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macfrog · 8 months

Text

illicit affairs

cowboy like me chapter eleven

howdy everyone it's me again 🤠 latest chapter of cowboy like me is now yours. do with it as you wish. love u all so much. see ya soon x

pairing: dbf!joel x fem!reader

summary: your relationship with joel is getting harder and harder to hide, especially when a surprise visit from your dad threatens to spoil your romantic weekend

warnings: 18+ (minors dni!!!) reader is a lil hungover, gluten bagels, lots of LIES, reader and joel being horny devils, gene kelly, unprotected piv sex, sex tape, praise kink, fluff, cockwarming, angst!!! and pain!!!!, reader and joel fight, cheating....??, age gap (reader is 23, joel is 48), cursing

word count: 8.4k

series masterlist | main masterlist

You wake in the same position you fell asleep in just hours ago: curled up in Joel’s bed, the curve of his body safely encasing yours. His lips are still by your ear, breath gentle against your lobe. You lean over to lift your phone from the nightstand.

8:14. You’ve had less than four hours’ sleep.

Below the time there’s a text message, sent a couple hours ago.

Dad: Remember to take the trash out before you pass out kiddo. Hope you had a good night 👍

Well, that was never happening, was it? As far as your dad knows, his best friend had picked you up from Frank’s and given you a ride home. Probably walked you to the house on his steady arm, made sure you downed a glass of water before seeing you off upstairs to bed. Polite. Respectful.

Of course, your dad is blissfully unaware that, in actual fact, at 6AM you were in said best friend’s bed, pressed up against him, no clothes between you, fast asleep. Definitely not making sure the trash was out.

The bright screen burns into your eyes as you squint at the notification below his text, decorated with alarm emojis – your way of ensuring you remembered to get back before him. DAD HOME stares back at you ominously, eventually persuading you to push yourself up off the mattress, loosen Joel’s lazy hold on your waist, and slip out of bed.

Joel, still asleep, rolls across your side of the bed onto his stomach when you sit up, sighing into your pillow as you prop yourself on the edge of the bed. You sit for a minute, dumb smile wide across your lips with no one to conceal it from, staring at him. Studying every part of him in his content, sleepy state.

The sharp curve of his jawline, the flecks of gray through his beard. The soft brush of hair falling on his forehead, deep brown curling just above his eyebrows. His toned shoulder, round and strong, flexing some with the grip his arm has around your pillow. His face buried in the cotton, breathing you in.

You jump when your phone starts vibrating in your hand, pad across to the door and slip out, closing it gently behind you.

“Hello?” you whisper.

Your dad’s voice is like a foghorn in your hungover ear. “Mornin’, kiddo! Wake ya?”

You wince, clutching your forehead as the quick movement from Joel’s bed to his hallway catches up with your aching brain. “Mighta done, yeah.”

He chuckles. The car hums in the background while he talks, meaning he yells even louder to compensate. “I’m about an hour out, thought I’d bring in some breakfast. You want anythin’?”

“I’m good with whatever. You’ll be back soon?”

“Nine-thirty or so, looks like. Why?”

“Nothin’, just wondered. I’ll see you in a bit, then.”

“Hey, d’you take the trash out?”

“Uh, I can’t– You’re breakin’ up, there, Dad, I’ll see you when you get home. Alright, cool, see ya then, bye.”

You cut his babbling voice and hang up, clutching the phone to your chest, close your eyes and exhale. When you swing back into the room quietly, Joel’s still sleeping.

You slip back into your dress and pull your boots on, scanning the room for your panties. No sign of them, though, and it’s not like you got all the time in the world to search. They’re probably underneath Joel’s deadweight body, anyway.

You tiptoe over to the side of the bed and crouch, kissing his neck softly.

He stirs, hand lets go of the pillowcase and finds yours, intertwining your fingers sleepily.

“I gotta go, baby,” you whisper, running your fingers through his unkempt hair.

His voice mumbles into the cotton, deep and groggy. You catch the tail end of his sentence: “…give you a ride.”

“No,” you reply, laughing a little as you sweep hair from his forehead. “I’m good, I’ll walk. You sleep. I’ll see you later, okay?”

“Text me when you’re…home…”

The words barely pass through his lips as he begins to drop off again, and you kiss his head before straightening up, grabbing your bag, and heading downstairs.

You dip into the kitchen before you go, grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge. You’re fucking parched. Hungover, exhausted, you roll the freezing cold bottle across your forehead. It does little to soothe the throbbing pain, but it takes the edge off of it for a few seconds before you’re slinging the bottle under your arm and searching through Joel’s cupboard.

You steal a bagel. Feels kinda hard, probably a day past its best, but it’ll do. You set off, picking at the dry bread as you walk, holding it between two fingers as you gulp at the water.

It’s the blandest walk of shame that ever happened.

Twenty minutes later and you’re pushing through your front door, fucking drenched in sweat. Your jacket’s tied around your waist, leather hot and stiff. You toss your keys on the kitchen counter and collapse into the couch, letting your heartrate settle and waiting for the room to stop pulling in and out of focus.

Your head is pounding now, your throat feels like sandpaper. Your body aches, though if you’re honest with yourself, you’re not sure that’s just from the hangover.

Once you’re in a fitter state, pulse no longer beating through your eyeballs, you head upstairs and tears your clothes off to jump in the shower. You keep it on a low heat, only warm, and it soothes your skin and flushes the smell of alcohol, sweat, and Joel down the drain.

You’re back in the kitchen, hunched over the counter nursing a coffee, when your dad waltzes through the front door. You lift your towel-wrapped head from your hand and look up.

“Well, hello,” he calls. “I notice ours is the only house in the street with no tra–”

“How was your trip?” you cut in, eyes screwing shut.

“Ha. Good. Nice drive, up that way. I got us bagels. Want one?”

Sometimes it’s like some twisted fucker is sat writing this comedy into your life. He brought home bagels? After you just choked one down walking home in the blistering heat? Whatever, dude.

“Thanks,” you mutter flatly against your mug, reaching out for the paper bag he’s offering.

Your dad lifts his own bagel, takes a huge bite, then looks up at you and gives an enthusiastic thumbs up. When you bite into yours, you’re…less enthusiastic. It does taste better than the dry one you just had, though. The cream cheese helps.

“I, uh…I’ll be headin’ out again soon,” you tell him.

“Oh?”

“Yeah. Staying at Anna’s tonight,” you lie, setting your coffee down. “Said we’d have a pool day.”

He nods, mouth full of food. “Sounds nice, kiddo. Nice day for a tan. Hey, uh, how was Joel?”

You almost choke on your bagel. “Wh-what?”

“Joel. He alright?”

You shrug, picking at the bread. Unable to meet your dad’s eye. “I dunno. Why don’t you ask ‘im? I don’t know how he is.”

He stares at you. Brows knit, a line between them pointing upward. “I was just wonderin’…since he…He did pick you up last night, right?”

Oh, fuck.

“Oh,” you bat a hand, tucking it back under the counter when you notice it trembling. “Oh, right. I thought you meant this morning. Yeah, he was fine. He…Yeah. Fine.”

“Uhuh,” your dad nods, eyes narrow.

You don’t have the energy or the brainpower to be convincing. Not right now. There’s alcohol still drying up in your blood, muscles still tight from that fucking hike home, and your mind isn’t even in the room with your dad right now. It’s elsewhere – wrapped up in Joel’s bedsheets with him.

“I hope you didn’t keep him up too late.”

“It was, like, 2AM or somethin’. Wasn’t so bad. He said he was up watching TV anyways. So.”

He seems to believe this – swallows it down with the last few bites of his breakfast. You continue chatting, covering over your blunder like packing dirt back into a hole in the earth, conversation drifting from how your girls night went, to how his trip was, to an awkward apology for ‘forgetting’ the trash. He won’t let that go, will he?

But it’s short-lived. Soon, you both fall into silence, and the air between you feels muggy. Thick with lies and secrecy. Things you can’t say – I wanted a McDonald’s, but Joel wouldn’t budge, then I caught him watching Grey’s Anatomy, did you know he’s only slept with ten – I mean nine people?

Your dad glances up a few times, studies your face. You hide behind your bagel, guilt and shame across your cheeks like a wine stain. But he only smiles pleasantly, until he’s throwing the last bite into his mouth and rubbing his hands together, announcing he’s going for a shower.

“I’ll take your bag to your room,” you crumble the paper wrapped inside your fist, toss it across to him, “I gotta pack anyways.”

“Thanks, kiddo,” he says, patting your back as you pass him.

You don’t look back when you lift the leather straps of his bag and lug it upstairs.

It drops from your clutches with a thud at the foot of his bed. And then you’re quite literally skipping through to your own room, grabbing a black tote from your closet and blindly tossing clothes into it. A spare t-shirt, underwear, socks. Who gives a fuck what you pack? You’re going to Joel’s – the clothes will probably last five minutes on your body before you’re peeling them off again.

One thing you do take time picking is your bikini, opting for a red strappy one. Your old roommate once told you it made you look like you were in an episode of Baywatch. Which, y’know, seems like Joel’s kinda thing.

Your dad’s stood by his bed, hair damp from his shower, unpacking his bag when you emerge from your room.

“That you leaving your old man?” he asks with a tut, folding a t-shirt onto the mattress in front of him.

You wander through, sweet smile on your face, and kiss his cheek. “See ya tomorrow.”

“Have fun, honey.”

And then you’re gone. Straight back to Joel’s.

You’ve been away a couple hours, if that, but when you wander up his driveway, he’s not home. He keeps a spare key under a plant by his door, so you let yourself in. Sink back into his couch, throw on an old episode of Love Island while you wait. Twenty minutes later, his truck pulls up and he shoulders the door open, grocery bags in his arms.

“Hi, baby,” he says, leaning down to kiss your head as he passes.

You switch the TV off and follow him through to the kitchen to help him unpack, rocking into his side as you empty the bags with a giggle.

“He ask?”

You shake your head, chewing on a Twizzler.

“Nothin’? Really?”

“Didn’t really give him time to,” you reply. “Had breakfast, grabbed my stuff, left. And I parked a couple streets away, just on the off-chance.”

Joel looks down at you with a hesitant smile on his lips. He steals the Twizzler from between your teeth and puts it in his own mouth.

“Dick,” you mumble, and he chuckles quietly.

“You know, darlin’…all this lyin’, covering our tracks, I…”

“Joel,” you lean into him, standing on your tiptoes to peck his lips. “I don’t care. There’s nowhere else in the world I wanna be. Just with you. He’ll find somethin’ to do, you know he will.”

He gazes at you for a few seconds, eyes flitting back and forth between yours. You lean your head back and his arm snakes around your waist, squeezing you into his side.

“Trouble,” he mutters, taking a six-pack of beer over to the fridge.

----------

The summer sun blazes down over Joel’s backyard, and the pair of you spend the afternoon by his pool, keeping cool by having a dip every now and then. The red bikini is, as it turns out, a hit: Joel can’t keep his eyes – or his hands – off you, anytime you push up off your lounge chair and slink over to the pool edge, slipping in beside him.

You lock your arms around his neck, legs lazily draped over his hips as he floats you both through the water, and turn your head to the sky; eyes shut, the inside of your lids bright red with the sun screaming down through them. Joel idly kisses your chest, lips curving around your collarbones.

“I like this,” you say, looking down at him. Droplets run down the ends of his dark hair, beads of water rolling down his temples. “I could get used to it.”

“Wish we could,” he replies, bucking you up under his forearms. “I like it, too.”

It feels nice, if a little bit of an ache. Hearing him talk like that. Everything you two ever say, no matter how thick with sincerity, is laced with threat. Wish we could. Because you never will be able to get used to it, right? Something will always be swimming underneath you, a black shadow that disappears whenever you attempt one good glance at it.

Something always threatening to spill your secrets. Something threatening to blow everything apart.

Joel lifts a hand to cup the back of your head and pulls your lips down to meet his, moving backward until his back hits the wall of the pool. Your teeth pick up his bottom lip, tongue slips past into his mouth, and he groans, smiling into the kiss.

You begin to feel him harden under his trunks, and you grind your core against him.

“Inside?” he breathes between kisses.

“Mhm,” you whine, and he drags you out of the pool back into the house.

You spend the entire day following a pattern: eat, chill, tease, fuck. Eat, chill, tease, fuck. As the sun begins to melt behind the trees lining Joel’s backyard, you’ve spend more time on your knees, underneath, or on top of Joel than you have actually tanning.

Can you blame yourselves? Whenever you get alone time with no risk of being caught, it’s hard to keep your hands off one another. With no reason to keep quiet or hidden, you can fuck around all you want without a care in the world, right?

Right.

You order pizza, laze in the slow-dying sun to eat it, talking about nothing and everything before one of you steers the conversation and, before you know it…your bikini bottoms are pushed to the side, or otherwise torn from your body.

Eat, chill, tease, fuck. It’s too easy.

When the yard is finally drowned by dusk, Joel grabs some blankets and you spend the evening on his couch, talking some more and then deciding which movie to watch. You’ve never seen Singin’ in the Rain. Joel takes obscene offense to this fact.

“What kind of film student ain’t seen Singin’ in the Rain?”

“We actually did study it for one of my classes,” you mutter, tossing popcorn into your mouth. “Flicked through the important parts. Wasn’t my thing.”

“Well, you gotta watch the whole film. It’s a classic. Won at the Oscars ‘n everythin’.”

His enthusiasm almost makes you hold back – the way he’s sat on the edge of his seat, twisted around to chastise you properly for your ignorance of musical film. This could be the most animated you’ve ever seen him – over Gene Kelly. So, you almost bite your tongue.

Almost.

“Didn’t it…famously get nothing?”

His face sours in a heartbeat. Expression drops like a sack of bricks. He turns away from you and throws himself back into the couch, grumbling. “Alright, smartass. Watch it, and we’ll talk after.”

“I’m just sayin’, it–”

“We’ll talk. After.”

It’s still not your thing. For a multitude of reasons, but the newest one, the most difficult of all to let go: you can’t get the way Joel spoke out of your mind.

Just shut you right up, didn’t he? With three flat words, and a look in his eye that warned you not to push him. But fuck, you want to. You want to make him talk. Now.

Fifteen minutes into the film, you sit forward and swipe his phone from the coffee table.

“What are you doin’?” he asks in that monotone voice, the one he always uses whenever you’re pissing him off. Whenever you’re…getting to him.

“Bored,” you state, thumbs tapping in his passcode. You’ve been around him enough by now, studying every little move he makes, to just absorb dumb little things about him like the fact that his passcode is 0908, because those are the three numbers his thumb can reach easiest.

The phone clicks open and your eyes dance over the screen, deciding which app to load first.

Joel says your name. Just once. But it’s enough.

You angle your head in his direction. Bat your eyelashes.

“Enough. Watch the damn movie, would ya?”

Your head rolls back around to his phone. You click the photos app.

Joel curses under his breath, shaking his head and turning back to the screen. His eyes are boring into the pixels, mumbling things you’re too busy scrolling through his camera roll to listen to.

It’s mostly screenshots. Contracts, invoices, receipts. Boring Joel stuff. There’s the odd photo of his backyard, a few where the sunset rips across the tops of the trees in a fiery glow. They’re a little tilted, a little off balance. You smile at his attempt at photography.

“You gotta learn how to straighten your pictures, dude.”

“Took that for you,” he utters through a mouthful of popcorn. “Thought you’d like the sky with the trees in front, ‘n all.”

“Coulda text me it,” you say, letting him swipe through the photos to show you, each one from a slightly different angle to get more of the trees in, crop the pool out, hide the horrendous rosebush his neighbor has creeping over his fence.

He shrugs, pulling his hand away. “Musta been distracted by all the dumb stuff you send me.”

“Fine, no more funny videos. You’ve done it now, Miller.”

He chuckles and his attention turns back to the film. You’re slowly creeping further back through his pictures – measurements for something he’s building, different thicknesses of lumber propped against each other under the fluorescent light of Home Depot. And then –

You recognize the huge arching window first. Sunlight casting across a white tablecloth, polished cutlery shimmering. The velvet curtains in the background, and the made-up diners dotted around behind you and Sarah, both grinning into her phone camera.

“When did you…?”

Joel’s lips press the crown of your head. “Saw her gettin’ her phone out ‘n thought it’d be a nice picture from that angle, too.”

“Joel…” you breathe, eyes stuck on the image of your swollen cheeks, more centered in the frame than Sarah’s brown curls.

Your thumb swipes once and there’s a second photo: Sarah’s arm is lowered, she’s typing out her caption. You’re still smiling, looking over her shoulder as she selects the perfect cocktail of emojis.

She’s barely in the frame. It’s all you. Only you.

“I can’t believe you,” you whisper, limp hands dropping the phone to your stomach.

“’s just a photo, baby.”

And he’s right. Or – he’d be right, if it weren’t the only two photos of a human being in his entire camera roll. The only person he deems worth taking a picture of. The only one, in amongst trees, and emails, and wooden planks. The things that make up Joel, in your mind. His work, his home, and…you.

As quick as the thought delights you, it’s already terrifying you. Thrill barging through your veins, competing with fear to shock through your system the hardest.

“Alright,” you mutter, switching to his camera app and turning the phone to aim at him, “just a photo.”

You watch on the screen as he gives you a telling glance, holds his hand up to block the lens, and says, “Baby. Will you put that–? Hey. Watch the damn movie, now.”

“No,” you reply, avoiding his palm to snap a picture of his face. You twist in your seat until you’re at a ninety-degree angle to him, your feet in his lap, pulling a cushion to swipe at his attempts to grab the phone. “No, c’mon. We gotta fill your camera roll with more ‘n just contracting stuff.”

“Oh, do we?”

“Yeah.”

Your thumb swipes to video mode, hitting the bright red button and giggling when Joel’s deadpan face turns to watch you behind his phone.

“Quit – it,” he chuckles, swatting the phone from his face.

“You wanna watch a movie, maybe I wanna make one.”

His stare darkens. A smirk pulls at the corners of his lips. You hear it how he heard it seconds after, and you mirror his expression.

“Enough,” he tells you again, voice low, but it’s less of a telling as it is…a warning.

You put the phone down. Lock it, slide it across the couch to Joel. Silent. Giving him the choice.

His fingers lock around it, clicking the button to light the screen back up. He studies it for a second, deliberating, and then leans forward, setting it on the coffee table.

When you turn to look, the phone is sat on its side, screen reflecting back the image of the two of you; Joel, sat upright in the couch, and you, strewn out beside him. The oversized shirt you’re wearing has ridden up past your underwear, pooling on your stomach.

He’s staring at you. You can see it in his phone. You turn to look back, and he lifts his palm. Ball’s back in your court.

“Turn the TV off,” you mutter. You’re not fucking him with Singin’ in the Rain in the background.

He keeps his eyes on you, reaching for the remote. The screen cuts to black.

“Sure you wanna–?”

“C’mere,” you cut in, tossing the cushion and pulling him into you when he moves.

Somewhere between Joel leaning down on top of you and taking a grip of your hair in his hands, he presses the record button. The tiny ding sound shines a spotlight on you that lights your skin with nerves, a little bit of embarrassment, but…thrill. Excitement. Arousal.

Joel grinds his hips into yours and you both moan, your head falling back to allow him room to bruise your neck with his lips. His fingers knead roughly into the soft skin around your hips, pressing divots into your waist, sneaking their way up to cup your tits.

And then you’re turning, craning your neck to watch yourselves on his phone screen. Joel’s lips on your neck, his hands beneath your shirt.

He lifts his jaw for two seconds, coming up for breath and noticing your gaze.

“You wanna watch it, baby?”

You laugh in response, nodding when he turns your jaw to look at him.

In two seconds, you’re on your front, flipped by Joel’s hands. He takes your hips and lifts them, lining them with his own. You cross your arms and rest your chin atop them, watching in the reflected image as he slips his tee over his head and pulls your ass back to meet his stiff crotch.

Both of your heads are just cut out of shot. Yours at the left-hand side of the screen, and Joel’s at the top. The only recognizable traits are your hair and his beard. Those – and the sounds escaping your lips.

He wastes no time undressing you. Just lets your tee fall down your spine to your shoulders, pushes your panties to the side, and tugs his sweatpants low enough that he can comfortably slip inside you.

It’s sloppy. And quick. It barely lasts five minutes. As far as sex tapes go, it’s a pitiful attempt. But it’s hot – pretending that someone might fucking see it one day, see you and Joel, arguably doing what you do best.

And it’s even hotter seeing it from a different angle; feeling the stretch of him inside you, and watching it happen in real-time on his phone. Thinking of him rewatching it once the weekend’s over, his cock in his fist, shooting cum all over his belly.

Joel thrusts into you, pulling your ass back until you’re swallowing every inch of his cock. Your fists ball and you bite down on your arm to counter the shallow pain of him deep inside you, groaning with pleasure.

“Fuck,” he whispers from behind, slipping back only halfway and pushing in again.

You breathe a laugh, whispering, “Harder,” and he listens.

His hips crack against yours, a whimper calling from your lips, knees slipping further apart on the leather beneath you to accommodate the fucking size of him.

“Yeah? You want it harder, pretty girl?”

“Mhm,” you whine, bottom lip between your teeth.

He picks up the pace, pushing deeper every time your ass comes into contact with his hips. His skin slaps against yours, squeals of delight and pleasure cutting from your throat with each movement he makes.

Your hand slips between your legs, fingers run quick circles over your clit.

“Good girl,” he grits, “make yourself feel good, baby.”

You whine his name, forehead flat against the couch cushion as he fucks you, pleasure building between your legs like a tornado, tightening, tightening, tightening.

And then you’re being hauled up from the couch, flat against Joel’s body, cock still buried deep inside you. His hand replaces yours, his fingers on your clit, rubbing faster and harder than you think you can take.

He’s whispering in your ear like he always does. Saying everything he knows you like to hear. You’re a good girl, you’re his girl, you’re taking him so well. It’s desperate, and messy, and you know you’re both just racing to the finish line, aching for the relief that only you two know how to bring to one another.

And you cum, hard, fighting against his hold in a desperate attempt to fall flat against the couch. Joel keeps you upright, fingers slowing on your aching cunt as you clench and squeeze his cock, your orgasm ripping through your body.

He lets go of you, settling you on all fours in front of him before he pulls out, spilling all over your back.

You sink lower, ass still in the air, tits pressed against the cool leather of the couch as his warm cum slowly trickles down your spine.

Joel groans, a deep, guttural groan, still holding his cock between your ass cheeks as he stills, watching every rope of cum coating your back.

You catch your breath, panting mixed with laughing, and turn, rolling over and staring up at him. He leans back over, grabs the phone, and stops recording.

“Fuck…” you breathe.

“Fuck,” Joel agrees.

You laugh again, the last of your energy going into taking his shoulder and pulling him down against your body as he examines the footage. Tender kisses along his neck, dipping between his collarbones, listening to the grunts and groans from the speaker by your ear.

“Jesus, darlin’,” Joel breathes, eyes never leaving the screen. “We’re a fuckin’ mess.”

Your head tilts back with laughter, and Joel’s lips ghost across your throat. “We are not,” you finally reply, taking hold of the phone and scrolling quickly through the video. “I liked that part,” you turn it to show him your bodies held to one another by Joel’s strong arms.

“Yeah?” he asks behind a chuckle. Then he takes the phone from your hands, locks it, and tosses it to the other side of the couch, pulling you up into his arms until you’re sat on his lap, noses brushing against one another. “I liked all of it.”

“I like all of you,” you say, and he presses his lips to yours.

Joel kisses you gently, running his hands under your shirt and across your back, still covered in his release. He presses you closer to his body, almost painfully, as if the cotton of your shirt, the skin of your bodies, the cages of ribs inside are all keeping you too far apart from him.

You pull your jaw from his, run two delicate fingers across his lips.

“Don’t go fallin’ in love, cowboy,” you whisper.

----------

Joel carries you to his room just after midnight – sun-kissed, chlorine-coated, fucked-out, exhausted. He slips into bed behind you, curling his body around your frame, and, when his leg lifts to slot between yours, your hand stops it.

“No?” he asks, head lifting.

“Don’t want your thigh,” you mumble.

“How come?”

“Want you to…want somethin’ else.”

Joel understands without another word. He kisses your shoulder once, then takes your hips in both hands and pulls your ass to his front. You feel him pull the elastic of his underwear, stroke himself a couple times, and then push his tip in.

You gasp when he enters you – half-hard, slow, but even still. You’ll never get used to the feeling of him filling you, of his body connecting with yours, of him knowing and feeling you this intimately. Knowing and feeling you more intimately than anyone in your life ever has. Ever will, maybe.

When you’re full of him, he steadies. You scoot your hips back a little, and he growls in your ear.

“Careful, pretty girl.”

“Just gettin’ comfy,” you sleepily sing, almost teasingly.

He snakes one arm under your neck, cradling your head in the crook of his elbow. The other lies lazily over your waist. A satisfied sigh runs from his lips past your ear. He sounds and feels the most relaxed you’ve ever known him to be.

And you wish you could say the same.

Your eyes close over, heavy and tired, but you don’t fall asleep as quick as Joel. Something’s tugging at your heart. Something solid, that drags it down to the bottom of your stomach, and pools like ice water there. Something that nips at your lungs, stealing breath from you whenever you think too hard about it.

Something you’ve been patting down, stamping out with your foot every time the flame relights. And suddenly it feels as though the entire room just caught fire from under you.

Sheer exhaustion sends you off to sleep, with dreams of conversations and confessions you’re sure would never happen. Could never happen.

Should. Never. Happen.

----------

Warm water pours down over you, soaking your hair and chasing down your shoulders, your arms, past your breasts and over your stomach. You grab some more of the shampoo you’d stolen from Sarah’s bathroom and lather it up, covering your hair in it and drowning yourself under the water again.

Joel’s bathroom is one of three in his house; Sarah’s is slightly roomier, and the guest bathroom has the best water pressure, but you don’t care. Something inside you goes wild knowing you’re naked and washing in Joel Miller’s shower, even though you two have been fooling around for almost a month now.

You’re busy relishing over how perfect the last couple of days have been, wondering what breakfast Joel’s cooking up downstairs when the bathroom door bursts open.

“Hey,” he says, pulling on the shower door. “Out.”

“Huh?” you reply, eyes screwed shut, hair covered in soapy bubbles.

“I said get out. He’s here. Your damn dad’s here.”

Joel reaches around you and hands you a towel as he pulls you out of the cubicle and quickly wrings your hair for you. In a daze, you throw his tee over your shoulders and take his hand, following him out of the shower room and across his bedroom to the closet.

He turns you, hands tight on your shoulders, and ushers you inside.

“What’s he doin–?”

“I got a leaking pipe. He was passin’ by, dropped in to take a look. You stay here, do not make a sound, you hear?”

He closes over the slatted door gently, and you peer through the wood with narrow eyes. You hear footsteps approaching, your dad’s unmistakable chortle as the bedroom door is pushed open again and Joel shows him to the leaking pipe.

“Somewhere under there,” he mutters, hands resting on his knees to point to the space underneath his sink. “Had a look myself, tried some stuff, but it ain’t for fixin’.”

“Let’s have a look,” your dad bends down, groaning when his bad knees reach the tile. He’s almost shoulder deep under Joel’s cabinet, flashlight on, when Joel steals a glance in your direction.

He shakes his head, holding a hand up. Stay quiet.

He gives the room a quick scan, frantic eyes searching for any evidence of your being there. He swivels on the spot, twisting behind himself, noticing your cell on the nightstand at the same time you do.

Joel leans back, feet still rooted to the carpet, and fishes the phone between two fingers, slipping it into his back pocket. You breathe a sigh of relief.

“Ah!” your dad exclaims, and Joel shoots straight back around. “It’s your trap.”

“Is that right? I had a look at it.”

“Mhm. Is your eyesight failin’? Look at this, son.” Your dad’s hand reaches blindly behind him into his toolbox and grabs a wrench. “Just the joint’s loose.”

Joel grumbles in response.

You hear the squeak of metal as your dad tightens the pipe and then the clank of his wrench being thrown back into his toolbox. With maximum effort – thanks to his bad joints – he straightens back up alongside Joel, who thanks him.

“Better be the last of my issues.”

“Ha! So little faith in me, ol’ boy. Anyway. I’ll get out of your hair. That’s a mighty good smell comin’ from your kitchen, don’t wanna hold you back from enjoying it.”

“Oh, yeah. Thanks,” Joel says, and you can see him trying to usher your dad out.

But your dad, though you love him, is kinda fuckin’ annoying.

“Anyone special?”

“Huh?”

“You, cookin’? Naw. ‘s gotta be for someone good. Anyone comin’ over for a breakfast date? A…receptionist from a plant hire, perhaps?”

Joel’s eyes squint as he looks your dad up and down, taking his bottom lip under his teeth. “Nope,” he grumbles after a beat, with one shake of his head.

Your dad laughs a little, and then looks to something behind Joel’s back.

“Nice hat,” he scoffs, pointing a finger.

Joel doesn’t reply for a few seconds. You know he’s having the same realization you’re having: your cowgirl hat is hooked over the corner of his headboard.

He laughs. Nervously. Though maybe only you can hear that.

“Yeah, uh…yeah.”

“Looks a hell of a lot like a hat my daughter has.”

“Yeah?” Joel asks, sensing the same accusatory tone you do. Your forehead falls into your palm, hearing the almost pissed-off tone in which he asks, “And what would your daughter’s hat be doin’ in my bedroom?”

For fuck’s sake, Joel. Subtle, much?

“No, no,” your dad’s almost protesting, “I ain’t meanin’…” He sighs. “You know what I meant. Alright, I’m gone. I’m outta your hair.”

His boots recede down the hallway, then downstairs. Your breath doesn’t come back until you hear his car door slam shut, and the tires drive off.

When Joel pulls the closet door back, you’re still stood, towel in your hair, head in your hands. You can’t even look at him.

He doesn’t say anything like you expect him to. No, Sorry, baby, I didn’t know he was comin’. No, Come get breakfast, I’ll make it up to you.

He just wanders off back downstairs, leaving you to get dressed by yourself.

When you enter the kitchen, he’s plating up pancakes and drizzling them in syrup just the way you like. You pass him and run a hand over his shoulder blades, but he doesn’t move. Doesn’t even flinch.

When you sit at the table, he puts the plate down in front of you. Silently. Then sits across from you.

You watch his every move. He picks up his knife and fork, and begins cutting into his own breakfast. Staring down at the plate. Then out of the kitchen window to the backyard. Then back to the plate.

You give his calf a light kick under the table, and his eyes lift, but only to your plate.

“You gonna eat?” he asks. Toneless. Less emotion than he talked to your dad with.

Without a word, you pick up your cutlery and start on your own pancakes, though your appetite suddenly disappears.

He made them with banana – your favorite – but the way he’s being with you right now, they taste sour and dry. You chew your way through as much as you can until you’re staring him down, desperate for him to –

“Would you just say somethin’?”

He looks up. Finally looks you in the eye. “What?”

“Say something. Get mad. Yell at me or something, I dunno.”

“Why would I yell at you?” He plants his fork into a scrap of pancake and drags his knife alongside it.

“I mean, you seem pretty mad right now.”

“I ain’t gonna yell at you.”

“But you are mad?”

Joel doesn’t reply. He leans to one side, fishes in his back pocket for something, then slides your cell across the wooden table toward you. He nods down at it, and you click to unlock it.

Dad: Hey, I’m heading over to Joel’s to check something out for him. Wanna meet me there?

Dad: If your slumber party’s over, that is

He sent them an hour ago. If you’d fucking looked, you’d have known.

“Fuck…” you whisper.

“Yeah,” Joel mutters, jaw chewing, “fuck.”

“He didn’t– I mean, he didn’t see me, though. Right?”

“He saw your hat.”

You lean back in your chair, cutlery clattering against your plate. “He didn’t know it was mine.” A smile forms on your lips, you can’t help it, but it quickly vanishes when Joel’s tone doesn’t shift. Not even a note.

“And how do I know he ain’t drive by your car on his way?”

“Aw, c’mon, man, I’m parked, like, four streets away.”

Joel shakes his head, eyebrows arched. “You’re unbelievable,” he whispers.

“Uh, okay. Thanks. Jeez.” You fold your arms and glare out to the backyard, face beginning to heat. Eyes beginning to sting. Joel’s never like this with you. Never mad, never disappointed. Never makes you feel like a kid being told off.

“I mean, your bikini’s hangin’ up out there,” he points his fork toward the backyard, “and ain’t your bag sat in my hallway? How in the hell he didn’t see that, I have no idea.”

“But he obviously didn’t, so what’s the big deal? It’s only a black tote, it could’ve been anyone’s.”

“The big deal is that he could’ve seen it, baby! And it’s not just anyone’s, is it? It’s his daughter’s.”

And the thing is – he’s not even wrong. You can’t argue back much, ‘cause you know as well as he does that everything he’s saying is true. It’s valid. Your dad would’ve walked right by that bag – twice. The same bag he saw you hook over your shoulder right before you kissed his cheek and skipped out of his room.

This whole time, you’ve been dancing on a knife edge. Waiting to be caught. You came too close this time, and Joel tells you as much.

“Alright, well, what do you want me to do? I can’t go back in time and move the damn bag. I’m sorry, Joel. I didn’t fucking mean to let him see–”

“That’s not the point,” he interjects, which is another thing Joel rarely does.

This whole argument is something Joel – something you rarely do. The two of you. The last time you saw him this animated, this angry over something, it was Arthur Kennedy eyeing you up at the barbecue. And even that – that wasn’t directed at you. He wasn’t mad at you.

“Then what’s your point?” you ask, hands slapping down on the table.

“My point is – how many times are we gonna come within touching distance of someone finding out about this? If it wasn’t Hank almost finding us upstairs, it was your dad waltzing right in while I had you fuckin’– while I was…” He sighs, and then throws his cutlery down onto his plate.

Your head drops, thinking back to the seconds of panic between your dad opening your front door and him seeing you two, an awkward, guilty distance apart. Your shorts under the couch. Your wet on Joel’s fingers.

Joel’s kitchen table blurs in and out of focus, tears swimming across your eyes. You rapidly blink them away, but they’re forming quicker than you can rid yourself of them. When he speaks again, you can’t look at him.

“Look,” he runs an almost trembling hand through his hair, rising from the table, “I gotta go. I got some things I need to do today.”

You stand to height opposite him. “You…gotta go? Right now?”

“Yes, darlin’. I got work stuff to see to.”

“Right. Sure.” You lift your plate, turning away, and hear him sigh.

“I’ll only be a couple hours. We’ll talk more when I’m back.”

You spin then, pursing your lips. “So, I’m to wait here for you? That what you’re sayin’?”

Joel’s already picking up his keys. “No…If you wanna go, you can go. Just…if you wanna talk, then stay. We’ll talk.”

You look up at him, no more words coming to the surface to say. He moves a lock of hair from your face, and heads for the door.

Wait here for him. What a fuckin’ joke.

Still, that’s exactly what you do.

You throw yourself down on his couch, flick on his TV. Put on another episode of Love Island. Think over which boy you’d pick, then decide it’d be none of them, and wonder why the hell you’re watching it in the first place.

You wander upstairs to his room. Sift through the shirts hanging in his closet – all different variations and prints of flannel because it’s Joel fucking Miller. Pull the sleeves to your nose, breathe in the smell of him. The sweet, sandalwood smell that wraps over you like a warm blanket; comforting, calming. Fix the pillows on his bed, punch out the lumps where you lay huddled against him last night, his body against – and inside – yours.

You feel hot with anger. Frustration. A little bit of guilt. It sits heavy on your head, drips down to your stomach, swirls around and mixes with the anxiety already in there. If he’d just come home, you could argue it out. Force whatever he really wants to say out of his mouth. Say a few things of your own back to him.

You never fight. It’s the one thing – you never fight. You bicker, you toss back and forth. You piss him off and he shuts you up with his words, or his lips, or with more. But you never really fight.

It’s like something’s different. As if something’s changed, right from under your feet.

Joel comes home two hours later. Lets the door shudder closed behind him, sighs as he kicks his boots off. You’re still upstairs in his room, perched on his side of the bed reading some stupid book on Alcatraz you found in a drawer.

“Baby?” he calls, and you don’t reply. You’ve little right to be as mad as you are, but he can search for you for a minute as reparation for walking out earlier.

“Hey…” he whispers when he pushes the door open, spotting you with the book resting on your thighs. “Alcatraz, huh?”

“It ain’t that good,” you huff, slamming it shut and sliding it across the nightstand.

He breathes a Hmph, then sweeps around the bed. Like he’s scared to make a sound. Like he’s trying not to be noticed. When he reaches you, he sinks into the mattress at your feet, elbow resting on your knees.

“We gotta talk.”

Do I want to hear this? you ask him with your eyes.

He sucks a deep, unsteady breath in, and his brows furrow. He sighs again.

And you know what he’s about to say.

“This…We’ve pushed this too far, now. We’re way beyond reining this in.”

You stare at his lips. Waiting for them to offer something more. When they fall silent, your gaze trails up the shape of his nose, curving around his brows and then finally falling onto his eyes. They reveal all you need to know.

“You gotta be fucking kidding me. You’re not serious, right? Joel.”

“Kid, I…”

“No. What? Because of a bag?”

“Not because of a bag.” He looks you in the eye and shakes his head, whispers your name., then, “…because of the lying.”

“It’s never been a problem up until now.”

“It’s never been as bad as now. You ain’t been home in almost two days. Your dad has no idea where you are.”

“I’m not in danger, Joel.”

“You think he’d be happy? If he knew where you were really at right now? Knew you’d lied to his face this entire weekend?”

You sink back against the headboard, defeated. Desperately trying to find another way through what he’s saying. “What, then? What do we do? Come clean?”

He almost fucking laughs. Plays it off by pushing the air from his cheeks. “No. I don’t think we should…No.”

You shrug. “Then, tell me. Just fucking say it.”

Joel shakes his head, holds his hands out. “You’re lookin’ at me like I’m breakin’ this off outta the blue, baby. Like it’s comin’ outta left field.”

“So you’re breaking it off?”

“No, I’m– It’s not– I don’t…” He sighs, fingers pressing into his eyes.

You stand up, towering over him, silhouetted by the window behind you. “Just – fucking – say it. End it. I’ll go.”

“That’s not what I’m tryna do, kid.”

“What are you tryna do, then? There are two of us in this, Joel. You’ve been lying just as much as I have.”

“You don’t think I know that?” he hisses, standing up until you’re chest to chest, inches apart from one another. “Jesus, kid. I’m checking myself every fuckin’ conversation I have with your dad. Makin’ sure nothin’ I say will clue him in. Makin’ sure I don’t accidentally let slip what the hell’s been goin’ on!”

“I’ve been doin’ the same!” you yell back. “It ain’t just you, Joel, but that doesn’t seem to mean nothin’ to you!”

“Mean nothin’,” he repeats with a laugh, turning away and running his hands through his hair. “You don’t mean nothin’ to me? That what you think?”

“What else am I supposed to take from this, asshole? That you’re fuckin’ in love with me?”

He falls silent. His lips pull into a frown. He backs off.

Downstairs, his phone starts ringing. He glances to the doorway, shifts between his feet.

“You don’t get to do this, you know,” your voice trembles, “you don’t get to pull me in and then just drop me when it becomes inconvenient. Once you’re done with me.”

“Don’t.” Joel’s voice cuts like glass. “Don’t.”

You step back. Stare him down, try to make him say something. Try to make him do something. Your hands are on his biceps, eyes boring into his, swelling with tears you’re trying desperately to hold back.

Nothing. Not a word.

“I can’t read your mind anymore…” you whisper.

Joel takes a deep breath, his eyes flicker across your lips just for a second. He looks sad, eyes glassy, lines around his eyes where his eyebrows meet. But they tell you nothing.

His phone’s still ringing out, echoing through the silent house like an alarm bell.

You look at him blankly now. “Phone’s ringin’, Joel.”

He says nothing back, just looks at you from under his low brows.

You back out of his bedroom, shaking your head and stumbling a little over thin air. You’re staring at each other; you, trying to work out who the man is standing in front of you, and Joel, trying to plead with you to hear him out.

When you reach the threshold, you turn as if to run.

“Darlin’, come back. Hey.”

He follows you into the hallway and you feel his hand around your wrist. You whip it to your chest and turn to face him.

“Darlin’? Not your darlin’ anymore, am I? ’m just some girl you were fucking for a month.”

“C’mon, now, you know that’s not true.”

You lead downstairs, shoes thudding as you go. Joel’s right behind you, trying any combination of words to slow you down, make you look at him, stop for five seconds.

When you reach the bottom of the stairs, your arm swoops down to grab your bag, and as you straighten up, Joel’s ringtone cuts and his machine beeps.

“Hey, Joel,” a woman’s voice fills the space between you both. Your head whips around to stare at the machine.

“It’s Lois. I was just callin’ to…to check in. It was really nice seein’ you today. Give me a call when you can, okay?”

The voicemail cuts and the two of you are plunged back into silence. Silence, save for the heaving of your breath. Your chest rises and falls rapidly, your heart ready to burst through it. You haven’t taken your eyes off of the machine, red light blinking menacingly.

Joel lifts his hands. “That is not…It’s not what it sounds like…” he says, slowly, calmly. Quiet. Like you’ve never heard him speak before. Not We’re about to be caught quiet. Not even Quit arguin’ back quiet.

This is desperate quiet. And desperate’s not something you’ve ever heard pass Joel’s lips.

Your whole body is shaking, and you’re not sure whether it’s from adrenaline, or fear, or hurt, or pain. It takes most of the life inside you just for your lungs to open and close. You can’t fucking look at him. You can’t – fuck, you can’t even look in his direction.

You turn slowly toward the front door. You unlock it in a daze, and pull on the handle. The heat from outside hits you like you’ve opened an oven door.

“Baby…” Joel whispers.

“I’ll see you ‘round, Joel.”

----------

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