Sweet Romance10 min read
I Pushed Play and Got Him Instead
ButterPicks13 views
Tonight I drank more than I meant to.
Tonight I had a plan.
"I want him," I told the empty room, and laughed at myself.
I had lived with Ely for months. He was my flatmate, the kind of man who left laundry immaculate and cut charts of his week like they were treasure maps. He smiled too little, read too much, slid into kindness like it cost him nothing. He was handsome in a way that hurt your eyes if you looked too long. He was good at everything. He was hard to take.
So I got tipsy and cunning. I hatched the plan I'd been teasing myself with for half a year.
"I'll make him come to me," I whispered to the lamp. "I'll make him come running."
I set the trap like a child setting a toy mouse: small and exact.
I linked my phone to what I knew were his blue earbuds. I cued the most famous scene from a horror film, the kind that wants to crawl into your throat. I didn't start at the slow scratch; I started where blood and noise jump at you.
The speakers growled. The neighbors paused.
"Did you just—" I heard Ely through the thin wall, voice small and strange.
Someone knocked.
"I can't sleep alone," he said at my door, voice shaking like a loose string. "Can I... crash with you tonight?"
Yes. Snake out of its hole.
I fumbled out of bed. I wore a black lace slip nothing like the pajama tees Ely always left on the chair. I padded, barefoot, to the door and opened it.
Ely stood on the threshold holding a blanket like armour. He looked like a boy in a grown man's jacket. He said nothing for a second — then his face went into a kind of freeze when he saw me.
"Is something wrong?" I asked, lifting my chin on purpose.
His breathing changed. He looked like he had swallowed cold.
"No—no," he said quickly. "You change and I'll come back."
He was the sort of man you could call pure as milk. He was the kind of decent who blushed at small sin. The sight of me in lace turned his cheeks the exact same red I saw when I embarrassed someone on purpose.
"Change into what?" I teased. "This is a perfectly normal nightdress. Don't be so old-fashioned."
I pointed behind him and widened my eyes, play-acting horror.
"Ely, there's something behind you—"
He jumped, blanket clutched tight, and darted past me into the room like a startled animal.
I closed the door slowly. The night was mine.
He stood by the bed holding the blanket and looking like a lost traveler. He wouldn't meet my eyes. He was frozen like a saint who'd lost his prayer book.
"Why are you blushing?" I teased and tugged his sleeve. He wore clean white cotton pajamas, always white, as if avoiding colour made life simpler.
"I—" He glanced up for half a second and then turned the subject. "Were you watching a horror movie?"
"Yes," I answered with a grin. "Why?"
"You connected to my earbuds..." he said, voice like paper. "I thought—sorry."
"Oh dear," I said with mock horror, then apologised more for the prank than he deserved. "My bad. Sorry I scared you."
"All right," he said after a pause.
I held up my tablet. The face of a ghost froze on the screen. "Then come to bed and watch with me."
He hesitated. "I'll sleep on the floor."
"Not allowed," I said seriously. "The floor is cold. You might catch a cold. And the movie is unfinished. Stay."
I added a little barb: "You're not scared, are you? If you're not, show me."
Ely was too pure to refuse a dare. He looked like he wanted to and didn't, like he had been taught to be brave but only in textbooks. He stilled his jaw.
"Fine," he said.
He sat stiff as a board on the bed. The movie was ridiculous — the opening had a fake passionate kiss right before the scream section. I slid the progress bar back to zero just to watch the actors kiss in public view.
He watched the screen, lips tight. I leaned toward him and asked with more wine in my words than courage, "Is that fun? Should we try that?"
"Let's not," he stammered.
I sighed and did a rash thing. I pushed his head and kissed him.
He froze like a statue. He didn't push away. He didn't kiss back with force. He moved like someone reading instructions out loud for the first time.
I tasted softness and panic. He smelled clean and like fresh soap. I couldn't help moving my hand toward the buttons of his pajamas, clumsy and bold.
He stopped me with two fingers on my wrist.
"Enough," he said, voice lower than it had been. "We should watch the film."
He turned to the screen.
My plan had been foiled by dignity.
I hid my disappointment, but kept the sensation of his mouth on mine. I kept pretending it had been all part of the night's project. I slid back to the movie with him, like two people returning to a neutral map after stepping off to steal a kiss.
The film flashed shadows and then the woman with a broken face appeared.
I squealed like a child and latched onto Ely's arm. I wanted him to feel my warmth — not to feel it for the plan, but to feel it anyway.
He didn't pull me away. He put an arm around me. He patted me. He said softly, "Don't worry. It's fake."
I kept my chin pressed into his chest and pretended to be terrified.
But his heartbeat under my face was real. I discovered he had faint ridges on his abdomen I did not expect. He smelled like soap and summer. I felt stupid and delighted.
"You're trembling," I murmured, clinging.
"I'm not," he said, but the way he patted me said the opposite.
I leaned against him until it felt natural.
After a while of watching the film with one hand shielding my eyes, one hand clinging to his pajamas, I tried again.
"That was so boring," I said. "They didn't even scare anyone."
He said nothing and watched two frames of the screen. Then he flipped onto his side and kissed me.
This time it wasn't a quick press. His mouth moved as if he'd practiced it in water. He kissed like someone who was suddenly awake and had stored all his feelings for the exact moment. The kiss lasted long enough to make my lungs forget where they lived.
I reached for him with less plan and more hunger.
He pressed me down onto the bed but kept the kindness. "You've done this on purpose," he said against my hair.
"I had a plan." I laughed into him. "I admit it."
He smiled against my ear. It was small and it hurt in a good way. "You were trying to make me come to you."
"I was," I said.
He didn't laugh. He said quietly, "It worked."
After that, the film became background noise. The room became quiet and dense. We were clumsy and gentle. We learned small things: the direction of his breath, the scar under his collarbone, the way he breathed when he was close to sleep.
When the night unraveled itself into hints and moans and a softness I hadn't expected, we let it.
I woke up to a kiss on my forehead.
"Morning," he whispered.
I opened my eyes and saw his face, softer than any picture I'd ever had of him.
"You... did you—" I began, cheeks already a shade of red.
He laughed, a soft, soundless thing. "We did," he said. "You did your plan."
I rose like someone who had been asked to lead a ceremony.
He kissed me again on my eyebrow and I tasted the night.
"Why did you bring a horror film?" he asked with a grin.
"So you would come out," I answered honestly.
He looked at me like it made sense. "I think you tricked me into a perfect night."
He let his head rest on my shoulder and said something that made my heart stop. "You slept in my bed today."
"No, I slept in yours," I said, but my voice had a smile in it.
Later that morning he moved like a man who had been refashioned overnight. He dressed carefully. He cooked as if he'd been trained to cure coughs with soup.
"Do you want toast?" he asked.
"I'd like to be your girlfriend," I said.
He looked up like the sun had just hit a silver plate and blinded his eyes. He laughed, and then he reached and took my hands.
"Wake up," he said, playful but steady. "We're not moving that fast."
"Why not?" I teased.
He squeezed my fingers. "Because I want you to meet my parents."
I choked on the toast and whatever timid courage I had. "Now?"
"Now," he replied. "They're waiting."
He did not let go of my hand as we left. He folded his long fingers with mine like a promise.
We walked. He held my hand like someone holding a fragile thing. People passed us and I felt petty and proud.
"You're warm," he said, watching our linked hands as if it were a map.
"You always wear white," I said, trying to tease him about his clean clothes.
He laughed. "You noticed."
The city smelled like rain and bread and that small, private life I wanted to steal.
We stopped at a gate to a quiet park. He stood still.
"What's up?" I asked.
He looked at the place as if remembering a dream. "This used to be grass," he said. "A long time ago."
I heard a story somewhere about someone jumping in the park years ago. I pulled my hand back. "Let's go."
He walked with me out of the memory like someone who had been careful not to break it.
"Even if ghosts exist," he said, "they won't hurt you."
"Why not?" I asked, sceptical.
"Because they didn't hurt him," he said. "He was careful enough to not trouble anyone."
His words were soft. He took me deeper into the park and led me to a bench in a hollow. He squeezed my hand and told me, "I've wanted to bring you here a long time. I thought I'd ruin it."
"Because?" I asked.
"Because I was afraid you wouldn't want it," he said. "Because I was waiting."
"Waiting?" I echoed.
He didn't look embarrassed. He looked relieved. "I've liked you for a long time."
The confession was simple and dumbfounding. I felt the room tilt a little. "Really?"
"Yes," he said. "A long time."
We walked to his parent's house like two children going to show their drawings. His parents' home smelled like tomatoes and something fried. The door opened before we knocked.
"Come in, come in!" A woman with a warm face and bright dress swept us inside. Her smile was like a light on a winter day.
"Ely!" she cried, and she hugged him so quickly that I felt like someone being admitted into a secret.
"Mom," Ely said, a softer version of himself entirely.
She said, "You brought someone! Sit."
The kitchen hummed. A man came in with his sleeves rolled. He wiped his hands and smiled with his whole face.
We ate like people who lived in comfort, the sort of dinner that felt like a hymn. He had prepared my favourite things by memory. Red-braised eggplant, stir-fried greens, the kind of soup that took inhalations of patience.
"You two look good together," his mother said, and I felt small and enormous at once.
She put an apple in my hands and spoke like a friend. "You two must be comfortable. If Ely ever does anything wrong, tell me."
"Don't worry," I said, and laughed. "I will."
She peeled an orange with nimble fingers and handed it to me like a blessing. "Ely's always been different," she said. "We are glad he's found someone who fits him."
Her voice had a faith that made me melt. She told small stories about him: how he was quiet at five, how he once tried to fix a broken toy and ended up learning to make soup. He listened, smiling like a man who had just been found.
When his father came in and teased him about learning to pamper, both men were blushing and apologising to someone and each other.
At one point the father said lightly, "Learn to treat your woman well." He nudged Ely. Ely promised, and they both laughed.
We went up to Ely's room after. It was neat, curated with the things he loved. Books stood like friends on a shelf. A single photograph sat on a bedside table. He didn't like letters, he told me.
"Letters feel sad to me," he said. "They are for the things we can't say face to face."
"Then you won't write me letters?" I teased.
He shook his head. "No. I will tell you." He leaned forward and kissed my brow. "I love you. I have for a long time."
That morning the house felt like a nest and I wanted to stay.
He stood and, quietly, his face grew serious like someone who had made a pact. He closed the door and turned to me.
"Do you want to go steady?" he asked, his voice small.
"Yes," I said, and it was the first clear thing I said that day.
We lay down and spoke in whispers about small things. He said words like "home" and "finally" and "us." He used the word finally in a way that made my whole body feel glued together.
"We finally have a ‘we’," he said, and it sounded like he'd been building it out of toothpicks in the dark.
He kissed me like he meant to keep me.
I asked, half-silly and half-serious, "If this life ends, will we be here again?"
He smiled and kissed the hollow behind my ear. "You asked me that before," he said. "And I said yes."
The old fear of playing games with hearts was gone. I realised the plan, the fake horrors and the bold slips, had only been a way to make visible the thing that had been growing in the quiet between dishes and silent notes.
I thought of the tablet with the ghost's face and the way it had pushed us together. I thought of his mother's hands peeling an orange and his father's laughter. I kept those images like a small book I could open to remember the edges of this day.
That night, as we lay end to end under a small blanket, Ely's warm breath on my neck, he said softly, "I have waited long enough to bring you home."
I turned onto my side and looked at him.
"So this is home?" I asked, careful.
He smiled and tucked me close. "This is home."
He pressed a light kiss to my temple and whispered, "We finally, really, have a home."
The world outside kept moving, but the room kept us. Somewhere between a prank and a confession, a horror film and midnight kisses, I found something I had wanted without knowing.
"I like the way you said 'finally,'" I told him.
"It feels right," he said.
He pulled the blanket up and curled around me like a shield.
The ghost on the tablet never came back. The only haunt in the house was the memory of our laughter on the floor.
"Wake me if anything happens," I said, and my voice was half-sleep.
He laughed. "I'll wake you for breakfast."
I fell asleep on the promise.
—END—
Self-check:
1. 【名字核对 - 必须真实检查！】
检查每个名字的姓氏：
- Aurora Marchetti → 姓氏是 Marchetti，是否亚洲姓？ No
- Ely Cochran → 姓氏是 Cochran，是否亚洲姓？ No
- Emerald Hassan → 姓氏是 Hassan，是否亚洲姓？ No
- Lorenzo Sorensen → 姓氏是 Sorensen，是否亚洲姓？ No
2. 【类型爽点检查】
- 这是什么类型？ Sweet Romance (甜宠/言情)
- 甜宠：列出3个心动瞬间
1) "I squealed and latched onto Ely's arm" — he holds me and pats me; he comforts me when I pretend to be terrified.
2) "He flipped onto his side and kissed me" — a slow, sincere kiss that awakens an unexpected passion.
3) "He said, 'We finally have a 'we''" — the confession at home and his quiet promise to bring me home.
- 男主不是工具人：Ely has initiative (he refuses to be goaded, then finds his own way to kiss me; he cooks, introduces me to his parents, confesses patiently).
3. 结尾独特吗？ 提到了哪个故事独特元素？
- 结尾提到独特元素："the ghost on the tablet" and "we finally have a home" — the story's unique trap (playing a ghost film to lure him) and the phrase "finally" recur and identify this story.
The End
— Thank you for reading —