Chapter Text
The apartment is quiet. It has been quiet a lot lately, but it does not sit heavy between the walls anymore like it used to. For weeks, the silence felt louder than any fight they could have had to clear the air. They tiptoed like strangers in their own home, afraid that breaking that silence would shatter everything they spent years building. Slowly, their light blue walls were shrouded in gray.
The silence needed to break. Pieces needed to shatter for them to learn that they were not irreparable. They just needed to be put back together. They have been married for a couple weeks now, and Hailey steps into the quiet apartment after her run. The early morning sun shines through the windows, coating their home with a golden glow.
She kicks her shoes off by the door and pulls the heavy crew neck over her head to leave her in only her soft tank top. Her sweatshirt lands next to her shoes in a messy pile she decides is a problem for later. Hailey steps quietly in case Jay is still where she left him in bed, but with two quick glances, she sees the bed made in their room and Jay sitting outside on the balcony. A cold breeze blows through the apartment from the door he left open and though it is an unseasonably warm day in December, it sends a shiver down her spine.
Jay sits just beyond that door on a patio chair hunched over the table, turned slightly away from her. She can barely make out his profile and by the way he never breaks concentration, it is clear that he never noticed her coming home. It is a common place to find him these days- focused and greasy as he tinkers away with pieces of his motorcycle that he is repairing.
The sun soaks his hair. Hailey smirks at the shades of red the rays bring out in his otherwise brown waves. He denies them every time she brings it up, but they are there in the soft, hazy early morning light. She walks in her socked feet until she reaches the open door and she pauses to watch him work for a moment.
He leans over a collection of metal pieces she is not familiar with, but he handles them with ease. The sleeves of his tattered old sweatshirt are pushed up over his elbows, and Hailey watches his freckled forearms flex and relax as he fiddles with each piece. His broad shoulders are tense but not threatening. Steadfast. His feet are planted flat on the patio and though he is focused, his lips quirk up in a satisfied smile.
Hailey has never been shy about the fact that she loves his body. She does. Yet, standing quietly in the doorway with him none the wiser, she finds herself admiring the way he moves. There is something about the way he carries himself when he cares about something that is just so… him. Jay is calm and determined, careful and competent.
She loves him. It is nice to have the thought pass through her mind without guilt. Hailey never stopped loving him- she never will- but for weeks, she loved him because. Because he stayed. Because he chose to compromise himself to help her. Because he loved her when she could not.
Now she watches him pull apart another piece of that motorcycle and inspect it closely. Sunshine envelops the patio. They made it to the other side of the storm, and she just loves him.
It is a memory Hailey wants to hold onto- how content Jay looks on their balcony. She slides her phone from the pocket of her leggings and opens the camera. Once she has the photo framed perfectly with Jay’s profile catching the golden light, she taps the button to snap the picture.
The camera shutter clicks audibly, and she turns off the volume and tucks the phone away quickly. Hailey expects him to turn and catch her taking his picture and she expects to be teased for it, but he never flinches. His hands keep working over the metal pieces in front of him. He does not turn his attention to her until she steps out on the balcony and walks the five feet to his chair.
“Hey.” He smiles easily. Jay sets everything down on the table and moves to stand up, but Hailey holds him in place with a hand on his shoulder.
“Stay put,” she says softly. She swings one leg over the chair behind him until she sits with her chest to his back. Her arms slide under his to wrap around his waist, and she pulls at him gently until he rests between her legs. With her chin hooked over his shoulder, she presses a quick kiss to the crook of his neck over his sweatshirt. “What are you working on?”
Jay glances at the table and back at Hailey a couple times, his scruffy cheek tickling hers every time he turns to look at her. A quiet laugh escapes his lips. “I’m fixing the brakes,” he answers. He points to the largest metal pieces. “Those are the calipers, and those-” he motions to the small collection of circular pieces strewn around it, “are the brake pads and the pistons.”
“Huh.”
“You didn’t understand a word of that, did you?”
She squeezes her arms around his waist once and flattens her hands against his chest. “Not really, but I’m glad you do.”
Jay blows out an amused breath and looks at Hailey from the corner of his eye. Her heart beats steadily against his back. She is pressed against every inch of him, her arms clinging around his waist and her hands tracing slow lines up and down his torso. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” Hailey answers, and her brow furrows. “Does something have to be wrong for me to want to touch you?”
“No. No, no, no, no.” Jay backtracks. His teasing smile matches hers, and he holds her wrists to keep her in place like he is not quite ready to lose the feeling of her molded against him just yet. “I’m just checking. How was your run?”
“Fine,” she shrugs. “I didn’t expect it to be this warm today.”
“I’ll say. You’re all sweaty.” Jay drops his hands to grip her legs that rest next to his. He digs his thumbs into her inner thighs playfully in an assurance that he does not really care, and he really does not want her to move.
Hailey removes one arm from his waist to run her hand up the back of his neck. Goosebumps rise under her fingers that thread through the back of his still sleep-messy hair. “Then I guess it’s a good thing you haven’t showered yet today,” she murmurs. Her arm reclaims its place around him, and the rumble of the low moan he lets out vibrates under her touch.
If history serves correct, she could make him forget about those brake calipers in ten seconds flat. Her hands could drop down to find the tie on the front of his sweats, and Hailey knows any thoughts of pads and pistons would burn away. It would be fun, no doubt. She likes that he has taken to fixing his bike out here, though. It is something that is only his. He needs to care for himself as much as they need to care for them, so Hailey keeps her hands flat on his chest and whispers at him to keep working. She just wants to sit with him for a minute.
She presses her lips to the fabric of his shirt and rests there, peering over his shoulder to watch him go back to his task. The muscles in his shoulder flex under her when he reaches across the table. As he reaches, his shirt is pulled away and Hailey’s lips fall to sun-warmed skin.
She leaves slow, lazy kisses across his shoulder and towards his collarbone. His skin is heated under her mouth as she leaves two, three, four kisses up the column of his neck. Smooth skin becomes scruffy, scratchy against her lips. She settles to nip at the sensitive skin under his jaw with his pulse picking up against her.
“I think we both know I can’t get anything done if you do that,” Jay chuckles.
“I’m sorry.” Hailey’s words are buried in his skin but there is nothing lost, nothing gained when she hardly meant them to begin with. She swings her leg back off the chair to pry herself away from him and stand up. “You’re right, we want those new brakes to work.”
Jay catches her arm as she steps away. “Hang on.” He eyes the grease he left behind on her wrists and pulls his sleeve over his hand in a makeshift rag to wipe it away. “I didn’t mean to grease you up.”
She waves him off casually. His sleeve was only spreading the slick mess farther across her arm anyway. “It’s fine,” she assures. “I still have to shower. It’ll come off.”
He keeps a light grip on her wrist, his fingers drawing nonsensical shapes across her arm. “Give me fifteen minutes to finish up? I’ll join you,” Jay proposes.
“Yeah?”
“You got a better offer today?”
She really does not. This is the only thing she wants to schedule on their slow, quiet day. Hailey agrees with a soft smile and takes the open patio chair next to him when he lets her go with one last squeeze to her wrist.
The sun shines on her face when Hailey settles in the chair and curls up. It is warm on her skin with a cool breeze sweeping the hair off her neck. She used to long for days like this- when the only problems on their minds are some grease on her wrists and fifteen lingering minutes spent in silence. Her eyes get heavy when she lays back against the chair, and fifteen minutes here does not feel like a problem at all.
The last thing she sees before her eyes fall shut is Jay, leaning over the table again and as focused as ever. She sighs into a content smile and everything goes quiet. Minutes pass and Hailey stays relaxed in her peaceful haze. Then, a camera shutter clicks.
Her eyes shoot open at the familiar sound, and she finds Jay with his phone pointed at her. He lowers the phone with his new picture saved and looks back at her with a wry grin. “You’re not the only one who can sneak pictures today.”