Chapter Text
“You should get a sugar daddy, or we at least need to get you laid.”
Dennis laughs rolling his eyes
“Not everyone wants to be a sugar baby, trinity. And I don’t need to get laid.”
“Whatever you say huckleberry”
Dennis Whitaker sees Trinity Santos watching him through the mirror.
He pretends he doesn’t notice.
Instead, he focuses on his hands, steady, deliberate, as he threads a braid through Santos’s hair and pins it into place. The bun is intentionally messy, soft in a way that looks effortless. It isn’t. Dennis spent fifteen minutes on it, and every strand sits exactly where he wants it. He learned early on from his sisters how to perfect a bun.
A few loose pieces frame Santos’s face. One gets tucked behind her ear.
Dennis already knows he’ll do it again before he leaves.
“You should get going,” Dennis says, voice calm, distant. He keeps his gaze low, fixed on the work instead of the reflection.
Santos tugs at the collar of her shirt like it’s foreign against her skin.
Dennis had never seen fabric like it before last month. Velvet, dark and rich, catching light in a way that made it look almost liquid. No buttons, just structure and intention. It had come folded perfectly in a box, along with three other outfits.
From Garcia.
Dennis had matched the makeup carefully. Subtle shimmer, barely-there gloss, a highlight placed just right to catch dim lighting.
Control. Precision.
A pause stretches between them.
“There’s another event, Garcia’s dragging me to on Monday, You’ll do my makeup again?” Santos asks.
Dennis shrugs lightly. “If you want.”
“If I tried doing it myself, I don’t think I’d have a sugar mommy anymore.”
“I doubt that.”
“You don’t know her.” Santos makes a face at her reflection, at how the pants hug her waist. “You see what she makes me wear.”
“This is exactly why I don’t want one.” Dennis steps away, returning to his study guide and notes. “I don’t want to be told what to wear.”
“It pays my tuition.”
Dennis watches as Santos slips into heeled pumps by the apartment door, another gift.
“Call if you need anything.”
“I can’t think of anything I’d need that Garcia couldn’t handle.”
“Good,” Dennis mutters. “I’ll be at work.”
“Sucks to be you.”
Dennis glances up, catching a glimpse of Santos adjusting her heels.
If he’s honest, Dennis knows he played a role in all of this. Six months ago, that ridiculous party downtown, the one they only went to because a friend insisted. He'd done Santos’s makeup that night too. He spent years practicing makeup on his sisters, so it felt like a habit to do hers.
With how Santos looked, it’s no surprise Yolanda Garcia noticed her.
Yolanda Garcia-wealthy, brilliant, intimidating. A surgeon with a reputation that stretched across the country. The kind of woman who could casually offer to pay someone’s tuition… in exchange for companionship.
Dennis had hated the idea at first.
Still kind of does.
“It’s not about love,” Santos had said. “It’s about rent and tuition.”
Dennis refuses anyway. He still refuses.
It doesn’t matter that he’s drowning in med school debt.
It doesn’t matter that he barely eats some days.
It doesn’t matter that he’s exhausted all the time.
“Call if you need anything,” he says, watching santos walk through the door
“I can’t think of anything I’d need that Garcia couldn’t handle.”
“Good.” Dennis sighs. “I’ll be at work.”
“Sucks to be you.”
Dennis glances up just long enough to take in the finished look. The glow, the balance, the way Santos fits into something expensive and effortless.
Dennis did that.
And then Santos is gone.
Dennis Whitaker doesn’t talk about where he came from.
Not really.
A farm, miles from anything worth naming. Dirt roads. Early mornings before the sun, late nights after it disappeared. Hands that were expected to work before they ever learned how to rest.
Voices that were loud when they shouldn’t have been. Hands that weren’t always careful.
He learned young that silence was safer.
That feeling things too openly, showing it, only gave someone something to use against you.
So now he measures everything.
His tone. His words. His expressions.
Even his breathing, sometimes.
“I don’t need help.”
Even if he’s exhausted. Broke. Running on caffeine and whatever scraps of time he can steal between med school and work.
He’s fine.
By the time Dennis gets home that night, it’s past midnight.
He barely makes it to his desk before exhaustion drags at him.
Then
Noise.
Voices.
More than one.
Dennis steps into the hallway.
And stops.
Santos is sitting on the counter. Yolanda Garcia stands between her knees, close, too close kissing along his neck like it’s second nature. Like Santos belongs there.
“Garcia, come on,” Santos sighs. “I’ll see you the day after tomorrow.”
“That’s too long,” Garcia murmurs, smiling against her skin.
“Oh—Dennis?” Santos says suddenly.
Dennis stiffens, heat rushing to his face.
“Sorry,” he says quickly, already stepping back.
“Wait,” Santos says. “Did we wake you?”
“No. I was studying.”
“Garcia was just dropping me off..”
“Nice to meet you.”
Dennis nods once. “You too.”
“What’s your name?”
“Dennis. Dennis Whitaker.”
She nods, leaving with something unspoken sitting in the air.
Dennis doesn’t sleep much.
Not because of noise.
Because his mind won’t shut up.
“Garcia wants you to come to some gala thing tomorrow,it’s some stupid event where rich doctors drink and brag about their careers and shit, boring but, hey, there’s free alcohol.” Santos says the next day.
Dennis frowns. “What, why does Garcia want me there?”
“I don’t know. But I want you there, besides free alcohol.”
Dennis hesitates. Dennis stares at her for a moment.
Suspicious.
Uneasy.
Curious.
Then
“…Fine.”
The gala is worse than he expected.
Too bright. Too polished. Too many people who look like they’ve never had to work for anything in their life.
Dennis feels out of place the second he steps out of the car.
Garcia looks like she belongs here.
Santos fits in beside her.
Dennis doesn’t.
“You clean up well,” Garcia says casually.
Dennis nods. “Thanks.”
Inside, it’s overwhelming.
Eyes linger too long. Conversations feel sharp, transactional. Strictly business.
He lasts fifteen minutes.
One drink.
Too many eyes.
He’s heading toward the exit when
A hand presses lightly against his lower back.
Firm.
Steady.
“Behind you.”
Dennis turns.
Dennis’s breath stutters.
He doesn’t mean to stare.
But he does.
Broad shoulders. Relaxed stance. Handsome in a way that isn’t polished, it’s easy. Effortless. Like he doesn’t try, because he doesn’t have to.
“Do i know you?.”
Dennis hesitates, unsure. “I don’t think so.”
“What’s your name?”
“Dennis. Dennis Whitaker.”
Recognition flashes across his face.
“You’re Santos’s roommate,” Robby says.
“Yeah, how do you-”
“I’m Yolanda Garcia’s colleague, and somewhat of a friend.” he pulls his hand out of his pants pocket.
Dennis wished he hadn’t done that, because only then he noticed what robby was wearing. An all black dress suit, with black shoes, and black slacks, and a black button up with a good portion of the top undone. Something about robby in all black wasn’t good for dennis.
“I’m Michael Robinavitch, but please, just call me Robby.”
Dennis shakes his hand.
“Are you in med school?”
Dennis nods.
Robby whistles softly. “And you still look like that after a shift? That’s impressive.”
Dennis frowns slightly. “Like what?”
Robby smiles, slow, sincere, deliberate. “Like you don’t know how good you look.”
Dennis looks away first, unsure.
Then a grin.
Dennis’s chest tightens slightly.
“I was just leaving,” he says.
“Already?” Robby tilts his head. “You just got here.”
“I don’t really fit in here.”
Robby huffs a quiet laugh. “Yeah. You don’t.”
There’s no insult in it.
If anything, it sounds like approval.
Dennis doesn’t know what to do with that.
Dennis doesn’t know what to think, and just as he’s about to turn away-
“Tell me about yourself, Dennis. Are you the same age as Santos?" Robby asks.
Dennis shrugs. “Um, yeah, we are both in the same training program.”
“Right, right.”
“What about you? What do you do for work?”
Robby smiles, seeming happy dennis asked,
“I am the chief of emergency medicine down at the Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center.”
Dennis raises his eyebrows, impressed.
They talk. Or Robby talks, and Dennis answers.
About school. About work.
And then-
A server bumps into Robby from behind.
He steps forward instinctively, one hand bracing against the wall beside Dennis’s head.
Close.
Too close.
Dennis freezes.
Robby doesn’t.
Robby doesn’t pull away immediately.
For a second, neither of them moves.
Robby’s gaze drops, quick, deliberate to Dennis’s lips.
Then back up.
There’s a flicker of something sharper beneath the ease now.
“Careful,” Robby murmurs again, quieter this time.
Dennis swallows.
“Yeah.”
Robby steps back. He recovers instantly, like nothing rattles him.
“Here,” he says, already pulling a card from his pocket.
Dennis hesitates.
Robby raises an eyebrow. “Take it.”
He does.
“Call me,” Robby says, tone light, but certain. Like it’s not a question.
Across the room, someone calls his name.
Robby glances over, then back at Dennis.
That same easy, arrogant smile returns.
But there’s something warmer under it now.
“Don’t disappear on me, Whitaker.”
His hand lands briefly on Dennis’s shoulder, firm, deliberate.
Then he’s gone.
And Dennis is left standing there
Heart uneven,
Mind louder than he likes,
Card clutched in his hand
Trying to understand why, for the first time in years,
He feels captivated by a complete stranger.