Chapter Text
The thing is, hooking up with Robert once (okay, twice) was a pretty easy thing to do, it’s stopping that’s hard.
Which, in Courtney’s defense, is not entirely on her.
Because sure, maybe she’s the one who said, “let’s never do this again,” while pulling on her boots in his apartment two days after the snowstorm finally melted enough for civilization to resume.
And maybe Robert, standing there in grey sweats and a shirt she’s pretty sure used to be black but had long since faded into a sad, dingy grey, had nodded and said, “Yeah, totally. Clean break. Makes sense.”
And maybe then he’d added, after a beat, “Do you want me to walk you home, or—”
To which Courtney, already halfway out the door, had replied, “Nah, I’m good. Nice meeting you, Robert Robertson.”
Then she’d left.
And for exactly nine days, that had been that.
No texts, no calls, no weird little ache in her chest every time she saw a man with auburn hair from across the street and had to physically stop herself from checking if he also had a stupidly nice mouth.
Nine days of peace. Nine days of dignity.
Nine days before Malevola drags her to a bar in Silver Lake on a Friday night, and Courtney, halfway through her second vodka cranberry and fully invested in pretending she’s having fun, turns around at the exact wrong moment and sees Robert standing three feet away, ordering a beer.
He looks up, she just stands there, and for one long, horrible second, they both stare.
Robert blinks first and then, slowly, he smiles. Not a smug smile, which would’ve been easier to deal with. Not a well, well, well kind of smile either. Just that same warm, crooked, deeply inconvenient smile that makes him look as pretty as he did during the snowstorm.
“Hey,” he says, which makes Courtney narrow her eyes immediately.
“Nope.”
Robert grins at that, a closed mouth smile that shows the dimple on his cheek and makes him look very amused. “I was just saying hi.”
“Yeah, and I’m saying nope.”
Courtney fully intends to move, she really does. To shut this down before it can become whatever it’s threatening to become, and go back to her best friends, ready to drink and dance and maybe actually enjoy herself for once tonight.
Unfortunately, she doesn’t get the chance.
A strong, familiar arm wraps around her shoulders and the warm, expensive scent of jasmine and vanilla fills her nose, immediate proof that Courtney is, in fact, completely fucked.
Malevola appears at her side like she’s been summoned, all leather pants, white tank top and impossible hotness. Her long dark hair falls in loose waves down her back, her toned arms and shoulders on full display in a way that should honestly be illegal.
Victor is one lucky fella.
Robert’s gaze flicks to her in surprise, but it doesn’t linger, it doesn’t drag over her the way men usually do, and this is somehow the most destabilizing part. It stays politely on her face for all of half a second before returning to Courtney.
And despite herself, she finds that weirdly comforting.
Because she knows what Malevola looks like. She knows she’s usually the one people stare at — how could they not? She’s one of the most beautiful women Courtney has ever seen in her life, a literal goddess, charming and genuinely kind.
And yet, Robert barely seems fazed.
His eyes are back on Courtney almost immediately, like there’s some silent challenge in it, like maybe he wants to see if she’ll actually introduce him to her friends.
Or maybe he just wants to keep looking at her.
Either way, something warm and deeply inconvenient settles low in Courtney’s chest.
Malevola chuckles at what is, basically, a confession, and then suddenly Alice appears at Courtney’s other side, her bangles clinking softly as she slips into place beside her, the sequins on her dress catching the light and throwing blue and pink across her skin.
“Wait,” Alice hisses, immediately grabbing Courtney’s wrist and sharing a wildly entertained look with Malevola. “This is Beef1990?”
Robert actually laughs at that, hand coming up to rub at the back of his neck. He looks a little embarrassed by the sudden attention, like being the center of it was very much not part of his plan tonight. “In my defense,” he says, “I made that account at, like, 2 am.”
And because her brain apparently hates her, this is the exact moment Courtney remembers how the group chat had gone absolutely feral when she finally got home after the snowstorm.
She thinks back to the hangout that followed — all four of them sprawled across her rug, beers and half-finished glasses of red wine in hand, crying- laughing while she told them about her completely unplanned four-day stay at Robert’s apartment.
Minus, obviously, the details of their first deeply humbling attempt at sex.
She had, however, bragged about the size of his cock and the way he made her cum twice, under the very reasonable assumption that she would never see him again for the rest of her life.
Which, in hindsight, had been incredibly optimistic of her.
And judging by the way Malevola’s smirk grows sharper by the second, Courtney knows her friend is remembering all of it too. The look she shares with Alice is enough to send Courtney straight to her grave.
“Oh, honey,” Malevola says, “you’re way worse than I imagined.”
Robert blinks, eyebrows lifting in confusion. His gaze flicks between the three women. “Worse?”
“Hotter,” Alice clarifies with a smirk, looking him over with absolutely no shame whatsoever. “That’s unfortunate.”
Courtney groans. “Guys.”
“What?” Alice says with a shrug while Malevola snickers beside her. “We’ve got eyes, babe.”
Robert, to his credit, looks almost as uncomfortable as Courtney feels. “Thank you?” he offers weakly, like he’s not entirely sure whether he’s being complimented or publicly humiliated, and then, after a beat, he adds, “Uh, my name’s Robert, by the way.”
“Oh, we know who you are, darling,” Malevola says, her shit-eating grin never once faltering. “Thank you for taking such good care of our girl when LA froze over.”
“Uh,” Robert says, glancing at Courtney, “no problem, I guess.”
Courtney sees the exact moment his confusion shifts into amusement. His eyes settle back on hers, warm and knowing now, like he’s silently putting the pieces together, his look turning into one that says Oh, so you’ve talked about me.
Her friends must feel the change of atmosphere because suddenly they’re both moving away and Courtney stands there as Malevola makes some shitty excuse about going to find Victor on the dance floor, which is bold, considering she’s the one who insisted on a girl’s night in the first place, and then Alice leans in, whispers “get a room, sis” into Courtney’s ear before disappearing into the crowd.
Suddenly, it’s just the two of them. Standing in the middle of a crowded bar, music too loud, lights too low, tension immediate and annoying.
And then, because the universe is cruel and God has favorites and Courtney is not one of them, Robert’s eyes drop briefly to her mouth before flicking back up. It lasts maybe half a second, but it’s still enough for warmth to pool low in her stomach.
Damn it.
“So,” Robert says after a second, shifting his beer from one hand to the other like he doesn’t know what to do with it. “How you been?”
Courtney folds her arms, mouth set in a tight line, face probably as red as the top she’s wearing. “You can’t ask me that.”
Robert frowns. “Why not?”
“Because we’ve seen each other naked, remember?”
He stares at her for a second, then huffs out a laugh, clearly amused by her, his smile easy and nice. “So what? I’ve seen your tits and now I’m not allowed to ask how you are?”
“Jesus fucking Christ,” she says on a breath, a little thrown by how blunt he is. “That’s not the point.”
“Yeah?” Robert asks, eyes flicking briefly to something behind her as the crowd shifts and presses in tighter around them, giving him the perfect excuse to step even closer.
So close Courtney has to tilt her chin up just to keep looking at him.
“What is, then?”
Courtney honestly can’t remember.
It’s all very stupid after that.
She’d love to say she leaves. She’d love to say she rolls her eyes, finishes her drink, and goes home like a woman with a functioning brain and even the slightest bit of self-control.
Instead, Robert buys her a drink. She buys him one back, which feels feminist enough that she can at least pretend she’s still in charge of the situation, even if they both know she’s absolutely not.
Then, they stand too close for too long. Close enough that he has to lean in to hear her over the music, his mouth brushing near her ear, his hand settling on the small of her back like it has every right to be there.
“This is a bad idea,” she says when his thumb starts tracing absent little patterns against the bare skin of her waist, his hand still lingering there long after the crowd has shifted and there’s plenty of room around them again.
And Robert, glancing down at her with that same soft, infuriating expression, has the audacity to say, “Yeah, probably.”
Which is not nearly discouraging enough.
Five minutes later, Courtney is in the bar bathroom with her back against the stall door, Robert kissing her like he’s been trying not to do it since the second he saw her.
It’s rude, honestly.
The worst part is that he still kisses exactly the same. Slow at first, like he’s giving her time to decide if she wants this, giving her an out, and she hates that she doesn’t take it.
Her tongue slides against his, and then it’s not slow at all, her fingers curling into the front of his shirt as she drags him closer.
When they finally pull apart, both of them a little breathless and significantly less committed to keeping this a one-(two)-time thing, Courtney stares at him for half a second and says, very seriously,
“This means nothing.”
Robert, whose mouth is pink and swollen, nods solemnly. “Of course.”
Then he kisses her again, which is how Courtney ends up in his bed for the third time.
And then the fourth.
And then, somehow, the fifth.
Not immediately, though. That would’ve been embarrassing, even for her.
No, they manage to maintain at least the illusion of self-control for another full week before Courtney, sprawled across her couch on a Thursday night in an old college sweatshirt and no bra, makes the catastrophic decision to scroll through her camera roll.
There are selfies of her, screenshots of funny memes and unhinged bits of conversation from the group chat, a blurry photo Alice took of Chad mid-sneeze that still makes her laugh every time she sees it.
And then, because apparently she enjoys suffering, there’s a picture of Beef. A cute one, too.
Taken during the snowstorm while Robert had been in the kitchen making coffee, Beef sitting on her stomach and looking at her with that happy, dopey expression on his furry face while she lay trapped under three blankets and a throw pillow she still swears Robert had arranged around her on purpose.
Courtney stares at it for exactly ten seconds before opening that stupid dating app again.
She never thinks before acting. That’s becoming a problem.
Sending the picture as an attachment, she types:
@INVISIGAL: look at this fat fuck
Three dots appear almost instantly, which somehow is worse than if he’d taken hours.
Robert apparently has no self-preservation instincts whatsoever.
@BEEF1990: Wow.
@BEEF1990: First of all, Beef is beautiful.
@BEEF1990: Second of all, hi.
Courtney bites back a smile and tucks her legs under herself on the couch.
@INVISIGAL: don’t make this weird
@BEEF1990: I said hi?
@INVISIGAL: exactly
There’s a pause, dots that disappear and reappear, and then:
@BEEF1990: What are you doing right now?
Courtney stares at that for a second, bottom lip caught between her teeth.
Then at her apartment, quiet and unusually clean after she spent the morning doing laundry and half-heartedly singing along to Mitski.
Her gaze drifts down to herself, to her navy cotton shorts, oversized sweatshirt, bare feet and chipped nail polish, the faint regrowth on her calves she’s been ignoring, and then back to the message.
A smarter woman would’ve left it at that. A woman with foresight, emotional discipline, and maybe a more developed frontal lobe would’ve thrown her phone across the room and gone to bed.
Instead:
@INVISIGAL: depends
@INVISIGAL: who’s asking?
@INVISIGAL: you or beef
His reply comes so fast she doesn’t even have time to feel embarrassed.
@BEEF1990: Both of us, actually.
@BEEF1990: But mostly me.
Courtney smiles despite herself, which is, unfortunately, the first sign that this has already gotten out of hand.
A second later, she’s sending him her address. She doesn’t even pretend to hesitate.
Less than thirty minutes later, Robert is in her apartment, standing in the middle of her living room with Beef tucked under one arm and a bottle of wine in the other, like this is a significantly more sophisticated evening than it actually is.
He looks good, terribly so, in black jeans and a beige sweater, his glasses tucked inside his collar rather than on his nose. Thank Lord for small mercies.
Courtney takes one look at him and says, “You brought your dog to a booty call?”
Robert glances down at Beef, then back at her, and shrugs. “He has separation anxiety.”
Courtney snorts.
Robert smiles at that, sets the bottle down and cracks it open without asking, and they end up drinking wine out of mismatched water glasses like two people that have known each other for years rather than weeks, like friends, or worst, lovers.
Which is to say, absolutely not what they are.
It goes downhill from there.
Robert stays the night. He keeps his palm flat against her mouth as he pounds into her fast enough to make the bed creak, her screams of ecstasy muffled by his hand, and when he comes it’s with his lips pressed to hers in a bruising kiss.
He leaves in the morning with one of her hair ties around his wrist and half her coffee in a travel mug he absolutely did not ask permission to take.
And a week after that, she ends up back at his place. Entirely by accident, if you ask Courtney, anyway.
She’d been in the neighborhood. That’s all.
Never mind the fact that Robert lives twenty minutes in the opposite direction of literally everything she normally does. Never mind the fact that she texted him first, again. Never mind the fact that she showed up at his apartment wearing lip gloss and a matching black lace set underneath her jeans.
That’s irrelevant.
The point is, she went over there for a perfectly normal, casual, emotionally detached reason, which is to say, she went over there because she was bored and decided this needs to end before she loses her mind over it.
“Didn’t think I’d see you again so soon,” Robert says when he opens the door, leaning against the frame in a UCLA hoodie and those same grey sweats, and worst of all, wearing those terribly sexy glasses that have now officially become a problem in Courtney’s life.
She rolls her eyes and pushes past him into the apartment like she’s right at home there, like she’s been there a thousand times rather than two. “You say that like you weren’t texting me dog photos all week.”
Robert shuts the door behind her. “That was Beef-related correspondence. Entirely professional.”
Courtney snorts and toes off her boots. Beef, hearing her voice, comes tearing down the hallway happily, tongue out, and immediately rubs against her shins.
“Oh my god,” Courtney coos, immediately dropping into a crouch and scratching at his belly. “Who’s the good boy?” she asks in a stupid voice. “It’s you, yes it is. You adorable fatty.”
Behind her, Robert makes an offended sound. “You can’t keep calling him that.”
Courtney looks up, still petting Beef, and grins. “He likes it.”
Robert looks at her for a second too long, then shakes his head. “This is not okay. You’re fat-shaming my dog.”
Courtney smiles and gets back to her feet, turning to face him. Her grin falters when she realizes how close he’s standing.
And there it is again. That thing. That little shift in the air that keeps happening whenever they’re left alone for too long. Like one of them has accidentally brushed up against something real, something more than just hooking up, and neither of them wants to be the first to point it out.
Robert’s gaze drops to her mouth and, naturally, Courtney does what she always does when confronted with feelings; she ruins the moment.
“Anyway,” she says, shrugging off her jacket and tossing it onto the coat rack, “I came here to tell you I’m ending whatever this is. It’s way too much commitment for me, right now.”
Robert looks at her, then at the jacket she’s just hung up, at her boots abandoned by the door, and then, with the kind of annoying calm only him can summon, he says, “Right.”
Courtney narrows her eyes. “I mean it. I’m not doing this fuck-buddy thing.”
Robert folds his arms and hums. “Okay.”
“Good,” Courtney says immediately.
“Great,” Robert agrees.
“Brilliant,” Courtney confirms, because she always needs to have the last word.
A beat passes and then she glances toward the bedroom. His bed is unmade, a little messy, and it’s with warm cheeks that she looks away the second she realizes Robert follows her gaze.
When she looks back at him, he’s grinning, wide and bright and way too pleased with himself.
Courtney sighs. “Right,” she says, trying very hard to sound bored. “I’m glad to see we’re on the same— Ah, you know what, fuck it.”
Robert laughs, and the sound of it follows her all the way down the hall.