After the third hour of waiting, Sadie briefly considered bailing: she would tell Lars she was sorry but that the line was so much longer than either of them had guessed it would be. But the enthusiasm he'd shown when she agreed to get this game for him had been too genuine. She knew how he would feel; she'd felt that way herself a few times. And she honestly knew that she almost never got to see him that happy-not at work, when his good moods were elusive and fleeting-and she loved to see it, somehow it was so easy to like him when he was happy. She wanted this chance to be around Lars when he was being himself.

After the fifth hour, she wondered-not for the first time-why Lars had asked her to do this. They'd only hung out beyond work a few times, she wasn't even sure if they could say they were officially friends yet. At first, part of the reason she'd agreed was because she was flattered that he would ask her. Her knee-jerk reaction was that it must mean he considered her a better friend than she thought. But after hours of waiting in the cold, legs aching, phone dying, she began to think that maybe it was just that she was the only person he could convince to do this.

When she finally arrived at his house, shivering and sore, she barely got in the door before Lars flung his arms around her in a hug, telling her she was the goddamn best.

"God, you're freezing," he said into her hair. "Hang on."

The hot chocolate had stopped visibly steaming and Sadie took a few cautious sips before Lars called her name and appeared in the room a few seconds later.

"We gotta multiplayer," he said. "C'mon, Sadie, come do multiplayer mode with me!"

"What? Lars, I've never played anything in that series, I would be SO bad at it-"

"Ww, who cares, it's not hard, you can pick it up in like one round." Lars leaned towards her across the table. "And anyway, you waited so fuckin' long to get this thing, you HAVE to play it."

Sadie looked down at the drink she cupped in her hands. "It'll be so bad..." she warned again.

Lars rolled his eyes at her and told her to just follow him.

The first thing she noticed was the oyster crackers. It was hard not to. The box was at least three times bigger than any she'd ever bought and it caught her completely off guard. She knew she ate them a lot at work, but she didn't think Lars was paying attention to things like that. The only time he'd seemed to acknowledge it was one day ages ago when he'd laughed at her about it. She had no idea he noticed. She had no idea he'd been paying attention to things she liked. It made her think that maybe Lars hadn't come to her as a last resort after all.

"Stop laughing!"

Lars was almost falling over. Sadie tried to keep a straight face but started laughing too even as she insisted it wasn't that funny.

"Ohhh my god, Sade," Lars said breathlessly, "I swear that was-the best thing-I've ever-seen in my life-"

"It was an accident! Every single time I mix up which is jump and which is throw a grenade!"

"I think we should just go for it."

Sadie glanced sideways at Lars; he was biting his lip in concentration, bent over the controller, curling and flexing his toes.

"You really think we can pull that off?" she asked. "There's a guy like right over there, I think you'd die even if you made it that far."

"Yeah, but not if you can make it to those rocks on that side. You could take him out easy and then I just go into the-"

"Lars, that's if I can make it there. If I don't, we'd have to start all over and it took like ten tries to even get this far."

"Pff, we can do it easy. They think they can stop us from taking out that post, but that's cuz they don't know about Player Two." He bumped his shoulder against hers. "You'll be great and we'll look fuckin' awesome when it's done."

Sadie laughed. "Alright, fine, but when we die it's your fault."

"Fair enough. Go!"

"What? Lars!" Sadie immediately focused in on the screen and fired as she ran forward, trying to spot the enemy, trying to watch Lars's back, trying not to die before she crouched behind some rocks, took some damage from her left, swiveled around to aim back, and shot back. The next few seconds were chaos and it wasn't until Lars breathed a "Yes!" beside her that she realized she'd pulled it off.

"High five! Player Two! You're really good at this," he said with a laugh, barely giving her enough warning to hold out a hand for him to slap.

Sadie smiled broadly. "That was awesome," she said.

She'd thought about it before. She clearly remembered the first night that she'd been unable to deny thinking about it. It was warm inside the store, but a cold winter night outside, and the low temperature, biting wind, and occasional sleet had kept customers away. They had been dead for an hour and a half. She was leaning against the counter and Lars was next to her, his face softly illuminated by his phone. As the minutes slipped by, Sadie stared at the ceiling, lost in thoughts that eventually turned to the coworker beside her. The idea that followed came on all at once and out of nowhere: what if he kissed her. Her face grew warm as she pictured it. In an instant he could turn to face her and lean down and kiss her. He could put his phone on the counter and she could look at him and he could quietly say "okay" as if they both knew it was inevitable and he could touch her hip and then kiss her and lean her backwards over the counter and she could hold on to his shoulders and kiss him back. They could pull back and laugh at themselves and then both come back in for another kiss, and another, and she could swipe her tongue over his lips and he could compliantly open them for her and he could run his fingers from her hip over the crest of her thigh and down between her legs and she could breathe a moan into the kiss and he could shush her and rub her through her jeans until she pulled him in so that his crotch was pressed right up against hers and he could buck his hips and move her body with his and they could kiss and grind together until-

Sadie snapped back to reality. She had crossed her legs and was squeezing them together, but Lars hadn't moved. Her face burned and her pants felt damp and she was so turned on she thought it must be obvious, but he was giving no sign that he noticed anything. She wasn't sure if she was relieved by that. She was only so damn horny because she was so tired, she told herself, she just had to go home and sleep it off-and besides, it wasn't surprising that she would think about Lars in a sexual context at some point. Now she couldn't stop thinking about it, but she was just so tired. All that night, as they closed the store, she kept half-expecting him to notice her tension, decipher it, and kiss her like she wanted. If he placed a hand on her side, she felt she might immediately lock the front door, turn off the store lights, lead him into the back room, and they could touch, they could kiss, they could fuck.

None of that happened. The "Later, Sade," he called over his shoulder as they parted ways was as casual as ever. She went straight home, so tired, straight to her room, straight to her bed. She closed her eyes. She let herself think about it-encouraged herself, even. The orgasm she eventually achieved was so intense her vision blacked out and her ears rang.

That had been the first time she'd consciously thought about something like that becoming reality, but it wouldn't be the last. Because now she was sitting beside him in his own bedroom, feeling closer to him than she ever had before, the house to themselves, the whole night ahead of them, and he'd shifted towards her and inadvertently brought his bare leg against hers. He immediately leaned away but in a split second seemed to change his mind, and he let it happen. He settled himself there on the floor and asked her if she was hungry or anything, and she said maybe in a while but she kinda wanted to keep going, and he laughed, and she was thinking about it, and all of it was comfortable, being together, talking together, infiltrating a base together, laughing and touching and thinking about sex.

Sadie picked up a black stuffed animal lying on the floor beside her.

"Aww, is this yours?" She held it out to Lars. "So precious."

"Shut up, of course it's mine." He took it from her and tucked it under his arm. "Ifuckin' love Cat."

Sadie started laughing, and heard Lars sigh, and couldn't help but laugh harder. "Are you sure that's supposed to be a-"

"I know it's not a cat!" he snapped. "I just got it ages ago when I was like, zero, and it was October so I thought everything was Halloween and this was black so I thought it was a black cat, okay?"

"And you-" Sadie giggled and brought her hands to her face. "You named a toy dog 'Cat?'"

"Yes! Shut up!"

The conversation had reached a pause and they were both content to share silence for a minute. Sadie looked at Lars, at his face, at the hand he had resting on his opposite shoulder, and her heart began to beat faster. The only thing they were doing now was sharing each other's presence, she could tell that the next thing they'd do was agree to go to sleep for the night, except-

"Lars." Her voice came out stronger than she expected and he lifted his eyes to hers. "Would I make it weird at work if i said i wanted to kiss you?"

It all came out once, easy as anything-until a half second passed and it caught up with her that she'd just asked Lars if she could kiss him. She knew she was blushing furiously, but she held eye contact, knowing that if she acted embarrassed now she would just make it so much more uncomfortable. She watched him, waited, ready in an instant to laugh it all off.

"I could cancel it out, I guess," he finally said.

"I...what?" Sadie stared at him, confused.

"I mean..." He bit his lip, glanced at hers. "I could make it weird, too. Cuz we could...if you want. kiss, and stuff."

Sadie could hear her own heartbeat now. She could feel her knees start to shake. She could see Lars slowly shift his body to face hers. There was a sensation of jolts and sparks traveling through her whole body. Lars moved in to close the tiny gap between them, but stopped partway through, and they weren't kissing but they were too close to do anything but kiss. Sadie inched closer too, and tentatively reached out and put her hand on his wrist, then looked back up at him again.

Lars exhaled slowly and closed his eyes. Sadie tightened her grip on his arm. She felt like she couldn't move, waiting for the moment when he kissed her. He lowered his head and he was even closer and Sadie inhaled deeply and closed her eyes as well. Every second felt ten times longer than usual. All she was aware of was her own racing pulse and shallow breathing. Then she could feel Lars softly rest his forehead against hers. She tilted her chin up and bumped their noses together. And in the next instant they were kissing.

Sadie slid her hand up to his shoulder, to the side of his neck, holding him against her. His lips moved against hers, his breath warmed her cheek. Her thoughts were like fuzzy static and she didn't know how long they'd been kissing when Lars pulled back with a light tug on her bottom lip that made her melt. She opened her eyes to see him looking back at her, face flushed and eyes bright, and she lowered her hand from his shoulder to the side of his arm in case he wanted to move away. He breathed out a laugh and touched a finger to her cheek, brushing a strand of hair out of her face.

"Wow," he whispered with a lopsided smile. He leaned in and slid his arms over her shoulders and wrapped them around her. She moved her arms under his and placed her hands on his back. He smiled wider and that was the last thing she saw before he kissed her again.

The kissing kept up for about twenty minutes, deepening as time went on.

Lars pulled away to catch his breath but Sadie couldn't wait that long and she began to press kisses to the side of his mouth, to his jawline, to his neck, and he let his head fall back to make it easier for her. In the midst of it she gave his throat a gentle bite and he gasped and pushed into it, gripping her waist harder.

Lars pushed away from her suddenly, face flushed and eyes bright. "Wait, Sadie-"

She watched with a sinking feeling as his expression soured; she was all too familiar with the sight.

"This might not...be exactly like you...like you expect." He glanced away, at the floor, at the wall, avoiding eye contact.

"...What d'you mean?" she asked with a nervous laugh. "Like, I don't...expect anything, I just-I want to have sex with you." The words tumbled out easier than she thought they would and startled him into looking at her again. For a moment he searched her eyes for something.

"Look, Sadie, I don't think-" He cut himself off and dipped forward for a kiss that was over before her brain registered it was happening. "Okay, I haven't told you before. I don't really tell anyone, but, um, I'm..." He shrank back just a bit, turned his body away just a bit. "I'm, uh. I'm trans. So...yeah."

Sadie stared at him, at a loss for what to say. He refused to look at her. She felt him growing so tense that his arms began trembling and she took him by the shoulders and pressed her lips to his cheek.

"Lars," she said, "Hey, come on. Lars." she lifted one hand to turn his chin towards hers and pulled his body as close as she could with the other, then kissed him until she felt him kissing back. "Hey, it's okay, I wanna do this," she murmured between one kiss and the next. She could still feel him shaking and leaned back. "Lars? are you okay?"

"I'm fine," he said quickly. It didn't look like he could be blushing any harder. "I'm okay, it's just."

Sadie waited for him to continue but he looked down instead.

"Hey, I mean, I get why you-why you didn't-it's totally fine," she tried. "It's just-I know it's not easy to do and I guess I wanna say...thanks for trusting me enough to tell me that."

He didn't reply, just lowered his head further. It was silent for a few seconds. He brought a hand to his mouth, inhaled deeply like he was about to speak, but turned away and slid his legs off the bed and mumbled that he would be back in a second, something about the bathroom.

Close to five minutes had passed before Lars quietly opened the door. Sadie looked up to see him offer a weak smile as he walked over to sit beside her again. He looked at her and between the slump of his shoulders and the stubborn presence of red in his cheeks, she suddenly wondered if he'd cried. She waited for him to speak first.

"I'm sorry," he sighed. "It's just like, we don't have to-uh," he began speaking faster and louder. "I mean, we don't have to. Do anything, y'know. Y-you don't need-you don't-"

"Hey," she said. "Look. Come here." She turned her body to face him completely and cupped his jawline in her hands and leaned in till she was an inch away from kissing him. He relaxed into her touch and closed his eyes and when Sadie pushed her lips to his, he wrapped his arms around her shoulders and kissed her harder.

As Lars drew his shirt up over his head she immediately kissed his neck and pulled him towards her by the hips, guiding him till he was straddling her thigh. In the midst of his heavy breathing, she heard him whisper her name as she kissed further down his throat to his collarbones and slid her hands up his waist and ribs to feel his chest. He pushed further into her touch. His legs tightened around the one pressed firmly to his crotch and to Sadie's delight, he began rocking against it.

The brush of his fingertips against her bare skin was electrifying.

Sadie tugged lightly at the waistband of his jeans.

"Is this okay?" she said quietly in his ear, kissing the side of his head.

He drew a shuddering breath and reached down to undo his belt.

"It's okay."

Sadie ended up lying back on his bed with her head on his pillow and Lars himself laid across her torso, a hand massaging her hip, kissing her. She was shivering at his touch and she needed more and she pushed and pulled at him till his entire body was in line over hers and then tugged at his waist so he lowered himself down onto her, neither of them breaking the kiss. With her fingertips on his spine, she slid both hands down his back to pull his hips to hers by gripping his ass. He kissed her harder.

"God, Lars, please," Sadie moaned.

"Fucking christ, Sade-" He reached down to draw her legs up so they straddled his hips. "You're so damn-" He pushed his hips forwards into hers. She squeezed her thighs around him and pushed back and they were grinding together. "Sadie-fuck-" Lars dropped his head to her shoulder, grinding harder, rocking her body into the mattress. His hands were in her hair and he drew them down to her shoulders, her breasts, her stomach, her waist, letting his body drop forwards onto hers.

"Do you want me to-I could, like-"

"Yeah. Yes. That would be great."

"Okay, just..."

Lars bit his lip and sat back to slide her underwear down her legs; as he did he leaned down over her to press a lingering kiss to her stomach. Sadie stretched her legs out to help him and as soon as she was finally completely naked, she let her legs fall to the sides. She rested her hands on her stomach, trying to steady herself, hoping that it wouldn't be much longer till-

She almost cried out aloud when Lars brought his hand between her legs and began rubbing at her.

"Lars-please-"

He kissed her; she moaned into his mouth. She was wet enough that he could slide another finger inside her with almost no resistance at all. She gasped and shoved her hips downwards to push his fingers deeper into her. She hugged him against her as he began to kiss her shoulders and neck, up to her ears.

Just when she felt like she was beginning to catch her breath again, Lars curled his fingers and she felt them slip even further inside, and he pulled them out, slid them back in, a slightly different angle than before, in and out, in and out, eroding her conscious thought, and then he pushed in and she saw stars, overcome by the sensation that spread through her to the tips of her fingers and toes. She let out a high-pitched moan and begged Lars to do it again. She felt him smile against her cheek.

"Right there, huh?" He kissed her hard and obliged, speeding up the thrusts of his fingers, until she was running her hands all over his body and her own, kissing him desperately, shaking and moaning, too close for any hope of regaining control of herself. She had her tongue in his mouth and a hand rubbing up his chest, another traveling down his back, when the waves of her climax broke over her. Lars pressed his body along hers as she gasped and shook and whimpered out swears, and he kept going, kept hitting the same spot inside of her, over and over, refusing to slow down, and she grabbed him and kissed him again and again and in a moment she came a second time.

She didn't know how long she laid there, her entire body tingling, with Lars lying beside her, kissing her soft and slow and sweet.

Sadie gently placed her hands on his shaking legs to spread them further apart, and was proud to find him already wet. She pressed kisses along his inner thighs and he gasped and twisted the bedsheets in his fists.

"Fuck, Sadie, I-fuck-"

She had encircled his clit with the tip of her tongue, then brought her lips to it and gently sucked. Lars's hips jerked and his foot knocked against the wall and he moaned, sharp and loud. Sadie rolled her pelvis into the mattress to blunt the edge of her own arousal.

"Shit, Sadie, how're you so fucking good at this," Lars whined breathlessly, and she leaned her head on his thigh and laughed.

"I looked some stuff up on my phone when you were in the bathroom," she said, and he swore and asked if she was fucking kidding him and said he hated her, but a few long, swirling licks shut him up again quick.

She loved the taste of him. She loved the warmth of his waist in her hands as she held him in place against her mouth. She loved his sweat, his moans, every bit of wetness she coaxed from him. She loved wearing away at his composure till his head had fallen to one side and his legs were locked around her body and he was pleading incoherently for her to fuck him. She loved that when she brought a hand down to rub at his clit she could feel him clenching rhythmically against her tongue and his back arching up off the bed. She loved that he cried out her name again and again as he came.

Lars was flat on his back, breathing hard. Sadie dragged herself up to lie beside him and he rolled over onto his side to face her.

"God, sade...you're so-" He brought a hand to the side of her face and kissed her. In a few seconds he pulled away, still struggling to catch his breath. "I really-thanks." He kissed her again.

"For what?" she laughed and put an arm over him. "The game or the sex?"

Lars smiled and inched closer to her, sliding a leg between hers and an arm around her shoulders to pull them together.

"Both. Everything. C'mere." He reached down and pulled the blankets up around them.

"Mmm. Hang on a sec," Lars mumbled against her lips. She opened her eyes to see him reach an arm behind him, feeling blindly across the table at the head of the bed. He picked up his phone. "Here, I'm gonna..." He squinted at the screen. "Um...set an alarm for like half an hour, cuz I swear I am gonna get us food, but I'm probably gonna pass out here. You really fuckin' wore me out."

Sadie giggled and Lars put the phone back on the table and hugged her against him again with a contented sigh.

In a few minutes, Lars was more unconscious than not, and he hummed low in his throat when Sadie kissed his forehead and then rested her cheek against it. He clung to her even as his body grew more and more relaxed around her, till his breathing deepened and slowed and his hand slid off her arm to the mattress between them. Sadie laid a hand on his, began to stroke her thumb across his palm, and let the soft rhythm of it ease her to sleep.