mr. incorrect (Patreon)

synopsis: so you tried to baby trap your situationship. but when he's too busy being a celebrity to even consider being your boyfriend, you decide to give the single mother thing a chance - only to end up right back where it all started in your small town. this time though, a certain mechanic seems like he won't let his chance to reclaim his childhood crush slip by!

pairing: actor!situationship x loser!reader x grumpy!mechanic

wc: 4.8k

content: angst, fluff, light smut, mentions of car sex, baby trapping, reader is a loser and a little delusional, yearning, heavy pining, but she is learning to respect herself!, ghosting, skipping town to avoid confronting feelings lmfao, running away, pregnancy, flirting, teasing, kissing, confessions, a man regretting his decisions and realizing he fucked up

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“Marriage?” 

The man of your dreams laughed out loud at your proposal, and you realized that the real punchline here was you. 

Sitting at a tucked-away table in some hole-in-the-wall restaurant across from a guy who didn’t even consider you his girlfriend not even an hour after he fucked you in the backseat of his fancy car, one hand resting on your stomach where he couldn’t see it while he brought a glass of something fruity up to his lips. 

The flavor was almost as fake as him. 

“Sweetheart, you can’t seriously think I’m going to settle down soon,” he chuckled, arching up a manicured brow as new nausea started to bubble up. As if he hadn’t just been stretching you out around him and purring on and on about how perfectly you fit him. 

Funny how things changed once he finished. 

“Never?” You asked, well aware what a moron you sounded like when you already knew the answer. 

“Baby, you know how I feel about you,” he avoided the answer, and quite frankly, you didn’t know how the fuck he felt about you when he only ever admitted affection while he was buried balls-deep in the pussy he called so pretty. “But I don’t even wanna think about stuff like that.”

That cute nose of his crinkling up before he plucked the dessert menu off of the center of the table. Like having sex with you and then shutting out the idea of a serious relationship had suddenly left him starving. 

“Now why don’t we get something sweet to eat?” 

Sidelining the topic to focus on what he wanted. 

Which, apparently, wasn’t you. 

Your mouth opened, about to ask another question you suspected was stupid. How would he feel about a baby? 

One that evidently didn’t have a sweet tooth judging by the way your stomach was twisting at the thought of digging into some chocolate cake while he chattered about what magazines he was going to star in next and what commercials he booked last week. Catching up on his life while you kept quiet about the biggest change in yours.  

Completely clueless that he just shattered the decade-long illusion that you were going to be the girl he chose at the end of the day. 

Oh, and that you were carrying his child. 

God, you tried so fucking hard to catch him. To capture his attention the same way he wholly had yours. 

But all tracking your ovulation and convincing him to skip condoms did was land you a future as a single mother. Another forty years of a situationship instead of the picket fence and four kids you always pictured.

You glanced around the other empty booths, the realization sinking in that he’d picked this place so he wouldn’t be seen with you along with the bitter knowledge that you were a few months too late to be figuring all this stuff out. 

Something you hadn’t even picked up on when he parked out in back of the lot and convinced you to climb over the center console for him, pulling you in and littering your face with drawn-out kisses while his hand slipped beneath your dress to shove your panties to the side. 

He was still leaking out of you. Still dripping down the inside of your thigh no matter how hard you pressed them together as your throat went dry. 

“I think I’m done,” you muttered, wiping the corner of your mouth with the napkin before discarding it on top of your plate.

“Are you mad at me?” He scoffed, lifting up his glass instead of getting up after you when you stood. 

“No,” you softly replied. “Never.” 

If anything, you were mad at yourself. 

Irritated by the amount of years you wasted on someone you’d be little more than a bed warmer to.

“I need to use the bathroom,” you excused yourself, slinging your purse over your shoulder before scurrying off to splash some water in your face and pull yourself together enough to do what you needed to do tonight. 

Which was not go back home with him. 

He might not even ask. 

Not when he already got what he wanted out of you. 

A stubborn piece of you wanted to tell him you were pregnant anyway, show him the ultrasound photos neatly folded and zipped up in your purse.  

But you didn’t really feel like getting laughed at again. 

Or hear him ask if you’d go get an abortion. 

That’s what he’d do, wouldn’t he?

You felt it in your bones, the truth you buried deep inside you didn’t want to unearth as you stared at your reflection in the dingy restroom mirror. The dark circles under your eyes. The makeup slightly smeared because you couldn’t afford the good stuff, just the cheap kind you got on discount from the drug store. The thrifted dress with a couple holes by the hem you hoped no one would notice. 

All while he was back in there in designer threads and a bank account that would never know what it was like to be in the negatives. 

Of course he wasn’t serious about you. 

Why would he be?

If you tried to ask for child support, what were the chances he’d hire a fancy big name lawyer to make sure you got the bare minimum? So that no one would know he even had a kid? 

God, you were so goddamn stupid. 

You wished you never met him. 

Never heard his pretty laugh or lingered on his cute pout. Never let him sit next to you and stick out his hand to shake. Never let him make you feel like someone special when he only ever wanted what was between your legs. 

He never gave a shit about your heart. 

Even if it had been his since high school. 

Technically, back then you’d both been theater kids. But while you stitched together costumes in the background, he was center stage, smiling and reciting lines for a clapping crowd. 

He kissed half the cast of your senior play. 

But afterwards, he’d given you roses and swore that you were the only one he actually wanted to be with. 

Just without a label. 

You followed him to the same college. Packed up your stuff when he moved to a sparkling new city to chase a fancy career as an actor. Let him fuck his frustrations out on you when he didn’t get the roles he wanted. Cooked him dinners to come home to, shared a shitty apartment and cleaned it up after awful shifts until he finally booked a big job — and moved out a month later. 

Accepted even less than the bare minimum from him and selling yourself stories that he was just busy, that some day, he would look back and see who had been there for him the whole time. 

But you couldn’t wait forever. 

And the longer it took, the less sure that day would come at all. 

He would probably end up dating a costar, or marrying a model, and you would be lucky to even get an invite to the wedding.

Since when did waiting make you a winner? 

Rarely. 

You made yourself leave the bathroom, steeling your resolve to tell him that you couldn’t keep sleeping with him, but he already found some new company. 

Standing up by your table and taking a photo with a pretty girl. Wrapping an arm around her shoulder and squeezing her tight as he grinned at her phone. 

She must be a fan of his. 

Were you any different than her? Just an adoring girl with stars in her eyes and empty hope in her heart? 

Before you could reason with yourself, you were turning on your heels, blinking back tears in your eyes as you left the restaurant. 

Why stay for someone who couldn’t care less about you? 

Would he notice that you left? Or would he fill that void faster than you created it? 

You guessed you’d rather not know. 

He didn’t come by your apartment. Just called a couple times when he figured out you had ditched him there. Sending you a disappointed text saying you should’ve said something that you just left on read. 

And then you did something you really should’ve done years ago. 

Ordered a bunch of moving boxes and started applying to jobs back home. 

Distracting yourself from the empty days now that you had ditched him, shoving all your stuff in boxes between trips to the bathroom to puke and pretending to be definitely not pregnant during phone and virtual interviews until you finally found something decent to justify erasing the last five years of your life here. Your lease was just month to month anyway. 

It only took a couple weeks for you to get what you wanted. 

And not once, did he show up outside your door asking you to stop giving him the silent treatment. 

So you tried not to look back in the rearview mirror when you drove away in a car you’d bought cheap since you wouldn’t be able to get by with public transport anymore, holding your breath and refusing to think about the lump in your throat when you were doing your best to give your baby a life where they wouldn’t have to worry about a father who didn’t want them. 

You were going to be enough. 

Fingers anxiously tapping on the steering wheel, readjusting the air a thousand times as you considered a future you hadn’t planned for. 

One without him in it. 

Rent was cheaper back home, so you’d have a nicer apartment than the studio one you were just in. A place with two bedrooms so you could have a nursery instead of sharing a single cramped space. A job that should cover more than just the necessities. Your insurance looked kinda shitty, but you’d make it work. 

Maybe you could even save up enough to get a house in a handful of years. 

A place where your child could run around in a backyard or draw with chalk on the driveway. 

You could dream. 

Although, it felt a little like a fantasy when smoke started coming out of your car not even twenty minutes outside the small town you lived most of your life in. 

“Shit,” you cursed, chewing on the inside of your cheek as you pulled to the side of the road and shut the car off. Snagging your phone from the drink holder and searching for the closest mechanic, praying that one of them would pick up – even when the sun was already starting to set.

It took four tries for you to find one. 

“Hello?” A gritty voice picked up, not bothering with the usual what can I do for you spiel while you awkwardly stepped out of the driver’s side door to check how bad it might be, as if you actually knew anything about cars. 

“I, uh, think I need a tow,” you muttered, tucking your phone between your ear and your shoulder. 

Your whole life packed up in the backseat of a broken-down car. What a wonderful fucking way to start this year off. 

“You think?” He sarcastically asked. 

“There’s smoke coming out of my car,” you offered.

“Are you still inside of it?” He huffed. 

“I just got out,” you mumbled, feeling a little bit like a moron even if you didn’t have any control over it. 

“Where are you?” He pressed, your mouth twisting down in an even deeper frown as you glanced around for some sign to repeat back, offering an awkward explanation as you watched cars start to speed by without so much as slowing. “I’ll be there in ten.” 

You thought he was exaggerating. 

But no, damn near on the dot, a tow truck was pulling up – and a familiar face was getting out of it. 

You couldn’t immediately place it, staring a few seconds too long as a set of dark eyes dragged across your face, and then down your body. 

“Damn,” he grunted. “Thought it sounded like you.” 

You blinked at him, mouth parting with subtle surprise when he confidently walked over to where you were standing off to the side. 

“Do I know you?” 

“We went to school together,” he gruffly offered, brows knitting together tightly before he walked past you. 

You didn’t think anyone from school would still remember you. Let alone recognize you. 

Studying him as he started setting it up, the way his soft hair fell in his face and framed his sharp features, the hard line of his jaw and the soft shape of his lips. 

It clicked, your head cocking to the side as you dredged up a fuzzy memory from the back of your brain. One of waiting in the rain outside school for your prince charming, books pressed against your chest while a tattooed guy flicking cigarette ash down leaned against the building and scowled at you. 

Just barely shielded by the overhang while you got soaked, his mouth pressed in a thin line before he let out a scoff and told you that you were an idiot for not staying inside until your ride showed up. 

Your ride never came. 

“You were in the year above me,” you commented, and he just curtly nodded. 

He had a lot more tattoos now. 

His shoulders were far broader. Muscles packed on in the years since you’d last seen him, his biceps bulging beneath his t-shirt as he worked on your car. He was unfairly attractive beneath the scary-looking facade, a tight shirt clinging to his wide frame. 

“I thought you moved to some big city,” he muttered, maybe noticing you were gawking at him. 

“I did,” you shrugged, biting back your urge to point out that it sounded like he was keeping tabs on you. 

“You just visitin’ then?” He grumbled, frowning at your engine before shutting the hood and going back to hook it up. 

“No, I’m, um, back for good,” you cleared your throat. 

He paused, sharp nose scrunching up as he glanced over his shoulder to stare at you like you said something absurd. 

“You serious?” He gruffly asked. 

“Uh-huh,” you dryly confirmed, nodding slowly as your lungs constricted. 

He didn’t say anything back, just clicking his tongue as he continued working. You watched him curiously, trying to work out what his deal might be. 

Dredging up ancient memories of passing by him in school hallways, recalling the impression of someone far cooler than you muttering heys to you. He went to parties you weren’t invited to. Knew who sold weed and how to skip class without getting caught.

What did it really matter though when you both ended up here? 

Shivering on the side of the road while the sun disappeared past the horizon? 

“Should be an easy fix,” he mumbled. 

“How much is it going to be?” You frowned when he finished getting it all loaded up, anxiously glancing towards the purse you were probably going to have to sell to just to cover the cost. 

It was one of the few gifts your former flame had given you. 

A designer label one, something you’d never choose or purchase for yourself. But it was beautiful. Even if you could only really fill it with crumpled receipts and spare change. 

Now you’d need all the savings you had for your baby. So what if you had to sell something sentimental just to afford a working car? 

“Don’t worry about it,” he grumbled, looking back to where you were biting your bottom lip before gesturing to the front of his truck. “You want a ride back to my shop?” 

“Yeah,” you answered a little too quickly, trying not to cringe as you tucked a loose strand of hair behind your ear. “I mean, sure.” 

It somehow managed to be even more awkward in the car. 

He didn’t smell like smoke anymore though. 

No, he smelled warm. A hint of spice in his cologne, maybe some sandalwood. 

He grumbled out a handful of questions about if it was too hot or too cold, offering to change the radio station and gesturing to the pile of CDs on the floorboard before you promised that everything was fine. He kept staring at you at every stop sign, throwing you long looks you couldn’t help but keep returning, studying him the same way he was studying you. 

“So is it like, your shop your shop or do you just-?”

 “It’s mine,” he clarified with a short cough, covering his mouth with his elbow as he cleared his throat. “Bought the place a few years ago.” 

“That’s cool,” you offered, picking at your cuticles until he pulled into the parking lot of a small mechanic’s building. A handful of cars were already in the lot, ones you supposed he was also working on. 

“It’s not much,” he muttered. 

“It’s nice,” you shrugged, not really sure what you could compare it to when you hadn’t gotten an oil change in years. 

“When’s the last time your car’s been serviced?” He asked, switching off the key in the ignition as you readjusted the purse on your lap. 

“No clue,” you admitted. “I just bought it to bring here.” 

His mouth twitched down, and you couldn’t tell what he was thinking. 

But then he was tossing you a keyring, your hands clumsily attempting to catch it only for it to land in your lap anyway. 

“You can wait for me in the lobby.” 

It took you four tries to find the correct key to unlock the main door, letting yourself in to sit on the cracked leather cushion of one the chairs by the front desk, pulling out your phone to check if you had any missed messages – and already knowing there wouldn’t be even one.  

What you did have was a news alert. 

A shitty gossip article popping up with a photo of the last person you wanted to see at some club, his eyes hazy and ringed red like he’d been drinking and his arm lazily slung around a supermodel.

You swiped it away with a sigh, not wanting to think about how much of a better night he was probably having. 

Balls-deep in a pretty girl’s pussy while he whined about something petty in her skin, pressing kisses across her face like there was anything actually affectionate behind his lips. 

“Where are you staying?” 

You nearly fell out of your fucking seat, startled as your head swiveled over to a side door you hadn’t noticed before, one you guessed connected to the garage portion. 

“Um, I’m supposed to get the keys to my new apartment in the morning. I was just going to rent a motel for the night,” you explained. Eat vending machine snacks for a meal and fall asleep to cable television while you drowned your sorrows in a soda can since you couldn’t drink alcohol for the foreseeable future. 

“You sure you’re gonna be safe?” He asked, and you weren’t sure if he was attempting to look out for you or if it was some warning you weren’t understanding. 

“Yeah?” You hesitantly confirmed, squinting at him suspiciously. 

“I could take you out to dinner,” he grunted, tossing an oil-stained rag over his shoulder. Your jaw nearly dislocated from how fast you dropped it. The dots connecting in your head as it hit you that he was hitting on you. “Do the repair in the morning. We could catch up and-” 

“Look, I would love to. But you should know, I’m, uh, pregnant,” you interrupted the second you realized he was interested in sleeping with you, swallowing the lump in your throat as you offered an apologetic shrug. About to say that you’d rather he just fixed your car and you could part paths than deal with the disappointment of the first guy who showed a modicum of attraction to you not wanting you because you were damaged goods. 

Already used. 

His dark eyes darted to your left hand, immediately spotting the empty spot where a ring should be and letting out a low scoff. “You seein’ someone?” 

“Well, no,” you confessed, tilted your head to the side. 

You didn’t expect his recoil of disgust, conflicting emotions crossing across his harsh features before he huffed hard. 

“He doesn’t want me,” you defensively murmured. If he couldn’t even commit to being your boyfriend, he wasn’t going to fucking commit to being your baby daddy. All staying would have done was hurt both of you. But mostly you. “So I left.”

Perhaps that was an oversimplification. But it was the truth, as brutal as it sounded.  

“Idiot,” he snorted. 

“I know it’s stupid to have a kid with someone-” 

“I’m talking about him, not you,” he wryly said, walking over to you and looking down at your stomach in disbelief. But there wasn't any judgement there. 

More like someone who saw an opportunity. 

“Oh,” you muttered.

“I had a crush on you back in school,” he revealed, like it was nothing. Like this was all totally normal and that most guys wouldn’t have run for the hills the second the word pregnant left your lips. 

“No way,” you rejected the idea, unable to accept the mere concept of it. 

What would a guy like him like about a loser like you? 

Your only friend back then was someone who only liked you because you loved him. 

“You don’t believe me?” He scoffed, his mouth curving up in an amused smirk as he bridged the distance between you. 

Getting down on the ground in front of your seat, looking up at you like you were worth more than just a fling or a fuck, light glittering in his dark stare as you sorted out the heat curling in your own core. 

“Why should I?” You asked, leaning down and resting your elbows on your thighs. 

“Because I’ve been waiting ten years for this opportunity.” 

“This opportunity to-” You didn’t get to finish asking before he was craning his neck up to kiss you, apparently not caring whose mouth had been on it before. 

He tasted like bubblegum. His lips were a little dry, but there was just warmth to be found in his casual affection. Claiming you without hesitation, both hands cupping your cheeks as if he had to feel your skin to accept that it was actually happening.

You were having a hard time believing it yourself. 

Not even when he pulled away to catch his breath, his eyes furrowed tight together while you sucked in a shaky one. 

“So, you, uh, liked me?” You breathed hard. 

“I think I still do.” 

“You haven’t seen me in like, a decade,” you mumbled, torn between what your body was begging you for and what your brain was trying to warn you against. Self respect was really only something you learned recently. “What if I became, like, a serial killer or something?” 

“Did you?” He sarcastically asked, a glint of amusement shining in his eyes under the luminescent lights. 

“No,” you squinted at him, finding it hard to articulate any kind of argument when butterflies were fluttering in your stomach for the first time in forever. 

“Then let me get to know you again,” he dared, shrugging his broad shoulders as he issued the challenge. 

It was more than you ever got from your not-ex anyway. 

Was he inside someone else right now?

Moaning her name while she bounced on his cock? Letting her scratch up his back and carve proof of her existence into him how you never could? 

“So, dinner?” He asked again, cocking his head to the side as you slowly nodded. 

“I am pretty hungry,” you admitted, sucking on the inside of your cheek as he used your thigh to stand up, holding out a hand for you to take.

“I’ve got a spare bedroom at my place,” he shrugged. “If you don’t want to stay at a motel tonight.” 

“Aren’t guys like, terrified of commitment?” You asked as he pulled you up, effortlessly sliding a palm across to the small of your back like you were already his. 

“Never thought I’d see you again,” he casually answered. 

“I never knew you saw me at all,” you muttered, remorse tugging at you as you reconsidered just how much time you wasted on the wrong man.  

If you had, would you have chosen him? 

♡

“That’s not my name.” 

Shit. 

“Oops,” he sheepishly shrugged, alcohol swimming in his stomach as he pulled back from her. Blinking a few times to remind himself that she wasn’t you. 

None of them were. 

No matter how many times he accidentally called out your name. 

She grabbed her martini glass from the bar top, not hesitating to splash it in his face. 

It wouldn’t be the first time it happened. Probably not the last. 

It had been nearly two goddamn months since he’d seen you. 

And every day seemed to get worse than the last. 

His body was moving on a familiar pattern, pulling out dollar bills and tossing them on the bartop, stumbling out onto the street and half-collapsing into the back of a cab, digging his phone out of his pocket as he hoped for something he knew he didn’t deserve to receive. 

But nope, not a single message for you. 

No ‘I missed you’s. No ‘please come over’s. No ‘I need you now’s. 

He didn’t want to give in. 

To be the one who caved in and called first. 

You were usually the one who reached out. Invited him in with that soft smile and sweet words, threading your smaller fingers through his hair as you kissed the tip of his nose. 

It was the way this worked. The way he justified being so absorbed and attached to you. Tell himself that it was okay to crave you when he didn’t have to admit it out loud.

If it was up to him, he’d end every day with you. 

That just wasn’t the life he had picked though. 

Not the reputation he was supposed to have or the image he was trying to uphold. 

And image was all he had in a career where appearances were the only thing that mattered. 

But holy fuck, he missed you. He wanted to come over and curl up in your bed. To call out your name – to you this time. Murmuring that he needed you while he erased the past few pitiful weeks wistfully wondering what the hell was happening by fucking you until you both forgot about it. 

The driver asked for the address, and he didn’t realize he’d given him yours until he recognized the turns he was taking as on the way to your apartment. He swallowed his pride and picked the phone back up. 

But you didn’t pick up. 

Fuck. 

Did he do something to make you mad? 

Were you giving him the cold shoulder because of your last date? 

You said you weren’t mad, but you left without saying anything to him back then, and refused to so much as to reply afterwards. He had pathetically reached out to one of your coworkers a couple days later to make sure that you were still, like, alive. 

But it was almost like you’d lost interest in him. 

Which was so baffling to him he almost immediately rejected it.

What were you if you weren’t his? 

He found himself clumsily typing out messages, missing letters as he let you know he was on the way, to go ahead and unlock the door for him. The stench of alcohol was still sticking to him, his shirt damp as he rolled down the window to get some fresh air. 

His mind still wasn’t clear by the time the cab parked and he had to pay the fare. And you still hadn’t responded, or even read his messages. 

Stumbling up the stairs as he tried to wrap his mind around what was going on between the two of you, convincing himself more with each floor he went up that he had to fix it, because he was clearly going insane without you around. 

It would be easier if you would answer the damn door. 

Were you trying to make him feel bad? 

Like an idiot standing outside your apartment and knocking for ten minutes straight? 

“Let me in,” he shouted, not giving a shit if your neighbors complained, rattling the frame as he knocked harder. 

Someone was going to call the cops, but he couldn’t stop himself, leaning against the door as he called out your name, trying to jiggle the doorknob only for it to abruptly twist open – and send him straight to the ground. 

Looking up, expecting you to be there with your arms folded across your chest and that cute pout of yours plastered on your face, all pretty and disappointed in him. 

But it wasn’t you. 

Some irritated stranger staring back at him with borderline disgust, nose scrunched up as they tried to hit him with the door. He blinked, as if when he opened his eyes again, it would change what he was seeing. 

“Look, man, whoever you’re looking for doesn’t live here anymore.” 

Where the fuck were you?  

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there will be another part with the mechanic's pov and more smut ;p