing increasingly impatient. But Roxanne couldn’t look away from him, despite everything in her body telling her to take the keys to that stupid rust bucket and run. 

His mouth opened, slackening with the very same shock that wracked through Roxanne (even now, her traitorous mind blurted out, even here, he knows your body better than anyone) before snapping shut a second after. A dark-haired woman slid next to him, and though Roxanne couldn’t tear her eyes from his, she vaguely spotted the woman tucking one of his errant curls behind his ear in her peripheral vision. He swatted at her hand, tugging the strand back to where it previously sat.

But he didn’t look away from Roxanne. 

She’d like to think that a million thoughts went through her mind at that moment, but it was only the same few on repeat. Don’t men like him pay for girls like her because they’re lonely? Because they don’t have anyone else? Why is he free almost every weeknight, definitely every weekend if he has a girlfriend? Why is he spending his time with Roxanne when he has her?

And, finally, why did Roxanne even care? She lied to him about her education, why she was doing what she was doing almost every time it came up can’t he have his skeletons?

No, a voice in Roxanne’s head was unhelpfully supplied.

“Roxanne,” Dina admonished at the very same time Jake’s head snapped to face the woman on his arm, and Roxanne’s senses suddenly flooded with stimulus-the clinking of glasses, gentle murmurs of forlorn conversation, and the sudden contact of Dina’s tiny hand slapping her on the hip. “What are you-“

She couldn’t take it when Dina turned around and gazed about the room, and because her life was a fucking nightmare, she would, later, look back on this exact moment with a heavy dose of cynicism, that with Heather and her family and him, that, of course, it wasn’t going to be okay.

“I'm-I'm just going to get some fresh.”

If she could avoid him, stop him from being introduced to her family-

“Good grief, is that Jake Jordan?” Dina said loud enough for him to hear, and Roxanne blanched before humiliation and dread drenched her twofold. Oscar fiddled with his glasses, squinting a bit as he looked over the length of the room, and before Roxanne’s brain caught up with the situation and willed her legs to move and take her away, Oscar’s hand came to rest on her shoulder to steady himself but realistically held her down like an anchor. 

“That certainly is Jake,” her grandfather beamed. “Come, Roxanne, let me introduce you two! He’s very successful.” The weight of the Vivienne Westwood necklace around her throat felt like an anvil. “He’ll surely have some advice for you. Jake!”

No, she thought, no, no, no.

The woman beside him seemed to brighten, noticing the commotion, and eagerly tugged Jake towards the three of them, clinging to the comfort of familiar faces. Roxanne held her breath with every advancing step he took and wondered if his knees felt as weak as hers. 

Oscar kept one hand on her shoulder but reached out with the other to clasp Jake’s, squeezing it. “So good of you to come, Jake. Terrible shame, isn’t it?”

Jake mumbled out the typical platitudes that a wake often afforded, but thanks to his quiet demeanor mixed with the general noise of the room, Roxanne managed to drown most of it out in favor of focusing on panicking. 

Her grandfather stepped back from him and redirected his attention to her, grasping her firmly at the bicep in a strong side hug. “I don’t believe you’ve met my granddaughter. This is Roxanne.”

Jake’s eyes stayed on Oscar for what felt like minutes before moving to Roxanne, and she wondered if it felt that long because she longed for his recognition, although it inspired a deep feeling of nausea inside of her. When he did finally drop his eyes to her-his gaze dragging in a way that, only to Roxanne, appeared somewhat reluctant-her stomach panged with that discomfort, something eerie telling her that their bodies in this same room weren’t real, some cosmic mistake. 

“Granddaughter?” he repeated, voice low and steady as if desperately trying to conceal his incredulity at her being here. Roxanne didn’t trust her senses at this moment, but despite her loose grasp on the world around her, she was almost certain he tripped over the word a little, a slight stammer, disbelieving. 

She couldn’t leave now, and the next best thing, she figured, was to keep her mouth shut. 

Oscar gave Roxanne’s arm an affectionate squeeze, his gaze turning to his granddaughter, eyes suddenly bright but solemn. “After her mother passed,” he said slowly, giving Jake a look as if he was aware of the situation, and Roxanne wondered how much he knew about her life without her knowing. Jake gave a short nod. “She moved back from England to stay with me. It’s been quite a few years now.”

She didn’t know what emotion was occupying the depth of his gaze, but whatever it was, she couldn’t take it. Roxanne looked everywhere but him, throat thick. 

“Roxanne,” he repeated, the familiar depth of his voice dampening the whirlpool in her gut, just slightly. Her eyes snapped to him. He briefly glanced at the empty glass in her hands but didn’t linger.

Her gaze flickered, holding herself back from narrowing her eyes. Though it sounded innocuous, it was enough of a reference to their first-ever meeting, one of the first things he asked her, to make her hyper-aware of whether they were standing too close together. Whether their gazes lingered for too long.

He nodded, not offering an open palm. Neither did she. “It’s a pleasure, Roxanne.” 

“What are you doing here?” She asked somewhat abruptly, quickly forgetting the whole keeping her mouth shut business before she considered the accusatory nature of the words. She stammered, trying to cover her tracks. “I-I mean, how did you…”

“Jake’s mother and I used to work with Mrs. Hannigan at the university, for several years,” her grandfather interjected, a sad, reflective smile on his face. 

“You… work together?” Roxanne asked slowly, the words gradually forming in her mouth-not exactly in the shape of a question, but delicately placing those small pieces of information out in front of herself so that she could digest them. It may have been inappropriate how little her mind cared for the specifics apart from how they related to him.

It was, perhaps, one of the first things that made her wonder whether or not she was being truly stupid. Not Dina’s constant questioning about her prospects, not having to politely correct people about how many years she had left of university when she hadn’t even gained the courage to apply, but the mundane memory of watching her grandfather get ready for work. He’d done the same, crisp linen shirt and smart slacks, kissing her on the forehead before leaving, and how she had watched that in reverse with Jake-walking into the apartment in achingly similar clothes, and maybe they had even spent time together that day, before shedding layer by layer until Roxanne would drop down in front of him.

She clenched her glass harder, tasting the slight tang of blood from where her teeth dug into her inner cheek.