Starting Over
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If you have been reading the stories in my 'Starting Over' series, please take a moment to look at this note from the author and consider leaving feedback.
Series
- Part 1 of Starting Over
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My world ceased to exist when my husband died. I ceased to exist. Or, at least, the version of me that I’d always thought I’d be for the next 50 years or so did. Whatever was left wasn’t anything I had prepared for. I certainly hadn't prepared for movies and movie stars and meeting my celebrity crush when I was too broken to really even care.
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- Part 2 of Starting Over
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Would You Rather by msred
Fandoms: Real Person Fiction, American (US) Actor RPF, Actor RPF
03 Jul 2020
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I just needed to hear a friendly voice. It doesn't get much friendlier than his.
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- Part 3 of Starting Over
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“I had fun too. It’s been a long, long time since I’ve had a partner to share the kitchen with. It was really nice.”
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It's been so long since Narrator was flirted with that she's forgotten what it looks like.
Series
- Part 4 of Starting Over
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How do you tell people that one year after your husband died, you started dating one of the biggest movie stars in the world?
Series
- Part 5 of Starting Over
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It was never going to be easy for me to enter into a relationship again after my husband died. The prospect was made even more daunting when the man on the other side of the relationship was one of the most famous, most sought after men in the world. It was hard for me to imagine how I could possibly fit into his world in any meaningful way, how I could measure up rather than bringing him down, how I could possibly matter, when he mattered so much. What I failed to consider was that, while he seemed to matter to everyone in the world, none of that actually mattered to him.
Series
- Part 6 of Starting Over
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Work in Progress by msred
Fandoms: Real Person Fiction, American (US) Actor RPF, Chris Evans (actor) - Fandom
27 Oct 2019
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It was inevitable, if our relationship was to continue to grow and progress, that I would meet Chris's family at some point; they were far too important to him for me to not. And it's not really even that I viewed it as a "have to," I really, truly wanted to. If the man that family had produced was any indication, and I believed he was, I had every reason to believe they would all be wonderful people. But that didn't mean I wasn't terrified. It had been roughly 20 years since the last time I'd had to do the whole "meet the family" routine, and a lot had happened in that time.
Series
- Part 7 of Starting Over
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“You can’t just storm out of your own house,” he told me through gritted teeth when I put my hand on the door handle.
“Watch me,” I spat back without turning around.
We’d never fought before, still in that honeymoon phase of exploring and learning new things about one another and finding each new thing sweet, or amusing, or intriguing. The closest we’d ever come to fighting were my anxiety attacks, but even then, I was only ever scared and he was only ever gentle and respectful, talking me through it until I was calm enough to think rationally again. My fight or flight kicked in and it scared me, because the irrational, anxious part of my brain said that if we fought, that meant we shouldn’t be together at all, and that he would see that too and leave me. It also scared me because if it was something I was willing to fight for, then it was something that would hurt to lose. So instead of fighting, I ran.
Series
- Part 8 of Starting Over
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100% by msred
Fandoms: Chris Evans (actor) - Fandom, Real Person Fiction, American (US) Actor RPF
12 Nov 2019
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Dodger jumped off the couch and ran for the hall when Chris came through the front door, talking, I assumed, on the phone. I was on the couch, my back propped against the arm and my legs stretched half the length of the cushions, reading a book. I scrambled to tuck the book between the cushion and the arm of the couch and sit up straight, folding my legs and tucking my feet under my thighs to wait for him, prim and proper and expectant and, I hoped, cute.
Series
- Part 9 of Starting Over
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I had put off being with anyone for almost two years. I'd put off being with him for about seven months longer than it took for me to realize how much I wanted to be with him, but I'd been making decisions out of fear for a very long time.
Series
- Part 10 of Starting Over
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Extending an Invitation by msred
Fandoms: Real Person Fiction, Chris Evans (actor) - Fandom
22 Feb 2020
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The first thing I registered as I drifted into wakefulness was the feel of fingertips on my cheek, feather light. They traced the curve of my cheekbone from the corner of my eye down to my nose and then even seemed to flutter over my eyelashes. Then my eyes began picking up the faint glow of morning sunlight from behind closed lids. When I felt his thumb drag across my lower lip, I puckered slightly to press a soft kiss to his skin and pulled my hand from where it rested on his ribcage to wrap it around his wrist, my fingers tucking into his palm.
Series
- Part 11 of Starting Over
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Thankful by msred
Fandoms: Chris Evans (actor) - Fandom, Real Person Fiction, American (US) Actor RPF
29 Nov 2019
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After 10 months together, Chris and I had been really fortunate that we’d been able to spend pretty much every major holiday - and many of the minor ones - together. All of those had been fun, and some of them had come with important and developmental moments in our relationship, but Thanksgiving was the ultimate family holiday and, in general, was a whole other ballgame.
Series
- Part 12 of Starting Over
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Home (is Where the Heart is) for Christmas by msred
Fandoms: Chris Evans (actor) - Fandom, Real Person Fiction
25 Dec 2019
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Chris had first pitched the idea of me going to Boston for the holiday in October, and he’d done it so sheepishly, with such quiet hopefulness, as if he was afraid he was asking too much by wanting to pull me away from whatever I might have been missing in Kentucky or Virginia, that I probably fell a little more in love with him in that moment. In all honesty, there was nothing that sounded better to me than spending Christmas with him and his family.
Series
- Part 13 of Starting Over
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Everything Changes by msred
Fandoms: Chris Evans (actor) - Fandom, American (US) Actor RPF
14 Dec 2019
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I'd told myself I would bring it up after a year of being actually, truly together. Any sooner seemed presumptuous, but any longer seemed dishonest and like I was potentially wasting his time. It hadn't quite been a year - we were 18 days short, actually - but it just didn't feel right to wait any longer. I didn't want to tell him on our anniversary that I'd been keeping something so huge, so important, from him, and I certainly wasn't comfortable waiting any longer. So, I'd tell him that morning, before he took me to the airport to send me back home. And I'd just hope with all my heart and soul that when he put me on the plane he'd do so still wanting to see me again.
Series
- Part 14 of Starting Over
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Spring cleaning, in January, no less, was not how I’d expected to spend our one-year anniversary. And yet, there we were. Chris had asked me why some of my Christmas gifts from him and his family still hadn’t been put away, and I’d made the mistake of telling him I just had too much ‘stuff’ at the moment and didn’t have places to put all my new things without just shoving them onto a shelf or into a drawer haphazardly. And thus began the cleaning. Or, as he called it, 'The Purge.'
Series
- Part 15 of Starting Over
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It had been his suggestion to take me, and my two oldest friends, to see the last basketball game of the season on our favorite college team's home court. Since he really had no vested interest in the team, aside from what I'd forced onto him over the past year or so, I assumed his true motive was to meet my friends and family, most of whom I'd told him very little about in the year and a half we'd known each other.
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- Part 16 of Starting Over
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Until that point, I’d almost, somehow, forgotten that Chris was standing right behind me. Chalk it up to public humiliation. “Uh. No. He didn’t do anything to you, don’t punish him.”
Chris stepped closer to me and rested his hand on the small of my back. “Hey, I don’t consider dancing with my girlfriend punishment.”
Series
- Part 17 of Starting Over
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There were enough clues for me to have known even as it was happening that it wasn’t real. This is where my brain should really have started screaming that the situation could not be real. But it didn’t. Or if it did, the screaming from my heart drowned it out. Because regardless of what my brain said, my heart knew, far too well, what it means when military officers show up at your house and tell you to “have a seat.” And my heart broke. Loudly and over and over again.
Series
- Part 18 of Starting Over
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I hate to say that I was hiding, but I was hiding. And then I got his text. 'Come join us.' I didn’t understand. I mean, yeah, I knew what the words meant, but I didn’t understand why he was sending it at that moment. We’d agreed that I wouldn’t be mentioned publicly just yet, so it certainly didn’t make sense for me to ‘join them,' when the other half of 'them' was a reporter for a major national magazine who was there with the expressed intent of asking questions about not only his work, but his life as well.
Series
- Part 19 of Starting Over
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(Don't) Stay out of my Hair by msred
Fandoms: Real Person Fiction, Chris Evans (actor) - Fandom
26 Aug 2019
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“Or,” I grinned and tucked my fingertips into his pockets and tugged, just enough for him to feel it and rock forward a little on the balls of his feet, “what if my fiance just really wants to learn how to French braid because he’s too cute for his own good?”
Series
- Part 20 of Starting Over