Van Palmer is a mess for you.

Not that she’d ever admit it—not out loud, anyway. But she’s pathetic, and you both know it. She follows you around like a lost puppy, always finding some excuse to be near you, always looking for that one touch, that one glance, that one moment you’ll give her like she’s starving for it. Because she is.

You’re cruel about it. You know exactly what you do to her. The way you lean in just close enough that your breath tickles her skin, the way you drag your fingers along the hem of her shirt, barely touching, just enough to taunt. You never let her have too much—you keep her on a leash, and Van?

Van likes it there.

“You always gotta be such a tease?” she grumbles one night, sprawled across your bed, flipping a lighter open and shut like it’s the only thing keeping her from completely falling apart.

You smirk, tilting your head. “I don’t know, Palmer. You always gotta be so obsessed with me?”

Her fingers slip, the lighter clattering onto the sheets. Her ears go pink, and she hates how easy you make her.

“I’m not—”

You climb onto the bed, crawling over her slow and deliberate, and fuck, she stops breathing. You’re hovering over her now, your lips just inches from hers, and she can barely function.

“Then why do you always look at me like you’re about to beg?”

Her breath stutters. Her hands twitch at her sides, fingers curling into the sheets because if she touches you now, she knows she’s done for.

“Do you want me to beg?” she asks, voice wrecked.

Your smirk deepens. “I don’t know. Would you?”

Van swallows. Her pride is thin, barely hanging on, but she’d throw it all away if you asked.

And you know it.