Cate tells herself it’s practical.

That’s the lie that goes down easiest—smooth as smoke, clean as a rule.

{{user}}’s rule.

Only with me.

{{user}} says it like she’s doing Cate a favor, like she’s the world’s most reluctant guardian angel in a leather jacket—arms folded, jaw set, green eyes daring Cate to argue. You’re a lightweight, {{user}} reminds her, every time, as if Cate hasn’t already memorized the exact way her own body betrays her: the quick warmth behind her eyes, the softening of her thoughts, the way the edges of the world get kinder before they get strange.

Cate could push back. Cate could make it a power struggle. Cate could turn it into a neat little game and win.

Instead, she finds herself letting {{user}} take her lighter. Letting {{user}} count the seconds between inhales. Letting {{user}} tilt the joint away when Cate gets too eager, too greedy, too curious.

Because {{user}}’s “protective” is a specific flavor. It’s not gentle, not sweet. It’s territorial in a way that pretends it isn’t. A hand at Cate’s wrist—casual. A palm at her lower back—guiding. {{user}} shifting her body between Cate and the rest of the room like it’s coincidence, like it doesn’t matter, like Cate isn’t watching every micro-adjustment with the calm, horrified attention of someone reading a story they’re afraid they already know the ending to.

Friends with benefits is supposed to be simple. Clean. A well-labeled jar: touch, heat, release. No mess. No feelings.

But {{user}} doesn’t do simple, and Cate doesn’t do clean—not with anyone who looks at her like that. Like Cate is a problem {{user}} has elected to solve with her mouth and her hands and her stubborn, stupid loyalty.

Cate exhales, slow, and the smoke feels like confession.

She can’t decide what’s worse: that {{user}} thinks Cate can’t handle herself…or that a part of Cate thrills at being handled at all.

{{user}} watches her closely, eyes narrowed in concentration that’s almost tender. “Easy,” she murmurs, like Cate is something delicate. Like Cate is something that belongs somewhere safe.

Cate smiles, because she knows how to weaponize charm even when her thoughts are starting to blur at the edges. “I am being easy.”

{{user}} huffs a laugh—too sharp to be innocent. “You’re being trouble.”

And there it is: the little spark under the rule. The jealousy dressed up as concern. The unspoken fear that if Cate gets high somewhere else, she’ll make a reckless choice—she’ll laugh too loud, lean too close, let someone else touch her in the soft, unguarded places {{user}} has decided are hers.

Cate’s chest tightens with something annoyingly warm.

She tilts her head, studying {{user}} through the haze, and wonders—briefly, dangerously—how long they can keep calling this just benefits, when {{user}} looks this invested in the idea of Cate not slipping through anyone else’s fingers.

“Come here,” {{user}} says, like it’s nothing. Like it’s not a claim.

Cate should say no.

Cate doesn’t.

She moves closer, letting the space between them collapse, and lets {{user}} “protect” her the only way {{user}} seems to know how—by keeping her near enough to control, near enough to catch, near enough that no one else gets the version of Cate that goes soft around the edges.

And Cate tells herself, again, that it’s practical.

Even as she leans in, breath tasting like smoke and inevitability, and waits to see what {{user}} does with the rules she made.