OFFSIDE - Dean Di Laurentis Story

1. Malone's

The thing about Briar was that it smelled like fall.
That was the first thing I noticed when Dad pulled my last bag out of the trunk and set it on the porch steps. That sharp, clean bite in the air leaves turning, something like pine underneath it all. It was actually nice. I wasn't going to say that out loud, but it was.
Dad's place was comfortable in that way that screamed single man trying his best. good furniture, bad throw pillows, a fridge that had exactly one sad block of cheddar and three different kinds of hot sauce. He'd made up the guest room for me. There were fresh towels folded on the bed and a little note on the pillow that said Welcome home, Bells.

I didn't cry. I almost did. But I didn't.
I unpacked for two hours. Hung my camera bag on the back of the door, stacked my film notebooks on the desk, draped my black denim jacket over the chair. Put my toiletries in the bathroom. Looked at myself in the mirror for a long moment.
You're fine, I told my reflection.
My reflection looked unconvinced.
By eight o'clock, the walls were starting to breathe. Dad was still at the rink late film review with the team, something that apparently happened every Sunday and the silence in the house had that specific quality I hated. The kind that made your brain louder.
I grabbed my jacket.
Malone's was a ten minute walk from campus and I found it by accident, mostly by following the sound of music bleeding out onto the street. The sign above the door was old neon, the kind that flickered at the tail end of the word. MALONE'S. Red and warm.

Inside it was loud and dim and smelled like beer and something fried and just slightly too much cologne. The music was mid-tempo, something with a bass line that you felt in your sternum, and about half the people in the place were swaying to it without really meaning to.
I stood just inside the door and let my eyes adjust.
The bar ran along the left wall, long and worn-dark with age, dotted with stools that were mostly occupied. In the far right corner was a large round table correction, a spectacle where a group of guys sat sprawled in that particular way that men sat when they were used to taking up space. Broad shoulders, loud laughs, that collective gravitational pull that came with a certain kind of confidence.
Around them, orbiting like something inevitable, were women. Leaning in. Touching arms. Laughing a half-second after every joke.
I watched for exactly four seconds before I looked away.
The bar had two girls working the counter. One was short-haired, sharp-eyed, moving with the efficient economy of someone who'd worked a busy bar long enough that it was pure muscle memory. The other was all warmth ponytail, wide smile, the kind of girl who probably remembered everyone's orders after the second visit.
I slid onto an open stool.
The short-haired one clocked me immediately. "What can I get you?"
"Piña colada please."
She was already reaching for the blender. "You look lost."
"I look new," I corrected. "There's a difference."
She glanced up, and something shifted in her expression not quite a smile, but the architecture of one. "Hannah," she said, tipping her chin toward herself.
"Bella."
"New to Briar?"
I nodded
The warm one materialized beside Hannah, appearing with the specific suddenness of someone who had been waiting for an opening. "Oh my god, you're new? I'm Allie." She said it the way people said finally. "Where are you living? What are you studying? Do you know anyone here yet?"
"My dad's place, film, and as of four minutes ago you two," I said.
Allie beamed. "Okay I literally love you. I'm showing you around tomorrow, that's not a question."
I took my piña colada when Hannah set it down. It was good actually good, not the watered-down kind. I filed that away. "Deal," I said, and I meant it.
I exchanged a look with Hannah over Allie's enthusiasm. Hannah's mouth twitched.
"Bathroom?" I asked.
Hannah pointed toward the back, past the end of the bar, through a short hallway. "Past the dartboards. Door on the left."
I heard the laugher from the corner table as I passed. I didn't look.
The bathroom hallway was quieter, the music dulled to a thump through the walls. I pushed the door open marked LADIES and stopped.
There was a man standing at the far end of the room.
He was leaning against the wall between the last stall and the paper towel dispenser with the particular ease of someone who had never once in his life been somewhere he felt he didn't belong. Tall. Dark blonde hair, the kind that looked intentional without trying. A jaw that a film student might describe as cinematically unfair. He was holding a beer bottle loosely between two fingers, and on the corner of his mouth very clearly, unmistakably was a smudge of red lipstick.
He looked at me.
He winked.
Then he lifted the bottle and took a long slow swig, completely unbothered.
I opened my mouth.
The stall door behind him swung open.
The girl who walked out was pretty, flushed, and smoothing down the hem of a skirt that had clearly been in a different position recently. Her red lipstick was gone. Every last trace of it. She looked at me, turned approximately the color of a stop sign, and then turned back to press a quick kiss to the guy's cheek.
"Bye, Dean," she said, and walked out past me without making eye contact.
The door swung shut behind her.
I stood there.
He stood there.
I walked to the sink, turned on the tap, and began washing my hands.
In the mirror, I could see him. He hadn't moved. His eyes had dropped approximately eight inches below my face and onto my ass, they were resting there with absolutely zero shame, like he'd paid admission.
What a prick.
"Have we met?"
His voice was low. A little rough at the edges. The voice of someone who was fully aware of what their voice sounded like.
I looked at my own reflection. Took a slow breath.
"That's the line you're going with?" I said. "You've got red lipstick on your face and a girl who just fled the scene and your opening is have we met?"
I heard rather than saw him smile. "I like to keep things classic."
"Classic." I turned off the tap and reached for the paper towels. "You were literally just.." I gestured vaguely toward the stall. "And now you're..." I gestured vaguely toward him. "That's not classic, that's just audacious."
"Those aren't mutually exclusive."
I turned around. Leaned against the sink. Looked at him properly for the first time straight-on, which was a mild mistake because up close the jaw situation was even more problematic. I kept my face perfectly still.
"You've got lipstick on your face," I said.
"I know."
"And you're not going to wipe it off."
"Not yet." His eyes moved over me with the slow deliberate attention of someone reading something they found genuinely interesting. "You're not from here."
"What gave it away."
"The way you looked at this room when you walked in. Like you were judging it." He tilted his head. "What are you studying?"
"Why?"
"Curious."
"You're in the women's bathroom," I said. "I don't owe you conversation."
He laughed a real one, surprised out of him, quick and bright. It changed his whole face for a second. I noticed that and immediately decided not to think about it. "Fair point," he said, and finally, finally, lifted the back of his hand and wiped the lipstick off the corner of his mouth. He looked at the red smear on his hand with mild interest, then looked back at me. "I'm Dean."
"I didn't ask."
"I know." He smiled. Slow. Deliberate. The smile of a man who had been smiled back at enough times to be dangerous. "But you'll want to remember it."
I looked at him for a long moment.
"Goodnight, Dean," I said.
I walked out.
Behind me, I heard him say, quiet and amused and entirely too pleased with himself...
"Yeah. She's interesting."
I stopped at the counter on my way out. Hannah was wiping down the bar and she looked up when she saw my face.
"You good?"
"Mm." I reached for my half-finished piña colada. "Who's Dean?"
Something shifted in Hannah's expression not quite a warning, but adjacent to one. "Di Laurentis. Hockey. Why?"
"He's in your ladies room."
Hannah closed her eyes briefly. "Of course he is." She opened them. "Stay away from that one."
"Already planned on it." I drained the last of my drink and set the glass down. "Hey.....can I get your number? Allie said she'd show me around but I feel like you're the one who'd actually tell me the truth about things."
Hannah's mouth curved. She pulled out her phone. "Yeah," she said. "I can do that."
I walked back to Dad's place with my hands in my jacket pockets and the night air cold on my face.
The walls in the house weren't breathing anymore.
I lay in the dark looking at the ceiling of the guest room my room now, I guessed and I thought about the film program orientation packet on my desk. I thought about Allie's enthusiasm and Hannah's sharp eyes.
I thought, very briefly and entirely against my will, about someone saying yeah, she's interesting to an empty bathroom.
I turned over. Pulled the blanket up.
First day tomorrow, I reminded myself. Focus.

I'm back!! so some love ❤️

a/n: the deanallie content we are being fed at the moment is insane. what a time to be alive.

Quick question: Have you given rent free on quinn a listen? if yes is it worth spending money on?