The last bell of the day cuts through Mrs. Callahan’s droning lecture like a knife through butter. Everyone’s already half out of their seats, backpacks slung over shoulders, you’re still copying the last line of notes when a shadow falls across your desk.

Bucky.

He’s leaning one hip against the edge of your table, arms crossed, that lazy half-smile already in place. His dark hair is still damp from the quick shower he took after practice, curling a little at the ends.

“Happy early Valentine’s, doll,” he murmurs, voice pitched low.

Before you can answer, he slides a slim, silver CD-R across your notebook. The front is Sharpied in his messy block letters:

FOR MY FAVORITE SHY GIRL
play alone. headphones. dorm. no exceptions.

Your stomach does the slow, delicious flip it always does when he pulls this kind of thing. You trace the edge of the disc with your thumb, feeling the cool plastic, the slight ridge where he pressed too hard with the marker.

“Bucky…” you start, half-laughing, half-exasperated.

He leans down, one hand braced on the back of your chair. “Listen when you’re by yourself,” he repeats, lips curving. “Promise me.”

You meet his gaze. There’s mischief there, yes, but also something darker, the same look he gives you when the dorm room door is locked and the rest of the world doesn’t exist.

“I promise,” you whisper.

He straightens up, satisfied, and presses a quick kiss to the crown of your head before sauntering out with the rest of the herd, leaving you alone.

The walk back to your dorm is torture.

February cold bites your cheeks, but you barely feel it. The disc is burning a hole through the front pocket of your hoodie. Every step makes it shift against your thigh, a tiny reminder. You pass groups of girls giggling over their own Valentine plans, guys carrying drugstore roses wrapped in plastic, the whole campus buzzing with pink and red fever, but all you can think about is what’s waiting on track… what, thirteen? Fourteen?

Your roommate is conveniently gone for the night (some sorority date function) so the room is quiet when you shut the door behind you. You kick off your sneakers, shrug out of your coat, and crawl onto the bed still wearing your jeans and thermal. The fairy lights you strung above the headboard are already on. You plug the cheap earbuds into your ancient silver Discman (the one Bucky teases you for refusing to upgrade), slide the CD in, and hit play.

The first song is pure 2000s nostalgia—Usher’s “Yeah!” thumps through the tiny speakers. You smile despite yourself, remembering the way Bucky used to sing the rap part terribly on purpose in his beat-up Jeep just to make you laugh.

Then Avril Lavigne. Then Britney’s “Toxic,” which makes your cheeks heat because he knows exactly what that song does to you when you’re alone.

Track after track rolls by—Complicated, In Da Club, Crazy in Love—a perfect little time capsule of senior year car rides and stolen make-out sessions in the school parking lot after dark.

Then the music stops. Silence. A soft hiss of empty track.

Your heart kicks up. A low, shaky exhale fills your ears; his exhale. Then the first sound: a rough, broken little whimper. It’s quiet at first, almost shy, like he’s testing how it feels to let it out. Then another—deeper, needier, the kind he only makes when he’s right on the edge and trying so hard to be quiet. You can picture it perfectly: him in his dorm, door locked, lights off, head tipped back against the wall, one hand braced, the other… god!

“Fuck, baby…” His voice is wrecked, the way it gets when he’s losing control. “Wanted to give you somethin’ special… somethin’ only for you…”

Another whimper; longer this time. You press your thighs together without thinking, heat blooming low in your belly. He keeps going—desperate sounds, little gasps. "Miss you… fuck, I miss you so much.., wish you were here…”

The track ends abruptly on a choked-off moan, like he couldn’t hold it anymore. Silence again.