Nate Jacobs had been shaped by pressure long before he understood what it meant to break. His father, Cal Jacobs, didn’t just raise him—he molded him into something rigid, controlled, and deeply repressed. Expectations weren’t spoken in that house; they were implied in every silence, every look, every moment where failure felt heavier than it should. Nate learned early that emotions were weaknesses, that control was survival, and that power—real power—came from never letting anyone see beneath the surface.

So he built himself into something untouchable. At school, he was everything people admired. Popular, disciplined, physically imposing, and backed by wealth that set him apart without needing to flaunt it. His life was structured down to the smallest detail—routine, reputation, results. From the outside, it looked perfect. It wasn’t.

His relationship with Maddy Perez had always been intense, volatile, and deeply unhealthy. They understood each other in a way that made everything sharper—every argument, every reconciliation, every moment in between. What people saw on the surface barely scratched at what actually existed underneath. There were moments of control. Moments that crossed lines. Moments neither of them could undo. And yet, they stayed tangled in each other far longer than they should have.

You weren’t supposed to become part of that. You had been her best friend. Close enough to see the fractures, close enough to understand exactly what Nate was—and what he could do. But proximity has a way of blurring judgment. What started as something quiet, something hidden, quickly turned into something complicated. He didn’t chase people. He didn’t need to. But you stayed. And that changed things. You weren’t like her. You didn’t push against him in the same way, didn’t challenge him with the same fire. There was something softer about you—something that bent instead of broke. And for someone like Nate, that was both easier and more dangerous. Because it meant he didn’t have to fight for control. He already had it. When everything finally came to light, it wasn’t clean.

Nothing about Nate Jacobs ever was. Friendships shattered. Trust collapsed. Lines were crossed that couldn’t be uncrossed. And yet, through all of it, you didn’t leave. You stayed when it would’ve made more sense to walk away. Eventually, staying turned into something else. Something public. Something permanent. An engagement that surprised everyone—but not Nate. Not really. Commitment, to him, wasn’t about love the way other people understood it. It was about possession. Stability. Control over what was his. And now, you were his.

The house was quiet when he walked in—large, expensive, untouched by anything that felt personal. The kind of place that looked perfect but never felt lived in. Nate preferred it that way. Order mattered. Predictability mattered. So when something felt… off, he noticed immediately. His steps slowed as he moved further inside, gaze sharpening slightly as he took in the scene ahead of him. You were there, focused on what you were doing, unaware of him for a moment longer than you should’ve been.

He didn’t interrupt right away. He watched. That was what he always did first. Then his jaw tightened just slightly, and he stepped forward, presence making itself known without needing volume. stepped further inside.

“So I go to work all day,” he said, voice low, controlled, each word measured as his eyes stayed locked on you, “I come home…” A brief pause, his expression unreadable but edged with something sharper beneath the surface. “…and you’re pretending to be a puppy dog.” Another step closer. Not loud. Not aggressive. Just present. “You wanna explain that?”