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Derek Nurse is not a fan of self-loathing, but sometimes he makes it easy to hate himself.
It’s usually when his mouth doesn’t catch up to his brain and he says something stupid, and he usually loses control of his words when he’s with Dex. Specifically, arguing with Dex.
They’re talking about their next year of school - fast-approaching and constantly on everyone’s mind - and Nursey makes a casual, offhand comment about money. Something to the effect of, “Experience is more important than money, dude”.
He notices the attractive pink that Dex turns, just before his words turn red and his mood turns sour.
Dex’s sentences are clenched fists, his words building in heat, and fanning the flames is usually irresistible.
But today, Nursey’s tired, and his spirits are still sore from losing the game against Boston State, and Dex’s words hit harder than they’re meant to.
“I’m just saying that at the end of the day you should be counting the good times, not the amount of money you have,” Nursey argues.
“That’s easy enough to say when you’re wasting your parent’s hard-earned money on a useless degree in creative writing,” Dex grits out. “You’re getting all of your experiences for free. You do shit all to pay for them.”
Nursey lets out a breath. “Jesus, Dex.” The word balances on his tongue but he swallows it down. “You need to get fucking laid, man.”
Dex opens his mouth with narrowed eyes, before faltering. “I… What?”
Nursey shrugs, outwardly casual while his brain repeated it’s familiar mantra of what the fuck are you doing, Derek . “You’re all tense and shit. When was the last time you pulled?”
Dex’s confusion gives way to more confusion. “I’m not… I’m not telling you that.”
Nursey smirks. “A while then.” He holds his hands out in defense when Dex opens his mouth again. “It’s cool dude, no judgement here.” He puts an arm around Dex’s shoulders, feeling all of the muscle that Dex developed last summer. “We have to get you laid.”
Dex seems to hunch into himself with that, peering at Nursey in suspicion. His ears are turning red amazingly fast, which has to be a record.
“Are you guys done?” Whiskey mumbles from the seat behind them. “I’m trying to sleep.”
“Yeah man, sorry.” He pulls away from Dex and leans back, against the window, still watching Dex’s blush and mapping the progress of it. It’s reached his chest now, and he counts it as a win. He’s successfully stopped himself from escalating one of their fights, for once.
Dex scowls at him. Nursey wouldn’t admit it under torture, but it’s one of his more adorable ones, the scowl that doesn’t know what it’s directed at.
It plays on his mind for a while, the promise of finding Dex someone to ‘relieve tension’ with. Something about it doesn’t sit in his stomach quite right. He chalks it up to his lack of experience with setting people up.
He’s reminded of his mission on the weekend of Shitty’s visit from Harvard. He walks into the Haus kitchen, fully intending to steal one of Bitty’s cookies while he’s distracted, to find Dex studying, hunched over the table and helping himself to the cookies.
Nursey sits across from him, snagging a cookie and studying his teammate.
He takes so long to say anything that Dex eventually lifts his head, his eyes bright from too much coffee and too little sleep. He was a paradoxical mess of manic energy and sleep deprivation, a condition that is familiar with any student.
“I can’t concentrate when you’re staring at me,” Dex snaps.
Nursey shrugs. “Not my problem.”
Dex ignores him and takes another cookie. His fingers are tapping the table rapidly, probably in time with his thoughts (and the caffeine pumping through his veins), and the grip on his pen is white-knuckled.
Nursey hooks his ankle around Dex’s, and watches those ears turn red, most likely from annoyance. “What’s your type?”
His head comes up so quick that Nursey winces for his whiplash. “What?”
He shrugs. “Your type, man.”
“Type of what?”
“Your blood type, Will. What the fuck do you think?”
This time Dex’s whole face flushes. Another victory for Nursey. “I thought you had forgotten about that.”
“Tall? Short? Blondes, redheads, or-”
“Why are you doing this?” Dex interrupts. “I don’t need anything from you, Nursey.” He sounds tired, mildly annoyed, and disappointed. It gives Nursey flashbacks of his childhood.
“You’re my d-man, bro.”
“What’s your type?” Dex shoots back. He clenches his jaw, as though it had been blurted out against his will.
“I don’t have one,” Nursey answers truthfully. “Just… whoever gets me, I guess.” It’s something he doesn’t think too hard about. Physical attractions only go so far, and he places weight on personality more than anything. “Come on, man, just think about it. It isn’t that hard.”
Dex’s shoulders drop in defeat. “Tall,” he mutters reluctantly.
Nursey untangles their feet. “There we go.”
He’s stuck for words, his eyebrows scrunched up in thought. “Uh… Dark hair. Not an idiot? And, um, athletic. Romantic, I guess.” He blushes darker, and scowls. “Fuck off, Nursey.”
Nursey laughs. “Chill, dude. Opposites attract.”
“I can be romantic!” Dex protests.
“It’s nothing to be ashamed of, Poindexter. Besides, you don’t need romance to hook up with someone.”
Shitty chooses that moment to walk in, having divested himself of literally every article of clothing in a ritualistic manner an hour ago, claiming that he needed to get ‘law school off my fucking back’.
“Stop eating my fucking cookies,” he says, taking the plate and shoving three cookies in his mouth at once. He leans against the counter. “What’s got you so red, Dex?”
Dex glares at Nursey. “He’s trying to set me up.”
Shitty swallows his mouthful and barks out a laugh. “No fucking way! Shit, Nurse, talk about having your d-man’s back.” He pauses for a moment. “I tried doing that with Jack once. Long story short, she shaved one of his eyebrows off and stole a pair of his fucking boxers.”
Nursey scoffs. “I’m not going to set him up with a lunatic.”
“Whatever you say man,” he mumbles around a cookie, “I’m not getting involved. Though if I was , I’d tell you that tonight’s party will be full of potential hook-ups. Lardo invited literally everyone. Except the lax bros. Fuck the lax bros.”
Dex frowns uncomfortably. “I swear to god, Nurse, if someone steals my underwear, I will murder you.”
“I’d be a bit more worried about the eyebrows, if I were you.”
It doesn’t take Nursey long to find the perfect girl for Dex to hook up with. He invites her to the haus party via text; tall, dark-haired, and an assumed romantic (it’s sort of a requirement if you’re in Nursey’s poetry class). Violet’s nice, cheerful, and down-to-earth.
When he introduces them, Violet starts talking as though they had known each other for ages, and Dex relaxes into the conversation. She shoots a wink at Nursey before they both ignore him altogether, and he counts it as another win, except Dex is nervously tapping his fingers against his beer bottle, and his ears are red. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea?
But Lardo drags him away to play beer pong, and he forces the whole situation out of his head.
He loses for the first time since Lardo and Shitty had taught him how to play. He counts losing as ‘winning’ for the sole reason of him being more drunk than when the night had began.
Lardo tucks herself under his arm to steady him, and he appreciates the contact. “Are you okay?” she asks, her tone slightly elevated so Nursey could hear her over the music.
“I’m great,” Nursey replies, grinning at her before snagging Chowder’s beer from him as he walked past.
“Nursey!” he greets, his cheeks slightly flushed and his eyes bright. “This is fun, right? We haven’t had a haus party in so long! Hey, where’s Dex? He’s always with you.”
Nursey untangles himself from Lardo and shrugs, which causes him to spill Chowder’s drink on his shoes. “I’m not his keeper, C. Hey, didn’t Farmer bring vodka?”
Chowder smiles dopily. “Yeah. We’re going to do body shots. Wanna join?”
Nursey’s eyes drift over Chowder’s shoulder, and because that hair is unmissable, he spies Dex and Violet. They’re still talking, but they’re closer now. Dex is laughing, and Violet is grinning triumphantly.
“Fuck yes,” Nursey says, tearing his eyes away and clapping Chowder on the shoulder. “Any opportunity to get my tongue on your body.”
As the three of them weave their way through the crowd, full of people dancing and laughing and shouting at each other, a hand grabs Nursey’s shoulder dramatically, and Shitty’s voice can be heard over the music. “WE’RE DOING BODY SHOTS! WHO WANTS TO GET THEIR MOUTH ON THIS SEXY MOTHERFUCKER?!”
Nursey grins as Ransom is shoved out of the sea of people by Holster, declaring ‘ us!’ in eager unison.
He’s laid onto a table rather willingly, Farmer wielding the bottle of vodka like a weapon that she’s going to assault Nursey with, which isn’t entirely off the mark. His shirt disappeared at one point. He’s not really complaining.
Farmer puts the lemon in his mouth, and pours the vodka in one of the divots of his abs. The coldness of it makes his skin hotter, makes all the noise around his louder, and drowns out the thoughts in his head.
Ransom’s mouth is on his skin and his muscles tense and jump when Holster’s lips join his a second later. It’s an intimate thing, having another person’s lips touch your skin. It’s an intimate thing when Holster grabs the lemon out of Nursey’s mouth with his teeth, and it’s an intimate thing when Ransom does the same to Holster. All of these intimacies will be forgotten in the morning, chased away with hangovers and the unspoken comfortability of their friendships. Anything short of sex is just a casual deviation from the norm.
Nursey doesn’t get up from the table for a while; a few giggling sorority girls and some people from his poetry classes acquaint their lips with his skin as well, and when he does leave the table, it’s to take his own turn at touching someone’s skin and knowing its meaning will only last the night.
At one point, he’s too busy exploring this meaning on a girl’s stomach to realise he had nothing left to trace. All the vodka was gone, and everyone was cheering them on. Nursey breaks free and wipes his mouth.
He can hear Shitty on the other side of the room, declaring loudly - and drunkenly - “I need to do a fucking KEGSTER. Bits, grab my legs. No, grab my mother-fucking legs . I’m going DOWN on this shit.”
He still has intimacy on his lips and a building tension in his chest. It’s a clear sign of needing to get laid, but his thoughts are interrupted by someone’s calling out, “ Will !”
He turns to see Violet practically parting the crowd in search for Dex, her face confused and a little distraught. She doesn’t notice him.
Nursey wonders, briefly, what Dex’s idea of romance actually is . What he’s expecting from Violet. Is it holding hands and talking about the stars? Making dinner and lighting candles?
“I’m romantic,” he mumbles to himself nonsensically.
“What?” Tango asks, materialising at his side. He has two unopened vodka cruisers in his hands, and Nursey takes one.
“Nothing. Where’s Whiskey?”
“Sneaking in some lax bros,” Tango answers semi-nervously.
Nursey snorts. “Shitty and Lardo are going to be mad pissed.” His words are slurring slightly, and he frowns.
“Are you okay?” Tango asks, taking him by the elbow and maneuvering him to the sofa. “You looked pretty forlorn there.”
Nursey snorts. “Forlorn. S’not a party word, dude, chill.”
The Neighbourhood is playing, a slow, sensual song, and Nursey wants to get high. He says as much to Tango.
“Where do you get weed from?” comes the question. “Do they have weed at parties here?”
Nursey laughs and pats Tango on the cheek because he’s adorable , like Chowder. “Ask Shitty.”
Tango leaves, and Nursey is left on the couch, with couples and groups of college students grinding on each other around him. Two girls are whispering to each other and glancing back at him. When they catch his eye, they giggle and stumble on each other.
Before Nursey can go after Tango, or get away from the expectant and appraising eyes of those girls, he’s stopped by a lapful of Dex.
“Whoa,” he says, blinking down at him.
“Hey Nurse,” Dex mumbles. His ears are red and his face is flushed. His muscles are relaxed and uncoordinated, and he is obviously really, really drunk.
“Will.”
“Why are you not…” He waves his hand about vaguely, “mingling? Dancing?”
Nursey shrugs, and takes another swig of Tango’s drink. He’s not drunk enough to deal with William Poindexter in his lap. “I just wanna like… chill.”
Dex sighs. “Yeah.”
Nursey doesn’t know what to do with his hands. “Where’s Violet?”
This earns him a frown. “She left. Her friend got sick in Bitty’s room.”
He laughs, and lets his hands fall where they will, which happens to be in Dex’s hair. He’s due for a haircut. “Poor Bits.”
“I saw you doing body shots,” Dex says. His eyebrows furrow together. Nursey wants to know what he’s thinking behind that statement.
“Shoulda joined us,” he replies.
“I wanted to.” Dex closes his eyes, which Nursey should have expected. Everyone knows he gets sleepy when he’s drunk, which is why he barely gets drunk.
The intimacy on his lips wears off as he’s staring down at his friend, his fingers buried in his hair. His fingertips are finding meaning, and it suddenly occurs to Nursey that this is the kind of intimacy that won’t be so easily forgotten in the morning. This is Holster and Ransom-level closeness. This doesn’t have Derek and Will written on it.
His mouth is dry, and he drinks more. Vodka always gives him a slight sick feeling, but he doesn’t think it’s vodka that’s giving him a complicated mess of feelings just south of his heart.
There’s a hand in his face, holding one of Shitty’s bongs, and Nursey has never been so glad to see Lardo in his life.
“You’re fucked, dude,” she states, sitting on the armrest.
Nursey takes the bong gingerly. “S’not chill,” he agrees.
Their practice is later in the morning, because Holster and Ransom aren’t cruel like Jack was and actually take in consideration their team’s hangovers.
It doesn’t take very long to realise that Dex was avoiding him. Before they got on the ice, Dex was avoiding eye contact and small talk.
After they had finished getting dressed and were all walking towards the haus for lunch, Nursey jogs to catch up with Dex, who was walking with Chowder and frowning at his phone.
“Who are you texting?” he asks casually, throwing an arm around Chowder.
Dex tensed, as though Nursey had said something unwittingly offensive. “Violet,” he answers shortly.
“Is that the girl you were with last night, Dex?” Chowder asks innocently. “She seemed nice.”
Dex grunts out a noise of agreement, and turns back to his phone. Nursey notices his ears go red.
“She must be if she’s getting texted by Dex ,” Nursey says. “He never texts me. Not even a ‘good morning beautiful’.
“Yeah well Violet’s actually nice ,” Dex snaps. “She’s not an asshole.”
Nursey lets go of Chowder. “Chill, Poindexter.” He’s a little confused as to where he went wrong. “Did I say something wrong?”
“You always say something wrong,” he mutters, glaring at Nursey. “Why the hell would you think it’s a good idea to set me up with someone?”
Nursey frowns, and gestures to his phone. “It worked, didn’t it? I don’t… I don’t really get what the problem is here.”
“That’s not the point.”
“Then what is the point?”
“That you think you can solve all my problems with a one night stand! Maybe you deal with your problems by sleeping around, but I don’t.”
Nursey steps back. “Fuck you, Poindexter. At least I don’t need help getting laid,” he shoots back.
“Nursey-” Chowder starts, looking between them with wide eyes.
“I’ll see you later, C,” Nursey says, looking away from where Dex’s hard eyes were boring into him. He turns and leaves, before he can make anything worse, but it takes a few minutes before he loosens his hands from fists.
Nursey may have been drunk but he wasn’t drunk enough to forget the night’s stunning and - quite frankly - unwanted revelations. He wished he was, because he can feel the ghost of Dex’s hair flirting with his fingertips in light touches, and he can remember the light, affectionate tone Dex had used with him, the ease in which he had flopped onto Nursey’s lap as though it were a natural and common feature of their relationship.
It was a striking contrast to the heated glare and sharp words that Dex had used like weapons against him, the tightness in his voice suggesting that he had been stewing on that anger and aggression the whole practice.
Nursey’s filling to the brim with confused and complicated feelings, and in his frustration, he kicks a rock lying on the sidewalk, watching it curve into the gutter.
He has the memories of how close Dex was at the party, how the sight of him being close with Violet caused feelings to well within him that were only dismissable by the touch and intimacy of bodies, and getting drunk.
He’s such an idiot .
Lardo picks up on the sixth ring. “Do you think I use sex to distract myself from dealing with my problems in a healthy and mature way?”
Lardo is silent for a while. “Who fucked up this time, you or Dex?”
Nursey spies Annie’s and makes a beeline for it. “I don’t know,” he answers. “Probably me?”
She sighs. “And he brought up the fact that you have constant one-night stands to deal with your issues and now you’re wondering if he’s right.”
“Yeah.”
“Why the fuck are you calling me? I’m not your goddamn psychiatrist.”
“ Lards . You get me,” Nursey replies.
Lardo groans. “Can’t you just get couples counselling and leave me alone?” Without waiting for a reply, she continues, “I think you have frequent sex because you’re craving intimacy with someone who can’t give it to you. Berger had the same problem. It’s always the poets.”
“I just like sex,” Nursey moans. “Why does he always have to complicate things?”
“Hey man, I call it like I see it. What is this really about, Nurse?”
Nursey sighs and resigns himself to the certainty of a fall-out for revealing the truth. “I have feelings for Dex and he’s pissed at me for setting him up with a girl that he actually likes.”
“Straight to the point, huh?”
Nursey nudges the door to Annie’s open with his foot. “Lards, this is like, a Situation.”
“A situation that can’t be fucked away,” she adds solemnly. “This is some grade A soap opera shit, Nursey. I’m glad you came to me about it, it makes me feel better about my love life. Can I tell Holster and Rans?”
Nursey pauses to order a coffee, and sits down before answering. “I feel like you’re not taking this seriously.”
“If I was being serious about this I would tell you to write some fucking poetry and get over it. Look, I gotta finish this painting. If this is really tearing you up, we can get drunk tonight, okay?” She hangs up abruptly, like she always does, and Nursey stares at his cellphone, barely acknowledging the arrival of his coffee.
He has to write a series of free-style poems for his class anyway; maybe she has a point.
Your freckles spell out a ‘caution’ sign; I trace them with my fingertips and it burns.
Nursey crosses the sentence out and taps the journal with rapid, thoughtful fingers.
“This is pathetic,” he voices. Sure, his poems are personal, but it feels like surrender, to write about his feelings for Dex, to pour that kind of personal emotion into a tangible, poetic form. It’s been a week of avoidance and aggressive tension since Lardo gave him advice; it’s not exactly pretty to write about.
“Derek,” someone says, interrupting his thought process.
He squints up to see Violet, framed by the sunlight streaming through the orange leaves. Damn, she really looks perfect.
“Violet,” he greets with a grin. “What’s up?”
She sighs and flops down next to him. “This assignment is killing me. I’m lacking a muse, and I swear I am going to strangle that TA.”
Nursey nods sympathetically. “We make our own paths to follow and he has chosen the path of a scumbag. He was trying to chat up Alicia yesterday. She had to shove her ring in his face.”
Violet shakes her head. “What a jerk.”
He chews on the end of his pen for a second, turning the words around in his head before saying them outloud. “What about Poin- Will? For your muse, I mean.” He winces internally and wishes he wasn’t such a masochist.
She sighs. “That’s what I came over here to talk about, actually. I’m pissed at you.”
He forces another grin out. “Trouble in paradise already ?”
She whacks his arm. “Shut it, asshole. You should have told me he was already gone on someone else.”
Nursey’s world narrows to the air where her words still hang in the space between them. “He what?”
Violet gives him a look that tells him she thinks he’s an idiot. “He’s not into me. He told me his relationship status is ‘complicated’.”
Nursey shrugs, but his mind feels like white noise, burry and unorganised. “He never told me about any complications , Violet, I swear. That dick,” he mutters. “Sorry. You guys looked like you were getting along.”
She twists her hands in her lap. “We were. He’s nice. It sucks, but he seems like a good friend, right?”
He snorts. “I wouldn’t know,” he says bitterly.
She looks surprised. “Will said you guys are best friends?”
Nursey looks down at his notebook, at the scribbled out words. “I don’t know. It’s…”
“-complicated?” she finishes.
He purses his lips and writes down you burn me up from the inside and refuse to soothe my scarred soul. He doesn’t even give it a second before he rips the page out and crumples it up, shoving it into his bag. Nothing is fitting.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” he says. He leans against the tree. “Have you got a direction for your poems?”
Violet looks like she wants to say more, but decides to leave it alone. “Well, I was hoping that once I found my muse, the direction would come to me? I know, it’s stupid, I’m an idiot for leaving this so long.”
This time, when Nursey smiles, it feels a little more real. “You kind of are. I’m sure Kevin could cut a deal with you.”
She pulls a face. “Ew. He would want more than I’m willing to give. I’m two seconds away from punching him.”
“Chill, Violet, he’s not that bad.”
She squints at him. “You’re just saying that because he’s straight and he hasn’t tried anything with you.”
“Thank god,” Nursey answers, and they both laugh. His laughter, this moment, feels like avoidance. Since she revealed that Dex is hung up over someone else , Nursey has felt the urge to get up and go confront him about it.
Nursey confronts him that afternoon, finding him in the haus, wielding a screwdriver and ducked behind one of the haus heaters in the kitchen.
He leans against the doorframe. “Poindexter.”
There’s a ringing thud, presumably Dex hitting his head, before Nursey sees his face. “What?” his tone is confrontational and wary, gearing for a fight.
Nursey shrugs. “Chill, bro. I just talked to Violet.”
Dex grunts and goes back to fixing the heater. His shoulders are drawn up tight, and a part of Nursey hates that he can’t even talk to Dex without bringing out the worst in him. He’s always bearing the worst of Will, like he doesn’t deserve the best.
He swallows down that thought and continues.
“You could have told me you’re panting over someone else,” he says casually. “I went to all that trouble.”
This time the thud was unmistakably Dex hitting his head. “I don’t… I’m not panting over anyone!” he answers indignantly. His ears are going red again. Nursey’s starting to think it’s a condition.
“Don’t pull that shit with me, man. You’ve been shitty with me because I set you up, but if you had told me you’re into someone else I would have backed off.”
Dex suddenly looks tired, dropping the screwdriver on the table. “Do we have to do this now?”
Nursey shrugs. “I just wanna stop things being weird, okay? Because you’re pissed at me and I don’t actually know why. Who’s the girl?”
“Jesus - there’s no girl, Nursey.” He brushes a hand through his newly-cropped hair. His thoughts have nothing to do with Nursey, warring around his mind and making his fingers shake.
Nursey wouldn’t normally pry, but his mouth blurts out, “Is it a dude?”
Dex glowers at him, but doesn’t say anything.
Nursey feels like this is some out-of-body experience. “Oh. Oh, dude, did you think…? I mean, it’s totally chill if you’re still figuring shit out, but you can, like, trust me. Or we could, uh, talk?” he suggests weakly, rubbing at his neck. He’s out of his depth here. If Dex is having some kind of crisis, Shitty or Bitty are the best people for it. If anything, Dex would get pie, and Nursey might get some pie, and maybe Bitty’s shirt saying ‘ pie solves the world’s wounds ’ would prove itself.
Dex rolls his eyes. “I’m not having a gay crisis, Nursey.”
“Then what do you want from me?!” Nursey asks, and maybe it’s slightly explosive but Dex has been fucking with his chill for a while now. His nerves are exposed wires and Dex keeps cutting the wrong ones.
“I don’t want anything!” Dex shoots back. “I don’t want anything from you.”
Nursey frowns in annoyance; he’s getting frustrated and he would rather get this mess cleaned up. “What-”
“I can’t want anything from you, Nursey! That’s the fucking point!” Dex is striding forward in his anger, and he’s close enough to Nursey that the heat radiating from his body can be tasted on the air.
“Because you’re always there and you never leave me alone,” he continues, his tone slightly calmer but still agitated. It’s charging the air between them. “And you’re my fucking teammate . My best friend. I can’t…” He looks down for a half a second and Nursey leans forward in an effort to keep his eyes in sight.
“Will…”
Dex lifts his head and Nursey can pinpoint the exact moment he understands, because his eyes widen and Nursey’s drinking in the sight of him.
“Do you think I’m romantic?”
Dex leans back; his face is unreadable, but Nursey can hear the waver in his voice when he mutters, “Shut up, Nursey.”
He grabs his wrist and pulls him closer. “Hey, chill. Dex." When Dex looks at him, his eyes are open and exposed, instead of being guarded and tense, like the Dex that Nursey was used to. "You're a fucking idiot," Nursey breathes. "You can have anything from me. Shit, Will, I'd-"
He's cut off by Dex pressing their mouths together, tilting his head up so their lips fit together, and Nursey smiles into the kiss. He's got Dex in his arms, on his lips, and the mere millimeters between them are hot with intimacy. Dex kisses him like a storm; he's pressed into the wall, covered entirely, a hand holding his neck in place and gripping tight because Dex threw all his cards in and he's taking all he can get before he opens his eyes.
Nursey grips his waist and slows them down; his mind is buzzing with sensation but no thought; it's empty of everything but the smell of Dex's shampoo, the points of contact between them and the points of intimacy filling in the gaps.
When they pull apart, Dex opens his eyes slowly, and Nursey waits, his breath caught in his throat, to be shoved away because conflict is their only template for being together.
But Dex doesn't do anything except look at Nursey. His grip is loosening.
"I wrote a poem about you," he blurts out.
There's a pause. "What?" Dex asks faintly. His lips start to quirk up in a hesitant smile and it feels like spring.
Nursey clears his throat. "Is that romantic enough?"
Dex snorts, and his grip on Nursey's neck tightens. "Shut up, Nursey," he mutters.