Archive of Our Own

Nancy had always been sex positive. Even when she wasn’t having sex, which was most of her life, she felt pretty good about the idea of it. 

Her mother was a guidance counselor, so Nancy got ‘the talk’ earlier than most kids. She knew what sex was (from a technical standpoint) from a young age, experimenting in kindergarten by pushing her unclothed Barbie and Ken dolls together to see what would happen. In middle school, she graduated to French kissing the back of her hand, and by high school she’d learned how to touch herself under the covers.

Her sexual debut had been a sweet, if fumbling, 2 ½ minutes of mild discomfort with her high school boyfriend in the back seat of his dad’s Buick. While she wouldn’t call it a life-changing experience, it was definitely… nice. She thought she would feel different when it was over—they always did on T.V. 

Practice did not make perfect, though Nancy could always take care of herself, in more ways than one. After the inevitable breakup with her college-bound boyfriend and the escalation of her mother’s illness, Nancy still didn’t feel different…she just didn’t feel much of anything.

Sex was just a thing she did to feel something other than sadness, to pass the time in between chemo sessions and doctor’s visits, a way to forget that her friends had all left for school and she was stuck in a dead end job, living with a shell of a man who’d thrown himself into his work to drown out his own pain.

But, then, Lucy Sable began to haunt Nancy, and her entire life changed - tastes lingered on her tongue, colors were brighter, and sex—though still not like she’d read about in romance novels—was more. She also felt pain more acutely, but after she’d put her long dead mother’s bones in the ground, she decided that feeling pain, no matter how strong, was better than the absence of everything.

Things were beginning to look up for Nancy…until they weren’t.

The alarm on Nancy’s phone shocked her awake, but when she reached for it in its normal spot her hand came up empty.

A deep groan and a garbled “Nancy!” motivated her to leave the bed and go searching for it. After a cursory search, Nancy determined it wasn’t in the bedroom, so she slipped on one of Gil’s t-shirts and wandered barefoot into the living area of the trailer to continue looking. 

The front door was pinned open, something Nancy would never get used to, being in her line of work, and a bizarre choice for a man who made his livelihood stealing from other people, but she was just making time there, not moving in.

Nancy followed the sound of her phone and finally found it under one of the dingy couch cushions, sighing in relief as the noise finally died. But, without the alarm providing sound cover, her ears picked up on an entirely different noise.

“Do it” a woman’s voice cried out, followed by a grunt, an unmistakable sex sound. “Yes!”

Nancy smirked and shook her head. It was 8am on a work day. Who had the energy or desire for something like this before most decent people have even had their first cup of coffee?

“Oh god…right there. Right there!” The voice cried out again.

Whoever was giving this woman an early morning workout, certainly knew how to put her through her paces and show a girl a fun time. 

“Good for her,” Nancy mumbled, happy that at least one woman on this planet was getting a gold star roll in the hay. 

Sex with Gil Bobbsey had been…competent. Not bad, but nothing to write home about. It wasn’t her father’s famous pasta primavera, but it hit the spot and stuck to the ribs when she was in the mood for a little something.

Sure, he’d made her come, but Nancy could do that on her own without having to deal with another person's mood swings and negativity.

Ever since she’d met Gil in Gorham Woods, she’d been feeling more and more like her old self again, that is to say, numb and detached in a way that permeated almost every area of her life. Maybe it was the comedown from the Lucy drama or the stress of trying to bring Everett to justice without dying in the process, but she couldn’t muster up enough excitement to crave anything, much less enjoy it as much as the woman in the adjacent trailer was clearly enjoying her tryst.

“Do you like that?” Nancy heard a man growl as the aluminum walls of the trailer shook in a staccato rhythm.

Nancy froze mid-stride, like a deer caught in headlights, and her head pivoted toward the door. She knew that voice, at least, she thought she did.

The woman answered him, though her response was garbled, possibly muffled by a pillow.

“I didn’t say you could move,” the man said, sternly, voice like a steel whip. “You're the one who demanded to be tied up and now you're going to stay exactly where I put you until we’re done.”

“Don’t be a jerk, Ace!”

Nancy gasped and leaned against the door frame for support. 

She knew that she should hightail it back to the safety of Gil’s bedroom. Ace would be mortified if he knew that she’d heard him, but the sound of the bed frame smacking against the wall of the trailer and the low guttural sounds she hadn’t even imagined Ace was capable of making, had her glued to her spot, where she stayed  until the very last moan had echoed across the trailer park.

If hell actually existed, Nancy figured she was definitely headed there.

The next few days at The Claw brought new meaning to the word ‘work’ for Nancy. She had successfully dodged any conversation Ace tried to initiate with her and was able to put enough distance between them so she wouldn’t accidentally meet his gaze.

Despite her inability to make eye contact with Ace, she gravitated toward him whenever they shared the same space. She wanted to look at him, stare openly, study his body language to see the signs she had obviously missed, any indication that he was capable of being like that in bed. But looking at him now was like staring at a solar eclipse, it had to be done indirectly and in measured doses, or she was likely to get burned.

“Do you need help with that?” Ace gestured to a giant jar of Gherkins Nancy had been struggling to open for the better part of five minutes and closed the distance between them.

Nancy weighed the risk/reward scenario of allowing him near her for a second, but it was long enough for him to clock her discomfort.

“Sorry.” Ace quickly stepped away from her, fingers anxiously fiddling with his apron strings. “I didn’t mean to imply you couldn’t do it on your own.” 

Well, now Nancy just felt bad. 

“Um…help would be nice, actually. Thank you,” she mumbled, hoping he hadn’t heard her.

Ace’s face lit up, as though she were offering to do him a favor, so she passed the jar to him, resigned to her fate. 

He placed the jar onto the counter, holding it with one hand as he tried with the other to unscrew the lid. His lips were pressed together in concentration and Nancy's mouth went dry at the sight of his biceps tightening against his shirt sleeves. 

The idea that she was once capable of not objectifying Ace like some kind of perv was absolutely hilarious to her now. Every time she closed her eyes she could still hear the aluminum siding of Amanda’s trailer shaking and his baritone ordering Amanda not to move.

“This is weirdly stuck.” Ace frowned at the jar like it had frustrated him on purpose, then looked up at Nancy. “Do you think you can hold it tight for me while I unscrew?”

“Sure.” Nancy wiped her sweaty palms on her apron and braved closer contact with him. “Where do you want me to put my hands?”

Ace positioned her hands around the jar where he wanted them and then looked her in the eyes. “Don't move.”

Nancy’s breath hitched in her chest.

Later that evening when they were closing up the restaurant, Ace approached Nancy. “Are you…going to Gil’s tonight?” 

“Oh.” Nancy had truly been so busy ogling her best friend all day that she’d forgotten Gil existed. “I hadn’t really thought about it.”

Ace looked as though he was gearing up to say something to her, but instead just nodded.

Something about his nonresponse got Nancy’s hackles up. “What? Passing up a prime opportunity to remind me what a bad influence he is on me?”

Ace rubbed his hand over his face and shook his head in disappointment. “I was actually just going to ask if you wanted to hang out, but I think I have my answer.”

Nancy felt sick over the way she’d been treating him. It wasn’t his fault she couldn’t stop fantasizing about what sex with him would be like and she didn’t want to lose her friend over her stupid, overactive, libido.

“Ace, wait.” She latched onto his arm before he could get very far. “I’m sorry. I’ve just been in a shitty mood this week.”

“I noticed.” He looked down to where her hand was wrapped around his forearm and she released him. “Though, it felt like it was directed only at me. It seemed like you were avoiding me.”

Nancy opened her mouth to argue with him but no sound came out.

Off her lack of response, Ace’s expression fell. “Whatever I did, Nancy, I’m so—.”

“It’s my fault!” Nancy cut him off before he could complete an apology she didn’t deserve. “I think—I think maybe you were right and that Gil Bobbsey is a bad influence on me. Maybe, I didn’t want to hear you say ‘I told you so’?”

Ace looked away from her. “Do you really think I’d do that, kick you when you’re down?”

“No.” Nancy shook her head and started to cry. The stress of the last few weeks had really taken its toll and she’d been avoiding the reckoning—distracting herself with sex, with work, and now this. “Of course not.”

Ace dropped his messenger bag onto the floor and pulled her into his arms. “Hey, I’m not mad.”

“You should be. I deserve it.” Nancy’s face was buried in his neck. And as he shushed and rubbed circles on her back, she was suddenly overwhelmed with just how safe and right this felt, being with him, and how very much he wasn’t hers. “Shit.”

Ace tipped his head down to look at her. “What is going on with you?”

“I don’t know.” Nancy realized this was the first really honest thing she’d said.

“We’ll figure it out—together.” He pressed his lips to the center of her forehead and she sighed at the contact. 

He bent down and hauled both of their bags onto his shoulder, then pulled her by the hand with him toward the exit. 

Nancy stopped short. “What are you doing?” 

“Come on, we’re hanging out.” He started pulling her again and got as far as the door before she tried to take her hand back, but he wouldn’t let go.

“Ace! I still have a few things to clean up inside.” She was trying to sound serious but her tone was all fondness and amusement.

“You’ll go in a little early tomorrow.” He placed a firm hand on her shoulder and Nancy would swear later that his voice lowered a full octave when he whispered, “Nancy, don’t resist me.”

Nancy left her car at The Claw and let Ace take her wherever he had planned. They rode the entire way in silence. She didn’t ask where they were going and didn’t really care.

There was a novelty in Nancy being able to just switch her brain off for a bit, something strangely exhilarating about not having control over this one thing and not knowing what might happen next. Of course this wouldn’t be the case if she were with just anybody.

She couldn’t really pinpoint the moment she’d started trusting Ace over everyone else. Maybe it was when he showed he had so much faith in her that he was willing to literally drink poison to prove it?

“Are we there yet?” She pretended to whine, prompting a chuckle from him. “How about now? Are we there now?”

“You’re going to have to throw a little more at me if you think I can’t handle complaining.” Nancy studied his profile as the purple autumn light behind him began to fade. “You forget I’ve driven your fugitive dad around in an armoured car. I’m unflappable.”

She leaned on her arm. “You could be a little less smug about it.”

“Probably.” He patted her hand and turned Florence down an overgrown dirt road.

They stood in front of an imposing, sun bleached lighthouse that, though in a state of semi-disrepair from decades of disuse, had all the best trappings of a gothic ghost tale. 

“Please tell me it’s haunted.” Nancy looked hopefully at Ace for confirmation.

“I don’t know.” He pulled a bag from the trunk and filled it with a few lanterns and other supplies. “I’ve never actually been inside.”

Nancy felt so small in the shadow of such a large, old building, and if she had been capable of feeling much of anything lately, she thinks she would’ve been truly humbled by it. “This is magnificent. How on earth did you find it?”

Ace slammed the trunk shut and handed her a camping lantern as he joined her by the front door. “I, uh, actually drove past it once.”

“And you didn’t stop to investigate the inside? That’s not like you.”

He was digging through the bag for something, his broad back to her. “I wasn’t alone.” 

The words hung in the silence and Nancy absorbed them like a sponge, slowly and thoroughly, until she felt ready to burst. “Amanda didn’t want to go in?”

His shoulders were tight when he shrugged. “We’re not…on the same wavelength about that kind of stuff, exactly…or any kind of stuff really, anymore.”

Nancy’s ears perked up at those words. “Oh?”

“Yeah.” He zipped the bag again and traded her the lantern for a lock picking set, not bothering to elaborate further on the bomb he’d just dropped.

“I’m surprised,” she said, reflecting on his tone for signs of disappointment as she got started on the lock. “You two sounded…pretty enthusiastic about each other last week.”

“What do you mean?” Ace crouched down next to her to give her better light.

Nancy could feel the heat radiating off him a few inches behind her and focusing became a task on its own. “The other day, just before we ran into each other in Gil’s kitchen.”

“What about it?” Ace asked, and Nancy shivered as his warm breath hit the side of her neck.

The lock was picked open, but the rusty handle was proving a challenge to turn. “You don’t know how loud you two are?” Ace looked shocked and Nancy regretted what she’d said almost immediately. “That was weird, I shouldn’t have said that.”

He gently nudged her to the side to gain access to the handle, which he turned with one hard twist. He opened the door with a loud creak and waved her inside. “I’m not embarrassed.”

“Yeah, well, it didn’t sound like you had any reason to be,” Nancy said, as she walked past him into the lighthouse.

For some reason, Nancy hadn’t anticipated just how many flights of stairs it would take to get to the top of a lighthouse. Her hands were braced on her knees as she tried to catch her breath. “Am I out of shape, Ace? 

Ace, on the other hand, was barely even winded. “Depends on which shape you’re going for.” 

“I hate you.” Nancy snatched the water bottle out of his hand and took a sip.

“I think we’re almost at the top.” He leaned back on the banister and looked up to confirm. “It’s not much further.”

“I was feeling a little bummed that nothing has tried to kill us yet, but now I’m not so sure I could even outrun it.” She took another sip and passed the bottle back to Ace.

Ace took a small sip and screwed the cap on. “Only you would be disappointed nobody has died here.”

She smiled and gently poked him in the center of his chest. “We both know that’s a lie.”

He grinned back at her and then jumped in front of her and ran up the last flight of stairs. 

By the time Nancy reached the top of the lighthouse, the bag and lantern had been deposited in the center of the floor and Ace was perched next to the window.

“Oh.” Nancy slowly walked the perimeter of the bare room, and other than some dust and a few spiders, there wasn’t anything there, not even a rat—not that she was sad about that.

“You’re disappointed.”

“I mean, I wasn’t expecting the crew of the Bonny Scot to be hanging out up here, but not even a tiny ghost?” She held her hands up to indicate size.

“This is better than a ghost. Come check it out.” Ace jerked his head toward the window to indicate the view. 

Nancy dragged her feet as she crossed the room, then stood beside Ace and looked down at the waves crashing violently against the base of the cliff beneath the building. “Woah.”

She braced her hands on the widow to get a closer look and Ace rested his hand on the back of her neck, a steadying presence. “Worth the climb?”

For the first time in what felt like ages, at the top of this old lighthouse, in a dimly lit room so far away from everything and everyone else Nancy ever knew, she was overcome with a sense of peace. “Worth it.”

“Good.” He squeezed the back of her neck affectionately.

They stood there for a while, in companionable silence, listening to the waves rhythmically crash into the shore, and Nancy couldn’t help but think of Lucy, her last moments, and that lemming-like urge Nancy’s had lately to follow her mother off the edge of that cliff. 

Nancy wasn’t feeling any of that right now. “Why did you bring me here, Ace?”

“You haven’t been yourself lately. You seemed like you needed it.”

Nancy shook her head. “Even my own dad and the guy I was sleeping with couldn’t sense something was off.”

She heard Ace swallow loudly but he kept his gaze tipped forward. “Was?”

Nancy turned to look at him and his thumb dragged across the base of her throat, settling in the divot, but he left it there. “That was your takeaway?”

He huffed a self-deprecating laugh. “You can talk about what I sound like in bed but I can’t ask you if you’re still sleeping with Gil?”

“I’m the detective here. I ask the questions.”

He finally lifted his head and took a deep breath. “Then just ask them already, Nancy. Anything.”

Nancy’s mind went straight into the gutter faster than if it had fallen through a trapdoor. “When you were with Amanda…that day I overheard you…you yelled at her.”

His mouth fell open and his forehead creased with worry. “It wasn’t like that, I wouldn’t—.”

“I know.” She squeezed her eyes shut, too embarrassed to ask this next part to his face. “I just... you said something about how she asked you to tie her up, and, um, then ordered her not to move?”

Ace’s thumb brushed slowly up and down the front of Nancy’s throat. “What’s the question exactly?”

“Is that…what you like?” When her eyes fluttered open, Ace was wearing a hint of a smile. 

“Sometimes. When I’m asked to.” He tipped his head to the side. “Why?”

“I’ve never,” Nancy hadn’t had a conversation about sex that was quite this awkward, not since she got her first period and only her dad was home. “This is really stupid. I don’t know why I’m—”

“It’s not stupid.” Ace’s thumb pressed incrementally harder against her windpipe and Nancy paused. “I told you to ask me.”

She nodded, hoping to sound more like an adult this time. “Is that your thing? Tying women up?”

“Not specifically.” He opened his mouth to speak and then paused, lips pursed as he seemed to be carefully choosing his words. “I’m just open-minded.”

“I think,” she tried to gauge just how much she was willing to humiliate herself in front of him before realizing she actually hadn’t been concerned about that for weeks. “I’d like to be more open-minded.”

Ace looked like he wanted to say something, but then stopped himself and frowned. “Shouldn’t you be telling Gil this?”

Nancy bit the inside of her cheek and looked away. “He probably thinks so.”

Ace took a hesitant step closer to her. “What do you think?”

“I think,” Nancy met his gaze again and tried to mine the internal resources she needed to answer his question. “I’d rather be telling you.”

Ace released a shaky exhale. “Are you saying—?”

“You’re my best friend, and I trust you, and…” 

His eyes skimmed over her features, looking for signs of something she wasn’t sure of, and just when she was about to take off running from embarrassment, he pushed her up against the window and kissed her.

Nancy practically cried from relief as his hands cupped the sides of her face, immobilizing her. 

He pulled back for a moment and then dropped a feather lite kiss on her lips, still holding her against the glass. “Gil’s a dick, but I still don’t feel right doing this to him.”

“You’re not dating him, I am, and not for much longer.” She had forgotten what an inconveniently good person Ace was. “Come on,” she tugged at his jacket.

“I don’t know.” He pressed his forehead against hers. “I want to, but…”

“Ace, I could be with him tonight but I’m here with you.” She wrapped her arms around his neck. “I’ve thought about doing this a lot since that day. I couldn’t stop thinking about it, actually.”

The concern written across his face softened into curiosity. “What did you think about?”

Now that she was being confronted with voicing her desires, Nancy felt unsteady and self-conscious, and tried to look away. “Well, whatever you did with Amanda sounded like it did the trick for her. “

“Let’s try that again.” Ace gently guided her to look at him. “And, this time, maybe leave my ex out of it.”

“Fine.” She shrugged, feeling silly. “I thought about you holding me down.”

He was staring intently at her and licked his lips. “Was I holding your arms or your legs.”

“My arms, but—“

He flipped her around and pulled both of her arms behind her, pressing her up against the window. “Like this?”

The glass was frigid against her side of her face and breasts, but being manhandled like this, by Ace, was exciting. Nancy sucked in a breath, “Yeah, that’s- that’s good.”

Ace’s lips ghosted the shell of her ear and her knees turned to jelly. “Are you really breaking up with him?”

She nodded. “As soon as we get back.”

“Okay.” His breath tickled her neck when he spoke. “You have to tell me if you don’t like something.”

Nancy was already panting hard, fogging up the window. “So far, so good.”

One of his hands skimmed the side of her body. “Can I take your clothes off?”

“Yes.” Nancy heard a loud metallic snick followed by a blast of cold air against her back as he eased the straps of her uniform off her shoulders. She’d been fantasizing about this all week, but never thought it would actually ever happen, and now that it was, she didn’t really know what to expect.

He pressed a kiss onto her right shoulder blade. “Lift your arms over your head.” 

Nancy did as instructed, and shivered when her white undershirt was peeled from her body, leaving her in only a bra and underwear.

“Are you cold?” Ace gripped her shoulders with his warm hands and ran them down the sides of her body.

“No,” she lied, interested to see where he would take this next.

“Then why do you have goosebumps?” He carefully folded her arms behind her and leaned against her back, pressing the front of her body into the glass once again. She could feel the length of his cock hard against her lower back and she angled her spine to increase the contact.

Ace pulled his hips back and tutted in her ear. “I thought the whole point of this was you not being in control. Is that still what you want?”

Nancy nodded and he slipped a hand under the left cup of her bra, squeezing her just on the right side of pain, and she gasped. “Then be good.”

Ace’s hand lowered to her stomach and he left it there, a warm weight to anchor her. “I thought about you, too. A lot.”

Nancy’s heart jumped at the admission, stupidly hopeful. “That can’t be true, because I have been following you around like a lovesick schoolgirl for the last month and you barely noticed.”

“Maybe, I was just too scared to look.” He mouthed his way across the back of her shoulders and up the side of her neck, “worried things would change between us?”

“What about now?” The window in front of her was completely obscured by fog, so she closed her eyes.

Nancy felt Ace smile against her neck. “I’d really like to look.”

“Then, look,” she dared him.

Ace turned her around roughly and pinned her arms over her head as his gaze traveled slowly down her body. “Jesus, you’re beautiful.”

Even though she was still slightly dressed, Nancy felt the most naked she had ever been. “I thought Jesus wasn’t your thing.”

Ace was too busy staring openly at her chest to hear her. Her bra was still slightly askew from earlier and the underwire dug uncomfortably into her breast, but she couldn’t even bring herself to care.

His eyes sparkled in the moonlight, as his hair fell against his cheek. “Can you keep your hands over your head for me?”

“Yeah.”

He was looking at her sternly, but a ghost of a smile peaked out from underneath the serious exterior. “Don’t move until I tell you, but if you don’t like something or I hurt you, speak up.”

“What if I want you to hurt me?” It slipped out of her mouth before she had a chance to filter it, surprisingly herself as much as it did him.

He blinked at her, his game faltering for a moment before he regained control. “Let’s start at the shallow end of the pool.”

“Right, because I’m known so well for my patience.”

Ace removed one hand from her wrists and pinched her nipple through her bra, the sudden pressure sending an electric current through her body. “Be patient—for me.”

Nancy nodded as the pressure got more intense.

“Hands above your head,” Ace reminded her, then released her nipple, crouched in front of her and soothed it with his mouth.

“Holy shit.” Nancy’s torso wriggled but she dutifully kept her hands above her head. “Your mouth is really…”

He moved to the other nipple, sucking and tonguing her through the fabric until it was well soaked through, then looked up at her and sunk to his knees. “Open your legs.”

His hands were braced on her hips, hair mussed and lips well-kissed. Even in her wildest fantasies she could never have conjured an image of Ace that was hotter than this. 

Nancy separated her thighs and his fingers slipped beneath the elastic waistband of her underwear. 

“Is this okay?” He asked, his breathing starting to become labored.

Her jaw fell open, mouth running dry with anticipation. “Yes.” Ace leaned forward and placed a gentle kiss just below her bellybutton and she smacked her head against the glass. “Yes, please.”

He chuckled against her damp skin and slowly dragged her underwear to her feet and helped her step out of them. “I could do this all night.”

“I would let you.” Nancy’s arms were numb and slightly sore from the lack of circulation but she pressed them harder against the glass. “Whenever you wanted.”

His mouth quirked into a half smile, before he bent over and dragged his flat tongue against her.

“Oh god.” Nancy’s legs began to shake and her arms grew heavy. “I don’t know how much longer I can—.”

Ace pressed her hips back against the window. “Just a little longer.”

“Okay, but then you’ve got to warm me up.”

“I’m warming you up now.” He put his mouth back on her and she moaned.

The room was silent except for the howling wind, the sea crashing against the rocks, and Ace working her with his mouth until she was right on the precipice of an orgasm. Nancy was white knuckling her own wrist, perched on the edge of her climax when he slowed down, waiting until her breathing evened out before ramping back up again. 

Her desire started to build again, faster this time, but once again, he slowed when she was about to reach the peak. 

Nancy let out a frustrated groan and felt the vibration of his laugh against her core.

Ace coaxed one of her legs over his shoulder and buried his face between her thighs again. He was holding most of her weight and she was practically sitting on his face, which would’ve been worrying if he weren’t moaning along with her. 

Her arms were aching, but his tongue was firm, and when he slipped his fingers inside of her, she clenched hard, stars exploded behind her eyelids and she screamed. 

Nancy wondered if this was the feeling that lemmings were chasing as they followed each other off the side of a cliff. 

Ace stood up slowly and wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve. 

“You kept your arms up,” he said, in a tone that sounded to Nancy like he thought there was a possibility she might have failed the task.

“You told me not to move.”

“Yes, I did.” He smirked and shook his head, then gently lowered her arms, placing a kiss on the inside of each wrist before releasing them by her sides, and massaging the circulation back. “How are you feeling?”

Nancy rolled her neck. “I’d give you a thumbs up, but I’m not sure I can lift my arms.”

He leaned forward and kissed her softly on the lips. “You held them up longer than I ever could.”

“You’ve—I thought you only liked to—?” Nancy’s brain stuttered along with her mouth. “You’d, you would let—”

“Of course I would. I trust you, too. I’m willing to do whatever makes you happy, Nancy.” The way he said this to her was so earnest, so vulnerable, that if she hadn’t already been in love with him, she would've arrived there at this moment.

“It would make me really happy if you would fuck me,” she said, feeling bolder now that the bandaid had been ripped off.

“I can do that.” Ace crossed to the center of the room where his bag was and pulled a large blanket from it, laying it down across the creaky wood floor, then waved her over.

As Nancy watched him unload supplies—another blanket, two more lanterns, and a bottle of red wine— and something began to dawn on her. “Did you plan this?”

He sat on the blanket and busied himself with taking his shirt off.

Nancy unclipped her bra and tossed it onto the blanket, then stood fully naked above him. “Did you plan this—yes or no?”

Ace leaned back on his elbows, like he was sunbathing at a Kennebunkport resort, and gazed up at her. “Which answer would you prefer?”

Her brow furrowed as she played out each scenario in her head and then sat beside him and wrapped the extra blanket around her. “I honestly don’t know.”

She grabbed the bottle of wine, twisted the top off, and took a sip directly from the bottle, before handing it to him.

“You know, you’re actually the reason Amanda broke up with me,” he admitted, with a boyish shrug, and then, upon her puzzled expression, added, “My phone was unlocked one morning and you were blowing it up.” He took a swig of wine and passed it back to her.

“So?” Nancy brought the bottle to her lips and tipped it back, unsure why this was such a big deal. “We blow each other’s phones up every day.”

“I think that was her point.” He looked at Nancy through his peripheral vision. “It’s apparently ‘weird’ when your boyfriend texts another woman all day long.”

“Oh,” Nancy hadn’t thought about it like that before, but from a distance she could see how that might seem vaguely problematic. “I guess we do text a lot.”

“She asked me once if you and I dated—said we had a ‘vibe’. I don’t think I was ready to examine what that meant.” He took another sip of wine and passed the bottle back.

Nancy put the bottle down and turned toward him, suddenly feeling as naked on the inside as she was on the outside. “And now?”

Ace looked quietly pensive, even more than usual, and just as Nancy’s anxiety was about to kick in, he pivoted to face her. “I think that maybe she was right that it isn’t normal to text a woman who isn’t your girlfriend every morning before you even get out of bed.”

“What does that mean?” Nancy was asking herself as much as she was asking him.

“I didn’t plan this,” he gestured between the blanket and her, “not consciously, but I also didn’t know what it meant that you were the first and last person I wanted to talk to every day, or that sometimes you look so pretty I actually forget to breathe.”

Nancy was overwhelmed by his words and immediately deflected, leaning in to whisper, “You know I’m a sure thing at this point, right?” 

Ace huffed and lifted his shoulders. “I’m not sure of anything when it comes to you. You’re a little bit of a wildcard.”

Nobody wanted to be predictable, but Nancy remembered how frustrated her erratic behavior used to make Nick feel. It had driven him away, and she couldn’t bear to do the same thing to Ace. “I don’t expect us to be—look, I know I’m not an easy person to love.” 

Ace blanched, adorably offended. “Who told you that?”

“My dads, Nick, every police chief we’ve ever had,” Nancy shrugged her shoulders, hoping she didn't sound as hurt as she felt. “Word on the street is I’m a bit of a menace.”

His hands were gentle as they cradled the sides of her neck. “Then I guess it’s a good thing for you that’s my exact type.”

Before Nancy’s auspicious induction into the supernatural world, she’d been nothing more than the negative space shaped by everything around her. But, since then, she’d honed her mind into a weapon and toughened her skin into the suit of armor she needed to stay safe, but sometimes it was too heavy to carry. Some days, she needed to take it off or the weight felt like it might crush her.

But, her underbelly was still soft and vulnerable and she wasn’t willing to expose it to just anybody - they had to be strong enough to carry that load for her when she couldn’t.

Nancy smiled, feeling lighter than she had in weeks. 

Ace had always been sturdy.

She climbed into his lap and draped her arms over his shoulders. “Coincidentally, you're exactly my type too, Ace.”

He looked taken off guard, like he hadn’t expected her to reciprocate his feelings, and it occurred to Nancy that maybe Ace could use a hand carrying his armor sometimes, too.

“What’s your plan then?” Ace pressed a kiss onto her cheek, her nose, her chin,  tattooing her entire face with his affection. “Use me for sex and Gil for public respectability?”

Nancy laughed and leaned her head back to grant him better access to her neck. “I think I’m way past public respectability.”

Ace lifted his head up. “That just leaves sex.”

She brushed her nose up against his. “Not just sex.”