Chapter Text
He finds you sitting alone on the front steps of the building late one night. You’re pleasantly buzzed after a rare night out with some friends.
Taking in your thin t-shirt and jeans, he wonders how long you’ve been out here and whether or not you realize you’re shivering. You’re not a smoker, but sometimes the situation calls for it, as he watches you grind your cigarette butt into the concrete beside you.
Looking up, you see those broad shoulders under the yellow street lamp. He looks unfairly handsome standing there with one hand on his hip in his leather jacket and jeans.
“Celebrating something?”
You shrug. “Something like that, yea.”
But he recognizes that look. Tonight, you’re drinking to forget.
You ask him to join you and he does, sitting down close enough to bump your shoulder and oh, he’s warm. It takes all your self-control to ignore the blissful heat bleeding through his jacket and offer him a cigarette instead.
“Only if you’re having one too, cariño.”
“Y’know, one of these days I’m gonna ask you what that means?”
His mouth twitches and you are rewarded with an amused huff that instantly lights you up inside and it gives you the fleeting sense that’s exactly what he wants. But that thought is immediately derailed because nothing, nothing, prepares you for that dimple and oh god, your heart wants to lift right out of your fucking chest knowing you just erased the permanent scowl from Javier Peña’s mouth.
The leather of his jacket creaks as he accepts a cigarette from your wrinkled package. He produces a lighter from his pocket, not giving you a chance to dig for the one in your bag. Calloused fingers gently cup your cheek to light yours before his own.
If you keep your eyes on the curb long enough, maybe your head will clear and you can forget about how his single touch sent your head soaring. How his hand lingered on your cheekbone a beat longer than necessary, how his knee still rests against yours as though he wants it there on purpose.
So focused on your trembling hands and traitorous pulse, you don’t even notice what he’s doing until engulfing warmth settles over your shoulders.
Leaving the cigarette perched between his lips, he’d slipped his arms out of his jacket and draped it across your shoulders.
You try not to melt under its comforting weight, but it’s no use. Hopefully, he doesn’t notice how your eyes slide closed, how you tuck your chin into the collar, inhaling the faint scent of cologne and him.
All at once you remember your manners and thank him.
“You shouldn’t be out here by yourself,” he says.
“I’m not.”
Your words feel shaky when they leave your mouth, and you tell yourself it’s from the alcohol still in your veins and not the care in his voice. “You’re here.”