angrycollectivecollectorr

[angrycollectivecollectorr]

PEDRO PASCAL 30th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards (February 24, 2024)

[angrycollectivecollectorr]

𝐌𝐄𝐄𝐓 𝐌𝐄 𝐈𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐖𝐎𝐎𝐃𝐒 ╳ SERIES MASTERLIST

Chapter One: Decisions

[strangers to friends to lovers, age gap (56/mid 20s), forced proximity, no outbreak]

(Series) Content Warning: a very, very lonely joel miller. copious amounts of lusting, tension, joel is an excellent cook (food, alcohol, ect), hot tubs, impromptu snowball fights, awkward situations, deep talks and tragic backstories (specified within chapter warnings, deeply depraved smut/sexcapades and the inappropriate use of a dining table (also specified within chapter warnings), nicknames of endearment (no use of y/n)

Chapter Summary: The night of your arrival is anything but what you expected, realizing that not only was your cabin double-booked but the unexpected guest is more than willing to leave you stranded to savor his peace. A handful of stubborn talks and a big decision later, you realize that Joel might not be that much of a stranger at all.

Chapter Warnings: (7.2k) no outbreak, grumpy!Joel, fem!reader, weapons of convenience, reader being mesmerized but how handsome Joel is, copious amount of lusting, book talks, age gap, Joel has secrets, reader has a difficult relationship with family, two beds (but that won't last)

You should feel terrible about this. Distraught. Riddled with a crippling sadness over a lie that grew from your own selfishness. But, there’s nothing but tremendous relief as you shove your things into the trunk of your Uber and crawl into the backseat, starting the three hour drive into the deep Piney Woods of Texas. 

You should feel horrible.

But, the silence is nice. You’re especially thankful that your driver wasn’t a people person at all, pointedly avoiding any communication outside of a greeting. It feels business-like, transactional. You couldn’t be bothered with the niceties and cheerfulness that surrounded the holidays. It made you sick to your stomach, chewing on your bottom lip without a thought in your mind as you inch closer. A three hour drive turns into two, falling asleep somewhere along the way, only waking up fifteen minutes away, somewhere along a rocky drive down a scenic, winding road that pulls a beautiful cabin into view. 

It was lit up, decorated like a fucking christmas tree.

You grimaced slightly, but despite that, it was still everything you expected. It wasn’t too large or spacious, you wouldn’t feel so alone out here for the few weeks you were planning to stay and it wasn’t too cramped either. You felt if you uttered the word perfect it would turn into a jinx, so you kept yourself together and dragged yourself out into the cold, frigid air when the car pulled to a stop. The driver helped you with your bags, you remember to leave him with a big, gracious tip that left him more than satisfied, and he was on his way without a word.

You took a big breath, expanding your lungs and breathing in the fresh air. You didn’t feel suffocated here, something you noticed immediately. It wasn’t because of the lack of city pollution. Dragging your bags up the steps are a challenge, but you manage even with the rickety wheel that snags on a chipped piece of brick, unlocking your phone to remember the code that the owner had sent you earlier that morning, fumbling until your fingers came to life and pressed the code into the lock, a satisfying click of relief in the mechanism and you turned the doorknob.

Finally.

-

The heat blasts your face like a furnace, thawing out your limbs as you move quickly, efficiently and with too much urgency to escape the nighttime cold. You don’t notice much at first, among the amenities that came with the cabin, a fresh bottle of wine on the table and a note tucked under, something you would guzzle down sometime later. There was a fire going, low and crackling—seems unsafe, but what the hell did you know? It had to be the owners, assuming they came out earlier in the day in preparation for your arrival.

There’s blankets littered throughout, draped over the back of a couch, dark and covered in an unseemly plaid pattern, another stack of smaller blankets placed on a nearby cushion. Freezing to death seemed to be their immediate concern, obviously. You wandered aimlessly in the dark, scoping out both a light switch and the kitchen, noticing the stock of food, things that wouldn’t perish easily, probably for emergencies, but things are even more interesting as you approach the fridge, bathed in the fluorescent light as you look at the also stocked fridge, not fully, more sparsely, like someone who couldn’t decide on what to eat or maybe only cooked one meal a day. It’s then when a thought dawns on you that feels impossible, a lingering suspicious as your eyebrows pull into a taut line, fanning over the marble slab of counter-space, eyes landing on the window that hung over the kitchen sink behind a wretchedly patterned curtain, spotting the old truck parked outside the back of the cabin.

Your mind filters through a thousand and one reasons on why it would be there, but whatever is there in your mind is quickly snuffed out by the creaks of rickety floorboards and a hall light flickering on in the distance behind you—you reach and ultimately fumble for anything nearby to use as a weapon, landing on the single-most deadly thing in your line of sight that you can grasp quickly. There’s a knife block a few feet away and it’s the only plausible thing your brain can think of in a panic, unsheathing and turning on your heels to the person standing several feet away.

He is large, you can tell as much. Still mostly covered by the shadow of darkness that blanketed the rest of the cabin, you could make out the scruff of some facial hair, his tall stature, and the axe he gripped by the neck.

A fucking axe. 

You were, no doubt, about to be murdered. It was the only thought on your mind, because despite the hard grip on the handle of the knife, you were no match.

But, then he speaks.

“Got about ten seconds to start explain’ what the hell you’re doin’ in this cabin.” As expected, his voice left little room to argue—but you had paid to be here. Fucking paid. You had every right.

Fuck this guy.

You grip the knife a tighter, knuckle-white grip as you raise it in a feeble attempt to seem threatening, “I booked this place for a month, I’ve got the front door code—who the fuck are you?” 

You’re surprised that it works, but the rigidness in the stranger’s shoulder relaxes slightly and the butt of the axe hits the floor as he rests against an adjoining wall.

“Don’t think none of that matters,” He replies with a reverence of annoyance as he flicks on a nearby light and illuminates the living area of the cabin—shit, that’s where it was? Part of you was glad you hadn’t found it, wondering if he had been waiting in the shadows since you stepped inside the cabin, “you need to drive back into town and explain the mix up.”

Drive back? A fucking mix up?

“No.” It’s a steady answer, no quiver in your voice. You lower the knife, but it’s still held tightly at your side. And as the stranger steps into clearer view, you can’t help but memorize his face.

You know, in the case that you might need to describe it to the police if you weren’t already dead by then.

It’s almost unfair how threatening he looks without trying and yet somehow, irreverently handsome. It feels like a silly thought to have, but you weren’t blind. He’s older, much older than yourself. Hardened features, a sharp jawline covered with a thicker beard kept trimmed but still patchy in spots, face worn with worry. He was undoubtedly human and vulnerable, just like you. You can’t see much about his stature beside his height and tanned skin, muddled out by his pajamas, though he seems like he probably does some heavy lifting. 

And meanwhile, your staring is noticed. He remains several feet of distance but his eyebrow quirks upwards slightly, arms crossing over his chest and—oh. He is the last person you would want to spar in a fight, biceps pulling taut and bulging slightly.

“Sure you didn’t book the other cabin down the way?” He sounds like he’s questioning a child, such a ridiculous mistake to make.

Oh, how could you be so stupid? 

There was no mistaking which cabin you booked, because obviously, the other one was already booked out. This one wasn’t.

At least, it wasn’t supposed to be.

“Look,” The knife clatters against the counter and his eyes track it before averting back to you, “I get that you probably think this is some mistake on my part and whatever grumpy attitude you have, I also get it,” You really fucking did, feeling the beginnings of your blood boil with frustration, “I booked this trip two months ago, I triple checked the address, the owners sent me the door code yesterday morning. There is no way I booked the other cabin.”

He doesn’t even flinch, not a muscle. He’s unconvinced, unamused, and rearing on the edge of throwing your bags out himself just to get you out of here.

“Jesus, fuck—” You rip your phone from your coat pocket and flip through your apps until you land on the email full of information, booking address, dates, and all, and slide the phone across the counter, because despite his willingness to kick you out on your ass, the murderous aspect subsided the moment he dropped the axe.

Now, he just seemed like an asshole.

He approaches slowly, eyeing the phone skeptically before making it seem diminutive in his grip, squinting moderately as he brought the phone closer and looked, expression dropping by the millisecond as the realization settled in. And you start to feel triumphant, like you might’ve actually won the argument. There was still one problem at hand.

He was still here. You were still here.

And neither of you were going anywhere.

So, instead of trying to compromise, he doubles down.

“I was here first.”

“You’re fucking kidding me?” In a world of assholes, he was their all triumphant leader, “It’s below freezing, I Uber’d three hours to get out here, and I have no service. I’m not leaving.”

This, ultimately, had to be your worst nightmare. Double-booking? In the middle of the woods with a complete stranger who obviously had some murderous tendencies if his first instinct was to grab a goddamn axe? And no service?

“You didn’t drive here?” It’s the only thing he asks, bypassing everything else.

“You know, I think I just said I didn’t.”

“You had someone drive you three hours out in the woods with no way of transportation anywhere for,” He takes a second glance at your phone, noting the booking dates, “four weeks?”

Admittedly, it was done on a whim. You hadn’t thought out the fine details, but you knew there was a small store a few miles north that was run by a nice old lady that provided to some of the people who did live out in these woods year round. It was the one thing the owners had added as an addition to the obvious plus of the cabin being so secluded. Plus, the cabin was stocked with some food, or at least, it was.

You wanted no contact. But, obviously you weren’t going to get that.

“Kinda part of the whole getting away for the holidays memo,” You reply sarcastically, “I would’ve managed, mind you.”

Maybe. You would’ve figured it out eventually, but that didn’t matter. Things weren’t going as planned now. You interject again, crossing your arms to match his stance briefly before throwing your arm out flippantly as you waved a hand toward the untraversed hallway.

“This place has two bedrooms, doesn’t it?”

A two bed, one bath cabin. You remembered that much.

He clears his throat, “Yeah.” He sounds so foreboding it makes you ache with an anxiety you had tried so hard to escape from.

“And seein’ as you’re here alone,” You didn’t need to make any assumption otherwise, he seemed like the lonely type, “and I’m here alone—I’m staying.”

“For the night.” He corrects, “Then I can drive you into town tomorrow morning and you can get your refund and find a ride home.”

You fight the urge to roll your eyes, snatching your phone off the counter and stowing it away in your pocket again, finally taking the steps to bypass him and reach for your bags. 

The thing was—you weren’t leaving. If there was anything to be learned about you, it was how undoubtedly stubborn you could be. This cabin was just as rightfully yours as it would be anyone else who paid for the time. It was money you had worked to save up, money you had shoveled out to secure yourself a relaxing holiday and it wasn’t about to be ruined.

His voice startles you as he, somehow, had moved closer without you noticing. He was reaching for your bags too, because despite his grumpiness, he was still that guy—of course.

“Don’t. Touch.” You glance at him with a warning, which he takes, thankfully. He retracts and lingers briefly as he snuffs out the fire before he returns to his own room, you can only assume.

And even if you wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, you still barricade your door that night, suitcase stacked on suitcase, bag on bag, and you’re almost sure he can hear it if he’s still awake. You hope he does.

But, when your head hits the pillow, all tucked away in the bed that would become yours for the next month, you immediately fall asleep despite the lingering threat outside your door.

-

It all feels like a horrible dream until your eyes open the next morning and again, you’re here. 

Then there’s a lingering smell of bacon, breakfast cooking in the distance and the house is warm, inviting, welcoming. Damn.

Fine. You were curious. Still annoyed, but not as much after a night of sleep. You could approach this at a different angle, with a better attitude and maybe work something out with the stranger outside of your bedroom.

You stretch your limbs until the protest and steady on your feet, wrapping one of the spare blankets at the end of the bed over your shoulders and around your body as you trudge toward the living area, connected kitchen off to the side as you round the corner of the hallway.

Your eyes settle on his back first, thankful he doesn’t immediately lock eyes with you when you enter—his muscles stretch as he fiddles with something on the stove, shoulder blades pulling inwards as he shakes the pan gripped in his right hand, still dressed in his clothes from the night before and his hair mussed up in the back from sleep and it feels odd to admire him for a moment, but you really can’t help it. 

There was a time when you’d scold yourself, but a lifetime of horrible boyfriends and even worse hook-ups, you knew that you had needs and feelings and you weren’t the type to ignore them or make excuses. Whoever he was, whatever his name may be, he was handsome. It was the first thing you thought about last night, despite the presence of possible murder, and it was the only immediate thing on your mind at the moment.

It had been months. You were giving up a little lee-way to feel bad for yourself.

But, then he’s speaking and it startles you to near death.

“Mornin’.” He greets with a reverence you are not expecting. He sounds relaxed.

The fucker sounds relaxed. Like he hadn’t tried to kick you out on your ass the night before. Your face pulls up in a disgruntled scrunch and you have the gamble to look confused. Because, yeah. This was not the person you met last night—given you were technically an intruder in his mind.

Maybe he wasn’t a complete asshole after all—No. Nope. You barely know him.

“You gonna keep starin’ or eat some breakfast?” He asks a little less polite, but it’s rude enough to elicit a response. Because, yes—you were starving. 

So, stare and eat. 

You take a seat at the barstool tucked under the island and assess the field, a mix of simple breakfast items: pancakes, eggs, bacon, toasts with varying levels of char, and a small bowl of mixed berries.

This feels…a little too much. But, you dig in with a ferocity that stomps out any current concern.

“Look–” He starts after a long bout of silence, having turned off the burner and beginning to assemble his own plate.

“If this is an apology breakfast for being a complete asshole,” You shake your head, cheeks puffed with the fluffiness of a pancake, slathered and drowned in syrup a few berries swimming in the pooled up sugary mess as you forked them and stuffed them in alongside, “apology accepted. Forgiven. Whatever.”

You couldn’t be bothered to care at that moment. You’d stood your ground, you weren’t leaving.

“It’s…not.” He eventually manages to say, interrupted by your schpiel, cutting his way through his eggs before forking a piece into his mouth, chewing slowly, “Look, I didn’t want send you off with an empty stomach, might not be great at this,” He waves a vagrant hand—Oh, so…talking to people, being accommodating, this last could drag on and on and—”but it’s not your fault, I guess.”

“It’s not,” You quickly retorted, the space between your brow scrunched into a permanent scowl at this point, “are you—You’re still trying to kick me out? No….no.”

“I was here—”

“First, yeah. I heard you last night.”

And part of you hears the echoing of your mother, that pestering and insisting tone she carried.

“Try new things, sweetheart. Meet someone. You never know what will happen.”

Of course, that didn’t apply to complete strangers. She meant it in the context of: find a nice boy, date him, marry him, and give her grand-babies. You were never going to be that person. 

You tried. Hard. Dated for a year, then two, and that ended in a mess of tears. You hated thinking about the effort you attempted to put into a relationship that was doomed from the beginning. You both ended up at different colleges and it was all for naught. And through college, you swore off boyfriends, slept around, and it was easier. But, it was less than exciting. 

In fact, it was boring. 

But regardless, the sentiment stuck around. You weren’t trying to trick this man into falling in love with you, but you weren’t going to let him displace you on a holiday vacation.

Screw this guy.

“This cabin has two bedrooms and plenty of space. I booked this place until the end of the month and I’m not giving it up,” You state matter-of fact, “You’re not driving me back into town and you’re not going to boss me around like you have some authority over me. I don’t even know you.”

The man seems speechless for a moment, chewing silently at his breakfast.

That was exactly what he assumed would happen—that he could, basically, command you into leaving. Thankfully, you didn’t do well with authority.

“Actually, how do I know you aren’t some squatter?” You ask suddenly, fork clanking against the plate as it falls, “Why don’t you show some proof that you paid to be here?”

It shouldn’t surprise you when he reaches for his own phone, taking his sweet, sweet time to scroll until he finds the proof and slots the phone your way. It doesn’t surprise you. You only wanted the proof. 

But, you can’t help the way your eyes bug out when you read the dates, matching up almost perfectly with your own, give or take a few days—which is why he arrived before you. He was here until the day after Christmas, just like you.

Your luck, of course.

You slid the phone back toward him and pushed your plate aside, thankfully full up on breakfast, but still frustrated. Things weren’t supposed to go this way. It was supposed to be a month away, a month of seclusion. But, that obstacle was standing opposite of you.

You sigh heavily, shrinking under your blanket and burying your head into cupped hands, digging the heels of your palms in until you see stars, coming up for air only after the plates start to clink against each other from movement.

“Okay,” You take a breath, lifting your head slowly, “I’m guessing you came out here to be alone,” It’s only an assumption, but it seems glaringly obvious, “so did I. So, how about we just do our best to avoid each other?”

“Seems kinda hard,” He argues, “seeing as we’re under one roof.”

“Well, we eat together. Or we don’t at all. I don’t need you cooking meals for me—but outside of that or just some occasional passing by, we don’t have to talk.”

It wasn’t a well-thought-out plan, but…

You’ve had enough roommates to have mastered this skill by now. Just because you were under the same roof as someone didn’t mean you had to get along, though it was ideal. It was a month. You could manage.

Keep your things locked away, doors locked too, always keep your guard up, live the entire vacation with the lingering thought that maybe he might have underlying murderous tendencies—and guessing by the even blanker look on his face as he examines you, your mind really starts to wonder.

“Fine.” He agrees.

Wait.

“You’re serious?”

“Doesn’t seem like you’re givin' me much of a choice.”

You smile triumphantly, a little too eager to gloat.

“Unfair, isn’t it?”

You couldn’t resist. And you brace for a rigid retort, some grumble under his breath. But, it never comes.

Instead, he chuckles. It’s so slight you almost miss it, but his chest shakes with a silent laughter before he’s returning to his neutral state and shaking his head in disbelief.

“Must be used to gettin’ your way.” He’s eyes flick up, hands buried into the dishwater he’s managed to start up under the rumble of conversation—there’s definitely something there, a glint in his eyes.

You feel like you’re imagining things. You definitely were.

“Not at all, actually.” You contradict, tapping a lone finger against the countertop, “So—can I ask your name? Seein’ how we’re going to be around each other for the next…month.” It feels unreal as it rolls off your tongue.

A month with a total stranger. Perfect idea.

“Joel.” He answers simply. You have to take his word for it. But, you don’t sense a lie. You respond with a polite utterance of your own name and that closes the conversation out. 

You watch in silence as Joel cleans, his pointed wandering around the kitchen, a purpose behind his steps as he moves. He’s so…broad. So large.

Much larger than any man you’ve come to know, or seen, really. You blame it on the fact that college boys were just that…boys. They weren’t men. Not like Joel.

He carried it in his voice, his demeanor, the age on his face that worked—and so well, at that. You never had a reason to look at men, older men. The type that would complain about you being half their age, how you reminded them of their own daughter. You would wretch away in disgust and flee a million miles in the other direction. 

But, Joel. He wasn’t like that at all. He hadn’t given you a reason to think otherwise—and here you were, lusting over someone you knew nothing about. Pathetic.

“Starin’ ain’t polite,” He chides, no malice in his tone but it pulls you away from your quickly fleeting, depraved thoughts, “parents never teach you that?”

“I never listened much,” You shrug, but there’s an urge to apologize given the close quarters and conditions you were agreeing to live under for the next few weeks, “and it’s a bad habit, sorry.” It feels a little less than sincere, but Joel takes it with no issue. 

But, there’s a sight you don’t catch as you retreat back to your own room.

Because Joel—his eyes follow you the entire way, wondering just how much of a mess he wrapped himself up in when he agreed.

—

Your eyes dry up with how long you’ve stared at your phone screen, staring at the small letters that spell out No Service and huffing out a small sigh as you rolled over in bed, shifted to find a comfortable spot…nothing.

You shift again, still not good enough.

This was going to be a nightmare if you secluded yourself in the bedroom, cooped up on a bed that, while decent, wasn’t your own.

Maybe booking this trip was a terrible idea.

You shouldn’t have lied to your parents about your reasoning for a spur of the moment trip to the deep woods of Texas—even though you had booked it out weeks in advance. 

And that you were taking the trip with a boy that didn’t exist, which was a bigger lie to add to the already rapidly growing web you’d weaved. 

“You don’t know him,” You’d told her, “I’m not ready to introduce him.”

Because, really—how the fuck were you supposed to introduce someone who didn’t exist?

You sit with a defeated jolt and reach for one of your bags, the only one filled with things that weren’t absolute necessities. Mostly books, a music player, stuff that would, hopefully, keep you busy if you got bored while you were here alone.

Alone was a foreign concept now. 

Somewhere in the fog of thoughts you find a book, covered tattered from years of wear, years and years of rereads that never got old. 

You could make yourself disappear somewhere on the couch in the living room, but not stuffed into a corner in a bedroom when you had an entire house at your expense.

Joel wouldn’t even know you were there.

—

Joel wasn’t even here.

When you step out into the hall, floorboards creaking underneath your weight, the silence otherwise is deafening. You traverse further, his bedroom door shut tight.

Well, maybe he had the same idea you originally did, tucking yourself away into your room. You shrug to yourself and continue the path to the couch, noting that Joel had started another fire. The cabin was well-insulated but it was a nice touch, the soft crackling of the burning wood and kindling, the feel—it was very…appropriate.

You settle into the cushion and finally feel that little slice of comfort you were searching for, feet curled up somewhere beside you with a blanket draped over your lap, book flipped open to the beginning. 

This felt perfect. Or close to it. You tried to ignore the fact that you weren’t alone, not at all. But, it was damn near close. 

And the peace lasts, for an hour, that is. 

Turns out, Joel did leave.

To where? No clue. But, he comes in with snow covered boots and a heavy winter coat, cheeks flushed pink and the ghost of his breath appearing in front of him as he stomps his feet out on the doormat. He closes the door before you can offer a protest his way, removing his winter gear layer by layer…

You force your eyes away, rereading the paragraph you were on a few times before you find your place again and continue through the story, face buried in the book as you raise it slightly, left arm slung over the back of the couch as you lick the index finger on your right hand, flipping the page. 

Ignore him. It was easy.

But somewhere along the way, Joel appears closer.

“Lord of the Flies?” He looks bemused, puzzled, shocked. Like an expression of—Really? You?

You return the look, even stranger as you tilt the book away from him, noticing the way his hand grips his winter gloves in a tight grasp, eyes shooting up to his face.

“Yeah.” It’s a simple answer, nothing to elaborate about.

He could read—fucking fantastic. 

His eyebrows raise in disbelief, but it doesn’t feel antagonizing. “Remember readin’ that when I was young,” He comments, “still holds up?”

“I’d say so,” You respond, offering him the attention he wasn’t inadvertently asking for, “why?”

Joel seems so…lonely. From a glance, at least. He’s got a sadness around his eyes that you never noticed until he had approached you so closely. He was only a few inches away from the back of the couch, just out of reach, and he sways a little on his feet like he favors one leg over the other and he hangs his head ever so slightly.

You weren’t here to question him or even attempt to know him, really—but you can’t help it. 

“Just curious,” He settles on, “can’t remember the last time I sat down and read a book, really. Don’t think I’d have the patience for it now either, but y’know…”

You didn’t.

He looks like he wants to say more, but he settles for silence. And, it doesn’t feel weird this time. He retreats a moment later, footsteps echoing throughout the cabin before the question comes to mind, retching itself out of your mouth before you have the consciousness to stop it.

“Wait, how old are you?” You ask curiously, attempting the math on your fingers, back and forth, eyes squinting in confusion as the book falls over your lap and your turn to catch a final glimpse of him.

“Kid, you’re gonna hurt yourself thinkin’ that hard.” Joel jokes lightly, something you haven’t seen before, but then he answers simply, “Fifty-six.”

Oh. Huh.

You nod slowly in response before turning away, burying your head back into the book in an attempt to avoid whatever look comes your way. The click of a door is a sigh of relief as you stop reading entirely, resting the book against your lap as you take a moment.

The snow was falling heavily, blanketing the ground with inches of fluffy white. It beckons the question of why Joel would even traverse out in this weather—or why he would’ve subjected you to this had he forced you back into town and back in a car to the city. 

He must’ve liked his loneliness too and here you were, wrecking those plans like he had wrecked yours. 

But, maybe this was a good thing. 

Maybe you had saved Joel from his own loneliness, unknowingly.

And maybe he had saved you too. 

—

As the night winds down, separate dinners aside after Joel allowed you free pickings of whatever was in the kitchen that he brought along with him, you find that the bottle of wine still remained unopened, the note addressed to no one in particular. 

Not you or Joel. It was fair game and you’d won. 

By now, the sun is long gone and the only light that came through the windows were the twinkling bright lights that hung outside and the flush, orange glow of the never waning fire, like a constant reminder of Joel’s presence in the house. He refreshed it every few hours and you watched as he did so, hunched over as he knelt, sleeves bunched up around his elbows and sometimes shifting completely onto his knees as he replaced the logs or waded up some extra paper to toss in. 

You eye the bottle curiously—it was nothing special. A store bought Chardonnay that tasted good enough to enjoy, but it wasn’t something to brag about. If it could get you drunk, it was worth a million bucks. 

You rummage around the kitchen until you find an appropriate glass—something wide, deep, and refillable. The tip of the bottle clinks against the glass as you pour, teeth biting as the inside of your cheeks as you decide that…mmm, no, just a little more.

“Bottle ain’t runnin’ from ya.” Joel comments, again to your surprise and it makes you jump, hard. Hard enough that a splash of spirits dampens the front of your shirt and you scowl in the older man’s direction.

“Stop doing that,” You're more than serious, deadly serious. At least, you try to be. 

Unfortunately, you’re not at all as threatening as you think you appear to be. And Joel has a glass dangling from his own fingertips, only a sip left of dark brown liquid and you surmise that he had the same idea. A nightcap before bed.

Or, in your case, half a bottle of Chardonnay. 

Joel deposits the glass into the sink silently, ignoring how you aggressively dab the front of your shirt with a hand towel to soak up some of the alcohol, like it wasn’t his fault. Inadvertently. 

“Are you always that jumpy?” Joel asks after a minute or so, lingering around the edge of the island, tired eyes and even more tired pull of his lips, not quite a smile, not much of a scowl either. 

“Forgive me for being a little on edge,” You retort with a sass that, quite frankly, is unwarranted. But, you’re feeling snarky and the moment calls for it, “I’m rooming with a strange man who greeted me with an axe.”

“If I recall, you pointed a knife at me all the same,” Valid point, pointless argument to make against you, though. “And weren’t you the one who put your foot down about stayin’ here?”

Yes, you did.

There’s too long of a silence because, really, you aren’t sure how to cut the tension—and maybe it was one-sided, but you couldn’t help but still retain some anger, some jealousy that you weren’t here alone.

“Alright, so maybe we can’t ignore each other like you want,” Joel explains, in reality it does seem impossible, but you had been hopeful, “doesn’t mean you have to scamper like a cat when you see me.”

Your bottom lip pulls in between your teeth before you’re pressing the glass to your lips and taking a hearty sip, steadfast in your silence.

Joel face contorts in thought, like he’s trying to think out his next few words careful, rubbing a hand through his scruff, speckled with patches of gray throughout, a particular spot just below his ear that his thumb reaches, just at the hinge of his jaw and he rubs.

And, you’re staring again. 

Joel doesn’t say anything this time if he does clock it.

“I came out here same as you, enjoyin’ my time alone.” Joel explains, feeling the deep timbre of his voice as he speaks, “I don’t have any intention of tryin’ to hurt you, nothin’ like that. Let’s just…be cordial.”

Even if that meant faking it.

Though, there’s a sincerity to Joel when he speaks that strikes, not often found with the people you’ve met in your life. And you know why you’re being so bitter, so abrasive and biting, but that resolves softens slightly,

Maybe it was the Chardonnay. 

When had you finished off the glass? 

“Cordial?” You repeat, echoing the sentiment.

“Yeah,” Joel nods, trying to offer up a different definition, “Friendly, polite.”

It’s clear that even despite his aura of loneliness, he seemed to deal with strangers often. You were a stranger to him. It wasn’t the first thing that struck you, so worried about your own safety that you had snuck into his idea of his own territory, now that territory was being shared. 

“No, I know what cordial means,” You reply flippantly, a little jaded by the gesture that he felt he needed to explain, “—I just, I was gonna offer you a drink then.”

Even though he very obviously already had his fill of what you can only surmise was bourbon, noting a bottle shoved away on a nearby alcohol designated shelf.

“A gesture,” You lay the sweetness on thick and Joel rolls his eyes half-heartedly, seeing right through you, “of—good faith, I guess. We can forget we were ready to murder each other last night and start fresh.”

“Darlin’, m’not much of a wine man.” 

Darlin’. That was new. 

You start to realize that when the sun goes down, his regional accent thickens up, forced out by exhaustion but it’s nice, comforting almost. It reminds you of back home, despite your lack of enthusiasm of being around your family, it gives you the hope that maybe you and Joel aren’t all that different from each other.

“Then, just sit.” You shrug, nodding toward the small table for two squished in the corner of the alcove, right beside a cushioned seat buried in the shape of the hexagonal wall, window view as far as your eyes could reach, distance buried in a thick bush of trees but if you squint hard enough, you can see another cabin off in the distance. The cabin you should’ve booked, but couldn’t. 

Maybe this was your own personal reckoning.

Much to your surprise, Joel does take a seat.

When you’re both finally seated, comfortable, you ask the first question:

“Where are you from?” You ask curiously.

Forward, that’s for sure. Joel could respect it, but still has a reaction to remain taken aback.

“Come on, you can lie and I wouldn’t know any better,” You remind him, “fine, I’m from Austin, born and raised.”

Joel’s chin hits his sternum as he chuckles, looking away briefly off into the distance and you laugh a little in response, confused.

“What? Is that funny or something?” 

“No, no—I’m…I’m also from Austin,” He admits, the likelihood not impossible but it is surely a fucking coincidence, “lived there my whole life.”

Well, maybe you’ve crossed paths before, but Austin was a big city and it seemed unlikely.

Your eyes narrow, attempting to read him. It’s more of a gag at your expense, watching as he looks just as skeptical of you, brown eyes examining your face as intently as he could. You have to ignore the feeling to shrink under his gaze, intense and all-encompassing, it feels suffocating, but not in a way that makes you want to escape. 

It wasn’t like that at all. In fact, it was welcoming. Like a safety blanket. He blinks once, twice, speaks when things grow awkward—

“I’m not…lyin’,” Joel admits, “that isn’t a lie.”

“You’re not supposed to tell me, Joel.”

Joel cracks a half-smile, wrestling with the aching joints in his hands as he squeezes his hands together, hands that have been through things, surely: hard work, years of labor, covered with small scars from burns and scrapes, you can only assume. 

“The whole idea is that…we don’t know each other. We aren’t going to see each other after this,” You tell him, curled up in the chair, wine glass resting on your knee and a fist nudged up under your chin, “you could tell me your deepest, darkest secrets and it wouldn’t matter because I’m not supposed to know if you’re lying or not.”

“So, if I ask you what someone like you is doin’ out here during the holidays instead of where you should be—with family or kids your age, what’ll you tell me?” Joel asks curiously, taking the bait and returning it with a challenge. 

You have no reason to tell the truth. But, you also don’t have a reason to lie.

“My family is suffocating.” You shrug indifferently, “They helicopter my life and I didn’t want to face it this Christmas, so I fed them some story and booked a trip out here for the month.”

His eyes soften and you have to hide your reaction behind a sip of your wine, knowing that any sympathy sent your way was not welcomed. You didn’t want it or need it.

“Am I allowed to ask about the story?” Joel questions.

It’s almost surprising, seeing him suddenly interested in your game.

You giggle quietly to yourself, lips pressed against the wine glass before you pull it away briefly.

“They think I’m out here with a super secret boyfriend that I refuse to introduce to them.”

He can see how cheeky you’re being about the whole thing, seemingly relishing in the enjoyment of torturing your parents. You’ve got your eyes on him too, staring at him again. He’s noticed it one too many times. 

Dangerous. It’s dangerous. Again, he doesn’t stop you.

His breathing is calm, solid—he’s settled in his seat and relaxed, something you haven’t had the chance to witness. Joel is so…normal. It reminds you that in any other circumstance, if you had met him at a store or somewhere in town, that you wouldn’t spare him a second glance. He’s handsome, sickeningly so. But, you would’ve passed him up without a thought. He would’ve done the same. 

For…different reasons, perhaps. 

But, these were special circumstances. 

You note how his hair is probably a little outgrown, curling around his ears and a deep, deep brown. Almost black but not quite. He doesn’t seem like a guy who styles his hair, allows it to lay how it pleases and doesn’t fuss much over his looks. But, the longer you look, the more mesmerizing he becomes. There’s a tan line on his wrist from what you can only assume is a watch, but he isn’t wearing it now—he must work in the sun, noting the way he’s sunkissed on just about every other part of his exposed body, up to the beginnings of scruff that starts below his chin, near his neck. His toned arms that could definitely swing an axe without a problem. You don’t linger on his legs for even a second, knowing that even for you it would be too far. But, he crosses them at the thought, like a cue—or a tease. Was he….

No. 

You continue idly, trying to mask yourself like you were lost in thought, tracing a finger around the lip of the wine glass, “If they knew the truth, they’d shit themselves all the same.”

Joel chuckles softly, a low grumble that is barely audible.

“Spendin’ your Christmas with an old man, half your age. I’m sure that’ll comfort ‘em well.”

He never asked, only assumed. But, basing it off your evident naivety, he couldn’t be far off.

“Eh..give or take a couple years.” You shrug, resting the glass on the table and crossing your arms. “They’ve always treated me like a kid, always questioning my decisions. I just wanted one holiday without it. Without…anything, really.”

Joel looks away, like the thought of that stings him, burrows at him in a different way. You want to ask, but refrain, no matter how strong the urge.

“Sorry ‘bout that, darlin’.”

And there it was again. 

You can’t fight the small smile that works its way onto your face despite yourself.

Joel doesn’t understand, looking at you inquisitively, something he’s become used to around you in the short time he’s been here, “What?”

“Darlin’.” You mock his southern draw playfully, echoing his deep voice despite your differing pitches, “Reminds me of home.”

“Jus’ slips out from time to time,” Joel admits, “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” You assure him with a more welcoming smile, “I don’t mind.”

Joel shakes his head in tired amusement, rubbing his fingertips against the worry lines in his forehead before they shift down his face and you can see the exhaustion in his face. He doesn’t look well-rested at all, not even on a vacation meant for that exact reason. You feel guilty now, keeping him up into the late hours of the night for your own entertainment. He looks away again, off toward something that your eyes don’t follow. 

You moved rather silently as you stood, picking up your mess and stowing the bottle away in the fridge returning to bid a goodnight to Joel, who was no longer much of a stranger anymore. But, he’s already asleep—somewhere between the time it took you to clean up and put away the alcohol, he had passed out. 

He’d stayed up for you, noting how soundlessly he slept now. 

You don’t have the heart to wake him up, quickly assess your surroundings and find the thick hand-woven blanket resting over the back of the couch and pick it up, draping it over him carefully. He doesn’t shift an inch, cheek resting against a close fist, the other hand closed just as tight where it rests in his lap, seeming like he was always on guard, even in his sleep. You’ve never been more intrigued by a stranger, even if this was fleeting and foolish, you wanted to understand him. And as much as Joel was trying to fight it, he wanted to understand you too.

Thank you for reading this to the end! If you enjoyed please extend a like or reblog (with a comment if you'd like, i love reading them <3) to support writers, it helps a ton!

[angrycollectivecollectorr]

autumn air | joel miller x f!reader

a your summer dream one shot

your summer dream masterlist | main masterlist | ao3 | follow @swiftispunkupdates and turn on notifications for updates

The heat of autumn is different from the heat of summer. One ripens apples, the other turns them to cider.

– Jane Hirshfield, The Heat of Autumn

pairing: joel miller x f!reader rating: 18+ word count: 10.4k series warnings etc: [NO OUTBREAK] we'll call him dad's buddy!joel, fairly soft!joel, age difference (28/50), angst, smut (will specify with each chapter), fluff, alcohol, food, secret relationship until it's not. series summary: after falling head over heels for your dad's buddy on vacation, it's now time to navigate the real world together. or, a year in the life with joel miller. chapter summary: it's been a month since you returned home from costa rica and you and joel have fallen into a blissful routine. when a rude awakening threatens to disrupt that peace, together you must make a decision...or two. chapter warnings: smut, unprotected p in v sex, discussions of somnophilia, BONDAGE-ish, oral (m receiving), exhibitionism, some body/cock worship, joel miller's filthy mouth, anal play, cum play, shitty landlords and shittier roommates, being allergic to cats, feelings, almost getting caught (again), fluff, angst in the mildest sense, one little pov swap. no use of y/n.

A/N: well hello. sorry this took about a hundred years. welcome to our first glimpse of life post-vacation. this turned out to be a lot more set-up than i anticipated, so please be patient as there is lots more still to come and to happen. BUT WE GOTTA START SOMEWHERE, OK?

a forever thank you to @joelscruff pretty much just for existing at this point but also for beta'ing this bad boy

It had taken just over a month for your weekends to become this. 

Lazy, dreamlike collages of playing house with Joel Miller. Learning to love black coffee and the slow, patient pace of suburbia, a stark but welcome contrast to the ceaseless stress of work and the incessant, gnawing rift that's been developing between you and your roommates.

Here, curled up on his couch or busying yourself in his kitchen, it's easy to forget. To savour the private hours you share here in his home, listening to him noodle absently on his guitar or talk your ear off about his brother's new baby. To pretend this all isn't some colossal, breakable secret. 

Summer slips away and you're still living inside a snow globe. What was once a cozy hotel room now replaced by an aging Craftsman on a cul-de-sac. A new private oasis, one that feels infinitely more real. 

Even if you are the only two people still privy to it all.

Well, three people. 

More than anything though, your weekends have become this. Joel's broad body over yours, forehead and chest dampened with sweat, glowing in the orange-pink haze of a sunset. 

His thick fingers wrap around your wrists where they're pinned against his mattress, granting a wish you'd voiced as he'd laid you down and kissed you, deep and slow. 

I think it'd be so sexy if you tied me up, you'd told him and his eyes had burned with hungry fascination, fiery at your willingness.

You don't know what it is about Joel, but you just want to try everything with him. And he is equally as willing to provide

Let's try it like this first, he'd suggested, gripping your arms and manoeuvring them beside your head, squeezing with just the right amount of pressure, just the right amount of intent to lock you firmly in place beneath him. Your cunt had throbbed and your mind had gone fuzzy but Joel had still leaned in to whisper, You tell me if you like that and–Christ, you do, you really fucking do.

So you tell him. You tell him again and again and again. Every time he asks you, implores you, orders you to tell him how good he makes you feel and how wet you are for him, how desperate you are to touch him even though you love that he won't let you.

He's asking again now, you think, but it's getting too hard to answer. He's drawing it out, the roll of his hips into yours agonizingly slow, the drag of his thick cock moving in and out nearly too much to take after he's already made you come twice.

He likes it this way, you've come to learn, now that you're home and free from prying eyes, safe to take your time and truly relish in each other's bodies. And for how torturous it can feel–like right now, sticky-wet and limp below him–he knows you love it too. 

"Fuck–listen," he commands you softly.

You whimper, straining your ears through a thick fog of pleasure to obey him. His brows are knitted together in concentration, plush lips parted as he glances between your bodies, encouraging you to follow his gaze to the place where you're connected, where his cock is still impaling you, glistening wet with your last release. You both watch as he pulls out before lazily pushing back in, a wet squelch filling the room as your drenched walls swallow every inch of him.

"So fucking wet for me. Always are, huh?"

He groans, catching your quiet sob as he dives forward to kiss you, licking into your open mouth with the same indulgent, unhurried pace that he's fucking you.

"You love takin' this cock," he says, dragging his lips downward along your neck, over the seashell that hangs there, nipping affectionately at the skin above your breasts before taking one pebbled nipple into his mouth. You moan, so sensitive, your body betraying you as you writhe against the sheets and his hands loop tighter around your wrists in response.

"I know, baby, I know," Joel murmurs, and you think you can hear the control wavering there in his voice, just a bit, as he moves to suckle at your other nipple, flicking the bud of it under his tongue just to hear you cry out again. You feel his smirk against your skin. "Bein' so good. So good."

You're drenched, soaked between your legs and around his length, sweat stuck to every crevice so you feel almost humid, dizzy and faraway and so fucking full. 

And then Joel's lips are at your ear again, hot breath condensing on the skin there too and the air feels altogether too thick. Too foggy. 

"I just wanna feel you come one more time," he whispers.

You're shaking your head before the words can even leave his mouth.

"Can't…Joel, I can't," you croak.

"You can," he assures you. "Did it last week, remember?"

You whimper and nod–he's right. With much coaxing and patience and Joel's unwavering attentiveness, he'd drawn three orgasms from you, something you'd once thought impossible. But then again, you weren't sure you could come at all by a man's hand before you'd met him.

"What do you need? Let me get you there," he pleads, teeth coming down on your earlobe and sending an involuntary shiver down your spine. 

His mouth is on yours before you can answer, kissing you until your lips are numb beneath the scratch of his moustache and your will to deny him steadily wanes. 

"Tell me," he says against your lips and your heart flutters as the hands around your wrists move, Joel interlocking his fingers with yours instead. A different kind of warmth spreads through you at that, a new form of ecstasy, one laced with devotion and tenderness for this man who takes such expert care of you, always. 

"Need it…harder," you manage as tears prick at the corners of your eyes. "Fuck me harder, Joel. Please."

"Yeah?" he grits out, thrusting into you with more force on his next stroke and pushing the air from your lungs. "That what my girl needs?"

You whine and it sounds like yes, so he does it again, just once–another quick, hard push into your spent pussy that has you gasping and keening. 

"Let me hear you say it, sweetheart."

You groan, search for the words, knowing he likes this too, for you to be just as vocal as he is. To hear in your sounds and your cries and your wanton pleas how much you want him.

"Yes, yes, yes," you tell him in a rush, already feeling some tangled swell of something curl in your lower belly. "Just–just like that. Please. More."

"One more time," he grins with another deliberate rock of his hips. Fucking bastard.

"Please," you beg, fingernails digging into the backs of his hands when you squeeze down into his grasp.

"Fuck–yeah," Joel growls, taking you by surprise when he suddenly collects your hands above your head, freeing his own to tug you further down the bed and fold your legs into your chest. He crashes forward, big hands finding your wrists again and keeping them pinned where they are as he begins to fuck you with new vigour. The new angle hits somewhere deeper, each rough thrust of his cock into you nudging at that spot inside you that makes your vision blur and your mind go blank, the tangle of pleasure building in your core already threatening to unravel.

"Shit," Joel curses above you, refocusing your attention on his face, his expression almost pained as his chest heaves above you. He's trying to hang on, you realize. For you.

You moan as you lock eyes with him and you wish you could touch his face or run your fingers through his messy curls but you like this just as much, maybe even more. The unrelenting grip of his hands around your wrists, held high above your head so your body is spread long and open for him to use. You don't think you've ever trusted anyone like this before. That you've ever felt this safe and cared for.

"Come on, baby, come on," Joel's chanting as he pounds into you, his low drawl cutting through the noise of whatever lewd sounds are spilling from your throat. "Fuckin' come for me. Just one more. Yeah? God, you're so fuckin' good. This pussy's so fuckin' good."

"I wanna come, Joel–I wanna come," you whine.

Joel groans raggedly as a tear drips from the corner of your eye and pools into your ear. His fingers remain firmly curled around your wrists as he falls forward onto his elbows and then his mouth is at your ear too, breath warm and voice deep.

"Yeah?" he hums. "Show me. Show me how you come for me. Show me how much you fuckin' love this cock. How much you love gettin' fucked like this."

A broken squeak catches somewhere in your throat as your mouth falls open, Joel's cock mercilessly hitting right where you need it with each stroke and you can feel it now, as the swell begins to crest and his words echo through you, your arms still trapped under his grasp, rendering your powerless in the very best way–you're going to come again.

You cry his name and Joel only fucks you harder, determined in his efforts as you begin to tense beneath him and a fire ignites in your belly. It's a gradual build this time, clawing and bubbling till it finally erupts in a burst of blinding white warmth, Joel's voice carrying you through the haze of release. 

"Yeah–good girl, that's it, honey, there you fuckin' go," he rambles as you fall apart, walls constricting around his length as wetness pools down his balls and Joel just keeps fucking you. "Fuckin'...shit, baby–fuck, m'gonna come. Where do you want it?"

Still lost in a syrupy daze, you say without thinking, "Mouth–my mouth. Joel, wanna taste you."

"Oh, fuck–"

But it breaks him, that request–those words in your shattered, weary voice, teary stare locked with his–and all too soon his muscles go rigid, cock spasming deep inside you as his climax hits him before he can grant your wish. 

"Shit, shit, shit," he curses as he pumps you full of his seed, his face a mess of pleasure and shame at his unceremonious orgasm, brows furrowed almost apologetically as he rides it out. His fingers loosen around your wrists and his forehead collides with yours, his form quacking above you as the last of the aftershocks pass over him and your lips crane up to meet his in a sleepy, breathless kiss. 

"Fuck, m'sorry," he sighs, shaking his head as it falls to land in the mess of sheets beside your face. 

"Shh, it's okay," you assure him. And it is okay. You just wish you were touching him. "Let me go, babe."

"Oh, fuck, sorry, honey, sorry."

Joel hurriedly releases your wrists, simultaneously pulling out of your wasted cunt and curling into your side. You turn to face him, wrapping your arms around his neck and twisting your fingers into his hair like coming home. You hadn't realized until now how much you'd missed having your hands on him. 

He's still catching his breath, gaze foggy as he cups the side of your face and tenderly strokes a calloused thumb across your cheekbone. 

"You okay?" he asks, eyes searching. 

"Mhm," you grin. "I was hoping for a taste, but I guess I'll survive."

Joel smirks, but it's a bashful little thing, and you know him well enough by now to know the pink in his cheeks is only partly due to exertion. He's embarrassed.

But hell, if he's not going to make it up to you.

You watch his face carefully as he begins to trace a line down your body with his fingers, taking his time as he draws them over the gentle curve of your hip to the sweat-laced hinge of your knee. He kisses you, slow and soft as he coaxes your legs apart, sighs into your mouth when his hand moves to the apex of your thighs. His tongue plunges between your lips at the same time his fingers sink between the wet seam of your folds, so gentle. Even so, it makes you whimper into his kiss, shudder as he dips the tips of his fingers to your sensitive entrance and coats them in the spend steadily leaking out of you. You moan softly when his tongue in your mouth is replaced by those fingers, close your lips around them instinctively and suck lightly at the welcome taste of your combined releases, salty-sweet and warm while Joel moves to press wet kisses into your cheek.

"Thanks," you whisper dreamily as Joel withdraws his fingers, trailing them over your chin before settling his hand on your waist and pulling you into his chest. 

"Dirty girl," he hums, hushed and underscored by a sleepy laugh, his eyes already slipping shut above you.

"Mhm."

You feel the comforting touch of his lips against the top of your head and then he's rolling onto his back beside you, looping an arm under your neck and encouraging you to take your rightful place against his side.

But while Joel is already drifting off, you feel strangely giddy, electric and enrapt as you gawk at the rise and fall of his broad chest, the lax set of his features, his thick lashes casting shadows over his cheeks. It's darker now, the sun faded beyond the horizon outside his window–still far too early for sleep but time, you've found, doesn't mean much when you're wasting away your weekends at Joel's. Inside these hours, you cling to the memory of a Costa Rican resort; eat when you're hungry, sleep when you're tired, fuck when it feels good and mourn when it ends. Slog through the week until you're back in his arms and free to do it all again.

You know this feeling. This beautiful, tangible, dangerous feeling. You haven't voiced it yet, and neither has he. But you know.

You sigh and steer your thoughts elsewhere.

"I really do love this cock, you know that?" you muse, brushing your fingers featherlight along its veined underside, the heft of it lying soft and heavy against his belly. 

He huffs a quiet chuckle, peeking down at you with one eye open while your fingers continue to trace absent patterns over velvet smooth skin, still faintly sticky with you. 

"Yeah?" he smirks. 

"Yeah," you nod, unable to stop yourself from ducking down to softly kiss the tip, letting your lips linger when you hear Joel sigh.

"S'yours whenever you want it, sweetheart."

You flash your gaze upwards but his eyes have slipped closed again, one thick arm slung over his forehead. 

"Whenever I want it?" you press him.

Now his eyes open, his brows coming together as he takes in the mischievous glint in your eyes and your lips hovering just above his softened cock. 

"Uh–maybe not right now."

"No, no, of course," you smile. "But maybe I…wake you up with my mouth some time?"

At that, Joel's eyes widen and then he chuckles somewhat disbelievingly, shaking his head above you, eyelids slipping closed again.

"Sure, baby," he grumbles. "You wanna suck an old man's cock in his sleep? I won't kick ya outta bed."

"Oh, fuck off," you laugh, lightly smacking his arm before settling back in to the space you've carved out for yourself against his shoulder.

Joel shifts before you can get comfortable though, groaning a little as he rolls over to face you. His eyes are open again and he's grinning, leaning in close to brush his lips over yours.

"Maybe I return the favour some time," he whispers. "Get you all nice and wet while you're sleepin' so I can wake you up and slip right inside that sweet little cunt of yours."

"Fuck," you shiver, unconsciously pushing your hips into his at the thought. Leave it to Joel and his fucking mouth to make you already want him again. "I–you wouldn't even need to wake me up, Joel. You could just take me in my sleep."

That seems to catch him off guard.

"Jesus," he marvels, pulling back to search your face. He's not grinning anymore. "Fuck, that's–you'd let me do that?"

"Anything, Joel," you vow as you loop your arms around his neck and clutch tightly at the curls at the back of his skull. "Anything."

You close the space between your mouths and kiss him deeply, mould your lips to his with all the words still left unsaid till you're breathless and impatient with it, unconsciously pressing your chest into his and sucking hungrily at his plush bottom lip. There's no real intent behind any of it, just a need to be close, to consume. 

"Goddamn," Joel moans when you break away to kiss along the greying scruff at his jawline. "You're somethin' else."

"I know," you murmur against his skin. 

"Christ, baby, I-I don't think I got another round in me tonight," he admits almost sheepishly, but you don't mind. This is enough. 

"Shh," you tell him, traversing your lips lower to explore the column of his neck, tasting the even pound of his pulse below your tongue. A reminder that he's here with you, alive and well. And how that knowledge makes you sick with warmth, a twist in your guts that almost hurts, like a preemptive pain at the thought of losing this, losing him.

Oh, god. You know this feeling. 

"Go to sleep," you breathe, before you say something else. "It's okay. It's okay."

-

As it turns out, you don't get the chance to wake Joel up with your mouth, because the next morning, he's up before you, the smell of brewing coffee luring you towards consciousness. The stand fan beside his bed blows cool air over your face and shoulders as your eyes adjust to yellow sunlight and your body aches and creaks with the reminder of last night. The sound of heavy footsteps in the hallway saves you from starting to miss him.

You can't bring yourself to lift your head up off the pillow, even as he places a steaming mug on the nightstand beside you and sits on the edge of the bed.

"Hey," he murmurs, gently shaking you to life with a hand on your hip over the covers. "You awake?"

You peek up at him, smiling blearily through the sleep in your eyes. Clad only in a pair of grey sweats, his belly–with its now fading tan–is on full display, curls messy atop his head. He's so handsome in the morning, all puffy-eyed and soft. 

"Yeah, but I don't wanna get up.''

Joel smiles back, just a fleeting thing before it fades and his brows knit together. You frown in turn as his gaze drops to the hand he has on your side and his thumb strokes nervous circles into your skin. 

"Was thinkin' we could go for a drive or somethin' today."

His voice is low, almost pensive, too sad for such a simple request. But you get it, know all too well where it stems from.

Because drives out of town are all you have beyond the safety of his home, the safest way to keep this thing a secret. Sunday after Sunday of Joel bailing on your father's invitations to go golfing, while guilt slowly eats away at him.

And it hurts Joel, you know it does. Truthfully, it hurts you too. But it's better this way, at least for now. You're still not even sure what you two are doing together, and you're not sure Joel does either. All you know is this feeling, this ache in your bones and this swell in your chest, that sense of fragility you always feel when you're with him. You're not ready to let anyone shatter it. Not yet.

You sigh, sit up a little straighter and place your hand over his on your hip until he finally meets your eyes. 

"Where?" you ask. 

"I don't know…nowhere," he shrugs, lips twitching ever so. "Lockhart, maybe, f'you want."

You squeeze his fingers playfully just to watch his smile widen–and it works.

"You craving barbeque, cowboy?" you tease and his eyes sparkle with positively endearing excitement.

"Chisholm Trail?" he suggests.

You scoff. 

"Fucking–yeah, right. Kreuz all the way."

Joel laughs, throaty and genuine in a way that makes your heart swell–even if his taste in barbeque is… questionable at best. 

"So s'that a yes?" he presses.

As if there were ever any doubt. 

"Yeah, okay. But I have to stop in and feed Henry."

He grimaces and you smirk sympathetically. You'd be offended by his obvious distaste for your cat if you hadn't come to discover a fact about him that hadn't mattered much at all until you'd got home; Joel is allergic. 

"I'll wait in the truck," he grumbles. 

-

You make yourself at home in his kitchen, topping up your coffee and leaning against the countertop while Joel showers upstairs. Staring out his kitchen window to the quiet street outside, you sip your coffee and think about how much you like it here. How comfortable you've become in his home. How much it feels like his and how lucky you are to know him here.

Cluttered and almost haphazardly decorated, Joel's house feels like somewhere truly lived in, the art and photos that line the walls borne out of memories more so than aesthetics, a mess of disorganized posters from music festivals and surely inherited paintings. 

Mostly there are photos of her, his daughter Sarah at various stages of her life. Family photos of her as a child, tucked under the arm of Joel or his brother you've still yet to meet. Polaroids of her with friends as a teenager, framed graduation photos from high school and college, action shots from countless varsity soccer games. 

One custom magnet stuck to his fridge still gives you pause, pink and flouncy and faded with time. Sarah's name, ornately printed over her exact birth date and time, a constant reminder of a truth you'd rather not think too hard about. 

It had made your heart sink the first time you'd seen it, when you'd come face to face with the unfortunate realization that Sarah is one year older than you. 

You try not to look at it too much, if you can help it. 

Of course, Sarah herself is unavoidable, since Joel had already shared with her what you're still too scared to share with anyone.

Sarah, the third and only other person to know about you and Joel. You hadn't even been mad that he'd let her in on it; if anything, you'd been envious of their trust in one another, how Joel had waited less than a day after coming home to tell her about you. 

To your surprise–and maybe also his–she'd taken it…fine. Apparently, just content to see her father happy even if she'd been somewhat taken aback by his choices. You have to admire her maturity; you're not sure how you would have reacted if you'd been in her shoes.

Sarah's acceptance had crossed one gigantic, cataclysmic fear from your long list of gigantic, cataclysmic fears.

Still, your heart nearly leaps out of your chest when you hear the front door opening behind you and a familiar voice calling out as footsteps round the corner into the kitchen. 

"Dad?" Sarah's voice says. "Dad–oh, hey."

She stops in her tracks and you straighten up from the counter, smoothing out your shirt–Joel's shirt–and offering her your best smile. 

"Oh–hi, Sarah."

She smiles back, polite if not a little unsure.

Because yes, Sarah's been altogether more accepting than she has any right to be. But that doesn't mean it's not still awkward as hell. 

"Is my dad here?" she asks.

"Uh, yeah, sorry, he's just–he's in the shower."

"Ah, okay, no worries. How's it going?"

"Good–yeah. Fine." You wrack your brain for any other details, ultimately coming up short and landing simply on, "Busy."

Sarah smiles knowingly.

"How's he?" She nods in the general direction of the stairs.

"He seems…"

You ponder it for a moment, think about Joel all giddy-eyed and soft as he'd brought you coffee in bed this morning. How every Friday since you got home, he's pulled up outside your apartment without fail, right on time to sweep you away to your own mini-version of paradise. How he does it all without pretension, just the same burning need to be together that's been plaguing you since vacation ended. 

You smile. Sigh a little more dreamily than the moment calls for.

"Great," you settle on at last.

Her responding smile is genuine, sweet and full of understanding. 

"Good," she says. "He seems it."

That softens you, that his contentment isn't just in your head, that she can see it too. Not that you have many doubts about his feelings for you–it's just nice to hear. 

"I'm just gonna grab something from upstairs," she announces then, and you make some non-committal sound, not quite go ahead–because this was her house long before it was yours–but a dismissal all the same. She flits out of the room and you take a long, steadying breath.

It gets a little more painless every time, but you expect it'll take a while to feel totally at ease around her. You're certain you were once forced into play dates with the girl and now you're–

You shake your head to dislodge the thought, swallow down the rest of your coffee so fast your stomach burns with an acidic twinge. 

How the fuck does Joel drink this stuff like this? 

She's back before you can even finish washing your mug, calling your name over the sound of the faucet.

"I gotta run," she tells you. "You can let him know I stopped by. But don't tell him about this–" she winks and waves a photo at you that you can't quite make out, clearly the thing she'd stolen from upstairs, "–It's for his birthday."

She smirks slyly and you smile back, offering her a thumbs up. 

"Got it."

"Well, see ya."

"Bye, Sarah."

She skirts out the door and you let out a long breath.

Easier with time, easier with time, you remind yourself. Everything about this gets easier with time.

-

It's hard to imagine, sitting in the front seat of his truck, how there was ever a time you didn't think Joel Miller was beautiful. 

The weight of that truth had hit you like a ton of bricks that first night in Costa Rica, and it strikes you still now, in the way you stare openly at the sight of him with one hand on the wheel, the other curled casually around the nape of your neck. His legs are spread wide, dark denim stretched taut across his thighs, the sleeves of his light blue shirt rolled up to his elbows, brown eyes on the road before him. Windows rolled down so a warm, late-summer breeze plays in his salt-and-pepper curls and sunlight glows on his exposed skin.

Classic rock radio underscores the hum of the engine and you're both singing along to the sweet sounds of Creedence and there's that damned feeling again, gnawing and incessant, burning sharp around the edges of your heart. 

Sometimes you can't believe he's really yours. 

You sigh, a deeply longing thing as your eyes rake up and down his body. Joel catches it. 

"What's wrong?" he asks, tearing his eyes from the road to turn down the music and glance over at you curiously.

What's wrong is you're fucking insatiable; you want him again already, truly mournful you'd missed the chance to get your hands on him this morning before you'd hit the road. And in the quiet confines of his truck, the smell of Joel and leather all around, his competent fingers on the steering wheel and the hand on your neck that's starting to feel almost possessive…you practically ache at the thought of having to spend a day out and about when all you really want is to be back in his bed. 

"I was supposed to…" you shake your head, unsure of how to bring up your conversation from the night before. "Why'd you get up before me?"

Joel smirks, seeming to understand your train of thought.

"What?" he laughs, gently squeezing your neck. "You wanted to suck my cock that bad?"

You frown, putting on a show of petulance. 

"Yes," you grumble. 

Joel laughs, fiddling absently with the chain of your necklace, his fingers just barely brushing your skin. You can't help the way your eyes slip closed in response. 

"How do you know I didn't take you in your sleep?" he hums, his tone light, but still enough to make you shiver with the reminder of your words from last night. 

"Mm-mm," you reply, a little breathless as you lean back into his touch and shake your head from side to side. "I would know."

Joel chuckles. 

"Probably right," he concedes, letting you go to grip the wheel with both hands, much to your dismay, his eyes refocusing on the road. "Anyway, I don't think I'd be able to–"

He stops mid-sentence, contemplative and then momentarily distracted as he makes a left hand turn. You ogle his hands deftly moving on the steering wheel until Joel straightens out and clears his throat, at last glancing back in your direction. 

 "I'd need to wake you up," he finishes. 

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," he nods, reaching back across the seat to lay a hand on your thigh, just below the hem of your sundress. "Don't think I'd be able to come without hearin' all those pretty sounds you make–" he smirks and meets your gaze, his sweet brown eyes somehow doleful and smouldering all at once–"Without seein' your eyes."

The hand he has on your thigh moves to cup your chin, gently twisting your face in his direction. You bite your lip and make a show of batting your lashes at him. 

"These eyes?" you tease but Joel isn't smiling anymore. 

"Hm," he hums lowly, snaking his hand carefully back to its place behind your neck. Only this time, his grip is firm, commanding in the way it nudges you across the bench towards him. "Why don't you come over here and show me what you had planned?"

Your heartbeat stutters, arousal coursing through you in an instant, unabashedly giddy at the offer. Your mouth falls open unconsciously, as though your body can already feel the weight of him between your lips. Joel's eyes flit between your face and the road, gauging your reaction, sensing your hesitance when, in spite of how badly you want him, you find yourself peeking over your shoulder to the passing cars outside, the scattered pedestrians on the sidewalk. You're nearing downtown Austin, and the streets are far from quiet.

"They can't see," Joel assures you, easily redrawing your attention. "S'just you and me."

It steadies you, that resoluteness. Always does. You're already unfastening your seatbelt and twisting at the hip, leaning across the bench to plant a kiss behind his ear. 

"Let them look," you murmur. Joel chuckles darkly, the sound laced with something like pride. He's been rubbing off on you.

"Attagirl."

You bite down lightly on the hinge of his jaw before moving lower, making quick work of his belt buckle while Joel conveniently comes to a stop at what you can only assume is a red light. 

The lack of movement makes it easier to unbutton his jeans, to palm at his burgeoning bulge through the fabric of his boxers before yanking them out of the way too, at last freeing his semi-hard cock. 

You think you actually moan at the sight of it, salivating openly as you grip him at the base and slip his length between your lips.

"Oh, fuck–" Joel groans, one hand moving to gently cradle the back of your skull as his cock comes alive in your mouth. "Yeah, there you go…"

You preen at the response, stroking the length of him with your fist while your tongue dances around his tip until you feel him harden fully in your grasp and your jaw begins to strain around his girth. You moan around him when you taste salt, pulling off him to lap sweetly at his slit and collect the beading precum there. Joel's fingers tighten in your hair. 

"Shit, that's good, honey…" he sighs.

There's a jostling as he steps on the gas and then you're moving again, the precision of your tongue faltering as you bounce in his lap. You surrender to it, swallow him down once more and do your best to match the bob of your head with the bumps in the road. 

Of course it's more challenging than you could have anticipated, and you splutter around him when he comes to an unexpected stop, Joel quick to pull you off him with a hand in your hair. 

"Shh, hey, you okay?" he asks, voice strained but oozing concern. You just nod determinedly, already diving to take him back in your mouth, all the way down so your lips brush against the coarse hairs at his base and welcome tears prick at your eyes. 

"Fuck–" Joel grits when you begin to move again, up and down with focused intent, eager with it, greedy. "Jesus, wait."

You pull off him, glancing upwards to the edge of his window, fearful perhaps that you'd been caught. But Joel's hand on your head is already pushing you back down so your cheek brushes against the wet tip of his cock. 

"You're good–just…slow, baby," he tells you. Oops.

"Sorry," you laugh.

"Just love it that much, don't you?" he asks, stroking your hair.

"Shut up," you mumble, silencing his responding laugh when you brush your lips featherlight over his length. "But yes."

You show him as much, tilting your face and dragging your lips and cheeks along his shaft, all languid and adoring as you plant an open-mouthed kiss to the soft skin between his base and his balls. You peer up at him and your pussy throbs at the realization he's not even looking at you, eyes fixed on the road while his other hand moves downward along your spine before easing your skirt up over your waist. You sigh a breathy groan and lick a wet stripe up the underside of his cock as Joel slips his fingers below the waistband of your underwear. Then time seems to stop altogether as Joel glides his hand through the seam of your ass down to your neglected cunt.

Your breath hitches, arching at his touch, forgetting his cock for a moment as Joel dips two fingers into your slick heat with the same absent ease with which he'd been stroking your neck a moment ago. He curses under his breath when he feels how wet you are, steals your focus completely when he slowly begins to fuck his middle and ring fingers into you. You whimper as you pulse around his digits and it takes everything in you just to close your lips around his cock again, sucking him up and down, working to match the pace of his fingers moving in and out of you. 

"Yeah, baby," he praises you softly, dick twitching between your lips as his truck comes to yet another stop. It crosses your mind that at a red light, the risk of someone seeing you like this–Joel's fingers in your cunt, his cock taking up your mouth–increases tenfold. You're so far gone now that the thought only makes you wetter. 

Only then he retracts his fingers, making you gasp when he trails them, slick and dripping, to your other hole, coating the tight ring of muscle with your arousal.

"Shh," Joel coos when you falter with your movements, crying out at the welcome contact, your vision blurring when he carefully presses one thick, wet finger into your asshole. 

Fuck.

Together, you've discovered how truly crazy it makes you when he does this, whether he's slipping a thumb into that tight ring of muscle while he fucks your pussy or generously offering you his tongue there whenever he eats you out. He hasn't fucked you there yet–because you haven't asked–but each time he does this, it's like a beautiful reminder of how much you do want it, how much you're still aching to be so, so full of him, everywhere. 

Another time, he'd said, that last day in Costa Rica. You have every intention of holding him to that. 

"Don't stop," he growls because you've apparently lost the will to do anything but keen and whine at the feeling of his fingers inside you, his cock stiff and leaking in your grasp. You steady yourself with one hand against his thigh as Joel steps on the gas and you wrap your lips securely around him again. It's overwhelming–the bumps in the road now forcing his cock deeper down your throat and his finger deeper into your hole.

"Fuckin'–yes, good girl. Don't you stop, sweetheart."

You increase your pace then, near-frantic in the way you moan around him, bobbing up and down as you swirl your tongue hungrily around the head of his cock. Joel pushes his finger deeper, nearly to the knuckle, blinding you with pleasure as you cup his balls, all weighty and warm in your palm, feeling the moment they begin to tighten and Joel's face screws up above you. 

"Fuck, m'gonna–look at me," he orders hurriedly and you do, glassy gaze flashing up to meet his for just a fleeting moment before he's spilling down your throat with a ragged sigh, eyes flashing between yours and the road.

His hips jerk upwards as he empties himself, hot and salty over your tongue. You keep your cheeks hollowed around him, swallowing down everything he gives you with reverent willingness, your thoughts clouded by the image of his come filling your ass instead. It's almost impossible to think of anything else with his thick finger still impaling you there. 

"Fuck," Joel almost laughs it ends, sliding his finger free from the tight fist of your hole to lay an affectionate slap against your ass. His truck comes to a stop and you feel as though you've been pulled from a dream when he cuts the engine and a hand in your hair is pulling you off his length, encouraging you to sit up. You're on your street, you realize, already parked outside your apartment. Joel hastily tucks himself back into his jeans while you take in your surroundings, still buzzing with unrelieved tension. 

On your knees beside him, he finally turns to face you with a blissed-out gaze. You await his praise, certain it's coming, but instead, he places a hand below your chin, fingers coaxing at the hinge of your jaw. 

"Lemme see," he says expectantly.

You smile, parting your lips and presenting your clean tongue for him. Joel smirks. 

"Good girl."

You warm at those words–just like always–as he pulls you in for a kiss, long and deep, leaving you breathless when he ends it far too soon. 

The click of his truck doors unlocking breaks the spell.

"Go feed your damn cat."

You huff, exasperated and far from sated, hopping out of the truck and already teeming with anticipation over what awaits you when you return.

-

A grating voice greets you the second you walk through the door. 

"Hey! You're here."

You're not surprised to find it's Megan, the more overbearing of your two roommates, standing from her place on the couch in the living room. You are surprised to see Deena there, too, though, wringing her hands nervously in her lap and staring at Megan.

You get the unpleasant feeling you've just interrupted a conversation. 

"Uh, yeah," you mumble awkwardly, eyeing the two of them suspiciously as you make your way towards the kitchen. "Just feeding Henry. What's up?"

You think you know, but you feign confusion all the same, turning your back to Megan and rummaging in the cupboards for Henry's food. You hear the familiar patter of his paws against the laminate flooring before you see him, but then he's there on the counter, nudging his sweet face against your wrists as you crack the can and scoop the nasty sludge into his bowl. 

"We need to talk," Megan continues and you finally look up to find she's staring at you and Henry with her arms crossed over her chest. 

"I have a ride waiting," you say hurriedly. You're not doing this now.

You toss the empty can of food into the recycling bin, pat Henry's head affectionately as he eats and make your way towards the door.

But Megan says your name before you can get there, stopping you in your tracks. 

You sigh. 

"I–alright," you decide.

This should only take a minute anyway. You just need to explain, for the hundredth time, that you're still figuring out the situation with Henry. Still working on finding a new apartment since you've stubbornly decided not to take the route of asking your parents to take him in the meantime. You can figure it out, and you will. Yes, you've been putting it off, but...you just need some time.

You cross the room and take a haphazard seat on an ottoman. There's a beat of awkward silence, and then Megan retakes her place on the couch. Deena stares at her feet, her incessant fidgeting putting you uncomfortably on edge. 

Megan takes a deep breath.

"There's no easy way to say this," she starts.

Your eyes narrow. "Okay."

Another excruciating pause, Deena picking at her fingernails, Megan steeling herself with another, long, drawn-out sigh. Your eyes flit between them as an uneasy sense of dread begins to wash over you. 

"We can't wait anymore. We've had to offer your room to someone else," Megan says at last.

And that's–well, that's not what you'd been expecting to hear.

It's quiet for a long moment as you work through what that means, staring blankly between the two of them. Deena avoids your gaze, her foot tapping out a nervous pattern into the floor that's starting to drive you slightly crazy. Megan watches your face as every emotion possible flits across your features, first anger, then confusion, then something akin to panic when it finally clicks. 

"You're kicking me out?"

"Look, I know it's not ideal–"

"Where the hell am I supposed to go? I've been looking for a new place, I just need more time."

The anger seeps back in, betrayal stinging behind your eyes. They can't do this. Can they?

"You've had almost a month to figure out this cat thing," Megan contends, irritation coating her words now too. "And Steve says he'll evict us all if you don't re-home it or leave."

You know–you know that. 

"I was…I'm trying to figure it out."

"Are you? I mean, most of the time you're not even here anyway. We never see you."

"I…"

Your head is spinning, denial setting in while you cling to whatever argument you have left.

"You guys let me move in here," you say meekly. "You knew about the cat."

Megan nods. "We were desperate, too, okay? It was a mistake, and I'm sorry. But we can't lose this place. Do you know how crazy rents are nowadays?"

Yeah, you really fucking do. You just shake your head, fully aware there's nothing more you can say. They've clearly made up their minds. 

"I'm sorry," she repeats. "We can give you another month to find somewhere new. If there's anything we can–"

"No," you cut her off, hastily standing, humiliated and desperate to just get out of there and back to Joel. "It's fine. Sorry. I get it. Um, I have to…my ride."

Megan's nodding again, something like sympathy in her eyes. 

"Of course," she says, dismissive.

You ignore their lingering stares on you as you quickly kiss the top of Henry's head and then all but run out the door, slamming it shut behind you.

-

Joel Miller is an observant man.

He's still learning you, studying your tells. Though, he has to admit, you're somewhat of an open book. Silent in your sadness, stoic in your frustration, tears that well up in your eyes when you're feeling small or angry. He knows. Since that day on the back of the boat, he's known. 

So when you stalk back towards his truck, hop quietly into the seat beside him and buckle your seatbelt with a steely expression, wordless and hard, he knows. 

"All good?" he asks, knowing right away that it's not. You face him, your smile all tight and deceptive. 

"Mhm."

You nod, offering him only a cursory glance before you avert your eyes to the windshield. 

Joel frowns, wonders if he should pry. He thinks you've come to know he won't, that maybe you're in the habit of exploiting that by holding fast to silence when you'd rather not burden him with your emotions. As if you ever could.

You're an idealist, he's discovered. The type to build up a plan in the image of perfection only to deflate when it fails. One crack in the foundation and you come toppling down, walls caving in, imploding in on yourself with spectacular force. 

Not unlike him.

But Joel is adaptable. He's had to be. Whether it was becoming a father at twenty-one, saving Tommy's skin at every turn, or–most unlikely of all–meeting you, he's found a way to manage whatever life has dared to throw his way. To rebuild his plans until they take the shape of something resembling good.

So, he gives what he thinks you need, what he thinks he's always been for you: A distraction. The illusion of perfection.

He turns the key in the ignition, takes your hand across the centre console and drives you out of town. 

-

The tightness around your eyes never fully disappears, your voice always escaping you in this subdued, quiet timbre. Joel, meanwhile, never falters in his steadfast positivity, even as concern claws painfully at his insides with each passing second you keep him in the dark. You smile sometimes, like when he gripes about your choice of barbeque joints or tells you how he'd grown up in a town kind of like this one. But it reminds him of how you'd smiled at him on the plane to Costa Rica. Shy. Vacuous. A little phony. 

Still, he doesn't push it. He walks with you hand in hand all afternoon and talks enough for the both of you, tries to tell himself that when you're ready to share, you will. Because he knows, he knows there's something bothering you. He has to fight with every instinct in his body not to rip the answer straight from your throat, just so he can offer a solution or ten.

But he doesn't, because he knows. That when the time is right, the truth will pour from your mouth like a waterfall, and he'll be there to help you when it does.

It's not until he's pulling up outside your apartment that your anxiety seems to reach a visible fever pitch, your hands pressed tightly together, body tense under the arm he has slung over your shoulder. You're frozen where you sit, but it's not the familiar reluctance he's used to seeing on Sunday nights, that kind of yearning sadness he also feels when it's time to say goodbye for the week.

No, it's something else. Something like fear that keeps you glued to your seat, eyes fixed downwards, not at him.

Joel sighs.

"Hey," he nudges at last, unable to stop himself from tilting your face towards his with a coaxing hand on your chin. Your eyes appear far away, almost black with dread. It's been so long since he's seen them like that, and he fucking hates it. "Where'd you go, sweetheart?"

You shake your head, unconvincing as you frown and attempt to pull free from his grasp. He doesn't let you. 

"Nowhere."

He sighs again and maybe he should just fucking let it go, but his own fears are creeping in now, fear that it's him that's done something wrong, fear that you're not giving him a chance to fix whatever's broken. 

His hand moves to cradle the side of your face, and this time, you don't fight him. Your eyes close and you lean into his touch, soften just the tiniest bit as he lightly scratches his fingers into your hair. 

"I can't help you f'you don't talk to me," he says and it sounds almost like a plea.

You take a deep breath and when you open your eyes, he sees wetness there, glistening under the dim light of a streetlight outside. 

The waterfall crests…

"I have to leave my apartment," you admit in a whisper. 

Joel frowns. "What do you mean? Thought you already knew that."

…and then cascades.

"No, like, I have to leave now. They're giving me a month," you go on, your voice rising in volume and pitch as the wetness in your eyes pools into bonafide tears that spill out into his palm. "I'm not supposed to have the cat–I know I'm not supposed to have the cat. But I mean, they knew too! And they let me move in. I thought they'd have my back if the landlord said anything but now I guess they're giving my room to someone else and I have no idea where the fuck I'm gonna go–"

"Stay with me," he interjects simply.

"Joel."

It's a quiet protest, a tilt of your head and a flatness in your voice as you grip his wrist and pry his hand from your face. Joel just shrugs like it's not some monumental thing, like he's offering you a morning coffee or a ride home from work. 

"I got a spare room," he says but you're already shaking your head. "You're there half the time anyway."

He holds one other truth close to his chest, the fact that he wants nothing more than to have you around as much as humanly possible. That every second he's not with you feels incomplete and hollow and how he hasn't felt that way in god knows how long.

"I can't ask that of you, Joel," you argue stubbornly.

"Well, you're not askin'. I'm offerin'."

You stare each other down, a bittersweet sort of stalemate as he watches a series of emotions flit across your face. A warmth as your tears dry, a hardness as your brows furrow, concern in the way you chew the inside of your cheek and fight with what he's sure is your admittedly admirable longing for independence.

And there's the fear. There's always the fucking fear. Because he knows what the offer implies. It's fast, too much. All of it, all of this, happening so goddamn fast all the time.

"That's like...that's like living together, Joel," you whisper at last, and the fear is there too, in the hushed squeak of your voice.

Joel sighs. He knows.

"M'not sayin' you need to stay forever," he insists. Mostly true. "Just till you figure things out."

He twists to face you, reaching out to toy with the seashell that hangs from your neck, a reminder of when things were easier. It seems to placate you some. 

There's a long beat, Joel smoothing his fingers along the chain of the necklace he gave you while you watch him, deep in thought.

"What about Henry?" you ask at last and Joel grins. He knows he's won.

"I'll survive," he vows, too fast. Fuck it.

You think it through for another breath and then finally, a smile cracks your stony features.

"This is crazy," you almost laugh. Joel laughs too, because it is.

"Too crazy?" Please say no.

"No."

"Good. It's settled then," he says, and it is.

-

Another month passes, and now your every day is this.

Hurried mornings and drives to work, a bottle of cream for your coffee and an endless supply of antihistamines for Joel. Changing leaves and kisses on cheeks and a spare room that's more Henry's than yours. What little belongings you have wind up there too; a forgotten twin bed, a cheap dresser Joel had disavowed as "practically garbage," posters that you'd hang on his walls if you weren't still convincing yourself this is all only temporary.

Joel turns fifty-one and you celebrate with take-out and your best attempt at Blue Lagoons, a neatly wrapped framed photo from Sarah of him and her, years ago.

It gets harder and harder to pretend that you're still just figuring things out with him, because Joel is now undeniably your boyfriend and you are now undeniably his girlfriend and–even crazier–you're now undeniably living in his home. 

Which makes it all the more ridiculous that it's still a fucking secret. 

It's fall now, the days growing shorter and cooler, your hours with Joel spent more often tucked in bed than on day trips to Lockhart. You can't think too hard about it or else it starts to feel insane–the fact that barely two months ago your heart had seemed irreparably broken and now you're sharing a home with another man, a man with whom a future still feels altogether impossible.

It should make you panic, and you think maybe it would…if you weren't so stupidly, unbearably, perfectly happy. 

You know this feeling, this giddy all-encompassing joy, this certainty that nothing this good could ever be bad. He calls you his girl and it's never felt more true. You're his, and you're perfectly content, for now, to stay that way.

But, as ever, reality is tapping incessantly at the doors of your new life, and it's a Friday night in late October when the whole thing threatens to come crashing down.

You lay with your head in Joel's lap on the couch, his fingers playing softly in your hair while some action movie you've both seen a hundred times flashes on the TV. It's routine at this point, these moments of domestic intimacy that will undoubtedly morph into something else once his fingers wander to other places.

You think you feel it now, as he trails his touch down your shoulder, along your arm, finally resting his palm on your hip and squeezing. His gaze drifts from the images on screen to take in your body as your breaths begin to shorten and you nudge yourself a little closer to him.

That's when his phone rings. 

You peer up at him as he reaches over you to the coffee table and glances at the little screen, your brows furrowing when he frowns at the caller ID.

"Who is it?"

Joel clears his throat, and very pointedly drops his hand from your side. "Your dad."

"Oh."

It's stupid, the surge of unease it elicits, the way you sit up and bite your nails nervously as Joel answers the call. 

"Hey, buddy," he says while you hastily turn the TV down a notch or two.

Your worry deepens when Joel turns to you with panic in his eyes and asks, "Right now?" into the phone.

You stiffen–mouth the word, what at him–but Joel is looking over his shoulder, out the window behind you to the street outside.

"You're–? Uh, okay, just gimme a sec."

He hangs up and stands, reaching behind the couch to close the curtains, whispering, "Shit," to himself as he does.

"What? What's going on?" you demand, feeling suddenly frantic.

"He's, uh, stoppin' in to say hi."

"What?"

Your voice rises about ten octaves, and then you're on your feet too, Joel already flitting past you to unlock the front door, peeking through the glass there as a pair of headlights pull into his driveway.

He turns back to you, frozen in the middle of his living room.

"What are we doin' here, sweetheart?"

"I–"

You shake your head, glancing between the front door and the stairs, before your gaze finally lands on Joel, his expression almost helpless. He's leaving it up to you, just like always.

"I'm not ready," you admit hoarsely.

He nods, too understanding for his own good. "That's okay."

But it really doesn't feel like it. It feels cowardly. Guilt and fear, usually suppressed beneath layers of happiness, bubble to the surface in a white hot flush. Joel takes two steps towards and places his hands on either side of your face, steadying you.

"It's okay," he repeats. "It's your call. Always."

"I'm sorry."

"Shh, none of that," he soothes, silencing you with a kiss. "Where's the cat?"

"Hiding, I don't know."

"Okay," he says again. "What are you gonna do?"

You almost laugh, but there's little humour in the sound. "The same, I guess."

Joel smirks, offers you one last parting kiss and finally lets you go.

"I'll come get you when he's gone," he promises but you're already halfway up the stairs, fleeing in a rush as a knock comes at the door.

-

Exactly twenty-six excruciating minutes pass. You know this, because you watch each one pass on the alarm clock on his bedside table. 

Henry's there too, you find, seeking refuge in Joel's bed just like you. You sit with him, legs crossed in the middle of the mattress, and wait. And while you wait, you stew.

It's ridiculous. This is ridiculous. Hiding from your dad like some misbehaving teenager stashing drugs in their closet, as if he still had some kind of power over you. As if the big secret you're hiding isn't the one thing making your life worth living at the moment.

So what are you so afraid of? 

You ask yourself that same question a hundred different times until the doorknob turns and Joel is stepping into the room with a sympathetic smile.

He keeps the door open behind him.

"Hey, baby."

"Hey," you whisper, like you're still hiding. "How was that?"

"Fine," he shrugs. "Gave me hell for skippin' out on golf the past few weeks. Thinks I must be loved up or somethin'."

He's trying to keep his tone light, but something twists in you when he says that word, that one neither of you have said yet.

He's so good. What are you so afraid of?

"Hm."

"Almost had a heart attack when he saw the damn litter box," he laughs.

Panic paints your features but Joel raises two hands soothingly, stepping further into the room.

"It's okay, it's alright," he assures you. "Told him I was cat sittin' for a friend. He didn't think nothin' of it."

You're still frowning, but you nod, hands clamped anxiously in your lap. Joel steps closer, around the side of the bed, close enough to tilt your face upwards to meet his eyes.

"You okay?"

You shake your head. You're so afraid. What are you so afraid of?

"Feel stupid," you mumble.

Joel sighs then, his knees popping slightly as he crouches onto the floor before you, clutching both your hands in his. 

"You're not stupid," he says softly, bringing your fingers up to his mouth to plant a tender kiss against your knuckles. The same spot he'd first kissed you. "I'm sorry."

"For what?"

Joel sighs, long and slow. You shimmy on the mattress so you're facing him, squeezing his hands like you're afraid he'll disappear if you don't. He stares at them as he speaks.

"I know…I know you bein' here puts you in a shitty position," he starts. "Hell, I know bein' with me puts you in a shitty position–"

"It doesn't–"

"But," he cuts you off, meeting your eyes at last, something warm and intense smouldering in the soft brown. "I'm not in any rush. Okay? We can keep this under wraps for s'long as you want. I mean that. I'm just–I'm just happy you're here."

You hold his stare, cup his weathered cheek in your palm and let whatever's burning behind his eyes melt into yours. He's doing what he always does, giving you the choice. He's so good. He's so good to you. 

So what are you so afraid of?

"I think we should tell them," you murmur and the smouldering burn turns to glittering anticipation, dulled by uncertainty while he looks for any trace of a lie on your face.

You know he won't find one. 

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"You're sure? 'Cause we can wait–"

"No," you assert, clutching at the greying curls on the side of his head fiercely, tugging him in closer. "Joel, I–I'm happy too. I want them to know. They should–they should be happy we're happy, right?"

He allows himself a smile, and you feel your fears start to fade away. 

"Should," he agrees.

"And if they're not then…then I don't care. I care about you. No more secrets."

"Alright," he whispers, emotion coating his words before he's wrapping his arms around your middle and burying his face into your chest. You hook your legs around him, some noise between a laugh and a sob getting caught in his t-shirt. "No more secrets."

He holds you like that for what feels like hours, knelt before you as though you were some kind of deity, safe in his arms while you stare down the barrel of whatever comes next. 

At last, he frees himself, the energy shifting as he rises up off the ground with two hands on your thighs and suddenly everything realigns. Joel towers over you, strong and solid, so perfect it feels almost criminal to keep him all to yourself. 

His calloused fingers stroke your cheekbones and you stare up at him, worshipful, blanketing his big hands with yours. 

"I'm your girl, right?" you breathe alluringly. 

Joel nods, his voice gruff, "You're my girl."

"Then let's let 'em know."

He hums, almost a growl, hinging to connect your mouths in a searing kiss and–finally–there is no more fear.

[angrycollectivecollectorr]

a matter of time

pairing: joel miller x f!reader

summary: joel can't remember the last time he took things slow and let himself feel. you give him a gentle reminder.

warnings: 18+ MDNI, late boston qz era, joel's pov, smut, porn with a twist ending, fingering, unprotected piv, creampie, slow/intimate sex, finger sucking, premature ejaculation, nostalgia, internal monologue, tess doesn't exist

word count: 2.4k

It's been a long time.

Joel's all but forgotten what it feels like when it's this gentle. There's almost a tenderness to it, even though he doesn't know much of anything about you at all. Not your name or how you ended up here in this hellhole of a safe haven.

Nothing but the sweet, tacky taste of your 20-year-old Lip Smacker gloss and the tang of sweat and something sweeter lingering on your skin. But he's learning.

And he likes this new knowledge. Even if he never gets the chance to use it again, he'll devour it hungrily because it's a worthy distraction from the monotony of life in a quarantine zone. Day in and day out, he returns to this shitty apartment with its peeling floral wallpaper and rotting mahogany furniture—memories of a distant past that aren't his own and, yet, sting just as viscerally.

Tonight, the space hums with a different energy. Highlighted by the soft rays of the setting sun, the room's only purpose is to serve as a backdrop to you, and that alone changes everything. Your beauty, your responsiveness, as he lays you across his moth-eaten duvet is reminiscent of a different time, and he'll happily accept that reminder.

It's one of the few pieces of nostalgia that doesn't ache or eat away at him the longer he lets it in. No, you feel good. You're warm against his fingertips, soft and pliant under the path his lips follow from the sticky smear across your cheek, past the breath hitching audibly in your bared throat, down to your soaked, coarse curls.

You want him. More than that, you want to take your time with him, and he's surprised at how much he wants that, too. Trapped within these walls, what else does he have but endless, empty time? And there's nothing he'd love more than to spend it taking care of you, just like you asked him to.

He hovers above you, refusing to part his lips from your body as he urges you up the bed to rest against his pillows. They're flattened and scratchy from years of use and abuse, but they smell like him, and you like it. He can tell. The moment your hair fans across them, rich and lively in contrast, you bury your face into the fabric to breathe him in, and your body's reaction is instantaneous.

Your back arches with a heavy sigh of contentment and your legs fall apart naturally, welcoming him closer, but he waits. Reverently, he slowly leans back onto his heels to appreciate the sight in front of him, and he can't help but feel grateful. You're already glistening for him, preening under his undivided attention as your delicate fingers trail up to your breast to tweak a nipple.

As your eyelashes flutter and a gasp escapes your parted lips, his hand quickly drops to squeeze his twitching cock over his boxers and he keens, nearly doubling over at the pleasure that overcomes him. A coy, knowing smile quirks at the corners of your mouth, and he decides he needs to taste you again. Now.

He lurches forward, and you let out a surprised squeal as he licks into your mouth and commits to memory the faint taste of artificial root beer and mint on your tongue. The familiar fight for dominance he's so used to after years of quick fucks and one-night stands isn't there, and, instead, you set a languid, passionate pace that makes his head spin. It's a slow, deep caress—wet and warm and all-encompassing—and it's everything he hopes fucking you will feel like.

He's so hard it hurts. God, when was the last time he was this fucking hard? He's leaking messily through his boxers, desperate to be touched and enveloped and claimed.

And how could he not be? He's kissing the perfect woman. A patient goddess who's leading his hands across every inch of bare skin, showing him exactly how you like to be stroked and gripped, sighing encouragingly when he heeds your lessons just right.

You're one hell of a teacher, and he thinks he might just be your favorite student. He separates from you with a lewd smack and a string of saliva keeps you connected for a fleeting second before you lean up to lick it off his bottom lip. Your eyes lock with his and they're dark, almost completely consumed by desire, and it's further encouragement to continue on to his next assignment.

This one might just send him over the edge. You guide his hand down to cup your wet heat and you're drenched, dribbling and smearing slick patterns onto his sheets that he'll probably trace with his tongue while he jerks off to the thought of you long after you're gone.

Bathed in the dwindling embers of twilight, your silhouette—the plush slope of your breasts and soft curve of your belly and thighs—is cast around the room in artful shapes and shadows, and he wishes you were a permanent fixture. That your visage covered these walls instead of false depictions of growth and life. It's a dangerous train of thought, but he's too lost in the haze of your warmth and wetness to think about anything else.

He needs to feel you. He needs to fuck you.

He barely even realizes he's already slipped inside you as if he's been there all along, stroking your walls with the rough tips of his middle and ring fingers and honing in on that hidden, spongy spot with such precision, you'd think he'd done it a million times before. Thick, cording veins strain against his forearms as he tenses with the effort of keeping his thrusts long and purposeful, and he watches, captivated, as your cunt sucks him in greedily and fruitlessly tries to hold him inside you.

Tight—fuck. You're so tight. He's bucking into his unoccupied hand, jerking himself off over his boxers, and he doesn't remember when he started, but he can't stop. It feels too good...you feel too good, and the steady, simultaneous rhythm he sets for both of you isn't nearly enough.

Faster. Harder. Still so goddamn tight. He'll never be able to stretch you out enough to take him, and he's starting to worry he'll cum before he even gets the chance to try. His cock throbs violently against his palm, and he bites back a groan at the vision beneath him. Christ, how did you get here?

You can't possibly be real. Your thighs are quaking on either side of his waist and your pussy clenches dangerously hard around his scissoring fingers. There's a thin sheen of sweat matting the wispy hairs around your temples and pooling everywhere your body connects with the mattress, your searingly hot skin an addictive, sticky trap he willingly and faithfully succumbed to.

And those sounds.

You need his cock. Fucking hell, you need it. Greedy, patient, needy fucking woman. He can hear it in your soft pants and hitched breaths. You're quiet and subtle in your pleasure, so unlike any other woman he's ever been with, but when you whimper—fuck. Fuck.

He's going to give it to you. Right now, after taking the time to map and explore and discover, he's going to use his newfound knowledge to hollow you out, then fill you up until you're overflowing with him.

He slows to a stop and pulls his glistening fingers from your cunt, and there's that faint, perfect sound again. A stuttered, broken whimper that lilts with each knuckle that catches on your entrance. He sucks his ring finger into his mouth and adds your taste to his list of all-time favorites, right alongside your Barq's root beer-flavored lip gloss.

Then, he offers you his middle finger, and he swears he can feel your lips sealing tightly around his cock as you wrap them around it. You work your mouth up and down, bobbing your head eagerly like he's about to blow his load down your throat, and—

He's going to fucking cum.

With his finger still nestled between your lips, he wrenches his boxers down his thighs and lines himself up with your entrance, ignoring how close he's suddenly teetering on the edge. His balls are already taut between his legs and it worsens as he inches in his aching, neglected tip.

"S'time, beautiful," he grits out, still tender in his touch as he splays his hand across your waist to stroke your heated skin. "You ready for me?"

You nod quickly, humming your affirmation around him, and he gives you another shallow inch. He was right. No amount of preparation was going to ease the stretch. You're gripping him so hard, it almost hurts, and the thought of how tight you'll be when you cum—he feels delirious with it.

Yes. Yes. Squeeze him. Let him feel you wringing him fucking dry. Let him pump you so full of his release, you'll be dripping him for days, an intimate, lingering reminder of this night. You have no fucking idea how long he's been waiting for this, for you. He doesn't even know your name, but that doesn't matter. Right now, all that matters is this.

This deep-seated, unspoken connection. It's been a long time. And, right now, his time is up.

He slides home in one long, deep thrust, the tip of his cock tenderly nudging your cervix, and your body struggles to accept him. He lights up every nerve ending like a live wire, drags against every sensitive pressure point in perfect succession, and your walls begin to mold around him as if they recognize the sensation. Like your body's remembering him.

Sharp nails dig into his side and drag from his shoulder down to his ass, urging him closer. You're trembling beneath him, your breasts thrumming with sharp, rapid breaths akin to a hummingbird as he fucks you further up the bed, one slow thrust at a time. You're fluttering around him, a delicate spasm and, then, an indicative clench, and it forces a sob from his chest that he barely recognizes.

That's it, beautiful. It's right there. C’mon, give it to me.

He doesn't speak it aloud. He hasn't coaxed or rushed you with his words this entire night and he's not about to start now. He knows, for some inexplicable reason, that he doesn't have to.

But you do. It's barely a whisper—a single, hushed syllable that trembles and passes your lips like a plea. A prayer only he can answer.

"Joel."

Christ. He knows you.

Christ, he's cumming.

His vision whites out, and he's only vaguely aware of his tightening grip on your hips and the long, drawn-out groan that tapers into something devastatingly familiar. Your name.

Now, it's his turn to pray. He repeats it like a mantra, breathing it into your lungs as his lips crash onto yours. It's almost as if he's afraid he'll forget it again if he stops, but your body's response quickly convinces him otherwise.

You bear down on him harder, driven closer and closer to your peak each time he calls out to you, for you. You're molten hot around him, searing each letter into his skin with every pulsing clench of your cunt, and he does the same, thick spurts coating your walls.

He can't help himself. He stays deep—he knows he shouldn't, knows how dangerous the consequences could be, but he needs to—and your ankles digging painfully into his back to hold him in place wordlessly tell him you need it, too.

So good, you're so good. You're perfect. You're his. You're—

Gushing, squeezing, finally moaning for him. You’re cumming.

With it, your orgasm brings every memory of you flooding back at once. Late summer afternoons spent in bed while Sarah visited her grandma. Champagne-flavored kisses on New Year's Eve, soundtracked by Dick Clark and cheers from the crowd in Times Square filtering through the plasma TV in his living room.

He loved you. He loved this. He should've known the moment he kissed you, the moment he saw you, but he's been surviving for so long. He can't remember the last time he lived.

Your limbs surround him, pulling his entire weight down to rest on top of you, and you continue to swivel your hips into his pelvis, riding out your high as his name falls breathily from your lips. He works you through it, frantically blinking away the sudden blur that engulfs his vision so he doesn't miss out on another moment with you. Not ever again.

He's...he's crying. He didn't even know he was capable of that anymore. Sensitivity starts to set in, in more ways than one, but he doesn't want to leave the heat of your embrace. He thinks he might break at the sight of his cum leaking out of you and seeping into the undeserving fabric of his co-opted sheets, far away from where it belongs.

But, then, your lips meet his tanned, weathered cheek—a stark contrast to the young man he was when he was yours—and you kiss away his tears. He feels more fragile than he has in decades, and that's surprisingly okay. Because you're here to protect him, now.

Trailing from the apple of his cheek to his lips, up to the years of tension creasing his forehead, back down to kiss him tenderly, you establish a comforting repetition. He chases you every time you part, but, after a while, he's struck with a realization. What you've been trying to convey with your actions all night.

You always return to him. So, maybe this was just a matter of time. A slow smile spreads across that beautiful face he hadn't allowed himself to think about since the outbreak, and you huff out an affectionate laugh, your fingertips curiously running across his back and tracing raised lines and jagged shapes you've never felt before.

"Hi, Joel," you murmur fondly, still close enough for the tacky remains of your gloss to catch his bottom lip, and his tongue darts out to taste you.

It's real—it's too vivid not to be real. His eyes dart between yours, and he can still see everything your future together was supposed to hold. He still sees forever.

"Hey, baby," he rasps, his voice thick with tears and disuse, and something unidentifiable that sounds a lot like hope.

He hasn't felt this way in a long time. Not since you.

thanks for reading!

[angrycollectivecollectorr]

daydreams

Pairing: Joel x F!Reader, Post-Outbreak Jackson Era

Summary: It's been years since Joel's kissed anybody, and your lips are all he can think about.

Tags/Warnings: Soft, Touch-Starved, Pining Joel. Grumpy x Sunshine. Resolved Tension. Mentions of alcohol and food consumption. Brief mentions of sexual desire. Entirely in Joel's POV. No mention of Reader's age or appearance other than wearing lipstick in one scene.

Wordcount: 6.4k

A/N: Really enjoyed exploring an entire Joel x Reader fic all in his head, focusing on how he falls in love with Reader. Big thank you to @joelsgreys who was excited about this idea with me, and @cupofjoel who always inspires me with her own amazing work (and that Clicker joke she made that ended up in this fic hehe)!

Here's my Kofi if you're interested in supporting my work further💜

Beautiful dividers by @saradika

Masterlist

People fucking love you.

It was the first of many things that Joel was burdened to discover about you, small facts and inconsequential incidents about who you were as a person that floated around in his subconscious until they burrowed under his skin, much like you did.

He could remember checking his patrol schedule on the board one chilly autumn day. A scarf that was decades old but new to him, too soft for his rough skin, was wrapped around his neck and keeping him warm while he peered over the heads of two men crowding in front of the arranged names.

Despite Joel’s size, he had always been good at not being seen if he didn’t want to be, at least when it counted. It was a harder habit to keep up with in Jackson, a place where everybody wanted to know anybody at all. The feeling of at least one set of eyes on him at all times when he walked the streets was an odd juxtaposition to the foreign comfort that radiated inside the town’s tall walls.

Not a watch kept on him, but curiosity that peered at him around every corner. He had thought it would die down eventually, but it lingered with a stubbornness even years later.

Now though, both men didn’t have a care in the world for his presence behind him, crowding around the board and a pair of names he couldn’t quite glimpse until one of them turned, jumping at the sight of the unintentionally imposing figure at their back.

“Oh!” the man let out a noise of surprise before recomposing. He was a newer patrolman, his name starting with a C, Chuck or something. “Joel, hey man. Didn’t see you there.”

The familiarity in the way his name is spoken makes Joel bristle for a moment, but he calms his raised hackles before it can be noticed.

Back in Boston, his name had been a familiar one spoken too. But hints of apprehension, even fear crept around the syllables of those who knew it, those who had heard it whispered in the alleys of where he’d left somebody’s blood splattered against the dilapidated brick walls.

“Hey,” the other patrolman offers in greeting when he notices the pair aren’t alone anymore, and Joel nods, glancing towards the two names their heads had been bent down around when they moved out of the way.

There’s a name he doesn’t have a face to place to it, another person new to patrol. He’d only seen the name in passing on the board each time he checked assignments recently, though this time it's right above his own, listed as his partner on his next route.

“Lucky man,” the other patrolman says with a clap to Joel’s shoulder, and he hates it, jaw setting tight enough that the first patrolman gently nudges his friend away with a wary look.

“I’m always stuck with Willy,” the first one says, and Joel glances back towards the board, searching for that name and seeing it paired with Chad. Names for faces, a common courtesy in the settlement, one he still had a hard time keeping up with sometimes, even years into being here. “Been dying for a chance to head out with her.”

There’s a gesture back towards the name paired with Joel’s, and he stares at the letters written into the thin wooden plaques that are used to arrange assignments on the board. Stares so much even as his fellow patrolmen leave, chattering amongst themselves about Joel’s new partner as he frowns in confusion over why it wasn’t his brother’s name.

“You could use some friends,” Tommy explains with a jovial smile when Joel shows up on his doorstep to question him about the change, though there’s an undertone of ribbing to his tone that makes Joel glare at the younger man. “I figure she’s the perfect one to bring you out of that stubborn shell.”

Joel scoffs at that, brows still knitted together in frustration as he gets ready for bed the night before he’ll have to wake up early to head out with this unknown person on patrol. He’s annoyed over the idea of something as irrelevant as socialization trumping protection on his route, frustrated that he’d have to watch his own back for the dangers only a human could pose, as much as the trail ahead of him for Infected.

But then he meets you, and he understands.

At least, Joel understands why those men had been jealous of his patrol partner when he shows up at the assignment board the next morning, hoping to grab a hot drink in one of the thermoses provided before heading out. He prays for at least the last dregs of some coffee when he sees a small gathering of other patrolmen, including the two from before. All smiles and laughter, until one turns their head towards him.

Joel meets your eyes for the first time, a smile gracing your face as he does so, and he understands.

“Joel Miller,” is the first thing you ever say to him by way of greeting, uttering the syllables in near disbelief, like he’s some fabled myth you’ve finally caught a glimpse of. There’s an infectious, positive energy in the way you say his name to him, in the way you say everything, he’ll come to find. Like there’s things in the world still worthy of being spoken with such excitement. “Good to finally meet you.”

He just nods, eyes flickering to the disappointment on the faces of those gathered around you as your attention focuses solely on him. You move closer, holding up two thermoses in hand, Joel’s gaze narrowing down to them as you gesture with each and ask, “Coffee or tea?”

With a blink, he stares at each before looking back up into your face, noticing the hint of amusement across your features as his lips part, and the first thing he utters in your presence is an awkward hedge of, “Uh.”

Your lips quirk up into a wider smile, and Joel notices then that for all its brightness, it's almost half a smirk. There’s humor in your gaze, and he feels those sharp hackles of his start to rise again until you clarify kindly, “Which do you prefer?”

His brows knit together, looking back down into your hands, and he realizes you’re offering him the choice of which one he wants for the morning.

“Coffee,” he says instantly before his mind can catch up, and the point of your teeth peek past your lips now in a grin when you pass the thermos to him.

“Smart man,” you comment in passing, oblivious to how the two simple words will stick into his mind and replay themselves in the exact tone of your voice for weeks to come. “I prefer tea, anyway.”

You raise your own thermos to his, eyes twinkling with that same good humor, that warm mirth that suddenly makes Joel’s stomach flip when you add, “Looks like the start of a beautiful partnership.”

It is.

Joel hates to admit it, but you work startlingly well together.

He’s paranoid at first, glancing back over his shoulder at you every now and then, but your eyes are always trained on the area around you, keeping diligent watch. Except for when he’s staring at you for too long, for reasons he doesn’t know yet, or is too stubborn to believe.

You somehow always catch him in those stolen moments, smiling at him when he whips his head back around to refocus on the trail in front of him. Sometimes there’s a soft chuckle under your breath when he does so, and those are the times he stubbornly faces ahead for the rest of patrol, so you won’t see the heat creeping into his face that he curses every time you bring it out of him.

He’s too goddamn old to be blushing like a schoolboy, but around you, his body betrays his age and does it anyway.

Sometimes you talk to him. Joel can’t figure out for the life of him why. You certainly aren’t the type to ever be searching for conversation, a whole host of willing participants to speak with you gathering around you every morning before you set out for patrol with him.

But you talk to him anyway. Offer things about yourself and ask him questions in return, ones he hardly answers with more than a few words, if he even replies at all.

That doesn’t bother you. You continue the conversation, and though he barely says a thing, you manage to make him still feel involved. Like you’re not just talking at him, but with him.

It’s just something about you, Joel eventually realizes. There’s a charm about you that goes beyond just a natural charisma. It’s a force of gravity, as inexplicable as it is irresistible, pulling in those around you, and they don’t even care. They want it.

Because you’re not simply bubbly and friendly, but you’re warm. Warm and bright, pure sunshine that brighten up the shortening days, and at some point through that fall of patrolling with you, Joel finds himself riding beside you instead of in front of you.

He nods more to what you say, following along better to whatever stories you’re sharing that morning, tales you never seem to run out of. He starts to answer your questions with sentences instead of words. Sometimes, he sneaks glances at you, and he’s always shocked in the moments when you’re already looking at him.

At first, Joel thinks he’s caught you in those moments. But you just smile at him when his eyes meet yours, unbothered by him noticing your attention on him, and he’s the one turning away yet again, facing the trees away from you so you won’t notice what that soft laughter of yours does to him.

You’re also more than capable in a fight, proving yourself time and time again in sticky situations, and soon enough, Joel doesn’t really mind waking up those early mornings when he knows you’ll be waiting for him with a thermos in each hand. He looks forward to an unnecessary apology on your lips if there’s no coffee that day, and the way you make him take a hot drink anyway—sometimes a pastry too, gently chiding him on taking better care of himself.

“I need you all big and strong for patrol,” you teased him once, but you still glance up and down his body with an appreciation he doesn’t think should be for him, even as he greedily drinks it in anyway. 

Then you wink, and he finds himself unable to make eye contact with you for the rest of the day.

Even then, he knows you’ll have his back, as he has yours.

Yeah, you work well together.

So well, in fact, that he finds his mood takes a sharp decline when he checks the assignment board months into being on patrol with you, and sees Tommy’s name paired with his again.

It makes sense. Winter arrives in Jackson, and with it, increased numbers of Infected on patrol. Joel needs to work with Tommy to clear out the routes hit the worst by hordes, for the good of the settlement.

Joel had never hated practicality before, but he does in that moment he first sees your name paired with Chad.

Chad, the young man with a stupid grin on his face while his buddy expresses jealousy over the “luck” of his assignment, and Joel hates the feeling of the same jealousy curling in his gut.

He hates it when you’re not waiting for him in the mornings. Hates it when your smile isn’t for him, when he’s not listening to your voice express every emotion imaginable in whatever story you’re telling him.

He doesn’t even realize what he’s feeling, doesn’t know that he’s lonely until he’s waiting for Tommy one morning when his brother kisses Maria goodbye before going on patrol.

It only hits him then, with the warm, open affection Tommy gazes at his wife with before leaving, and how she watches him with fondness as he goes. Only then does he feel the hollow ache in his chest, a gaping hole that’s only caved in deeper when your presence came and went.

He’s still thinking about it that night when sleep won’t come to him. Rubbing together his lips, chapped from the cold winter air from being outside all day, he wonders when the last time he’d had another mouth pressed to it.

Jesus, when’s the last time he kissed someone?

It’s a stupid thing to think, an embarrassing thought that has him turning onto his stomach and burying his face into his pillow. His arms outstretched beneath it, he groans into the fabric, trying to shove away the emptiness even as it continues to ache.

It fucking aches, and it shouldn’t. He was too old, had gone through too damn much to even care about kissing anybody.

So he tells himself he doesn’t. Convinces himself he couldn’t give less of a fuck about not being able to remember the last time he’d kissed somebody. Pretends he doesn't care about holding another person in his arms, lips pressed together just for the sake of it.

Joel likes to think he does a pretty good job of not caring about it, up until the next time he sees you.

You’re standing at the table of food and drink before patrol, eyes scanning over the pastries available with an intense look of deliberation for what you were craving that morning. When you find what you want, your lips part, tongue darting out to lick them in anticipation of your treat, and Joel’s blood runs hot in a way he thought himself no longer capable of.

He watches with rapt attention as you bring the scone to your mouth for a bite, how crumbs of it flake off onto your lips while you nod in satisfaction at the taste.

It’s a taste Joel wants to capture for himself. He wants to find the sweetness of the pastry on your lips, to press his mouth to yours and have you fill that emptiness, to have you soothe that ache in him with the exploration and discovery of you.

“Joel Miller!”

He blinks, hazy vision refocusing on the tantalizing soft look of your lips to see them curved up into a smile, and his eyes flicker up to see you looking right at him as you call to him, speaking his name like he’s still some legend you can’t believe exists until you see him again.

Yet again, he’s caught right in the center of your web—so many times now, that he almost starts to wonder if he willingly walks into it. Merciless to whatever you intend to do with him now that you have him right there, right where you want him.

But you just smile, head tilted with your gazes locked together, and suddenly he doesn’t care if you trap him or if he’s giving himself to you. You have him, and that’s enough.

Then, your lips part, tongue catching those crumbs still stuck to the corner of your upper lip, and Joel’s own lips part, breath hitching through them.

You notice.

You have to notice, because the edge of your smile curls up even more, eyes striking with the joy of a newfound discovery about the stoic man you’d found steadfast by your side for months of patrol, a silent presence now outright ogling you the same way everybody else did.

Everywhere you went, you were sure to find people lazing about in the warm rays of sunlight you cast from your very soul.

Joel wondered if you ever got tired with how much you gave. 

How much everyone took.

And now here he was, taking just the same. Your stunning vision reduced to an idle daydream, one you’d caught him in the very first moment he’d had it. 

Joel thought about what he must look like to you then. Just a lonely old man, longing for a touch. Like a mangy stray turning up at your doorstep, desperate just for the offhand chance of an ounce of kindness you had made the grave mistake of showing him before.

Because now he would always be back, aching for more.

Pathetic.

He turns from you at the sharp voice of self-hatred in his mind, walking away at the same moment you take a step forward. Joel brushes past those other souls just as eager, just as desperate for your attention as he tries to get far away from what you make him feel.

But it stays knotted up in his chest, ever more evident in your absence, the memory of your smile like a pain throbbing in his bones, ringing in his mind when he brushes off Tommy’s concern with a gruff “doesn’t matter” before heading out.

Because it doesn’t.

It doesn’t matter.

But it does.

Jackson had not only brought safety and comfort, but the luxury of wanting.

And, dear Lord, he wanted.

He hasn’t stopped wanting, not since that first morning when he really noticed the curve of your lips, the shape of them taunting and tempting him. 

Now he notices them every time he sees you. The slight quiver of them in a brush of cold winter wind, and how you pull a tube of homemade chapstick out of the pocket of your jacket to run over them. How you rub your lips together to spread it along each gorgeous line and indentation before popping them out with a smack, and Joel nearly fucking moans at the sight the first time.

God, he wants so badly.

He needs, he thinks sometimes, on the coldest, darkest nights. Thoughts of your mouth and what it would be capable of plaguing his mind as he breathes hotly into his pillow and tries to stay still, tries not to rut into the mattress just from the thoughts of what a simple kiss from you would feel like, giving and taking until it was impossible to tell where he ended and you began.

Because it was you.

It was always you.

Some days, it’s all Joel can think about. Your eyes, your hands, your laughter, but most of all, every bend and curve of your lips. 

It’s embarrassing how much just the mere thought of you consumes him. 

And it’s frightening, the power you would have over him if daydreams ever became reality.

What makes it even worse, is that he thinks you know. Joel’s almost sure of it, the way your eyes linger on him whenever you pout or purse your lips together at something especially grumpy that he says.

It’s like you’re doing it on purpose now, and he falls for it anyway, gazing at the fullness of your mouth, the most beautiful color he’s ever seen, with an aching want that he pretends never happened when it turns up into a smile.

Time and time again, you catch him wanting.

And you let him.

You never make a move to stop him, to call him out on it. Instead, you feed the fire, with a kindness in your smile and a mischief in your eyes that Joel is fucking addicted to.

If all you’re doing is stringing him along, he’s more than willing to let you do it, if it only means that the joy that lights up your face whenever you see him never dies out.

He sees it again one afternoon when he runs into you on the street, a bundle of produce from the greenhouses tucked underneath one arm that he almost offers to carry for you by some forgotten reflex, manners he used to have, when you distract him with a question of, “Are you going to that dinner for the patrolmen Maria is putting on?”

“Uh.” Joel winces at how he always finds himself hedging around you. He doesn’t think the things he’s said in your presence is enough to fill a page, even though you’ve plagued his thoughts enough that he could write a whole fucking book on you. 

There’s already a little smirk on your face as he hesitates, and he clears his throat, shifting on his feet with startling uncertainty you always drag from him as he finally responds gruffly, “Yeah, I s’pose so.”

“Great!” you chirp, your free hand patting him on the chest as you move to brush past him, fingers idling on the buttons of his flannel, gliding down along them in a way that sets all his nerve endings alight. “Save me a seat, would you?”

His body turns with the motion of you stepping past him to watch you go, breath caught in his throat as he wonders if you’re joking or not.

Regardless, he saves you a seat when that night comes.

It’s not like anybody wants to sit with him anyway. Most of the others seem to avoid him like the plague. Even years into being in the town, and Joel still feels like he sticks out like a sore thumb.

He doesn’t blame them. Even with his rough exterior growing softer than it had been in decades, he was a shit conversation partner. Joel just didn’t know how to do the things that they did anymore, not amongst strangers. He was happy enough with his own people, and he wishes that he was back home, playing guitar or watching movies with Ellie instead of sitting here alone, reminded constantly of everything he was lacking in.

When he’s asked if the seat next to him is taken so somebody can sit with their friend, Joel hesitates, resisting the urge to just get up and leave altogether when a familiar voice rings out, “It is!”

His head turns, and there you are, face aglow with a warm smile when you round the table towards him, and Joel is already halfway up out of his seat before he even realizes what he’s doing.

Your smile turns to him, eyes brightening with a spark at his quick movement that makes his heart pound in his chest, before you’re taking the back of the chair from the other patrolman’s grasp with a sweet, “Thanks, Astrid.”

When you start to pull the chair back further to sit, Joel takes it from you to do it for you, and it’s the first time he sees genuine surprise flash through your eyes. Still, you smile, and there’s a quiver of excitement to your lips that turns his aching into a yearning the longer he looks at them.

It’s also then when he notices that they’re painted, a shade of lipstick that fills them out further, complimenting your beauty with the way you had dressed so finely for the occasion tonight.

To sit next to him?

The question of futile hope echoes in his mind as you sink into the chair with a grin you’re trying to hide, and his hands are shaking as he pushes the chair in and takes his seat next to you again, something he also tries to hide as he folds them together and tucks them under the table.

When a bottle of wine is offered around, Joel can’t hold in a quiet chuckle at the way you jump in excitement for a glass. It's tilted in your fingers, the liquid swirling gently around the glass before you take a sip, and he’s enraptured by the sight of your lips wrapping around the rim, unable to glance away from the mark you leave on it once you set it back onto the table.

He’s fixated on that lipstick stain, can’t fucking look away from the shape of your lips painted onto the glass, and Joel starts to vividly imagine you leaving that mark on him instead. He wants evidence of your kiss all along his skin, down the collar of his shirt, smeared across his own lips as he takes your mouth in his, again and again.

He wants those marks trailing down, down, wants those painted lips teasing him until it smears all across that pretty face, wants them wrapped around his—

“Joel.”

His head snaps up, catching the gaze of his brother across from him. Tommy’s brow arches in question as he asks, “You good?”

“Yeah.” Joel clears his throat when his voice comes out thick, shifting in his seat while his folded hands move into his lap, shifting the napkin to help his new…issue. “Yeah, ‘m fine.”

“Really?” Tommy asks, his gaze one of suspicion, and maybe a bit of amusement as he drawls, “‘Cause I asked you if you wanted a glass of wine about three times, and you didn’t respond.”

Joel pales at being caught, jaw ticking with annoyance at the glee in his brother’s eyes when they snap to you sitting beside him, and he reasserts roughly, “I’m fine.”

Tommy backs off then, turning his attention somewhere else, and Joel almost relaxes until you hold your glass out to him and offer with a smile, “Want to try some of mine?”

The look in your eyes when the blood rushes back into Joel’s cheeks is nothing but goddamn trouble, and he fucking loves it.

You watch him as he stares at the mark of your lips on the glass. He imagines what it would be like to wrap his own lips around it, wondering if he’d taste you with the wine, and he quickly clears the lump that tightens in his throat before mumbling, “No, thank you, ma’am.”

A grin plays on your lips at that, and he doesn’t think he’s ever wanted anything more in his life than to kiss you at that moment. He wants to grab your face and pull you into him so fucking bad, wants your mouth to claim him, bruise him, make him hurt until he heals.

Instead, he keeps his hands to himself, still folded in his lap in a vice grip over his napkin now when you tease, “Ma’am, huh? I think I like that one.”

You wink, and all the blood flooding into his face suddenly rushes south.

Without a doubt, you had him completely fucked.

You talk to Joel the entire night.

Your head is turned to him throughout dinner, and you ask him more questions than ever before. Unlike your patrols, where you were content to tell stories, and he content to listen, you gently prod him to tell you his own. 

Joel’s voice is quiet when he assents, the low, gentle timbre hardly audible over the din of conversation around the long table. He’s sure he must be boring, a drab collection of colors long washed out in comparison to your blinding vibrancy, but you may as well have been the only two in the room with the way you listen to him.

You’re leaning in with your chin resting on a closed fist, nodding along to what he says with eyes dancing over his face so intently, as if to memorize him the same way he did you.

He’s surprised that he wants you to.

At the end of the dinner, when everybody’s bellies are full and they’re filtering out the door, Joel isn’t even shocked that he’s unwilling to leave your side. Though he is startled when the question slips quietly past his lips, “Mind if I walk you home, darlin’?”

You look back from where you were grabbing your jacket with wide eyes, stunned at the unexpected question and the pet name that had escaped him without a second thought. For a moment, he’s worried he finally scared you away, but then you smile.

“I’d like that.”

Joel nods, trying to calm the racing of his heart as he gently tugs the jacket from your grip and helps you put it on. He doesn’t miss the shiver that runs through you when his fingers brush against your skin, and suddenly there’s a feeling of anticipation simmering low in his belly, a warmth that spreads through his chest when the two of you stroll under the streetlights and eventually reach your doorstep.

You don’t let him turn away.

Somehow, he ends up on your couch. His boots and coat are left by your front door as he sits next to you, a glass of wine finally in his hand to ease the strain of his nerves. Your legs are tucked comfortably underneath yourself, the side of your face resting on the back of the couch, gazing up at him as you talk about nothing in particular.

You never seem to run out of questions for him. He answers the ones he can, and you’re not offended when he avoids the others. 

Tonight, Joel asks you questions too. Things he once thought didn’t matter anymore, but right now, he wants to know them all—where you grew up, your favorite movie, the concerts you’d been to before the world went to hell.

It becomes a back and forth—you ask him a question, he answers. Then it’s his turn to ask a question, and you answer.

Hours go by, wine is refilled, and when it’s your turn again, you ask him with such startling gentleness, “How long has it been since you kissed someone?”

Joel freezes.

His breath catches in his throat, and he can’t bring himself to look at you. He knows that when he does, he’ll see for sure that you’ve been aware of his pining, his fantasies, all along, and he doesn’t think he can face that.

Instead, he takes another long sip of wine, swallowing down the liquid courage before he answers lowly, “It’s, uh...been a while.”

Silence falls between you then, with more weight to it than any before in that night, and he has to fill it. So he does with the first thing that springs to his mind, “What about you?”

You hum thoughtfully, even as his heart lurches in his chest when the question spills from his lips. He can’t believe he actually fucking asked that, and then you actually answer it, “A couple months ago.”

Joel’s head snaps up, eyes glancing over your face as you trace the rim of your glass with a thoughtful expression.

“Was it…” he hesitates, before deciding he may as well say whatever he wants now that he’s already gone ahead and fucked it all up by asking about it in the first place, “good?”

“Nah,” you sigh, shrugging casually as you smirk in amusement at the recollection, “it’s like he was eating my face.”

Joel snorts at that, brow arching as he retorts dryly, “You go on a date with a Clicker or somethin’?”

You laugh then, head tilting back with the joyful sound, and he realizes it’s something he wants to hear for the rest of his life, even as you playfully nudge his shoulder and mutter, “Shut up.”

He chuckles along with you, looking back down into his glass as a sigh falls from his lips, and he mumbles more to himself than you, “Not sure I’d be much better, at this point.”

Suddenly, you shift beside him, pulling his attention back to you as you sit up straight. There’s a spark of interest kindling in your eyes, one that makes his throat go dry as your eyes slowly scan over his face, down to his lips.

They part under your attention, and your pupils dilate in the darkness of the room, pulling a soft exhale from Joel’s mouth at the sight of you wanting.

You.

Wanting.

“I don’t know about that,” you murmur as you set your glass down on your coffee table, then do the same with his, tugging it easily from his grasp before leaning in towards him. “But we could find out.”

Joel licks his lips, and you’re on your hands and knees now, crawling towards him on the couch as his eyelids flutter and he rasps out, “I—darlin’, I don’t think I—”

“You don’t want to?” you whisper, stopping instantly at the idea of going too far, and horror rushes through him at the thought of you believing he didn’t want you.

“No, that’s not—” he sighs, rubbing a hand down his face. He exhales heavily into his palm, trying to find the words before he removes it to admit, “I just…don’t think it’d be that enjoyable for ya.”

You scoff, leaning forward to settle on your knees right beside him, fingertips finding the edge of his jawline. They run across it, and Joel’s eyes fall shut, sighing from the sensation of being touched after so long, of it being your hands on his face when you cup his cheeks, thumbs brushing along his cheekbones so softly. 

You stroke his skin like you were holding something delicate, and not a living, breathing instrument of death with the scars to prove it right under your palms.

What did you see in him?

“Joel,” you breathe, and a whimper gets caught in his throat, his eyes blinking back open, struggling to refocus on you under the heavy heat of the moment. “Do you want to?”

He doesn’t have to think twice, doesn’t even want to as his voice comes out in a hoarse whisper, a desperate beg of, “Yes.”

Your lips are on his then, and his hand finds the small of your back, tugging you into him as he groans into the mouth he’s been dreaming of, day and night, for months on end.

Joel tries to be gentle with it, but it feels so fucking good, and God, now his hands are shaking. He has to grip onto your waist tightly to anchor himself to the moment, to remind himself that you’re there. This isn’t one of his vivid daydreams, or images that taunt him in his sleep that he’ll wake up painfully hard from.

No, you’re here, lips pliable and just as wanting as his when his tongue tentatively traces the shape of them, knowing the curve of your mouth from long stolen glimpses even with his eyes closed, even through just the touch of his lips to them alone. 

Your mouth opens eagerly, and he licks into it, moans deeply into the sweet taste of you. His hand slides up your back to cup your neck, fingers tangling into the back of your hair as he tugs you forward by the waist until you’re settled in his lap, so he can wrap you up and pull you into him completely.

When your lips leave his, he tries to chase them with a whine stuck in the back of his throat, and he can feel that pretty smile pressed to his skin when you kiss along his bearded jaw and down the strength of his neck as it strains under your attention. 

Joel’s head falls back, sinking into the couch with the feeling of your lips descending, until there’s a sweet bite of pain that pulls his lips apart. It tugs a throaty grunt straight from the pit of heat building in his lower stomach, his hips bucking up hard into your own.

His hands are clutching your waist, the sweet syllables of your name pouring from his mouth like a prayer. The sound of his desperation, his need for you vibrates against your lips as you suck a mark on his neck, your tongue flattening against it and pulling another weak bucking up of his hips.

Your head lifts, gazing down at him with lidded eyes and a giddy smile at this mountain of a man you’d pulled apart and wrapped around your finger so easily, before you tap that very finger against the same spot on your own neck.

Joel’s jaw drops.

“I—sweetheart, I—”

He can’t find the words, can’t explain how he’s afraid he’s far too rough to do such a thing. It’s been too long, he’s out of practice, and the last thing he wants is to hurt you.

You just smile down at what he leaves unspoken, some look in your eyes that makes him tremble as you brush your hands through his hair and whisper, “You’re capable of much more softness than you realize, Joel Miller.”

A warmth eases his concern at your words, and he lets you guide his face to your neck, his lips finding your skin for a tentative kiss there. You’re putting yourself in his hands now, trusting him not to break you, just as he trusts you to lead him through this forgotten territory until it was familiar to him again.

Joel breathes you in, large hands grasping at your back as he pulls your body firmly against his, tongue darting out to taste your skin before he bites down softly.

There’s a moan that floats from your lips then, the most sweet, seductive music to his ears that’ll replay in his mind for nights to come, and Joel sucks at the skin, eager to leave his mark on you as you did him. He’s grasping desperately at your body now as you grind down into his lap, unwilling to ever let you go now that he has you.

Heavy breaths fill the air as you bring his face back up to yours, and you just kiss. Lips swelling from the attention, and Joel never wants to stop, even though he knows he’ll have to eventually.

When he does, the two of you finally needing to actually catch your breath, your forehead rests against his with a quiet sigh. It sounds dangerously like contentment, and it takes a moment before Joel realizes that such a thing isn’t so dangerous anymore.

Your nose bumps against his, and he whispers hoarsely, “How was that?”

You laugh, sounding just as breathless and raspy as him, and he can’t stop the goofy smile that stretches across his face when you hum, “Mm, I’ll need more evidence before I draw any conclusions.”

Joel’s lips meet yours again, a softer kiss shared this time, leaving the promise of more that he’d never thought he’d be able to make before he pulls back, and your smile returning his own tells him all he’s ever needed to know.

“That can be arranged.”

[angrycollectivecollectorr]

A Safe Haven l Chapter Nine (J. Miller)

Series Masterlist l Previous Chapter l Next Chapter

Summary: When you find out that you’re pregnant, everything comes crumbling down around you.

Pairing: Joel Miller x Female Reader; Ellie Williams x Platonic Female Reader

Warnings/Tags: 18+ only, Minors DNI. (TW) domestic abuse/violence, pregnancy, very uncomfortable scene with her and Luke (not graphic and despite the sexual nature of the scene, reader does NOT GET SA, but she does get injured). INJURY; there is a description of an injury as the result of DV towards the end of the chapter implying strangulation. This is a very heavy chapter, so please proceed with caution. I do my best to handle sensitive subjects with as much care as I can. Other tags include: child death (not related to reader), talk of high risk pregnancy (also not reader), reader realizes that she’s having pregnancy symptoms (missed cycle, sickness), reader goes into a state of shock, protective Tommy Miller (I love him sm) reader has a hard time accepting help, there’s a gray area when it comes to doing the right thing. There’s way too much going on so I’ll stop here, the most important warnings are up in bold. OH and also—feral Joel Miller.

Word Count: 11.5k

A/N: I remember thinking the last chapter was hard for me to write but hoooo boy ya girl was wrong. I apologize for the delay, to any readers who have stuck around for this long, I appreciate you so much. Also, obviously you can tell by the warnings and tags this chapter is a tough one. Please be mindful, as it touches on very sensitive subjects from start to finish. I’ve never been this fucking nervous to share a chapter tbh. I’m pretty sure I’m going to go hide in a hole after I post it. Also, that word count good lord I am so sorry not sure how that happened.

Nothing’s gonna hurt you, baby

as long as you’re with me, you’ll be just fine

nothing’s gonna hurt you, baby

nothing’s gonna take you from my side

October, 2024

It was the middle of October.

By now, the pain had become almost unbearable.

Time certainly wasn’t healing the wound.

If anything, time seemed to be making it worse.

So much fucking worse.

But the only thing that you could do was pretend.

Pretend everything was okay.

Pretend it didn’t hurt.

Pretend you didn’t feel empty.

Pretend you didn’t need him.

But you did need him, oh how you fucking needed him—the hole in your heart was growing bigger by the day and only Joel Miller had the capacity to fill the void. Only Joel had the ability to make you feel whole again.

“Be completely honest—what does this look like?”

You stopped knitting and glanced over at Maria.

With her due date approaching, you had offered to help her prepare for the baby’s arrival. At about six months, Maria was expected to give birth towards the middle of winter season and instead of trading or having to use rations for certain baby items, like blankets, little socks and mittens, you’d decided to show her how to make them instead. Not only was it saving her from having to trade or use rations on things that could easily be knitted, but it served as a decent, albeit temporary, distraction, giving your mind the chance to focus on something else other than how deeply you were hurting without Joel.

Tilting your head slightly, you eyed the soft, butter yellow wool she held in her hands. “Um, is that the start of another baby blanket?”

“No.” Maria’s face fell. “It’s supposed to be a hat.”

“Oh. Um.” You leaned forward in the brown leather armchair you were perched on, squinting hard at it as she held it up. “Okay, yeah, I can kind of see the shape of it now. I can totally see it being a little hat for the baby.” She tossed you a knowing smile and you squirmed slightly, heat prickling at your ears.

“I appreciate you lying to me.” She giggled and set down her knitting needles beside her on the couch along with the ball of wool yarn. Leaning back, she placed both hands on her belly and sighed. “At the very least this child will never go without a blanket seeing as blankets are all I’m capable of making.”

You flashed her a small, but reassuring smile.

“You’ll get the hang of it. It just takes practice.”

“Well, now that Luke has put me on strict bed rest until I have the baby, I’m going to have all the time in the world to practice,” Maria remarked, exhaling another sigh. Craning her neck, she peered at your own knitting project, which you’d been working on in something of a secretive manner in your lap and out of the expectant mother’s view. “What are you making over there, anyway?”

Her timing couldn’t have been more perfect.

“I’m so glad you asked since I’m just about done.”

Crossing the last stitch, you set aside your knitting needles and then held up the finished product.

“What do you think of these?”

Maria’s hand flew to her mouth, tears welling up in her dark eyes the moment she saw the pair of little brown baby booties in your hands. “I’m sorry,” she apologized, a tear rolling down the side of her face as you stood up and walked across her living room to present her with the shoes. Sitting down beside her, you held them out in the palms of your hands; with trembling fingers, she accepted them. “Kevin had a pair just like these when he was a newborn. I kept them even after he’d outgrown them.” She let out a small laugh in spite of herself. “You know, I’d always complain that he was growing up too fast. I used to wish that I could slow time down a little so I could enjoy my son being that young longer,” she admitted, sniffing. She reached up, dabbing at her damp eyes with one of her hands. “And now Kevin is frozen in time, forever a three year old little boy.”

She set the booties down on her belly and inhaled deeply, willing herself to keep her composure.

Swallowing back your own emotions, you reached up and brushed a single, stray tear from her cheek with your thumb. It wasn’t the first time that she’d opened up about losing her child—but Maria often kept her emotions hidden, tucked away along with her son’s memory. For the last several years, she’d dedicated most of her time and energy to Jackson and its people, pouring herself completely into her role as the community’s leader. But now that Luke had placed her on strict bed rest for the rest of her pregnancy, Maria had no choice but to step down, temporarily handing the role over to Tommy, along with a small council she’d handpicked herself.

It hadn’t been easy for her, after all, there was only so much she could do to keep herself preoccupied while being confined to the four walls of her home. She found her mind wandering to Kevin a lot more often than not lately and the pregnancy hormones did absolutely nothing to help in the matter.

“Maria?” You said her name softly. “You okay?”

She slowly exhaled the breath she’d been holding.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” she finally replied, sniffing again.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah.” She paused momentarily. “I just—there’s a part of me that still has trouble believing I’m going to be a mother again. It’s been so long, you know? What if I’ve forgotten how to be a good mom?”

Dropping your hand from Maria’s face, you offered it out for her to hold. She accepted it and you gave her hand a gentle squeeze as you said, “This baby, they couldn’t be any luckier than to have a mother like you, Maria.”

“And a fuckin’ hell of a dad like me,” a voice teased from the doorway.

Tommy, who had been at the commune’s produce market picking up potatoes for dinner, walked into the living room with a brown paper bag in his arm. Setting the bag down onto a nearby table, he then made his way over to his wife. Noticing she’d been crying, he leaned over and pressed his lips against her forehead, softly murmuring, “You doin’ alright, sweetheart?”

“I’m alright,” she assured him with a nod. “I’m just extra sensitive and hormonal right now.”

“Kinda figured that out when you bawled your way through Old Yeller at the movies the other night.”

She frowned. “Pregnant or not, that movie’s a tear jerker, okay? Only people made of stone didn’t cry when he died.”

“She’s got a point,” You agreed.

Drawing himself back up to his full height, Tommy glanced at the booties resting on Maria’s belly. He picked them up and held them both in the palm of his hand.

“Well, ain’t these just the teeniest things I ever did see,” he remarked with a soft chuckle. “Who made these?”

Maria jerked her chin towards you. “She did.”

Tommy’s eyes met yours and it felt like a punch to the fucking gut—they reminded you of his brother. “Almost feels like a crime, havin’ you make clothes for our kid for free,” he stated, shaking his head as he handed them back to Maria. “You’re makin’ the baby’s entire wardrobe at this point, little lady.”

Sheepishly, you waved a dismissive hand at him.

“I made one sweater and a couple pairs of mittens for them. I wouldn’t call that a wardrobe, Tommy.”

“It’s a hell of a lot more stuff than we had before. I gotta be honest, it just don’t feel right acceptin’ all these things from you without payin’ somehow. I’d really like to at least trade you somethin’ for ‘em.”

Shaking your head, you politely declined the offer.

“I appreciate it, but I really don’t need anything.”

“What ‘bout Luke?”

“He doesn’t either.”

“But—”

“Honey, don’t waste your breath,” Maria chimed in with a sigh. “I’ve been trying to get her to accept a trade all week long and she simply won’t budge.”

Tommy pursed his lips together. “Okay, I’ve got an idea,” he proposed after a minute. “How ‘bout you and Luke both come on over and join us for dinner later tonight? That ain’t too bad of a deal, right?”

You silently mulled over the offer for a second.

“If I accept, will you two knock it off with the trade nonsense?” When he nodded, you sighed. “Alright then, I accept. We’ll come over for dinner tonight.”

“Perfect,” he grinned. “See that wasn’t so hard.”

“Great!” Maria beamed. “We haven’t had a chance to get together for dinner in months. Lately when I see Luke, it’s as his patient,” she mused. “I have to say, it’ll be so nice to have a conversation with him that doesn’t revolve around my uterus for once.”

Tommy jokingly made a face. “Yeah, tell the doc to leave all that medical stuff at the door. Last thing I wanna hear ‘bout while I’m chowin’ down on some big, juicy bison steaks is what fuckin’ size it is—”

“Tommy! That’s not funny!” Rolling her eyes at her husband, Maria turned to you to apologize but she stopped short when she noticed a sudden change in your complexion. Frowning, she reached up and touched your cheek. “Hey, you don’t look so good. Are you feeling alright?”

You could taste the bile at the back of your throat.

“I-I’m sorry, what did you just say was for dinner?”

Tommy shot you a strange look. “Uh, steaks?”

The mere mention of the word sent a violent wave of sickness crashing over you—slapping your hand tightly over your mouth, you jumped off the couch and made a beeline for their downstairs bathroom right across the hallway. You’d made it just in time to fall to your knees in front of the toilet. Clutching the sides of the porcelain bowl, you gagged loudly and emptied the contents of your stomach into it.

As your stomach heaved, you felt one hand gather your hair to hold it back and out of your face, while another rubbed soothing circles into your back.

“Let it all out,” Maria encouraged you. “It’s alright, just let it all out. There you go, get everything out.”

Tommy poked his head into the bathroom.

“She okay?”

“Tommy! Get out of here!” Maria scolded him over her shoulder. “She doesn’t need an audience!”

He held up his hands. “Alright, alright! Sheesh, I’m just makin’ sure she’s okay, you ain’t gotta bite my head off!” He huffed at her. “I’ll be in the kitchen if you two need me.” Without another word, he spun around on the heel of his boot and disappeared.

Once you were certain there was nothing left, your trembling hand reached for the handle on the tank and pulled it, flushing the toilet. You then sat back, slumping against the wall. “I am so fucking sorry. I don’t know what came over me,” You groaned, the embarrassment evident in your tone as you wiped at your mouth with the sleeve of your flannel shirt.

Maria peered at you, a suspicious glint in her eyes.

“You know,” she said, tucking a lock of hair behind your ear, “About five months ago, I went through a phase where I couldn’t stand the thought of meat; any kind, but red meat had to be the worst. I could not stomach it.” Her hand fell away from your face and she rose to her feet. Leaning back against the sink, she continued to say, “Poor Tommy, couldn’t even mention it to me or I’d throw up on his boots. Not long after that, I found out I was pregnant.”

You stared at her, jaw nearly falling to the tile floor.

“Maria, you can’t seriously be insinuating—I’m not pregnant. It’s not possible—you know I can’t!” You sputtered out, furiously shaking your head. “I have tried and tried, but it never happened for me. I just can’t be—there’s just no fucking way that I’m—”

Maria held up her hands to stop you.

“When was the date of your last menstrual cycle?”

“It was recent.”

“How recent?”

Silently, you started counting the weeks and froze the moment you realized you’d missed September completely and October’s cycle had been due two weeks ago. You’d been so lost in your own grief, so busy trying to keep yourself from falling apart that you hadn’t even realized you hadn’t bled since—

“August,” You breathed out in a terrified whisper.

The last time you’d had your period was in August.

August.

Right before you had slept with Joel Miller for the first time.

Maria whirled around and started digging into the medicine cabinet above the sink. After a minute or so, she turned around and extended a hand out to you, offering to help you to your feet. She let out a tiny, labored grunt as she helped you stand. “I had one left,” she stated, holding out her other hand to you, an individually wrapped pregnancy test in her palm. “At this point, I don’t think you even need to take a test, but it doesn’t hurt to have solid proof.”

You could hardly choke out her name. “Maria—”

She hastily shoved the rest into your hands.

“Just take it. I’ll be back in to check on you, okay?”

Not giving you the chance to protest, she stepped out of the bathroom, closing the door behind her.

You looked down at the test in your palm and then up in the mirror, mouth still agape as you met your own wide eyes in the reflection.

It couldn’t be possible, it just couldn’t be possible.

You couldn’t have children.

With shaking hands, you unzipped your blue jeans and then tore open the package. After you’d taken the test, you laid it on the counter, with the results window facing down. You yanked your panties and jeans back up into place and washed your hands—all the while, the sheer panic had started setting in and the fear that accompanied it seeped deep into your bones.

Swallowing harshly, you realized you it’d been well over the three minutes the package instructed you to wait for the results. “It’s negative,” You affirmed quietly underneath your breath as you picked it up and flipped it over. “It’s negative. It’s negative—”

You stopped, and for a second, your heart did too.

Horrified, you blinked furiously, as if somehow you had misread the results—but there was no fucking mistaking those two solid little pink lines.

The blood ran cold in your veins.

You were pregnant.

Luke hadn’t touched you in months.

And you were pregnant.

Luke hadn’t touched you in months.

And you were fucking pregnant.

Maria knocked lightly on the bathroom door.

“It’s been a few minutes now—can I come in?”

She waited, only to be met with complete silence.

“Hun?” She knocked again. “Is everything okay?”

Again, there was no response from the other side.

“Christ, Maria.” Tommy suddenly appeared beside her with a glass of water in hand. Flashing his wife a teasing look, he quipped, “Can’t you let the poor girl do her damn business in peace? What’s wrong with you, woman?”

Maria frowned. “I think something’s wrong.”

His playful grin faltered. “What do you mean?”

“She’s not answering me.”

Tommy chortled, quirking an eyebrow at her.

“Maybe ‘cause she’s actually doin’ her business?”

Hesitantly, Maria bit down on her bottom lip.

“What? What is it?”

“I—I gave her a pregnancy test to take.”

Tommy’s eyes widened. “You fuckin’ with me?”

Maria glared at him. “No! I’m not fucking with you, I’m being serious! I gave her the test and then told her I would check back in after she took it but now she’s not answering me and I’m kind of worried.”

“The door locked?”

She shook her head. “No, I don’t think it is. Should we just open the door and see if she’s okay?”

Tommy handed Maria the glass of water. “Hey,” he called lightly as he rapped on the door. “Everythin’ alright in there?” He waited for a minute, but when you didn’t reply, he grasped the brass doorknob in his hand. “Now you listen here, little lady. You best answer me right now, or we’re gonna come in, you understand me?”

Silence.

“Last chance—talk or I’m gonna open this door.”

Nothing.

“Alright then, suit yourself. Hope you’re decent.”

Tommy turned the knob, cracking the door open—when he didn’t see you, he pushed it open further; the door stopped halfway and he peered around it only to find you sitting against the wall, preventing the door from going any further. “Shit, she’s sittin’ right behind the damn—fuckin’ hold on, Maria! If I try shovin’ it open, I could hurt her!” Being careful so as not to hit you or step on you by accident, he squeezed his way into the bathroom. He crouched down beside you, cupping your cheek in the palm of his hand. “Hey, what is it? What’s the matter?

Your eyes flickered up to meet his.

You couldn’t speak. You couldn’t move.

All that you could do was stare at him. Petrified.

“C’mon, little lady,” he coaxed, softly. “Talk to me.”

“Tommy! Let me in!” Maria demanded. “Open this door—my bump’s too big, I can’t squeeze through. Can you move her?”

Tommy slid an arm around your shoulders and the other arm underneath your knees. “I’m just gonna move you out the way so she can come in, alright? C’mere.” He gingerly slid you across the tile, closer to him. He then called out to his wife, “There, that should be enough room!”

Maria pushed the door open and rushed inside. “Is she okay?” Gripping Tommy’s shoulder, she slowly lowered herself to kneel beside you. Her eyes went straight to the test clutched in your hand. She just about had to pry your ice cold fingers off the white stick one by one. “It’s positive!” She gasped. “Your results are positive—you’re going to have a baby!”

Tommy let out a gleeful laugh. “You hear that, little lady? You’re gonna have a baby! You’re gonna be a mama! Ain’t that great news?”

Finally, you snapped out of your trance.

Your eyes anxiously bounced between Tommy and Maria, heart pounding as they eagerly waited for a reaction with excited smiles on their faces. “I—”

Unable to utter another word, you burst into tears.

It didn’t take long for either of them to realize they weren’t tears of happiness—the sobs coming from deep within you weren’t full of joy at the news that you were going to become a mother. Instead, they were pained, cries full of sorrow, anguish and fear; and as the confusion flashed across their faces, all you could do was weep harder and louder.

“Wait a minute, I thought you’d be happy.” Maria’s hands reached for yours and she held them tightly as she tried to understand what it was that caused such a negative reaction. “You and Luke tried for a really long time to have another baby. Why are you so upset?” She kept her voice calm, kind. Warm. It wasn’t that she was judging you—Maria wanted to help you, however there was no way for her to help you if she didn’t know what was causing your grief in the first place. “What’s the matter, hun? Are you afraid after what happened last time?”

“I can’t be pregnant,” You rasped out. “I can’t—”

“Hey now, it’s alright. C’mere.” Tommy shifted and moved to sit down beside you against the wall. His arm draped around your trembling shoulders in an effort to comfort you. As sobs wracked your entire body, he pulled you close against his side, rubbing your arm with his hand. Once they’d subsided and little hiccups were all that was left, he finally spoke again. “You can talk to us, little lady. We care ‘bout you a whole lot. Y’know that, don’t you?”

“Tommy’s right,” Maria nodded. “You’re like family to us. You can come to us about anything. We’ll do whatever we can to help you, okay?”

You shook your head tightly. “I can’t. I just can’t.”

She let out a small sigh and looked at her husband with a look of defeat. “I think you should run down to the clinic and get Luke. He’ll know what to do.”

“No!” You shouted loudly, startling them both. “I—he can’t find out that I’m pregnant. He can’t know, or else—” A fresh batch of tears sprang forward as you clamped a hand over your mouth.

“Or else what?” Maria asked, raising an eyebrow.

Or else he was going to fucking kill you.

Tommy grabbed your wrist, gently tugging it away from your face. “Or else what?” He echoed. “What is goin’ on? Is there somethin’ we should know?”

You let out another sob and his fingers curled a bit tighter around your wrist, firm but still gentle.

“We’re gonna need you to tell us what’s goin’ on.”

There was no way around it—around any of it.

You had to tell them.

Swallowing harshly, you admitted, “There is.”

The couple waited expectantly.

“The baby isn’t Luke’s.” You mumbled it so quietly and incoherently that neither of them had heard it despite being in such close proximity.

Maria furrowed an eyebrow. “What did you say?”

“The baby isn’t Luke’s!” You yanked your wrist out of Tommy’s hand and cried out the confession. “It isn’t his and that’s why he can’t fucking know!”

And just like that, everything came spilling out.

Luke’s violence towards you.

Your romantic affair with Joel.

Ellie finding out about the abuse.

Your refusal to let them do anything about it.

You spared no details of everything that had taken place over the last several months and by the time you’d finally finished, both Tommy and Maria were rendered completely speechless. Tommy, who still had an arm around you, must have been grappling with the fact that the child you carried would be of his very own flesh and blood.

“Can one of you say something? Please? Anything at all?” Your voice was small, feeble.

Tommy withdrew his arm from your shoulders and stood up. He helped Maria up to her feet before he extended his hand to you. “Alright, first let me get you up off of this floor, little lady.���

Your mouth fell open. “Tommy how can you—after everything that I’ve done? Your brother—”

“Please, just let me help you off the floor and then we can talk ‘bout it. Okay?”

You accepted his hand, allowing him to pull you to your feet. Much to your surprise, he didn’t let it go as he led you out of the bathroom and back to the living room where he sat you down on the couch.

Maria, who still hadn’t said a word, sat beside you.

Tommy knelt down in front of you, placing a warm and gentle hand on your knee. He almost looked a little bit guilty—as if he should’ve known what was being done to you behind closed doors. “I need an honest answer. How long has he been doin’ this to you?”

Anxiously, you started wringing your hands in your lap. “Tommy, I can’t—”

“Tell me,” he encouraged you, gently. “When did it first start?”

“Two months after my dad died,” You confessed.

Maria stiffened. “Luke’s been putting his hands on you for two years?”

You nodded. “Yes.” Your voice was small and full of shame, shame for letting it go on as long as it had.

“Fuckin’ hell.” Tommy sighed heavily and hung his head. “Joel told me—he fuckin’ told me.”

You wiped at your swollen eyes with your forearm.

“What the hell are you talking about, Tommy?”

He sighed again.

“Months ago, the day after the big summer party,” he began to explain. “We were at the bar. Joel was askin’ me ‘bout you and Luke. Said somethin’ just wasn’t right when he saw you two together for the first time. He tried to tell me somethin’ was wrong and I—I didn’t fuckin’ believe him. Told him he was seein’ what he wanted to see ‘cause he liked you. I fuckin’ told him that you and Luke were happy. He tried to tell me and I didn’t fuckin’ listen to him.”

“Tommy, please don’t blame yourself for this,” You begged him. “I’m the one who chose to hide it. It’s my own fault, okay? This is on me, not on you.”

Maria furiously shook her head. “It’s not your fault and it sure as hell isn’t on you. You’re the victim.”

Victim.

The word made you physically cringe.

“But it is. I hid it from you for two fucking years.”

“Why did you hide it? Why didn’t you come to us?” Tommy’s voiced was strained. “We—I coulda done somethin’ to stop it. I coulda helped you.”

“I didn’t want to risk getting him thrown out of the commune. Jackson needs him, Tommy.”

“Like hell we do,” Tommy rose to his feet. “Ain’t no way we’re toleratin’ that fuckin’ shit here.” With his hands curled tightly into fists, he spun around and started walking towards the front door.

You stood and chased after him, catching him just as he opened the door. “Where are you going?”

“To confront that pathetic son of a bitch—”

“Tommy, please! Don’t do that.” Grabbing his arm, you shot him a pleading look. “Please, think about this for a minute.”

“There ain’t nothin’ for me to think ‘bout, alright?”

“Yes there is! This town needs a doctor. They need Luke—Maria needs Luke.” You glanced over at her just as she appeared in the hallway, both hands on her belly. “God forbid something goes wrong—she goes into preterm labor, or she has a complication when she gives birth. Did you think about that?”

“We’ve got two nurses,” he reminded you.

“Two nurses who only know basic neonatal care. If something serious happens, Maria’s going to need Luke. And the baby’s going to need him too.”

Tommy looked helplessly at his wife. “She’s right. I fuckin’ hate to say it, but she’s right ‘bout that.”

“I am,” You stated. “Luke has to stay and you both know that as well as I do. For the good of Jackson, he has to stay.”

Conflicted, Tommy growled out in frustration. “I’m just supposed to give him a fuckin’ pass? How can you expect us—how can you expect me to let that motherfucker walk around this place knowin’ what he’s been doin’ to you over these last two years?”

Your fingers dug into his arm, a fresh batch of hot, stinging tears brimming your eyes. “Tommy, if this community suffers without Luke because of me, it will destroy me. The guilt will fucking destroy me.”

Maria, who hadn’t said much of anything, stepped in. “Listen, I know that you’re trying to look out for the people of this town. But you’re risking your life by asking us to let him stay here.” She walked over to you, taking your hands in hers. “I know men like Luke because I used to prosecute men like Luke. I would take them to court on murder charges.” Her eyes found yours. “I don’t want to scare you, but if it’s the only way for me to get through to you, I will sit you down and tell you all about what happened to the women who told me their abusive husbands would never, ever dare take it that far.”

Your throat bobbed, a chill running up your spine.

“I’ll leave,” You squeaked. “I’ll leave him.”

“And what if he doesn’t let you walk away?”

Tommy crossed his arms over his chest. “He will if I’m the one who fuckin’ talks to him.”

Panicked, you furiously shook your head. “I can do this on my own, Tommy. I can handle Luke alone—I don’t need you to do it for me. I can fix this alone without your help, okay?”

“You can’t,” he said, firmly. “You just can’t.”

“But—”

He cut you off with a pleading look.

“You need to let us help you. Please. Let us help.”

You had agreed to it, but only on one condition.

“I need a couple of days,” You’d told them.

Tommy frowned. “No. It’s happenin’ tonight. We’re gonna talk to Luke, you’re gonna pack up a couple bags and we’re gettin’ you away from him. You can stay here with us for a while. You’ll be safe.” Taking notice of the shocked look on your face, he said, “I know you ain’t crazy enough to think I’m gonna let you go home to him tonight. Ain’t no way in hell.”

“I—this is all happening so fast. It’s overwhelming, Tommy. I just need a day or two to process—”

“And give Luke the fuckin’ chance to hurt you?”

“He hasn’t laid a finger on me in weeks now.”

Tommy scoffed, “Well, someone give him a fuckin’ medal!” He exclaimed, throwing his hands up. “He hasn’t hit his wife in weeks! What a fuckin’ guy!”

You recoiled, his sarcasm stinging like he’d poured salt right into the open wound.

“Tommy,” Maria glared at him. “Not helping.”

He immediately shot you an apologetic look.

“Shit. Sorry, little lady. I’m just real worried. I don’t like the idea of you goin’ home to him tonight, and much less knowin’ that you’re pregnant, y’know?” His eyes fell to your stomach. “When, uh, when do you plan on tellin’ Joel ‘bout the baby anyway?”

Heat flooded your face and neck. “I-I’m not sure.”

“Jesus Christ, Tommy! She just told you that she’s feeling overwhelmed,” Maria chastised him. “Let’s take it one step at a time. Our first priority is going to be to get her out of that house. She has already agreed to letting us help her, so I think there’s a bit of room for compromise. Here’s the deal.” She put a hand on your shoulder. “As much as I don’t want to let you go home to him tonight either, I’m going to allow it so you can take a breather. Tomorrow in the afternoon when you get home from work duty, I’ll come over and help you pack some clothes and we can bring them over here to our place.”

Nervously chewing your lower lip, you asked, “And then what?”

“I’ll go confront Luke,” Tommy stated. “Best if you ain’t there when I talk to him, little lady.” He turned to Maria, placing a hand on her belly. “I don’t want you to be there either, sweetheart. I ain’t takin’ any chances and puttin’ you and the baby under stress so I’m gonna have to handle him alone, alright?”

Maria nodded, shifting her attention back to you.

“So? Do we have a deal?”

Meekly, you nodded. “We have a deal.”

The rest of that evening passed by in a blur.

Autopilot took over moment that Tommy took you across the road and dropped you off at your door.

“Any problems, you come get me,” he’d said. “You come and get me. No matter what time it is, okay? You fuckin’ come and get me if he tries anythin’.”

All that you could do was give him a weak nod and then you’d turned around, slipping into the house.

You didn’t remember cooking dinner.

You didn’t remember looking at the clock, noticing it was well past dinnertime and realizing that Luke would be home late as usual. You didn’t remember fixing him a plate and leaving it on top of the stove for him to find when he came home, storing all the leftovers, and washing the dirty dishes in the sink.

You didn’t remember heading upstairs afterwards, you didn’t remeber taking a long shower, brushing your teeth or changing into your pajamas.

It wasn’t until the bedroom door opened and Luke walked in that autopilot mode finally disengaged.

“You’re still up?”

You’d been sitting on the foot of the bed anxiously picking at your fingernails without even realizing it until he glared at you—he’d always hated the habit and spent months smacking it out of you. Ceasing from messing with your hands, you dropped them into your lap.

“You’re home really late again,” You said, quietly.

“I made a last minute house call. John’s boy came down with a hell of a fever tonight.” Luke set down his satchel bag and shrugged out of his jacket—as he did so, you caught sight the tiny reddish purple bruise on his neck, right below his ear. Draping his jacket over a nearby chair, he arched his brow as if he were silently challenging you to confront him—daring you to ask him who’d given him a love bite.

You didn’t care. You didn’t care about what or who Luke was doing over the last several nights he had been coming home so much later than usual.

Kicking off his boots, he sauntered over to you, his mouth stretching into a cruel, satisfied little smirk; he knew damn well you’d already figured it out.

“Spend the afternoon at Tommy and Maria’s?”

“Yeah.”

He hummed. “She was telling me during her exam this morning at the clinic that you’ve been helping her knit some clothes for the baby.”

“I have,” You murmured, looking down to avert his curious gaze as he stopped in front of you. “We’ve been making blankets, too.”

Luke cupped your chin, forcing it back up to meet his. “Isn’t that sweet of you.” He roughly curled his fingers around your jaw, his thumb brushing along your quivering lower lip. He chuckled. “Something about you seems different, darling. Been looking a lot prettier to me these days.” He let go of your jaw and brushed your hair behind your shoulder, finger skimming the strap of your pajama top. “How long has it been now, sweetheart?”

Your throat went dry, your lips parting in complete shock as he pulled it down your arm, palm grazing over your skin as he did so.

This couldn’t be happening. He wanted to—?

Without waiting for a response, Luke grabbed one of your hands and brushed it along his belt buckle.

He laughed again. “Why so surprised?”

“You haven’t wanted to touch me in months.”

“Well I’m suddenly in the mood for my wife’s cunt. Who knows, maybe we’ll get lucky this time. Have a little one of our own. I’m feeling optimistic.”

You were going to be fucking sick all over him.

No, you couldn’t let him do this to you.

You couldn’t let him touch you.

Not when you were—

He pushed your hand lower, right over his bulge.

“No!” Tearing your hand away, you jumped up and shoved him backwards. “Don’t fucking touch me!”

He stumbled backwards, but he caught himself.

Your chest heaved as he stared at you, bewildered at what you had just done. “I’m sorry that whoever you fucked before you came home wasn’t enough for you, but you are not fucking touching me!” You spat out at him. “In fact, you’re never touching me ever again because I’m leaving. I’m done, Luke.”

“Excuse me?”

“You fucking heard me.” Your voice trembled—you couldn’t be sure if it was out of anger or out of the sheer terror you felt. Maybe it was a bit of both. “It is over, Luke. This marriage is over. I’m not putting up with what you’ve been doing to me for the past two years, not anymore. I’m not going to allow you to keep on hurting me.” Lifting your hand, you slid off your wedding band and threw it; it clinked as it landed on the hardwood floor near his feet. “I’ll be out of this house by tomorrow evening.”

“Let me take a guess.” He spoke calmly, much too calmly, as he started towards you. The time-bomb had started ticking. “You’re going to move in with Joel Miller and his feral little rat of a kid?”

Hands curling into fists at your sides, you seethed, “Where I move is none of your business, Luke.” He stepped closer and your courage started to falter. You could feel yourself wanting to back down—the thought of your unborn child is the only thing that kept you from completely losing your nerve. “Here is the deal. You’re going to let me leave and you’re going to stay away from me. If you do that, I won’t tell anyone anything about the things you’ve done to me. We both move on with our lives, separately. Got it?”

He drew closer and closer. Much too close.

“Do you really think you can call the shots? Do you really fucking think you have the upper hand? That you can just end this marriage, just like that?”

Closer, until his chest brushed against yours.

“Luke, I’m giving you a fucking chance here!” You said, backing away until the back of your knees hit the edge of the mattress. With nowhere else to go, you fell backwards onto the bed, scrambling up to the headboard. Your heart was pounding, too hard and too fast—would it give out before he even had the chance to get his hands on you? “Luke, please just let me go.” Clasping your hands together, you begged him, your back against the headboard, “If at any point in our relationship you loved me—if at any point in our marriage you actually cared about me, you will let me go in peace. Please, just let me go. Let me fucking go.”

Luke stood at the foot of the bed, his face blank.

Emotionless.

There wasn’t a single ounce of mercy in his eyes.

“Please,” You whispered, your arms curling around yourself and subconsciously protecting your belly.

He reached down and unbuckled his belt.

You watched, your stomach churning, as he slowly slid the black leather from the loops of his jeans.

“I’m not letting you go anywhere.”

“I mean it, Joel. Stay away from Luke.”

Joel clutched his stallion’s reins tightly in his hand as the pair fell into an easy trot behind Tommy and his horse, Ranger. His younger brother led the way through the quiet, tranquil plains of Wyoming, but instead of scanning their surroundings for signs of potential danger, all Joel could do was think about you—that was all he could ever do these days, was fucking think about you, about that fucking night.

The memory played over and over in his mind on a loop, torturing him day in and day out.

“…just fucking stay away from me too.”

And so that’s exactly what he had fucking done.

He had stayed away from Luke.

He had stayed away from you.

Against his better judgement.

“How’s it feel to be back out here?” Tommy asked. He tugged at the reins and gave Ranger the cue to slow his trot, giving Joel and his horse, Bandit, the chance to catch up and ride at their side. “Bet you couldn’t be fuckin’ happier to be off house arrest,” he added, a light joking edge to his tone.

After about four and a half weeks, Joel made a full recovery and was finally allowed to return to patrol duties. Wanting to ease him back into the swing of things, Tommy had decided to pair up with Joel as his partner for that morning’s watch. The two took a route just a few miles west of the commune, one that was scoured every couple of days since it was so close to Jackson’s main gate.

“S’alright,” he muttered with a shrug. His shoulder was still pretty sore, but Ellie had assisted with his physical therapy, badgering him every single night to do the exercises in some book she had found in the town library with Dina’s help. He had full range of motion again, and that’s all Tommy had needed in order to allow him to return to patrol.

“You feelin’ alright?” His brother noticed the slight look of discomfort on his face. “Shoulder’s good?”

“Any particular reason you’re bein’ so annoyin’?”

Tommy feigned offense.

“You got shot, Joel. Just makin’ sure you’re okay.”

Joel let out a small huff through his nose. “S’good. Still hurts a little and the cold weather ain’t doin’ a whole lot to help.” Sitting back in his saddle, he let his thighs close around Bandit. “Whoa,” he uttered to the animal, his fingers squeezing the reins as he signaled for Bandit to come to a halt.

“What’s the matter? Why are we stoppin’?”

“This route’s clear, Tommy. We should turn around and go find rest of the group. Check and see if the other routes are clear too.” Joel clicked his tongue, prompting Bandit to move. He steered the stallion and started turning around to lead them back east but then stopped once again. He glimpsed over at Tommy, who hadn’t moved a muscle. Noticing the odd, pensive expression on his face, Joel frowned, asking, “What’s wrong?”

Tommy chewed the inside of his cheek, looking at him with apprehension.

“Joel, there’s something we need to talk ‘bout and maybe it’s best if we do it while we’re out here just the two of us.”

Confused, Joel’s eyebrows pulled together. “What is it?”

His brother hesitated, his lips pursed together and sudden regret flashing across his features, as if he shouldn’t have said anything.

“Tommy?” Joel prompted.

Exhaling a heavy sigh, he stated, “You were right.”

“Right ‘bout what?”

“‘Bout Luke.”

Joel froze in this seat of his saddle.

“You were fuckin’ right ‘bout him mistreatin’ her.”

His grip around the reins tightened, skin stretched thin over his knuckles so tight they’d gone white.

“She was over at mine yesterday afternoon, ended up tellin’ us everthin’ ‘bout Luke.” Rolling his lower lip between his teeth, Tommy paused for a second before repeating, “You were right. You were fuckin’ right ‘bout that bastard from the start and I’m real sorry that I didn’t fuckin’ believe you, Joel.”

Joel’s mind began to race—what prompted you to finally tell Tommy and Maria about the abuse? Did something happen to you he didn’t know about?

Ellie had been good about keeping him posted. He asked her about you the minute she’d walk in after her shift at the stables and she’d provide him a full report.

“It’s starting to get colder, Joel,” she had told him one evening over dinner with a worried look on her face. “She’s starting to wear sweaters and stuff. If she has marks, I’m not gonna be able to see them on her.”

“She’s fine. She ain’t hurt,” Tommy reassured him, as if he’d read his mind. “We’re plannin’ on movin’ her outta Luke’s house later on this afternoon—”

“What?” Finally, Joel spoke, his voice rigid.

Tommy held his hands up. “Now let me explain—”

“She told you Luke’s been abusin’ her and you just let her go back to him? Are you fuckin’ kiddin’ me? Why didn’t you and Maria fuckin’ stop her?”

“Why didn’t you fuckin’ stop her the night you saw the bruise on her?” The younger Miller challenged.

Joel stared at him, his lips parted slightly.

How did he fucking know about that?

“She told us the truth ‘bout the affair too, Joel.”

“She did?”

“She did.” Tommy nodded. “I had a hunch, the day we were all at the clinic after the ambush. Thought I saw panic in her eyes when I told Ellie you’d been shot. Then again when she saw you there sittin’ on that table with a bullet in your shoulder. I brushed it off, thought she was worried ‘bout the kid seein’ as those two are thick as fuckin’ thieves, y’know?”Despite the serious nature of the conversation, he couldn’t help but let out a small chuckle. “But now I know she was scared of losin’ you. That girl loves you, Joel. I know you love her too. I’m willin’ to bet it’s the reason you let her walk away that night. It’s a tough call, goin’ against someone’s wishes. Even if it’s for their own fuckin’ good.”

Joel exhaled a shaky breath. “Must think I’m a real coward for not doin’ a goddamn thing ‘bout it.”

“It’s a complicated situation, brother. She only did what she did for the good of the community. She’s still trying to do what’s best for Jackson, believe it or not. Wants us to let Luke stay.”

“Ain’t no goddamn way you’d let him stay. After all the shit he’s done to her?” When his brother didn’t respond, Joel narrowed his eyes at him. “You can’t fuckin’ tell me you’re considerin’ it! Are you fuckin’ serious, Tommy? You and Maria would let that son of a bitch stay in Jackson? Knowin’ he’s spent two fuckin’ years puttin’ his hands on his wife?”

“Look, I don’t like the idea as much as you do, and neither does Maria,” he said. “But this ain’t exactly black and white, Joel. I fuckin’ wish it was. But the hard truth is that Jackson does need a doctor, and unless one magically falls out of the fuckin’ sky we ain’t got much of a choice here. My wife and child, they might need him, y’know? Maria’s considered a high risk ‘cause of her age. If somethin’ happens and there’s complications when she’s in labor, she and the baby are gonna need him. Our nurses ain’t trained to handle things like that, y’know?”

Joel’s lips pressed together in a tight, thin line.

Of course it was black and white to him—because he loved you. You were his fucking priority.

Tommy?

His priority was Maria and their unborn child.

Joel couldn’t fault him for that, nor could he try.

“Listen, Joel. I know this is hard, believe me I do. I care about that girl a whole fuckin’ lot. I saw her as family long before I knew ‘bout the two of you and before I knew she was—” He stopped abruptly, the color draining from his face when he remebered.

Joel still didn’t know he was going to be a father.

Again.

“Before you knew she was what, Tommy?”

“Tommy!” A woman’s voice shouted. “Joel!”

The two brothers glanced over their shoulders and saw the rest of their morning patrol group heading towards them.

Tommy bit back a sigh of utter relief. He turned to Joel, lowering his voice. “Joel, I need you to listen, and listen good. We’ve gotta take this one step at a time. First thing’s first, me and Maria are gonna get her outta ther house. She’ll stay with us at our place for a while. She’ll be safe.”

“Then what?”

“Then we’ll figure things out. In the meantime, I’m gonna need you to stay calm, brother. Don’t go off and do somethin’ stupid, alright?”

That had been a lot easier said than done.

Joel needed to talk to you.

He needed to fucking see you.

But his brother had been adamant.

“Don’t get involved, Joel. Not ‘til we get her out. I don’t want things to fuckin’ explode in our faces.”

Letting out a heavy sigh, Joel leaned back into the couch and looked down at the guitar in his lap—he had just spent the last hour polishing it in an effort to keep himself occupied. He thought back to that night you’d come over to gift it to him, how he had kissed you for the first time mere hours before you showed up on his doorstep with the Gibson. As he gave the guitar a gentle test strum, he recalled the request you made for him to sing you a song and a dull ache settled in his chest, right over his heart.

He would sing you every song you wanted to hear, if given the chance.

Part of him was optimistic that he would.

You were meant to be his.

He was meant to be yours.

Joel’s train of thought was shattered by the sound of the front door opening and then slamming shut loudly.

“Ellie?” He called out.

Her voice came from the hallway. “Yeah?”

“C’mere, kiddo.”

Ellie grumbled incoherently as she walked into the living room, hair disheveled, clothes filthy, and her red sneakers caked with muck from the stables.

Joel frowned at her. “The hell happened to you?”

“Today was just really fucking shitty and while that was a great pun, it was not intended for once,” she sighed, crossing her arms over her chest. “Look, if you called me in here to ask me about her, I’d save my breath. She’s sick, so she stayed home today.”

Joel’s stomach instantly dropped. “She’s sick?”

“Yeah. With a really bad cold or something.”

Putting down the guitar, he questioned, “And who told you that?”

“Dina,” Ellie replied. “She said Luke told her—”

She stopped abruptly as he jumped to his feet and immediately shoved past her, heading towards the front door. She spun around on her heel, following him. As he flew down the porch and started down the road towards your place, she was forced to jog along beside him just to keep up with his stride.

“What, what? What is it? Joel, what is it?”

“She ain’t sick, Ellie.”

“What do you mean she’s not—oh fuck. You don’t think she’s hiding out at home because—?”

Ellie’s heartbeat skipped as the realization sank in.

As the pair arrived at your porch, they found a very distraught Maria Miller standing there at the door. “I need you to let me in!” She turned and pulled at the doorknob desperately. “Please! Open the door for me!”

Your tearful voice came from the other side.

“Go away!”

The sound of his boots on the porch caused Maria to turn around. “Joel,” she breathed out in relief. “I can’t get her to open the door. Tommy went to see if we have a spare key for the unit. He hasn’t come back and I don’t know what to do.”

“Break a fucking window?” Ellie snapped at her.

Joel silenced her with a glare and then took Maria, moving her to stand behind him. “Open the door!” He commanded, pounding a fist against the wood harshly. He could almost feel the way you froze on the other side the moment you heard the sound of his voice. “Open this fuckin’ door right now!”

Ellie chimed in, “Come on, please open the door!”

“Go away!”

Joel continued to beat his fists against the door.

“Show me what he fuckin’ did to you!” He shouted as he dropped his hands to the doorknob, clawing at it as if somehow that would do the trick to open the door. “Show me what that bastard did to you!”

“Please, go away, all of you! Just leave me alone!”

“You know we can’t do that,” Maria called. “You’re going to have to open this door and let us—”

Losing the very little patience he had to begin with in the first place, Joel cut her off. “I’ll fuckin’ break this door down if I have to,” he threatened. “Cause a scene and let everyone in this fuckin’ town know what Luke does to you—”

Hearing the lock click, he stopped.

Finally, you cracked the door open and peeked out to show them your face. “There, you fucking see?” Your face was blotchy, your eyes red, swollen from crying. “I’m fucking fine! Now fucking go away!”

You tried shutting the door, but Joel was too quick and slipped the steel toe of his boot in, wedging it between the door and the doorframe. Not wanting to break his foot, you let up and he shoved his way inside with Ellie and Maria trailing behind him.

Taking a clumsy step backwards, you gathered up the front of your brown cardigan in your trembling hands, bunching it around your neck. “Please, just get out!” You begged them through a sob. “Please leave! I’m fine! Look at me, I’m perfectly fine—”

Heart hammering painfully against his chest, Joel walked over and grabbed your wrists. “Let me see. Baby, let me see.” His voice was raw, thick, as if he were on the verge of tears himself. He tried to find your gaze, but you refused to look him in his eyes. “Let me see,” he choked out again, the warmth of his skin a stark contrast against the iciness of your own. “I’ll force you if I have to, so please just show me. Please, just fuckin’ show me.”

Letting out a tiny, agonized sob, you dropped your hands and let go of the material, letting it fall back into place at your sides and exposing your injury.

Maria gasped into her hands. “God.”

“Fuck.” Ellie’s eyes widened in complete horror.

Joel dropped your wrists, taking a step backwards as his eyes glazed over the severe discoloration on your neck—around your neck. He felt fucking sick, but it wasn’t until he noticed the clear imprint of a belt buckle on the column of your throat that Joel actually felt like he would be sick all over the floor.

“What the hell is going on in here?”

Luke’s voice suddenly echoed through the foyer.

He stood near the door, looking confused—that is, until he saw you standing there, exposing what he had done to you the night before with his belt; the very same belt he was wearing now, and that Joel Miller was eyeing with a murderous glint.

No one had the chance to speak.

No one had the chance to think.

No one even had the chance to breathe.

Joel charged at Luke, roughly snatching the collar of his jacket and pulling him further into the foyer; away from the open front door so he had nowhere to fucking run.

You rushed towards them. “Joel, stop! No!”

Maria quickly hurried to stop you, grabbing you by the back of your sweater. She pulled you back, out of harm’s way. “Don’t!”

Horrified, you watched as Joel slammed Luke into the oval mirror hanging on the wall—head first. He pulled him forward, then slammed him again even harder, completely shattering the glass. Hundreds of shards went flying across the hardwood floor.

“Oh shit! Watch out!” Ellie jumped back as a sharp piece of glass landed near her sneakers.

“Joel, stop it! Please, stop!” You cried out as Maria grasped your arm to keep you from jumping in the middle of the altercation. “Stop it!”

But Joel was too far gone and your desperate plea went completely ignored as he wrapped one hand around Luke’s neck, holding him in place while the other curled into a fist and started delivering bone shattering blow after bone shattering blow right to his face. “Wanna fuckin’ hit someone?” He snarled as the man’s nose cracked beneath his knuckles. “Wanna fuckin’ put your hands on someone? Then fuckin’ put ‘em on me, I fuckin’ dare you—”

But he didn’t even give him the chance.

Throwing Luke onto the floor, Joel climbed on top of him and wrapped his hands around his neck, an uncontrollable urge to do to him what he’d tried to do to you coming over him—only, he didn’t need a belt.

And he wasn’t going to fucking stop.

He squeezed Luke’s neck, cutting off his oxygen.

“How do you fuckin’ like it,” he hissed, irises going from brown to black as he pressed harder. “C’mon tough guy, tell me how you fuckin’ like it—”

Luke clawed and scratched at his hands, gurgling, blood coming out of his nose and mouth.

“Joel!” Tommy ran into the house, boots scraping against the floors as he skidded to a halt. Without hesitating, he jumped into action. “Joel, fuckin’ let him go! Let him go right now!” He commanded as he reached down to pull him off.

“Look at what he did to her! Fuckin’ look at her!”

Tommy looked over at you, the color draining from his face. “Christ,” he breathed out, shocked by the mark around your neck. He had half a mind to just step back and allow Joel to finish the job, but with you, Ellie, and Maria watching on in terror, Tommy had no choice. He grabbed fistfuls of Joel’s denim shirt. “Fuckin’ let him go, Joel! That’s an order!”

Luke’s attempts to fight him off had grown weaker and his hands fell from around Joel’s wrists.

He was close to losing complete consciousness.

“Joel, let him go!” Tommy bellowed. “Now!”

“Tommy, be careful!” Maria warned him worriedly.

He peeled Joel off of Luke and shoved him against the nearest wall, pinning him in place.

Luke started coughing and sputtering, gasping as he frantically tried getting air back into his lungs.

“Fuckin’ let go of me!” Joel growled, his eyes wild as smacked at Tommy’s chest. “I’ll fuckin’ kill him! Let me fuckin’ go!”

Tommy cupped Joel’s face in his hands. “Listen to me—fuckin’ look at me, Joel!” he said. He spoke in the steadiest voice he could muster, but every last person in that room could hear it tremble. “Look, I know he fuckin’ deserves it! Trust me, it’s takin’ all the strength I’ve got in me not to fuckin’ let go, let you kill the son of a bitch. Hell, there’s a big part of me that wants to help you do it! But this just ain’t the way we handle things here, Joel. So I need you to calm down, brother. If anythin’, just do it for her sake, alright?”

Joel’s chest heaved, his breaths rough and ragged  as his eyes flickered over to you. His heart sank at the sight of you sobbing in Ellie and Maria’s arms.

Groaning, Luke rolled over, spitting out a mouthful of blood on the floor. “You can fucking have her,” he rasped out, looking up at Joel. “Keep her. Keep the useless whore. She’s not worth a damn thing.”

Blinded by a white hot rage, Joel thrashed around in Tommy’s grasp. “Fuckin’ say that again—”

Dropping her arms from around you, Ellie stepped forward, standing protectively in front of both you and Maria.

“Get off me! I’m gonna fuckin’ kill him!”

Maria held you tightly, trying to soothe you as she tucked your face into her shoulder. “Don’t watch.”

“Joel, fuckin’ stop!” Tommy struggled to keep him in place. “You’re scarin’ her half to death!”

“I don’t fuckin’ care—”

Tommy’s hands clutched the collar of his shirt and he slammed Joel back against the wall so hard the mirror, or at least whatever was left of it, fell down, the frame breaking in half as it hit the floor. “Well I think you fuckin’ should. She’s pregnant, Joel.”

You lifted your head from Maria’s shoulder, feeling your throat go dry.

Everything seemed have come to a standstill—the room had fallen silent, but it didn’t last last long as Ellie whirled around, looking at you with wide eyes and a slacked jaw. “You’re fucking pregnant?”

Joel looked over at you, just as shocked. “What?”

Tommy grabbed his chin, forcing his older brother to look at him once more. “It’s true,” he murmured quietly. “So take a fuckin’ breath and calm down—for her sake and for the sake of your child.”

He released him and took a careful step backward towards Luke, who was still groaning on the floor. Once he realized Joel wasn’t going to go off again, Tommy turned around and grabbed the other man by the lapels of his jacket, pulling him to his feet in a rough, careless manner.

“C’mon,” he said, dragging him towards the door.

“Where are you taking him?” Maria asked.

“I’m gonna throw his ass in a fuckin’ cell and leave him in there ‘til we figure out what to do with him.

Joel glanced down at his bloody, torn up knuckles and then turned to you, his eyes meeting yours.

Neither of you knew what to say to each other.

So neither of you uttered a single word.

Maria cleared her throat. “We should probably get out of here,” she suggested. “Let’s go to mine and Tommy’s while we wait for him to get back.”

“Are you cold?” Ellie asked you. She held up a blue fleece throw blanket she’d dug out from the closet in the hallway despite you telling her not to go and snooping around the house while Maria was in the bathroom tending to Joel’s hand.

Shaking your head, you sighed, “I’m fine.”

“But it’s cold in here.” She draped the blanket over your shoulders. “Can I get you something? Water? Are you hungry? You should probably eat—”

“Ellie, please stop fussing.” You patted the spot on the couch beside you. “Just sit with me, okay?”

Nodding, she sat down and angled herself toward you, getting a closer look at the wound you’d been left with.

“Shit,” Ellie muttered. Grimacing, she lifted a hand and gingerly pressed her fingertips to your neck in disbelief. “Fuck, dude. How bad does it hurt?” She touched a particulary sore spot, causing you to let out a small hiss of pain. She yanked her hand back and sputtered, “Oh fuck, I’m sorry! I’m so sorry—”

Wincing, you assured her, “It’s fine. It’s just tender right now, that’s all.”

She observed you carefully. “Are you okay?”

“It’ll heal, Ellie. It looks worse than it really is—”

“No, I mean—” Pausing, Ellie moved her hand and placed it on your stomach. “Is the baby okay?”

You glanced down at yourself, as if you’d expected to see something different about yourself. But you were only at about about six weeks, and there was nothing to see, no significant changes—perhaps it was the reason why there was a part of you having a pretty hard time grasping that Ellie was asking if the baby was okay. If your baby was okay.

After a minute, you nodded. “Yeah, I think so,” You replied softly, putting a hand over hers.

Relieved, Ellie gave you a small smile. “Good.”

“How are you two doing in here?” Maria appeared in the living room with Joel trailing behind her; his right hand was wrapped up in a white bandage.

“We’re okay.” Ellie glanced at Joel. “You okay?”

He gave a quick, subtle nod of his head. “M’fine.”

“So we can take her home now, right?” When Ellie didn’t get an immediate response, she tossed him a little glare. “She’s coming him with us, isn’t she? I mean, she fucking has to come home with us.”

You sank back into the couch, uncomfortable with the tension that filled the room when he still didn’t answer her question. All Joel could do was stare at you, his lips pressed onto a tight, thin line.

“Ellie, how about we go into the kitchen and make some tea?” Maria beckoned to her with her hand.

She snorted, “Seriously? Who the hell wants te—”

Maria pinned her with an exasperated glare.

“Oh shit, okay. I get it now,” Ellie quickly realized it was simply an excuse to leave the room. Dropping her hand away from your stomach, she jumped up to her feet and wrapped her arms around you. Her hug was brief, but full of warmth and reassurance; as if she were silently telling you it was going to be okay. She let go and followed Maria to the kitchen, leaving you and Joel alone.

Nervously, you stood up, your knees wobbling.

You felt torn—torn between wanting to run over to jump into his arms and wanting to run in the other direction and find somewhere to bury your head in shame. You’d assured him that you couldn’t bear a child, and now here you were, carrying his, putting a responsibility on his shoulders he didn’t ask for.

That he probably didn’t want.

On top of everything he’d been through with you.

No, because of you. And now this?

Somehow, you mustered the courage to speak.

“Joel,” You squeaked his name. “Say something.”

“You sure you’re pregnant?” He asked, quietly. He stood across the room, making no moves to come closer.

Swallowing, you nodded slowly. “Yeah. I’m sure.”

“How long have you known?”

“I only just found out yesterday,” You swore.

“And Tommy and Maria fuckin’ knew before me?”

It was hard to pinpoint if he was angry or if he was disappointed—not that either was a better option than the other.

“I was here with them yesterday in the afternoon. I got sick and Maria’s the one who suspected it and suggested I take a pregnancy test after I’d realized I haven’t had a period since August.” Shifting from one foot to the other, you continued to explain, “It never even fucking crossed my mind, Joel. I didn’t notice anything—missing my period, the dizziness and the nausea. I was too busy trying to keep from fucking falling apart without you.”

Joel’s harsh expression suddenly softened.

“When the results turned out positive, I just lost it. I fucking lost it and I told Tommy and Maria about everyhing because I was scared.” Your voice broke and just when you’d thought you couldn’t possibly shed another tear that night, one slipped out from the corner of your eye and rolled down the side of your face and several more threatened to follow in suit. “They offered to help me. They wanted to get me out last night, but I was too fucking stubborn. I thought I’d be fine for more night, but when Luke came home, he wanted to be intimate with me.”

Joel sucked in a sharp breath, the anger boiling in his veins all over again. “And did he—he touch you like that?”

“I didn’t let him. I couldn’t let him. I told him not to touch me and pushed him away.”

“Then what happened?”

“I told him that it was over. That our marriage was over and I was leaving. That’s when he took off his belt and he—”

Gesturing to your neck, you started sobbing again as images of the night before flooded your mind.

Luke had done pretty horrific things to you before, but this? This had been the worst of them.

Joel rushed over to you, pulling you into his arms.

“Shh, baby. S’alright now,” he soothed. “S’alright, you’re safe now.”

You melted right into his touch, the touch that you had been missing with every fiber of your being.

“I’m so sorry, Joel,” You croaked into his chest.

He pulled away slightly. “Sorry for what?”

“For everything.”

“You ain’t got nothin’ to apologize for, sweet girl.”

You let out a tearful scoff. “Joel, I’m pregnant. And it’s fucking yours,” You reminded him, giving him a guilty look. “Don’t you remember how worried you were about it? And how I told you you had nothing to to be concerned about?”

“Hey, don’t put this all on yourself, Peach.”

You almost smiled—oh how you’d fucking missed hearing him call you that.

“This is on me too. Part of me knew there was still a possibility, but I didn’t care. All I cared ‘bout was makin’ you mine every fuckin’ chance I got.” Joel’s hand cupped the side of your face and he let out a nervous chuckle. “At one point I kinda thought I’m at the age where I’m probably shootin’ nothin’ but blanks, anyway. Guess we were both wrong. And if you’re scared I’m upset ‘bout it, well, you’re wrong ‘bout that too, darlin’.”

Surprised, you couldn’t help but ask, “Wait, so you want—you mean, you actually want the baby?”

It was his turn to be taken aback.

“You thought I wouldn’t want it?”

“Yeah,” You admitted, sheepishly. “I thought you’d be mad about, if I’m being honest with you, Joel. I wasn’t sure if you’d even want anything to do with it.” Noticing he’d taken some offense to the notion that he wouldn’t want his own child, you exhaled a small sigh and placed a hand on his chest. “Joel, it doesn’t mean—can you honestly blame me? When you were the one who was so damn worried about me getting knocked up in the first place? Wouldn’t you have thought the same if you were me?”

He grazed your cheek with his thumb. “Can’t lie to you, my sweet girl. I probably would have.” Letting his hand fall away from your face, Joel took a seat on the couch and pulled you down onto his lap. He hesitated, at first, but then put his bandaged hand on your stomach. “It sure as hell wasn’t in my plan to have a baby in my fifties. I might need a little bit of time to fully come to terms with it, but this kid’s part of me and part of you. ‘Course I want it. Ain’t no way that I don’t.”

Relieved, you leaned into his chest.

“You alright?” Joel murmured, pressing a kiss into your hair.

Burying your face into his neck, you breathed him in.

“I am now that I’m with you,” You confessed as he wrapped his arms around you, holding you tighter than he ever had before.

“I’m gonna take real good care of you, darlin’. Both of you,” Joel reassured you softly. “Nothin’s gonna hurt you, baby. S’long as you’re with me nothin’ or no one is ever gonna hurt you again. I swear it.”

Lyrics: Nothing’s Gonna Hurt You Baby - Cigarettes After Sex

[angrycollectivecollectorr]

Red Light [landlord!joel miller x f!reader]

The men you keep bringing home are no good for you. It's up to your landlord Joel to protect you from heartbreak. 

my masterlist!

pairing: joel miller x f!reader

rating: 18+ (mdni)

tags and warnings: AU - no outbreak/modern day, obsessive!joel, dark!joel, but also soft!joel, landlord!joel, violence, death, murder, stalking, jealousy, truly creepy behaviour, unprotected sex (lead by example; just not mine), creampie, dubious consent, reader’s serious lack of self-preservation, sexual tension, abuse of power, spanking, spitting, squirting, praise kink, degradation kink, joel is a munch, somnophilia, possessive behaviour, dirty talk, a smidgen of gaslighting, the general filth you should expect from me by now, a spoonful of genuine intimate connection™️, implied age gap, submissive reader, dominant joel, daddy kink, knives, mild torture, light anal play, voyeurism, unreliable narration, inappropriate use of a necklace, panty sniffing, ambiguous(?) ending

word count: ~ 15.8k (uh, oops!)

read on ao3!

hello, all! this fic has been tossing and turning inside the proverbial sheets of my head for a while now. when i tell you it's darker than anything i've written, i mean it, so please, please mind the tags. this story does not depict a healthy relationship; joel is a total creep and both he and reader are heavily delusional. with that said, please enjoy this (super long) one-shot!! xoxo

PREFACE

Stars, hide your fires; Let not light see my black and deep desires. — Macbeth, I.IV

~

THE TENANT

You're beginning to think it’s a built-in bad luck charm. A microchip implanted in your skin or a flaw you have yet to pick out. Every single one of your prospective boyfriends has disappeared off the face of the Earth since you moved into town. 

It isn't you. It's not. There is nothing wrong with you. It isn't your fault that either they decide after one date that you aren't worth seeing again, or they stand you up before the date can even begin. Your profile pictures are decent. You followed the rules meticulously: a shot of your face, a group picture to show you have friends, a selfie, a candid. You've examined them time and time again for flaws and find none that a man would care about. You're pretty. Sexy. Confident. They're just intimidated. Fuck, you're turning into your mother.

And yet—

Since moving into this apartment—this beautiful, once-in-a-lifetime deal of an apartment—your luck with dating has abruptly ended. 

It's a lovely building. A stout brownstone with wrought-iron stairs and an old, but functional, elevator, it's traditional and charming. Perfect for a single woman. 

Six months. This is your first second date in six months. David is just fine. He's handsome in a frat-initiate kind of way, with a nice smile and a good sense of dress. He doesn't ask many questions about you, and he's a little pretentious about films you don't give a shit about, but he likes you. You didn't have a horrible time on the first date: he wasn't afraid to spend his money on you at the nice restaurant. And he has a car. 

Raised as an optimist, you learned to see the good parts of a situation. David can work out. 

On the way out of the elevator, you spot your landlord Joel speaking to the concierge. You instinctively smooth down your hair and wave at him as you walk by, shrugging your purse onto your shoulder. “Hi, Joel. Hi, Sam.”

Sam the concierge waves back, but Joel puts his back to the conversation and gives you his full attention, bracing his hands on the edge of the desk. Your heart leaps and your head goes fuzzy with nerves. You barely manage to force a giddy giggle back down your throat. Relief coats your bones when Sam excuses himself to take a call.

Joel Miller’s an older guy, his tousled dark hair threaded with silver on his head and in his beard. One look at him and a person could know that he works with his hands for a living; he’s broad-shouldered, strong, with big arms and a capable air about him. He’s proven his mettle a hundred times over already with the miniscule repairs he’s made to the building. He turned it into a good place to live; he even trims the hedges outside and polishes the doorknobs when they get rusty. 

He’s wearing a green T-shirt today, which is another member of the typical summertime circulation of blue and grey T-shirts, and a pair of jeans. “Evening,” he says, his rich brown eyes sparkling. Sometimes, you can see him smile when his mouth isn’t showing it. It’s charming. Enthralling. “How’s that new lock workin’ out for you?”

You grin. He remembered. Joel installed a new deadbolt on your door last week, since the chain on the last one broke. “It’s perfect,” you tell him. “Are you in a chocolate or lemon mood this time?”

His gaze flickers down your body, taking in your yellow dress, before meeting yours again. “Lemon,” he says.

You bite the inside of your cheek. Talking to a handsome man feels like tossing your heart in the air and trying to juggle. Flirting with a handsome man is like toeing a tightrope between two mountains and forcing yourself not to look down. Your stomach swoops with the path of his eyes over your body, and you cannot convince yourself that you imagined it. “Lemon squares it is. Thank you again, Joel.”

“Just my job to keep my tenants safe,” he says, lifting one shoulder in a shrug. You can see a pair of keys in his pocket along with his cell phone. The mere sight of his belt makes your cheeks hot. Why are you looking at his belt? You’re going on a date with another man, for God’s sake. Relax.

“Helps when I like my tenants so much,” adds Joel, and you forget why you were scolding yourself in the first place. 

“Yeah?” You tilt your head to the side. “Maybe you should be baking for them, instead.”

Joel steps away from the desk, working his jaw as he seems to fight down a smile. “It’s for the best this way, believe me. Can’t cook for shit.”

“Big, strong man like you can’t work a stove?” you tease. Don’t look down. 

“I only fix ‘em.” There’s a crooked smile on his face now, and your heart beats your ribs to shrapnel. “You look real nice. Goin’ somewhere?”

That simple validation calms your nerves more effectively than a half-hour of repeating affirmations into the mirror before leaving your apartment. You give the skirt of your sundress a little swish. “A date, actually,” you say, feeling sheepish. Your landlord certainly doesn’t need to hear about your track record as of late. “He’s taking me to Sunfest, in the park.”

A minute twitch of his brow is the only reaction he gives to the news. “That so?” he says. “Lucky man.”

“More like lucky me,” you say with a small laugh, tucking your hair behind your ear. Stop talking, you plead to yourself. Too much information. Shut up, kindly excuse yourself, and leave. 

Joel shakes his head, and now is the first time you notice that his eyes haven’t once left you. It warms your body. “He’s the lucky one. Trust me.”

“Okay. I concede.” You chew on your lip for a moment and, sure enough, his gaze hones in on your mouth. The air in the lobby crackles white-hot. You clear your throat, turning your head to find David’s car parked on the street outside. “I should go. But I promise I’ll get started on those lemon squares soon.”

It’s a possibility that you only imagine Joel’s eyes flitting from the car outside back to you when you turn your head back to face him. “Do me a favour?” he says, a scrape to his deep drawl. 

“Anything, Joel.”

A muscle in his jaw ticks. “Be safe,” he says. “You have my number if anything goes wrong.”

You give him a grateful smile. “I’ll be safe, Joel. And if I’m not, you’re the first person I’ll call.”

“Good. That’s…” He trails off, still watching you, his eyes trained in their path across your face. “You’re good. Smart, beautiful, good. You deserve to have somethin’ real.”

The simple, small praises melt your bone marrow and recast it in the shape of him. The old chandelier hanging from the ceiling casts him in a soft light, stark against the hard muscles and profound depths in his eyes. He's breathtaking. You've always known it, but…

He sees something in you, too. 

David honks his horn and makes you jump out of your stupor. You walk backwards out of the lobby just to keep looking at Joel for as long as you can. “For the record,” you say, “you’re a good man, Joel.”

“Don’t be so sure, honey,” he replies, his tone playful. 

You laugh, hurrying out to David’s car as the door closes behind you. 

“This place is beautiful,” you said to Sam, the concierge working the front desk of your prospective apartment. The appropriate paperwork was in your arms, your eyes scanning every inch of the old building. Of all the places you'd seen in and around the neighbourhood, this was the most promising. You hoped to get a glimpse at a unit before you signed, though. Assuming the landlord even wanted you to live here. 

Sam smiled at you. “Lots of people just see the cracks.”

“There's so much character,” you replied, admiring the crystal chandelier. The walls were a calming, aged white, the floors genuine hardwood. The lobby was decorated with plush chairs upholstered with burnt orange fabric, the corners filled with real potted plants. 

The door opened behind you, and you turned to see a handsome stranger, dressed in a pair of dirty jeans and mud-caked shirt, wiping his forehead with his forearm. Behind you, Sam said, “This is Joel Miller. The landlord.”

“Oh!” You were flustered, floundering to stretch out your hand to shake as you introduced yourself. “I’m sorry to catch you at a bad time. This building is gorgeous. You've done a great job with it, Mr. Miller.”

The landlord did not once look at Sam, his eyes fixed solely on you as he wiped a hand on the cloth slung over his shoulder and shook your hand. His hand engulfed yours, warm and rough. The touch jolted you like an electric shock. Your hands must have been clammy and shaking with nerves, but the contact steeled you. 

The intensity of his gaze, however, made you shift on your feet. He didn't waver, didn't stray, like a man set on a mission. Nothing about him was shy. He drank in the sight of you, indulging without shame, his eyes travelling to the next destination once they'd had their fill. It made you feel stripped to the bone.

“It's nice to meet you,” he said. “Sorry for the dirt. Just finished weeding.”

You shook your head in dismissal. “You really take care of this place.”

“It's good work,” he said plainly. “Serves me well. I like gettin’ my hands dirty, fixin’ things.”

“Where were you when my sink broke every week at my old place?”

“Fixing the sinks in this one.”

You laughed. “Well, for what it's worth, the outside is beautiful, too. Not a weed in sight.”

“Pleased to hear it,” said Joel, his dark eyes glittering under the chandelier. 

“You're from Texas!” you said suddenly. Oh, God, kill me now. I sound like a stalker. 

But Joel smiled, a raspy laugh leaving his mouth. You wondered if he laughed often. He looked like a serious man. “You familiar?” 

“I was born there,” you supplied. “Left when I was young, but my dad lived there all his life.”

“Lookin’ good on you already,” he said. “It’ll be nice havin’ another one of us around.”

“Does that mean you're considering me?” you couldn't help but ask. Fuck, you wanted this apartment. 

“I've already considered,” said Joel, his eyes sweeping your body. “You're the only applicant.”

Your hands were trembling and your heart thrummed with excitement. “Oh, God, thank you!” you gasped. “Joel, thank you.”

You could swear his chest swelled a bit at your graciousness. “I can show you the unit, if you’d like. It needs some TLC, but I’m happy to help with the process as best I can. Unless you have someone to…”

You realised what he was hinting at and shook your head. “Oh, no, it’s just me. I’d love to take a look.”

You noted the slight drop of his shoulders and followed him into the elevator. A part of you was surprised to see there was no gate that closed you in; they were plain, somewhat modern elevator doors. “Fixed it last month,” Joel said, looking sideways at you. “Just in time, apparently.”

You grinned at him, bouncing on the balls of your feet. “Nice to see there's no creepy operator in here.”

“Just me.” He punched the button for the third floor and rode with you to the top. 

This was the start of your new life. 

You shut the passenger’s side door and situate yourself inside David’s Lincoln. He’s dressed in a pair of black shorts and a clean Henley. “Hey, beautiful,” he says, leaning in to kiss you across the console. 

You hum, smiling against his mouth. “You clean up nice, too.”

He places a hand on your thigh and pulls away from the curb. He's a touchy person, which is perfectly fine considering how long your latest dry spell has lasted, but at least he isn't inching his way up your dress to cop a feel while he drives. 

The festival is bustling with people, tented stands, and the smell of fried dough and beer. It’s almost dinnertime, and your stomach growls. When was the last time you ate? You spent hours agonising over what to wear until you were sweating and had to shower all over again. You wish you’d snuck an apple into your purse. 

David pulls you into him as you both walk through the winding paths between vendors. “It’s a beautiful night,” you say breezily. 

David squeezes your waist. “Mmm. You’re beautiful.”

A bit too corny for your taste, but you let it slide. “Don't tell me you're allergic to powdered sugar, because I’ve been eyeing the elephant ears.”

“God, if I eat that shit, I think it’ll set me back a month at the gym,” he laughs. “Let’s get one for you, though.”

Great. Now you're the expensive date who eats while her date watches her stuff her mouth with an elephant ear. “Uh. Maybe later.” 

You stop at a jewellery vendor and spend a good while eyeing up a beautiful gold necklace and the heart-shaped pendant dangling from it. David doesn’t notice your staring and breezes by with your hand firmly in his. “Let's check out the grand stand. My buddy’s band is playing before the fireworks display.”

“Sure,” you say, turning your head to watch the necklace disappear slowly from view. 

The gigantic domed stage houses a group of musicians currently tuning up their instruments. David sidles right up to the front and releases your hand to execute an elaborate handshake with his friend, who’s fine-tuning his bass. 

“Hey, man,” greets the bass player. “Good to see you. Who’s this?”

You open your mouth to introduce yourself, stretching your hand out, but David says, “My date for tonight. Baby, this is Ray, of Uncontrolled Bleeding fame.”

The bass player shakes your hand politely. “Very nice to meet you.” 

Because it doesn’t seem to matter much to David, you decide it’s worth the time to tell Ray your name. “It’s nice to meet you, Ray. I’m excited to hear you play.”

Not that you've ever heard of a band called Uncontrolled Bleeding. Still, Ray seems nice enough, and you're on a date. You should give them a chance. 

David squeezes your waist and kisses you lightly on the temple. “You mind if I go backstage for a bit to say hi to the other guys? Won’t be long.”

What?

“Oh!” you manage to eke out over the great swooping nosedive your heart has just performed. He’s here to see his friends. He’s not on a date. “Of course. Take your time. I’ll just… walk around.”

David departs with Ray for a personal backstage tour while you bite down on your tongue and turn back in the direction of the main strip. A few vendors catch your attention, and you take your time because God knows David is taking his. A little bit of you revels in your own petty victory when, a half-hour later, Uncontrolled Bleeding begins to blare their metallic, screaming anthems across the park and you haven’t returned to the grand stand. 

You find your way back to the jewellery vendor to ponder over your favourite necklace some more, but your night gets worse when you find that it’s disappeared from the headless display mannequin. You solemnly slide your wallet back into your bag and pause when you hear your phone ringing.

“Hello?”

“Where are you?” It’s David’s voice, presumably, though it’s so loud on the other end of the line that you can barely make out his words. “I can’t… where… left?”

You plug one ear and look vaguely in the direction of the grand stand across the park. “I can’t hear you very well, David.”

“… afterparty… downtown… going… Uber home?”

You press your lips together and look down at the ground: at your pretty sandals, your new dress. Your entirely wasted potential on a guy who wanted you to find your own way home. “Yeah, David,” you say tightly. You don’t particularly care if he can hear you. “You have fun with your friends.”

“Can’t hear… talk later… okay?”

You hang up and wander back toward the vendor selling elephant ears. 

~

“Miller.”

“Hi, Joel.”

“Honey, it’s loud. Can barely hear you. Are you safe?”

“I’m safe, Joel, I promise. It’s just—Uncontrolled Bleeding.”

“What?”

“No, I mean, the band. They’re really loud. I hate to ask, and I know it’s late, but—”

“What do you need?”

“I, uh… I need a ride home. I can’t get a cab, and all the Ubers around are taken, and the busses are rerouted all the way—”

“I’m comin’ to get you. You just wait for me at the entrance, okay, baby girl?”

“Thank you, Joel.”

“You know I said you could call me for anything. I meant it.”

“Okay. I’ll see you soon.”

“I’ll see you soon.”

“Oh! Wait—”

“What? What is it?”

“Do you want an elephant ear?”

~

Joel is white-knuckling the steering wheel when he arrives to pick you up. Despite the congestion around the festival grounds and the fact that your apartment is at least fifteen minutes away, Joel makes it to you in a mere five.

“Did you blow every red light to get here, Mr. Miller?” you ask with a playful smile as you secure your seatbelt and settle on the truck bench.

“I was in the area,” he says with a crooked smile, looking your way. “May have pushed forty a couple times, though.”

You sheepishly extend a cardboard takeout box filled with fried, powdered dough. “Will you take this as my sincere thanks, or will you expect a separate batch of lemon squares?”

Joel answers by dipping his head and taking a bite of the flattened, doughy bread. You watch every minute movement, his strong jaw working as he chews, indulging you even though he’s already done far too much to get you out of this rut. He doesn’t once break eye contact while he eats; you begin to chew subconsciously on your bottom lip.

“Ain’t bad,” he declares at last, and your shoulders deflate with a kind of relief, “but if you let me take you for some real dinner, I’ll forget about that extra batch.”

You tentatively reach for his mouth and swipe some powdered sugar from his moustache with the pad of your thumb. You feel his eyes scanning your face all the while. “Look at me, the lucky girl,” you say softly. “One date goes wrong, and there’s a strong, handsome man waiting to take me on another.”

From the very first day, Joel Miller has always taken his time when it comes to looking at you. It’s a penetrative stare that makes your skin heat up from the tips of your ears down to your chest. His eyes are so dark, pools of warm melted sugar, and you feel yourself leaning, trancelike, slow, into that cavernous gaze. Your body is not your own. It seeks the subtle warmth, the familiar scent—sawdust, coffee beans, rich, dark cologne—and the violent torrent of sensation that erupts from the contact point when he cups your cheek in one hand. 

You’re in the throes of attention, warm as a candle weeping fat waxen tears.

“Told you before,” says Joel, his thumb sweeping fondly across your chin, “you deserve somethin’ real.”

“Yeah,” you sigh happily, feeling all-too complacent under the touch of his rough palm, “maybe I do.”

Behind you, a car honks its horn, and Joel curses, pulling away from the curb. He takes you to Turner’s, a bar by campus that would be crawling with students if it weren’t for the festival. Joel comes around to the passenger’s door and opens it for you, helping you hop out with your hand enclosed in his. His palm is a steady weight on your back as you both walk inside the dim, stuffy bar. 

The back is bustling with activity—drunk folks playing pool or watching the Huskies’ football game or splitting their attention between both—but the bar itself has enough spaces open to fit the two of you. Here, the light is burnt orange, and it makes the strands of grey in his hair shimmer gold. His eyes observe his surroundings with a military precision before they flit back to you, magnetic.

“Shame to waste this dress on that asshole,” says Joel, sweeping his gaze down, back up, barely perceptible. “You’re too goddamn pretty for any of ‘em.”

You’re deliciously abuzz with the incisive way he compliments you. It feels like being punctured down to your very soul; you will never forget the shape of the stain his words leave. “Do you spy on all my dates, Joel?”

He smirks. “Don’t need to spy on ‘em, baby. They’re a bunch of obnoxious kids.”

You huff, resting your cheek against your palm. “I just don’t get it. I thought David was just fine. Then, he takes me on a date just to abandon me for his friends and tell me to find my own way home.”

Joel shakes his head, scoffing as he runs his fingers through his beard. He does that when he’s frustrated sometimes, and you wonder if his hair is soft or coarse. “Piece of shit doesn't know how good he got it.”

“You must know something I don’t,” you say mirthlessly, watching the bartender approach from the other end of the long honey-oak block. “I haven't been able to get a second date since I moved in.”

Joel is silent, eyes still firmly fixed to you, until the bartender arrives, a charming middle-aged woman with a particular Texan twang you could recognise from a mile away. “What’ll it be, Joel?” she asks, giving him a sweet dimpled smile. “Hi, honey. This old man botherin’ you?”

“Only in a nice way,” you reply, squeezing his shoulder. 

Joel hides his grin with a swipe of his fingers over his bottom lip. “Coffee for me, Rina. Drivin’ home.”

Rina’s eyes slide to you, and you ask for the same. You don't want to drink alone. She reappears moments later with two small, chipped mugs of dark roast in her hands. Setting them in front of you, she takes your food orders: a BLT for Joel and a veggie burger for yourself. It’s almost ten o’clock now, too late to eat, but your eyes droop sleepily and your stomach growls for a taste of real food. The powdered dough, shockingly, did not suffice. 

“You ever miss Texas?” Joel asks once you're halfway into your respective meals. You notice that he only digs into his sandwich when you aren't eating, and abstains briefly to watch while you take your bites. It's an exchange of energy, a steady vigil by your side, the hypnotic pull of his warm body. You cannot scoot any closer to him, but your leg brushes his where you rest your foot on his barstool. 

“I wish I remembered more of it,” you tell him. “I grew up a big city girl. Even lost my accent a year into being away. My dad would tease me about it all the time. Said I’d been gentrified.” You fondly shake your head. “Miss him like hell.”

“I can still hear it sometimes,” says Joel, tilting his head to the side, “when you get all passionate about somethin’. Like the time I installed your deadbolt and you tried to explain away your Backstreet Boys CD.”

You put your head in your hands. “Oh, God. I thought you'd forgotten.”

“Nuh-uh, baby, you ain't easy to forget. And I like when you get excited. You get this look in your eye.”

“Yeah?” You slide your foot up his ankle and bring the leg of his jeans with it. Up, down, you keep going, letting the relative darkness embolden you, his sweet little pet names and his silent adequacy enabling what is most definitely inappropriate behaviour. “Tell me about this look, Joel.”

He rests his elbow up on the bar and squares his broad shoulders to you. They eclipse all the other patrons behind him. “You've got pretty eyes,” he tells you. “First thing I noticed when I met you all those months ago. Saw how they lit up when you smiled. Heard your happiness when you told me about Texas. It was nice to be the reason you smiled, ‘n’ I just wanted to make it happen again. I couldn't say no to you. Don't know how any man ever could.”

The revelation stuns you in your seat. His expression telegraphs little save for his attentiveness, his posture locked parallel with yours, singularly focused on the way you react to him. 

You try for a joke. “And I was the only applicant.”

It crumbles, sand in your mouth. Something has shifted. Joel isn't the type to shy away from a conversation, but his gaze hasn't once shifted from your face. It feels like flames licking your cheeks, the heat of that look pushing in on both sides, inescapable. You find that you enjoy the way his attention makes you preen; you want him to look at you. 

He thinks you have pretty eyes. 

“You know that ain't the reason why,” he says, whisper-quiet and gruff amid the vague chatter in the bar. 

“Why, Joel?” you ask, spine straightening, teeth sinking into your bottom lip. As you suspected, his eyes flick down your face, lashes obscuring the precise shade of his irises. 

His Adam’s apple dips. “‘Cause I like you,” he says, the feeling of it like the slide of suede down your spine, “and I wanna keep you safe.”

You shrug slightly, giving him a smile. “I feel pretty safe.”

Joel’s hand drops to the bar top and his fingertips brush yours. The touch jolts your sleepy mind awake. “You're too good for every single one of those assholes you bring around. You know that, right?”

“I’m beginning to understand.” 

“You deserve someone who's gonna be good to you. Give you all the attention you need. Make you… happy.”

You swallow thickly, the candle flame pressing in, sucking the oxygen from your lungs. “Thank you, Joel.”

His fingers begin to creep up every ridge of your knuckles, slowly turning over your palm so it faces the ceiling. The rough pad of his thumb traces the long lifeline inside. 

“Repeat it.”

His eyes lift to yours, and for a moment, there’s something in them that ignites an instinct inside you to flee. There's danger in those eyes: the careful, measured restraint of a man who knows more anger than he lets show. A flicker, brief but incandescent, passes through your head, an electrical current. 

He’s the reason you never had a second date. 

It disappears the instant it comes, the Paterian glimpse of an idea in its entirety fleeing for the horizon, and the instinct recedes in favour of the warm, melting sensation his fingers disseminate through your bones. 

“I deserve someone who will be good to me,” you repeat, like a mantra. “I deserve someone who’s going to make me happy, and keep me safe.”

“That's right,” says Joel, brushing his thumb along the veins in your wrist. You feel the shiver, but you're locked to him, your eyes unable to take in any information apart from the way he feels, looks, smells. “You're a good girl, baby.”

Your lashes flutter and a sweeping rush of pressure descends on your core at the way those words sound on his tongue. You picture him directing you to your knees and calling you a good girl while you take his big cock between your lips, imagine the way he would hiss through his teeth, good fuckin’ girl, that’s it, baby girl, while he fucks you from behind, merciless. Hands and tongues and limbs would mould into one another, amalgamate, becoming indistinguishable. 

He would be good to you. You know it. He’s always been good to you. 

“Joel?” 

“Hmm.” Fingers still make idle patterns on your forearm. 

“I think you should take a look at my sink when you get a chance. It might be broken.”

No amount of coy suggestion could make him ignorant to your desire for closeness. You can feel your body screaming for it, grasping at him with buffed claws. Joel smirks, looking down at your foot making a path up and down his ankle. 

“I’ll take a look tomorrow.”

~

It’s two o’clock in the morning when a shuffling outside your bedroom door guides you out of a decent sleep. In total silence, the most minute noises can be deafening. But it sounds, to your sleep-addled brain, like the hasty retreat of footsteps. 

You blink awake, shifting onto your other side to peer above the darkness of your doorway. Through the bleary haze in your eyes, you notice a tiny red light in the upper corner of the room.  

You squint, rubbing your eyes furiously to pry them open wide, but your vision is the static grain of an old television, and your eyes refuse to adjust. Instead, you grumble, pulling your comforter over your head, and go back to sleep. 

You’ll tell Joel tomorrow.

THE LANDLORD

He cannot wait until the morning.

The nighttime, he discovered long ago, is a friend. It’s the gentle descent of darkness, the horizontal fall of the golden-hour sunlight scanning the entirety of the apartment before it at last succumbs to silent, tar-black night. Occasionally, a car will pass below, or the honk of a horn will tear jaggedly through the quiet, but most times, Joel can sink comfortably into the dark and assume his post.

Six months ago, he showed some restraint. 

Of course, the connection was instantaneous—the pretty girl standing in his foyer with a radiant smile on her face, drinking in the chipped paint and ancient railings and furniture imprinted with years of use, arrested all movement of his heart. You wore a white dress and a pair of strappy sandals, not suited whatsoever for walking the city but perfectly tailored to make an impression. You arrived punctually, all smiles and handshakes and Southern politeness despite your insistence that you'd left it all behind. You shone. And when Joel slid his rough, work-worn hand into yours, dipping his gaze to watch the way he dwarfed your fingers, he felt a tremor roll gently from your body to his, thunder over a mountain. He wanted to chase the next lightning strike. 

It began leisurely, like a hobby, something he could go to when life got a little much. He watched you come home, examining the way your shoulders rounded slightly when you were upset and the way you wiggled your fingers in a wave to those passing by when you were happy. He watched, typically from the garden out front, as you pranced about your balcony on cool mornings to the electronic croonings of Britney Spears, curled up in a chair with a blanket over your legs and a coffee mug warming your hands, or watered your thriving plants from where they hung in the direct morning sunlight. Your day-to-day became his day-to-day. 

And then, he was doing more than merely watching. He was following. 

Your favourite coffee place by the apartment building, just a block away. He lingered far behind that first morning, his fingers twitching in your direction before the rest of his body steered him. The neighbourhood wasn't so great back then, prone to muggings and the like. He wanted to keep you safe. That was all.

You ordered something cold, too sweet for his tastes, and sat for a while as you worked. The barista spent the rest of your time there eyeing you up whenever he could. Joel scoffed. He wouldn't know what the fuck to do with you. Just a goddamn kid. 

He followed you to work and back, on those rare days he wasn't occupied maintaining the grounds. You sat in a corner cubicle with a decent amount of sunlight and typed away on your laptop all day. Joel monitored the company’s publications just so he could have a glimpse of the way you wrote; he wasn't interested in makeup, but he bought a subscription to Viva because he wanted to trace his fingers over your name in those small italic letters. MANAGING EDITOR. 

Your writing is clean, efficient, and smooth. It reads like velvet. He keeps a pile of magazines and newsletters tucked in the back of his bookshelf. For the August edition, they printed your interview with a local prizewinning novelist; you beamed in the picture, photographed in your favourite coffee shop, so happy and so generous, sharing your talent with others. 

He was so fucking proud. 

Five months ago, he watched you bring a date home for the first time. 

It blindsided him. He could not prepare, plan, or sabotage. He could not do a thing as you guided the man—a fucking kid with a too-big ego, grinning smugly for his imminent conquest—inside the elevator. Joel could only watch helplessly, wiping his brow from his precarious place on the ladder, as you walked past him with no more than a soft, sweet smile. He never forgot the painful imprint of that smile on his eyelids. It still burns his eyes late at night, when he stays awake inside his office, monitoring his dual screens. He will pinch the bridge of his nose and close his eyes just to replay the memory of that look. 

The kid left the next morning, before you woke. He never contacted you again. You trudged into the lobby that day, a weariness in your eyes that did not match the vibrant colour of your dress. You spoke idly to another woman in the elevator about your broken thermostat, hugging yourself to keep warm. 

It was working perfectly a few hours later, and there was a bouquet of roses waiting for you at the concierge’s desk. Fiddling with the red ribbon, tears welling in your eyes, you asked who the admirer was. Sam shrugged his shoulders, but when you turned to look out the front windows, you saw Joel tending to the red roses in the garden bed. 

It earned him the first taste of your baking. Biting into one of those moist, warm brownies felt like melting a little piece of you down and moulding it into the shape of his mouth. It felt like taking a piece of the girl he’d coveted for weeks and rolling it over his tongue, keeping it. Swallowing it down. There it rested inside his stomach until the next time he did you right. 

He wanted to tell you no. To insist that he would do anything to make you feel good even if you wanted nothing to do with him. To make it clear that he did everything for you, not for some feeble professional relationship between a landlord and his tenant. He breathed you. He needed you. 

So, four months ago, he began to watch you through the cameras.

They’re small, discreet, tucked into holes in the wall that have been spackled over, repainted, re-sanded. He ran the wiring while you were at work, listening to your CDs on loop to get a better sense of the earworms you hummed on your way out the door every morning. One in the living room, one by the entrance, and one in the bedroom. 

He could keep you safe this way. This way, he would know if those men you brought you home were treating you right—fucking you like you deserved. 

You were so goddamn pretty when you came. For months Joel had sat in his office, slicked-up cock in his hand, jerking himself hard and fast to the pictures of you in Viva. For months he’d spilled over his fingers, on his belly, on the glossy pages of the magazines. The heady, cloying scent of his own sweat and cum stuck to his nostrils. It wasn’t enough. He could imagine wrenching open your tight little pussy all he wanted—the slow, heavy drag of his cock between your hot, wet walls and the sweet noises he’d steal from your tongue—but it wasn’t the satisfaction he needed. 

Joel needed you. Your body, your smile, your voice. He needed to wrap you tight around every vein, a tourniquet, squeezing until all feeling was lost.

You would be his, in time. He just needed to make it so.

The first time he watched you pleasure yourself, rain pattered gently against the window panes and thunder echoed in the distance. A couple grids had already lost power, and Joel had a backup generator if the apartment was next, but you did not seem to mind one bit that the storm drew closer. You clicked off the television, retired to the confines of your bed and its soft white linens, and slipped your hand beneath your flimsy shorts. Joel sat upright, his back creaking in protest, his knuckles white around the edge of his desk as he watched, unblinking, the way your fingers gently circled your clit. 

He didn't touch his cock once that night, no matter how deeply his own need tugged at him. He couldn't look away from the camera feed for fear that he may miss the moment you reached your orgasm. 

When it arrived, it was delicious to watch. Your back arched, your lips parted, and your eyes fluttered shut, fingers rapidly rubbing your slick pussy as you seized under your own ministrations and slowly settled, melting into the mattress. He needed to see more. He needed to be there. 

You were a chiaroscuro of savoury, sultry magnetism and the ichor of the morning sunlight. You were kind and thoughtful. You were gentle, patient, attentive. You were one hell of a baker. You were so fucking sexy it made his tongue prickle with the prospective taste, the anticipation of touching your soft skin engulfing any sense. Reason had no place in Joel Miller’s mind when it came to the sweet girl upstairs. 

Three months ago, you had recovered from the evident betrayal inherent in expecting more from your date than a one-night stand. The next man was older, a partner at a law firm, and took you to dinner at a nice restaurant. He asked questions about you and reciprocated your enthusiasm for good cuisine. He was kind and treated you well. But an incendiary rage ignited in Joel at the sight of the bastard’s hand on your lower back. Another man was touching you. Another man was getting close to you, making you smile, whispering in your ear. Another man was attempting to claim what was rightfully his. 

Joel followed your date home that night instead. He lived in a high-rise downtown, the sort of building that had a doorman and a valet. 

Joel followed him down to the underground lot with a lead pipe in hand. 

“‘scuse me.”

He shut his car door and turned around, giving Joel a polite smile. “What can I do for you?”

A calculated sheepish scratch on the back of his head. “Just… ah, shit, I don’t mean to bother, but my engine isn't turnin' over and my phone died. Mind if I used yours?”

He patted his pockets for his cell and gave it enthusiastically. Joel did not take the phone. He used the proximity to pull the man close and bring the pipe down across his head. 

Blood bloomed, pretty and potent and rich as the roses he planted for you. The body made little noise, the skull shattered upon impact, the legs crumpling. It could never have been much of a man, going down so fucking quick. Should've put up a fight. 

The man must not have liked you very much to let himself die. Joel, whose eyelids were tattooed with your radiant smile, would have crawled his way back out of a certain grave. Joel loved you. You belonged to him. This was a necessary consequence. 

The pipe was dented by the time he was finished. Joel sank to his knees once the body fell, bringing it down again and again, the meticulous arc of the rusted metal uniquely stirring. It felt so fucking good, battering the skull to pieces, blood and brain and bone fragments accumulating on the ground and the pipe and his face. It felt good knowing he had kept another man from betraying you, hurting you, fucking you only to leave in a blur. He was being altruistic. He was becoming a good man for you. 

Joel, kneeling in the pool of warm blood until his jeans were soaked crimson, rubbed his hand down his face and smeared the blood across it. Chest heaving, he let the grin stretch his face. 

He had found his calling. 

Two months ago, he slipped inside your apartment while you were asleep.

You had a rough day. Your boss insisted the company could not afford to give you a raise despite skyrocketing share prices and all the fucking work you’d done for them. The rain started just before you left the building, holding back tears, and a car splashed icy, muddy water on you during your walk home. Salt in the wound. You were sniffling as you let yourself into the apartment, your hands trembling with the effort of shouldering your bag and your misery. Joel approached you from behind and lifted the bag onto his shoulder. 

“Hi, Joel.” Sad and soft and still so polite despite it all. 

“Hey.” He opened every door for you on the way to the elevator and rode it up with you for good measure. “Wanna talk about it?”

You just shook your head and sidled up next to him, your cheek resting on his shoulder. He held his breath, overcome with the sensation that if he moved an inch, the spell would break, and the comfort you sought from him would slip between your fingers. Your arm brushed his, your dewy lashes fluttering as you finally let yourself relax. Joel inhaled, and the scent of you cleaved him down the middle: rain and perfume. 

“Would you give me a raise?”

He looked down at you and smiled. “For a batch of those cupcakes, I’d give you whatever you like.”

It was a half-truth. He’d give you whatever you wanted, cupcakes or no. The sound of your laughter dripped into his bloodstream, saline. It cleansed him of the wrongs he'd committed. He was doing what needed to be done. The world had to realise it turned for you, and then all would be right. 

Hours later, when the sun finally dipped below the horizon, shrouded by distant skyscrapers, he sneaked his way inside. His master key made easy work of the lock, but he had to pull the chain lock off with a pair of pliers because his hands could not reach between the gap. He made clinical work of it and stepped inside. 

There was a chair in the corner of your bedroom for days you felt like reading by the window. Joel lowered himself into it and began his vigil. 

It was a science to study the way you slept. He began to learn the patterns of your breathing, the minute movements of your limbs and how they translated to the moods of your dreaming. The amount of times you turned around, groaned, or hummed correlated directly to the sort of day you'd had. He began to map your tells in his head, drawing them out, formulating blueprints of the simple things that made you. 

To Joel, it was like connecting a red string between thumb tacks, like pouring the varnish over a finished painting, sealing a promise, closing an envelope. He enjoyed the satisfactory slotting of each puzzle piece into place, creating your image, finally knowing you.

By then, he’d caught the virus. He’d let himself get close, and now he was infected with it—that insatiable need to be near, to watch, to admire from mere feet away. 

He continued to acquaint himself over the weeks with your sleeping self to supplement the time he could not spend with you while you were awake. On more than one occasion, he got careless, letting himself succumb to sleep in that corner chair, joining you in the dream world. In those dreams, you were wrapped up in his body, warm and soft and tight, and he was taking. He was behind you, on top of you, beneath you, forcing you to look in the mirror as he spread you open on his cock and wrapped his fingers around your throat. In those dreams, your eyes rolled back and your lips moulded to the shape of Joel, yes, oh my God, and he'd whisper back to you—my sweet girl, my good fuckin’ girl, all mine. 

And you were. You were his. 

Tonight, he followed you to the festival. 

He watched you make a beeline for the necklace you wanted only to pout when you saw it had disappeared. He watched your face fall as David’s rejection sank bone-deep. He reeled in his own gnawing rage, pushing deep down that urge to storm right in and rip out the asshole’s throat with his goddamn teeth, and waited until you called him. 

He knew you would. You trusted him. You needed him. You needed a strong, capable man to take care of you the way you deserved. So he waited inside his truck by the phone, happy to at last hear your sweet voice on the other end of the line. 

Thank you, Joel. 

He tucked those words under his ribs, letting them flower and spread. Those words gave him purpose, made him buzz with erratic energy, validated all his actions. He was doing everything right. 

Your dress was so fucking pretty. Jesus, he wanted to slip his hands under the hem, finger the waistband of those pink panties he knew you were wearing, and bunch the fabric up around your hips as he stuffed you full of his dick. Fuck, he would fill you up with his cum and tuck your panties back over your abused pussy, keeping all of him safe inside. You’d be so happy. You’d get drunk off his cock, begging for it, crying for it. He’d give you everything. 

You do feel safe with him. You said it yourself. 

Now, leaning against the doorway in your bedroom, Joel turns the heart-shaped pendant over and over in his palm, rubbing his thumb over the smooth gold surface. It’s cool and quaint and will kiss your skin beautifully. But he needs to wait for the right time. He needs to make sure you’re ready. 

The sense memory of your fingers on his skin, gracious and gentle, the way you always are, is pushing at the edges of his control. 

There's no one like you. He’s never been more certain of anything. 

You're so goddamn sweet in those tiny silk pyjamas, your body curled up on the bed and your leg slung over a large pillow. You may feel cold and lonely at night, but that's only for now. He won't let you feel alone much longer; his body calls to you, singing your name. He has only so much restraint, and he's been waiting for six months. 

Your lips are slightly parted, your face smooth and serene under the spell of sleep. You're the reason he fixes what's broken. The world needs to be better for you. It needs to be safe and bright and perfect. 

He planted tulips today. You’ll appreciate them, he thinks. He wants you to wake up to vibrant colours every morning and go to sleep knowing that he thinks about you. 

You shift slightly in your sleep, a soft moan leaving your mouth as you hug the pillow closer. Joel straightens in the doorway, wondering if your mind can sense him nearby. He doesn't know what he would do with himself if you were dreaming about him. His eyes move from your pretty face down your chest, barely concealed by the tiny top you're wearing, to find the apex of your thighs, temptingly spread on the mattress. 

He won't. He can't. You’ll never trust him if he loses himself to desire. Joel grits his teeth, his cock achingly hard in his jeans, and unbuckles his belt as silently as he can. He pulls out his dick and squeezes himself at the base, staving off what he knows will be a too-fast orgasm. You move again, your body stretching out on the bed. Joel spits into his palm and begins to stroke his cock. 

He can see a sliver of your waist where your shirt rides up, half of your ass where your leg is slung over the pillow, and your tits smushed together just over the hem of that scrap of a top. You're all of his fucking fantasies rolled into one. Joel breathes hard through his nostrils, his fist tight around the tip of his cock. 

He wants to shuck down those little shorts and put his face in your pretty pussy. He wants to grab your hips and guide his cock inside you. He wants to slide into your addictive cunt until you forget your name. Until you forget every name but his. Your soul will be stained with him. His has never forgotten your shape.

God, your tight pussy would feel so fucking good around his cock. He jerks himself roughly, bracing his hand against the doorframe when a little whimper leaves your mouth. Fuck, he mouths, gritting his teeth so hard that his jaw begins to ache. He fucks his own fist, sloppy and unrefined, eyes fixed to your waiting pussy between creamy-soft thighs. His cock dwarfs your slit, eager to spread you open—he’ll fix so nicely once he gets you ready. 

Joel feels his stomach tighten, his balls pulling up, his jaw taut as he brings himself to a high over your body the way he has so many times. He switches so he can jerk off into the hand around which his gift to you is coiled, spilling his cum all over his fingers and the necklace as he bites into the heel of his palm. His spine decompresses and his cock slowly softens in his hand, the tension briefly relieved. His fist gradually loosens around the cum-slick necklace; the heart has imprinted its shape into his palm. 

You stir, turning over in your bed, and Joel hastily departs, tucking his cock back into his jeans. He has enjoyed this brief interlude, but he has work to do. 

Besides, he’ll see you in a few hours. He knows damn well the sink works just fine, but he’ll take any excuse to see you again. And it seems you’ll do the same. 

~

Joel keeps him in a spare apartment in the building, one whose walls have been padded for soundproofing. 

Joel’s sleeves are rolled to his elbows and he's occupying the chair across from David, who's taking his sweet fuckin’ time waking up. Joel’s been pacing for a half-hour, rubbing his fingers over his bottom lip, contemplative, but the bastard won't move. 

So Joel takes a seat, grabs a fistful of the kid’s hair, and yanks it forcefully so he’s staring him right in the face. 

One eye is already blackened—Joel got a little carried away. The sedative worked perfectly, but David has a punchable face. It took all he had not to keep going. 

“Mornin’, sunshine,” says Joel as the kid slowly blinks awake, bleary and unfocused. “Eyes on me, now. Don't want you slippin’ away again.”

David only stares for a moment, gears grinding gently to life in his brain Once that animal instinct kicks in, the kid starts writhing against his restraints, bucking hard in Joel’s unrelenting grip. It's useless, of course. He’s tied by the wrists and ankles. Helpless. 

Good. 

“What—why the fuck… let me fucking go, man, please,” groans the kid. 

“You made a mistake, David,” says Joel. “Think I’m gonna forget about that?”

David whimpers, flexing his hands subconsciously as pain undoubtedly prickles his scalp. Joel hasn't let go of his hair. “Please just let me go, man. I swear I didn't do anything. If you want money, I’ve got money.”

Joel smirks, a scoff slipping out. This is rich. The delectable flame licks up his throat again, indistinguishable from the pleasure of a good meal, a good fuck. It's craving. It’s darkness. He sinks deeper. 

“You think it's manly to leave your date for your friends and leave her to find a way home herself? You think it's funny to treat her like a little toy and then leave her when you're done?” Joel sneers. “You didn't even call her back, David.”

He whines out another please, his ankles ineffectually kicking out. “I don't know what the fuck you're talking about. Just let me go. Fuck, it hurts.”

“You don't know,” says Joel, repeating it, slow and savoury, rolling it around in his mouth. “You wanna know the most insulting part, David? You don't even care. You made her upset, and you didn't get on your goddamn knees to beg her forgiveness. You didn't do everything in your fuckin’ power to get her back.” Joel brings the knife from his pocket and idly pushes the tip into David’s cheek. “You think she ain't worth that, David? Tell me the truth, now.”

David shrieks, hysterical, the terror and pain so fucking delicious that Joel gulps it down and yet still wants. 

“Are you fucking kidding me? No bitch is fucking worth it. She was cute, but that's it, I swear. I didn't know she had a boyfriend. I wouldn't have—”

The knife digs, gouges, splitting skin and prodding muscle. Joel can feel the edge of the blade slot between the kid’s teeth. He howls, screaming for help to nobody that can help, not quite gone enough yet to realise his utter hopelessness. Joel will have to rectify that.

“Oh, I ain't her boyfriend yet,” Joel says calmly. “But I am hers, way she's mine. And you hurt what's mine. I can’t forget that.”

The knife retreats to admire its handiwork. The cheek is split, the edges jagged, spitting blood. The kid’s tears slip down his face and dip into the wound, salty enough to hurt. He screams and he cries and it’s beginning to get on Joel’s nerves.

“Please stop,” he cries, watching his assailant rear back and grip the knife tight, like an ice pick. “Please… fuck, please—!”

He’s getting real sick of that word. Please. A mere please can’t excuse the look he put on your face last night. A please will not absolve him of the cardinal sin. 

No one—no one—makes you frown. 

Joel sinks the knife into David’s knee, using both hands to drive it to the hilt. The kid’s face is ashen, white and grey as clouds rolling in, and his frail screams begin to peter out; he’s losing consciousness. Joel won’t have that—not until he’s finished.

“Stop whinin’, David. A real man falls in front of his woman and makes things right. A real man fixes what's broken. And a real man”—he twists the knife, gorging, glutting on the feeling of making amends on your behalf—“does everything in his power to show her he loves her.” 

“Please…” The final, feeble attempt of a doomed man to return from the cliff’s edge. 

Joel stands, adjusting his grip on the kid’s hair, and brings his knife just beneath his chin. When he drives it upward, he can see the shimmer of the blade through David’s slack, open mouth. 

“I told you to stop whinin’.” 

~

He’s in your bedroom again. 

He felt the need calling to him, vibrating with a particular intensity he could not ignore. He rarely comes to see you twice in one night, but now that he's here, he knows it was the only way to settle his nerves. 

You're asleep, lips parted against your pillow and a piece of hair fluttering in front of your face with every exhale. Joel approaches your bedside and tucks it safely behind your ear. You don't wake, but you hum sleepily, hugging your pillow closer. Joel smiles, satisfaction sinking deep and assured into his core. He's done right by you. You’ll go happily to him. Moth to a gemlike flame. 

He wanders around the edge of the bed, gaze lazily indulging in your body as he goes. His cock twitches again with a need he cannot yet meet, the desire to move your panties aside and fill you with him. He does not. He kneels at your bedside, closest to where your legs have scissored apart beneath your sheets. The temptingly sweet call of that warm place between your thighs has Joel shifting your comforter aside and ghosting his fingers across the soft skin of your calf. 

Your breathing deepens slightly, like you're sucking in a long mouthful of air, and then you settle. It's the only indication you give that you can feel his presence. And then it’s gone, and he’s hooking his fingers in the waistband of your pretty panties and bestowing upon himself what he's only seen through screens for months. 

You're spread open and glistening, an indication of some preceding dream or fantasy playing out in that keen, busy mind. Your body is wholly pliant, so soft and glowing in the faint silvery light streaming in from the window, and it would be so easy to—

No. He will not taste you. If he does, he won’t stop. You need to trust him. There is blood on his hands that hasn’t yet washed clean, and he will not imprint those rust-red fingerprints on your body. You’re his world—what kind of man willingly imparts such pain onto a world he loves?

Some infinitesimal fractal lodged in Joel’s head obliged him to return to you tonight, to cleanse himself of the events that transpired under the illicit cover of night. The very sight of you reminds him what he’s doing this for. He crushes his nose into the wet spot that darkens your panties and inhales deeply, acquiring some sense of what you will taste like. The smell makes his head go fuzzy, intoxicated, tang and sweetness and impending gratification. In your sleep, you sigh, melting against the mattress.

Joel brings your panties back up over your pussy and thinks, Tomorrow. 

THE TENANT

You're miserable when Joel knocks on your door the next day. 

“He hasn't called me,” you tell him, letting yourself stew, sulking from the feeling of yet another man deciding you weren’t worth a follow-up phone call. “Am I repulsive? Am I a total freak? Is it something in my perfume?”

Joel looks down at you, lips parted as if on the precipice of a response, sweeping his gaze up and down your body. You’re wearing a simple sweater and skirt, but fuck, he can make you feel naked. His gaze penetrates deeper than flesh. It’s only then you realise he’s holding coffee. 

Two cups of coffee. 

“Oh, Joel,” you sigh, licking your bottom lip. “How did you know?”

“Lucky guess,” he says with a crooked smile, his voice a bit raspy, as if caught off-guard. He hands you your favourite drink—caramel macchiato, double espresso—from your favourite place down the block, and you could kiss him with how good it feels to hold the cool, condensation-slick cup in your hands. Your entire body deflates with the first sip. 

“You’re my hero,” you tell him. “I mean it.”

Joel shakes his head fondly. “You got a funny sense of heroics.”

“They taste exactly like this,” you say playfully, tracing the rim of the plastic cup. “Thank you, Joel.”

He swipes his thumb across your chin. “It’s only coffee, baby.”

Since last night, something is inexplicably different. A new, once-forbidden boundary has been crossed. It may be technically inappropriate for your landlord to bring you coffee, touch you so intimately, call you baby. But it makes you feel like warm melting honey, and who is to say a feeling like that is wrong?

He’s wearing a blue T-shirt today. His hair is tousled like he slept on it, and your fingers tingle with the anticipatory sensation of how it would feel to take fistfuls of his locks in your hands. He’s stunning. And you catch yourself staring too late, tearing your gaze away the way one retracts their hand after burning it on the stovetop. Your heart skittering, you direct Joel to the sink and plan some excuse in your head for why it has miraculously fixed itself overnight.��

But he doesn’t even spare a glance toward any of your appliances. He’s only looking at you. 

“I got somethin’ else,” he says, almost shy, reaching into his pocket for a tiny box. 

He grimaces when your eyes, wide and obviously panicked, meet his. “Jesus, I didn’t really think about how this looks. I’m not… proposin’, I swear.”

You both release a nervous laugh, but you cannot deny that your nerves are still fluttering at the sight of that simple suede box in his big hands.

He opens the lid and you gasp. It’s your necklace—the very same heart-shaped pendant you had been eyeing up at the festival. It’s shiny and polished and precisely, undeniably, the same one. “Oh my God,” you whisper, gently sliding your finger over the cool golden pendant. “It’s beautiful. Joel, how did you…”

“Turn around,” he says softly, the gentle direction guiding you better than any hand could. You obey, and Joel steps forward until his hard chest is flush to your back. He’s warm and sure and smells so good—cologne and coffee and mint and something potent, like iron—and all your questions fizzle to sparks in the air. You can no longer grasp for them. You reach out and you only find him.

His touch is careful. The heart-shaped pendant settles against your breastbone and shimmers in the afternoon light. Your chest briefly shimmers with the thought that you were made to wear this necklace. His large, rough hands ghost across the back of your neck as he secures the clasp, and you shiver. A single knuckle trails slowly down your spine, bumping every vertebrae on the way. 

“It ain't your perfume.” His deep, grumbling voice is equivalent to the scratch of his beard against your temple as his jaw moves with each word. “And you're nothin’ close to repulsive. Look in that mirror and tell me what you see.”

There is a mirror, a full-length one by the entrance to your apartment, and it's surreal to watch your own body turn to face it, to watch yourself defer entirely to the man behind you. It feels nice to just let him steer you every which way. 

“I see you,” you tell him, your hand lifting to the pendant on your throat. “And this.”

Joel clicks his tongue, his nose sliding up your temple. “What else do you see?”

You watch your lashes flutter, your head listing slightly to the side. “I see myself.”

“Hmm.” It’s a sound of approval, his palm now sliding around your waist and his arm banding across your body. He presses his hand to your hip bone and pulls you back against him. “Such a beautiful girl in that mirror. Ain't that right?”

“Joel, I…” You can feel his swelling erection prodding your ass and your head feels hazy with a heady, lustful desire you can no longer ignore or dismiss. “I don't think we should be…”

“No?” His mouth curves against your temple and you shiver at the coarse scratch of his moustache on your skin. It feels deliberate, premeditated. “I won’t tell a soul,” he murmurs, his thumb stroking your hip right where the hem of your sweater begins to inch upward. You can see a strip of your own bare stomach in the mirror. He’s making your eyes droop, your lashes flutter, your body light up from one nerve ending to the next, a closed circuit.

Oh, God. His touch is measured, gentle yet barely restrained. It is dipping a finger into the water just as it nears its boiling point. Months of staring and dreaming and retreating to your bed to touch yourself to thoughts of someone you cannot touch have led you here: his necklace, his gift to you, sitting prettily on your throat, his capable hands moulding you slowly to the shape of him. He’s touching you. 

“You like me?” His voice rubs hard on your ears, sanding you down, smoothing the rough edges. He lets you linger on the precipice, a firm grip on your hand, letting you make the choice: to let go, or to reel yourself in. 

“I like you,” you whisper, snapping the tether and plummeting to the warm, wet earth below.

You watch Joel’s eyes close in the mirror, something like a prayer falling from his lips. It does not take the shape of words—it is gruff and yet soft, hardly loud enough to discern over the ringing in your ears—but it’s so reverent that you can picture yourself falling to your knees at the sound of it. 

His hand skims up your waist until he finds your throat, gently pinching your jaw so he can direct the turn of your head. You go easily, tilting your gaze back to rest your temple on his shoulder, as his other hand slides up from your hip to your ribs, grazing the underside of your breast. “You like me enough to touch you like this?” 

You gasp, finding an anchor in the deep brown—nearly black, now—of his eyes. They’re warm  but they’re dangerous; once you look, the cage door slides shut, and you’re trapped. 

This must be one of your many dreams.

“Yes, Joel.”

“Mmm.” He smirks, teasing his tongue across his plush bottom lip. You watch the movement and feel yourself tightening, want want want a chorus in your ears. “You wanna kiss me, baby girl?”

Silently, you nod, your fingers gently sliding through his silky locks while your other hand seeks the strong balancing force of his shoulder. His smile sobers to a deep, stunning severity, and you cannot think to let it frighten you when you’re already slanting your mouth over his. 

It starts slowly. His mouth is soft, his hands deftly returning the fervour with which you hold him, cupping the back of your neck with his other hand warming your ribs. A small gasp escapes you, and a rumble of satisfaction passes from his chest through yours, and it flips an ineffable switch inside him. 

Joel turns you in his arms, his chest pressed to yours, his hand shooting out to brace against the wall as he walks you back toward it. Sufficiently cornered, you let your body melt into him, his palm now warming your lower back, his tongue feverishly seeking the seam of your lips. You let him pry you open, tasting the coffee and mint on his breath and inhaling the rich scent of him, sticking it with greedy hands to the walls of your brain. You’ll never tire of him, of this. 

He kisses you like a glutton seeking more fulfilment, like an aesthete seeking that exhilarating, fleeting moment in time, desperate and unwavering and famished. Tongues slide together, hands grope and wander, fabrics shift. You can feel your sweater lifting at the same time your fingers finally find the hem of his T-shirt, but he beats you to the chase. You’re dizzy by the time he breaks away to remove your shirt, but you dutifully lift your arms to help him. 

You seek his mouth again to resume the kiss, but Joel is decidedly feeling pious. He kisses his way down your throat, the necklace dangling from it, your sternum, your belly, sinking to his knees as he goes along. His hands are firm on your hips, squeezing, keeping you in place, while his mouth draws a map of you, eliciting the honeyed sensation of warm water dripping down your body.

“Oh, God,” you whisper, your head knocking back against the wall. It's so much. You've never been the object of attention quite like this, the marble statue at which the devout kneel, obsessive in their worship. You've never had a man fall to his knees to put his mouth all over you. 

Has he wanted you as long as you’ve pined for him? 

Joel grunts, his lips dragging open-mouthed kisses from one hip to another, his fingers hooking in the waistband of your skirt and yanking it down. You yelp, grasping his shoulders. 

Joel only growls into your skin, his hands dropping to your ass and kneading you while he continues down past your hips. “So fuckin’ beautiful,” he grumbles. “So goddamn pretty. Don’t know how I waited this fuckin’ long. Jesus, baby girl, you're perfect. Goddamn perfect.”

His ramblings are poison. Every word infects, squeezing out your healthy cells, replacing them with the delicious scrape of fire against the ceiling of a room. The scratch of his beard. The sweet nurturing sound of his voice. The cared-for sensation of being kissed and touched and spoken to like you're someone worth a second date. Like you're worth the price of all the world and a couple stars, too. 

And so the words slip out, shy and whisper-quiet and your cheeks burning hot enough to blister. 

“Please, Daddy…”

Joel’s hands tighten on your body, a fractional movement that kicks up the frantic beating of your heart. He tilts his head back to gaze up into your eyes and you feel more naked with that single stare than ever before. 

“That what you need, sweet thing?” he says, pressing his lips to your inner thigh. “You need Daddy to make you feel good?”

“Mhm,” you whine, the pitch of your voice pathetic and needy. You watch him crush his nose into your inner thigh, nipping at your sensitive flesh, and his name leaves your mouth in a sob. 

“‘m gonna need words,” he commands, biting you again in reproach. “Talk to me, baby girl. Tell me what you want.”

“I want you to make me come,” you plead, grasping his soft greying hair in your fingers. “Please.”

“You gonna call me what you wanna call me?” he prompts, smacking your thigh. “C’mon, baby, lemme hear it.”

“Daddy!” you cry out, your hand tightening in his locks. “Fuck, Daddy, please make me come.”

Joel growls, bringing your soaked panties down your legs. Your knees nearly knock together, but he’s shouldering his way between them, bringing one up onto his wide shoulder. You're spread open like this, bared plainly for your landlord to feast upon at his will. The sight of his lips parted, waiting and ready to take your pussy into his mouth, has you trembling. 

He gives a slow, experimental lick, sliding the flat of his tongue through your wet slit. You shudder, your head lolling against the wall. One teasing drag of his tongue and you’re butter, humming and whimpering for more, Daddy, please as he takes his fucking time tasting what you have to offer. 

“Goddamn sweet,” he grumbles, his blunt nails digging crescent moons into the flesh of your ass, pulling your body flush to him. “Waited so fuckin’ long for this.” You watch the fire ignite from red- to blue-hot in Joel’s eyes, his gaze shuttering as he loses himself, devoted entirely to the process of unravelling you. 

The next time he dips his tongue between your folds, he does it deliberately, calculated, as if he has already memorised your shape and now seeks to pry you open. He parts your lips to make way for his mouth, hot and soft against your clit. Softly, you cry out, watching as he presses a featherlight kiss to your pearl. You try to grind against his face, needing more, but a resounding slap to your ass stops you dead. 

“No takin’ what I don’t give,” he says. “You understand me?”

You pout, but you nod your head anyway. 

He decides it isn’t good enough and abruptly takes your clit between his teeth in a scolding bite. 

“Repeat. It.”

“I’ll only take what you give,” you tell him. “I’ll be good.”

Apparently satisfied, he hums, diving back in and finally—finally—sucks on your needy clit. “Oh!” He’s eager, sure, but he’s practised. He’s meticulous in the way he applies pressure to your clit, lapping at you greedily and pulling back to draw your pleasure into measured tidal waves. You crest only to recede from shore, and then his lips suction to you again, his hand snaking around to your front and pressing down on your lower belly. 

“Fuck!” you squeak, your stomach tightening as the dizzying pleasure overcomes you. “Joel, I’m gonna—!”

The orgasm pulls you under, drowning you with a forceful hand, your lungs sucking in mouthfuls of air. You seize, your heel digging into Joel’s muscled back, your fingers fisting his hair, your cunt clenching desperately around nothing, begging to be filled. Joel keeps his mouth on you all the while, licking you through your high, and you think it’s a benevolent act until your orgasm gently fades and he continues to make out with your pussy as if it never happened.

“Ah! Joel, please—” It’s so much. Too much; your pussy contracts relentlessly at the endless attention from his tongue, happily licking your clit and relishing the faint throbbing underneath it. It’s like he’s starved. His eyes are closed, his beard glistening with your wetness, his fingers dimpling your flesh as he pulls you right along to another high. 

Two thick fingers gather up the juices you’ve leaked onto your thighs and push them back into your hole, insistent in their desire to enter. You gasp, your heart in your fucking throat: “That’s only two?”

He chuckles, but the vibration only makes you jump, letting his fingers sink inside your cunt to the knuckle. “Oh, fuck, fuck, Daddy, that feels so good, please make me come again, I need it, please—!”

Joel groans into your pussy, curling his fingers toward him so they press against a spongy spot inside you that sends your head spinning, your mind folding in on itself. All you know is the next orgasm, the best way to get him to give it to you, the fastest way to reach that indelible place once more, just once more—

Joel’s hand applies more pressure to your belly, and you scream, clawing desperately at his shoulder as you give yourself over to something much, much stronger than an orgasm. It’s foreign, the creeping sensation of an invader taking up residence in your body. You cannot see, cannot hear. It assumes control, tearing a cry from your mouth and locking all your limbs tight and splashing your wetness all over Joel’s chin, beard, shirt. 

You think he only stops because you begin to list; he catches you around the hips and presses a soft kiss to your used little clit. “Mmmmm,” is vaguely how you manage to thank him, your eyes peeling slowly open. 

“I know, baby girl,” he says, stroking your hip bone with his thumb. He litters kisses all over your thighs, coaxing you through the minute twitching of your muscles as they relax. “You did so good for me, pretty girl. So fuckin’ beautiful. My sweet girl.”

You shiver in his grasp, watching as he makes his way back up your body. He swipes his forearm across his wet beard and you moan a little at the sight. “Nobody’s ever…”

Joel crowds you, his hand cupping the back of your neck so he can guide your gaze up to him. “That's what you don't understand, sweetheart,” he says. “You can try to find another man to make you happy, but he won't be me. I’m the only one who’s gonna treat you right.”

“Joel…” Sense begins to push at the edges of your brain, but you only slump further into his touch, letting him secure your hair behind your ear. “This isn't right,” you whisper. “I pay you every month to live here. People will know. People will talk about me.”

“People have suffered worse for a hell of a lot less.” 

You have no time to decode his words because he grabs your hand and presses your palm over his chest. Beneath the shirt and the warm, tanned skin, you feel a strong, rapid heartbeat, hammering away at his ribs. He maintains eye contact, the gaze incisive, peering right into the cluster of wiring inside your head that calls his name. “You feel my heart and you tell me this ain't real. You think this ain't love? You think it's obsession? Infatuation? Think I can’t see you lookin’ at me the way you do?”

His words pin you to the ground. They’re possessive, covetous—jealous. He wants you, and he knows you want him. All these months, he’s wanted you the way you’ve craved him; all the comforts and the roses and the baked goods in lieu of payment for substantial repair jobs; the times he’s let slide some late payments because I know it’s tough sometimes, the inexplicable kindnesses in your everyday. 

Joel Miller dedicated himself to you the second you arrived to see the prospective apartment. 

“You’re mine,” he says, his thumb stroking your jaw. “And I wanna hear you say it.”

People will call you a whore. They’ll think you’re pimping yourself out for cheaper rent. They’ll send you filthy looks. But the man in front of you makes you feel wanted. Desired. You’re better than all the dates that failed. You’re better than a shitty boss who won’t give you the raise you deserve. Joel is good to you. He’s always been.

“I’m yours, Joel Miller,” you say, resting your forehead against his. “Now please take me to bed.”

He grins, taking your hand and leading you to your bedroom. You get grabby straight away, fingering the hem of his shirt with a pleading look in your eye. You can still see the evidence of your orgasm staining the collar. “You can take it off, baby,” he says with that cocky smile, letting you lift the shirt over his head. In the sunlight, the grey in his hair shimmers, and his chest is bared to you. You lick your lips, placing your hands on his broad shoulders just to feel the way your palms contour to his dips and curves. 

You lean in and put your lips to his neck, tracing the shape of him down to the hollow of his throat, He tastes faintly of fresh air and sweat, and he smells like you. Your hands admire the warmth and strength underneath them, his body so tangible when only yesterday it was a distant dream. He lets you indulge, though his hands flex at his sides, and your fingers fumble with his belt buckle. 

“Help,” you mumble against his chest, bumping your nose into him. Joel chuckles, relieving you of your burden and shucking off his belt. It clinks along the floor somewhere nearby, and you can unbutton his jeans to bring them down, freeing his hard, throbbing cock. 

Your mouth waters at the sight. He’s thick and slightly curved, the tip leaking precum onto his belly, his balls heavy with the need to come. During those long nights after long days of work, you would imagine, for hours on end, what lingered just below his belt; the little trail of hair leading down his soft belly to your destination; the way his wide shoulders would bracket your body, shelter you from all the tough shit you could possibly suffer. You would picture all the ways you could thank him. You bite your bottom lip and ready yourself to sink to your knees, but Joel is having none of it. He attacks your mouth, kissing you deeply, his hands sliding up your back as if he's trying to count every vertebrae. He doesn't relent even when your knees hit the edge of the bed and you collapse backward onto the mattress. He only crawls over you and pins you beneath his hard body. 

“So pretty like this,” he says, lowering his head and nudging your chin upward with his nose to give himself better access to your throat. He sucks and nips at you all the way down, pausing at your heaving breasts. His fingers gently toy with one stiff nipple while his mouth occupies itself with the other, teasing it with his tongue and his teeth. You moan softly, content to watch him explore your body, squeezing your tits before he migrates downward. 

“Daddy,” you whisper, stroking his hair away from his face, your head falling back onto the pillows as his fingers part your folds once more. “Fuck, please, touch me. I need you inside me.”

Joel settles in between your open legs and takes his cock in his hand. You mewl for him, determined in the face of his big cock to fit it nicely inside you. “Mmm, you ready for me, baby girl? You need Daddy to fill you up, use you like a pretty little toy?” 

You’re nodding frantically, the words igniting you. “Please take me.”

Joel slaps the head of his cock against your clit, once, twice, watching your thighs twitch. Spreading the slick wetness from your pussy onto the tip, he finally guides himself to your hole and notches just inside. 

“Jesus,” he utters. “Jesus, you're a fuckin’ dream.”

“It’s real,” you pant, “I’m real.”

He begins to disappear inside you, wrenching you open, your poor pussy disused from going so long without decent sex. You feel the pinching pain give way to a delicious pressure in your core as he eases into you, taking it slow despite his taut jaw, his gritted teeth. Your cunt forms a tight seal around his length, your arousal lubricating his entry, and you feel lightheaded. He’s so fucking big—and he’s still going.

“Oh, my… Joel—”

“I know, baby.” He brings his thumb to your clit and helps you relax with every circular swipe. “I know what y’like.”

You keen up against him, your thighs squeezing his hips. He's only halfway inside you and it feels like being filled up to your throat, choking on the air you breathe. Your head falls back, your hands flying up to your tits and squeezing. 

“Daddy…”

One of Joel’s hands overlaps yours where it grasps your breast. “That’s my girl. You can take me. Always knew you could.” Still, he's panting with the exertion of holding back. 

“You thought about me?” you say coyly, trying to pull him deeper inside you. He obliges, if only because you're being so petulant, and his hips finally knock into yours. You release a bone-deep sigh of relief.

“All I do”—his hips thrust shallowly, baring his teeth as he paws at your thighs—“is think about you.”

You cry out at the angle, the depth he reaches, how thick and heavy he sits inside you. Your pussy sucks him in, begging for more, and Joel obliges by hooking his hand in the back of your knee and pushing your thigh toward your chest. 

Your vision whites, a ragged cry leaving your mouth. “Oh, fuck! Yes, yes, yes, that feels so good—”

“‘s right, baby girl. I’m the only one’s gonna fuck you this good,” Joel grits out, dragging his thick cock along your walls, spreading you open, forcing himself to fit. The head of his cock kisses your cervix with every thrust, measured in their intensity, just enough to drive you up the goddamn wall but never enough to sting. “I’m the only one you want.”

Your mouth is open and his pounding urges a steady rush of ah, ah, ahs up your throat. Joel leans over you and tilts your head back with a hand in your hair to slant his mouth over yours. He lets you pour your cries into his mouth and he swallows them down, fucking you so hard that your hips begin to ache. 

He smatters your jaw with sloppy kisses. You lift your hand to his face and trace the patches in his beard, your brows drawn together in your perpetual haze. 

“I dreamed about you,” you whisper, taking his earlobe between your teeth to make him growl against your skin. “Touched myself thinking about you.”

“I know,” he says, his hips grinding hard against yours, rubbing up against your used clit. He answers your gasp by nibbling your throat, and you keep him fixed to you with your hand at the back of his neck. His soft hair is matted with sweat and you want to bury yourself here, etch the shape of him into your stone. He's strong, capable, so present in this moment that your heart begins to throb to the beat of his. 

Joel surges upward and takes you with him, forcing you to sit on his lap. At this angle, his cock reaches deeper, somehow, your mouth falling open and your forehead dropping to his shoulder. His palm is a soothing presence on your sweaty back as he tells you things that make you flush from your chest to your ears. 

“Thought about takin’ you on the goddamn bar last night,” he grunts, guiding your ass in a rolling rhythm along his lap, his cock gliding slowly along your walls. You moan, your thighs shaking around his hips. “Thought about spreadin’ you over my desk and fuckin’ you dumb with my cock.” 

You sob into the crook of his neck, grinding down on his cock, the pressure of his navel against your clit sparking hot in your lower belly. “What else?” you ask, nipping at the strong muscle where his shoulder meets his neck. Your tits are pressed up against his chest, his warmth engulfing you, your body slowly lowering over him as he guides you the way he likes. 

His palm coasts down your spine until he finds your puckered asshole. His name is jagged and rubbed raw on your tongue. 

“Shhh, baby girl.” The pad of his finger teases your hole with just enough pressure to ooze electric ecstasy down your spine. “Feels good, doesn't it?”

Fuck, his voice is so gentle, so knowing. You curl your fingers in his hair, your nose tickled by the locks that curl over his ears. 

“Mmmhmm,” you mewl, lifting your hips as best you can despite the growing aches, telegraphing your desire to be touched by him—played with. 

“Thaaat’s it,” he coos, his nose nudging your cheek as he turns his head. His finger continues to prod your asshole while his hips buck up into you. “Openin’ up for me like a good girl. You’d let me take you wherever I want, hmm? Whenever I want?”

“Yes, Daddy, yes,” you moan, your mouth perpetually open against the skin of his neck. You can’t think. You can't breathe. You can only drink down mouthfuls of him and let your body succumb to the delicious weight of his cock inside you. “Yes, I’ll be your little slut. I’ll be whatever you want. You make me feel so good.”

He seems pleased with your babbling, grinning into your cheek as he keeps you spread wide and pounds up into you. His finger continues to tease your tight hole until he feels your body contract around him and apparently decides that he isn't quite through with you. 

“Turn around. Hands and knees.”

Who are you to refuse?

You lament the brief loss of his cock as you shift into your knees, resting your forearms on the bed and teasing him with a wiggle of your ass. Joel hums appreciatively, sidling up behind you and grinding his hard cock between your asscheeks. You jolt forward, but he catches you around the waist and warms his palm at your ribs. 

Something warm and wet lands in a glob on your asshole, and you realise he fucking spit on you. Your head spins, dizzied by your own arousal, and soon, the warm, wet head of his cock slips back inside your hole, and you relish the refuge of being taken by him all over again. 

“You wanna know what else?” He begins to fuck you hard and fast and almost angry in its intensity. His thrusts knock against your ribcage and rattle the bars, your heart floundering for a way back to the surface. “I thought about knockin’ on your door every goddamn day and putting my dick in this pretty fuckin’ pussy. Thought about your tight fuckin’ body every single time I saw you walk by and a long time after. I thought about the noises you'd make and Jesus, I was right. So goddamn sweet.”

You’re drooling onto the pillow, your eyes rolling back in your head, your fingers uselessly clasping handfuls of your white sheets. Joel is an animal, mounting you from behind and taking you hard, deep, the slick squelching noises of your coupling so crude and indecent that they burn through your ears like a lit fuse. It's wrong. You never should have kissed him. But wrong shouldn't feel like this. 

Wrong shouldn’t taste like mint and coffee, shouldn't smell like roses and sawdust. Wrong shouldn’t feel like his cock sitting snug inside your pussy, some obscene jigsaw, seeping saplike pleasure down your spine. 

This must be right. 

His hands are rapacious, one wrapping around your hair and the other guiding the bend of your back, arching you perfectly to fit him while he takes you the way he likes. “Such a tease in those pretty dresses. Such a prim and proper girl ‘til she gets the right dick. You’ll get on your knees for this dick, baby girl, won't you? You’ll beg for it like a goddamn whore.”

“I will!” you moan, your cheek pressed into the mattress. The force of his thrusts have you travelling up the bed in minuscule movements, his thighs slapping hard against yours. “Fuck, I will, Daddy! Please, Daddy, I wanna make you feel good, I’ll do anything.”

“You're doin’ such a good job already, sweet thing,” he says, using his leverage on your hair and your waist to yank you upright, his chest pressed to your back, your ass now firmly sat in his lap. You moan long and low at the new angle, your back arching and your toes curling. 

Joel groans against your jaw, his mouth travelling along the line of it in sloppy kisses that indicate he's about as close as you are. “Yeah, baby. Fuckin’ drunk on my cock. Fucked you good and dumb, hmm? Fucked you so good you can't even think.”

You can only manage a low whine, the sound of it a fleeting puff of air from your lips, the oxygen in your lungs depleting and replaced with the smell of him. You try to bounce on his dick—you really do try—but you cannot remember how to work the muscles in your thighs. You cannot remember what you had for breakfast nor the colour of the skirt you wore today. You can only vaguely understand the shape of the man behind you, the name that belongs to him, the way you curve and fit into him. You’re falling, the technicolour world outside your window fading to the sound of soft, beating wings—that may be your heart, fluttering in your ears—as you seize, yielding to the pleasure. 

You will not recall the sounds you make when you come, grasping blindly at his thighs to keep yourself from falling over, your ears ringing. You feel his moustache scratching your jaw and his cock working you through your high, slowing his thrusts to help you land softly on solid ground. You may cry out his name, and you may call him something else entirely. But it's vibrant. It's radiant as the sunlight now dipping behind the distant buildings. It tastes just as sweet as the golden hour. 

Joel does not stop fucking you when your body goes limp in his arms. No, he resumes his brutal pace, using you like a fucking toy to get himself off. You happily take it, your head lolling back against his shoulder and your eyes drooping. 

“Nnh, fuck… I’m gonna… Jesus—oh, fuck—”

His hips press flush to your ass and he nuzzles his face into your throat, depositing kisses and love bites all over your skin as he pumps shallowly into you, his hot cum filling you up and leaking generously around the seal of your cunt. You gasp, your fingers threading through his already-tousled hair, keeping him glued to you as he flexes against your body and comes hard enough to double himself over. 

He collapses on top of you, forcing you to bend at the hip, little puffs of air escaping his mouth and seeping into you. You whine, your sore hips battered and bruised, your pussy deliciously abused as you pulse continuously around his dick. “Joel, please…”

He comes slowly back into his body, his lips trailing down your spine as he lifts himself upright. “Shit. ‘m sorry, baby girl. You feel okay?”

You hum happily, letting yourself pant into the mattress. “Feels so good.”

Joel pulls out, savouring the tight drag of his cock out of your pussy, hissing through his teeth and watching his thick cum dribble slowly out of your hole. “Such a fuckin’ pretty sight. My sweet girl, all used up.”

You drop your face into your forearm and giggle. Joel smooths his hand over your lower back. “What's so funny?”

“Just…” You sound a bit hysterical as you continue to laugh. “I’m going to be late on rent this month. I put a down payment on a car.”

Joel lowers himself next to you and gently pulls you into him, his moustache tickling your cheek. “Planning on gettin’ the hell outta dodge?” he says playfully, nipping your earlobe. 

Your eyes droop and you sink into him. “Think I’ll stay here for a while.”

“I know you will, baby,” he murmurs.

“Joel?”

“Hmm.”

“Thank you for the necklace.”

~

It’s night when you next wake, and Joel is next to you. 

For someone so stern and strong, he looks utterly serene in his sleep. His lips are slightly parted, half his face pressed into the pillow, his hair curling around his ears and his arm lazily draped over you. You gently sweep a lock of hair away from his face. 

Through the dark, the red light beams, and the arm around your waist tugs you closer.

THE END.

[angrycollectivecollectorr]

some people think writers are so eloquent and good with words, but the reality is that we can sit there with our fingers on the keyboard going, “what’s the word for non-sunlight lighting? Like, fake lighting?” and for ten minutes, all our brain will supply is “unofficial”, and we know that’s not the right word, but it’s the only word we can come up with…until finally it’s like our face got smashed into a brick wall and we remember the word we want is “artificial”.

[angrycollectivecollectorr]

i know it when i see it - part 5

series masterlist | ao3

pairing: pornstar!joel miller x fem!reader

rating: explicit 18+ minors dni

word count: 11k

warnings: sex work, exhibitionism, voyeurism, it's literally porn, breath play, dirty talk, bondage (rope play), oral sex, explicit p in v sex, slowburn, feelings

summary: you're pretty sure that joel doesn't hate you, but that only makes things more confusing.

a/n: once again @frannyzooey held my hand through this and @fish-fearme held my balls.

You don’t have to go far to find a drink.

By the time you step out from the back, the crew is almost done striking the set, coiling cables, folding up the c-stands. The pool table is wiped down, a dirty rag disappearing any evidence of your misdeeds. The bar is back to being a regular, run-of-the-mill shithole. 

It’s only a few minutes after five, and half the seats at the bar are already filled. Smoke spills from dry, cracked lips, spiraling up to the dark ceiling. Beer pulls from the tap, foaming over the smudged sides of the glass. Thick fingers fish around in a dish of peanuts, crushing the shells under heavy boots. The jukebox has been reclaimed, and Steely Dan croons out of the crackling speakers.

You follow Joel up to the bar, keeping close at his heels. You still feel a little raw, a little wrong, sort of strung out on the ebb of arousal that’s still in your veins. 

There’s none of that in Joel. His strides are easy, shoulders relaxed as he leans up against the bar. There’s a damp curl of hair at the back of his neck, but that’s the only clue that he was involved in anything debauched.

“Bill,” Joel says, tapping the bar to draw the attention of the bartender.

He’s grizzled and sullen, the exact opposite from the role that Joel had been playing at. Bill looks like he’d pull a shotgun if you suggested settling up wIth anything other than cash. His gaze is beady and disapproving as it flickers between you and Joel. He grunts.

“Smells like sex in here.”

Joel is unbothered as he leans against the bar. “Reckon that’s an improvement.”

Bill glares at him over the counter.

“I’m telling you, I see so much as a pube, I’m charging Tess double."

“Oh, please,” Tess scoffs, stepping up beside you, “The pubes were here way before we were.”

Bill grimaces. 

“This is the last time I'm letting you talk me into anything.”

Tess just grins and slides an envelope across the table. 

“Buy Frank something pretty,” she says with a wink.

Bill grumbles something undoubtedly unkind, but takes the envelope anyways, tucking it into the pocket of his shirt.

Tess turns to you, running an affectionate hand over your messy, sweat-damp hair.

“I’m heading out,” she says, “You want a ride?”

Your gaze flickers to Joel. His expression is even, unreadable. But he answers the question before you even know how to ask.

“I'll take her,” he says.

To her credit, Tess keeps her expression neutral.

“Alright then,” she nods, “Good work, you two.”

She raps her knuckles against the bar top, gives Bill a smirking salute before heading out.

Joel looks down at you. “What’re you drinking?”

You blink up at him, flushed under the heat of his attention.

“Whiskey soda.”

He leans over the bar and repeats it to Bill, with his own — neat.

Bill jerks his head towards the far side of the room. “Get yourselves a table before the yahoos get in here.”

Joel leads you over to a back booth, winding through the spindly-legged tables, the dart-players, the beer-bellied regulars flicking through a faded deck of cards. Your cheeks heat as you pass the pool table, the players chalking the ends of cues, the floorboards beneath just a little bit shinier than the rest.

You slide into the worn vinyl both, the seat sticking a little to the sweat on your skin. Things are still a little hazy, a fucked-out blur, all soft-focus and warm feelings. There’s a steady ache between your legs, but it’s not unpleasant. You like it. Like the way you can still feel him, that stretch, like he’s carved out space inside you.

Joel settles in across from you, filling the seat, stretching his arm out across the back of the booth, face lit in the hazy neon. He considers you across the table.

“So,” he says, “You didn’t know?”

That you could come like that, he doesn’t say. But you know what he means. And you feel that same little thrill, the rush of satisfaction.

You shrug, “Sort of thought it was only a porn thing.”

Then again, your life now was pretty full of porn things, so maybe you shouldn’t be surprised.

“How’d it feel?” Joel asks.

You bite your lip, but can’t help the grin that spreads across your face.

“Fucking amazing.”

The corner of his mouth edges up, like he’s fighting a smile. But before he can say anything else, Bill is there, setting your drinks on the table without any ceremony, a bit of whiskey spilling over the edge onto the sticky table.

“Thanks,” Joel says.

Bill just grunts before settling his gaze on you.

“Your girl here is getting some looks.”

You glance behind him and realize he’s right. A few heads at the bar are turned, craning their necks, trying to get a glimpse of you. One of the men at the dart board is gazing at you with open, slack-jawed interest, his throwing hand hanging limp at his side, target forgotten.

Joel raises one shoulder, looking unbothered.

“They got something to say, they can say it to me.”

Bill frowns, “You start a fight in my bar, I’m putting your ass out.”

Joel shakes his head. Takes a sip of whiskey.

“Didn’t say anything about startin’ one.”

Bill harrumphs, but must not see any merit in arguing the point, since he turns and heads back to the bar. 

You take a sip of your drink, wincing at the burn of it. Bill was a fucking heavy pour, though that wasn’t much of a surprise. It helps settle something in you, soothing the buzz of nerve endings, still blazing after the intensity of the scene.

Joel casts a glance around the bar, catching a few more curious looks. He’s frowning when he turns back to you.

“So, is that what it’s like? Being Lucky?”

The stares. The whispers. The spectacle of it all. You’re sort of surprised that he even notices it; he’s been in this game a lot longer than you have.

“Sometimes,” you shrug, “I’m still getting used to it.”

You glance back at the dart player and waggle your fingers at him, flashing a coy smile. He turns bright red and whips back around. You roll your eyes and look back at Joel.

“What’s it like being Texas?”

“Different,” he shrugs, “Don’t get looks like that, that’s for damn sure.”

“Maybe this just isn’t your crowd,” you say, hiding a smirk behind a sip of your drink.

Joel watches you for a moment, eyes tracking the movement of your throat. Then he drops his gaze.

“That tape did good,” he clears his throat, “Your solo.”

Spread out on soft sheets, the low drawl of his voice behind the camera, coaxing you to orgasm after orgasm. The first thing you put your name on. The tape that made you Lucky.

“Yeah, well, you helped,” you tell him.

He shakes his head, “Doubt anybody was listening to me when they could be looking at you.”

You feel the way your cheeks flush, and try to hide it behind another sip of your drink. You feel the burn a little less this time, buried beneath other kinds of heat.

There’s a pause, a lull. The jukebox switches over to the Eagles, a flicker and a hum opening into a guitar riff. You got your demons and you got desires. Well, I got a few of my own. Someone lights a joint and the tang of weed fills the already smoky air. There’s a burst of laughter from some of the women at the bar, their elbows knocking together, jostling. Coming right behind you. Swear I'm gonna find you one of these nights.

“Tess gave me your new rider,” Joel says.

He reaches back and pulls the tidy list from his pocket. He lays it out on the table between you, the reddish glow of the bar lights illuminating the do’s and don’ts, the soft and hard limits. 

It’s strange to think of all the time that’s passed since the first scene you did together. The way you’ve drifted in and out of each other’s orbit, flirting with the line of professional courtesy and that other thing, with teeth and legs and a hunger that still hasn’t been sated.

You look up at him, “And do you approve?”

“As long it’s what you want.”

You glance down at the list. Your horizons have certainly expanded, tastes evolving with every new scene. There were new hard limits, things you hadn’t even thought you might need to say no to. And there were still a few things marked with asterisks, soft limits you were open to exploring.

You raise a shoulder in a shrug. “It’s a work in progress.”

“Anyone give you any trouble?”

You raise an eyebrow, “Other than you?”

He gives you a look. It’s a little stern, but teasing, and you try to ignore the heat that stirs in your belly.

“No one’s crossed a line.”

“Good.”

He reaches out and taps an item on the list. 

“Wanna tell me about that?”

Bondage, the word tucked into the column of your soft limits.

“Pretty self-explanatory,” you say.

Joel tilts his head.

“Except for the asterisk.”

And you don’t miss the glint in his dark eyes, the shadow of a smirk on his lips. And — oh god. Joel Miller is flirting with you. You fight hard to keep your voice level.

“Like I said, it’s a work in progress.”

But you should've known he’d never back down that easy.

“You ever tried it?” he presses, leaning forward, arms folding over the small bar table. 

You shrug, “Maybe I really am as innocent as I look.”

He chuckles, shaking his head. 

“We both know that ain’t true.”

Tess hadn’t given you a copy of Joel’s rider this time, but you remembered it well enough. No hickeys, no biting, no scratching. Yes to impact play, yes to bondage. Sir was fine, master and daddy were soft no’s.

And no kissing. You hadn’t forgotten that one.

You lean forward, planting your elbows on the table, meeting his gaze.

“What about yours?” you ask.

He takes a sip of his drink, “What about mine?”

“No marking?”

“Usually, no. But, uh —” he tugs the collar of his shirt aside, “I won’t give you too much trouble about this.”

There are little red crescents on his shoulder where your nails dug in. And you don’t remember doing it, distracted by the heady haze of the moment, but seeing them gives you a sort of satisfaction. You left a mark.

“Whoops,” you say, not bothering to hide your smile. 

He shakes his head, amused.

“Don’t look so pleased with yourself.”

But it’s sort of hard not to feel a little smug. He’s giving you an inch. You’ll take it.

“I bet you give out plenty of bruises,” you say.

His eyes meet yours, and there’s something simmering there. 

“When I’m asked.”

You decide to file his answer — and the little twinge of arousal it sparks — away for later. There’s something else you want to know, the question that’s been burning at the back of your mind since your first scene together.

“But no kissing?”

Something flickers over his expression, and he drops his gaze to the glass in his hands, the dark pour of whiskey, the way the light swims in it.

“Easier that way,” he shrugs, “Stops the lines from blurring.”

And — well. That was something you could understand. Your lines with him were already so blurred, smudged with feeling when they shouldn’t be. It would be a lot worse if you knew what he tasted like. That thing in your stomach, with its teeth and its hunger and its heat, would be so much worse if he had kissed you.

Joel reaches out and taps another item on the list.

“And what about this?”

Choking, under your list of hard limits.

You raise one shoulder in a shrug.

“Not sure I like the idea of getting strangled.”

Joel frowns, “If it feels like strangling, they’re doing something wrong.”

You think of past flings, old flames, questions that were never asked, a too-tight grip around your throat, that flare of panic when it took a little too long for him to let go.

“I thought that was the point.”

“Hurting you ain’t the point,” he says, “S’about control. Trust.”

There’s something in the way he says it. Low and soft, in that honey-thick drawl. His fingers flex around his glass, sliding over the condensation. You imagine them around your throat.

This time there’s no hiding the blush. It burns high on your cheeks, and Joel smirks as he takes a drink.

When you speak, it comes out a little soft, a little breathy.

“Maybe you’ll have to show me sometime.”

Joel’s dark eyes trace the pink on your cheeks, down the curve of your jaw, settling somewhere around your throat. Watching as you swallow. His gaze flickers back up to yours.

“Maybe.”

He swallows down the last of his drink, then jerks his head toward the door.

“Come on. I'll take you home.”

He slides out of the booth and waits for you to do the same. He stays at your side this time, hand hovering at your lower back. And you’re aware of the looks that you get, the curious glances and lingering stares. But nobody makes a move, nobody tries to reel you in with some terrible line.

His presence is a pretty effective cockblock. 

Maybe that shouldn’t turn you on, but it sort of does.

You watch his hand as he slides some cash across the bar, the flex of his fingers around the door handle. And as sore and satisfied as you are, you still feel a low stirring of heat, a little twinge of want. Those thick hands around your throat, that tender stretch of skin that’s already so sensitive. Letting him take control, handing over that trust.

The air is cool on your skin, a sweet September breeze rolling down from the hills. The parking lot is empty, lit by the warm pool of a streetlamp, the bit of neon that spills out from the dirty windows.

You follow Joel to the truck, around to the passenger side door. But before you can reach the handle, there’s a tug at your hips, his voice low in your ear.

“C’mere.”

And then he’s turning you, hands at your hips, sliding around the waist of your denim shorts as he presses you up against the side of the truck. The metal is still sun-warn against the slip of skin at your lower back where your shirt rides up.

When you look up, Joel is so close your noses almost brush. So close you can feel his whiskey-warm breath on your lips, can almost taste it.

You gaze up at him, breath catching in your throat.

Joel looks down at you, his gaze dragging down from your eyes, lingering for just a second too long on your lips before they drop lower. He brushes the hair back from your neck, fingertips grazing your fluttering pulse which trips and doubles under his touch. 

Then his hand slides around your throat. And — oh.

Maybe you can show me sometime, you’d said.

Sometime is now. 

You can work with that.

The truck hides you from view of the bar and there are no lights at this end of the lot, giving you privacy in the cool shadow of the trees. His gaze flickers back to your face, searching your expression.

“Okay?”

You swallow, and you know that he can feel the flex of your throat under his hand.

“Yes,” you tell him.

Even though you had already come within an inch of your life just an hour ago, you could already feel the arousal pooling in your core, that low sizzle of heat lit by his proximity alone.

Joel’s other hand reaches for one of yours where it hangs at your side. He wraps his hand around two of your small fingers and taps them against his side.

“You want me to stop —” he does it again, “You do that. Understand?”

You nod.

“Show me,” he says, voice low.

You tap his thigh, just like he showed you. He nods, satisfied.

“Good.”

His thumb strokes along the front of your throat, a barely-there touch.

“Now, if someone presses too hard here,” he says, “They’re gonna hurt you. But here —”

His hand curves around your neck, so big it spans the full width. His fingertips press against the sides of your throat, tucked just under your jaw.

“A little bit of pressure here oughta feel real good,” he murmurs.

He watches you for a second longer. Then his hand tightens on your throat. 

And it’s not choking, not really. There’s no flare of panic, of fear. It’s just — pressure. Like he said. Your breaths come in a little shorter, a little slower. You can feel the throb of your pulse against the firm press of his fingertips. 

He relaxes his grip after only a few seconds, eyes searching your face. 

“Alright?”

You nod. 

He’s so close, his gaze so intent. You can feel the sticky heat of arousal between your legs and you want more. Of him, of this. Whatever this is.

“It's blood, not just breath,” he explains, “Slows the flow, makes you a little light-headed.”

His thumb strokes over your fluttering pulse. 

“Should feel good.”

And then he tightens again.

That same pressure, the same steady hold. You can still breathe, but it's a little harder to think. Your mind fuzzes at the edges, things softening, slowing down. 

You can’t focus on anything other than his face. The heat in his gaze, the way he’s watching you.

He releases after a few more seconds, and you melt against him. Fingers twisting into the fabric of his shirt, using it to keep yourself steady. You suck in a ragged little breath, caught in the haze of arousal, the feel of him against you.

“One more, alright?” he murmurs.

You tilt your face up towards his, exposing more of your throat. Expression pleading. A little glassy-eyed, a little blissed out. Because it’s good. It’s him, and it’s so good.

His grip tightens —

And the world narrows. It’s just the two of you. Just you and Joel. Time slowing, stilling, the night quiet around you. You can feel the heat of his hand, the blood pooling beneath the pressure of his grip. All the air that you aren’t breathing, heavy and warm around you. 

And just when your vision starts to blur at the edges —

He relaxes his grip. The pressure eases. You inhale, a ragged little sip of air that brings the evening into sharper focus, but does nothing to cool the heat inside of you. 

Joel’s thumb strokes along the side of your throat. Soft. Careful. 

You gaze up at him, and you know you must look a wreck. Eyes shining, the flush of arousal splashed high on your cheeks, sucking in little shuddering breaths.

“Yeah,” he murmurs, “Thought you’d like that.”

He takes a step back and you sag against the side of the truck. Tilting your head back and staring up at the muddy stretch of purple sky above, trying to slow your racing pulse, settle your hazy fog of thoughts.

Joel pulls open the passenger door and nods inside.

“Come on.”

You stare at him. Still a little dizzy, a little overwhelmed.

“That’s it?”

A smile curls at his lips.

“Don’t get greedy now.”

You roll your eyes, pushing yourself off the side of the car and climbing inside the truck.

Joel keeps the windows down as he drives, the breeze lifting your hair. The air has the faint scent of eucalyptus, of asphalt. An old ballad hums on the radio. You watch the black-blue blur of the city outside the windows, punctuated by the flare of headlights, the neon haze that hovers over downtown. 

When the truck rolls to a stop outside your building, Joel holds out a hand to stop you before you open the door.

“Hang on.”

You wait and watch as he reaches into the console, pulling out a pencil and an old scrap of receipt. He scribbles something on it and holds it out to you.

“I owe you one,” he says, “For today.”

And you want to argue, to say that he doesn’t owe you anything. The scene had gone well, despite the momentary setback. And he had more than made up for it by giving you the most intense orgasm of your entire life.

But it's a non-starter. You can see it in his expression, the set of his jaw, the furrow between his brows.

You take the receipt from his hands, and your stomach clenches when you see the number written there. His number. You fold it carefully and slide it into the pocket of your jeans. 

You can feel it burning there as you say goodnight and slide out of the truck, stepping over the dark sidewalk and unlocking your front door. You slip upstairs, past your roommates piled on the sofa, and close the door to your bedroom. You pull it out then, staring at the numbers until they burn behind your eyelids, and you slip the receipt between the pages of a book on your bedside. 

You lay awake late into the night, wondering what it means to have Joel Miller owe you one.

x x x x x

You look for bruises the next morning.

Pull your damp hair back from your neck, swipe your hand through the fog on the mirror. You tilt your jaw, exposing the stretch of your throat. But there’s nothing there. No bruises, no marks. No shadow of Joel left behind on your skin.

But you can feel him.

Right there, hinged at the angle of your jaw. An ache that’s not really an ache. The phantom press of his fingertips. The rough scrape of his callouses. The hold that he had on you.

That he still has.

One of your roommates is on the fire escape, chain-smoking and still wearing her clothes from the night before. She smiles at you, sleepy and sunkissed, as you crawl out to join her with a cup of coffee in hand.

It’s early for the weekend, and the street below you is quiet. A lone dog-walker, the soft snuffling of a lab along the dusty gutter. The rattle of a shopping cart, laden with empty bottles. The tuneless hum of the man pushing it, pausing as he passes the bins along the curb, peering inside.

Your roommate steals a sip of your coffee, then leans her head against your shoulder. There’s glitter in her hair.

“I got choked last night,” you tell her.

She tilts her head up at you, “Like — scary or sexy?”

“Sexy,” you say, biting back a smile.

She pats your knee affectionately.

“Right on, baby.”

The sun is still rising over the hills, the horizon hiding behind you, and you watch the pink spill across the sky, the night bleeding out. You think of the receipt waiting on your bedside table.

But you don’t call Joel. 

Not that day, or any of the days that follow, the slow sprawl of the week.

It’s just — you don’t know what you would even say.

Thanks for making me come so hard I saw stars and then choking me out in the parking lot. We should do it again sometime. 

He has quite literally eaten his own semen out of your cunt, but the idea of talking to him on the phone feels obscene. It feels terrifying. It feels like this big, gaping unknown that might swallow you whole if you stare at it for too long.

So you don’t call.

But you think about it. 

All the time. The shadow of the idea lingering at the back of your mind, waiting there at the end of a bad day. You take out the receipt sometimes, smoothing your fingers over the untidy scrawl of numbers there. You have it memorized by now, which feels stupid and girlish, but you can’t really help it. 

You have a crush on a boy who’s not a boy at all — on a man, broad and big hands and the rough scratch of stubble. A man who has stripped you bare and fucked you raw and somehow it feels like that should cheapen things, but it doesn’t. You’re becoming numb to all kinds of touch, indifferent to the blur of bodies and flesh, but just the feeling of his breath on your face sets you on fire.

It’s hungry and achy and good — when he’s not being an asshole about it.

Although at least then there had been a really good reason to stay away, to maintain the shoddy walls of your self-preservation. You weren’t sure you could survive the softening of his edges. 

There’s that hunger that lives inside of you, but you don’t know what it means, you can’t shape it into some semblance of meaning. It gnaws and it aches and you can’t make any sense of it. 

You don’t even know what you would ask for if you had the chance. 

x x x x x

Tess books you in the next issue of Hustler.

She says she’s holding out on Playboy until they agree to give you the cover.

You spend the better part of the weekend at her place, flipping through old magazines, searching for inspiration amidst the pin-ups and pornstars. You’re still shaping the idea of Lucky, buffing out the edges, polishing her image — your image. All fluttering lashes and glossy lips, a wink and a nudge. 

You sit on the carpet in front of the smut-strewn coffee table, endless copies of Private and High Times and Escapades. Bodies splayed and sprawled, soft curves and spread legs, gazing out from the glossy pages. 

Tess opened a bottle of wine sent by some producer, an obscene vintage that she had rolled her eyes at. The cocksucker has good taste, she said as she was digging out the cork. You’re on your third glass, just shy of tipsy, skimming through a circus-themed photoshoot, when there’s a knock on the door.

Tess looks up, smoke slipping from her lips as she swears. “Shit.”

You frown, “What’s wrong?”

“Forgot Joel said he was stopping by,” she says, “I’ll tell him to fuck off.”

She makes to stand, pushing a frustrated hand through her hair. 

“No! No, it’s —” you say quickly, almost tripping over the words, “It’s fine, really.”

She raises an eyebrow, skeptical, cigarette still burning between her fingertips. Shrewd and discerning and seeing right through you, just like always.

“Does that mean you sorted out your shit?”

You’re not sure how to answer, how to unravel the tangle of all your feelings for Joel, the confused mess of them. The feeling of his hand on your throat, his number slipped into your back pocket.

Instead you say “He didn't tell you?”

“No, kid,” she rolls her eyes, “We must’ve been too busy braiding each other's hair.”

And you don’t really know how to feel about that. The fact that he hadn’t mentioned you, that maybe it hadn’t been as much of a thing for him. Maybe parking lot breathplay was his regular Friday night. 

You shrug, slightly self-conscious. “I just figured — you guys are friends.”

“We are,” she nods, “But I told him I’m staying out of this one.”

You want to ask what that means, but there’s another, louder knock at the door. Tess gives you a look that reads a lot like final chance.

“It’s fine, really,” you insist, “We talked.”

Which is true, technically. You had talked. Sitting across from each other in the gloom of Bill’s bar, sharing your first civil conversation that didn’t end in an argument or an orgasm. Just his hand around your throat, the sticky slide of your panties that night, his phone number still pressed in a book at your bedside. 

But if that wasn’t something that Joel felt like sharing with Tess, you certainly wouldn't be the one to do it.

Tess shrugs, “I’ll take your word for it.”

She stubs out her cigarette in the ceramic dish and pushes herself up from the armchair.

You sit there, listening to her footsteps, rolling the frayed edges of the blanket between your fingertips. You hear the door open, the low gravel of Joel’s voice and his heavy boots.

You look up when you feel the heat of his gaze, pricking at the back of your neck. He stands in the doorway. 

“You staying for a drink?” Tess says from down the hall.

Joel looks at you, then nods slowly.

“Yeah,” he says, “I’ll take a beer if you got one.”

You hear the hiss of the fridge in the next room, the clink of glass bottles. Joel leans against the doorframe, looking down at you. You feel sort of silly, sitting cross-legged on the carpet, wearing one of Tess’s old sweaters. 

“Hey,” he says.

“Hi.”

His eyes slide over to the coffee table, the spread of pornography. He raises an eyebrow.

“Am I interruptin’ something?”

“Research.”

He raises an eyebrow, “Is that right?”

“I’m posing for Hustler.”

He lets out a low whistle, and if you didn’t know any better, you’d say he almost looks impressed.

“Ain’t that something.”

“Our girl here is a pretty big deal,” Tess says, reappearing at Joel’s side and handing him a beer. The look she throws at you is fond, as close to affectionate as she ever gets. You grin back at her.

Joel twists the lid off his beer, watching you as he tips it up to his lips.

Tess drops down onto the sofa, picking up the pile of torn pages, flicking through them. She snorts at some of them, shaking her head.

“Man, some of the shit they get away with.”

Joel leans forward, slipping one of the pages from the table and studying it. He turns it toward you. A model bent at the waist in front of a mirror, her eyes heavy-lidded, wrists bound behind her back with a silk scarf. Joel raises an eyebrow.

“Thought bondage wasn’t your thing?”

“It’s not,” you say, then amend, “I mean, not yet.”

“Could be a new angle,” Tess says with a shrug, “But I’m not sure a fucking Larry Flynt shoot is the right time to try it out.”

“No,” Joel frowns, “It ain’t.”

Tess meets his gaze and something unspoken seems to pass between them. You can see it in the clench of Joel’s teeth, the flicker of a tendon in his neck, a subtle tell. Tess leans back against the couch cushions, expression neutral as she exhales a stream of smoke.

“Point taken.”

You shift up onto your knees, leaning over the table to take the page out of Joel’s hand. It was one of your pulls. You like the gauzy, soft-focus look of the scene. The arch of her back, the angle of her elbows tucked behind her back, the teasing hint of restraint.

Your gaze flicks up to Joel, and you find him watching you. There’s the buzz of wine in your veins, the heady rush of his attention, and the question slips out before you can stop it.

“What about now?”

Joel tilts his head, brow creasing. So you clarify.

“You could show me now.”

Joel’s gaze is unreadable as he raises his beer to his lips and takes another long drink. You watch him, the movement of his throat, the way his dark eyes drag over you. Then he looks at Tess.

“You got a tie or something?”

Her gaze flickers between you, and she snorts, amused.

“Yeah, I got a tie.”

She pushes herself up off the couch and disappears down the hall.

You stare at Joel, feeling the heat of his gaze, the flush that rises in your cheeks. He sets the empty bottle down on the coffee table and steps forward. He’s so tall, so big in every way. His broad shoulders, the thick muscle of his arms. You have to suppress a shiver as he comes to stand above you.

He holds his hand out to you, his gaze heavy, intense, as he tugs you to your feet.

“Same rules as before,” he murmurs, “You don’t like something, you say so.”

You nod, heart in your throat, as Tess steps back into the living room. She tosses the tie at Joel and he catches it easily. 

“Go on, cowboy,” she says, settling back on the sofa, “Show her the ropes.”

He slips the tie over your wrists, the silk brushing over your pulse, making you shiver. He loops it carefully, twisting it over your hands, binding them together. His movements are practiced, easy, his fingers deftly working the knots.

“There oughta be some slack,” he says.

He slips his fingers beneath the rope, letting you feel the give that’s there. Just enough to rotate your wrists beneath the silk, enough that it’s not cutting off circulation. But not enough to pull free.

“Someone ties you too tight, you let ‘em know.”

He knots the end together, tying you off with a final tug. 

“Go on,” he says, “Try and get out.”

You try to pull your wrists apart, but the knot holds. You twist a little harder, straining against the silk, but it doesn’t budge. Joel watches you struggle for a second, then nods.

“Sometimes that’s enough. Just the idea of restraint, a little bit of control.”

You feel a low twinge of arousal, that pinch in your belly. Your eyes lift to meet his.

“But there’s more?” you ask, a little breathless.

Joel chuckles, “I’m all outta rope.”

You glance over your shoulder at Tess. 

“As much as I would love to indulge whatever the fuck this is,” she says, “You should really save this for the cameras.”

“Another tape?” you frown, “Do we have the budget for that?”

“I make two phone calls and we do.”

And it twists low in your stomach, that coil of heat building at the idea of this spilling into a full scene. Letting Joel tie you up, take you apart. Have his way with you.

“Really?”

“Are you asking if I think people will pay to see you tied up?” she smirks, “Like I said, two calls.”

You look up at Joel. Your wrists are still bound between you, your pulse fluttering against the silk that he put there. His expression is as unreadable as ever, but he can’t hide the heat in his gaze. The corner of your mouth lifts.

“You did say you owed me one,” you tell him.

His gaze drifts over your face, down your throat. Then his eyes flick back to yours, and he nods.

“I guess I did.”

x x x x x

It doesn’t take long for Tess to put the scene together.

And that’s new — the ease of it, the way there always seems to be some interested party willing to part ways with their cash to finance the next Lucky project. It was strange to be your own kind of currency, a name that moved the needle, that made people pay attention.

She books out a hardware store after hours. It’s a small storefront in the middle of a strip, the sign above the entrance chipped and fading. It’s all low ceiling beams and narrow aisles, creaking wooden floors and sun-bleached windows. The walls are scarred from pulled nails, soldered pipes. There’s the faint scent of sawdust, the tang of metallic and rust.

You’re sitting up by the register, flipping through the script, waiting for the crew to finish setting up. You can hear the low murmur of their voices, the scrape of paint cans as they shuffle things out of the way. Light flares and dies against the far wall as the gaffer readjusts.

You have a short, teasing intro scene to shoot first. Some flirting, a little bit of banter. And then the real shoot would take place in the back room, away from the curious gaze of passersby on the sidewalk. 

There’s the hum of an engine outside, and you look up as Joel’s truck pulls into the small lot.

Your eyes follow him as he walks in. White t-shirt under his flannels, those same heavy boots he always wears. A bell chimes as he opens the door.

He spots you at the counter and comes over.

“You good?” he murmurs. 

You nod.

“I’m good.”

Tess leans out from one of the aisles.

“Places, guys.”

You find your marks — you at the end cap, ready to turn the corner; Joel a little ways away, restocking shelves, a bright blue pin on his shirt that reads Happy To Help. He certainly looks the part — all calluses and heavy hands, jeans slung low on his hips.

You nod at Tess, letting her know you’re ready, and she calls it out.

“Action.”

You turn the corner, wandering down the aisle with the aimless affect of someone who has no idea how to shop in a hardware storm. Which honestly feels apt.

Joel looks up as you approach, his gaze sweeping over your thin tank top, the stretch of your legs beneath your cut-off shorts.

“Can I help you find something?” he asks.

You smile up at him, feigning innocence.

“I need some rope.”

He waves you a little further down, stopping in front of a display. He leans up against it, the hem of his shirt lifting a little, exposing a tan stretch of skin. 

“We got a couple options here,” he says, “What kind d’ya need?”

You let your eyes drag over him, obvious enough that the camera can catch it. Those broad shoulders, the thick cords of muscle along his forearms. You tilt your head, biting your lip.

“I was hoping you could help me figure it out.”

Joel shrugs, “Depends what kind of knots you’re tying.”

You take a step closer, looking up at him from under your lashes. You let your voice lilt, the words laced with suggestion.

“And what if I'm not the one tying them?”

There’s no such thing as subtlety in porn. 

Joel clears his throat, but there’s an obvious interest behind his gaze, an innuendo in the warm rasp of his voice. He pulls out a length of rope, coiling it around his heavy hand, eyes never leaving yours.

“Well, you still oughta know what kind of knots they are. So you can get yourself out.”

You take another step closer, “Maybe I don’t want to get out.”

Joel’s gaze darkens and he leans forward, a dangerous glint in his eye.

“You looking for a demonstration?”

You bite your lip, bat your lashes. All flirting, girlish temptation. The easy prey, unsuspecting, all too eager to be taken advantage of.

“I’d like that.”

“Cut.”

Tess steps out from behind the camera, all business.

“Give us a second to set up in the back,” she says, then ducks into the back room. The gaffer lugs the lighting equipment over his shoulder, casting the aisle into shadows.

You feel Joel behind you, the heat of him at your back. You turn to look up at him, and your breath catches in your throat. His eyes are dark, burning with a sudden intensity.

“Tell me what I’m gonna do to you.”

“You —” you frown up at him, “It’s in the script.”

“I know it is,” he nods, “I want to hear you say it.”

You swallow.

“You’re going to tie my wrists. And — and a harness.”

He nods, “What else?”

“You’re going to fuck me.”

His gaze is scorching, searing through you.

“How am I gonna fuck you?”

You swallow.

“Hard.”

He nods, “You don’t like something, we stop. Understood?”

“Yes.”

“Good girl.”

It rips through you — a shock of electricity, of arousal. You can feel it already, the sticky heat between your legs, a warmth that builds between your hips.

Tess sticks her head out from the back room.

“We’re all set in here. You guys ready?”

Joel looks down at you.

You nod, “Ready.”

You take your places in front of the door, ready to enter the scene once Tess calls it. You’re painfully aware of Joel, the crackling heat of his closeness, the flex of his hands, the whisper of what he’s about to do to you still echoing in your head.

You hear the muffled sound of Tess calling out — “Action.”

Joel pulls the door open and you step inside the dimly lit back room. There isn’t much to it — shelves crammed with spare parts and shipping boxes. A tidy work bench, toolbox in one corner, two coils of rope waiting at the edge. There’s a reddish tinge to the air, the hazy glow of the exit sign. 

The door snaps shut behind you, and you turn to face him, feeling the nervous trip of your pulse. 

His eyes are so dark, so hungry that you feel your throat go dry. That furious, focused heat, irises almost swallowing that dark-edged amber. He steps forward, towering over you.

“Not sure if I can give a proper demonstration if you’ve got all your clothes on.”

Your hands go to the button of your shorts, undoing them quickly and shucking them down your legs.

Joel chuckles.

“Eager little thing.”

He curls a hand around your hip, thumb slipping beneath the fabric of your tank top. And it’s barely anything, the smallest touch, but it sears against your skin.

“Reckon we oughta take this off too.”

His hand drags up, over the soft swell of your belly, pushing your shirt up as he goes, baring inch after inch of skin. He pulls it over your head, your nipples stiffen in the cool air, and you fight the urge to cross your arms over your chest. There is something so intense, so scorching in his gaze, and it stops you.

He cups your breast in his heavy hand, thumb stroking over your nipple, teasing at it. Your mouth falls open with a soft moan.

His lips curl. 

“You wet for me already?”

And you are. There’s a slick, dripping heat pooling between your hips, that low burn of arousal. 

“Yes.”

You feel his hand slide over your hip, over the swell of your stomach, beneath your panties. His thick fingers dips into your slit, and he groans.

“Fuck, baby. You want it bad.”

His touch is light, almost teasing as it slips through your folds, rubbing against your aching clit. 

Your hips twitch, chasing the stroke of his fingers, desperate for more friction. You’re close, just on the edge of it, when he pulls his hand away. 

He slips his fingers between your lips, pressing against your tongue, making you taste your own arousal. 

“You gonna be good for me?” he asks, voice low and rough, the sound scraping low in your belly. 

You nod, already dazed and half-drunk on his touch.

He goes over to the workbench, where coils of rope lay waiting. He takes one and lets it unfurl, running the long line of it over his palm. His eyes on you, dragging from your neck to your breasts, down to the flash of shining pink between your legs.

Your breath hitches, anxiety and longing, an ache that burns and bites.

He steps behind you, brushing your hair back from your shoulders. He drapes the coil of rope over the back of your neck, trailing it down between your breasts. His hand brushes the stiff peak of your nipple, and you inhale sharply. He hears it, and pauses, teasing the rope over your sensitive bud until you whine, arcing for him. 

“Hold still for me,” he murmurs, strokes a soothing hand over your arm. 

He continues shaping the harness, his steady, sure hands moving over you, working the rope around your waist, down to wrap around your thighs.

You get lost in the feel of it, the rope sliding against your skin, the soft scratch of fibers against sensitive flesh. The scrape of Joel’s hands, your skin heating under his touch. The press of his fingers into your skin as he ties and tests the knots.

Fuck. You like it a lot more than you thought you would, the sensation settling over your skin, a tension coiling in your stomach. The harness isn’t restricting your movement in any way. You just feel — secure. All wrapped up in rope and the heat of Joel's gaze.

He ties the final knot and steps back to survey his handiwork. 

“How’s that feel?”

You blink up at him, a little breathless.

“Good.” 

He gives a sharp tug to the front of the harness, pulling you closer. It punches a surprised little gasp out of your chest, and you feel a fresh wave of arousal coat the inside of your thighs. 

His dark eyes drag over you, the dark flush of arousal across your chest, the sticky wet between your legs. 

“You look real pretty like this,” he murmurs.

You lean into him, aching, desperate to be touched. His eyes find yours.

“Want more?”

“Please,” you whisper.

He gets the other coil of rope. Runs it through his hands, right in front of you. A threat. A promise. He steps behind, and your stomach clenches. He takes hold of your arms and folds them carefully behind your back. He works the rope steadily, binding your wrists together, tying it off with a sharp tug. 

You feel his breath against the shell of your ear.

“Get on your knees.”

You do, kneeling beneath him on the uneven floorboards.

It’s a vulnerable position, kneeling at his feet, your arms bound behind your back, wearing only the rope and your soaked panties. You feel small and helpless and so fucking wet. But you trust him. You know, you feel, that he would never hurt you. Not unless you asked him to. 

He tilts his head, smirking down at you.

“Could just leave you like that.”

You pout. 

“Don’t be mean.”

He brushes the hair back from your face, takes your chin in his heavy hand. And he’s so delicate with it, so careful. You can feel the wet starting to drip down your thighs.

His eyes darken, thumb swiping over your bottom lip. 

“You want me to fill up this pretty little mouth?”

“Yes.”

He undoes his belt, thick fingers working open the buttons of his jeans. His cock hangs heavy between his thighs, already so hard. Your eyes drift over the length of him, to the dark thatch of hair at his base, the faint trail of it that disappears under his shirt up to his thick stomach, his broad chest. 

He fists his cock over your face, knuckles almost brushing your lips. Stroking his hand along the heavy length, long slow tugs, the smear of precum over the tip. 

You lick your lips, the want overwhelming, your cunt clenching down on nothing as you watch him pleasure himself. Unable to touch, to taste, to do anything but watch and wait until he decides to use you.

And you know that’s the game. You can see it, the teasing glint in his eye, the hungry way he watches you shift and whine beneath him.

“You wanted this, huh?” he asks, “Wanted me to use you?”

The head of his cock bumps your lips, smearing precum. Your tongue darts out to taste the salt of him, the musk. He does it again, more intentional this time, dragging his cock over your mouth, rubbing across your cheeks. And it’s debasing, it’s indecent, but the way he’s looking at you — it’s burning, a spark that catches on the low flicker of flames inside you. 

It makes you dizzy, makes you sweat, and you feel almost feverish with arousal as you open your mouth for him to slip inside.

“Fuck, baby.”

He groans as he sinks into the wet heat of your mouth, the tip of his cock grazing the back of your throat. He holds there, brushing up against your gag reflex, filling you so that you can barely breathe. And then he pulls out, just enough to let you suck in a spit-slick gasp of air, saliva clinging to your lips. You blink up at him, tears already blurring your vision. 

“Knew what you were fucking doing.” 

He fists his hand in your hair, holding you in place as he begins to rock his hips against your face, his cock nudging the back of your throat with every thrust. A tear spills over onto your cheek and he thumbs it away, the touch almost tender.

“Look at you,” he croons, “Being so good.”

Your tongue drags along the underside of him, tasting every ridge and vein, and spit slips from the corner of your mouth. But you don’t have your hands to wipe it away, can’t wrap your fingers around the base of him to catch some of the mess. So it drips down your chin, onto the rope wrapped around your chest. 

When he pulls out, a strand of saliva connects your swollen lips to the head of his cock. He keeps you like that for a moment, tilting your head back so your eyes meet his. 

“Fuck,” he groans, “I could come just like this, all over your pretty face.”

You frown, brow pinching together, and he chuckles. The low, teasing sound of it shoots straight to your core.

“Gotta ask for what you want, baby.”

The ache between your legs is almost painful now, so desperate to be filled by him. You gaze up at him, all flushed cheeks and spit-soaked lips. 

“I want you to fuck me.”

He taps his cock against your lips. You get the message.

“Please,” you add. 

“Good girl.”

He reaches down, tucking his fingers beneath the harness and tugging you up onto your feet. You stumble slightly, but he catches you, one hand at your hip, the other steadying you at your sternum. 

And it shouldn’t be so hot. The way he can manhandle you, the fact that you’re entirely at his mercy. But it is. Because he’s giving you what you wanted, playing the role that you put him in.

He’s in control — but only because you gave it to him. 

He bends you over the workbench, pressing between your shoulder blades so you fold in half. It’s a little higher than your waistline, and you have to go up on your tiptoes, the rough edges of the wood digging into your hip.

Joel’s hand drags up the side of your thighs, stroking over the swell of your ass. His fingers tease along the edge of your panties. 

“Fuck, baby. Look so good like this.”

He slides his fingers over the seat of your panties, feeling the soaked fabric there, pressing his fingers to the outline of your entrance.

“Little hole’s just begging to get fucked, huh.”

He tugs at your panties, and the lace gives easily in his hands as he rips away the soaked scrap of fabric. You’re bare beneath him, bound and spread, arousal dripping down your thighs. It’s filthy, completely debauched, and you want him so badly you can barely breathe.

Joel shifts behind you, kneeling on the ground, and you can feel his hot breath against you. His hands slide up your thighs, thumbs swiping over your swollen folds, spreading you open to expose your fluttering hole. 

He licks a broad stripe through your folds, and you arch into the feeling, pressing your hips back against his face. His tongue teases at your entrance, lapping up the slick that spills from you, before moving down to your clit. A needy little whine slips through your lips, and you can feel the way he groans against you, the sound sinking into your skin. 

You can’t pull away, can’t ease the intensity. The heat that builds inside you is blinding, white hot and aching. He holds you open and eats at you, devours you, all teeth and tongue and desperate hunger. There’s the soft scrape of teeth, a teasing edge, and then he seals his mouth over your clit and sucks.

Your mind blanks out and then you’re coming, a low throbbing orgasm that drenches his face in a fresh wave of arousal. He licks you through it, swallowing down your slick, the soft scratch of his stubble against your tender flesh.

He stands behind you, and you feel the wet drag of his fingers over the swell of your ass. They slip through your folds, teasing against your aching hole.

You choke on a moan as his fingers press inside you, pressing your forehead against the bench, eyes squeezing shut at the sudden stretch.

“So tight, honey.”

He strokes against your sensitive walls, pressing up, brushing against a spot that makes you tense.

“You want to come again?”

You nod, a mewling, desperate plea falling from your lips as you try to fuck yourself back onto his fingers. He twists them inside you, almost painful, and you whimper.

“Words, baby.”

“Please,” you pant, “Please make me come.”

You hear the low rumble of approval in his chest, and his hand moves faster, fucking deeper.

“That’s my girl.”

You come on a choked moan, back bowing, wrists straining against their ties. The hot, slick rush of release spills out over his fingers. It’s so much, just shy of overwhelming, and you shudder as Joel pulls his fingers from your still-clenching cunt. You think you might be crying, the drip of tears down your cheeks, clinging to your lashes. 

Joel nudges your ankle with his boot, forcing your legs further apart. 

He grinds against you, his cock sliding through your slick folds, coating his length in your arousal. You whine at the feeling, so close and still not enough of him. He strokes his hand along your spine, settling you, keeping you flush against the bench.

“It’s alright,” he murmurs, “I got you.”

You feel the head of him notch against your entrance, and then he’s pushing in, in, in. Sinking deep into the heat of your aching cunt. It knocks the breath out of your lungs, the stretch of him, the pinch that’s almost painful. He feels so big like this, almost too big, and you can’t swallow down the cry that slips from your throat.

Joel’s hands flex on your hip and he sinks in another inch, groaning at the stretch.

“You can take it, honey.”

Another thrust and he’s all the way in, his hips pressing up against your ass. And it’s so much, the heavy heat of him inside you, nudging against your cervix.

You strain against your bindings, trying to reach for him, trying to pull away. But there’s nowhere for you to go, no way to slip free of the rope around you. His hips pin you to the table, every grinding thrust stoking the fire that burns in your belly.

He begins to move, sawing his hips in and out of you, punching little gasps from your lungs.

“Fuck,” he groans, “Little cunt’s taking me so good.”

Your eyes flutter shut at his words, the ache inside you intensifying.

He fucks into you, setting a relentless pace. Every thrust pushes you further up the work bench, your toes barely grazing the ground. It’s rough and hard and hungry, his bruising grip on your hips, the overwhelming heat of his body against yours.

His hand tangles in the harness and he pulls you up against his chest, wrapping his arm around your front, holding you in place. You can feel the heat of him, the sweat soaking through his shirt, smearing against your skin. His hips drive up against yours, again and again, hitting that spot that seems to exist just for him. You’re so close, cunt fluttering around him, breath catching in your throat.

“That’s it,” he grunts, “Come on my cock.”

And you do — splitting apart, spilling open. Your eyes roll back, fingernails digging into the flesh of your palm as your vision goes white. You clench down around him, coating his length in a fresh wave of release.

He drops his head to your shoulder and you can feel the furrow of his brow, his breath hot and heavy as he pants against your skin. He thrusts into you a few more times before he’s pulling out, his hand on your shoulder, flattening you against the bench. He works his hand over his cock, using your arousal to bring himself to the edge, and then he’s coming, thick streaks of semen spilling across your skin.

Your mind is fuzzy, half-focused, sunk deep in the haze of orgasm. Your own pulse echoes in your head, a fast, frantic rhythm that drowns out everything else. 

Distantly, you think you hear Tess’s voice calling cut, and then the low rumble of Joel’s voice above you.

“Give us a minute.”

There’s a shuffling as the crew clears the room, but it all feels so far away. There’s only the edge of the table beneath your belly, the rope around your wrists, Joel’s come cooling on your skin. Everything else is smeared, the edges blurred and colors bleeding.

You feel the careful drag of a cloth over your skin, Joel murmuring something you can’t make out. And then you feel his hands at your wrist, deftly undoing the knots and pulling away the rope. Your shoulders ache a little, but you think you like the little bit of soreness.

Joel eases you up, one hand at your shoulder, the other at your waist. Your feet find the ground, but your legs are still shaking, and so he leans you against his chest, tucking your head beneath his chin. You feel soft, weak-limbed and shaky against him.

And it’s nice, the quiet press of your bodies together, the easy hold he has on you. 

His hands go to the harness ties at your back, undoing them, the rope around you slowly unraveling until it slips off your shoulders, coiling on the ground at your feet. You’re naked against him, stripped bare before him, but you don’t really mind.

There’s no heat in his gaze now, none of the want from before. He takes his flannel up from the bench and slips it over you, guiding your arms through the holes, doing up half the buttons.

You blink up at him, bringing the furrow of his brow into focus, the quiet intensity of his gaze. He brushes your sweaty hair back from your face.

“Alright?”

You nod.

He takes your wrists in his hand, rubbing at the soreness there, the slight tenderness. Joel’s eyes sweep over you, searching for something else, some secret tell.

“Not too much?”

You shake your head.

“I liked it.”

And you did. You feel high off it, sore and sated, all soft-edged and drippy, still full on the feeling of him.

Joel studies you for a moment longer, then tilts his head.

“You hungry?”

x x x x x

There’s a diner just a little ways down the street. Joel takes you there.

The sun has just started to sink down over the horizon, and rosy light spills through the windows, casting a soft glow over the worn vinyl booths and chipped Formica counters. It’s half empty. A few solitary souls sit hunched over the counter, steam rising from ceramic mugs. There’s a couple in the corner booth, feeding each other bits of runny egg.

The waitress leads you to one of the sun-drenched booths by the window, dropping menus onto the table and bringing over two mugs of coffee without asking, her tired eyes smudged with mascara. Joel orders a burger and you think you catch the corner of a smile when you ask for a stack of pancakes. The waitress shuffles away, leaving the two of you alone.

Joel watches as you rip open three packets of sugar at once, dumping them into your mug. He raises an eyebrow, amused.

“Sweet tooth?”

“Always,” you say, sucking the stray bit of sugar that clings to your thumb.

Joel raises his own mug to his lips, and it’s not surprising that he drinks it black. He sets it back down and settles you with a look.

“How’d you get started anyway?” he asks.

You raise an eyebrow at him.

“You mean, how’d a nice girl like me get caught up in all this?”

Joel smirks, “Something like that.”

You raise one shoulder in a shrug.

“I like sex.”

He huffs out a laugh, “That much I figured.”

“I mean, the way I grew up, girls weren’t supposed to like sex,” you explain, “Weren’t supposed to talk about it, even. Just keep our knees shut, say our prayers. That kind of thing.”

Joel nods, “Sounds familiar.”

You look up at him, surprised.

“It does?”

“Texas ain’t just a nickname,” he says, “I've got plenty of Sundays under my belt.”

And maybe you could have guessed that too. The whisper of a good Southern upbringing, those old school values, the small town that had shaped him.

“I got myself into all kinds of trouble,” you sigh, “Gave my parents hell.”

There’s an echo of raised voices, slamming doors. The icy chill of disapproval, something like hate in your father’s eyes. You wrap your hands around the mug, letting its warmth bleed into your palms.

When you look back up at Joel, he’s watching you carefully.

“So you left.”

You nod, “I left.”

He leans back in the booth, stretching an arm out across the back of it, fingers drumming against the vinyl.

“What made you go west?” he asks.

“A copy of Playboy,” you tell him, lips curling, “Boys at school used to pass them around.”

You remember the worn, faded pages. Dog-eared and creased, smudged with fingerprints. A boy leering at you, a rash of rosy acne over his cheeks, something ugly in his eyes.

But you don’t scare easy. Never had.

“It got the idea in my head,” you tell Joel, “I wanted to be like the girls in the magazines.”

The corner of his mouth twitches up.

“And now you are.”

You feel a sort of satisfied flush, a stir of something like pride.

“Yeah, I guess I am.”

The waitress reappears, setting the plates down in front of you. Joel’s burger, burnt-edged fries spilling over the side of the plate. And your pancakes, griddle-warm and piled high, topped with a sunburst of yolky egg.

You hadn’t realized just how hungry you were, the feeling lost somewhere in the haze of your arousal. You ignore Joel’s low chuckle as you dump syrup over your plate.

“What about you?” you ask, "How'd you get started?"

Joel pauses, his knife hovering over his plate, dripping with a red edge of ketchup. You meant the question innocently enough, but you can tell it lands wrong, brushes against an old nerve.

He clears his throat, setting his knife aside.

“I, uh, had a kid,” he says, not quite meeting your eye, “Real young.”

You feel the soft oh that slips out of your lips, unable to hide your surprise. Because that — that you didn’t know, wouldn’t have guessed. And even more, you’re surprised that he’s telling you.

“Her mom skipped out on us,” Joel goes on, not quite meeting your eyes, “Money was real tight. Had to find a way to make ends meet.”

And now you think you see it. An old bruise, just under the skin. That thing that’s always been there, buried beneath the stoicism, the stern set of his jaw. 

You force a small smile.

“Hell of a way.”

Joel’s eyes lift to meet yours, and it’s hard to read what’s behind them. 

“Yeah, well, I wasn’t sure how to feel about it at first,” he admits, rubbing a hand along his jaw, “But it kept the bills paid. I got to stay home and watch my girl grow up. Put her through school.”

And you can’t really explain the way it makes you feel, the low stir of feeling. An ache for a much younger Joel, threadbare and weary beyond his years, making a decision he’s still riding out today.

“What's her name?”

“Sarah.“

And there’s so much warmth in the way he says it, so much affection. The corners of his eyes crinkle, and it tugs at something low in your belly. Laugh lines, you think. So that’s how he got them.

“And she knows about — this?”

The porn.

“She knows,” Joel says with a shake of his head, “I’ve got a brother with a real big mouth.”

He takes a sip of his coffee, then adds.

“Besides, once she got old enough, didn’t seem right keeping it a secret.”

You tilt your head, “You two are close?”

“Guess so,” he shrugs, then smiles, “She puts me through my paces, I'll tell you that much.”

You grin, “I bet she does.”

He shakes his head, folding his arms over the table.

“Came back from school with all kinds of ideas. She's real into the women’s lib stuff.”

You smirk, “Smart girl.”

“Too smart.”

And you think — this makes sense. It softens him, smooths out the edges that seem so harsh at first. Grumpy, unshakeable Joel with a whip-smart kid who gives him a run for his money. No wonder he’s got so many grays.

“She give you a lot of shit for it?”

He scoffs, “You have no idea.”

You bite back a grin, folding your arms over the table, leaning in a little closer.

“She’s right, you know,” you tell him, “This whole industry is pretty messed up, full of some real assholes.”

Joel raises an eyebrow, “Is that right?”

You nod, feigning seriousness.

“Really sick freaks who like to tie women up. Fuck them on pool tables. That kind of thing.”

He shakes his head. But you see the smile, the creases around his eyes. The humor behind them, that dark amber warmer than you’ve ever seen it. Soft, almost affectionate.

“Eat your fucking pancakes,” he says.

And — shit.

Fuck.

Goddamn it.

The feeling sinks into you, deep in your marrow, an awful, unshakeable certainty. A sure thing.

You’re falling for Joel Miller.

[angrycollectivecollectorr]

“Home is wherever you are”

Birdie and Joel💛

+ my favorite quote of all time from ‘Fear of God’

I drew them as a thank you to the lovely @netherfeildren for consistently blessing us with her masterpieces 🫶🏻

[angrycollectivecollectorr]

Self-care is being wrapped in a blanket snug as a bug whilst it’s raining like crazy outside and reading my fave fics about Joel Miller falling IN LOVE

Dropping my faves below because EVERYONE needs to read these at least once in their life:

A Safe Haven is so beautifully written; it’s a storyline I haven’t come across before and it’s gorgeously complicated, and has had me on the edge of my seat SO. MANY. TIMES. Never rooted for a reader like I root for my Peach 😭 your Joel is one of my favourites Vee, you’ve got him down so well @darkroastjoel

The Seams universe.. I frequently run out of words to describe this story by the incredible Cee. It’s so wonderful reading about rugged sexy Joel just making Pin blush, but also the beautiful woven-in story of how they’re healing and bringing the best out of each other. Oh, and Joel being the best dad to his kid. You know how I love Pin @fuckyeahdindjarin

Short Days, Long Nights.. just. Wow. The intensity of this fic. It’s so immersive and descriptive?! I feel like I’m there in the cabin with Joel and reader. It’s poetic writing. It’s like you’re reading a movie script - one I fucking wish I could watch. The pregnancy arc is also chefs fucking kiss. Obsessed as always @frannyzooey

[angrycollectivecollectorr]

Lonely Too Long l (To Hell and Back Drabble)

Series Masterlist

Summary: After escaping a group of brutal slavers, you are left with permanent physical and emotional scars. Unwilling to put your trust in another human being ever again, you spend a year fighting for survival alone in the post outbreak world. But when you choose to save the life of a man named Joel Miller, the wall that you’ve built to protect yourself slowly begins to crumble.

Pairing: Joel Miller x Female Reader

Warnings/Tags: 18+ only, minors DNI. Flashback of implied SA, but no descriptions. Soft Joel, Joel sings to reader. *If you happen to be reading the series, I recommend reading this one because it starts setting up Joel and reader’s relationship. This is also the last flashback she’s going to have since it’s a heavier one than the last two.

Word Count: 1.9k

A/N: Dust to Dust is one of my favorite songs by The Civil Wars. I know the song did not come out until like 2013, but we’re just going to pretend. Also, I know that the gif is video game Joel, but god I love him just as much and it fits this scene so we are gonna roll with it. I know this might not be everyone’s cup of tea but I wanted to write it so I did. 🤌🏼 I am still organizing the taglist for this series, it will be start with the next chapter. This was mostly for me but hopefully some people out there enjoy it too. 🤍

You couldn’t scream.

You’re trying to cry out, but you can’t.

Chest tight, your lungs won’t expand.

You couldn’t breathe. 

One hand around your neck, the other is fumbling with the zipper of your jeans.

“Been thinking about this all day,” he grinned, his fingers roughly scraping against the skin of your lower stomach.

In the corner, your cellmate is curled into a little ball in the floor, hands covering her ears and her eyes squeezed shut.

She’s probably praying she won’t be next.

She’s seventeen so even in the midst of your own chaos, you can’t help but pray she isn’t next too.

You thrashed around underneath him. It’s futile, but all you can think about is getting him off you.

Grin fading, he let out a heavy, irritated sigh. His hand left the waistband of your jeans. He reached behind him and pulled out his gun, bringing it up to into your view—it caused you to cease any and all movements. “Listen to me,” he said, pressing the barrel of the pistol against your temple. “It’s simple, really. Keep squirming and I’ll blow your fucking brains out. Do you understand, dollface?”

When he received no response, he dug the barrel deeper into your skin, his finger on the trigger.

“Do you understand?” He repeated, his tone low.

Nearly paralyzed, all you could do was nod. 

“Good.” He roughly flipped you over.

The sound of his belt buckle clanking rang loudly in your ears. As he yanked your jeans down to the middle of your thighs, you closed your eyes.

Both your mind and your body went numb.

A light, late night rainstorm came out of nowhere, sweeping over the town. The soft, pitter pattering sound of raindrops on the window above your bed had almost lulled you into slumber.

Almost.

You’re safe.

You’re safe.

You’re safe.

The words blended into a steady but silent chant.

You’re safe.

You’re safe.

You’re fucking safe.

Slapping the palm of your hand to your forehead, you exhaled a long, heavy sigh and stared up into the the darkness of the bedroom.

You couldn’t be certain as to what time it was, but it had to be well into the middle of the night. You’d been tossing and turning for a couple of hours but somehow it felt like a hell of a lot longer than that.

You were fucking exhausted. You nearly ached for some sleep, but every damn time that you closed your eyes, vivid images of the past came creeping in and chased it further and further away.

Your brain just couldn’t seem to wrap itself around the fact that this place wasn’t dangerous.

That you didn’t have to sleep with one eye open.

That nobody was going to hurt you.

That you were safe in a soft bed in a real house.

You weren’t lying on a dirty cot in a human cage.

Sighing again, you thought about Joel who was in his bedroom down the hallway, sleeping.

It brought you comfort knowing he was close. But for some reason you couldn’t quite explain, part of you couldn’t help but feel he wasn’t close enough.

You. The same woman who vowed never to trust another human being ever again—you wanted him fucking closer. Actually, it wasn’t a want so much as it was a need.

You needed him to be closer.

Sitting up, you tossed the sheets back and swung your legs over the edge of the mattress, your bare feet meeting the cold, hardwood floors. You stood and quietly padded out of the bedroom and down the hallway towards Joel’s.

“You know where to find me if you need anythin’,” he’d assured you before he had gone off to bed.

You stopped in front of his door and lifted a curled first, knocking lightly. About a minute or two went by, and just when you started to realize that you’d made a mistake and whirled around to make a run for it back to your own room where you could hop back into bed and pretend that the thought of this hadn’t ever even crossed your mind, he opened up his bedroom door.

“Thought I heard a knock,” Joel mumbled sleepily, rubbing at his eyes with one of his hands. He wore nothing but his sweatpants, his hair looking about ten times more disheveled than usual. “Everythin’ alright?”

You swallowed dryly, trying your hardest not to let your eyes wander away from his face—it proved to be almost too difficult to keep from staring. Joel’s shoulders were broad, his chest was wide, and his stomach was soft; his sweatpants hung on the low side on his hips and revealed the trail of dark curls that started at his lower belly and descended until it disappeared underneath the elastic waistband.

You caught yourself before they could go lower.

“Somethin’ the matter, darlin’?” he asked, stifling a yawn. Thankfully he hasn’t seemed to notice you gawking at him. He rubbed at his eyes once again and then observed you, trying to figure out what it was that had brought you to his room at this hour. “You need somethin’? Are you cold? Did you need an extra blanket?”

You lightly shook your head in response. No.

He tried again. “You still hungry, darlin’?” he asked as he gestured towards the stairs. “I can make you another sandwich if you want—”

He was cut off by another shake of your head that told him that wasn’t it.

“You just can’t sleep,” Joel realized after a minute. He frowned—he could see how tired you were and for as much as he didn’t want to think about it, he had a feeling that he knew what it was that was on your mind and keeping you awake. “What can I do to help, sweetness?”

You blinked, standing there almost dumbfounded.

Clearly, you hadn’t thought this through.

You would knock on Joel’s door and then what?

You would talk to him about what’s on your mind?

Letting out a tiny frustrated huff that was directed at yourself, you waved a dismissive hand in the air.

Forget it. There’s nothing you can do.

As you turned around to leave, Joel reached out to take your arm. He curled his fingers lightly around your elbow. “Well now, hold on a minute. You’re at my door for a reason,” he said. He watched as your eyes flickered to his hand around your arm, but he couldn’t be sure if his touch had bothered you. He dropped it, not wanting to risk pushing you too far or crossing a line, not when he had made progress with you, progress he didn’t want to lose. “You not bein’ able to sleep—it have anythin’ to do with you still not feelin’ safe?”

You hesitated.

“It’s alright, darlin’. You can be honest with me.”

The sheepish expression on your face said it all.

No, I can’t sleep because I don’t feel safe.

“Would it help if you slept with me?”

You raised your eyebrows at him, eyes widening at his proposal. At least, the way he’d said it.

Excuse me?

Realizing how it had sounded, Joel flushed. “What I mean is, would it help if you slept in my bed?” He winced. That hadn’t sounded all that much better. “You sleep in my bed and I’ll sleep on the floor,” he sputtered out quickly. “That’s what I meant. That way I’m right next to you and you ain’t alone.”

Gnawing nervously on your bottom lip, you took a minute to think it over.

If you wanted him closer, this was your chance.

But why? Why did you want him to be closer? Why did you need to have him at your side?

You’d been on your own for an entire fucking year.

And it had been by choice.

You didn’t want to be around other people, sure as hell didn’t need to be around other people.

And then Joel Miller makes his appearance and all of a sudden, you’re at his door in the middle of the damn night because you feel the need to have him at your side?

Finally, you nodded your head. Okay.

“Come in.” He stepped aside, allowing you in. Not wanting you to feel trapped in his room, he left the door open. “And you’re free to go on back to your own room whenever you feel like it.”

Joel picked up his discarded tee shirt from earlier, a small labored grunt escaping him as he brought himself back into an upright position, the bones in his lower back crackling with protest. Turning over his shirt right side out, he tugged it on as you took a look around his bedroom, a larger space dimly lit by the small lamp on his nightstand.

That’s when you saw it.

Perched on a stand, I was nestled in the corner.

A guitar.

Curiously, you walked over and knelt in front of it.

You reached out and softly ran your fingers across the strings, smiling to yourself at the sound it had made.

“Found that while out on patrol with Tommy a few weeks ago,” Joel stated as he came up behind you slowly. “Gibson. Little worse for wear, but in damn good condition all things considerin’. Woulda been a crime to leave it out there,” he chuckled. “I know Ellie’s been wantin’ to learn, it’s the main reason it came back home with me. I haven’t shown her yet since I still gotta clean and polish her up.” He took a brief pause. “You know how to play?”

You ran your fingers across the strings once more, and a loud, terrible noise that wasn’t even close to music caused him to wince. You then looked up at him over your shoulder with an amused grin.

Does it sound like I know how to play?

Joel couldn’t help but laugh. “I’ll take that as a no, then.” He leaned over and picked up the guitar. He walked over and took a seat on the side of his bed, patting the seat beside him. “C’mere, darlin’.”

Getting up to your feet, you wrapped Joel’s flannel closer around your body as you padded over to his bed, perching yourself next to him.

Head down and focused, he began to strum a few notes. You couldn’t help but to be mesmerized by how his large hands moved on the instrument, the way his long, thick fingers—

Swallowing dryly, you cut the thought short.

Curiously, you put a hand on his shoulder.

Joel paused the tune. “What is it, darlin’?”

With your opposite hand, you touched your throat and then pointed at him. Can you sing?

He gave a half hearted shrug. “I do like to sing,” he admitted almost bashfully. “Always been fond of it ever since I was a kid.” He chuckled. “Before going into construction, I wanted to be a musician. But I knew it would never pay the bills.”

You squeezed Joel’s shoulder and gestured to the guitar, then to his throat again. Will you sing me a song?

Joel felt the back of his neck burn and he cleared his throat awkwardly. “Normally, I would probably say no,” he admitted. “But, seein’ as you saved my life and all, I’d be a real asshole if I said no to you.”

Lifting your chin, you shot him a smug look. That is very true. So go on then, Johnny Cash. Play me a song.

“Alright. Any requests?”

You nudged him lightly. Very funny.

“Okay, um. Gimme a minute to think of a song.”

Withdrawing your hand from his shoulder, you sat back against his pillows and pulled your legs up to your chest, hugging them to your knees.

Nervously, Joel inhaled and exhaled a deep breath and began strumming the guitar. Chills shot down your spinal cord as a hauntingly beautiful melody filled his bedroom. He turned and angled his body towards to you as he began to sing.

“You’ve held your head up,

you’ve fought the fight

you bear the scars, you’ve done your time

listen to me, you’ve been lonely too long…”

Your mouth fell open slightly.

“Let me in the walls you’ve built around

we can light a match and burn them down…”

The rich baritone of his voice caused goosebumps to eruprt all over your flesh. Furiously, you rubbed at your bare legs, but it was useless.

With every note Joel sang to you, more appeared.

With every note Joel sang to you, the harder you found it to breathe steady.

With every note Joel sang to you, the more beats your heart seemed to be skipping.

“Let me hold your hand

and dance ‘round and ‘round the flames

in front of us, dust to dust…”

Joel glanced up, his dark brown eyes holding your gaze as he sang the final verse of the song.

“You’re like a mirror, reflectin’ me

takes one to know one, so take it from me

you’ve been lonely

you’ve been lonely too long.”

Even if you could speak to him, you would’ve been left speechless—all that you could do was stare at him in complete awe.

Joel set the guitar down. “I’m alright,” he said with a sheepish little laugh. “My voice ain’t nowhere as nice as yours.”

You stiffened slightly.

What are you talking about?

“Don’t look at me like that. I know it was you who I heard singin’ back at that cabin when I was comin’ back around.” He gave you a crooked grin. “Earlier I was just playin’ dumb, but I know it was you. You have a gorgeous voice, and I’d love to hear it again someday.”

Hugging your legs closer to yourself, you dropped your head down onto your knees, embarrassed.

What was the matter with you?

Here was a man who had taken you in, offered you a warm bed under his own roof—gave you clothes and fed you, even offered to give up his own damn bed and sleep on the cold hard floor beside you to make you feel safe enough to sleep.

And you still couldn’t say a fucking word to him.

“Hey. Look at me.”

Forcing your head up, your gaze met his.

“It’s alright, darlin’,” Joel assured you. “It’s just like I told you downstairs. We’re gonna take it one step at a time.” Lifting one of his hands, he reached out holding it out to you, his palm face upwards. “And I swear, once you find your voice, I’m gonna do all that I can do to make sure you never lose it again.”

Biting your lower lip, you placed your hand in his.

Joel have it a gentle squeeze. “Atta girl.”

Much sooner than you would have liked, he let go of your hand and stood up.

“We should get some sleep. You’re gonna need all the rest you can get before you meet my kid. Ellie. She’ll be here first thing and I should warn you she can be, uh, she can be a lot to process.” He let out an amused snort and reached for a pillow, tossing it onto the floor. “You can have all the blankets, I’ll just take this throw here—”

As Joel reached past you for a green flannel throw blanket, you grabbed his arm to stop him. His face was just inches from yours.

Close.

But again somehow still not close enough.

“What is it, sweetheart?” he asked, softly.

Warm and laced with mint from the toothpaste he had used to brush his teeth before bed, his breath tickled the tip of of your nose, sending a pleasant shiver up your spine.

Your eyes looked right into his as you scooter over to the other side of his bed—it was firm, cold. Like no one had ever occupied that space before. But it was foolish to think that a man like Joel Miller had never had another woman share his bed before.

You patted the spot beside you.

Sleep up here.

“You sure about this, darlin’?”

You patted the empty spot again. Yes I’m sure.

Joel squinted at you. “You ain’t gonna strangle me in my sleep, are you now?”

His half serious joke was met with a glare.

Keep it up with wise cracks and I just might.

He held his hands up in defense. “Just checkin.”

As you crawled underneath his dark green sheets, Joel slid into bed beside you, making sure to leave a good three foot gap between the both of you; he murmured a quiet goodnight and switched off the lamp on his nightstand before rolling over onto his stomach—not even two minutes later and his soft snores filled the room.

You turned onto your side, facing him. Through a beam of moonlight flickering in through a crack in the curtains, you could just make out the outlines of his facial features. He’d fallen asleep facing you.

Closing your eyes, your body sank further into the mattress, heavy with exhaustion.

Taut, tense muscles finally relaxed.

Tight jaw finally unclenched.

You’re safe.

You slowly started drifting off to sleep.

With Joel beside you, no nightmares came to visit

[angrycollectivecollectorr]

Series Summary: One night can change everything.

Rating: Explicit (18+) - no smut yet, but I promise it's going to happen because I can't help myself.

Chapter Word Count: 5.2K

Series Content / Warnings: Fluff and Smut, PIV Sex, Oral Sex, Frankie and reader are both parents so children will be present occasionally, Frankie is such a good dad, passing mention of drug/alcohol abuse, Sassy Pope

Note: I don't really know how long this thing is going to ultimately be - I have a wall of Post-It notes that could take anywhere from 3-6 more chapters, but that's assuming I follow them. So, thank you for joining me on this winding road!

Previous / Series Masterlist

Chapter 5

You carry two teacups – one filled with jasmine green tea, the other with Cheez-Its – back to the couch and settle in next to a huge basket of laundry. There was a time when 8:30 on Thursday night might have found you out to dinner with friends, or even drinking in a bar or getting dressed to go dancing; now it’s folding laundry and catching up with television while your son sleeps down the hall.

You dig a few handfuls of little socks out of the basket and pile them in your lap, matching them by feel while your eyes are on the screen – you are at least 3 episodes behind on Abbot Elementary and you are determined to catch up tonight.

Somewhere near the end of the first one, just about the time you finish your snack, your phone buzzes. You flick neon orange cheese dust off your fingers, then shift laundry stacks around looking for it; you eventually find it under a heap of Ozzie’s pants on the coffee table.

You’re expecting Jules, but the screen says ‘Frankie Morales’.

You fumble for a moment answering, finally getting it to your ear. “Uhm, hello?”

You weren’t expecting him to call. The two of you had texted off and on since Tuesday night’s dinner but the messages had all been brisk and efficient – letting you know a time for Friday, offering directions to his house, checking in on Ozzie.

“Hi.” A pause. “It’s Frankie.”

You have to believe that at some point his voice won’t make you feel flustered, but tonight is obviously not that point.

“Yes, I know. I…have your number saved.”

“Okay, yeah, of course.” He sounds a little flustered himself, and your curiosity is piqued. “I know it’s late, but I had something I wanted to talk to you about.”

You feel a muddled mixture of apprehension and excitement. “I’m not busy. Go ahead.”

He clears his throat. “I meant…could I come by? I’d like to talk in person if that’s possible.”

“Oh.” You look around a little wildly: the stacks of laundry on the couch, the Cheez-It crumbs down the front of your faded t-shirt, the teetering tower of junk mail and newspapers you haven’t carried out to the recycling. “Sure, that’d be okay. Is it something serious?”

He answers quickly. “Oh, no, it’s not serious. Important, but not serious. Some conversations are easier face-to-face.”

“Okay, good.” You exhale softly. “You had me a little worried for a second.”

“That did sound intense, didn’t it? Sorry about that,” he apologizes, and you can envision the twin creases between his eyes furrowed with concern.

“Not a problem. Come on over.”

“I’m not too far away now. I’ll be there in five?”

You glance at your well-worn flannel pants in weary resignation. “That’s fine, but it won’t give me time to straighten up around here – so no judging, okay?”

His laugh is distant and tinny over the line. “No judging. See you in a few.”

---

Frankie tells himself that it’s better to have this conversation in person. It’s important after all, about the kids, and it’s best if the two of you discuss it while you can look one another in the eye – no misunderstanding, no misreading of tone – just two adults having an adult conversation.

It sounds good – convincing. He almost believes it.

But the truth is, he wants to see you, wants to see you tonight – wants to sit across from you and see the way your eyebrow ticks up when you make a joke and how you drop your chin when you’re thinking, wants to catch the scent of your soap and your shampoo and your skin. He wants to see your eyes and remember how they fluttered closed when he pushed his fingers inside the wet, silken heat of you, your hand coming to cover his to keep them buried there.

Fuck – that’s too much. He blinks a few times and focuses on the road in front of him. He knows he could have just waited one day – he was going to see you tomorrow when you came to dinner – but he’d have to share you then. Tonight, he won’t.

His conversation with Jess earlier hadn’t been easy, but he knew it couldn’t wait. He wanted Ella to meet Ozzie soon; his world had become split in two and the longer he went without putting it back together, the harder it would be.

“You cannot be fucking serious, Frankie.” She had practically spat out his name, and he pictured her on the other end of the line, pacing like a caged lion. Her quick temper and his measured calm had always been oil and water.

“We weren’t together anymore, Jess. And it wasn’t something I planned.” He tried to keep his voice neutral.

“You have another kid with some random chick? Un-fucking-believable. I thought you’d gotten your life together.”

“Jess. This happened over three years ago. You know how things were back then.” He sighed. “What matters now is that I know about him, and he’s going to be part of my life. That means he’s going to be part of Ella’s life, too. He’s her brother.”

She huffed out an annoyed breath. “Her half-brother.”

“Yeah, her half-brother.” He tried for a placating tone. “I know this is complicated. I’m sorry. But I want Ella to meet him.”

“What, you’re going to tell her that Daddy got drunk and now she has a brother?”

“She’s not even four. I don’t think we have to get into the hows.” Frankie rubbed hard circles into his temple with his fingers. “Since Ella is with me this weekend, I’m planning on introducing them.”

Silence stretched out and he didn’t rush to fill it; after a moment, she finally spoke.

“It’s not like I can stop you. Jesus, Frankie. I can’t believe this. Just when I think your bullshit is behind us, you find a way to surprise me.”

His shoulders were drawn up tight around his neck, and he knew the conversation was over. “Like I said, I know this complicated. I’m sorry.”

“Of course you’re sorry, Frankie.” Her voice was sharp – all jagged edges. “You always are.”

He knew she’d cool off eventually; as quick as her temper flared, it burned out just as fast. But even so, after the phone call, he’d been jittery, a tangle of jangling nerves, so he grabbed his keys and backed the Bronco out of the garage to go for a drive. He turned up the radio – 90s music on the classics station, a combination that made him feel both nostalgic and old – and leaned across to dig the crumpled pack of Camels out of the glove compartment. He fished his lighter from his pocket and lit one of the cigarettes, then cranked the window down to wave out the smoke.

The surge of nicotine and the coolness of the night air worked in tandem – he started to feel calmer. He pulled into the empty lot of an office supply store, and got out, standing in the watery light of the lone lamp pole, to call you. He only planned to talk over introducing Ella and Ozzie but as he dialed your number, he knew the phone wouldn’t work. He needed more. He needed to see you.

And now here he is turning into your driveway. The windows of your house are a bright glow, and he is a moth to a flame as he makes his way to your front door.

He knocks softly, knowing Ozzie must be asleep, and you open the door so quickly he realizes you were waiting on the other side.

“Hi. Come on in.” You step out of the way to wave him in and as he passes you, it takes all his self-control not to draw you into his arms and press his face into your hair.

“Thanks for letting me come by.” His voice is rough, the cigarette no doubt, so he swallows hard and tries again. “I appreciate it.”

“Sure, no problem.” You smile self-consciously, your fingers toying with the hem of your t-shirt. “As you can see, I dressed up for you.”

He didn’t need you to draw his attention to your outfit. The threadbare concert tee you’re wearing clings to you, the sway of your breasts as you move making it clear there’s nothing underneath, and your pajama pants hang soft and loose, highlighting the curve of your hips.

“You look great.” He keeps his eyes on your face, knowing if his gaze slips lower, he won’t be able to bring it back. “You always do.”

You cock your head and lift an eyebrow playfully. “I like a man with low standards. Come on, let’s go sit down. If you can find a spot.”

He follows you to the couch that’s filled with folded clothes and sits between the laundry basket and a mound of towels. You sit on the opposite side of the basket and look at him expectantly.

“So…what’s up?”

“Right.” He leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees and looks at you. “I’d like for Ella to meet Ozzie. They should get to know each other, too. You know, since she’s with me a lot and I want to see Ozzie as much as possible and there’s no way those things won’t overlap, so –”

“Of course she should.” You interrupt him, and he’s grateful. “I’ve explained to Oz that his father has a daughter, too. We’ve been talking about it. I didn’t want to rush you, but it makes sense to integrate your family.”

“’Integrate.’” He repeats the word thoughtfully.

A flustered smile crosses your face. “Sorry. I’ve been doing some reading about how we should be handling all this. I think that was the word the article used.”

“Don’t be sorry. That’s it exactly. I’ve felt like my life got split into two parts – El over there and Ozzie over here, and I want to put it back together.” He meets your eyes, and the memory of looking into them from mere inches away, accompanied by the velvet squeeze of your thighs on his sides, almost overwhelms him. “Integrate is the perfect word.”

You look pleased and flushed and he wonders how warm your skin would be if he were to reach across this laundry basket and rest his palm on your cheek.

“Was there anything else?” Your eyes are wide and curious.

“No, it was just that. That was a lot easier than I thought it would be.” He cards his fingers through his hair, wishing he had some way to stall, to stay here with you a little bit longer. “I guess I should let you get back to your night.”

He starts to stand, when you reach across the laundry basket, your small hand on his shoulder stilling him. “You don’t have to go yet.”

Frankie turns his head to look at you. You catch the edge of your lip in your teeth and if he were a different man, he would pull you to him right then, his hands on your face; he would sweep his tongue over that plump curve and gently sink his own teeth into its inviting softness.

“If you don’t have somewhere you need to be, I mean.” You glance away, and then back, meeting his eyes. “I wouldn’t mind the company.”

He can’t believe his luck.

“I’d like to stay.” He smiles at you and nudges the laundry basket. “I can help with this.”

You return his smile. “Help with laundry-folding is always welcome. Want something to drink?”

---

“Okay, the real question is –” you pull your legs up underneath you as you tuck yourself into the corner of the couch – “why wouldn’t you lead with ‘I’m a pilot’ when you were trying to pick me up at that bar? Because Frankie? That’s pretty hot.”

You grin at him as he shakes his head, his eyebrows lifting. “If I remember correctly, you picked me up.”

“That’s how you remember it?” You tap your chin pensively as you narrow your eyes. “If I recall, you followed me to the bar. You asked to sit next to me. You bought me a drink.”

“You asked me to share your room.” His voice is playful, but his expression isn’t, and heat flickers to life in all the places he touched you, your skin remembering his fingertips.

“Oh, damn, that’s right. I guess I did pick you up.” You lean back against the cushions, with a sly smirk. “Looks like you got to save the whole ‘I fly helicopters’ thing until now to impress me.”

“Are you impressed?” His eyes twinkle as he finishes folding the last towel and places it on top of the stack.

“I am. Both because that’s a very interesting line of work, and because you just folded most of my laundry.” You gesture toward the empty basket. “Thanks for that, really.”

“Well, I took a lot of breaks, but you’re welcome.” He moves the empty basket to the floor, and somehow it makes him feel closer to you on the couch. “Your job sounds interesting, too.”

You wave your hand dismissively. “Don’t try to flatter me, pilot. I’m a paper pusher. But it’s fine.”

He laughs. “You like it though?”

“I do. It pays the bills, has good benefits, I like my coworkers. No complaints.” You stifle a yawn as you finish speaking. “Sorry about that. Long day.”

Frankie glances at his watch and stands up quickly. “Shit, it’s already 11? I shouldn’t have kept you up this late.”

You rise, too. “It’s okay. I’m glad you stayed. I feel like I filled in some blanks.”

“Same. Now I know you’re a tea-drinking paper pusher who likes –” he points to your t-shirt – “the Foo Fighters and lets her laundry pile up.”

“And I know you’re a baseball-loving pilot who watches history documentaries and has very strong opinions about how to fold t-shirts.”

“There’s a right way and a wrong way.”

You smirk at him indulgently. “So you said. But it was good to talk. Just the two of us.”

“Yeah, it was.” His eyes crinkle as he smiles. “Thanks for letting me come by.”

“Thanks for folding my laundry.”

“Anytime.” He walks towards the door, and you follow. He pauses, his hand on the doorknob and then turns back to face you.

“I’m just gonna say it. I’d like to hug you again. But I think I made you uncomfortable the other night.”

“What?” You frown, confused. “No, you didn’t. Not at all. I thought I made it weird. Like, hung on you like a baby monkey kind of weird.”

He grins. “You didn’t. But I don’t think I’d mind that.”

“Okay, now you made it weird,” you tease, then lift your arms slightly. “So…should we try again? Now that we both know we’re not bad at hugging?”

He doesn’t answer, just slides his arms around your body and gathers you to him. You rest your hands on his back, the fabric of his shirt thin and warm beneath your palms. You can’t help yourself – you inhale, breathing in the scent that is already becoming familiar. There’s something new there, though, and you pull away a little, tilting your head back to look at him.

“Stressful day?”

He looks at you quizzically.

You lean in again and sniff, your nose brushing the collar of his shirt and grazing the sparsely freckled skin of his throat, then look up at him. “You said you smoke when you’re stressed. You smell like cigarette smoke.”

His forehead creases. “Shit, sorry about that. Yeah, earlier was a little rough.”

His arms are still around you, and yours around him, and you don’t want to let go. “Better now?”

“Much better now.” His voice is so quiet as he looks down at you, and his breath is sweet with the spark of cinnamon gum masking the whisper of cigarette, and you know you won’t even try to stop yourself.

“Good.” You ease up on your toes, bringing your lips to his. They’re soft, as soft as you remember, and he tenses in your arms for the briefest moment, before pulling you snug against him and returning your kiss.

Your first kiss with Frankie had been two strangers taking from each other: hungry, desperate, needy. But this kiss – this kiss feels like giving. It is tender and deliberate and restrained, but over too quickly. That said, any ending would be too quick, as much as you want to stay in his arms.

Reluctantly, you break the kiss, and when you open your eyes, he’s looking at you with wonder. “I didn’t expect that.”

“I didn’t plan it.”

“Couldn’t resist the cigarette smoke? I’ll remember that.” His dark eyes twinkle.

You laugh. “No, not that. Please don’t smoke more on my account. I just…I don’t know. It seemed like the right thing to do.”

“It was.” His head tilts towards yours, the tip of his nose caressing your cheek, and he kisses you again. It’s less careful this time, and then somehow your hands are in his hair, tangling in the dark curls, and the length of his body solid and warm against yours is making it hard to breathe.

His hands are low on your waist, calloused fingertips skimming over the sliver of skin that your raised arms have revealed, and all you can think is: it would be so easy.

It would be so easy to take his hand and pull him down the hallway to your bedroom and have all the things you’ve thought about for these last few years be real again: to touch him and taste him and feel him, and not just in your imagination. The scattered fragments of that night that still come to you in your sleep – the hard press of his thumb on your hipbone, the trail of hair beneath his navel coarse against your lips, the flex of his triceps under your fingers as he lowered his body over yours – maybe you could have it all one more time.

But you can’t. Not now.

You pull away and rest your face in the curve of his neck, his pulse strong against your lips, and you feel him settle his chin on the top of your head.

“You’re making it hard to say goodnight,” you murmur against his throat.

He laughs and you feel it rumble through his chest. “I could say the same.”

“But we still should say it, I think.” You disagree with yourself even as you speak the words, so you’re grateful when he sensibly agrees.

“Yeah, we should. It’s late.” He gently releases you and steps back to smile at you. “And we’ll see each other tomorrow.”

“True. I need to judge your cooking and housekeeping before I do anything rash.”

“That ship already sailed.” He grins broadly, and you wrinkle your nose at him.

“Get out right now,” you order, trying not to return his smile, and he chuckles.

“I’m going.” He leans in to kiss your cheek, then opens the door. “See you tomorrow.”

“Drive safe. No more cigarettes tonight.”  

He winks over his shoulder with a wave of his hand, and you watch as he bounds down your steps and walks to the Bronco.

You close the door, and fall back against it, your heart thudding twin rhythms of regret and want, the taste of cinnamon and smoke still on your lips.

---

“Nice neighborhood,” Jules observes as the GPS announces you’ve reached your destination.

You double-check the house numbers displayed by the front door – 1347 – and then turn into the driveway. It’s a neat-as-a-pin ranch-style home, white-washed brick and black shutters, with a small, covered porch. A swing hangs from the sturdy oak in the front yard and Ozzie notices it immediately.

“I swing!”

“I’m sure you can swing, buddy. We’ll check with your dad to make sure it’s okay first, though.” You turn off the ignition and look out the windshield for a moment.

“It’s a cute house,” you say to Jules, and she nods.

“The tree swing, the cul-de-sac…it’s all very Leave It to Beaver,” she murmurs quietly, grinning at you. “If he comes to the door in an apron and heels, he’s a keeper.”

“I’ve seen him in an apron – my apron, actually.” You confide and she widens her eyes in delight.

“Nice. No macho Texas nonsense. That’s a point for him.”  She opens her car door and beams at you. “Let’s go.”

The three of you make your way up the walk to the front door and Ozzie excitedly smashes the doorbell with his palm.

You can hear noise and chatter inside, and the inner door opens, a rectangle of light spilling out onto the stoop.

“You made it. Come on in.” Frankie pushes the storm door wide and you and Jules troop past his outstretched arm into the bright living room. Ozzie pauses next to Frankie and grasps the denim of Frankie’s jeans in his chubby fingers.

Frankie smooths his hand over Ozzie’s head and smiles down at him. “Hey, pal, I’ve missed you.”

Ozzie wraps his arm around Frankie’s knee, eyes wide at the hubbub across from him.

The man from the airport – you aren’t sure if you should call him Santiago or Pope – is turning circles in the middle of the room, the little girl under one arm giggling hysterically.

Frankie reaches his hand out towards Jules. “Thanks for coming tonight. It’s nice to meet you.”

She shakes his hand and smiles innocently. “Same. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

You give her a disapproving squint that she soundly ignores, her eyes on the spinning twosome. “Who do we have here?”

Pope puts the squirming little girl down and crosses the room.

“I’m Santiago.” He offers his hand and gives Jules a brilliant smile. He’s handsome – strong features, dark hair, wiry build – and you’re sure that smile works wonders on most women.

Jules isn’t most women.

She returns his smile with an arched eyebrow and flips her long red curls back over her shoulders. “Oh, I didn’t mean you. But fine – hello, Santiago. I’m Juliet.”

Frankie stifles a laugh, and you notice Pope’s eyebrows lift in interested appreciation.

“Hey, Ella, come here.” Frankie crouches down and the little girl slips from behind Pope’s legs to stand by Frankie. He wraps one arm around her and his other around Ozzie. “Ella, this is Ozzie. He likes drawing just like you do. Do you want to draw with him?”

She nods shyly. “He can use my crayons.”

Frankie smiles at her, then looks at Ozzie. “Ozzie, do you want draw with Ella for a little bit?”

Ozzie looks at Frankie with a serious expression, his eyebrows pulled together over his dark eyes. “I can swing?”

“Swing? Oh, the swing in the tree? Sure, you can swing – Ella, do you want to show Ozzie the swing?”

“I can push him.” She stands up straight and tall. “Since I’m his big sister.”

You can’t quite breathe, watching this conversation – watching Ozzie’s family grow right in front of you. The memory of that goodnight kiss sweeps through you as you look between Frankie and your son, and you know – all this isn’t for you. It’s for Ozzie.

“How about I help you push, Elmer?” Pope ruffles his hand over the girl’s hair. “So your dad can finish dinner.”

She grins up at him. “Ella, not Elmer.”

“Whatever you say, Elsa.” Pope looks between you and Jules, then fixes her with another broad smile. “Juliet, how about we take the kids to the swing and let these two finish dinner?”

Frankie stands up and glances at you. “That okay?”

You nod, and Jules reaches to scoop up Ozzie. “Let’s go swing!”

“Mama, I swing!” he yells out, waving over Jules’ shoulder as the four of them head outside.

The storm door closes with a hushed thunk and you watch them through the glass for a moment, the light in the front yard golden as the sun begins to set.

“We can see them from the kitchen.” Frankie’s voice is close and you turn your head to see that he’s moved to stand next to you. “If you’re worried.”

“Did you hang up that swing?”

“Yes?”

“Then I’m not worried.” You smile at him. “Hi, by the way.”

He brushes the back of your hand gently with his fingers. “Hi. You should know I’m working hard over here not to kiss you.”

You look back out the door, watching Pope lift Ozzie into the swing while Ella chatters animatedly at Jules.

“This wouldn’t be a good place for that.”

“Then where is a good place to kiss you? Just point and I’ll do the rest.” His voice is husky and goosebumps flash over your skin.

“Frankie.” You grin at him. “I think we’re supposed to be making dinner.”

“I had to try. Come on.” He lifts your hand, kissing your palm quickly as he winks at you. “Just stay away from the stove.”

---

Ella’s high-pitched singing carries down the hallway from her bubble bath, and Pope rolls his eyes as he flops back onto the couch and props his feet up on the coffee table. “How does she even know Taylor Swift songs?”

Frankie smacks the bottom of Pope’s shoe as he walks back into the room.

“Feet off the table, asshole.” He drops into the oversized recliner in the corner. “I guess her mom listens to her? I don’t know.”

“So.” Pope lifts his beer bottle and points the neck towards Frankie. “That’s your girl, huh?”

“Ella?”

Pope lifts his eyebrows in amusement. “Not Ella, Fish.”

Frankie frowns at Pope. “She’s not my girl.”

“I don’t know, man. The way you were looking at her? It felt like I should leave the room and let you two get down to business.”

“Fuck off.”

Pope grins. “Should we talk about my girl instead?”

“You don’t have a shot in hell with her.”

“I don’t know, man. You know redheads can’t resist me.”

“One. One redhead couldn’t resist you.”

Pope laughs and takes a sip of his beer. “It’s about to be two.”

---

Jules unbuckles Ozzie from his booster seat, hefting the sleeping boy onto her hip, and follows you to the front door.

“I got him,” she whispers, her face shadowy in the darkened house. “Go make us some tea and then we’ll debrief. I have a lot to say.”

By the time the tea has steeped, Jules is back, and the two of you carry your cups to the couch and settle into opposite ends.

She smiles enigmatically over the rim of the teacup, then purses her lips to blow across the steaming amber surface. One careful sip, and then she places the cup on the coffee table and rubs her hands together slowly.

“Oh, my God, Jules, just get it over with.” You laugh at her theatrics, rolling your eyes.

She flips her hair over her shoulders and leans forward. “I’m sorry, but I simply don’t know where to begin.”

She raises her hand and lifts her fingers one by one. “Do I start with the absolutely adorable little girl who was so sweet to our boy? Or how about that the hot dad is a shockingly good cook? Or the fact that even with two men living there, that house was sparkling?”

You raise your own finger. “Or how about you and Pope flirting all night? I’d like to talk about that.”

She bats her green eyes and gives you a dazzling smile. “He’s not even my type.”

“Jules, he is 100% your type.”

“He’s cocky.”

You smirk. “So are you.”

“He’s shorter than I am.”

“You’re seventy feet tall. Lots of men are shorter than you.”

She waves her hand in the air. “I am not remotely interested in that man or his exceptional ass. And you’re deflecting. Because, babe? You and the hot dad?”

She raises her eyebrows and beams at you.

“Me and the hot dad what?”

“I’m just saying: the will-they-won’t-they energy was off the charts.”

“Uh, Jules, ‘they’ already did. Remember? That’s how we got here.” You gesture down the hallway toward Ozzie’s room.

“Oh, no, let’s not confuse a drunken hookup with what I saw tonight. I saw hunger. I saw yearning.” She drags the last word out, her hands clasped over her heart. “My God, I just wanted to smash your beautiful faces together.”

Your eyes flit away from her for half a second – you aren’t used to keeping secrets from Jules.

You apparently aren’t good at it either.

“What was that?” She rocks onto her knees on the couch, her hands on her thighs, and squints at you from a foot away. “What was that face you just made?”

“Drink your tea, Jules.” You pick up your cup and take an exaggerated sip.

“Oh, my God. Did you guys already..?” She proceeds to mime three different, increasingly explicit acts, and you nearly choke on your drink, laughter shaking your shoulders.

“Yes, Jules. We did all of those. Right here on this couch.” You wipe the tears from your eyes as you catch your breath. “No, nothing like that. We just kissed.”

“I knew it!” she crows, flinging her arms around you in a tight hug, then pulls back to look at you. “How was it?”

“So good I seriously considered –” you imitate one of her pantomimes, to her cackling delight – “but that would have been crazy.”

“Crazy awesome, from what I remember you saying.” She lifts her eyebrows. “You waxed poetic when you got back from that trip. I think you said that more than one part of him should be cast in bronze.”

“Oh, my God.” You pull one of the throw pillows over your face. “I need you to forget that.”

She tugs the pillow down, looking at you affectionately. “I need you to remember it. Babe, I know how careful you are these days and it’s a good thing – it really is – because I know you want to make the right choices for Oz.”

You drop the pillow and place your hands on her shoulders. “It was just a kiss, nothing more. I have not had sex in over three years. I’m not even sure I remember where anything goes. I am allowed a moment of weakness. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to…I don’t know…seduce my son’s father.”

“That’s one weird fucking sentence, babe.”

“Jules.”

“Does he know that it was just a moment of weakness?” She lifts her fingers in air quotes around the last words. “Because I don’t think he’s on the same page.”

You level her with a steady look, even as your voice wavers. “I made my choice, remember? Single mom. I’m glad Ozzie is going to have a dad now and I thank whatever gods there are that Frankie seems like a decent man, but it doesn’t change anything for me. I wish it were different, but I’m not going to make things complicated and mess everything up for them. Ozzie comes first.”

She reaches for your hands, clasping them in hers. “All I’m asking is that you consider that maybe it’s not one or the other – that maybe what’s good for Ozzie could be good for you, too.”

Next

Taglist: @kittenlittle24 @xoxabs88xox @casa-boiardi @pimosworld @babeincolor @bitchwitch1981 @harriedandharassed @azure-waves @ilovepedro @runningmom94 @blackvelveteen1339 @lilmizmoz @angstylittlepascal @patti7dc @pedrosballsack @gracie7209 @onlyferorder66 @cartoon-garbage04 @avastrasposts @jay-zzle @wakaladjarin @babeincolor @musings-of-a-rose-writes @lowlights @ssweetart42 @spishsstuff @lola-lola-lola @iamskyereads @beboldbebravethings @i-love-movies @spookyxsam @casssiopeia @little-mrs-morales @myswficlist @modernperplexity @painitemoondust @wondrousnovels @mysterious-moonstruck-musings @mothandpidgeon @chiyo13 @tanzthompson @prostitute-robot-from-the-future @csarab615

[angrycollectivecollectorr]

the fall

13.9k / dbf!joel x f!reader

official dbf!joel playlist

warnings: 18+, minors dni. so much smut. so much angst. dont ask me why this is so fucking long cause i dont know either. age gap (reader is 23, joel is in his late 40s). dbf!joel, dom!joel, fingering, oral (f receiving), face sitting, unprotected p in v, car sex, uhh, maybe more but that feels exhaustive

a/n: y'all thank you so much for the love on this series. i love that people love dbf!joel as much as i do. you have been so beyond welcoming and getting to interact with y'all as i write this is so ridiculously fun. your comments and replies and asks are hysterical. and insightful. your reading comp skills are a thousand times better than mine because you're picking up on things i didn't even know i was writing LMFAO. i love being able to share with you all and i really appreciate you letting me have fun with this. lots n lots of love. to everyone. 🤍 requests incorporated: face sitting, car sex, date night (part 2), maybe something else im forgetting.

this is part 9 of my dbf!joel series. read the previous parts here:

part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4 | part 5 | part 6 | bonus chapter (joel's pov) | part 7 | part 8

masterlist here. kofi here, if you feel like leaving a tip!

“Jesus,” he mutters. “Come here.”  He grabs your hips. Not — rough, but a long way from gentle. He drags you higher, over his stomach and the flat plane of his chest, maneuvering your hips until they’re dripping over his mouth.  You suck in a breath. Your legs tremble. You’re trying not to drop your whole weight to his face. But the grip he’s got on your thighs, pulling you down — says that’s exactly what he wants.  “Sit down,” he growls. 

Of course Hayes is her fucking nephew. 

Of course he is. 

You’ve never had, like, the best luck in the world. Not when it comes to guys, at least. Seems like you draw the short straw pretty often. Like, say, falling for your dad’s best friend — and not the toned, tanned, age-appropriate boy whose footsteps you can hear in the hallway. 

This is your fault, you think. This is your mess. There are plenty of attainable, nice, non-asshole guys out there who aren’t even tangentially connected to your father. Zero relation. Couldn’t pick him out of a lineup if their lives depended on it. But — no. Just your luck you’d fall for Joel. Just your luck you’d sleep with Hayes. And just your luck they’re about to be in the same room, at the same time, after you’ve ghosted one and fallen head over heels for the other. 

Laurie can sense the change in tone. She puts her mojito down on the desk, next to Joel’s drafting papers, and you have to kick the urge to run over and grab it. Just — down that shit, before Hayes can even make it to the office. Whatever gets you drunk fast. 

You settle for standing stiffly in place. You swallow your spit and she frowns. 

“You okay, honey?” she asks. “You look pale.” 

A laugh bubbles up in your throat. Not the humorous kind, but the — I‘m fucked, can you believe this shit? — kind. 

She stares at you. Joel, too. He looks completely useless, standing there beside the desk. He’s got his drafting pencil clutched in his hand. The lead point digs into his thumb. 

The door creaks open. All three of you turn to watch Hayes walk in. There’s a plastic Walgreens bag in his hand, hooked around his little finger, swinging aimlessly when he steps into the room. He’s wearing the same shoes he’d worn when you’d dragged him to your room. White vans. Slip-ons. 

Your head swims. 

“Hey, Laurie,” he says. 

He doesn’t see you right away. You’re in the corner, a ways from the desk, standing stock-still in his peripheral. You’ve got this hindbrain, idiotic notion that if you stay completely, totally still, maybe he won’t see you. 

“I got the stuff you wanted,” he says. You’d forgotten how smooth his voice is. How polished and pitched, compared to Joel’s. “They didn’t have those Vitamin C tabs, but—”

You’re not looking at him. But you can tell — from the sudden, stifling silence — that he’s clocked you. You and Joel. 

The AC kicks on, full-blast. His Walgreens bag starts to wave. The plastic crinkles and the sound makes you flinch. 

“What the fuck?” 

“Hayes!” Laurie laughs, awkwardly. “Good lord. That how you greet people?” 

He’s staring at you. Full-on. You can feel his eyes, burning a brand where yours drop. You drag your gaze from the floor and your cheeks blaze. 

“I’m sorry,” Hayes says. He sounds like he’s short-circuiting. He sputters a little — turns from you, to Joel, to Laurie, then back to you again. “Sorry. What — sorry. What the fuck?” 

“Hayes.” Laurie tuts. Her brows pull. “Knock it off.” 

He ignores her. His gaze narrows. The shock is wearing off, you think. You can see something angrier making its way in. 

“What are you doing here?” he asks you. He points at Joel. “What is he doing here?“ 

Laurie answers for you. Which is good, since you’ve got nothing. 

“He’s a contractor,” she says. She sounds miffed. “He’s helping me with the Austin house. What — what is this? You know each other, or something?” 

“Yeah,” Hayes bites. “Or something.” 

His gaze shifts. He looks at Joel and Joel holds his stare. 

More silence. The tip of Joel’s pencil shoves deeper into his thumb. You hear the lead snap, bouncing off onto the carpet, and you swallow. Your throat runs dry. 

Hayes sniffs. 

“Can I talk to you?” he blurts. 

He turns away from Joel. Looks you dead in the eyes. 

“In private,” he adds. 

Laurie frowns. “Hayes—”

“It’s fine,” you say, quickly. You don’t look at Joel. “It’s fine.” 

Hayes nods. He shoves the door back open and holds it for you — ever the gentleman, even still. Even when you sidle past him and feel him bristle. 

You catch a glimpse of Joel right before the door shuts. You can’t quite read the look on his face. 

“It’s through here,” Hayes clips. 

He leads you back down the hallway, to the kitchen you’d passed on your way in. You stare at his back and try to train down your blush. You think up ten thousand excuses, in the thirty-second walk to the kitchen — I wasn’t ghosting you, really, I’ve just…had my phone off? Been busy with work? Didn’t want to seem desperate? — but you’re a terrible liar. And the truth is you have been ghosting him. You’ve been ghosting the hell out of him. 

So you’re silent. You make it to the kitchen and he sits at the island, digging his elbows down into the marble. He gestures toward a free stool and you follow his hand. 

“You wanna sit?” 

“Uh—” you blink, “—no. Thanks. This is fine.” 

This being the awkward, statuesque pose you’ve taken up by Laurie’s sink. About as far from Hayes as you can get without turning tail and sprinting back down the hall. 

 You’re expecting him to say something. He dragged you in here, after all. Out of the office. Away from Joel. 

But he’s quiet. He just…looks at you. Meadow-green eyes and an angled frown. 

So you talk. Because the silence is fucking unbearable. 

“So,” you say. “She’s your, um…” 

“Aunt.” 

“Yeah. Right.” You nod. Gnaw at your lip. “Kind of a fucked up coincidence.” 

You hope, maybe, that he’ll take it in stride. Light up the kitchen with that megawatt smile. 

But he doesn’t smile. If anything his frown gets deeper. 

“Yeah,” he agrees, finally. “Kind of fucked up.” 

“So when you said you were going out of town for the weekend…” you gesture weakly to the kitchen. “You meant, like…here.” 

He looks at you. Cocks his head. His hair’s grown out, in the week or so since you’ve seen him. You think it looks better like this. Makes him look more like a man. 

“So you did get my texts,” he says. 

Fuck. 

“I just read them, like, today,” you say, which is not technically a lie. Sure, you’ve been watching the notifications flood in all week with a lingering, existential sense of doom — but you hadn’t actually opened them until today. Until five minutes ago, when he was already crunching up the drive. 

He shakes his head. His jaw goes tight, like he’s chewing on a word. 

“What are you doing here?” he asks. “With him? Like, what — what is this?” 

“It’s — fuck. It’s Joel’s thing. He’s — he’s building a house for your aunt, or something. I’m just along for the weekend. It’s a — it’s like a favor, for my dad. He was supposed to be here instead of me. Fuck, I obviously — I didn’t know she was your aunt, otherwise I never would have tagged along. Obviously.” 

“Obviously,” Hayes repeats. He sounds hollow. He looks bitter. His eyes scrunch up when you mention Joel’s name. “Makes it kinda hard to ghost me when you’re standing in my kitchen.” 

You don’t love the tone. You’ve been waiting since your first date — which had been, like, just a little too perfect — for something uglier to rear its head. A scrap of Southern-money, Stanford-bred entitlement, maybe. And there it is. Right there. My kitchen. 

Your aunt’s kitchen, you want to bite. But this is still a job, and you’re still here for Joel, and you’re on thin ice as is. So you keep your mouth shut. 

“Sorry,” you say, awkwardly. “I should’ve…said something.” 

Which is not entirely untrue. You should have cut him loose the second you’d landed back in Joel’s bed. But you just…hadn’t. You’d watched his texts come in, and let them fester unopened on your phone. You let the notifications pile up. Maybe because, in some ironic twist of fate, you didn’t want the confrontation. Or maybe some part of you liked the safety net. Liked the fact he’d still be there, on the hook, if Joel ran away again. 

So you mean it, when you tell him sorry. At least some part of you does. 

His shoulders relax. His tone softens. That ugly look goes out of his eyes — that one that surfaced when you first mentioned Joel — and you start to think maybe it was never even there. 

“Look,” he says, “if you didn’t wanna see me again, that’s fine, I just —” he huffs, “I would’ve appreciated, like, a heads up, maybe? Or just — a sign of life? So I know you didn’t fall off the face of the earth?” 

“Yeah,” you say, blankly. “Yeah. Sorry. I wasn’t — I don’t know. I wasn’t thinking.” 

He’s quiet. You both are. He taps his fingers on the marble and works his tongue over his teeth. 

“It’s okay,” he says, after a beat. “I just — I thought we had a good time. And I don’t usually, uh…” 

He looks at the counter. His cheeks turn pink. 

God, they’re so different. He and Joel. You have no idea how you landed somewhere between the two of them. One can’t make eye contact when he talks about sex. The other won’t fuck you without it. 

Hayes looks back up. He’s struggling. 

“I’m just trying to say — it was good. For me, at least. All of it. Not just the…you know. Not that that wasn’t good. It was fucking — it was amazing. But the rest of it, too. The dates. You. All of it.” 

He shrugs. His eyes are wide. 

“I don’t know,” he says. “It was nice, that’s all. I thought we clicked.” 

“We did,” you say. “We had fun.” 

It’s not a lie. It’s just not the whole truth. You leave out the part where you click a whole lot better with the contractor in his aunt’s office. 

“I’m sorry,” you say, again. You mean it a little less this time. “I just — things changed.” 

“Okay, but — in a day?” 

“Sorry?” 

“You changed your mind in a day?” He laughs now — like, chuckles, and it makes your skin prickle. “I mean, it just seems — we have these great dates, and then we have great — sorry — great sex, and then, like, you ghost me? You change your mind that fast?” 

Fuck. Off. 

You flip up your hands.

“It’s not — it wasn’t that serious, Hayes! We went on two dates. Two. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have —  I should have said something. But it happens. It fucking — it happens all the time.” 

You get the sense, from the look on his face, that it doesn’t happen all the time to him. Handsome, whip-smart, rich as sin. White sneakers and a pearl-white smile. He doesn’t get ghosted. 

“It happens?” His voice is strained. He wants to snap at you, you can tell. You almost wish he would. “So you — what? You sleep with a lot of guys, never call them back?” 

“What?” You push yourself off the sink. Your skin flushes pink, then red. “Is that what I just said? Jesus. What the fuck?” 

“Sorry.” He rakes his hands through his hair. Shakes his head. “Fuck. Sorry. I’m not trying to — I just — I liked you. I still like you. I thought maybe I did something, or…” 

“You didn’t do anything,” you clip. There’s still some heat to your voice. Some edge. You’re not sure it sounds convincing. 

But he nods. Swallows. He looks a little kicked-puppy like this, sitting on a stool with his sneakers dangling. His eyes meet yours and you wish they were brown. 

“Guess this looks pretty dumb now, then,” he says. He lifts his wrist off the counter and your heart sinks. 

He’s still got that tacky five-dollar bracelet wrapped up on his wrist. The one you’d found together, at a thrift store in downtown Austin, when neither of you wanted your date to end. He’d gotten you a matching necklace. And you’d taken it off, the very next day, on your way back from Joel’s house. It was the last piece of Hayes that had lingered on you after Joel had fucked out the rest. 

“You took yours off,” he says. 

“Oh.” You blink. “I…” 

“No, don’t,” he says. He waves you off. “I’m sorry. That’s — it was just a stupid thing.” 

He unclasps the bracelet. It sloughs off his wrist and clatters to the marble. The little turquoise pendant glares up at you. 

“No,” you say. “It wasn’t stupid. It’s…” 

You trail off. You touch your hand to your neck where the necklace had been, almost like an afterthought. 

His eyes follow your hand. He tracks your fingers where they land and splay at your collar. 

And then he frowns again. Deeper. Darker. 

“What is that?” he asks. His voice is soft. 

You stare at him. Your hand stills under your throat. 

“On your neck,” he says, when you’re too quiet. “What is that on your neck?” 

It doesn’t click right away. What he’s talking about. Your fingers drift up your throat, rising with his stare, and that’s when you feel them. The red, raised marks on the side of your neck, hallway hidden by your hair. A handprint much bigger than Hayes’s. 

“What the fuck.” He stands up. Pushes the stool back. “Who — what the fuck?” 

You bring your whole hand up to the side of your neck. You press your palm into the shape of Joel’s and try to hide the mark when Hayes steps closer. 

His eyes are on fire. He’s got a weird look to him, like he doesn’t quite know whether to be angry or confused or concerned or something all in between. He gets uncomfortably close and you shrink against the sink. 

“Move your hand,” he says. “Let me see.”

“Stop it. Step back.” 

“Move your hand,” he says. He’s trying to peer under, over, around your palm. Trying to see where Joel’s fingertips stretch out across your throat. He’s really close now, close enough to touch you, and he lifts a hand to try and pry yours away. 

You yelp. Your hand jumps from your throat and you bat him away. 

“Hayes, stop,” you bite. “Don’t — fucking touch me.” 

He drops his hand immediately. Takes half a step back. You’re both panting. The mark on your neck is on full display. 

“It’s nothing,” you say. You swallow thickly. Stare him down, while you both catch your breath. “It’s fucking nothing.” 

But it’s not nothing. You can both see that it’s not nothing. 

“It’s probably — it’s probably from you,” you say. “From the other night.” 

“I didn’t do that to you,” Hayes says. His voice is cold. Distant. “I wouldn’t do that to you.” 

He’s breathing hard. His eyes are dark. 

“Who?” he asks. 

“No one,” you say. And then — “it’s none of your business.” 

He huffs. 

“Fine,” he says. “When, then? Cause — fuck. You were with me, like, just a few days ago. And you say you’ve been here, with your dad’s fucking — friend all weekend, so —”

Stop, you think. Fucking stop. 

But it’s too late. He gets it. That Stanford education at work. 

You watch his brow furrow, and you can physically see him connect the dots. The weekend trip. The fresh marks on your throat. The clinging cologne that sticks to your skin. 

“Holy shit,” he says. 

Your heart seizes. There are two options here, really — deny, deny, deny, — or scorched-earth it. You try for the first. 

“Hayes,” you say, “it’s not—”

“Don’t,” he says. “Don’t even say it.” 

There’s a pause. You swallow. 

“I didn’t say anything,” you say, quietly. 

Hayes shakes his head and then shakes it again. His hair tousles, like a waterlogged dog. 

“You fucked him,” he says, and it’s not a question. He says it like he’s convincing himself. “You — him?” 

You’re quiet. There’s not much to say. 

“Fuck me,” Hayes mutters. “Jesus.” 

He shoves his hands to his hair. Holds them there. “What the fuck,” he mumbles, half to himself. 

“Hayes—”

“No, I mean — what the fuck? Seriously! There’s — he’s — he’s, like, a thousand years old! What the hell are you doing?” 

“What the hell am I doing?” Anger roils at the pit of your stomach, hot and thick. “Why is that your fucking business? What are you, my dad?” 

“You’d probably like that, right?” 

“Oh, fuck off. What the fuck? Are you — are you serious?” 

“He’s — isn’t he your dad’s friend? Your fuc—your neighbor?” He stares at you, wide-eyed. “Jesus Christ. Is that why you haven’t texted me?” 

“Oh my god,” he says, when you don’t respond. “Is that why you were wearing his fucking shirt? The morning after we—?”

So he does remember that. You were hoping it might have slipped his mind. The same way you’d slipped into bed with him, beside him, wrapped up in another man’s shirt. 

You’d let him touch you, in the middle of the night. Put his hands under a shirt with Miller Contracting splashed in print across the back. It was fucking filthy then, and it’s filthier now. Now that he puts it together. 

“Is that why he threatened to hurt me?” Hayes asks. “Told me he’d break my jaw?” 

You’re silent. He takes that as a yes, because it is one. 

“Jesus,” he breathes. “Fuck. So I was — what? Like a — a game, for the two of you? Or—” 

“It wasn’t a game,” you bite. “It’s — fuck. It wasn’t a game. Just leave it alone.” 

“Leave it alone? He’s as old as my dad. You’re — look at your fucking neck. He’s —”

“He’s what?” Your pulse hammers. “He’s — what?” 

Hayes is quiet. You should be relieved, really, but the silence is worse. The way his eyes squint, like he’s working through a jigsaw. 

He takes a few steps back and you welcome the space. Your legs feel weak. Your head is swimming. You fold your hands on the lip of the counter and the marble stings your skin. 

He’s pacing. You watch him out of the corner of your eye. You wonder how long you’ve been out here. You wonder if Joel will start to worry. If he’ll burst out of the office, and thud down that hallway in his heavy work boots, and find you in the kitchen with your fists on the counter. 

You think about those guys at the bar last night. How they’d spoken to you. How Joel had…taken care of it. And then you think about Hayes — what Joel would do to him, if he could hear him right now — and the thought is weirdly comforting. It probably shouldn’t be. 

Hayes’s voice rises. You lift your head. 

“Are you okay?” he’s saying. You get the sense from his tone that he’s already asked. 

You blink. 

“Am I okay?” 

“Yeah,” he says. He’s breathless. His fists bunch at his sides. All tense, corded muscle. “Like — are you — is he making you do this? Is this, like — is he —?” 

You stare at him. You’re not actually convinced you’ve heard him correctly. It’s that insane of a question. But you clock the look on his face — totally, completely sincere — and then you’re fucking furious. 

“What?” 

“I can help you,” Hayes says, and you almost punch him in the face. “Seriously. Like, if this is — if he’s —” 

“What the fuck,” you breathe. 

Silence. Your fist balls on the marble. And then he opens his fucking mouth again, and you snap. 

“I just—”

“Jesus, Hayes!” Your palm comes down flat on the counter. The slap makes him flinch. “What the fuck is wrong with you? No. No. He’s — no. Of course he’s not.” 

“Of course? What do you mean, of course? You’ve got a—” his voice lowers. Wavers. “You’ve got a fucking handprint on your throat,” he says. “It’s sick.” 

“It’s not sick.” 

“No, ‘cause you don’t see it,” Hayes says, and he sounds so fucking condescending you want to scream. “Cause you’re — you can’t see it. You’re too — I’m sorry, but he’s clearly taking advant—” 

“I asked him to,” you bite. 

That…shuts him up. He stops pacing. You put a hand to your throat and trace the shadow of Joel’s fingers. 

“I wanted it,” you say. “I fucking asked him to.” 

He’s quiet. He looks at your hand. At the ghost of Joel’s. 

“You didn’t ask me to do that,” he says, softly. 

“No,” you say. “I didn’t.” 

He doesn’t say anything. Not to that. You push yourself off the counter. 

“Are we done here?” you ask, at the exact same time he decides to open his mouth again, and ask — 

“—are you in love with him?” 

You freeze. Full stop. 

“Excuse me?” 

“Is this, like…” he shakes his head. “I’m just trying to figure out what the fuck is going on here. Like, you think you’re in love with him, ‘cause he tells you what you wanna hear? Makes you feel special? Cause this is — this is textbook. This is Psych 101. This is —”

“Fuck off,” you snarl. 

You shove past him. Like — shove. Your shoulder clips his and he grunts. He reaches for you before you can pass and snakes a hand around your wrist. 

“Hey,” he says. “I care about you. I’m just trying to help—”

“Get your hand off me,” you say. 

His grip slackens. You rip your hand out of his. He tries to say something else — calls your name, when you stumble past him — but you’re already halfway down the hallway. You’re making a beeline for the office — for Joel — and when you get to the door your fingers tremble. You wrench the handle with your heart stuck in your throat. 

The door shoves open and spits you inside. You stand there panting, feet planted on carpet, and the look on your face must be downright desperate because Joel’s already on his way to you. 

He stops abruptly a few feet from where you stand. Like he’s just remembered Laurie’s there, behind him, watching you both with a frown. You wish she would fucking go. You wish everyone would just — go. You wish Joel would touch you. 

“Hey,” he says, softly, “are you…?” 

Hayes is on your heels. You can hear his slip-on sneakers squeaking down the hall. You look up at Joel and shake your head. 

“I’m sorry,” you whisper. “Joel, I’m sorry.” 

He frowns. His brows knit. His fingers flex at his sides, inches from yours, and you know it’s taking everything in him not to reach out and touch you. 

“Hey,” he repeats. Low. Slow. “Hey. What —?” 

The door rocks back open. Hayes’s squeaky footsteps hover at the threshold. You can hear his breath at your back, short and shallow. It pulls when he sees Joel. 

Joel’s gaze lifts. He looks past you, at Hayes, and the muscle in his jaw flinches. He doesn’t know what happened — he wasn’t in that kitchen — but the look on your face is enough. He looks about ready to strangle someone, client be damned. 

The silence stretches. Laurie clears her throat. 

“Okay,” she says, in that two-mojitos-deep twang, “look, I’m not sure what’s happening—”

Hayes interrupts her. He shoves his index finger at Joel. 

“This is who you want to hire?” he asks, and it’s so petulant, so boyish that it makes your head spin. 

Laurie laughs awkwardly. 

“He’s supposed to be the best,” she says. 

“Is he? Is he the best?” 

There’s a monumental silence. Hayes’s accusatory finger shifts: from Joel — to you. 

“Let’s ask her,” he says. “She’d know.” 

Your head snaps up. You open your mouth to fire back — are you fucking serious right now? — but Joel beats you to the punch. 

“That’s enough,” he snarls. “That’s fuckin’ enough.” 

You wince. So much for polite, yes ma’am Joel, who’d turned down Laurie’s offer of a drink at the door. This is the Joel from the bar last night. The Joel with a knife in his hand and a spark in his eyes. 

“Hayes.” Laurie again. Sterner, now. “You wanna tell me what the hell’s going on here? How do you know each other?” 

“Oh, well. That’s a funny story,” Hayes bites. His voice says it’s not very funny at all. 

He’s glaring at Joel. You thought they were the same height, that first night you met Hayes. But three feet apart, staring each other down — Joel looks a hell of a lot bigger. And a hell of a lot meaner. 

“He wants to break my jaw,” Hayes says, with a crooked, angry smile. “Right?” 

Joel huffs. 

“I’m sorry?” Laurie says. “What?” 

Poor Laurie. You almost feel bad for her. Just wanted to build her damn house. 

“Joel?” she says. “Is that — is that true?” 

Joel is silent. He takes a breath, and the exhale is ragged. He’s pissed. 

“Or maybe he’d rather choke me out,” Hayes says. His nose is all scrunched up, again. “That’s your thing, isn’t it?” 

The blood goes out of your face. You feel sick. 

“We’re done here,” Joel says. 

And then he is touching you. He’s got his hand on the small of your back, big and warm and safe, and you’re vaguely aware of him herding you toward the door. 

Laurie says something. She sounds confused. Maybe a little angry. 

Joel ignores her. He leaves everything on the desk — his pencils, his blueprints, his papers. He leaves everything except for you. 

Hayes scurries to stand in the doorframe. His stupid sneakers squeal on hardwood. 

“You don’t have to go with him,” he says. 

Your face burns. Hayes reaches out; tries to graze your wrist again. You flinch. 

“Don’t touch me,” you hiss. 

Joel’s hand tightens on your back. 

“It’s not right,” Hayes says. “He’s — guys like him, they’re not —”

“You don’t know a fucking thing about guys like him,” you say. 

You can’t be in this house for one more second. You rip yourself away — from Hayes and from Joel — and hightail it down the hallway. Back through the kitchen, back through the foyer, past Hayes’s spare white sneakers tucked in the entryway. 

Out the front door. Down the steps. Onto the gravel drive and up into Joel’s truck. 

It’s unlocked. You climb into the passenger seat and slam the door shut. 

And then — finally — you let yourself cry. You put your feet up on his seat. You rest your heels on the edge and bury your face in your knees. Your hands curl on the leather cushion. 

You take heaving, panicked breaths and stare at the floor between your legs. You don’t look up when Joel storms out the front door, a few minutes after you, and jogs to the truck with his keys in his hand. 

He doesn’t get in the driver’s seat. He comes around the truck instead, to the passenger side, and tugs open your door. 

He doesn’t touch you. He just stands there, boots planted in gravel, until you lift your head from your knees and look at him. 

“Hey,” he breathes. 

He looks shattered. You wonder if it’s because of you or the job. 

The job you just fucked. 

“I’m sorry,” you whimper. 

His face slackens. He looks heartbroken, now. 

“Oh, baby girl,” he murmurs. 

He leans in. He puts a broad hand on the back of your head and pulls you into his chest, into the soft, worn cotton of his flannel, and you breathe in his scent. His heart beats under your cheek. Slow and safe and steady. 

“‘M sorry,” you mumble. Your voice is muffled in his shirt. 

He holds you closer. Tighter. 

“It ain’t your fault,” he murmurs. 

But it feels like it is. It feels like it is. And you could swear he feels stiff, when he presses a kiss to the crown of your head. When he tucks you back into your seat, and walks around the driver’s side, and pulls out of the driveway with a tight look on his face. 

You watch the house blur in the rearview. The wheels stop crunching, and the gravel runs to road, and the added silence makes your chest hurt. 

You don’t know what to say, so you don’t say anything at all. You lean your temple on the window and stare at the street. He turns onto a highway and you watch the double-yellow lines streak by in silence. 

You don’t know what he’s thinking. If he’s giving you space, or if he’s seething at the wheel. He’s impossible to read and you can’t think straight. You feel like shit. So — naturally — you assume the worst. 

That it’s your fault, even though he says it’s not. That he hates you, even though he held you hard enough to steal breath. That he’ll run away again. 

He flicks his blinker on and the sound startles you. He pulls off the freeway and stops at a red. 

“I didn’t tell him,” you say. It just — comes out. It seems important that he know. “Hayes. I didn’t say anything. He — he saw my —”

You gesture weakly to your neck. Joel tracks your hand in your peripheral. 

The light turns green. He doesn’t go. 

“I didn’t tell him,” you repeat. You need him to know. You tried to keep it a secret. 

He’s quiet. The car behind you honks. 

“Go,” you say, dully.  

He goes. He makes a right, back in the general direction of the hotel, and you take his silence for anger. You take his white knuckles on the wheel for pissed, not protective. 

“Can you say something?” you beg. “Please?” 

He swallows thickly. You look up at him, briefly, and he’s got the same expression scrawled across his face that he’d had that night, at your dad’s house, after he’d fucked you senseless in the kitchen. When he’d told you that he couldn’t do this. When he’d left you in the dark. 

You can handle Hayes. You can handle the embarrassment of — whatever the hell that last hour was. But Joel running away, for the second time in as many weeks — that you can’t take. That is too much. 

So you run first. Or you try to. 

He turns onto a busy street, lined with shops and signs and moms pushing strollers — and you yank at the car door. It doesn’t give. The stupid fucking auto-lock. 

Joel glances over at you. His brows knit. 

“Let me out,” you say. 

He blinks. You tug the handle again. 

“Fuck,” you swear. Your cheeks are hot. Your breath hitches, and you don’t want to cry again — not when you’ve just fucking stopped — but you can feel it coming. Rising up in your throat. “Can you just — let me out?” 

He says something. He sounds a little surprised, a little concerned — but you’re not listening. You’re pulling on the car door and your breaths are coming fast and thin. The truck is still moving, and Joel’s voice is slightly raised, and you think he’s telling you to stop but you can’t hear him right. 

“Let me out,” you repeat. There are tears on your face. 

You’re a little surprised that he listens to you. He slows down. Pulls over on the curb, alongside a packed sidewalk — and you’re unbuckling your seatbelt before he can speak. 

“Just—” He reaches halfway over the center console and then stops. Freezes, like he can’t quite tell if he should touch you. 

You push at the door and this time it gives. It’s too much, it’s too fucking much — Hayes’s words in the kitchen, and his hand on your wrist, and this feeling you can’t shake, now, that Joel is gonna run. It’s too much. You need — you need some fucking air. 

You jump out of his truck and your feet hit pavement. You make it ten feet down the sidewalk, sucking in dry, Texas air — before you hear his car door slam. Before you hear his heavy footfalls as he runs to catch up. And then his hands are on you — big, rough, familiar — grabbing you, turning you, wrapping you up in his arms. 

“Woah — hey.” He clutches you to his heart and you ball your fist in his flannel, push at his chest, but there’s no strength to it. You want him to hold you. 

And he does. Right there in the middle of the side, in broad daylight, with his truck parked haphazard on the curb. His keys dangle from a finger, locked somewhere behind your head. 

It takes you a minute to register what he’s saying. Over and over and mumbled in your hair. 

“It’s okay,” he’s breathing. “I gotcha. S’okay.” 

“It’s not okay,” you say. You sound fucking miserable, with your voice in his shirt. You don’t even recognize the sound. “You’re gonna run.” 

There’s a pause. His hands loosen and he pushes you back, just far enough to search your face. 

“Run?” he says. “Who’s runnin’?” 

“You,” you whine. “It’s a fucking — it’s a mess, with Hayes, and the job, and I —” 

His brow furrows. The corner of his lip crinkles up. 

“I ain’t runnin’ nowhere,” he says, softly. “You’re the one runnin’. Damn near jumped out the truck.” 

“Yeah, cause you — you looked so angry, I thought —”

“Angry?” His whole face softens. He shakes his head. “I ain’t angry, angel. Not at you.” 

Your lip trembles. You’re not sure what to say. 

“C’mere,” he murmurs. He pulls you in again and you go willingly, burying your face in his sleeve. It’s a far cry from the way he’d held you this morning, with a hand around your throat and his cock nestled inside you. This almost feels closer. 

“‘M right here,” he’s saying, again and again in the crown of your head. “I ain’t goin’ nowhere.” 

You rest your chin on his chest and look up at him. Your breathing evens and then stills. He’s not running. He’s not going anywhere. He’s right here, holding you, with his hands on your body and his mouth in your hair. He’s right here. 

“I’m sorry,” you mumble, for the millionth time today. “I don’t — Hayes, he fucking — the stuff he said. He got in my head.” 

You don’t elaborate. He doesn’t ask you to. 

Instead he just says — c’mon, — in that intoxicating drawl, and slips an arm around your shoulder. He starts to walk and drags you close, into his side, unwilling to let you stray even when he’s on the move. You stumble to keep up. It’s an awkward angle and you’re too close to walk comfortably, but you don’t pull away. You don’t want to. 

He leaves the truck half-cocked on the curb and ducks into the nearest store he finds. A little coffee shop, with all-white seating and a lavender sign. String lights strung out across the ceiling. Decorated cookies in the glass display. Your vibe. Not quite Joel’s. But he leads you in all the same. 

He parks you at an empty table and orders for you. Coffee in a to-go cup and one of those stupid cookies, with black and white frosted wings and an orange-frosted beak. A penguin. It’s such a dumb, sweet gesture that it almost makes you smile. You almost feel better. 

He doesn’t say much — never been too good at saying much — but he seems determined to make you smile. To convince you that this — none of this — was your fault. 

He digs a spare, stubby drafting pencil from the pocket of his jeans. He leans over the table and grabs your coffee, still half-full, and you protest weakly when he drags it to his side. 

He tips the cup and scribbles something with the pencil. You nibble on the edge of your stupid penguin cookie while you wait for him to pass it back. 

He slides the cup back across the table. You squint at his addition, and it makes you smile. An actual smile. Then it makes you laugh. You swipe dried tears from your cheeks and hold the cup up to the light. 

“What the hell is that?” you say.

He looks mock-wounded. He tucks the pencil away and nods to the cup. 

“S’you,” he says. “Y’know. Tried to capture the — the snarky look, ’n everythin’.” 

You stare down at his drawing. It’s like the world’s worst stick figure, with your name scrawled in pencil underneath. 

“It’s terrible,” you tell him. 

“Nah, it’s — it’s abstract,” he says. “Y’ain’t lookin’ at it right. Here—” he takes the cup back, hoists it up, and you laugh harder, “—see?” 

“Oh, yeah. No. Much better.” 

He smiles. His eyes sparkle. He’s trying so fucking hard to make you happy — the way he knows how, with anything but his words — that it makes your heart hurt. You were sprinting down the sidewalk fifteen minutes ago. Now you have to bite your tongue to keep from letting slip you love him. 

He hands your cup back. You reach out to take it and your fingers brush his. 

“I’m sorry,” you say, again. For this mess. For almost running. For assuming you would. 

“Stop apologizin’,” he says. 

“I was supposed to help you this weekend,” you say. “You were supposed to get that job. And I feel like — I feel like I ruined it.” 

“You didn’t—” he lowers his voice, “—you didn’t ruin anythin’.” 

“Yeah, but — I kinda did? I mean — I only slept with Hayes cause I was pissed at you, and then I never called him back, and now he fucking hates you, and he thinks you’re — he thinks you’re crazy, and his stupid rich aunt is gonna —”

You’re breathing hard, again. He stops you. 

“Stop,” he says. He reaches across the table. Closes your hands up in his. “Stop.” 

“Don’t care ‘bout the job,” he says. 

“Yes you do,” you mumble. “We drove all the way out here.” 

“Care ‘bout you,” he says. He leans back in his seat. Rakes his hands through his hair. “Fuck. I don’t — I care ‘bout you.” 

You’re quiet. You swallow a sip of coffee. 

“And if I…if I did cost you the job?” 

“You didn’t,” he says. A beat passes. He looks at you and sighs. “But you’re worth a whole lot more ’n a job.” 

There’s a long, delicate silence. You take another sip and set the cup down on the table. 

You sniff. Nod. 

“That’s really corny,” you say, finally. 

He pauses. Blinks. And then he laughs, and you do too, and the tension clinging to your shoulders diffuses. He told you it was okay — that everything was okay — and maybe it is. Maybe it will be. 

“Fuck you,” he says, with that crooked half smile. “Was tryin’ t’be nice.” 

“Don’t,” you say. “It’s weird.” 

He shakes his head. Rolls his eyes. 

“Someone’s feelin’ better,” he says. But you can tell he’s relieved. 

You hum. 

“C’mon, then,” he says. “Let’s get outta here.” He motions toward the fairy lights. The happy, purple paintings on the wall. “Place kinda creeps me out.” 

“I’m not finished,” you say, and he shoots you a look. He gives you hell, but he likes when you talk back. He likes the attitude. Likes it a whole lot more than muffled tears in his flannel.

“’S a to-go cup,” he drawls. 

He stands up. Swipes your coffee, so you’re forced to follow him. He hands it over when you’re back on the sidewalk and you wrap your palm around his scribbled, shitty drawing. You trace his pencil strokes with your finger and swallow back I love you for the second time today. 

You climb back into his truck and shove your coffee to the cupholder. He pulls off of the curb with a groan and you watch him while he drives. 

“Where are we going?” you ask. “Back to the hotel?” 

He shrugs. 

“Up t’you,” he says. “Finished earlier ’n I expected.” 

You swallow back a pang of guilt. 

“No real reason to stick around,” he says. “Could just drive on back to Austin. Make it back by dinner.” 

He looks quickly at you, and you try to read his face. Is that what he wants? Cut the trip short? 

“Or,” he drawls, and your pulse spikes, “we could—”

“Yeah,” you say. You don’t need to hear the rest. “That one.” 

He grins. Laughs. “Y’didn’t even hear the pitch,” he says. 

“Don’t care,” you say. “Long as we stay here.” 

He’s smiling at you, but you think there’s something in his stare. A twinge. You’d stay here forever, if it meant more time alone with him. You wonder if he feels the same. 

“Alright,” he says, softly. “That’s that, then.” 

You lean back against his leather seat. You ride in comfortable silence for a few minutes, down quiet, sleepy roads and residential streets — and his scribbled stick figure gazes up at you from the cupholder. Your heart swells. You twist the lid aimlessly and shift in his seat, squirming against the all-too-sudden tug between your legs. 

Maybe it’s just your pulse on a comedown, now that Hayes seems more like a memory and less like a threat. Maybe it’s the way Joel wrapped you up in his arms on the sidewalk and refused to let you go. Maybe it’s the shitty little sketch that winks up at you now, where his hands said what he couldn’t. 

It’s something. Something makes you desperate for his touch, right now, now that the shock of the world’s worst morning has diluted. 

He turns down an empty street. The sun blazes across the dashboard. 

“What d’you wanna do?” he asks. His drawl is sweet, syrupy. It melts on your skin like sunlight. “Could go back t’the hotel. Could go to the riverwalk. Used t’go there with Sarah, in the summers. They got a boat tour, s’posed to be —”

“Pull over,” you say. 

He looks over at you. Frowns. 

“What?” 

“Pull. Over.” 

“Why?” he asks, and you could swear he sounds distressed. “We just went over this. I ain’t chasin’ you again—”

“Joel,” you say, and something about the way you say his name makes him pause, “pull over.” 

He gets it. It clicks. He pulls the fuck over. 

Your seatbelt is off before he’s in park. You’re scrabbling at your pants and he’s doing the same, whipping off his belt, untucking his flannel, shoving down his zipper with rough, heavy hands. 

He leans down and tugs his seat back as far as it’ll go. Makes space for you between his chest and the wheel, when you climb over the console and straddle his lap. 

You need him so badly you can’t see straight. You can’t even wait to get back to the room, with the bed and the shower and the couch that he’s paid for. You’re like teenagers. Except you never did this as a teenager, because you were never this fucking desperate.  

He lifts his hips. Shoves his jeans and his boxers down in a rushed, messy motion. He’s got his cock out already, by the time you climb across to straddle him. Not wasting any time. He looks as desperate as you feel. 

Your knees punch the seat on either side of his lap. Your panties drag along the head of his cock and you wonder when you got this wet — at the coffee shop? Before that? When he stopped you on the sidewalk and held you in his hands? 

He has the same thought. The tip of his cock slides over soaked cotton and he groans. 

“Fuck, baby,” he murmurs. “Shoulda said somethin’. So fuckin’ wet f’me.” 

“Please,” you tell him. Your breath skates along his neck. Trickles down to his collar. “Joel. Please. I need—”

His thumb grazes your clit. He bears down gently and you gasp. 

“Tell me,” he says. He sounds urgent. Rough. He strokes you over soaked, scrappy fabric and something white-hot swirls at the pit of your stomach. 

“Need to feel you,” you say. It tumbles out broken, like you’re begging, and you think maybe you are. You just want him close. You just want him here. 

“Fuck,” he groans. He tips his head back. His hair is plastered on his forehead, where it’s been pressed against your collar. His eyes are glassy, wild. He looks like a mess already, and he hasn’t even fucked you yet. 

You think he needs it worse than you do. You don’t say that, though. You don’t say anything, cause he’s reaching to yank your panties aside and you can’t fucking think straight. You rut uselessly in his lap and he holds you still, one hand on your waist and the other fumbling at cotton. His finger catches the edge of your panties and you whine something close to his name. 

You’re making a mess in his lap. Leaking onto his thighs, his seat. Your nails scrape his scalp and he mumbles something by your throat. 

“Hold—ngh. Hold still,” he says. He’d usually demand it. But this time he just sounds desperate: desperate for you to listen, so he can fuck you faster. Maybe it’s your urgency he’s feeding off of. Or maybe the morning was just as bad for him as it was for you — or worse, if that’s even possible — and he’s not in the mood to issue any orders. 

He drags you down against his lap and his cock slides through your slick. He gives a shallow thrust up and nudges your swollen clit. 

“N-need it this bad?” he pants. His voice is strained. There’s sweat on his brow. The setting, your urgency — it’s fucking with his head. It’s making his cock twitch, and his stomach pull, and you watch through hooded eyes as he swallows back a moan. “In the fu—fuckin’ car, baby girl? Right on the f—fuckin’ street?” 

He shoves your panties further aside. His knuckle strokes up your seam and heat curls your skin. 

“F-fuckin’ filthy,” he breathes. “F—ah.” 

You can’t wait any longer. You’re impatient. He told you he was right here, when he held you on that sidewalk, and you want to believe him. You want him to prove it. You want him right here, right now, closer than close. 

You sink onto his cock before he can guide you, grinding your hips down into his lap. His head flies back against the seat. His thighs tense. Whatever mumbled, half-formed thought was on his tongue gets swallowed up in a moan. 

He lets you take the reins. For a little while, at least. You ride him as best you can in the limited space his truck allows. Your head brushes the ceiling and your knees leave divots in his seat. The glass fogs, and the air goes thick, and the little evergreen car freshener that dangles off his mirror can’t do much to mask the smell of sex. 

You can tell he’s not gonna last long. You could tell before you buried yourself on his cock, and you can certainly tell now. His nails dig into your waist, lighting up your skin, and your breath punches somewhere by his head. 

“Fuck, baby, slow,” he growls. “I ain’t—ain’t gonna last.” 

“It’s — fuck, it’s fine,” you mumble, and it is, it’s fine, you want him to mark you up and spill inside you and you don’t fucking care about anything else. “Joel, I don’t care, just—” 

Your head rolls back. His cock throbs inside you and your hips stutter on his lap. 

“It’s fine,” you repeat, “please, just fucking—please.” 

He hisses through his teeth. His hands slide to the top of your ass and he squeezes. You mumble his name and your body goes slack, folding into his, content to let him take over if it means you can stay nestled in the crook of his shoulder. 

He gets a good grip on your ass and thrusts up into you. It’s a deeper, sharper angle than the one you’d managed, bouncing on his lap — and it makes you yelp. You bite down on his shoulder and get a mouthful of flannel. 

He likes that. You can tell. He rumbles deep at the back of his throat and his cock stumbles into you. 

“Fuck,” he mumbles. He thrusts up into you and drags you down at the same time, hitting something deep inside you. It’s cramped in here, and your knees ache, and his thrusts are frantic, like he’s clawing at the edge — but it’s fucking — good. It’s right. 

Heat pulls across your skin. Dances low at the base of your stomach. Your hand shoots from his hair and slams against his window, grasping at glass. You’re this fucking close, and then — 

Joel cums. Hard. No warning, no break in the frantic way he’s fucking you. His cock pulses inside you, mid-thrust, and his breath snags in his throat. His grip on you goes tight, so tight it’s almost painful — and then he slackens. All of him. Slumps back against the seat with his cock still speared inside you. 

“Shit,” he’s mumbling. He blinks, hard. He looks as surprised as you. “I don’t—” 

You kiss him. It’s messy. Tongue and teeth and shallow breaths that you swallow with your own. But it shuts him up. His hands rake up your ribcage and you clench around him, squeezing his half-hard cock. He groans. He breaks the kiss and pants. 

“Fuck,” he says. “Fuck, angel, s’too — too — fuck. Too much.” 

You smile softly. Nip at his jaw. You slide off of his cock and his groan sends a pang between your legs. A not-so-subtle reminder that you didn’t quite cum. 

Joel can read your mind. He looks up at you, while you straddle his lap. Pushes a strand of damp hair back from your forehead. 

“M’sorry,” he says, a little sheepish. 

“For…” 

“For cummin’ like a teenager,” he says. “I don’t — you fuckin’ — you do somethin’ to me.”

He swallows. You smile softly.  

“Mm. A good something?” 

He huffs. You drop your head to kiss his neck and he strokes his hands up your back. 

“Yeah,” he mutters. “A good somethin’.” 

You hum into his neck. His hands still. 

“Fuck,” he mumbles. “I didn’t even — did you…?” 

You pull back. Search his face. 

“Yeah,” you lie, after half a second. You’re not sure why you lie. He’d take care of the ache between your legs in two seconds flat, if you told him to. But you just — you want him to feel good. He’s had enough disappointment for one day, you figure. “Yes.” 

He looks at you funny. Like he doesn’t quite believe you. But he doesn’t push it. You lean to kiss him again and he cups your face in his hands. 

He leans down to pull the seat forward with you still straddling his lap. Your back hits the steering wheel and the horn blares. 

You jump at the sound. 

“Fuck,” you mumble.

He laughs. 

“Go on,” he says, helping you clamber back to your seat. “‘Fore the neighbors come out.” 

He drags his jeans back up while you settle in your seat. Re-does his zipper and his buttons. He leaves his belt on the floor, coiled somewhere by the brake pedal, and he doesn’t bother tucking his flannel back in. He rakes a hand through his hair and it still comes out tousled. 

“Jesus,” he mutters, with a glance in the mirror. “You made a fuckin’ mess.” 

You shake your head. Roll your eyes. But he does look wrecked, thanks to you, and you’re smiling when he puts the truck in drive. You pull your pants back on and push the ache between your legs out of your head and tell yourself it’s fine — you don’t have to cum every time. You can let him be the mess, once in a while. 

He looks over at you, nestled in his seat. He leaves one hand on the wheel and drapes the other on your thigh. Squeezes, gently. 

“Good?” he murmurs. 

Kind of a loaded question. You don’t know if he’s asking about the frantic, heady car sex, or the hot fucking mess that came before it, or just — all of it, in general. 

“Yeah,” you say, quietly. You put your hand over his. Trace the fading bruises on his knuckles. “Good.” 

— 

The second half of the day is significantly better than the first. You almost forget about Laurie and her stupid white-sneaker, white-knight nephew. 

Joel takes you back to the hotel to change, because it’s muggy as hell and all your clothes smell like sex — and you pick out a sundress that makes him swear. He puts on the same t-shirt you’d stolen from him this morning, and you’re willing to bet it’s cause it still smells like you. And then he rakes a comb through his hair, and when he looks a little less wrecked and a lot more presentable he takes you back out. 

He suggests the riverwalk and you couldn’t care less, so you ditch the truck and walk the three blocks there. It’s hot out, and humid, but he holds your hand the whole way there. So it’s worth it, you think. You’d walk six more blocks and be a whole lot hotter if it meant you could keep him this close. 

And — when you get there — you have to admit he was kind of right. It is cool. There’s live music playing everywhere you look. People with guitars, and mariachis, and keyboards on colorful carpets. Open-air restaurants sprawled on the water’s edge. Packed boats drifting by on black water. 

He’s two for two on date locations. You tell him as much while you walk. 

He smiles. You think he looks proud of himself. 

“You really never been here?” he asks. He lets your hand go. Drapes his arm around your shoulder, instead. 

You shrug. “Maybe on a school trip or something,” you say. “But, like, way back. Nothing I remember.” 

He grunts. He leans into you; kisses the crown of your head, and your heart sparks. 

“Show ya around, then,” he drawls. “Make sure you remember this time.” 

You don’t think that’ll be a problem. Every second of the last two days is burned like a brand on the inside of your brain. The way he tastes, the way he smells, the sound of his voice when you kiss him awake. 

You press closer into his chest. “Don’t think I’ll forget,” you say, softly. 

—

You walk until the sun sets. He even convinces you to get on one of those stupid tourist boats that drags a lazy route up the river. 

“I look like a tourist,” you whine, when he drags you onboard. 

“You are a tourist.” He takes his phone from his pocket and points the camera at you. You scowl. Mostly to hide the smile that’s creeping up your throat. 

“Smile,” he says. 

You try to scowl deeper and you crack. He snaps a picture when you laugh — a couple, you think, of you against the river in that flowy little dress — and smiles half to himself when he swipes back through them. 

The boat starts down the river, slow. It’s kind of nice, actually. It’s cooler on the water, and the lights from nearby restaurants make the surface shimmer. You push yourself off the railing and hold your hand out for his phone. 

“Lemme see,” you say. “The pictures.” 

He swipes his phone open and shows you. You cup a hand to the screen and squint. 

“You need to work on your skills,” you say. “My eyes are closed in half of these.” 

He grunts. 

You go to hit delete on the worst ones and he practically rips his phone away. Tucks it back in his pocket. 

“What?” you say. “I’m just — lemme get rid of the bad ones.” 

He looks at you. Frowns. 

“Ain’t any bad ones,” he says, and he sounds so sincere it makes your heart hurt. “Not ‘a you.” 

Your cheeks heat. You shake your head. 

“Fuck off,” you mumble.

He gives you a crooked smile. He puts his chest to your back and loops his arms up around you. You wrap your hands around the steel rail, watching the water, and his chin comes to rest on your shoulder. His stubble grazes the curve of your jaw. 

“I mean it,” he says, after a minute. You can see his reflection when you stare down at the water. Interspersed with twinkling lights. “Y’look — you’re beautiful.” 

You thought it was enough he called you pretty, way back on the Fourth of July. This is something else entirely. This is soft and warm and almost shy, whispered gently over water. 

You turn halfway in his arms. When you catch him in a kiss he murmurs low against your lips. 

“Joel,” you say. 

“Yeah, angel.” 

You look at him. Swallow. If you did work up a nerve, you’ve already lost it. 

“I don’t know,” you mumble. 

He’s quiet. His fingers stroke back your hair. 

“S’okay, baby,” he says. “I know.” 

— 

He takes you to dinner, too. 

After the boat. When the sun is gone, and the air is cool, and your skin is flushed pink from his touch. You pick a random place — the first one you see, with a chalkboard menu set out by the river — and take a table outside. 

He gets a whiskey and you get a cocktail. One of those fun fruity ones, with the little pink umbrella floating on top. He teases you, mercilessly, until you shove the straw into his mouth and tell him to try. And then he shuts up. 

“See?” you say. More than a little smug. “It’s good, huh? Better than your stupid whiskey.” 

He frowns. Takes an unhappy sip of his own drink. 

“Shut up,” he says. 

You laugh. 

The rest of dinner is comfortable. Easy. He talks about Sarah and he asks about school. He asks a lot of questions — like, a lot, as far as Joel goes — and you think he just likes to hear you talk. He’s got a quiet, happy smile scrawled across his face when he listens to you. Like a cat in the sun. 

And then — of course — his phone rings, just as you’re finishing up. He sets his fork down on his plate and stares at the screen. 

“Your dad,” he says, flatly. He shows you the phone and you frown. Shrug. 

He picks up. Pulls the phone back to his ear. 

“Yeah,” he says. 

You put your own fork down. Watch his face, while he talks to your dad. He doesn’t give much away — the occasional sniff; a short nod of his head, a tap of two fingers on the white tablecloth. You’re not sure why your pulse is pounding. 

“Yeah,” he says, again. “Sure. It was fine.” 

There’s a long silence. Joel scratches at his stubble.

“Dunno,” he says. “’S a big job. Said she’d get back t’me.” 

You look at the ground. Your face heats. Joel says something else — a few more things, noncommittal and stereotypically short — and hangs up. He stares at you across the table. 

“What’d he want?” you ask, dully. 

“Checkin’ in,” he says. “Wants t’know ‘bout the job.” 

“Mm.” You push some food around. “What are you gonna tell him? When we get home?” 

“Dunno.” He blinks. “I’ll think ‘a somethin’.” 

You nod. 

“Hey,” he says, softly. “S’okay.” 

“Yeah,” you say. You nod again. Lift your gaze, to look at him. “Yeah.” 

Your own phone buzzes. You glance down at your lap and Hayes’s name lights up the screen. 

“Fuck,” you mutter. 

“That kid again?” 

“Yeah,” you say. “Fuck. I’m just — I’m just gonna block him.” 

Joel nods. You swipe your phone open and navigate to Hayes’s contact. You block his number and then delete his whole text thread — just like that, without even reading whatever shit he’s just sent. 

“There,” you say. You put your phone down on the table, face-down. Lean back in your seat, and swirl your pink umbrella. “Should’ve done that a week ago.” 

Joel hums. He takes a sip of whiskey and watches you across the table. 

“What’d he say?” he asks, quietly. “Today. At the house. When you — ‘fore you came back in the office.” 

“Hayes?” 

Joel nods. 

“Oh,” you say. You swallow. “I mean — nothing. It was just — he was being a dick.” 

“But it bothered you,” he says. 

“Not — I mean, yeah, but not —” you fumble, “—it doesn’t matter.” 

“Matters ‘f it bothered you.” 

You’re quiet. Joel is, too. Hayes’s voice rings in your ears. 

It’s sick. 

“He…” you poke the pink umbrella in your drink with your pinky.  “I don’t know. He said you were…” 

Your waitress crops up at your table like a gopher. She re-fills your water, then Joel’s, and there’s a pregnant, suffocating silence. You smile politely and wait til she goes. 

You reach for the water. Your fingers tremble on the glass.

“He said a bunch of shit,” you say, quietly. “That it was — sick, what we’re doing. That you’re — that you don’t actually lo—I mean, that you’re not—that it’s not real. That this isn’t real.” 

Joel is silent. You shake your head. 

“It’s just bullshit,” you say. “He’s — it’s just bullshit.” 

He blinks. Settles back against his seat. Your eyes drag up to his, and there’s something pleading in your stare. 

“It is bullshit, right?” you ask. “I mean, this is — it’s real, right?” 

He swallows. You watch his breath catch in his throat. 

“It’s real,” he says, softly. “You’re—”

His jaw flickers. You watch him wrestle with the words. 

“It’s real,” he repeats. “It’s a fuckin’ — it’s a mess,” he huffs, and he almost smiles, “but, yeah. Fuck. It’s real. Ain’t nothin’ as real ’s this.” 

You take a breath. Laugh, lightly. His fingers touch yours, splayed out across the table, and your skin sparks at the contact. 

“Fuck,” you mutter. “Kind of a day, huh?” 

He shrugs. 

“Rough start.” He smiles. “Think we saved it, though.” 

You grin. Bury your nose back in your drink. The check comes and he pays, with the same worn, weathered wallet he’s had since the dawn of time — and then he stands and takes your hand. He leaves a crumpled tip on the tablecloth and you take the long way back to the hotel — up the bank and along the river, so he can watch your face under the moon and your reflection in black water. And so he can drag you close, and kiss you, and tell you you’re beautiful again and again and again when the stars paint you both silver. 

—

You do eventually make it back to the hotel. Eventually. 

You don’t want the night to end, so you pretend you’re not tired, but the truth is you’re exhausted. It’s been a fucking day. You kick your shoes off, and your dress, and you tug another one of Joel’s shirts over your head. And then you take one look at the fluffed-up duvet, and the thousand pillows stacked like ski hills — and you curl up on the sheets like a kitten. 

Joel’s right behind you. He climbs up beside you in just a pair of black boxers and the mattress dips under his weight. You stretch out and move closer, wriggling into his chest. He strokes thick fingers through your hair and you feel him hum. 

He reaches for the remote with his free hand and clicks the TV on. That stupid hotel information channel blares quietly. Color swims across the duvet. 

“Mm,” he mumbles. “What d’you wanna watch?” 

“Don’t care,” you yawn. You turn your face out of his chest, a little, to squint at the TV. “Haven’t watched cable TV since I was, like, five.” 

You can feel his eyes roll. You smile into his skin. He draws you closer to his side and flips aimlessly through channels. 

He pauses on one. American Pickers. You can’t even see the screen, the way you’re buried in his side, but you’ve spent enough time with your dad to know this shit when you hear it. 

“No,” you say, sharply, when you feel Joel perk up. “No. Absolutely not.” 

“Thought you didn’t care,” he says. 

“Yeah, well.” 

“You ain’t even watchin’,” he complains. 

“No.” 

He grumbles. Keeps surfing. 

“Storage Wars,” he says. 

“No.” 

“Ooh,” he says — like an actual, genuine ooh — “Pawn Stars.” 

“Oh my god,” you groan. You turn further into his chest. “I’m going to sleep.” 

“Alright,” he says. “Jesus. Fine. Here.” He clicks at the remote. “Here’s fuckin’ — don’t know what the hell this is.” 

You lift your head. Sigh in relief. You snatch the remote from his hand and crank the volume. 

“Fuck yeah,” you say. “Say Yes to the Dress.” 

“Oh, Christ,” he mumbles. But he doesn’t put up a fight. If you weren’t pressed so tightly against him right now you’re pretty sure you’d see him smile. 

You watch for a while, too tired to talk but too stubborn to sleep. You draw lazy circles on Joel’s stomach with the tip of your finger, dipping occasionally to skim the waistband of his boxers. He tenses up when you do that. Every time, like a reflex. His skin prickles and his breath pulls, and then you drag your hand back and he relaxes. 

He strokes aimlessly at your hair. His heart beats hard and strong under your cheek. He makes an inane comment every few minutes, directed at the screen, and you stifle your laugh in his chest. The bride on-screen tries something on — some cream, fishtailed monstrosity — and you feel Joel shake his head. She tries on another and he grumbles. 

“Jesus,” he mutters. “Poor lady. Got no goddamn taste.” 

You giggle. Your nose scrunches in his skin. His arm tightens, clutching you closer, and he buries a kiss at the crown of your head. 

“Mm,” he mumbles. “Somethin’ funny?” 

“You,” you say. “You’re cute.” 

“I’m cute?” 

“Yeah.” You drag a finger down his chest. You pause at the hem of his boxers and he stiffens almost instantly. “You’re cute.” 

He twitches, almost imperceptibly. Your hand drifts lower, just a little bit lower, and he sucks in a breath. His cock swells against fabric. 

He stops your hand when you reach for his lap. Wraps your wrist up in that soft-steel grip. 

“’N you’re a liar,” he says, softly. 

Your brows furrow. 

“I’m a—” 

“Liar,” he echoes. He cocks his head. Rolls his tongue across his teeth. “’N not a very good one, either.” 

You blink. You’re about to ask him what he means when he pins your trapped hand to the mattress and rolls on top of you. The TV drones somewhere behind him. 

He gathers up your other hand and pins them both above your head. He’s so fucking big, all of him. Just one of his palms folds easily over both of your wrists. You squirm a little, yelping his name, and he ignores you. His shirt rides up your hips when you wriggle in the sheets. 

“Joel,” you mumble. You’re not so sleepy anymore. 

He spreads your legs with his knee. His free hand slips between your thighs. You’re not wearing any underwear — just his shirt, and nothing else — and the realization makes him swear. He swipes his thumb up your slit, gathering slick, and his eyes go dark when he feels how fucking wet you are. How wet you’ve been all day, since you almost — almost — came in his car. 

“Asked you ‘f you came, in the car today, ’n you said yes.” He rolls his thumb over your clit and your hips buck into his hand. “But that ain’t true, is it?” 

You say something incoherent. He presses down with his thumb, lighting up a thousand nerves, and you bite so hard on your lip you taste blood. 

“No,” you squeak. 

“No,” he echoes. “Poor baby. You’re fuckin’ soaked.” The pressure on your clit lets up, and he cups your cunt with his warm hand. Your hips roll. You grind into the heel of his palm, desperate for friction, and he gives you fucking nothing. 

“Why didn’t you let me take care ‘a you?” he whispers. 

“It’s—” you squirm. He holds his hand stubbornly still, buried between your thighs, letting your slick soak his fingers. 

“Just wanted — wanted you to feel good,” you say. And it’s true. You just wanted to be close. You just wanted him. 

He’s not having that, though. Of course he’s not having that. 

“Don’t feel good ‘less you cum,” he says, softly. 

You’re quiet. His black eyes search yours. 

“S’okay, angel,” he murmurs. He drags two fingers through your folds and crooks them at your entrance. “Let’s fix it, yeah?” 

Your hips jerk. You wriggle uselessly, rutting into his palm. Your trapped wrists whine under his hand. 

He fucks you slow with his fingers. Excruciatingly slow. You can feel his pulse, when his wrist flexes between your thighs. He splits you open on his knuckles and you welcome the stretch. 

Your nails dig into your palms. You’d scratch him, if you could touch him. But you have to use your words — beg him over and over to go faster, deeper — and he doesn’t fucking listen. He likes watching you squirm. Maybe this is what you get for lying. 

“C’mon,” you whimper, “Joel, please—”

He goes even slower, if that’s possible. His fingers curl deep inside you and he pumps a lazy, languid rhythm.  

“Fuuuck,” you groan. You push up against his hand; try to fuck yourself on his fingers, but you’re pretty much pinned. The hand on your wrists makes sure of that. 

“Please,” you repeat. “No more lying. Won’t do it again, I swear to g—god, Joel, fuck, — please—” 

He drags his fingers out of you. You throw your head back and try not to curse him out. 

But then he’s letting your wrists go, and rolling off of you, and shuffling down the sheets to sprawl out on his back. 

You blink. Rub at your wrists. He pats his chest — come here — and you climb into his lap a little uncertainly. His cock strains against his boxers. It nudges your ass when you straddle him, prodding you through cotton, and he bites back a groan. Butterflies swarm your core. 

“C’mere,” he says. Pats his chest again. 

You hesitate. You’re not really sure what he wants. You shuffle forward a little, off of his lap and away from his cock, and hover over his stomach. He huffs. 

“Jesus,” he mutters. “Come here.” 

He grabs your hips. Not — rough, but a long way from gentle. He drags you higher, over his stomach and the flat plane of his chest, maneuvering your hips until they’re dripping over his mouth. 

You suck in a breath. Your legs tremble. You’re trying not to drop your whole weight to his face. But the grip he’s got on your thighs, pulling you down — says that’s exactly what he wants. 

“Sit down,” he growls. 

“I don’t —” You hesitate. The ache between your legs burns, and his mouth is inches from your cunt, and you want to sink down onto his tongue so fucking badly but you’ve never actually done this before. Not — not like this. 

“I’ve never...”

“Sit down,” he repeats. His drawl goes straight to your core. “’N make yourself cum.” 

Your breath sharpens. Stills. He parts his mouth — licks his lips, like he’s starving — and the gesture is so obscene it almost makes you moan. 

You can’t think straight. The throb between your legs is borderline painful. So — fuck it. You sink down, onto his mouth, and — 

“Holy fuck,” you yelp, “Joel—” 

He’s busy. His tongue is buried in your folds, licking up your sea, and his nose bumps your clit. The contact makes your hips roll, almost involuntarily. You grind against his face and he rewards you with a low, hungry sound at the back of his throat. 

He drags his mouth away for a split second. 

“Do that again,” he says. 

You hesitate. He doesn’t. He puts his hands on the backs of your thighs and rocks your hips forward, against his lips and his tongue and his nose, setting a rhythm that makes you tremble. When you’re sure he’s not gonna suffocate, or — when you kind of stop caring whether he does — he takes his hands away and you do it yourself. You put your palms out on the headboard and roll your hips into his mouth. 

And when you start to stumble a little, and the heat in your core pulls so tight you almost snap, he helps you. He dips the tip of his tongue into your cunt. Lets you ride him like that, with his soaked tongue licking deeper. 

“Oh my god,” you breathe. “F—feels so f-fucking good, Joel, fuck, I’m gonna—” 

He hums his approval, with his tongue still buried in your cunt. You cum across his face and he fucks you through it, lapping you up with soaked lips and dark eyes. It’s filthy — it’s filthy — and when you open your eyes long enough to look at him he’s completely fucked. His cock is straining at his boxers, somewhere underneath you, and you’re sure it must be downright painful at this point but he doesn’t seem to notice. Or he just doesn’t care. 

You start to lift your hips off his face and he tugs you back down. You yelp. 

“One more,” he says. 

He wraps his teeth around your swollen clit. Applies gentle, gentle pressure. Enough to rip his name from your throat. 

“I—fuck,” you pant. “I can’t.” 

“Yes you can,” he murmurs. “Y’owe me, angel. One for this afternoon—” he licks a stripe up your seam, and you writhe, “—’n one for tonight.” 

Your head tips. You brace shaky hands back on the headboard. 

This time he does the heavy lifting. He pays exclusive attention to your clit until you’re squirming, and chanting his name, and it’s this close to being too fucking much. He pulls you right to the edge and holds you in place with his hands on your hips. When his tongue slides inside you again, dipping warm and wet and wicked into your cunt — your second orgasm hits you so hard you see white. 

He doesn’t wait for you to come down. He flips you over right as you fall apart and drags his boxers down. His cock slides inside you and you’re so fucking soaked he bottoms out in a single thrust. You whine his name, somewhere between your own shaking, shallow breaths. He manages a few frantic thrusts, but he’s already dripping pre-cum, and he’s impossibly hard, and your muscles are choking his cock. The end of your orgasm drags out his own and he spills inside you with a moan. He kisses you, hard, and you taste yourself on his tongue. 

“Fuck,” he mumbles. His cock throbs inside you. You squeeze around him and he groans into your neck.

You’re vaguely aware that the TV is still on, blaring somewhere in the background. Say Yes to the Dress is long over. Chip and Joanna Gaines are demolishing a lake house on screen. 

He kisses you again. Slips out of you with a shallow breath. He rolls over onto his back, panting softly, and you nuzzle into his side. 

A few quiet moments pass. You put a palm to his chest and watch his breathing even out. He strokes a pattern up your back and you melt into his touch. 

“Um,” you say. “That was…” 

His fingers still over your spine. 

“Next time,” he murmurs, “tell me the fuckin’ truth.” 

You shift. You lay your chin on his chest and stare up at him. 

“Or what?” you say. “You’re gonna do that again? Cause if that’s the punishment…” 

He shakes his head. You tip forward to kiss him and his stubble rakes your jaw. 

“Impossible,” he mutters. 

“Shut up.” You smile into his mouth. You sink back against his chest, and you’re so fucking tired, all of a sudden. Your bones are heavy. You drape your leg over his and try to shuffle even closer. “You love it,” you slur. 

There’s a pause. Your brain jolts awake, and you think maybe you might have said too much. The wrong thing. You love it. You love me. 

But then his hand is on your back, again. Stroking lazy, aimless patterns. And his voice is honey in your hair. 

“Yeah,” he murmurs. “Maybe.”  

—

You drive back to Austin in the morning. 

Joel buys you a coffee on the way back, and lets you listen to your music, and this time he sings along. Reluctantly, at first. But you wear him down, the way you usually do. You crank the volume on some shitty pop song until the windows on his truck start to tremble. You watch his scowl twitch to something like a smile. 

You make record time getting home. You kind of wish there was traffic. Like, the bumper-to-bumper kind that drags a ninety-minute drive into an all-day affair. The kind that would normally make you want to rip your hair out. But you fucking wish for it, now, because then you wouldn’t have to leave him so soon. 

You wonder if he feels the same. He’s almost impossible to read, and it’s not like he’s keen on sharing. Getting him to express an emotion is like pulling out a tooth. 

But he’d been quiet, this morning. Quieter than usual. He’d held you tighter than ever, when you’d woken up in his arms. Kissed your lips, and your neck, and your shoulder. You’d pretty much had to shove him off you, when you’d finally decided it was time to shower. And even then he’d followed you, into the bathroom and into the water, watching you with puppy-dog eyes and a sad little scowl. You’d let him shampoo your hair with silent fingers and wrap you up afterwards, in a towel and then in his arms. 

So, yeah. He might not say it, and you don’t press it, but — you think he’s bummed. You think he’ll miss you. 

You’re almost done with your coffee when he gets off the freeway. He pulls onto your street and you shove it in the cupholder, next to his scribbled cup from yesterday. You’d never thrown it out. His stupid drawing still stares up at you. 

Your heart tightens. He pulls into your driveway, behind your dad’s car, and puts the truck in park. 

He squints at his watch. Frowns. 

“He’s home early,” he says, with a nod to your dad’s car. 

You shrug. 

“Maybe he called in?” 

“Your dad?” Joel scoffs. “That’d be a first.” 

You shrug again. You’re kind of preoccupied, trying to say goodbye to Joel. You don’t really give a shit if your dad called in or not. But for whatever reason Joel seems intrigued. 

“I’ll check on him,” you say. “I’m sure he’s fine.” 

“Yeah,” Joel says. He sounds weird, you think. Strained. “Sure.” 

He tears his gaze back to you. His eyes soften. 

“I had fun,” you say, softly. “This weekend.” 

“Yeah,” he echoes. “Me too, angel.” 

You swallow. Your hand folds on the handle, but you don’t open the door. It’s like you can’t quite bring yourself to leave. To get out of his car. 

“Go on,” Joel says. He smiles. Nods again to your dad’s car. “Sure he missed ya.” 

“I’ll call,” he says, when you still don’t move. “Promise. Just — gimme a few hours t’get settled.” 

“Yeah,” you mumble. “Okay.” 

He watches you. He takes half a breath, like he wants to say something else, but he just — doesn’t. 

“I’m sorry again,” you say, quietly. “About the job.” 

He shakes his head. 

“Stop,” he says. 

“I’m just—” 

“Stop.” His eyes dart to the windshield, like he’s checking for the all-clear — and then he leans over the console. Kisses you, with his broad hand on your cheek. You mumble into his mouth and sink into his touch. 

He pulls back. Blinks. The taste of him settles on your tongue. 

“Fuck the job,” he says. 

You chew at your lip. Your pulse pounds at your throat. 

“Yeah,” you say, after a beat. “Fuck the job.” 

Your hand wraps around the handle and this time you do get out. You hop to the ground and squint at the sun, slinging your bag across your shoulder, shoving your phone to your back pocket. You weave between Joel’s truck and your dad’s car and make your way up the drive. Up your front porch steps. You turn around on your threshold and Joel’s already pulling out, reversing down your driveway, lifting two lazy fingers off the wheel in a subtle wave goodbye. And then he’s just — gone. He’s back across the street, pulling into his own drive, and you seal yourself inside before you can chase him. 

— 

Your dad isn’t in the living room. Which is weird, since that’s, like, the only room he lives in. Almost as weird as his car in the driveway at 11 am on a Monday. 

You drop your duffel in the entryway. Peer into the living room and back down the hall. 

“Dad?” you call. 

Nothing. You frown. He usually greets you at the door like a Spaniel. 

“Hello? Dad?” You duck into the kitchen. No dad, but there is a stack of plates in the sink. An empty Hamburger Helper package left out on the counter. So a sign of life, at least. 

“Hellooooo,” you singsong. You grab a glass from a cabinet and fill it up at the sink. You push the kitchen door back open. Wander out into the dining room. “I’m ho—” 

There he is. Sitting at the dining table. Elbows on the wood. 

“Jesus,” you say, a little startled. “You scared me. Did you not hear me calling you? I just got home, like, two seconds ago.” 

He doesn’t respond. Your brows furrow. You take in the whole scene — the slumped shoulders, the bags under his eyes. The four glass bottles of beer beside his hand, all empty, and the rest of the case on the floor by his feet. At least two more empties, from what you can see. 

You can smell it on his breath. On his clothes. In the stale, heavy air. 

He’s hammered. 

“Dad,” you say, a little uncertain. “What—”

“Where’s Joel?” 

“Um.” You set your glass down. Your breath crawls up your throat. “He went home.” 

He nods. He picks up the bottle closest to him and swirls the dregs. When he looks up his eyes are dark. 

“How was the trip?” he asks, quietly. 

“Yeah,” you say. “Yeah, it was — good. Are you—”

“How was the hotel?” he interrupts. “Room good?” 

He already asked you that. Yesterday. When he insisted on speaking on the phone. But you chalk it up to a full case of beer. 

“Um, yeah,” you say. “It was good.” 

“Good view, right?” he slurs. “The one I booked? S’posed to be a garden view.” 

You nod, slowly. 

“Yeah,” you say, again. “Good view.” 

He slams his bottle down. A crack snakes up the neck. 

“Why the fuck,” he asks, and you flinch at his voice, “—are you lyin’ t’me?” 

Your heart stutters in your chest. The blood runs from your skin. 

“What?” 

“Sit down,” he slurs. He points to an empty chair. 

You swallow. Feel it stick. 

“You’re drunk,” you say, cooly. Or at least — you hope it’s cool. You try to keep your voice even. “And I’m tired, actually, so—”

“Sit your ass down,” he snarls. 

You sit down. 

“Dad,” you say. 

He shakes his head. Takes a deep, unsteady breath. 

“You wanna go first?” he asks. “Or should I?” 

taglist (lmk if you wanna be added!)

@bbyanarchist @elissaaa @nana90azevedo @cannolighost @jbb-sgr @cedricbitch @nenyahh @totallynotastanacc @jasminedragoon @hrdc0re-goth @myswficlist @brucewaynescock @aestheticangel612 @re3kin @untamedheart81 @pedrosheartshapedbeardspot @am-3-thyst @godisawomansblog @prettyangelsthings @walkingintheheartbreaksatellite @daddy-din @crocodiile @socket-seahorse-blog @confused-and-clumsy @she-could-never @suzmagine @artsymaddie @mellmannn @virgogaia @mysteriousheat4058 @fandomoniumflurry @projectionistwrites @buckyandlokirunmylife @brattynbookish @carriganbrowning @brittmb11 @iamsherlocked1479 @ghostofjoharvelle @kay2601 @casa-boiardi

@silkiers @mrsquill @stileslvr @joelssheep @joelsversion @pedropascalsbbg @bonesblow @madblue3500 @evyiione @missandaei @trishpish-blog @sarahhxx03 @pedritosgirl2000 @zliteraturehoe @thedeadsingwithdirtintheirmouths @l0vem3n @nelsohanx @cassiecasluciluce @wildcat116 @sanriowhorelol @ifall4dilfs @act816 @lunarxeclipse @gracevnn @papiispunk @anner--nanner @illusivepeony @pureaustralianhoney @peqchsoup @fifia-writes @hallofagayqueer @livinxdeadxgrl @sentients17 @jamesmasbone @pattwtf @shjl15 @caitispunk @mmmmandoz @ssweetart42 @eyelismtears @h1ghinmiami @olivermarfanking @hayley-the-comet @abigails-gf @blondewonk @worhols @lesmismakesmehappy @subconsciouscollapse @lucylynnrose @foras @kosh-kaj-blog @jazzy-music-cat @abuttoncalledsmalls @sarahp-77 @the-names-peach@yo-its-jackie @iluvurfather @llovegallore @jessahmewren @sparklingwine829229 @vickie5446 @lmariephoto37 @defibrillator7 @winwin70 @joelsguitar @marnle @spideysimpossiblegirl @vickie5446 @xocalliexo @yiikkesss

@goldenhxurs @akah565 @spacelatinos4life @mellymbee @purplexical @whichwitchwanda @mandofanclub @scarletsloveletter @thewiigers @zarakirbyy @cordeliasenvy @iwantaharrystylesalbum @cumulonimbus34 @tremendouscreationperson @sweetorangecakeboi @toomanynights @chantelle-mh @willbereturningshortly @kelesisworld @awxcoffeexno @siggy-things @joybabyjune @carlsssbarkley @bluetattoos @thefourteenthofoctober @spaceface25 @lestlie @oliveg95 @a-rose-of-amber @ninja-ubg @ladybubblelift

[angrycollectivecollectorr]

#Them

[angrycollectivecollectorr]

We don’t get the reveal till the final episode of the last of us but.. Joel is a suicide survivor. He tried, he missed, he survived. He lost his daughter, his everything and he wanted to end it. We finally understand that by the end of the season. Rewind back to episode 5. Joel watches Henry kill Sam in front of him, losing everything right in front of him, then watches him shoot himself. And not miss. And again we don’t even realize till later but imagine seeing a different ending to your own story play out in front of you like that.

[angrycollectivecollectorr]

To Hell and Back l Two (Joel Miller x Female Reader)

Series Masterlist l Previous l Next

Summary: After escaping a group of brutal slavers, you are left with permanent physical and emotional scars. Unwilling to put your trust in another human being ever again, you spend a year fighting for survival alone in the post outbreak world. But when you choose to save the life of a man named Joel Miller, the wall that you’ve built to protect yourself slowly begins to crumble.

Pairing: Joel Miller x Female Reader

Warnings/Tags: 18+ only, minors DNI. Canon violence, canon language, reader has a flashback, mentions of slavers, implied threat of assault, guns, reader gets groped, reader has a panic attack, a lot of angst, trauma. Soft Joel, protective Joel, and I even threw in some domestic Joel because just imagine that old man making you a nice lil late night snack. 🥹 I think I got most of the major warnings out of the way, I’m sorry if I missed anything!

Word Count: 10.3k (for ffs)

A/N: I am going to start off by saying, sorry this is so damn long lmao. I also hope it flows and it isn’t too messy since there is a lot going on in this chapter. But it is a miniseries which is why I need to get all these scenes in one go. Anywho. I want to take a moment and shout out some lovelies who either listened to me ramble about this fic, read snippets, or helped me with phrasing @beardsanddetectives @cavillscurls @thelightsandtheroses @morning-star-joy @cupofjoel and I hope I am not missing anyone, but thank you so much for all your help and input my loves 🤍

Smoke was coming off my jacket

and you didn’t seem to mind

I left a long trail of ashes and

you said, I like your style

California l Spring, 2022

Your hand trembled slightly as you gripped your pistol and aimed it at his chest.

You’d never pointed your gun at another human being before. At least not one that was still alive.

“Hey now, it’s alright. You can trust us.”

Anxiously, you glimpsed from the man who had just spoken to the woman who stood beside him.

Surely the two had to be related. Both possessed the same fiery red hair, a face full of freckles, and vivid green eyes. They stood before you with their weapons lowered in an attempt to show you that they weren’t a threat to your safety. 

The man, who had to be in his mid to late thirties, moved to step forward, but halted in his tracks when he caught sight of the way your finger had twitched over the trigger. “My name is Mark,” he said, carefully gesturing to himself with his free hand. In his opposite hand, he clutched his rifle, an assault style weapon that made your gun look like a fucking toy in comparison. Still, it was you who had the upper hand, at least for now. “This here is my sister. Her name is Jessa.” He paused and when you said nothing, he asked, “Can you tell us your name?”

Chewing your bottom lip, you shook your head at him in response. 

You didn’t trust them.

Not quite yet.

Jessa, who was younger and looked to be closer to your own age, offered you a kind smile. “That’s alright. You don’t have to tell us your name until you feel comfortable.” She took a look around at the small, makeshift camp that you had made for yourself. “Are you all by yourself, sweets?”

You quickly wracked your brain. 

“No,” You fibbed. “I’m with my father. He should be back any minute now. He’s armed and he does not take all too kindly to strangers, so you’d best be on your way before he sees you.” You added in a steadier tone, “He won’t even think twice. He’ll just kill you on the spot, so you better leave right now. Or else.”

Amused, Mark let out a soft chuckle. “Oh, come on now, dollface. You don’t have to lie to us,” he stated, shaking his head. “Let’s try this again and let’s be honest this time, alright? How long have you been alone?”

Your throat bobbed as you swallowed harshly. 

Fuck.

He had seen right through the bullshit threat. 

“For about three or four days now,” You admitted, your shoulders sagging in defeat. “I was with my father and my sister. The three of us were on our way up north. We were trying to get to Seattle to the quarantine zone, but then they were—”

You suddenly stopped.

It felt like someone had driven their fist right into your gut, knocking all the wind out of your lungs and hindering your ability to speak.

You couldn’t even say it out loud.

Gruesome images of them being torn apart limb from limb flashed through your mind. Bile slowly started climbing its way up your throat and your stomach churned violently.

You were going to be sick.

“Are they both dead?” Mark questioned you.

You nodded, whispering shakily, “Yes.”

Jessa frowned. “I’m so sorry for your loss, honey. If it’s any consolation, me and Mark know exactly how it feels. We lost our entire family about three years ago. It’s the hardest thing we’ve ever been through.” Swinging back her own rifle behind her, she approached you and reached out, placing her hand over yours—the one that was still clutching your weapon. She didn’t even so much as flinch at the way the barrel was now pointed at her, how it was just an inch or two away from her chest. It didn’t seem to faze her that all it would take was you bringing your index finger down a bit harder on the trigger and she would be dead. “We know you must be fucking terrified, but it’s okay. You can trust us. We’re good, honest people and we just want to help you. But we can’t do that if you try and kill us, now can we?”

Slowly, Jessa guided you to lower your gun. She then looked over her shoulder, exchanging a look with her brother, as if asking him to back her up.

“Yeah. She’s right. We just want to help you,” he repeated after her. “We aren’t going to hurt you. If we wanted to, we probably would have by now, don’t you think so?”

You let out a tiny breath you hadn’t even realized you’d been holding and loosened your iron grip on your pistol.

He did make a fair point.

Now that your gun was pointed at the ground, he could have easily killed you. And yet, he’d made no move to blow your fucking head off. 

Maybe they really were good people.

But what if they weren’t?

What if it was just a trap?

You didn’t know what to fucking think.

All you knew was that you were so helplessly lost now that your family was gone.

You were afraid.

Alone.

Jessa turned back to you. “Listen, we’re part of a settlement,” she informed you. “It’s not all too far from here, maybe six or seven miles tops. We’ve got a really big group of people and we’re always looking to bring in anyone in need. Come with us, sweets. There’s plenty of food, water, and we can you into some fresh, clean clothes too. How does that sound?” 

You momentarily hesitated, still unsure whether or not you could trust the two strangers. 

How did it sound?

It sounded too fucking good to be true.

“It’s a safe place,” Mark assured you from behind her. He could see the reluctance written all over your face. 

“It’s as safe as safe can be,” Jessa promised. She touched your arm and flashed you another smile, one that was more kind than the first—one that was so comforting it made you feel like you could actually trust her. “So? What do you say? Will you come back with us? Will you let us help you?”

You nervously bit the inside of your cheek.

Scared, starving, and exhausted, their offer for a safe haven was much too tempting to decline.

Besides, how long could you possibly survive out here all on your own?

“Alright,” You finally agreed after a moment. “I’ll come with you.”

“There’s just one condition,” Mark stated, falling into step beside his sister in front of you. “We’re going to need you to hand over your weapon.”

“What?” You stared at him. “Why?”

“Oh, don’t worry. It’s protocol,” he said, waving a hand dismissively at you. “It’s purely for safety reasons. Anyone who comes into our group must surrender their weapons. We want to be sure that we’re bringing in someone who isn’t going to be a threat to our people. We have children, so we just want to be cautious, you know?”

“I guess that does makes sense,” You admitted. 

“You’ll get it back,” Jessa reassured you. “Once you speak to the council and they determine you aren’t a threat, you’ll get your gun back. Okay?”

Left with very little choice, you agreed. “Okay.”

Mark held out his hand for the weapon.

Slowly, you placed your pistol in his open palm.

“Perfect.” Jessa chirped. “Now grab your things and let’s get going. If we hurry up, we can make it back before nightfall.”

Nodding, you turned around to grab your pack. 

The second you turned your back, the barrel of the same gun you’d just handed to Mark poked you between your shoulder blades and you froze, your blood running cold in your veins.

“Hands up, bitch,” Jessa commanded. Her warm and friendly tone had vanished. “And turn around towards me slowly. Now.”

Terrified, you did as you were told and you lifted both of your hands, turning around on the heel of your sneaker to face her.

Her expression, much like her tone, was frigid.

Hostile.

“You’re going to do exactly as I say when I say it.” She held up her rifle, aiming it at you. “And if you don’t, you fucking die. Do you understand?”

“Please,” You choked out. “Don’t—”

“Do you fucking understand?” Jessa repeated in a hiss, her finger hovering over the trigger. When she was met with a small, meek nod, she turned to look at her brother. “Cuff her.”

Mark smirked. He tucked your gun away into the waistband of his jeans and reached into his back pocket, pulling out a pair of rusted handcuffs. He walked around and stood behind you, instructing, “Hands behind your back.” Once he had both of your wrists in one hand, he used the other to slip on the cuffs, tightening them so hard that the old oxidized steel dug painfully into your skin. “She’s a pretty one,” he murmured. As soon as he made certain the cuffs were securely fastened, he put a hand on your ass, groping it roughly. “Oh, you’re going to be popular with the guys, dollface. Kind of makes me want to break you in, right here and right now—give me a few minutes with her, Jess.”

Completely paralyzed with fear, all you could do was stand there in silence as his hands continued to roam your lower body, feeling you up through your jeans. He squeezed at your inner thigh, then brushed up over your zipper.

“Mark! That’s not what she’s for, you idiot,” Jessa reminded him, rolling her eyes. “Now quit fucking around and let’s start heading back to camp.”

She whirled around and started leading the way.

Mark grinned and pressed his mouth to your ear as he whispered in cruel reassurance, “Don’t you worry, now. I’ll get my chance with you—we’re all going to our chance with you.”

He grabbed you by your upper arm and roughly shoved you forward, leading you to what would inevitably be hell on earth.

Joel leaned against the tree with his arms crossed over his chest. His dark eyes were fixed intently on you, carefully observing you from where he stood, more so out of concern rather than curiosity.

Something wasn’t right.

It was late in the afternoon and the two of you had been about halfway into the six hour trek down to Jackson when Joel offered to stop for a while, just long enough for the both of you to rest and catch a quick breather before finishing the journey—but as he continued watching you, Joel had started to realize that perhaps stopping had done you much more harm than it’d done you good. 

Just a few feet away from where he was standing and keeping his eye on you, you were sat perched on top of a small, flat boulder hugging your knees up to your chest with both hands wrapped tightly around the grip of your pistol.

You were in a trance like state, staring straight off into the distance at nothing in particular. Your face was blank. Emotionless.

It seemed like the lights were on, but nobody was fucking home.

Joel could see the faraway look in your eyes.

You were gone. You’d checked out and completely disconnected from reality.

From this fucking planet.

You were sinking, slowly drowning in some kind of thought or perhaps it was a memory—whatever it was that was currently preoccupying your mind, it sure as hell wasn’t anything good and although he had no fucking clue how he’d managed to clock it so easily, Joel had sensed it the instant that you’d drifted off. 

The deeper that you went and the further you lost yourself, the harder your hands clutched your gun, causing thin delicate skin to stretch taut over your knuckles. It wasn’t until Joel noticed the way your chest began to rise and fall rapidly as your breaths quickened, the way you had started struggling for air, that he decided it was time intervene before it worsened and you suffocated under the weight of whatever it was that was sitting so heavily on you.

Pushing himself away from the tree, Joel began to approach you, taking extra care so as not to spook you into turning your pistol on him and pulling the trigger in a moment of panic. He lifted both hands and held them out in front of him. Cautiously, Joel made his way over towards where you were sitting on the boulder, his footsteps slow and careful.

“Hey,” he called out to you, keeping his tone firm, but somehow still gentle as he tried to garner your attention. When you didn’t even acknowledge him or his presence, he tried again, speaking a little bit louder this time. “Hey now. It’s okay. Everythin’ is alright—come back.” He drew closer and closer to you, taking tiny step after tiny step on the toes of his worn, black leather boots. “It’s alright, darlin’. I need you to come back to me now, okay? You ain’t where you think you are. You’re alright—”

The sound of a twig snapping underneath his boot startled you. Jumping to your feet, you aimed your gun at him with shaking hands and wild, terrified eyes.

Even as your finger trembled over the trigger, Joel remained calm. “Hey, take it easy. It’s okay. You’re alright. Look, it’s me. It’s just me and I ain’t gonna do anythin’ to hurt you,” he swore. He showed you his empty hands, hoping that you would be able to snap out of it and see that he wasn’t a threat. That you weren’t in any kind of danger. But as you held your weapon, chest heaving as you panicked, Joel knew it didn’t matter that his hands were empty. It didn’t make a fucking difference. As you held your weapon, chest heaving heavily in panic, he knew it wasn’t him who was standing there in front of you. It was someone else.

Whoever you’re seeing standing there in his place, it was someone who had done god knows what to you. Joel had this gut wrenching hunch that it had something to do with the marks he’d seen around your wrists back at the cabin.

The mere thought of it sent an unpleasant chill up the length of his spine.

Joel spoke again. “I ain’t gonna hurt you.” He felt the sudden urge to reach out for you, but knowing it would be unwelcome, he resisted it. All he could do was attempt to use his words to bring you back to the present. Back to him. “Breathe. You’re safe. I need you to breathe, can you do that for me? Do you think you can breathe for me, darlin’?”

Somehow, his voice penetrated its way in through the thickness of the white fog that you’d been lost in. You had been stumbling around helplessly in it, desperately searching for a way out. Joel’s heavy, deep Southern drawl permeated the memory, causing the haunting images from that fateful day when your life had taken a sharp turn for the worst to dissolve into nothing.

“Just breathe. Nice and slow. Inhale through your nose, then out through your mouth. Easy does it.” Joel controlled his own breathing, slowing it down to demonstrate his instructions.

You stared at him with wide eyes as you fought to get the rise and fall of your chest to match his.

How the hell do you know what to do? 

Joel could practically hear your question ringing in in your mind amidst the chaos. “My kid gets these awful nightmares sometimes. Wakes up in a panic thinkin’ she’s somewhere else, somewhere unsafe. So my brother’s wife, Maria, she was kind enough to show me what to do whenever it happens. She taught me a couple different breathin’ techniques that help soothe Ellie and calm her down. Told me it helps if I do them with her,” he explained to you. He could tell that you were now coming out of the worst of it and that you were finally starting to get some oxygen back into your lungs. He lowered his hands. Your pistol was still aimed at him, but Joel trusted you enough to know that you wouldn’t pull the trigger and blow his fucking head off. “C’mon, breathe. There we go. That’s it. Easy does it, now. In through your nose and out through your mouth, that’s it. Atta girl.” 

It took a good minute or two, but your breaths fell into sync with his own and before you knew it, the both of you were breathing together in harmony.

You weren’t in California. 

The man standing before you didn’t have red hair and green eyes. He didn’t have that twisted smirk on his face. He wasn’t putting his hands on you.

He wasn’t hurting you. 

He was helping you. 

Swallowing dryly, you lowered your weapon. Your gaze met Joel’s and somehow you found the balls to look him in his eyes for the very first time. Even though you had turned your gun on him, he didn’t seem to be bothered by it all. The look of worry on his face had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that you could’ve easily killed him just now. It was as if he’d known for certain that you wouldn’t.

“There we go,” Joel said after another minute had passed by. “You see? You’re alright. You’re safe.”

There was comfort in his words.

In his brown eyes.

Fuck, there was comfort in him. 

Still. Your mind refused to allow you to accept it.

At least, not completely. 

Averting your gaze, you shuffled your weight from one foot to the other and then back again.

Joel cleared his throat lightly. “It’s gettin’ late,” he murmured. “We should get a move on. We’ve still got a bit of ways to go and we really don’t wanna get ourselves caught out in the middle of nowhere after dark for too long, y’know?”

You gave him a small nod and started to gather up your belongings. You picked up your canteen, now almost completely empty after you’d shared your water with him during the first leg of the hike, and shoved it into the front pocket of your pack.

“It’s kinda cold,” Joel stated. “And it’s only gonna get colder. You warm enough in that little denim jacket?”

You shrugged your shoulder at him, not thinking anything much of the question. I’m fine. 

However, as if on cue, a chilly breeze made its way through Wyoming’s plains, causing you to shiver.

Joel quickly shrugged out of his brown jacket. “You mind if I—?”

You tossed him a confused glance. 

Do I mind if you what? 

Joel stepped towards you and lifted his arms as if he were going to put them around you. Flinching, every muscle in your entire body went rigid and he halted his movements. “It’s alright. I’m just gonna give you my jacket, that’s all,” he assured you. He patiently waited for a small nod of approval. Once he had it, he draped his jacket over your shoulders and then took several steps back, giving you your space. “Should keep you from freezin’ out here.”

As he turned around and walked over to where he had set his rifle down, you stood there somewhat stupefied over what he’d just done. Something so damn simple, and yet you couldn’t seem to wrap your fucking brain around it. 

Willing yourself to move, you carefully slid both of your arms into the sleeves of his jacket, wrapping it around your body. The scent of him, a mixture of earthy sandalwood and whatever soap he used to wash his clothes, filled your senses and a strange, but pleasant warmth radiated through your chest, gradually spreading itself to the rest of you from head to toe.

Ignoring the feeling, you picked up your backpack along with your bow and quiver of arrows, slinging everything over your shoulders.

Joel slung the strap of his rifle over his shoulder and turned back to you. “Ready to get goin’?”

You used your pistol, gesturing with it for him to go ahead and walk in front of you, much like he’d done for the first half of the trip.

He let out a small sigh. “Alright, I get it. Still don’t fully trust me. Well, we’ll keep workin’ on that.”

A couple of hours had gone by. The slanting rays of the setting sun gave a warm orange tinge to the skies as late evening began settling itself in.

“You wanna know somethin’?” Joel asked.

You looked up at the back of his head, eyes fixing themselves on his mop of thick, unkempt salt and pepper waves. Occasionally, as you’d been slowly trudging along behind Joel, you stole glimpses of the way his hair curled at the nape of his neck and brushed against the the collar of his henley.

Despite the lack of a response, Joel continued to talk. “Earlier at the cabin, just when I was startin’ to come back around, I heard a woman singin’ to me. At least, it seemed like she was singin’ to me. It was a real pretty song too.” He glanced over his shoulder at you with curiosity. “Was that you?”

You blinked at him, keeping a straight face. 

“Hm, no I suppose it wasn’t you,” he answered his own question. He turned his attention back to the path ahead of him. “I reckon that it must have just been some sorta dream I had while I was out cold. But it sounded so vivid and so fuckin’ real. And the strangest part of it all is that I don’t know how it’s even possible for me to dream of a voice like that,” he mused aloud.

Oh? Unable to help yourself, you moved yourself from out behind Joel and fell into step beside him. Now it was you riddled with curiousness. What do you mean by that? 

Joel glanced down at you. He gripped the leather strap of his rifle and shrugged his shoulder. “Well, to be honest, I don’t think I’ve ever heard a voice quite like that in my whole entire life,” he told you. He shrugged once more, his arm brushing against yours by accident. Joel half expected you to deck him for it, but much to his surprise, it didn’t seem like his touch had bothered you. “It was too fuckin’ gorgeous. So beautiful that part of me wonders if it was someone out of this world.” He paused and peered at you, detecting a glimmer of light in your eyes. “Felt like I had a real life angel singin’ to me.”

You felt the corners of your lips threatening to turn upwards. Turning your face away from him, it took everything you had in you to force them down.

“Well look at that. You’re walkin’ right next to me,” Joel observed after a minute.

Your head whipped back around.

“Must mean that I’m doin’ somethin’ right, huh darlin’?”

You snorted, tossing him an eye roll. 

I think I liked it better when you weren’t talking.

Still, you remained at his side. 

The rest of the trek was silent.

Night had just fallen by the time that you and Joel finally made it to Jackson. The moment that you’d set your sights on the massive wooden gate out in the distance, your heart began to pound.

The closer the both of you drew to the barrier, the easier it was to see the men and women who were standing on a platform on top of the gate, heavily armed as they kept watch—their lights illuminated the perimeter of the the settlement and lit up the velvet purple sky.

You stopped dead in your tracks. Oh fuck that.

Joel shook his head. “It’s alright, don’t be scared.”

There’s six people standing on top of that gate with fucking assault rifles. And you don’t expect me to be scared? Are you for real?

“Look, things might be a little tense at first when the patrolmen see us,” he admitted, raking a hand through his hair. “None of them have any idea that I’m still alive, but as soon as they see that it’s me, they’re gonna stand down. All I need is for you to stay calm and follow my lead, alright?” He nodded at the pistol in your hand. “I’m also gonna need for you to put your gun away and out of sight.”

You glared at him, your eyes flashing angrily in the darkness.

You said I could have my weapons on me. 

Joel held up his hand. “I promise that I ain’t gonna let anythin’ bad happen to you, okay? I swear it on my fuckin’ life,” he vowed. “You have my word. No one is gonna hurt you, I won’t let them. All I need is for you to stay calm and do as I say. Please.”

Your mind was screaming, begging you to run and run fast. Instead, you found yourself reluctantly tucking your gun into the waistband of your jeans, concealing it just like Joel had asked you to. 

“Stay behind me,” he instructed, shoving his own rifle behind him. He began leading the way towards the gate and beckoned for you to follow.

The second the two of you stepped out from the darkness and into the light, the sound of firearms cocking broke through the silence of the night. 

“Stop right there!” A woman’s voice shouted. “Or we’ll fucking shoot!”

“Melissa, it’s me!” Joel called out, holding up his hands. “It’s Joel!”

“Wait a goddamn minute, everyone fucking stand down!” Melissa loudly barked the order at the five other patrol men and women who were standing on either side of her with their firearms aimed and at the ready. “Joel? Joel Miller, is that really you?” She leaned her body over the gate and squinted at him, letting an incredulous laugh. “Well butter my fucking ass and call me a damn biscuit, the man is alive! Quick, open up the gates! Somebody go and get Tommy! Let’s go, fucking move it people!”

Joel dropped his hands, sighing in relief.

You, on the other hand, were scared shitless and wondered if it was too late to make a run for it.

“Remember,” he said, looking back at you. “Calm. Okay?”

You forced a small, tight nod of your head.

Okay. 

The gate’s doors pulled apart and he led you up to them and through to the other side where you and Joel were met with a frantic crowd of at least two dozen people—the obnoxious, overlapping chatter coupled with the blatant stares you were receiving caused an overwhelming feeling of anxiousness to wash over you in a massive wave that, if you let it, would drown you right there on the spot. Refusing to make eye contact with anybody, you fixed your gaze on Joel, keeping it focused on the broadness of his back as more and more people encircled the both of you, caging you in with nowhere to run.

“Joel!” Melissa elbowed her way through the large crowd, rushing up to him. She grabbed him by the arms, giving him a quick once over. “Holy shit! We thought you were fucking dead! I can’t believe it!”

“Where’s Tommy?” Joel asked her.

“At home with Maria. Lisa went to go pull him out of bed—where the hell have you been, Joel?”

Joel pursed his lips together tightly. He could feel you inching yourself forward, trying to stand close to him as more people joined the scene. The toes of your boots touched the heels of his, your chest lightly brushing against his back. While Joel didn’t blame the people of the town for being curious, he wasn’t all too fond of the way they were staring at you—the gestures, the finger pointing, muttering and whispering. He didn’t have to see you to know it was making you uncomfortable, and his priority was to get you out of there and somewhere where you would feel safe. “Listen, it’s a long story I ain’t got time for right this minute. I need Tommy—”

“Miller!”

A loud, booming voice came from behind Melissa.

It belonged to a tall, bulky blond haired man—his mere presence was intimidating, proven by how it had taken absolutely nothing for the crowd to part and make room for him to pass through. Smirking, he sauntered up to Joel and remarked, “I thought you were a fucking goner.”

Joel’s jaw clenched, but he said nothing.

The tension between the two men could be sliced with a fucking machete.

His blue eyes flickered over Joel’s shoulder to you. “Well, well, well. Who is this sweet little lady?”

You stepped even closer to Joel, pressing yourself against his backside.

“None of your fuckin’ business, that’s who.”

Keith’s smirk widened. “Actually, as head of safety and security for this community, it fucking is my business,” he reminded him. “She infected?”

Joel raised his eyebrows. “Does she look infected to you?”

“You know the commune’s rules, Miller.” Without tearing his eyes away from you, Keith called over his shoulder, “Bring out one of the hounds! Now!”

Behind him, Joel heard a gasp.

Hounds?

Joel whirled around. “It’s alright,” he said quickly before you could panic. “We have dogs that have been trained to sniff out the cordyceps infection. It’s just gonna smell you, that’s all.”

The crowd backed away as a woman with cropped hair brought out a large sized black dog on a chain leash attached to a brown leather harness. Once it caught sight of you, the unfamiliar newcomer, the animal began to bark and growl, thrashing around as it tried to lunge himself towards you. He tugged at his leash so violently that he nearly knocked his handler over. The woman unclipped the leash and set the dog free—he approached you, snarling and baring his teeth.

You started to back away, but Joel stopped you.

“Relax,” he muttered to you under his breath. He moved to stand beside you and held out his hand, offering it in attempt to comfort you and ease the fear. He hadn’t expected you to accept it, so when you placed your hand in his and laced your fingers with his own, he was taken by complete surprise. 

You squeezed his rough, calloused fingers as the dog came closer towards you. Nervously, you held your free hand out to him, prompting him to snap at you. Somehow, you mustered enough courage to hold it steady and the animal growled, but then gave it a sniff. When he didn’t detect what he was searching for, he happily wagged his tail and gave your hand friendly lick before running back over to his handler who put him back on his leash.

You breathed out in relief. 

“There,” Joel snapped at Keith. “You satisfied?”

Keith clicked his tongue. “Almost,” he replied. He walked over to you, another smirk tugging at the corners of his lips. “What’s your name, dollface?”

Your stomach dropped at the nickname. Looking down at the dirt, you didn’t reply.

“Aw, she’s shy! That is adorable.” Keith let out a raspy laugh, causing a couple of the onlookers to laugh along with him. “What’s the matter, sweetie pie? Hm? Cat got your tongue?”

Joel dropped your hand, his nostrils flaring. “Back off asshole or else—”

The blond patrolman eyed the weapon hanging on your shoulder. “That’s a really nice bow you’ve got there,” Keith stated, cutting off his threat. “But we do have rules. Newcomers have to surrender their weapons so they can be stored away securely. We don’t know you and until we can know for sure you won’t be a threat to the people of this town, you’re going to have to surrender that bow along with all other weapons you’re carrying.” Keith lowered his voice as he added, “And I would advise you not to try and hide anything because I’m going to be the one to pat you down—and I’ll be thorough. I don’t take all too kindly to liars, so keep that in mind.”

“You just threaten her in front of me?” Trying his hardest not to cause a scene with so many people watching the three of you, Joel kept his voice low and quiet—but the sharp, dangerous edge to his tone couldn’t be missed. 

“Of course I didn’t,” Keith responded, innocently. “All I was doing was letting her know how we work around here in Jackson. We’ve been operating the commune the same way for years now for a good reason. The rules we set in place apply to any and all newcomers, regardless of who they came here with.” He held out his hands do you. “Surrender all of your weapons to me. Now.”

Shaking your head, you took a step back. This was not what you’d agreed to. This wasn’t the promise that Joel had made you back at the cabin.

Joel glared at him. “She ain’t surrenderin’ a damn thing—”

But it was too late.

Keith stepped towards you and went for the bow. As his hand shot out to take it from your shoulder, you quickly turned your body and swiftly dodged it. He felt his face burn in red hot anger as several onlookers gasped at your act of rebelliousness. Furious, Keith reached for you again and grabbed you, taking you by the upper part of your arm in a harsh grasp that made you squeak out in pain.

You lifted your opposite arm and swung a curled fist up towards his face, but he caught your wrist in his other hand before it could connect with his jawline. 

Joel!

You tried to say his name.

But you fucking couldn’t. 

Your mouth opened, and nothing came out. For as hard you pushed and tried to force it, you couldn’t find your voice. Instead, all that fell from your lips was a pathetic, strangled little cry. You yanked and pulled, struggling as you tried to tear yourself out of Keith’s hold.

Livid, Joel nearly went fucking blind with rage. He snatched up Keith by the of his collar of his leather jacket, ripping him away from you. Though he was still sore as fuck from the fall off of his horse three days ago, he used every ounce of strength he had in him to throw him down into the dirt at the feet of a fellow patrolman named Wyatt. “Don’t. Touch. Her.” He could barely manag to bite out the words through his gritted teeth. “Ever.”

Wyatt helped him up to his feet. “You alright?”

“Get the fuck off me!” Keith snarled, pushing him away. His chest was heaving and his face turned a deep shade of red. Whether it was because he was embarrassed or if it was because he was angry, no one could quite tell the difference. One thing was for damn sure, he wasn’t used to someone going against his authority and everyone watching held their breaths, waiting to see what he was going to do next, especially because the man going against him happened to be their leader’s brother in law. “What the fuck is your goddamn problem, Miller? It’s protocol—”

“Not today it ain’t.”

Keith approached him, his hands curled into tight fists at his sides. He stood so close that the two of them were chest to chest, ready to tear each other to shreds. “Do you think just because your fucking brother is second in command, you can just do as you please? Is that it?” He questioned, bitterly. “It doesn’t fucking work like that. We have rules set in place for a reason, Joel. We are going to do this by the fucking book whether your little girlfriend here likes it or not, got it?”

Stepping around him, he started towards you but Joel was quick to block his path. He stood in front of you and squared his shoulders.

He spoke, his voice dangerously low again. “You listen and you listen good. If you even so much as think about layin’ another fuckin’ finger on her, I’ll make sure you spend the rest of tonight pickin’ up your teeth from the ground. You understand me?”

“That a threat?”

“It ain’t a threat. It’s a fuckin’ promise.”

Keith pulled his arm back and was about ready to take his swing when he was stopped by the sound of Tommy Miller’s frantic voice.

“Joel! Where is he—where the fuck is Joel?”

The much younger, raven haired man approached the scene, shrugging a blue denim jacket over his cotton white tee shirt. The instant that he spotted Joel, he ran up to him and threw his arms around his shoulders. “Fuckin’ Christ, I thought I lost you out there! What the hell happened?”

“Where’s Ellie?” Joel demanded. “She okay?”

“She’s fast asleep at my place with Maria and the baby. She’s been with us the entire time.”

Joel’s shoulders sagged in relief.

Tommy looked around, frowning. “What’s going on? What’s everyone doin’ out here?” He then saw you and raised his eyebrows at his older brother. “Joel? Who’s that?”

“Look, I’ll explain everything, can we just—can we talk in private?”

Although he was confused, Tommy nodded.

“Of course. C’mon, let’s go back to my place.”

“Well I’ll be damned,” Tommy stated as soon as Joel had finished recounting the story—well, what he could remember, anyway. It wasn’t much.

You were sitting beside Joel across the table from Tommy and Maria in the kitchen of their home. All three of them spoke in quiet, hushed voices so as not to wake Ellie and Samuel, Tommy and Maria’s infant son. Maria had offered to go upstairs to pull Ellie out of bed so that she and Joel could reunite, but when Tommy mentioned tonight had been the first night since Joel had gone missing three days ago that she had managed to fall asleep, everyone agreed it would be best to wait until the morning.

“So, she saved your life,” Tommy concluded. His brown eyes, even darker than those of his older brother, flickered over to you once again. You sat there in complete silence, staring at the top of the wooden table, refusing to meet his gaze—or that of his wife.

Joel nodded. “She did, Tommy. I don’t know how, but what I do know is that if it wasn’t for her, then I wouldn’t be sittin’ here at this table right now.”

You shuffled uncomfortably in your chair. Though the couple had been kind to you, it didn’t make it any easier when they stared at you.

“She saved your life and you don’t even know her name?” Tommy was in complete disbelief.

“No. She doesn’t talk.”

Maria hummed. “I have an idea. Let me find her a notepad or something to write on,” she suggested after a minute. She stood up, wrapping her cotton blue robe around herself, concealing her pajamas as she walked over to the kitchen counter. It took her a bit of digging around, but in one drawer she found a pen and an small legal pad. She made her way back over to the table and set the items down in front of you. “Can you write down your name for us?”

You didn’t move a single muscle.

“It’s okay, honey. Just write down your name—”

“Best we don’t push her too much,” Joel warned her, holding out his hand to stop her from coming too close into your space.

You glanced up at him, your lips parting slightly.

“Don’t worry,” he told you. “You ain’t gotta tell us anythin’ until you’re good and ready.”

Tommy cleared his throat. “Joel? Can me and you have a quick word in private please?”

Your heart skipped an anxious beat.

No, wait! Please don’t leave me.

Less than eight hours ago, you’d been wary of this man, unable to fully trust him. Now, just the mere thought of him leaving your side put you on edge.

“It’s fine, we’re just gonna be out in the hallway,” he assured you. “It’ll only be for a minute or two.”

Realizing you didn’t want to be left alone with her, Maria jabbed a thumb over her shoulder towards the stove. “I’m going to make myself a hot cup of chamomile tea. I can boil water for an extra mug if you’d like some?” she offered, warmly.

You’d turned down food and water already, much too afraid to accept anything from her. However, a warm drink did sound tempting and truth be told, Maria did seem like a nice woman. She was Joel’s family—maybe it wouldn’t hurt to at the very least try and trust her too.

Finally, you nodded.

“Great,” Maria smiled, looking pleased. “I think it’ll do you some good. Chamomile is very soothing. It helps me relax—something that’s hard to do when you have a fussy six month old,” she kidded as she whirled around and went about preparing the tea.

Joel made certain that you would be fine and then followed Tommy out into the hallway.

“Joel, what were you thinkin’ bringing her here?”

“What the hell are you talkin’ about?”

Tommy sighed. “We need to be careful about who we bring into Jackson—”

“Are you fuckin’ kiddin’ me right now? You worried about this girl bein’ a threat?” Joel stared at him in complete shock. “You serious, Tommy?”

“For all we know, she could be a threat. She didn’t want to give up her weapons, hell she even took a swing at Keith!” He hissed.

“He put his fuckin’ hands on her—”

“She didn’t cooperate, Joel. You know damn good and well what happens when someone isn’t willin’ to cooperate with the rules. It leads to trouble and you know it as well as I do,” Tommy said, crossing his arms over his chest. “Her first impression here wasn’t a good one. And to make matters a whole lot worse, we don’t know anythin’ about her. It’s a risk takin’ her into the community.”

Joel couldn’t even believe what he was hearing.

“So you’d rather I just left her out there alone?”

“Look Joel, we don’t know what she’s capable of,” Tommy reminded him, quietly. “If she’s managed to survive out there all on her own for this fuckin’ long, then who the hell knows what she’s done or what kind of blood is on her hands—you might be thinkin’ that she’s some helpless little victim, but maybe she’s not. Hell, we’ll never know because the girl can’t fuckin’ talk. Or maybe she just won’t talk. Either way, we’re runnin’ a huge risk by takin’ her in without knowin’ who the hell she is or where she came from.”

Joel glared at him. “Listen here, whether she can’t talk or just won’t talk, that doesn’t fuckin’ matter,” he said. He paused briefly, long enough to take a peek back into the kitchen where you were still sitting at the table. After she’d finished making the tea, Maria took the two steaming mugs and had sat down in the chair beside you. She was now trying almost desperately to get you to write down your name on the legal pad. He immediately noticed the way that you’d started wringing your hands together anxiously in your lap and he knew you were debating in your mind whether or not you should reveal your identity to the stranger. He turned back to his brother with a frown. “She ain’t a helpless victim. She’s a survivor. She saved my fuckin’ life out there, Tommy. If it weren’t for her, I would be dead right now.”

“And where is she gonna stay?”

“With me and Ellie, of course.”

Tommy almost laughed. “Wait. You’re gonna be in charge of her? Someone who won’t fuckin’ talk to you? Whose name you don’t even know? Are you serious?”

Joel didn’t even think twice about it. “Yeah.”

“Look Joel, I know you can be kind of a dumbass, but you can’t possibly be this goddamn dumb, big brother. Think about it—”

“I already have thought about it. She’s stayin’ with me.” Joel shrugged. “I know it ain’t gonna be easy, but maybe I can get her to trust me enough to talk to me.”

Tommy raised an eyebrow at him. “You really think she can talk and she’s just choosin’ not to?”

“I think she wants to talk, but she can’t. She’s too scared right now. But if I can get her to really trust me—”

“That girl ain’t gonna trust you, Joel.”

“She trusted me enough to come to Jackson,” he said, fiercely. “That has to mean somethin’, I know it does.”

Tommy let out a long and heavy sigh. He already knew just how fucking stubborn his brother could be. There’s no changing Joel’s mind once it was made up.

Maria stepped out into the hallway. “No luck,” she said, shaking her head lightly. “I can’t even begin to imagine what she’s been through. If she’s too terrified to even give us her name—”

“It must’ve been somethin’ real bad,” Joel finished for her. He placed his hands on his hips. “I think I might have some idea of what happened to her.”

“What do you mean?” she asked. 

Joel lowered his voice as he briefly told Tommy and Maria about the scars he’d seen around your wrist. “Like she’s been in handcuffs or somethin’,” he murmured. “Think it could’ve been FEDRA?”

“Possibly.” Maria thought it over for a moment. “There’s also a good possibility that she’s been a prisoner in a slaver camp.”

Slavers.

Joel’s stomach churned at the thought of it. He’d heard about those kind of groups, about the cruel and inhumane things they did to their prisoners.

He fucking hoped that wasn’t it. But something in his gut told him not to be so goddamn naive.

“Listen, we feel for the girl, Joel. We do,” Tommy admitted. “And we’re willin’ to give her some time to adjust, same as we did with you and with Ellie, same as we do with all newcomers. But regardless of what she’s been through, she’s still gonna need to pull her weight around here, just like the rest of us. She’s expected to take on a work duty just like everybody else. It’ll be hard findin’ the right job for her if she’s not gonna talk to anyone so the sooner you can get her to break her silence, the better it’ll be,” he advised. He pointed a finger at his brother. “From this point on, she’s your responsibility.”

“I can handle it, Tommy.”

“For you sake, I really hope you can.”

“Good to know you’ve got faith in me,” Joel made the sarcastic comment under his breath, but he’s certain Tommy had heard it. “It’s gettin’ pretty late now. She’s exhausted and so am I. I’m gonna take her back to my place and get her settled.”

“What about Ellie?”

“Best she just stays here with you two tonight. As soon as she’s up in the mornin’, you can bring her on over to mine if that’s alright with you and Maria?”

Tommy nodded. “You got it, brother.”

“Besides, I figure it’ll give me a bit of extra time to think of how I’m gonna explain everythin’ to her.” Joel suddenly realized that he hadn’t given much thought about how he was going to tell Ellie about you—how he was going to explain your condition to her and how you’d be sharing a roof with them from now on.

Tommy chuckled. “Yeah, good luck with that one.”

Rolling his eyes, Joel roughly shoved past him and back into the kitchen.

You hadn’t drank the tea Maria had made you, but you’d wrapped your hands around the ceramic red mug to warm them up.

“C’mon,” he beckoned to you with his hand. “Let’s go. I’m gonna take you home now.”

Home. 

The word rang oddly in your ears.

You stood up from the table.

“Wait.” Maria picked up the pad and pen, handing them over to you. “Here. Take these with you. Just in case you decide you want to use them.”

Joel pushed through the front door, switching on the lights in the foyer of his home before stepping aside to let you in. He watched as you stood there at the door looking rather apprehensive. “It’s okay, darlin’. Just me and you here tonight.”

Carefully, you stepped over the threshold. When was the last time you’d even set foot in an actual house? One with running water and electricity?

You couldn’t remember.

Joel shut the front door behind you and locked it. “Let’s go upstairs.” He gestured for you to follow him up the cherrywood staircase. “It’s pretty late, so I’ll show you the rest of the house tomorrow in the mornin’,” he promised you over his shoulder. At the top of the staircase, Joel switched on more lights that illuminated a short hallway. He pointed to a door at the end of it, stating, “That one there at the end, that’s mine. This one here is Ellie’s. We also have a third spare, it’s right across from her.” He nodded with his head towards the door of the bedroom he’d been referring to. “Go on. Open it up and check it out for yourself.”

You want me to open the door?

Seeing your expression, Joel chuckled. “Go on. It’s alright. There’s nothin’ bad in there, I promise.”

You momentarily hesitated. Fingers trembling, you reached out and grasped the brass door knob, slowly turning it and pushing the door open. You peeked inside and flipped the light switch next to the door frame.

You gasped. Holy shit, is this fucking real?

The spare bedroom was fully furnished with light oakwood furniture—a dresser up against one wall, a desk nestled in the corner, and two nightstands on either side of the most comfortable, full sized bed that you’d ever seen. The décor was minimal, but whoever had occupied the space before had a clear adoration for warm, earthy tones. You nearly smiled at the shades of mud brown, forest green, and autumn orange. Setting your things down on the hardwood floor, you made your way over to the bed and sat down, planting your hands firmly on either side of you. You relished in the softness of the cream colored duvet comforter.

“I’m guessin’ you like it.” Joel couldn’t help but to grin a little. “I’ll be right back. I’m gonna go see if I can get you one of my shirts or somethin’ that you can sleep in. Make yourself comfortable.” He spun around on the heel of his boot, disappearing into the hallway.

Unable to resist, you laid back onto the bed. Your body sank into it, melting into the mattress. It felt like a fucking cloud.

Joel reappeared in the room just seconds later. “I can see you took what I said about makin’ yourself comfortable quite literally.” His voice caused you to shoot back up into a sitting position. Joel stood there at the door holding a long sleeved, navy and white flannel shirt in one hand—in the other, he’d been holding a gray hooded sweatshirt and from his arm swung a brown canvas tote bag. “Not too sure what you would prefer to sleep in. I figure you might want somethin’ on the warmer side. Here’s a couple options to choose from. I’ve also got tee shirts if you’d rather sleep in one of those.”

Standing up from the bed, you walked over to him and he held out the articles of clothing for you to see better. It was his flannel you gravitated to the most. Taking it from him, you ran your fingers over the fabric.

“I can throw your clothes in the washing machine for you first thing tomorrow so they’ll be clean by the time you wake up,” he added.

You breathed out shakily.

A fucking washing machine.

“Overwhelming, ain’t it?”Joel draped the hooded sweatshirt over a nearby chair, deciding to leave it for you as well. “Trust me, I get it. I felt the same when I first got here with Ellie. It took a lot of time for the both of us to adjust to this new way of life after being out there for so long,” he confessed to you. “The important thing is to take it one step at a time, darlin’. And somethin’ is tellin’ me the next step for you is probably takin’ a nice hot shower?”

Your mouth fell open. A hot shower?

“You’ll have to share a bathroom with Ellie.” Joel led you out of the bedroom and to another door adjacent to yours. He showed you the bathroom, telling you which knob in the shower was for hot water and which one was for cold water. “You can use Ellie’s shampoo, I’m sure she won’t mind. I’d offer you some of my own, but I don’t think you’ll wanna walk around smellin’ like sandalwood and spice.” Joel handed you the canvas bag he’d had draped over his arm. “Here. Should be pretty much everythin’ you’re gonna need. There’s a bar of soap, a couple clean washcloths, a toothbrush, and a tube of toothpaste. There’s also a razor.” He paused. “It’s a men’s razor, one of mine I’ve never used, but I reckon it does the job just the same as a woman’s razor.”

You quirked an amused eyebrow at him. What the hell are you trying to say? That I need to shave?

“Not that you have to use it,” he added quickly, his cheeks burning bright red at what you thought he had been insinuating. He shifted awkwardly from boot to boot. “I tossed it in there just in case you’d want to, but you ain’t gotta use it, that’s not what I meant at all—”

Deciding you didn’t want to see him squirm, you lifted a hand up to stop him and shook your head.

Truth be told, you actually couldn’t fucking wait to shave your legs.

Calm down, cowboy. It’s all good.

Realizing he hadn’t offended you, Joel relaxed. “I’ll let you get to your shower. You take as long as you want, but just try and leave some hot water for me since I’m next,” he chuckled. “As soon as we both get all cleaned up, we can meet downstairs in the kitchen for a quick bite to eat before bed. Deal?”

Deal.

He was about to leave you to it when you stopped him, grabbing his arm. Wait a second, Joel.

Joel’s eyes met yours. “Yeah?”

Thank you.

Your gratitude might have been silent, but it was there and be knew it. Feeling brave, Joel reached up and placed his hand over yours for a moment, his thumb brushing against the softness of your skin. “No need to thank me, sweetness.”

Letting his hand drop away from yours, Joel then turned and left the bathroom, closing the door behind him to give you your privacy. 

Once you had the hot water running, you kicked off your boots and started to peel off your clothes, tossing them into a pile on the floor near the door. Completely naked, you turned your back towards the oval shaped mirror hanging over the bathroom sink, unwilling to take a look at the scars on your body—painful reminders of the cruel punishments you’d endured during your time in captivity. 

You grabbed the toiletries from the tote bag Joel had given you and set them on the side of the tub. Pulling the yellow floral curtain aside, you stepped into the shower and positioned yourself directly underneath the scalding hot water, letting it burn your skin to give you an entirely different kind of pain to think about, even if it was just for a minute until your body adjusted to the temperature of the water and it no longer hurt.

You began washing yourself, trying your hardest to keep from crumbling. But you couldn’t. Lump in your throat and a tightness in your chest, tears brimmed your eyes, ready to fall.

You were willing to let them.

Two years. For almost two fucking years, you had been suppressing your emotions. You’d been in a constant survival mode, there had been no time to feel anything. And now here you were, standing in a fucking shower with all the freedom in the world to just let it all out.

Silent sobs wracked your body, bringing you down onto your knees.

Joel’s shower had been a quick one.

You hadn’t left him very much hot water—but he couldn’t even be mad about it.

He pulled on a pair of light gray sweatpants and a black tee shirt. He haphazardly dried off his hair and made his way downstairs, knowing you would be heading down there any minute now to meet him like you’d agreed. Without much time to make a proper meal for you to eat, Joel went about the dimly lit kitchen and prepared a couple of turkey sandwiches. He’d just plated them and set them on the table when the soft padding of bare feet on the hardwood floor caused him to look up. 

His breath caught in his throat. You stood there in the doorway wearing nothing but his flannel shirt. The hem of it fell to the middle of your thighs, and it was taking everything in him not to think about the fact that you weren’t wearing anything under his shirt. His fucking shirt.

Clearing his throat lightly, he made sure not to let his gaze wander. “I bet you feel a lot better, don’t you?”

You sighed softly. Oh, you have no fucking idea.

Noticing you were holding your hands behind your back, Joel shot you a puzzled look. “What’cha got there?”

You brought your arms forward. Clutched in your hands were the legal pad and pen that Maria had given you.

Although he took it as a sign that you were willing to communicate with him, Joel knew better than to get too far ahead of himself. He’d wait until you were ready to make the first move and he’d follow your lead. “I made you a sandwich to eat,” he told you, pulling out a chair at the table. “C’mon, come have a seat.”

After you sat down, Joel went over to the sink and filled two glasses of water, one for you and one for himself. Setting them down on the table, he finally took a seat across from you—that’s when he saw the redness in your eyes. You’d been crying. Even though he wanted to ask you if were alright, Joel decided against it for the time being and the two of you ate in comfortable, tranquil silence.

“I can make you another one if you’re still hungry,” Joel offered when you polished off the last couple bites of your sandwich.

Shaking your head, you placed your hands on your belly signaling that you were full. You aren’t. You’d scarf another three of them down, but you were a lot more exhausted than you were hungry and you couldn’t wait to crawl into that bed upstairs.

Joel studied you. “You okay, darlin’?”

You shrugged. This has just been a lot to process.

“I know it’s gonna be tough for you. It’s like I told you earlier, it’s gonna take some time to adjust to your new life Jackson. But I need you to know you ain’t alone anymore. I’m gonna be here to look out for you. I know you don’t need me to.” Joel paused and shot you a crooked little grin. “Hell, you took a swing at Keith. You’ve got bigger balls than half of the men in the commune. Includin’ myself.”

You let out of a huff of amusement from your nose and the corners of your mouth tugged into a small smile—and you didn’t try to force it down.

Joel blurted the words before he could even think to stop himself. “You’ve got a real nice smile.”

Biting down on your bottom lip, you moved your empty plate off to the side and grabbed your pen and notepad. You scribbled something onto the blank page, then slid it across the table to Joel.

He picked it up, an odd sensation fluttering inside his chest when he realized what you ha done.

You’d written down your name for him.

He said it out loud, and then looked up at you.

“That’s a beautiful name.” Sincerity dripped from his tone, going hand in hand with his compliment.

Cheeks burning, you glanced down at your hands, which you’d begun wringing together on top of the table. It was out of nervousness, but this kind was different. You couldn’t quite explain it.

“I know it’s gonna take more than a hot shower and a sandwich to get you to trust me. But I swear that I’m gonna do whatever I can to show you that you ain’t got anythin’ to be afraid of. Not with me around. Okay?”

Okay.

You opened your mouth, trying to repeat the word back to him.

Joel’s eyes widened slightly. You wanted to talk to him—you were actually trying to talk to him. But it was a clear struggle. Something wasn’t letting you find your voice.

Clamping your mouth shut, you sighed and sank back into your chair. I’m sorry. I can’t.

“It’s okay,” he said, softly. “We’re gonna take this one step at a time. Together.”

Series Taglist

@ginger-swag-rapunzel @rhapsodyinyule @imonmykneessir @letmehavemyfictionalmen @kneelforloki @fallenkitten @kaykay0315 @javicstories

*Please let me know if you want to be tagged, I get scared tagging people who have read and commented but have not specifically asked to be tagged lmao