Beesmall - Your Girl

Graham Greene, The End of the Affair

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The second crow

Summary: There's not much in your tiny town, and Joel doesn't expect to stay long.

Pairing: coal miner!Joel Miller x f!Reader

Word count: ~13.5k

Warnings: once again writing about grief, mentions of suicidal ideation, small town setting and drama, past death of a parent (reader), past death of a child (joel), avoidant reader, mentions of natural disaster, anxiety, brief smut, smoking, alcohol mention

A/N: She wrote another long ass fic! This took months to write and then collected dust in the drafts because I'm scared. This is the kind of thing I post and run away from because there is so much of myself in it. This is probably the most me you will ever get. Please allow me this little moment to be sappy about it in the author's note. I don't know if anyone even reads these but I'm going to shove my love in here anyway. This fic is very special to me for a lot of reasons. It deals with a lot of personal issues I've been grappling with, and it is very much a love letter to where I'm from. I hope you enjoy this fic, can find something in it to relate to, and can appreciate the little slice of idealized love for home I've indulged in here. Thank you for reading! And as always, I would love to hear any thoughts you have.

And, he will never, ever know it, but this fic is very much dedicated to my best friend, who was the first person to hang on and say I won't let you go this time.

The door clatters back in the wind; the glass rattles in the frame. Snow swirls into the front foyer before it slams shut again.

A man you don’t recognize steps through the archway, and into the front room. A layer of coal dust lays fine and thin over his coveralls, settled into the creases in his face. He carries a battered miner’s helmet, a duffle bag, a rifle, and nothing else.

“Hi,” you say, surprised from your place behind the kitchen counter, plucking down holiday decorations that had long overstayed their welcome. “Somethin’ I can help you with?” 

“Sure,” he nods and approaches, eyes flicking around the small front room, overcrowded with furniture that was in style thirty years ago, peeling patterned forest green wallpaper that you’d love to be able to replace one day, or at least fix up. 

You can’t be bothered to feel anything but curiosity. 

Strangers are a rare thing.

Rarer are strangers that come from so far away that they do not know not to come inside covered in coal dust and snow, before they have cleaned off. It sloughs off him in minute, shimmering waves, fine lines of black that sparkle in the white, winter light. 

Rivulets of sweat cut through the dust on his face and neck, and pools at the base of his throat. Snow melts in his hair and along the shoulders of his coat from the blizzard outside.

A chunk of ice falls off his boot with his final step toward you. You watch it slide across the floor and under the edge of a battered bookshelf. “I’m lookin’ for a room. Guy at the bar pointed me here.” 

His accent is a drawl and not a twang, the syllables of his words hang long in the air. Not quite southern. It takes you a long second to pin-point its origin. “Tell me, do they have coal mines in Texas?”

He blinks at you, fingers tightening on the rim of the hardhat in his hands. “Yes ma’am.” 

“And did you mine coal there?” 

“Can’t say I did.” 

“And you didn’t get much snow either, I take it?” 

He huffs out a surprised, exasperated chuckle. “Not like this.” 

“I figured so,” you smile. “With that way you’re trackin’ dust and ice across my floor. You’d know better than to come in the front door like that. Or at least to stomp off the snow a little.” 

The stranger looks back at the mess he tracked across the room and then turns back to you, looking sheepish, maybe a little horrified. “I apologize, I shoulda realized—”

“Don’t worry about it,” you shake your head. “It’s all right. But most folks along this street will feel the same, except the bar, so keep that in mind.”

“Yes ma’am.”

“A room you said?” 

He nods, then shakes his head. “Well, if I didn’t offend you too bad, that is.” 

“You didn’t. But you should know we got a miner’s shower in the basement.” 

He just nods again, glancing around the room. You didn’t think someone could get culture shock from your little town, but you think you see all the fixings of it on this stranger’s face. The coal dust and the slushy streets aside, the miner’s shower and kicking snow off his boots seems to have done it. 

He looks lost, in more ways than one. Down on his luck, melancholy but different to the kind of sadness you usually see. Tired. Like there's something missing about him.

You go through the motions of asking how long he’ll be staying with you, figuring which room to put him in — end of the hall, you decide, the least drafty of the two. Not like you ever had many guests.

You can’t help feel a little sympathy for him, standing uncomfortable in the middle of the room because you’d pointed out his mistake. 

“So, Texas, what brought you to our little town?” You ask and pull on your coat, motioning for him to follow you back outside. 

The front steps are slick with ice, in need of another layer of salt. You step carefully over it, the stranger offering you an arm to hang onto as you descend, and lead him around the side of the house, the path already dug out from the snowfall of the previous night. 

Dark is falling quick, the sun sinking below the mountains, layering the valley in its usual early darkness, the crests of the hills in the distance cast in an eerie golden orange even through the snowfall. 

Texas doesn’t answer you, the tread of his footsteps quiet behind you. When you reach the back of the house, snow up to your ankles padded in from the yard, you turn to face him, snow battering at both of you. “Just work.” 

“Why here?” 

You like knowing strangers. They’re easy to know, because there’s no chance of them turning and knowing too much, of looking behind your questions and smiles and seeing anything important. You are anonymous to them as they are to you, and that's how you like it. Nothing you might reveal means anything.

He doesn’t answer you and so you leave it. “Well, whatever brought you here, we’re glad to have you. We don’t get many folks from other places.” You turn to the door you’ve led him to, “Now, when you get in from the mines, you come in this way.” You hold up the proper key and let both of you in. “Just to rinse off, y’know? Won’t make you clean up down here, too cold. But otherwise, you can come on through the front door as long as you kick the ice off your boots. All right?” 

“Yes ma’am.” 

He sounds so serious and polite, brow lowered over his eyes. 

“Well, okay,” you smile. “I’ll leave you to it.”

Yours is the first place Joel lands in a long time that he feels comfortable. 

Everything has a worn, lived in feel to it, like generations of families and visitors and travelers have passed there before him, like the warmth of their ghosts still linger in the walls and beneath the floorboards.  

The front room is cluttered with books and all kinds of knicknacks, postcards that look like they were sent by people who passed through or visited before the town stopped getting so many visitors. The wallpaper is peeling and the floors groan no matter where he sets his feet. 

It reminds him of somewhere he’s been before, or something he used to know, and can’t say exactly what. 

Maybe it just reminds him of all the comfortable places he’s ever been, that very particular small town intimacy that he’s tried to remain anonymous and separate from for the last year or so. 

He means to stay just until the snow storm passes. 

And then it does and he keeps on staying. 

It’s funny, how quick he takes to you, feels the ache of something settled just at the bottom of his chest, echoed back at him in your eyes. A kind of loneliness and seeking that he tramps down any time it dares raise its head. 

“You know,” you had said the second evening he was there. He had been thinking about getting something to eat, and instead found himself letting you pour him a cup of coffee. “You can stay for dinner. We used to feed everybody who stayed here. But that was before the passenger trains quit running. Before my time, nearly. Now it’s just those guys that pass through and wanna go over to the bar anyway.” 

“I don’t want ya to go outta your way—”

“Please,” you’d scoffed. “I’d be glad for the company.” 

“All right,” he’d found himself agreeing to that smile, the invitation of company he hadn’t wanted or needed in a long time. “Anything I can help you with?” 

You’d shaken your head and he sat when you’d gestured at the table. “Very kind of you to offer, though, Joel.” 

He hadn't been sure what to say either, that second night, because he’d been alone for so long, and talk had come at a minimum since he left Texas. 

The house sighed and Joel sipped his coffee, watching the points of your elbows, the jut of your hip, as you cooked. It didn’t matter that he hadn’t been sure what to say, because you had; well versed in quiet strangers it seemed, which would come to bother him. 

He would come to hate how easily you get on with strangers and push everyone else away. 

But he hadn’t known that the second night. 

Maybe he just hadn’t realized how starved for company he’d really been. But he liked you right away and the way you just talk, every thought you ever had floating up and right out of your mouth without a filter.

It takes his mind off the things he tries to forget anyway.  

So, he had eaten with you that second night and every night that he can afterwards. 

A week passes and you expect Joel to move on, like everyone does. But he doesn’t, he asks for the room for another week, and then another, and another. 

Joel clips steadily into your life, until he’s part of your everyday routine. 

He gives you extra money for the dinner appointment he keeps with you each night, though you tell him he doesn’t have to. 

He makes himself helpful in the evenings even though you suspect he’s always exhausted but never able to get any shut eye. He drinks coffee by the pot full, and though you wonder what it is that keeps him up at night, you don’t ask. You don’t ask anything of him, because it isn’t your place, though your curiosity burns hot.

The stranger is becoming not a stranger and you don’t know how to feel about that. Maybe this time you would manage to let someone in without feeling like the world might cave in on you. 

The stranger, Joel, is kind and sometimes funny. He’s handsome and it’s hard not to like his company. He doesn't talk much but you don't mind.

The dark shadow that hangs behind his eyes has nothing to do with you. But it gets hard to remember that when you end up spending so much time with him. 

It isn’t long before your neighbor, and friend, starts in on teasing you about him. Each time Janie comes to the back door with fresh bread from the bakery she makes eyes at you and asks after your handsome boarder. 

You claim to know nothing of him, despite knowing so much and so little all in one. 

You start to worry every Sunday that he goes out on his own into the woods that he’ll never come back, and that all you’ll have left are the footprints he left in the snow, and even those will be long gone when the year eventually and inevitably warms up. 

It scares you that it worries you at all. It shouldn’t matter at all if he suddenly disappeared into the snow. 

But he always comes back, never with any game even though you told him nobody cares about the no hunting on Sundays rule, and with a look in his eye that says he did kill something, just not something you could see. 

When you figure out he’s carrying nothing to work with him to eat, you insist he go next door and get some pepperoni rolls from Janie. “What is it?” 

“What’s it sound like?” You ask and roll your eyes. “They’re good to take into the mines with you. You can’t work thousand hour shifts and not eat. Don’t you have a lunch bucket or somethin’?” 

“Thousand hour,” he scoffs. Then, “No, I don’t.”

“Jesus, Joel.”

He laughs and it’s the first time you’ve heard it. It’s nice, and sounds surprised in the air, punched out of him in a short burst. “All right,” he agrees. “All right. I’ll figure somethin’ out.” 

But he leaves before the sun comes up and comes back long after it’s set and so you can’t just let it go. His whole days are set in perpetual darkness, and the very least he needs to do is eat proper.

You know you shouldn’t, but you worry about him. 

“Just do it,” you grouse at him, shooing him away from the coffee pot. “She makes ‘em fresh everyday and it would make me feel better. It’s common, anyway. It’s what a lot of guys take down there. And you wouldn’t want me dying of worry over you, would you?” 

Joel grumbles about it, but he does as you ask, and when he comes in in the evenings, he doesn’t look so pale anymore. The bruises under his eyes never go away, the puffy bags of sleeplessness that he supplements with coffee at all hours of the day, morning and night, but he doesn’t look so wan and so it’s better.  

Even quiet as he seems to be, he looks at you when you talk and always says thank you when you put a plate down in front of him, and makes it out to be a great ordeal when he asks if he could trouble you for a cup of coffee.

One evening, a couple weeks on, he slumps down at the table with an unusual amount of heaviness. His shoulders are damp with a thousand snowflakes, coal dust rubbed haphazardly off his face, the weight of a heavy sky on his shoulders. 

Joel asks for a cup of coffee but he looks like he’s been sleeping even less than usual. 

He looks exhausted, purple bags beneath his eyes, and even though it’s none of your business, you ask, “Sure? Might be you won’t sleep.” 

“I’ll be all right.” His voice doesn’t leave room for argument, a tad dismissive. 

“You’ll eat with it,” you snap. “Or you can go find it somewhere else.” 

He blinks up at you, surprised at your tone. “I can be mean, too, Joel Miller.” 

It takes a second but he nods. “I’m sorry. I was raised with better manners than that.” 

“I know it. It’s all right.” 

Almost like an apology, he tells you about Texas that night, about his brother, about what he’s found he actually misses from home, how he used to be a carpenter before he did this, how he can play the guitar.

“What is it you’re lookin’ for?” You ask softly when he stands at your sink with bowed shoulders, washing the dishes, meticulous about it. 

He shrugs. “That’s just it,” he says without looking at you, hands reddened with the heat of the water. “There's nothin’ to look for.” 

“You’re that Mr. Miller, aren’t ya? Lives over at the inn, right? Have all winter long?” 

Joel is in the tiny general store. It’s mid-March and you asked him to get milk. There’s about five shelves total, a freezer, and a refrigerator. He’s been in and out plenty of times without any kind of trouble. 

He glances at the man leaning against the cooler door next to the one he has propped open and gives a vague nod. “Sure.” 

“Well, we was just wantin’ to know what’s got you hangin’ around over there for so long.” 

It ain’t phrased like a question. 

Joel glances over his shoulder, finds two women and the owner of the store looking over at them from the front counter. 

“Mister?” 

He turns back to the man attempting to intimidate him. “That so?” 

“Sure do.” 

“Well, she don’t seem to have a problem with my stayin’ there,” he grabs the milk you’d asked him for, the least he could do after all those dinners you cooked. He tries to repay you, do things around the place but you’re resistant to it, independent and sometimes angry, and damn stubborn about it. “So I really don’t see what that has to do with you, anyhow.” 

The hostility bleeds red in the air. He pays for the milk and doesn’t wait for the change, figuring he wouldn’t get it anyway, and that a few coins didn’t matter anyway. 

When he opens the backdoor, snow and ice and street grit knocked carefully off his boots at the bottom of the steps that led up to the porch, you smile at him. 

“You got some protective friends.” 

“Excuse me?” 

He tells you what happened, lets you put a cup of coffee in front of him on the table and press a friendly hand to his shoulder. 

And, Jesus, it shouldn’t, but it makes something deep in him ache. If your hand lingered, if it rubbed the top of his spine and between his shoulder blades, he’d be all right with that; he’d lean into it. 

But your hand disappears just as quick. 

“Oh, honey, they’re just suspicious of anyone that hangs around town for too long.”

“Why’s that?” 

“You ain’t noticed? We don’t get people from other places around here, and the ones we have take everything. With not a lot to go around. They just don’t know you.” You smile wryly at him over your shoulder, mouth twisted crookedly. Your gaze flicks over him, lingering for a second, but then you shrug and turn away.

“Make an effort, if you care to. They’ll come around. They just don’t know you, it’s not like you get out,” you rib lightly. 

“Cute.” 

“Can’t help you go from here to the mines and back and that’s it.” You’re smiling when you say it, the curve of your cheek visible to him even though your back is turned. 

He rolls his eyes and you laugh when you catch him doing it. 

He can’t figure why it matters to him, but it does. 

So, Joel makes the effort, or does his best to. 

He makes his way over to the neighbor’s place and offers to fix their front step he noticed was loose, wood rotting through. He fixes someone’s leaking roof. Runs deliveries of groceries to the old folks who can’t get out and regale him with stories that take at least two hours to tell. He shovels snow until he’s so exhausted he does actually pass out at night. 

It gets around that he’s handy and not asking for anything in return and a nice young man according to the older people and so he finds he has something to do each evening for almost a week straight. 

Maybe that was a mistake, but if Joel knows anything it’s that small, poor towns run on favors. He knows that you smile when he tells you why he’s back so late each evening. 

A week or so after the general store incident, he receives a parcel of muffins, and overhears one of the neighbors commending him in your kitchen. “Maybe he’s not so bad. We was worried. No one ever sees him. You should bring him over to the church sometime.” 

It shouldn’t matter, but it does. You laugh and say, “I don’t think either of us are the church goin’ type. But I always know a good man when I see one, you should know that by now at least.”

“You sure do. Think he could fix our porch swing before spring comes?” 

“Don’t see why he couldn’t.” 

He makes an effort to be seen. It’s nice, he guesses, that people know his name again. It’s nice to feel needed somewhere, even if it smarts a little. It’s nice to feel like maybe he isn’t looking for nothing anymore. 

Joel tells himself that it just makes things easier for him, just so he can get goddamn milk without being accosted. Milk for you, for dinner. 

No, it has nothing at all to do with you, or the way you called him a good man, or the way the tips of his ears went hot with it.

Not getting to talk to you for a week straight in the evenings almost becomes worth it. 

It has nothing at all to do with that big lonely hole in his heart, or the memories that snagged like sharp teeth at the edge of that wound. 

The mines are way out past the edge of town. 

It’s a long damn walk there and back. The morning is pitch black when he sinks into the cold earth, and only dregs of light are left when he comes back up in the evenings. 

But the town, when he draws near, sparkles with light, bright with moonlight reflected on the snow that won’t seem to melt, even as April begins to creep in. 

Spring should be well on its way, but the world still smells frozen and bruised, like pine needles and coal dust and the enduringly brutal cold. 

Most that stay in town are just passing through town, on their way to somewhere else. He finds he doesn’t mind being the only permanent fixture at your place. 

Some of them are all right, most of them really, but a few make him wary. He worries about you, though you don’t seem concerned about being alone. He supposes you did it long before he got there, and you’ll do it after he leaves. 

They’re gone within days, anyway, so he doesn’t say anything about it. But he wants to, the words like bubbles that want to pop in the back of his throat. He wants to tell you to be careful and not so friendly. 

He’s exhausted by the time he makes his way to the basement door, folds away his coal encrusted oversuit and rises off the worst of the sweat and dust quick. He’ll take a proper shower later. 

You and him have fallen into a routine the last couple months, the fine sharp edge of April waiting just around the corner, and with it the hopes for warmer weather, that the temperatures will rise and the wind won’t bite quite so harshly. 

There’s always something hot waiting for him on the table, even if you aren’t there to see to it. Most nights you’re there, but you are busy. More times than not lately, you’re somewhere else, doing something else, maybe like you’re trying to unstick yourself from him just a little. But you’re just busy, popular in town as a local, a regular nearly everywhere. 

He always sits with you when he gets the chance, eats with you. He likes to. It keeps his mind off of what he’d left behind, what he lost.

Just like working himself to death all day does. It’s hard to think beyond the physical, backbreaking pain of the labor to what lay in back in Texas. 

You and him create a routine together, solid and steady. 

When it’s interrupted, he hates to admit it burns. 

It hadn’t taken him long to realize that you are profoundly lonely, despite the plethora of people in and out of your life—the visitors and guests, but the townspeople, too. You’re a regular everywhere, and somehow always alone. 

You’re friends with the baker next door, at least. As far as he can tell, she’s the only person you’re really close with in the town. 

The baker has started coming to the back door in the morning, a sly smile on her face that he’s not particularly keen on. He has started taking the basket from her, answering the knock that never waited to be answered, the door always pushed in before either of you could get to it, a basket of fresh bread and the pepperoni rolls he’d started buying off her weeks before to appease you.  

He forgets to eat more than he ever has before. It just doesn’t seem to matter. 

A couple times a week, you sit down to cards and cigarettes and drinks with the baker. He listens to the gossip from the front room, a book with words that blur and never sink in propped on his knee. To hear the two of you together, it makes something in his throat close. 

He usually has Sundays off, days where he’d climb out into the great unknown of the valleys and hills that surround the picturesque town, almost village-like with all its holiday lights still strung up to keep the long dark days of the enduring winter season at bay, and, rifle in hand, go hunting. 

It’s illegal to go hunting on Sundays, but you assure him no one cares as long as it’s after the church services are over.  

He never manages to get a shot off anyway, so it doesn’t really matter. 

Everytime he thinks he’ll be able to lift the gun to his shoulder and pull the trigger at the creature sighted in the scope, he doesn’t, he can’t. He sees his daughter instead. He sees Sarah’s closed coffin; he sees her bloodied face, shards of glass spread around her like a halo of sparkling snow; he sees her blonde hair stuck to her forehead with sweat, tubes crawling in and out of her mouth and chest and arms.

And all Joel has to show for it is a scar across the bridge of his nose, a tight pinch in his right shoulder that hadn’t been there before.

There are a lot of deer around, but birds, too, ducks and geese, rabbits, foxes. All of them remind him of his kid and so the rifle remains unused. He can’t help but feel like he might be killing his kid all over again. 

The basement is dark and chilled when he gets in, but not cold or damp. Snow crumbles from his boots and leaves an icy shine behind. There’s a broom beside the door and he does his best to sweep the mess to the drain in the center of the basement floor. 

Something weary weighs on him. He feels heavy all the time, tired beyond belief, and like a hole might open up in his chest at any moment, like the heart of him might slip out, bloody and mangled, right onto the floor. 

This isn’t the first town he’s stumbled onto, lost and wandering, unable to stay in Texas without thinking of his girl. It is the first town he’s stayed in longer than a week. 

It’s been near a year since she passed in that hospital, machines turned off, chest ceasing to rise and fall. 

He thought he could take it, be strong, be there as his child died right in front of him. 

He’d had to agree to it after all, sign all the right papers and talk to all the right people, and get a thousand and one second opinions from all kinds of doctors to be sure. 

No brain activity. No chance of ever waking up. Hung in limbo forever, and he couldn’t abide that, that maybe she was in pain and trying to move on and leave and find rest and he wasn’t letting her. 

They assured him that she would not feel a thing, and that was good, but no one warned him that he would be the one taking it all on. It felt like being carved open, split down the middle, like he was raw and turned inside out and someone was holding a hot needle to his lungs. 

He hadn’t been able to help the way he fell to his knees and howled, sobbed. 

So, after the funeral, he sold his house and left. Did odd jobs and backbreaking seasonal work for almost a year, a different town every week, until he stumbled on this mining town, deep in the hills of some place long forgotten. 

By the looks of the buildings, it might have been busy once, trains and visitors and people, but the mines feel like they’ve been there since the beginning of time. There’s something ancient in the air and down in the deep earth. 

Maybe he stays because he got into town on the anniversary of the accident. 

He’s goddamn stupid if he doesn’t think it has nothing to do with you, though. 

Joel should have already moved on when he heard about your little inn, in the bar down the street, but snow had moved in, so thick and white, he couldn’t see more than an inch in front of his face. The roads would be bad for days after, the least he could do was get away from that shitty company housing while he waited, and get a few more days of pay. 

But the roads cleared, and a week passed, and then another, and another, and he still hasn’t met that urge to keep moving, to put space between him and Sarah. He only thinks of her when he’s trying to sleep, and those fateful Sundays. 

The kitchen is empty and cold when he closes the basement door behind him, a thin wind spiraling in from the cracked open back door. 

The porch is dark but the outline of you is clear, sitting on the plastic-covered porch swing with a cigarette between your fingers. “Those things’ll kill ya they say,” he says by way of greeting, leaning against the siding. 

“And what exactly do you go breathing in everyday down in them mines that’s so healthy?” There’s a snap in your voice that usually isn’t there, that mean streak that lashes out from time to time. 

Joel pulls the door almost shut, shuts the little bit of light leaking outside away. “Are you all right?” 

“Sorry.” 

“S’okay,” he says. “Should I leave ya?” 

It takes a minute for you to answer. “Get a coat and come sit.” After a second you add, “If y’want.” 

So he gets a coat and sits next to you on the swing. The plastic crinkles under his thighs. “Do you smoke?” 

“I used to.” He should leave it at that but more words follow that he doesn’t intend. “Stopped years ago, a couple months before my - my daughter was born.” He falters a little on the words.

Joel braces himself, stiffens, all the bone and muscle inside of him going deadly tight, waiting for the inevitable questioning. Maybe you don’t care to ask or maybe you feel him tense or hear something in his voice because you don’t ask. 

Something pricks at him, disappointment maybe. 

“Well, it’s just us here,” you say simply. “You want one?” 

Sarah never knew he smoked. 

He takes the one you offer and the packet of matches. 

“I don’t usually,” you say without prompting. “Smoke, that is. Sometimes when I drink.” 

Joel takes a long drag and holds it in his lungs for a long minute. It feels good and tastes as bad as he remembers. “Card night.” 

You smile at him, cigarette slowly brought to your lips. “That’s right.” 

He almost asks what it is that has you smoking without your friend, but he figures you’re about to tell him anyway. You talk a lot. He likes that about you. 

So he waits. 

And you don’t say anything. 

There’s just a long melancholy silence where your words normally are. 

On a usual evening, he comes upstairs and bothers you about letting him help you some way. You don’t like letting people help you, like it even less when he just does it anyway. 

On a usual evening, he’s threatened with expulsion from the kitchen, and then gets caught up on local dramas, some of which he is beginning to understand, while he sits at the table with a cup of coffee and you pretend to never need help. 

The snow makes a sound as it hits the piles of the stuff that has yet to melt, frozen hard and unforgiving everywhere. 

He’s never been around snow, much less sat outside as it fell. 

The whole world goes quiet with it, like he got sucked into a black hole and sound got swallowed up around nothing. 

And in the silence, he can hear the individual plunks of each flake settling onto the frozen ground. He wouldn’t have thought it made a sound at all.

“You sure you’re all right?” He asks and slips one arm across the back of the swing, realizing that you never answered him in the first place. 

You just draw in another long breath and inch closer to him on the swing. 

Maybe he’s not as crazy as he thought. When you look at him, there’s something in your eyes, a grief that he feels reflected back in your eyes, sharp like a tack shoved into the delicate skin between thumb and forefinger. 

The ache in his chest is present on your face. 

“Just one of those days,” you say and smile. “Sorry I’m not myself.”

You’re plenty yourself, just muted. Quiet. 

He does quiet pretty well, so you just sit there and listen to the snow, breathe it in, shudder against his arm until he just wraps it around you, trying not to put too much thought into it. 

You don’t look at him. “Thanks.” 

“Mhm.” 

He’s not sure how long you sit there. He just knows he’s numb when your hand covers his, your fingers feel hot against the freezing ache that’s set in.

“My dad was a miner. Pretty much everybody is around here, I guess. Those mines,” you say and shake your head. “They give. We wouldn’t exist without ‘em, but they take too. They take what they think they’re owed in the end. You can’t take that much out of Earth that old and expect nothin’ bad.” You hesitate for a long moment but when Joel squeezes your hand, you continue. “My dad died in a mine collapse around this time a couple years ago. So I guess that’s what I'm thinkin’ about today.”

There’s a long moment of silence, and, slowly, your head tips against his shoulder. The cigarettes are stubbed out, the butts deposited in an ashtray. “Usually, this time of year all the snow is already gone. And then the rains come and everything floods. And that spring, the mine collapsed with it.” 

He thinks of telling you of his own grief, his own loss, and the way he ran away from it. The way he’s still trying to run away from it. But something sharp twinges in his chest and he stays silent. Layering his grief over yours wouldn’t help no one, least of all you. 

Telling someone about her, someone who didn’t know her, having to describe her — he wants to, and can’t imagine doing it, all in one. 

Maybe it isn’t right to, anyway. 

Instead, he squeezes your hand, tilts his chin against your forehead. “You always run this place?” 

“No. Back when there were people still passing through, my aunt did. It’s not like there’s much else to do around here so I just decided to keep it going when she left.” 

“It’s nice.” 

“Think so? One day it’ll be a five star hotel.” 

He chuckles. “I don’t doubt it. Almost too rich for my blood now.” 

“Honorary guest,” you disagree. “Always. Room reserved for you, just in case.” 

“Uh-huh.”

“I’m serious,” you laugh and relax fully against his shoulder; the tension bleeds out of you, the curve of you spilling softly into him.

You sit like that for a long time, until the snow stops coming down.   

It’s then that the world does go silent as a grave, like the two of you are the last people alive. 

“It’s been real nice havin’ you here,” you say suddenly and quietly, like someone might hear, like you might disturb him. The puff of your breath clouds, crystalizes in front of him like something physical he might pluck from the air and put in his pocket.

Glad to have been here, glad to be here, he wants to say and doesn’t. It feels wrong to be glad to be anywhere at all. 

When you tilt your face up, your eyes are soft. He doesn’t even think about it. 

He just kisses you. 

You taste like blackberries, dark sweet and sour. The cigarette on your tongue is only an afterthought. The sound you make when he cups your head in his hands and tips it back, rehomes itself in his chest. 

When he pulls you into himself, you sigh. 

Five days later, it’s a Sunday. Another snowstorm is passing through the hills, and any snow that had managed to melt that week comes right back. 

Joel only realizes when he’s brushing his teeth—preoccupied with thinking about maybe not going hunting for once, and cleaning the damn rifle instead—that it’s unusually cold. He rinses his mouth out and goes to find you. 

The steps creak and crack as he descends them, like they’re covered in a spiderwebbed ice that might split and send him into some achingly cold depth if he isn’t careful.  

He finds you bundled up in a coat by the backdoor, a scarf wound halfway up your face, just your eyes visible above the fabric. 

“I’m sorry,”  you say, voice muffled and eyes wide. “The heating went out and there’s nothin’ to be done about it until the snow clears up a little and it ain’t supposed to until tomorrow.” You shake your head. “Never snows this goddamn much or this late in the season,” you gripe, a bitterness in your voice. 

“Well, that ain’t your fault,” he says, watching you wiggle your fingers into a pair of gloves. He thinks you’re just layering up, but when you reach for your boots by the back door it becomes apparent that you intend to go outside. “And just where do you think you’re goin’?”

You pick up a basket next and reach for the doorknob. “I need wood for the fireplace—”

“Then let me get it for ya,” he says, stepping into his own boots, tugging the basket out of your hands as he goes. “You’ll freeze out there.”

“No, Joel, you’re a guest here—”

“C’mon,” he says. “It ain’t like that now and you know it.” You don’t say anything but when he looks up, you’re frowning at him. “We got anyone else around?” 

“Just—it’s just me and you.” 

He doesn’t know why you sound so upset about it. “Good. Now where’s the wood?” 

You blink and glance away, pulling at your gloves nervously. “In the shed. Should be enough little pieces but the ax is by the door if some of it needs broken up.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll have some coffee ready for you.” 

“You don’t gotta do that.” He opens the door, snow swirls in. 

“I’m doin’ it anyway.” Then. “Joel?” 

He turns. 

“Thanks.” 

He’s not sure what he’s being thanked for and you still aren’t really looking at him, so he nods and plunges into the white blur that is the back yard, the whip of blizzard wind harsh against his face.

Inside the shed he finds that more of the wood does need axed.

He can’t get the way you looked at him out of his mind. You’ve been busy the last couple days, always out or taking care of something, pushing away any of his attempts to. . .what? He isn’t sure. Maybe that’s the problem. Maybe he made things complicated, messed something up along the way.

He fears that pushing has nothing to do with the grief that had made a home on your face that evening you spent on the porch together, but what came after and what he hadn’t said. 

You have been different too. Like something wary and stiff.

He chops the wood, feels every lift and swing of the ax. It seems to ache more in the cold. Everything does. 

Joel shoves the wood into the basket and stacks the extra pieces back onto the pile. The house is marginally warmer than outside without the brutal slice of the wind. He leaves his boots by the back door and finds you poking around in the grate of the fireplace. 

You back away when he approaches and it stings that you do. 

“Somethin’ the matter?” 

“No. ‘Course not.” 

But there is. Some kind of wall went up between you the other night. He should have said something. “All right. I’m, uh, I’m gonna get outta your hair for a while.” 

He doesn’t think of being in a blizzard, just that he needs to get out of your house before you ask him out of it, before you kick him out of it.  

The only thing he can think is that he doesn’t mean shit to you. Somewhere along the way, things got messed up, like they always do. His ex-wife’s face flashes behind his eyes, all that happened with her, all of it that always seemed to be his fault. 

Joel grabs his gear and goes out into the blue-white of the snow and makes his usual trek to a spot up in the hills. He sits with his back to a tree and listens to the way the weather beats down. The metal of the rifle goes ice cold between his knees, the bluster of the wind coats him in a perfect white. 

He might just be the only living thing out. The world is quiet apart from that brutal, beautiful shush of wind through trees and snow through air. 

He’d be ashamed to admit it, but the only thing he thinks about that day, is you. 

Joel’s hair is still damp and curling lightly against the back of his neck when he finds his way to the kitchen. 

He’d come back frozen to the bone, ice in his hair and eyebrows and the webbing of his lashes. It’s all melted now, and you have to resist the urge to reach out and touch him there, the back of his neck where you know his skin is soft, the feathery thick hair that grows a little long these days. 

“You have a minute?” Joel asks, right hand toying with the strap of his watch. He’s looking at you the way he always does lately, like he got caught with his hand in the cookie jar. A stab of guilt rakes pointed talons along your belly. 

You did that, you always do that. 

Stop it, you think. Don’t do that this time. 

“Hey,” you nod, trying. “Sure, I do. Was gonna ask you to come sit with me anyhow.” 

He pauses, takes the cup of coffee when you extend it to him, fresh brewed, a peace offering of sorts. Peace over what, you don’t know. “Y’were?” He sounds surprised, takes the cup from you, his fingers brushing yours. 

“Sure,” you answer, swiping your hand over your thigh. His gaze follows. “It’s just s’cold upstairs. Electricity’ll be out ‘til tomorrow probably. At the earliest. So.” 

He nods and looks down into his cup and you feel bad about the last week again. Of how you’re pushing again and don’t know how to stop. You held him at arm's length, made sure you were out and busy and away, watched him stop smiling at you again, replaced instead by uncertainty. 

It’s unfair. 

He should probably hate you over it. 

You wonder why he’s still here. 

When he looks up at you, you smile and his shoulders relax marginally. “All right. I’m gonna get more wood, then I’ll be there.” 

You show him the bottle of whiskey when he comes back inside, smelling of frozen air and pine. “Just to stay warm,” you promise. 

He doesn’t say no to the drink you pour him, or the way you inch closer to him. 

Because it’s cold, you tell yourself, just like it had been on the porch that other time.

The pull of longing in your chest hasn’t eased since then. You shouldn’t have let him, you’re bad at hanging on to people and afraid they’ll disappear, and you’d rather hurt by choice. You’d rather be alone and ache. 

But Joel is here and real and still in front of you, still looking at you.

It’s terrible because he wants you to know things about him and you want to run away. You want to push him away, until he leaves or hates you or both. He brought up his daughter and even though you think it might have been an accident, you think he might have wanted you to ask about her. 

And you hadn’t. 

He doesn’t make it any easier on you by being warm and solid and pressing an offering open arm along the back of the couch. 

Just like the other time. 

You accept it, because it's cold. Just because it’s cold. 

It has nothing at all to do with the way he strokes your shoulder and tugs you close to him, the way his head tilts down over yours when you press the cold tip of your nose into his neck by accident and then leave it there on purpose. 

You aren’t expecting him to say anything. The guttering of the candles lulls you to sleep, the pepper of white snow against the black swirl outside soothing. “You know,” the sound of his voice rumbles against your ear. “I didn’t know snow made noise.”

You blink. “What?”

“That sound it makes. When it’s real quiet, you can hear it land.” 

“Suppose you can, yeah.” 

“My daughter,” he starts and your breath hitches. The broken eggshell of memory delicately being pressed into the palms of your hands. You’re being trusted with something. “She only saw snow once, I think. Real slushy and wet. Not like you get around here. And I don’t remember it makin’ a noise.”

You swallow the instinct to change the subject, to say something dismissive, to push and push. 

“Did she like it?” You ask after a moment. “The snow?” 

“Yep. Got off from school. Made the world’s tiniest snowman. Maybe only a foot high. Made snow angels that turned out to be more mud than snow. My brother thought that was real funny.” 

You laugh and lean into his shoulder. He smells like snow and damp cotton and gun oil. “What’s her name?” 

Assuming. No, hoping. You are hoping that he’s just missing her, that the chipped china memory in your palm is of a girl he misses and doesn’t mourn. But you could tell the other day, you could tell by his voice and the way he isn’t with her. If he had a choice, he’d be with her. 

Joel isn’t like you. 

He’s not the kind to leave someone behind. 

He clears his throat. “Sarah. She was, uh, she was twelve.” 

“Oh. Oh, Joel. I’m sorry.” 

And you are. That is a loss no one should ever know, and Joel is not the kind to carry it well. It leaves those purple circles under his eyes, burrows deep ruts into the arteries to his heart, half his blood just drained away. It leaves the coffee pot empty, it whispers fourteen hour work days, and still no sleep. 

It pushes a rifle into hands that always come back without game. 

“Anyway, I think she would have liked this shit,” he gestures to the snow beyond the window with the mug in his hand, coffee and whiskey. “Think she would have liked it here.”

“It’s okay, when you get to know the place.” You follow his eyes. “It’s home, anyway.”  

“Yeah,” he says. “It is.” 

What part he’s agreeing with, you aren’t sure you want to know. 

He looks at you again, and you can’t bear to meet his gaze through the dark that’s fallen on the room, to see too deeply into what lay there. Sharing his daughter with you, that she died so young. A lot of things about him suddenly fall into place in your mind. 

The grief and the love with no place to go. It makes sense why he’s there, running away from something that could never be ignored. 

You take the cup from him and pull him up by the hand. 

He fits against you, pulled in tight, so easily. You feel the brush of his mouth against your cheek, his fingers against your back.

You sway, and there’s no music. You want to say that you’re sorry again. Not for his daughter, because he wouldn’t want to hear it, but for everything else — the running you’re both doing, the snow and the cold, and how clear it is that everything in the world looks like grief and loss and the big hole in his chest. 

“I think you should ask Joel to get a drink.” 

Janie pauses mid-chop, knife hanging in the air. Your friend the baker turns to look at you over her shoulder. “What did you just say?” 

You wince and fiddle with the edge of your sweater. “Joel. You should ask him.” 

“Now why,” she starts, wiping her hands on the apron tied around her waist. “Would I go and do somethin’ like that?” 

“Well, I think y’all would be good together—”

She sighs heavy and long, rolling her eyes as she sits down across from you and takes your hand in hers, still wet from rinsing the vegetables off. “You’re doin’ it again, you know.” 

“Doin’ what?” You snap, yanking your hand back, accusatory. 

“As soon as you think somebody is getting too close you push ‘em away. I know you know what you’re doin’. And I know if I hadn’t had the sense to hold onto you so hard all them years ago, you woulda done the same to me. And we’d just be neighbors.” 

She raises a brow at you when you sputter. But it’s true. You know it’s true. 

It happens all the time, with everyone. It always hits you so hard, the sudden smothered feeling, the scared, confused, cornered animal feeling, when hanging onto something seemed impossible and wrong. 

“You know that man don’t want nothin’ to do with me.” 

“He always answers the door to you in the mornings,” you defend weakly.  

“As a favor to you. He does everything for you, and I know you noticed or you wouldn’t be trying to pass him off on me. You don’t gotta be so avoidant. Not everything disappears.”

You know, but you what you don’t know is how to stop it. The sharp talons and fangs that spring out whenever someone gets too close are always a surprise. You hate it when people care about you, when you care about them. 

It’s like there’s a box around you, growing smaller with each passing second. So, you flee, before the box crushes you, or before the thing trapped in there with you gets to do it first.

That’s what you’re really afraid of, after all, not that someone might care about you, but that they one day might stop.  

“I told him about my dad,” you admit.

Janie freezes, blinks, and then looks over at you. You look back at her, miserable about it. “Oh, honey.” 

“And he. . .you shoulda seen the way he—” The way he looked at you. You almost tell her about Sarah, but don’t. That loss isn’t yours to tell, no matter what, even if it would tell her exactly how close he’s drifted to you. 

You don’t know what to call it, anyway. The way he looked at you the night of the snowstorm, the air chilled and the whole world cold except for the two of you pressed together. His hand in yours, the mocking remembrance that you had forgotten in that moment to feel trapped. 

No, that had come later. When you couldn’t breathe before going to bed, when your skin felt pinched and tight. That moment is tinged in your mind with the heaviness of a hand pinching the back of your neck, instead of the gentle press of fingers to your spine, his mouth against your cheek but not your lips, not again.

“He’ll leave soon and it won’t matter,” you dismiss with a shake of your head. “He’s got to be goin’ soon. I know it.”  

She pats your hands again, pity in her gaze. “It will matter, and you know it. But it seems to me he’s stuck. And it isn’t this town or those mines that are keeping him here. He wants to hang on. You should, too, for once. He’s looked like nothin’ but a kicked dog lately, and one that might bite at that.” 

The snow melts over the next couple of weeks, temperatures rise rapidly. For a while, the sun shines, the weather is nice; the skies a purest bluest blue. 

Joel doesn’t leave. 

He smokes more on the back porch, his eyes far away and haloed with something distant. He stops hunting on Sundays, and starts going fishing at the lake instead, and unlike before he brings back a haul. 

For a minute, it seems like things might be okay. You don’t allow yourself to have any more quiet, secret moments with him, but you don’t push either. You try not to push. 

But you wonder if he wants that, if he might have wanted to kiss you again when the heat went out and you were stupid enough to let yourself reel him back to you. 

Then, one day, the rains come. Clouds so black they appear blue roll in and sit heavy in the sky for a day, winds whipping the leaves of the trees back so their bellies show. Old warnings about just how bad the weather was about to get. 

The skies open up, and the rain doesn’t stop. 

For weeks. 

Suddenly all anyone can talk about are the floods and the landslides that are likely to happen any day. 

You wish they wouldn’t, or at least not to you, or have the decency not to look at you with pity when they talk about it. What if there’s a mine collapse? Well, you think, that too is likely. 

The creeks swell until they look like rivers; the rivers glut themselves with so much rainwater the levees threaten to bend and break, the banks of the lake disappear, silt stirred so deeply that the whole lake goes brown with it. 

Joel stops fishing. 

You expect them to close the mines, at least for a while. But the coal companies have never cared about any of you, and they weren’t about to start. 

“Mornin’,” he says, his voice a soft grumbling rumble. 

“Hi,” you say, not turning away from your spot by the window, watching the rain pour down seemingly harder. 

The rain and all it could wash away, makes you anxious. Makes the whole town anxious. Flooded river plains and lake shores, mountainsides crumbling down to sweep everything away. It’s embedded in you, something your body learned generations before you were born. 

A generational curse, a landscape that could steal everything, that had and would again. 

“You okay?” 

The sound of the coffee pot sliding out of place, liquid being poured, ceramic clicking down onto the counter. 

“Yeah. The rain makes me anxious.” 

“All anyone talks about are the floods.” 

“Same way every year,” you shrug, like it doesn’t keep you awake at night. Like you haven’t stopped sleeping and pace all night long. “Hard thing to forget, once it happens to you.” 

Joel makes a soft noise in the back of his throat and joins you at the window. “It’s gettin’ lighter every day, at least.” 

You think he means it to comfort you. 

“The sound, though.” 

The sound of rain tapping at the window is like nails on a chalkboard — warning. 

He covers your hand with his for just a second, the squeeze of his fingers around yours barely felt. “I know.”  

Too close. 

It’s too close. 

You don’t want him to know that. 

You move your hand before his skin has fully left yours, jerking away like you’ve been stung.  

He clears his throat and shifts, floorboards squeaking awkwardly beneath his socked feet. 

Socked feet. Hand on yours, rough skin against yours. Tender words, gentle tone. 

It all feels like he knows too much, wants too much. You take a step away from the warmth he radiates under the guise of reaching for the handle of the dishwasher. “You think you’ll be movin’ on soon?” 

A surprised silence follows your words. “What?”

“It’s just you been here awhile.” 

He doesn’t answer and you start to unload the dishwasher, carefully stacking the ceramic on the counter even though you’d normally just put them up in the cabinets. “Big waste of money, stayin’ somewhere like here for so long. If you’re waitin’ for better pay or something, I can tell you it won’t happen. Not even if you talk to the union.” 

A long silence follows your words. It’s a buzzing, angry silence. “You ain’t even gonna look at me?” 

You shrug and your body continues on autopilot, still not looking at him, stacking dishes one after another. 

Clink, click, clink. 

The door to the basement doesn’t exactly slam, but it shuts much harder than usual.

You sit the mug in your shaking hands down on the counter and stare at it without seeing. 

The pressure in your chest isn’t gone. It never is, after. You push and push and push, until they finally let go. And then the loneliness and pain rub their hands together and slip back into their comfortable home in your chest. It’s almost a relief to have it back. 

God, why does someone knowing something about you, caring about you, feel like getting your arteries ripped out, one fine line at a time? Why does it feel like your skin is shrinking and your throat is closing up? 

Your eyes sting and you wish you wouldn’t have said it. 

But you did and he’d be on his way soon enough and everything would be simple again. 

You can remain in your little box all alone with carefully constructed walls that push everyone to the periphery of your life. They belong at arms length where you believe it won’t hurt you when they leave, where you convince yourself you’ll have enough time to recognize the signs and do it first. 

He can’t get any closer, can’t see anymore than he already has. 

Joel has to leave. You have to push him away, before he makes the choice himself and leaves you bleeding. 

But Joel isn’t like you, you think again. He’s not the kind to leave someone behind. 

The rain comes down harder. 

The house rattles with it.

You think about the mines flooding, and finally cry.  

Joel doesn’t leave, but you can tell he’s trying to figure out how to. He’s trying to leave because you want him to, and that’s what matters. 

You don’t know how he picks where to roam next and you don’t care. You’re glad he’s going to leave. 

He doesn’t eat dinner with you anymore, barely nods at you when you see him though you try to be busy with something else when he comes in in the evenings, or not in the kitchen at all, not in the house at all. 

Joel leaves so early in the morning that you don’t see him then either. The ache that slices like a knife through the ventricles of your heart tears open a little wider each day. He makes the coffee now, and always makes enough for you, too, the pot left on to keep it warm for you. One morning you find an envelope in the center of your kitchen table.

Panic overcomes you, until you open it and find a week’s worth of money. Scrawled on the outside, I’m sorry to keep imposing. 

You rip the envelope up, angry, because you don’t want to think about what it means that you got scared. Fear that he had already been gone. 

Near a week later, late in the afternoon, when the sky is a deep purple, Janie knocks on your backdoor. Her voice is frantic. She smells like raw flour and sliced apples. 

There’s mud on her boots and that’s the only thing you can think of as she talks at you, her voice far away. 

You think about the mud on her boots and her boots on your floor and how she always takes them off on the porch no matter what. 

She’s still talking, words flowing a million miles an hour, and you just think about the smell of bread and how she normally, always, takes her boots off.  

She shakes you by the shoulders suddenly, hands clamped tight against your skin. “Did you hear me?” She asks urgently. “One of the mines collapsed.” 

“Which one?” You snap, reality snapping sharply into relief. “Which one? They're all shut down but one. Which one?” 

One that is empty, or not? The one with people, or not? The one with Joel, or not?

“I don’t know. Nobody seems to know but—” 

You pull your raincoat off the hook by the door and shove your feet into the first pair of shoes you see, and dart out and into the rain, the hale of it cold against your skin and your face. 

It’s been a cold year. This time last year, it was warm and sunny already, things like a mine collapse a far off, unreal, non-possibility. 

The mud sucks at your boots but soon enough you’re on the road and running. 

You run and run and don’t feel the burn in your lungs or the pain in your thighs. There’s nothing that will keep you from getting there. The town is small and built in relation to the mines. 

You’ve always been a mining town and so it’s not far. It shouldn’t take you long to get there. 

Joel walks in the mornings. It’s not far. 

But time moves slow, and your body seems to move even slower than that. 

Shouldn’t you have known? Shouldn’t you have felt something? The beating heart of the earth tearing something away; that primordial, knowing pit taking back what had been taken from it? What it was owed in return?  

Not him. Not him. 

He didn’t owe this stretch of Earth anything. And it is not owed him. 

The hills and mountains rise up around you, the comforting presence of them, like ancient, silent sentries, suddenly loom a little more sinister. Crumbling and old and vengeful, just waiting to swing a fist down on something you cared about, something you loved, something you always try to push away. Because it would always be destroyed. The town, or a neighbor’s house, or the banks of the swollen river and lake eating up precious farmland. 

That’s one thing, though.

Towns and houses can be rebuilt, the banks of rivers and lakes and the sides of mountains reinforced — other things, well, you can never get back. 

He has to be okay. When you wanted him to leave, this is not what you meant. This is not what you wanted. 

You move backwards in your mind, mapping out all the times Joel has come home. Where he’d usually be in his journey to your house after work. 

It used to be he only came home after dark, but spring has arrived and the sun stays longer each day, and you think you should meet him on the road. You should find him at any moment; unless the mine collapsed and he was unlucky, trapped and lost and suffocating; or lucky and already dead. 

The road twists and turns. You have to slow because you live in the hills, everything and everywhere is steep. Your chest starts to burn and you wish the trees hadn’t started to get their leaves yet even though it's so late in the season because then you’d be able to see further, you’d be able to spot him earlier. 

Maybe it’s too early for him to already be along the road. 

Your coat is soaked and so is the little house dress you’re wearing. Your shins and ankles feel cold from the rain and the chill in the air. 

But then you bolt around a bend, and there he is. 

His name jumps out of your mouth, careens across the gravel road, and echoes around the valley through the din of the still falling rain. It sounds lush against the leaves. It sounds horrible against drain pipes and gravel. 

He looks surprised right before you crash into him and lock your arms around his neck. He drops his backpack and catches you, arms circling you tightly. 

“Joel.” 

“Hey—” The sound of his voice makes your knees weak and you’re afraid for a moment you might slip to the ground, into the graveled mud, and dissolve along with the rain. 

“The mine collapsed,” you say, feeling the grit of coal dust beneath your cheek, the warmth and weight of him leaning back into you, strong arms tight around you. His palm slides against the back of your neck, thumb stroking slowly. 

“I know it.” His voice is gentle, like you’re a startled, feral dog that might turn on him at any second. “S’why I’m on my way back now.” 

You start to shake and cry and he just rubs your back and tugs you more firmly into his chest. He seems to understand what’s wrong. His palm settles against the back of your neck, keeps you tucked in close to his chest as the rain continues to siphon down over you. It’s all right. I’m all right. He repeats and repeats and repeats. It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s okay. 

“Hey,” he pulls back eventually, the cups of his palms cradling your face, pushing the tears away. “I’m gettin’ you all dirty.” 

“I don’t care,” you grip his sleeves, press your hands over his. His face is streaked with gray so deep it appears purple, like there are bruises latticed over his face. “I don’t care. And I’m sorry.” 

“All right.” 

It’s too late, you think. Too little too late, pushed too far, and by your own hand, so you have no one to blame but yourself. 

But he’s alive and he’s okay and something precious has not been reaped by the Earth. 

You try to step back but he steps with you, not letting you go. Apologies swim to the back of your throat again, heavy on your tongue, but he’s already shaking his head at you. 

Hazel eyes stare deep into yours, rivulets of water snaking down the side of his face, tracing through the coal and dirt. You don’t look away from him this time. 

Your words get trapped, congested and clogged, sticky and stuck together. 

“Joel—”

“Let’s get outta the rain.” His hands slide down your face, briefly slot against your throat, and then trail down your shoulders and arms. “Let’s do that at least. Before you catch your death.”

“Okay.” 

You bend down to scoop his backpack off the ground, surprised because he lets you keep it and keeps his hand threaded with yours. His skin is wet against yours, the crinkle of your fingers together just a little uncomfortable. 

The rain comes down harder, lightning sparks, the angry slash of violence through the sky, thunder crackling right after. 

The walk goes quicker than your run. Time is moving at a normal pace again, you can breathe again. 

“I’ll meet ya in the kitchen,” he says when the town and your street resolves itself. He turns and takes his pack from you, pinches your chin between thumb and forefinger and tilts your face up. “All right?” 

You nod and release his other hand, and watch him walk away. You know the moment he reaches the back of the house because you hear the clatter of the basement door opening.

You just stand in the front yard for a long moment as shadow fall, as the rain continues down harder than ever.

The rain pounds against the side of the house, the windows when you step inside. The tree your neighbors have been telling you to cut down for years sways ominously, lashing the front window and the siding. The noise of it is awful. 

You stand there, dripping pools of water onto the kitchen floor, anxiously waiting for Joel to come up the steps, like you’d gone and pulled a ghost right up out of the ground. He’s all right, you tell yourself. He’s all right. Real and not some ghost. 

When he comes up the steps, his gaze flicks slowly over you. He holds a hand out. “C’mon. ‘S get you cleaned up.” 

You’re shivering. The material of the dress clings to your skin like webbed silk. 

It’s so pathetic, the way he comforts you and the way you want him to. You shouldn’t let it happen. You feel stupid, all that worry after all that pushing. 

He follows you up two sets of stairs, to the third floor, the loft where you reside even though so many of the rooms below always remain empty. 

Joel settles you on the edge of the bathtub in your little bathroom and fishes around in the cabinets until he finds what it is he’s looking for. He doesn’t ask you where anything is and you don’t offer. 

He smells like earth and pine. He doesn’t complain or pull away when you touch that hollow place in his cheek, when you stroke his beard and watch the muscle jump, jaw clenching and releasing.  

“Joel,” you say when he kneels in front of you with a washcloth in his hand, a first aid kit open on the bathroom counter. “I’m not hurt.” 

He just pats the water away from your face and hands and arms. “Y’are. Musta ran through brambles or somethin’. Legs are all torn up.” 

The surprise is muted when you look down and find you have been scratched all to hell. 

“I’m sorry,” you offer. 

He shrugs. “Nothin’ to apologize for.” 

The way he takes care of you is meticulous. Disinfectant and ointment and bandages wrapped around and around. You probably would have just rinsed the cuts out and slapped the biggest band aid on and called it a day, but that’s not good enough for him and that makes you want to cry.  

There’s only so long you can handle sitting there, shivering, feeling the press of his very warm hands into your cool, bruised skin, before you’re slipping to the floor too, kneeling with him, asking for forgiveness for something that doesn’t deserve it. 

“I’m sorry. And that’s not enough.” 

“No.” Hands cupped around yours, stilling the anxious twist of them. “Shouldn’t’ve got so comfortable. I ain’t anyone to you—”

“But you are.” 

The words bleed. They are red and bone white and raw and drop like stones between you. He thinks he means nothing. He doesn’t know. “You are. You are. And that’s why.” 

Thunder rumbles, and this time, you kiss him. 

There’s only a brief second of hesitation. 

But then he pulls you in and doesn’t let go, doesn’t complain of the cool tiles and your cooler hands or the way you pull at his clothes. 

Joel does jump when you press your hands to the small of his back, when your iced over fingers skim his belly, when you finally get to rake your nails against that coarse chest hair that makes your mouth go dry. 

“Hey,” he’s cradling you to him, mouth desperate and eyes wild. “I’m here.” 

Go easy with it, his voice asks. Go easy with me. 

You knock your forehead against his. “I know.” 

Joel nods and his fingers skim up your thighs, beneath the clinging material of your dress. He’s so warm, even though he’d been in the rain too, and his skin feels like it's burning, like the tips of his fingers might sink right down into your flesh. 

Cloth parts beneath desperate hands. He cups your breasts in his palms, follows with his lips. Fingers tug your underwear down your legs, and then slide through the core of you, circling and stroking. 

It should be a surprise that he’s so delicate with you, but it isn’t. 

He kisses you again, his beard scratching pleasantly along your skin. You gasp into him and let him lie you back against the bathroom floor. 

The rain continues outside, the lashing the house is getting a far off dream. 

The only real thing in the world is Joel, his shoulders beneath your thighs, the clench of your belly, the ache that spreads everywhere. 

He presses his forehead to yours when he’s inside you, eyes closed, jaw clenched. 

Joel’s mouth parts, he groans into you. 

It’s enough. 

“Did you know that crows mate for life?”

Joel looks over at you. 

Morning is sitting heavily on the windowsill, watching. 

His limbs are heavy, sleep pulling at the corners of his vision, darkening the room and dampening the sound of the still falling rain. Your bed is comfortable, and your naked skin pressed to his even more so. “No,” he answers after a minute, just looking at the picture of you, plush curves, the soft spill of softer skin. “Do they?” 

You roll onto your side, watchful eyes riveted to him. Slowly, maybe a little shyly, you stretch your arm across his belly. Your fingertips brush his side, and you use the grip to pull yourself even closer. The light is kind to you. You glow in it, lips swollen, the discoloration on your throat from his lips and beard highlighted. 

Joel touches you there. You close your eyes for a moment. 

“They do. They’re real social creatures, and when their mate dies they make this god awful noise. Sometimes they’ll carry sticks and stones and stuff to leave with the body, like a burial.”

“Mm. Not so different from people.” He thinks of Sarah, the last rise and fall of her chest, the noise that came out of him like something wrenched out of the bottom of his soul. He clears his throat but his voice still cracks a little. “Yeah, reckon we’re the same that way.” 

You prop your chin on his shoulder. “Yeah,” you say, voice soft. “There used to be a flock that came around. Or, whatever they’re called, a murder, I think.” 

“Murder?” He chuckles and you smile and it’s enough. 

“Never heard of a murder of crows? Well, it’s true. The backyard was full of ‘em. For a long time, I fed ‘em. And they’d bring presents to me. Eventually they musta moved on, but a pair stayed. I know I sound crazy but I could tell they were in love. They were mated anyhow, even if they don’t feel love like people do.” You lean into his hand when he presses it to your cheek, like his skin isn’t rough and dry from working so hard, from the long, bitter winter; you lean in like it means something, like the pass of his thumb against the crest of your cheek means more to you than he can know.

He doesn’t know a thing about crows. It doesn’t really matter that he doesn’t, he has a feeling he already knows what you’re going to say. 

The limbo he’s been in for weeks has finally ended, of knowing you wanted him to leave but not able to figure out how to give you what you wanted and feeling guilty for it. Just another person he couldn’t figure out how to love right.

Maybe this time hanging on was the right thing to do.

Your eyes flutter closed, head tilted close to his on the pillow, the swell of your body pressed to his. “It went on like that for years. I fed them and they brought me little gifts and everything was fine. And then one morning, there was only one. They mate for life. I never saw the other one again, and it was only a couple weeks, before the other one was gone too. It died.” 

Joel leans in, presses his forehead to yours, the rain a painful tattoo against the roof and the windows and the whole wide world. You push into him, returning the comforting pressure, your skin still tacky with sweat. “So you see, I try to avoid being the second crow. But it just means I end up alone and wondering why there was never another crow in the first place.” Your eyes flick open and search his. “So, I’m sorry about everything. I never realize I’m — I don’t know I’m pushing until it’s too late. And I’ve never been good at holdin’ on.”

“I guess I’ve never been too good at lettin’ go,” he admits. “I’m the second crow.” 

“I don’t want you to be,” you say. “I don’t want you to be the one left behind. And I don’t want you to leave.” 

He nods and looks up at your ceiling. Carefully, you slide closer, until your head is heavy against his chest.  

Things change a little. 

The rain stops and with it you stop pacing through the nights. Before, he’d listen to the pace of your footsteps against his ceiling, the crack of old floorboards and the snaking sound of water down window panes. 

You make every pretense of things being the same until night comes along and you ask him to stay with you. “I just won’t be able to stand it,” you say, nervous hands fisting around the edges of your sleeves. “If you go back to being just a guest. You mean more than that.”

He’s embarrassed to hear it, and likes to hear it all the same.  

So, now, he listens to the long overdue hum of springtime insects nestled down into long sweet grass and between the branches of gently swaying trees, like all that snow and rain and blizzards and flooding never existed in the first place. 

Most of all he listens to your breathing, slow and even, to replace the sound of your footsteps. The curve of your spine rests against his bicep, the ridge of it like the comforting heel of the mountains beyond your windows. 

When he turns and tucks his arms around you, you relax and melt into him so easily it’s like it’s always been done. 

So it goes, every single night. 

Winter is over, spring arrives quiet.

Joel agrees to go to the town festival with you. Tiny, even by your standards, apparently. 

Just some drinking and dancing and live music from a local band. A few games, for which the prizes are all donated.

Things go fine. 

He doesn’t mind crowds, though he does prefer to hang on the edges of them. 

The night is mild. Your arm repeatedly brushes his. 

Joel finds he doesn’t mind that either, the way you stand so close and look at just him. There’s no shortage of eyes on either of you. And when you kiss him, he can practically feel the small town gossip sparkling and wasping in the air like lightning gold, like a thousand bees. 

You don’t seem to notice, or maybe you don’t much care. Maybe you’re used to it. 

Either way, you’re happy, and that matters to him. It matters to him that you’re happy, and safe, and that you feel those things with him.

“If you’re still here when its warm enough,” you say, “you’ll have to go swimming in the lake. It’s real nice down there.” 

It already feels like summer. The air is balmy, the sinking, fading sun he feels like he hadn’t seen in months a red blaze on the horizon. 

“Where else would I be?” 

You give him a funny look and sip your drink, enthusiastically greeting a couple who approaches. Joel nods at them, takes a swig of his beer, and thinks of his kid. Sarah would have loved this kind of thing, all the people and noise. 

He hasn't been hunting in weeks.

“You wanna dance with me?” You smile at him. “Just for one song.” 

“Think I’ll say no?” 

“I’m actually sure that you’ll say no, Joel.” 

He just sets his drink down and offers you a hand. You grin so wide, it looks like it must hurt your cheeks. You don’t dance so much as sway together, pressed tightly together.

“Where else would I be?” He asks again. 

“Somewhere else, I guess. Back home.” 

Home. He hasn’t had one of those since Sarah died. 

This place, as brutal an introduction as he’s had to it, is starting to feel like home. He wants to see the lake in the summer and the trees thick with leaves. The hills probably look beautiful, emerald forests not yet torn up for the things that laid beneath. 

It only feels a little like a push. 

Instead, he just says, “Yeah. Sure.” 

You tip your chin heavily against his shoulder, the weight of your head comforting in its press there. 

You aren’t always good about it. There’s a mean streak in you when you feel trapped. Today, you try. 

“I’d like it if you stayed.” You say it against his throat, your fingers tangled into his hair, the movement of your hand fond. “If you wanted this to be home for a while.” 

He nods, squeezes your hips. “And you should come see Austin. Instead of hearin’ about it. Reckon you might like it.” 

“I think I probably would.” 

The next morning, he calls his brother for the first time in over a year. 

If you read this far, you have no idea how much I appreciate it. Thank you for reading and being here, and as always would love to hear anything you have to share. 💕

---

the wildest winter | 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

In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.

–Albert Camus, Return to Tipasa

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pairing: joel miller x f!reader rating: 18+ word count: 9.3k

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: your plan to tell your parents about your relationship doesn't quite go as planned. chapter warnings: smut, some angst, unprotected p in v sex, brief cockwarming, dirty talk, pet names, fluff and romance, exhibitionism, vaginal fingering, narcissistic mothers, actually reader's mom is just The Worst in general, mentions of babies and discussions of parenthood, the closest han will ever come to breeding kink (but like, hardly), a lot of unresolved drama, a lot of joel playing guitar, reader's dad's birthday is in january, alcohol, food. no use of y/n.

a/n: thanks to everyone who waited for this i hope it's ok and if it's not um please be nice i'm just a baby

You don't think you've ever seen Joel look more handsome.

Of course, it's not really a fair contest; he's handsome all the time. You'd first found him beautiful in patterned shirts under twinkling lights, tanned and glowing in tropical heat. He's still tanned, still glowing, still perfect–only now he's shrouded in the dim light of your childhood bedroom, clad in a white-button down and a simple black blazer. His hair's longer, pushed back out of his face and curling around his ears, flecks of grey poking through in places they hadn't before. His hand rests on the small of your back, taking in the space–taking in you in the space–perhaps wondering, just like you, how in the hell you've ended up here.

"That was my bed," you tell him, nodding to the twin-sized frame pressed flush into a corner on the far side of the room. "It used to be over there."

You point to the patch of wall beneath the window, now occupied by boxes filled with god-knows-what. "I'm never here, so they just use this room to keep all their old shit in now."

"Beats payin' for a storage unit, I guess," Joel shrugs, frowning. 

"The joy of being an empty nester, I guess."

He shakes his head. "I kept Sarah's room just how she left it when she moved out."

"Yeah, well," you roll your eyes, flicking the light off and leading him back out into the upstairs hallway of your parents' house. His hands wind around your waist, pressing into you as he follows you past the walls lined with family photos and mass-produced artwork. "You're the Best Dad Ever, we know this."

Joel laughs, the sound so sweet against your ear as you come to a stop in the hallway, gazing at the photos together.

"I remember when you looked like that," he says.

"Oh god, shut up."

His chin rests on your shoulder and you lean back into him without any fear; in the quiet of the upstairs hallway, there is only you and him.

You and him and the wall of photos, haphazardly hung in mismatched frames against a dark green backdrop. Three coats of green to be exact; you recall that month all too well. When your parents had stripped the walls and laid out canvas sheets across the carpet so the three of you could roll up your sleeves and Do It Yourselves. Your dad had been unwilling to relinquish control to anyone else, let alone hired painters.

Except Joel, of course. Because Joel had been there, on the second weekend for the second coat, something you only remember now that he's here with you again. 

"Yeah, look," he hums, reaching out from behind you to point at a picture of a much younger you on the front steps of this very house, yellow backpack slung over bare shoulders, Velcro sneakers strapped over tiny feet. First day of school. Fourth grade, you think. "Your smile ain't changed a bit."

His voice against your neck tickles, and sure enough, you mirror your past self, teeth poking out from behind your lips in a sheepish little grin. You shake your head and Joel kisses a spot just below your jaw.

"There it is," he murmurs and his scruff drags over your skin in a way that feels like he's smirking.

There's a sudden change in pressure as his hands drift up your sides and find a home above your rib cage. Your tummy flutters, meeting him where he's at.

"Some things have changed," you whisper, guiding his palms higher to daringly rest them over your breasts, pressing down and encouraging him to squeeze.

He does, kneading the soft flesh under the fabric of your dress, a low growl echoing in the hollow of your ear. He presses his frame closer into yours, his semi-hard bulge prodding at your lower back, and for a moment you both let yourselves forget where you are. Forget the clattering of dishes and the distant back and forth of your parents downstairs, forget the whole reason you're here in the first place.

Your head falls back against his shoulder as Joel trails one hand lower, emboldened when you sigh to slip it between your legs under the hem of your dress.

"They sure have, baby," he rasps, cupping your sex in his massive hand, feeling at the wetness staining the cotton of your panties, assessing it. "Fuck, they sure have."

Downstairs, silver clashes with porcelain and a whining timer dings but, as usual, you are lost in Joel. The slow circle of his fingers over your clothed clit makes your mouth fall open and your eyes slip closed and even though you know it's wrong stupid wrong to do this here, now, like this–you don't stop him. You never do.

Not when his teeth nip at your ear and his fingers apply more pressure to your clit, or when you start to think you might actually be able to come like this, breaths already shortening, stomach already fluttering. And Joel just laughs when he feels you loosen, when you lean back into him like you'd crumble without his arms around you.

"Naughty thing," he whispers as his fingers dip below the edge of your panties to touch you properly, his other hand moving to close over your open mouth and catch your gasp. "Yeah? S'at feel good?"

You can only nod, brows knitting together as he increases his pace, expertly swirling over your clit in slick little ministrations. You're barrelling towards climax at alarming speed, something about the risk and the setting and his tangible hunger for you causing heat to pool in your core all too quickly. 

"Shit," Joel grins when he feels you begin to shiver in his grasp. "You gonna come right here, baby? Just like this for me? Gonna come on my fingers with your folks downstairs?"

And as if that's what fucking does it. 

Joel's appreciative sigh soundtracks your silent orgasm as your body tenses then falls. He draws it out long enough to make your knees buckle but it still somehow ends too soon; not nearly as perfect as what you know he's capable of giving you, but blinding all the same. 

When your shudders subside, he pries his palm free from your mouth. You choke out a steadying breath and Joel plants a warm kiss behind your ear as he slowly retracts his fingers from your now-soaked underwear.

"Don't think I've ever seen you come so fast, baby,” he breathes reverently into your skin. "You're so fuckin' sexy."

"And you're–" You turn in his arms to face him, breathless as you lace your fingers behind his neck before pressing one fleeting kiss against his lips. "–a fucking menace."

He chuckles and shrugs, but doesn't deny it.

"You coulda just said the word n' I woulda stopped."

"Yeah, well," you roll your eyes, squish his sweet, scruffy, stupid face between your palms and kiss him again–just because you can. "You already know that'll never happen."

The man fucking giggles and your heart nearly explodes, fingers coiling into his curls like you could just burrow yourself into his scalp forever. 

You feel good, and not just because you're still riding the waves of an orgasm. It's a good night. You can feel it.

It's your dad's birthday dinner and you're telling your parents about Joel. 

You should probably feel scared, or nervous, or any number of things other than giddy but somehow, that's all there is. Excitement, anticipation, a fierce joy at the thought of making this thing with Joel into something real.

"Y'still wanna do this?" Joel asks, thumbs stroking soothingly at your waist. 

"I do," you nod, and his face breaks into a blinding half-smile. 

"No goin' back after this," he says. 

"After this?" you scoff, eyebrows shooting up your forehead. "I've been locked in for a while here, big guy."

"Oh yeah? Since when?"

"Hm," you ponder for a moment. Your bodies gently sway in the quiet of the hallway, and somewhere in the back of your mind it occurs to you that you've been gone for far too long; your parents are probably starting to get suspicious. But your imminent confession makes you bold. They'll know the truth soon enough anyway. "Remember that day by the pool? In Costa Rica?"

Joel laughs, the aquamarine memory dancing behind his eyes as he nods. "Yeah."

"Pretty much since then."

His laughter fades, something more pensive passing over his features. Staring at the floor beneath you, he shakes his head.

"What?" you press him. 

He reaches between your bodies to gently cup your chin, swiftly withdrawing his fingers to settle them over the shell that hangs from your neck. His gaze settles there too, at the place where his fingers are fiddling with the chain. 

"Think it was on the plane for me," he admits. You swallow tightly.

"Like the plane home?" you ask weakly, even though you already know that's not what he'd meant. 

Joel shakes his head. At last, his eyes meet yours from under his lashes, his stare all bashful and warm as he flashes you that familiar crooked smile.

"Nope," he sighs, infusing his tone with a sort of mock-solemnity, diffusing the weightiness of the moment. "'Fraid I've been locked in since day one, kid."

"Gross, don't call me that," you groan, pushing back on the suffocating emotion his words inspire and untangling yourself free from his embrace instead.

With nothing but adoration and trust–and something else you haven't voiced yet–coursing through you, you take his hand and lead him down the stairs. 

-

"What the hell were you two doing up there?" your dad asks when you and Joel walk into the dining room, no longer hand-in-hand, but with a respectable amount of space between your bodies. 

"I was just giving Joel a tour," you shrug, taking your usual seat at the dinner table.

"Joel's been here a thousand times, kiddo," he protests, but amazingly there's no suspicion in his tone. God, he really has no idea. You kind of start to worry you might break his brain tonight. "He comes around more than you. Least he used to."

He smacks a hand against Joel's shoulder, an affectionate gesture if not a little chiding. Because even though they're both smiling, you can sense the genuine hurt there. You've stolen your dad's friend away from him, a fact that haunts you more and more with each passing day. You twiddle your fingers in your lap and force a smile of your own, suddenly consumed by guilt. You work to rein it in; once the truth is out there, Joel won't have to hide anymore, and your dad can have his friend back. The thought keeps you tethered, solidifies your belief that telling them is the right thing, for everyone.

"Just been busy, you know how it goes," Joel says, eyes briefly flashing to you like he can't help himself. Your dad doesn't seem to catch it.

"I think he's got himself a new lady friend," your dad winks at you and your responding awkward laugh sounds so painfully put-on you think he must hear how much you're hiding beneath it. "Too busy with some woman to see your old man."

"Yeah, that sounds like Joel," you tease with a tight smile. Joel stifles a laugh under his breath and your dad looks like he wants to say something else but then your mother is emerging from the kitchen, announcing her presence with a clap of her hands. 

"Food's ready," she chimes in. "Can I get some hands in here?"

You're the first to follow her back into the kitchen, driven perhaps by some strange, childlike need to get on her good side.

-

"Well, here's to this little Costa Rica reunion," your mother toasts, holding up her third glass of wine over your near-empty plates. You all answer the call, your dad with a beer bottle, you with your own glass of wine, and Joel, sitting on your left, with the same crystal glass of bourbon he's been nursing for the past hour.

He's nervous, especially now as dinner is nearing its end and your time to share your news is running short. You'd agreed that it would be best to wait, ease into it, maybe let your parents get a few drinks deep before dropping a potential bomb on them.

The second Joel's done eating, his hand is on your thigh, concealed beneath the tabletop. It anchors him, you think–anchors you too.  

"And here's to you, dear," she adds, turning towards your father. "Happy birthday."

"Happy birthday, dad," you echo, punctuating the sentiment with a clink of your glass against his. Joel mirrors you, offering you an extra little nod of encouragement as he sips his drink beside you.

"Thanks, guys–thanks, honey," your dad smiles appreciatively, pulling at his beer and sitting back into his chair. "I'm just glad we could all get together for once."

Beside you, Joel squeezes your thigh–it's time–and your hand comes down over his. Anchoring. It's time. It's time. 

You take a deep breath and–

"I'm actually really glad you're here," your mother suddenly interjects, pointing at you across the table with the rim of her glass. "I've been wanting to tell you about this nice boy I met through one of the women in my yoga class."

"O-oh," you choke out, whatever words you'd been about to say dying on your tongue in an instant. On your left, Joel visibly stiffens, sucking in a haggard breath through his nose as his gaze drops to his lap. Fuck. You squeeze his fingers, as if to say, I'm sorry, I'm here, don't listen to her. 

"He's about your age, just got his Master's from UT, already has a job lined up and everything."

Fucking hell. 

Every word stings like a knife to the chest, but what hurts more is the way Joel's eyebrows pull together, the way his hand loosens on your thigh, the way he minutely shakes his head as she lists off reminder after reminder of all the things he doesn't have, things you know he wants to offer you but can't, things he thinks you deserve. She breathes life into every one of his anxieties and it makes you fucking livid.

"Mom–"

"And he's very handsome," she cuts you off. "Peggy showed me pictures. And I know every mother thinks the world of their son, but he really is a good-looking guy. I think he'd be your type."

"Mom, I'm really not looking to meet someone new right now."

Scoffing, she waves a hand at you dismissively. 

"It doesn't have to go anywhere!" she insists. Jesus, she's talking so fucking loud; every word rattles your bones and twists a blazing rage in your guts. Joel shrinks like he's been shot beside you and you need her to shut the fuck up, now. "But it wouldn't hurt to think about putting yourself back out there. You're going to be thirty soon and I just think–"

"I'm dating Joel, mom!"

Silence, thick and deafening, befalls the table. A weight you didn't know you'd been carrying disappears from your shoulders with a sigh. It settles in around you instead, tensing the air between you and your parents. You lace your fingers with Joel's and when you turn to offer him a gentle smile, you see that weight is gone from him too, his features relaxing as he meets your gaze, eyes all soft and grateful. 

It's not exactly how you'd planned for it to come out. But fuck, it feels good. 

Then you look up.

Not at your mother, but at your father.

Your father, who stares blankly between the two of you with his brows furrowed in confusion, frozen in place with his head tilted to the side.

"This Joel?" he demands, not like he's angry but like he genuinely doesn't understand.

And before you can even say yes, this Joel, your mother bursts into a fit of biting, mirthless laughter. 

"Of course, this Joel. What other Joel would she be talking about?"

Your father shakes his head, apparently still trying to make it all make sense. 

"I just–since when?"

You're about to answer him, but you're cut off once again.

"Since Costa Rica, obviously," your mother says, followed by another dark laugh that she swallows with a sip of wine. 

Something about her tone makes your blood boil but you can't quite figure out why.

"You knew?" you ask her.

She rolls her eyes and your burning anger only grows. "I had a feeling."

"Okay, well," you sit up a little straighter, refusing to let her attitude dissuade you. "Yes. You were right, okay? Is that what you want to hear?"

She laughs again, and the knife in your chest twists. "Not particularly, but here we are, I suppose."

Through the blinding fog of rage, you're conscious of your father beside her, staring across the table at Joel, his expression still painted with confusion. Joel seems unable to return his gaze, instead keeping his eyes trained on you. 

"Well, we–we're really happy," you continue, not unlike how you'd rehearsed it, though it comes out through gritted teeth in a way you hadn't planned for. "And we wanted to tell you guys–"

"At your father's birthday dinner?" she interrupts. Your heart sinks. "You thought that would be a good time to drop this on us?"

Drop this on us.

It's cruel–cutting–so overtly mean that it makes you want to run from the table, up to your childhood bedroom, so you can bury your face into your sheets and cry. But you are not a teenager anymore, and you are not hers to control. Instead, you channel your sadness into anger, and retaliate. 

"I'm telling you about my relationship," you argue. "I don't see the problem here."

"You don't see the problem?" She looks between the two of you, like the aforementioned problem is right there in the space between your bodies, clear as day to anyone on the outside looking in. And it is, you know it is, you've just become so desensitized to it that it's lost all meaning to you now:

Fifty. Your dad's friend. 

"What about you, Joel?" your mother goes on, speaking directly to him now. You imagine jumping in front of him as though her words were a bullet, as though you could protect him from the wounds you know she's about to inflict. "Do you see the problem?"

He opens his mouth like he wants to respond, but seemingly changes his mind when he locks eyes with your mother, succumbing to her glare and dropping his gaze back to his empty plate. And that kills you; it's one thing to feel the power she has over you, it's another to see it so clearly affecting Joel. 

You can't think of anything to say either, too dumbfounded and hurt and frustrated to form a half-decent response. Through a hefty breath of momentary quiet, you note that Joel has looked up from the table, but he's no longer looking at your mother. He's locked in some kind of silent staring match with your father, soft browns all pleading pleading pleading.

Your mother sips her wine, eventually cracking through the uncomfortable silence with a sigh when it becomes clear neither you or Joel are going to answer her.

"I'm never gonna have grandchildren, am I?" she asks to no one in particular, finally rising from the table with a shake of her head and disappearing towards the back door. 

It punches the air from your lungs, leaves you wide-eyed and cracked apart. Gobsmacked. 

Joel, you think. You need Joel. Need his tethering calm and his soothing drawl, need him to pull you back from the reeling like he has for so long now. 

But Joel is still staring at your father, still engrossed in some wordless, masculine conversation you can't get a handle on. 

Goddamnit. You know what needs to happen now. They need to hash it out. And you can't be here.

"I'm gonna go talk to her," you mutter and at that, Joel finally whips around to look at you, something like panic in his eyes.

"It's okay," you tell him, cupping his cheek in your palm and ignoring the sound your father makes in response. "You guys should talk."

His eyes flash to your mouth and you want so badly to kiss him, like you've grown so used to doing. You decide not to push it, opting instead to quickly squeeze his hand three times before unfurling your fingers from his, watching him steel himself as you stand and back away.

"Dad," you say, forcing him to tear his eyes away from Joel to look at you instead, that same befuddled glint in his stare.

"I'm really happy," you repeat, willing him to hear it. "I'm really happy, okay?"

He nods, mouth a straight line, eyes still searching. It seems like the best you're going to get right now.

So you nod back, offer Joel one last twitch of your lips–almost a smile–and go find your fucking mother. 

-

She's sitting on a lawn chair out on the back deck, legs crossed out in front of her. Somehow having procured another glass of wine, she's sipping on it lazily as she stares into the dark of the backyard. It's warm–always somewhat warm here, even in the dead of January–but her demeanor feels needlessly icy, like she's putting on a show of it.

You sigh, and take the seat beside her.

"I don't get why you’re so mad about this," you begin.

Now it's her turn to sigh, and in spite of her being nearly a bottle of wine deep by now, she seems strikingly sober.

"I'm not mad," she insists. "I'm just…baffled."

"What's so hard to believe?" you demand, leaning towards her with your hands on your knees, as if proximity will help her see your side more clearly. "Joel has been so good to me, mom. He's-he's kind and charming, and handsome–"

"And twenty years older than you," she interjects. "That man knew you when you were a child."

You vehemently shake your head at the suggestion behind her words.

"No. No, it's not some creepy thing, okay? We never even thought of each other like that until Costa Rica–"

"Are you sure about that? Maybe that's true for you, but how do you know it's true for him? What do you think a man his age wants with a girl like you?"

You just shake and shake and shake your head, defiant. 

"Joel is not a bad guy, mom," you say with finality.

She shrugs, sitting back in her chair, sipping her wine. 

She doesn't believe you.

"Why don't you trust me?" you ask, and it comes out like a whisper, some of the hurt you've been coddling finally coating your tone. It seems to affect her. Carefully assessing your pleading face, she frowns, and then finally, concedes.

Well, almost.

"Maybe you're right," she sighs. "Maybe it's better to just let you get it out of your system."

"Get it out of my system?" you repeat, taken aback. 

She hums, appearing contemplative when she sips her wine now, struck by some new train of thought.

"I mean, you never had a rebellious phase or anything like that," she muses, swirling dark red liquid in her glass. "Always did everything by the book. And then you met Chris and–I mean, there was your whole future right there, right? Then that ended and now…"

She nods to herself, clearly very proud of her little psychoanalytical assessment. 

"This is not about Chris," you assert. It burns your tongue to even say his name. 

"Well, no, not entirely, I'm sure," she agrees with an errant shrug. "I think it's also about me."

Oh, for fuck's sake.

"What?"

"Sweetie, come on. I know you resent me for wanting you to get back together with Chris. Someone you had something great with. And I know–" she holds up a hand to stop you from interrupting, leaving you to seethe in silence instead as she twists the knife even deeper than before. "–I know he hurt you. I don't think you should take him back. But what you're choosing now? This? Wasting time with a man you absolutely have no future with? Your father's friend, for Christ's sake…I can't help but feel like you're trying to prove some kind of point."

Every word, spoken with such flippant disregard for you or your feelings, has heat erupting in your veins all over again.

"Maybe the point," you spit, rising to stand over her, desperately fighting to feel less small. "–is that I fucking like him. Did you ever consider that?"

"I don't doubt that you do, sweetheart," she says, and the sympathy in her voice only serves to make you more enraged. 

"So that's it?" you huff and the hurt is there again in your voice; the hurt and the shame and the sting of betrayal. "You're just...not gonna approve of this?"

"You're an adult, honey, I'm not gonna stop you." She sounds so patronizing you could scream. "But you can't ask me to pretend to be okay with this."

You can't find the words to retort and she doesn't say anything else. All you can do is scoff, shattered and indignant as you leave her behind and storm back inside.

You can't stay here a second longer.

"Joel," you call as you make your way back into the dining room, stopping dead in your tracks at the scene you find there.

Joel and your father, unraveling from what you can only describe as an affable embrace. 

What the fuck?

They both turn to face you and you blink at them dumbly, your temper momentarily dissolving into confusion before you collect yourself.

"We're leaving," you tell him even though you have about a million and one questions to ask both of them. You don't care right now. You just need to get out of here. 

Joel immediately nods without question, sensing the urgency in your tone.

"Kiddo, wait," your dad protests as you grab Joel's hand and drag him towards the front door.

"Happy birthday, dad," you say to the welcome mat. "Sorry for ruining it."

You can sense he's about to say something, but you're already turning the doorknob and stepping through the threshold, tugging Joel along behind you.

"Do you need a ride to your apartment?" your mother's voice calls from somewhere you can't see.

From the front porch, your responding shriek–

"I fucking live with Joel, mom!"

You hear Joel curse under his breath at that; you weren't planning on telling them that part yet. It's a shitty note to end on but you're past the point of caring.

You slam the door shut behind you, and let Joel take you home.

-

In the shallow depths of sleep, a melody intrudes.

A distantly familiar tune that reminds you of hotel rooms and burgers and missed texts and Joel. You can't put your finger on why, your half-conscious mind still piecing it all together like a puzzle made from memories.

Then, a voice.

"She broke down and let me…shit."

You stir at that sound, that voice that feels like a getaway car and home all at once. 

Again, "She broke down and let me in…made me see where I–goddamnit."

You hear what he hears, a sour note on brassy strings. You also hear annoyance in his aggravated sigh, and then you hear him start again.

"She broke down and let me in…made me see where I've been."

You're awake now, creeping up out of his bed in the same dress you'd been wearing at your parents. Your underwear sticks uncomfortably to your thighs and your cunt, a bitter reminder of this evening's earlier pleasure, before it had all come crumbling down. You slip them off and leave them in a heap on the floor.

Your head feels heavy and hot in that way it often does when you fall asleep crying. Joel had let you stew, let you sob and rage and rant and eventually, sleep. Although apparently not for long; the clock on his nightstand lets you know it's barely past eleven. 

You follow the sound of his voice, pad down his stairs and find him in the living room under the orange glow of a floor lamp. He doesn't see you right away, so you allow yourself the time to stare, drinking him in in his boxers and his soft grey t-shirt, acoustic guitar resting on his bare thigh. He's not singing anymore, focused instead on the complex guitar part you remember he'd once told you he knew how to play. He struggles now, but only slightly. To you, his thick fingers move with astonishing skill over the strings, emotion stinging at your tired eyes as he plucks away at the winding melody until–

"Shit," he curses as he loses it, hands falling away from the strings with another frustrated sigh.

He sees you then, standing in the doorway of his living room, watching him. Always watching.

"Hey, baby," he murmurs, smiling up at you softly.

"Try it again," you tell him.

He laughs and shakes his head, bashful.

"I'm no good," he admits. "Can't remember it anymore."

"You sounded good to me. Try it again."

He huffs a little, shaking his head again as he sits up straighter, fingers retaking their place on the strings. He glances down at them for a moment, and then his eyes flash up to yours. 

"No laughin'."

You can't help it, the seriousness of the request makes you giggle. Joel shoots you an indignant glare. "Sorry, sorry–I won’t laugh."

"You're already laughin'."

You bite your lip to stifle any further giggles, silently gesturing for him to go on.

And he does, after a skeptical glance your way and a sigh. He focuses on the strings, and then he starts to play.

It's the same bright melody that awoke you just moments before, the same notes that had echoed out in the haze of a setting sun over room service and confessions all those months ago now. He doesn't sing, intent on his calloused fingers moving along the neck of the guitar. You're intent on him too, feeling the way a smile spreads across your face as you listen, some soft, golden warmth pooling down your spine and settling in the pit of your tummy. The feeling turns to tears in your eyes, the kind of adoration that aches, bursts from every orifice in a manner almost violent. 

You are so lucky. There never needs to be anything more than this, you think. Or at least it's what you tell yourself.

Joel plays until your chest hurts, and then he fumbles.

"Ah, fuck."

His hands abruptly fall when he loses his way, laughing at himself as he finally looks up at you.

"No good, see?"

The lingering ache between your ribs begs to differ.

"You're so talented," you tell him earnestly.

He seems to hear the emotion in your voice, a tenderness overtaking his stare and his lips melding into a tight, sympathetic smile. 

"I mean it," you insist. "You could've been a singer."

Joel chuckles, setting down his guitar and leaning it against the side of the couch. You take it as an invitation, hesitantly crossing the room to stand between his legs and let him take your hands in his. His thick thumbs stroke the backs of your knuckles, callouses catching on soft skin. 

"Maybe if I'd'a been braver," he shrugs. He's gazing up at you, but you can't seem to look away from his hands. "Kept the band goin'."

He winks, but the reminder only makes you think of your father. You quickly change the subject.

"I bet you sang a lot for Sarah, though."

His responding laugh rumbles in the space between you, low and fond, deep in his chest. 

"Did," he says. "'Fore she got old enough to tell me to stop."

You try to laugh too, but it sounds distant even to your own ears. A grating thought begins to claw at your insides as you conjure up an image of a younger Joel, little baby in his arms, sweet brown eyes all alight with devotion and love and fear. An image so foreign to you, a Joel you'll never know, a feeling you'll never know, one you've never even really wanted. And yet you can't unhear that voice–

I'm never gonna have grandchildren, am I?

"Did you ever…"

You quickly swallow the question back, frowning with your gaze still fixed on your conjoined hands. Joel squeezes your fingers lightly, sensing–always sensing–that you're holding something back. 

"What?" he presses. 

You take a deep breath, and let the words spill from you before you can stop to think them through.

"Did you ever think about having another kid?"

There's a long, excruciating pause, Joel staring at your face, you staring at his hands. When he finally speaks, his voice is level, and if he'd heard any sort of implication in your words, he doesn't let on. 

"Sometimes," he slowly nods. "I love bein' a dad. Think I'd'a had way more kids if I thought I coulda managed that. But Sarah was more'n enough."

You share an almost-laugh, two soft exhales passed through two sets of nostrils. You don't know what to say–because truthfully, you don't know what you're after–so all you give him in return is, 

"You did a great job with her."

Another loaded pause and you still can't bring yourself to meet his eyes. Joel's not having it. His fingers hook under your chin and he gently tilts your face up. Tells you, "Look at me," until you finally do. There's genuine curiosity there, in the deep brown of his gaze, a quiet ferocity that does little to put you at ease. 

"Do you…want kids?" he asks. 

You don't know what to say; you don't know the answer. 

"I…"

"It's okay," he assures you. "You're not gonna scare me away."

"No, it's–" You shake your head, feeling stupid. Your brain feels scrambled, all hazy and exhausted. One too many anxieties had been brought to the forefront of your mind this evening and you feel every one of them consuming you now. "I don't think I do."

"Then what's wrong?" he presses, almost pleads. 

Everything, you think. But mostly–

"I think my mom just…got in my head."

Joel's shoulders rise and fall in a deep sigh, his expression shifting to one of understanding. He resituates himself on the couch a bit, opening up his right side for you to crawl up into. His strong arm loops around your back, a warm palm stroking up and down your spine as you let your head fall tiredly against his chest. 

"I probably never will give her grandkids," you mutter after a quiet moment. "I'm her only daughter–it's like, my one job. And it doesn't matter how much I tell myself that's not true, I just always, always come back to this feeling that I'm letting her down."

He waits until you've fallen completely silent, squeezing you into him a little tighter as you speak. You don't cry; you don't think you have any tears left. You're just seeking, needy for that comfort only Joel can provide, the sense of safety he's offered you since that day on the beach when you'd first bared your heart to him. 

He doesn't disappoint. 

"You know, sweetheart," he sighs gruffly. "There ain't a whole lot in my life that's gone the way it was meant to. Hell, I don't think there's been one goddamn day that's gone by where I haven't asked myself if I'm doin' the right thing or if I coulda maybe done somethin' different."

You peer up at him and his big hand cups your face, thumbpad stroking lightly over your cheekbone. 

"You make the most of what you get, and do it for you and the people you care about," he whispers. "There's no schedule. You ain't got some kinda job–" his soft voice twists bitterly around the word, like he's offended at the very suggestion. "–That's not what you're here for. I'd never expect grandkids outta Sarah and it's…fucked up your mom expects that of you."

You can hear him getting worked up, his obvious frustration only further endearing you to him, as if that were even possible. Suddenly, you don't feel nearly close enough, moving to straddle his lap and wrap your arms around his neck. He welcomes you with open arms, holding you firmly against his chest as you bury your face into his shoulder. 

"Thank you, Joel."

"I got you."

A hint of frustration lingers there in his voice, but mostly you feel it in his embrace, his hold so fierce it's like he's trying to carve it right into your muscles–he's got you, he's got you, he's got you. 

You hold each other like that till your breaths match his and you finally feel safe enough to ask what you'd failed to ask before you'd fallen asleep. 

"Joel?"

"Hm?"

You pull back to see his face, knotting your fingers into the soft curls at the nape of his neck. 

"What did you say to my dad? Why wasn't he mad?"

To your surprise, his brows furrow and his eyes flit to the shell around your neck as he swallows nervously. 

"He was mad," Joel admits softly. His hand cups your face, dull fingernails scratching at the side of your head as he speaks. Anchoring. "S'mad as any father'd be if he found out his buddy was screwin' around with his daughter, I reckon."

As mad as I'd be if the roles were reversed, you think he wants to say. 

You nod slowly, searching his face and waiting for him to go on. Joel frowns at your necklace, seeming to just notice the shell is facing the wrong way against your chest. He takes his time readjusting it, like it's the most important thing in the world–and it kind of is, you guess. Eventually, he sighs, resting his palm above your left breast, fingertips brushing your collarbone. 

"'Cept I…" His voice drops an octave, so low and quiet it's like he's talking to himself. "I told him I wasn't just screwin' around with you."

"Oh."

You're not sure why the confession makes your heart pound hot in your ears and butterflies dance in your stomach; you've always known it was more than that with Joel. But something about hearing it out loud has a brightness stirring in your chest, the words so dangerously close to the ones you've almost said for months now.

His other hand wanders up your spine to curl his thick fingers around the nape of your neck. At last, his eyes find yours, two soft, brown, adoring orbs that burn with an intensity so powerful and fearful that you feel his next words before you even hear them.

"And I…I told him I think I'm in love with you."

"Oh."

The air leaves your lungs in a shuddering breath, as a tingling wet warmth pricks at your eyes.

Oh god, you know this feeling, have known it so long. And now Joel breathes life into it, makes it real. The hand behind your neck pulls you in closer and you go without question, let your forehead collide with his as the tears you thought you'd run dry steadily begin to fall. 

"Yeah," he murmurs. 

"Is that true?"

You feel him frown, his body shifting under yours to clutch you into him tighter, like he's trying to show you. 

"Yes," he admits hoarsely. It's hard to see from this angle, but you can just make out the fact that his eyes are wet too, and his forehead feels hot where it rolls under yours. "God, yes–yes, it's true. I'm sorry."

"Don't you dare," you protest, crushing your mouth against his, kissing away the doubt and the guilt and the apologies from him like sucking venom from a snake bite. Between sniffles and kisses, your own hushed confession–

"I love you, Joel. I love you so much."

You feel the change in him the second he hears it, the abandon with which he begins to kiss you. His tongue slips past the seam of your lips, sitting up beneath you just to get you closer still.

"Fuck, I love you," he groans, kissing feverishly along your jaw until he finds your ear, nipping at the lobe while his fingers tangle in your hair. "I'll be whatever you need, baby, whatever you want. M'not goin' anywhere. S'long as you want me."

Your breathing stutters as he trails his lips down, down, down, over your pulse point, past the shell around your neck to suck at the skin above your sternum. 

"I'll fuckin' show her, sweetheart, I'll show her how good I can be for you."

He keeps his face buried against your chest as he rocks his hips upwards, making you gasp when you feel the hard line of his cock make contact with your bare pussy.

"I'll give you a baby f'you want one," he rambles on gruffly, pulling you down into his lap over and over and over. "I'd give you a hundred kids f’that's what you wanted."

You gasp at that, dizzying arousal clouding your vision, drunk on his devotion and the feeling of his clothed cock grinding against your velvet warmth. You imagine him filling you, really filling you, making you his in every conceivable way and it makes you fucking needy. You match his shallow thrusts upwards, chasing contact as you arch your back and press your chest into his, never feeling close enough. 

"Talk to me," he grits out, breath hot against your bare chest. 

But words evade you, lost in his touch as Joel slips the sleeves of your dress off your shoulders to palm at your breasts. He feasts on you, mind and body, bites down hotly on your jawbone and rolls his hips beneath you.

"Talk to me," he repeats, grunting it into the space behind your ear. He grips the hair at the nape of your neck with one hand and pulls your face up to meet his eyeline. His eyes are nearly black, shining with leftover emotion and blazing with covetous need. 

"Fuck me," you sob.

Joel wastes no time, breath shaky as he reaches between your bodies to free his cock from his boxers. He taps your sides and you lift your hips, locked in his stare as you lower yourself back down onto his length. Joel's grip on your hips encourages you to move slowly, though it makes no difference; your jaw still falls open at the stretch, and you pause when you're fully seated just to appreciate the space your body makes for him. 

"Keep talkin'." Joel growls as you adjust. Slick drools from your cunt as you experimentally roll your hips, but Joel's arms around you hold you perfectly still. The tip of his cock tickles the deepest parts of you, his open mouth hovering over yours. Finally as close as he can get, he holds you there.

There are no words for this feeling.

"Can't–I don't–"

You gasp when he shifts beneath you, his thick cock moving inside you just enough to ease the ache, if only for a fleeting moment. Your pussy pulses around him, sticky-wet and so fucking full.

"Just–say anythin', please," he begs. His forehead falls haplessly into your shoulder, heavy and hot and damp with sweat. You bury your face into his curls while his arms around you loosen and at last you start to move–slow, reverent rocks of your hips against his that have you both moaning softly into each other's skin. "You make me feel so fucking good," you breathe raggedly. "No one–no one's ever made me feel as good as you do."

Joel groans, sliding his hands up your spine as you begin to ride him in earnest, impaling yourself down on him again and again and again. 

"Don't–" Joel protests, grabbing at your hips to slow your movements, encouraging you to grind on him instead. "Wanna feel you come on it."

You whimper, letting Joel guide your movements till he pinpoints that perfect spot inside you, each roll of your hips making his cock prod against it while you wet the coarse hairs at his base. 

"Show me how good I make you feel," he huffs as you chase your release, devouring your lips in a kiss that's more shared breaths than anything else. His lower belly rubs at your clit and you feel it start to build, that deep-seated pressure growing in your core and threatening to swallow you. You moan into his mouth and his hand tightens in your hair, clutching you impossibly closer as you increase your pace, greedy in the way you're using him. Joel's obvious pleasure in watching you fall apart stops you from caring. 

"Show me, pretty girl," he rasps, voice low against your lips. "No one else gets to have you like this, do they?"

"No–fuck, Joel!–only you, only you."

"Yeah, baby–you're fuckin'...all mine, huh?" he groans. "My girl. And I'm all yours. All yours, baby. Lemme hear it. Lemme see."

"I'm yours–please," you cry as your orgasm licks up your spine, building slowslowslow then crashing into you all at once. Your hips stutter and you clench around his cock, a high-pitched wail pouring from your mouth into his and Joel just talks you through it, a quiet refrain of there you go, there you go, there you go as you gush down onto his balls. 

"You're so fucking perfect," Joel growls before it even ends, unable to stop himself anymore from fucking up into you. The hurried drag of his cock moving wetly in and you of your spent hole prolongs the pleasure, shooting aftershocks through your veins until you lie limply against his chest and let him find his own high. 

You whine into his shoulder while you let him ride it out, his arms so tight around your back you wonder if your bodies won't just melt into one. 

"Come in me, Joel," you implore him weakly, clawing listlessly at his scalp. Fresh tears collect in your eyes and spill out onto your cheeks and you can't imagine there is anyone on Earth as full as you are right now. As full of love and warmth and Joel. 

"Oh, fuck," he moans, losing his rhythm slightly as he nears his edge, pounding up into you harder. "I will–m'gonna–"

His rambling chokes off into a laboured grunt, his entire frame shuddering under you as he comes. He pumps his seed into the deepest parts of you until hot cum seeps past your walls and down his length. He doesn't stop moving till he's emptied himself completely, breathless and faded when his lips find yours again, his cock still buried inside you. 

"I don't want any babies," you tell him as you come down, clutching at the sides of his face and kissing every part of him you can reach. "I just want you. Just me and you."

Joel nods, pulling you into a sticky-warm embrace, breathing unevenly into your hair.

"Just me and you, babygirl," he vows, voice barely above a whisper. "Just me and you."

one month later

Winter is so long.

You know on some level that with each passing day, the sun hangs in the sky a little longer than it did the day before, but it never really feels that way, does it? It's just winter, cool and dark and barren, until suddenly, it's spring. The leaves will return and the flowers will bloom and you'll be left wondering when the hell winter even started in the first place.

For now, you remain in the thick of it. Mid-February brings with it a rare weekend of snow, barely enough to coat the earth, a pitiful dusting destined to melt by Monday. Not that you need much of an excuse these days to spend your free time sheltered inside with Joel, but it's nice to have a reason for once. Cross-legged on his living room floor with Henry in your lap, Joel sitting above you on the couch with his guitar across his knees, you'd be content to stay this way forever.

Of course, a grey cloud of irresolution still hovers over you; you don't try to reach your mother, and after about a week of ignoring her texts, she stops trying to reach you. And it's fine. It's fine. You don't need her approval and you don't need her judgment. Beside, the more time that passes since your father's birthday dinner, the more you accept that her response had–probably–been coming from a place of concern. You know she's not an evil person. It's still easier to stay angry with her, though.

Then there's the other cloud, somehow darker and even more ominous, the nimbus that's been following you since before Costa Rica. Heather. Apparently she's changed her number, because she's been texting you non-stop for the past week, pleading for the chance to be forgiven, to meet for coffee, to come over and catch up–anything.

And the worst part is, you're starting to consider it.

It's not lost on you that you've been isolating yourself with Joel since last summer, and while your parents now know you're dating, it's not really like you can talk about it with them. Plus, you'd be lying if you said you didn't miss her–at least, what you had with her before…everything. You're not sure you can ever truly get that back but you're beginning to wonder if maybe some version of it still exists.

"You don't gotta take the high road or nothin'," Joel had said when you'd told him. "But you can always hear her out. Ain't no shame in that. But only f'that's what you want."

Supportive to a fault. For once–just once–you wish he'd just tell you exactly what to do.

Anyway, most days you barely think of Heather, or your mom. Most days are consumed by work and Henry and Joel. You aren't thinking of them right now, for instance.

"Right–sing that high part again," Joel tells you, after accompanying you through the first verse of Fleetwood Mac's "I Don't Want to Know" for the third time in a row now.

You frown. "The…high part?"

Joel rolls his eyes–a little dramatic. "The part you were just singin'."

You sigh exasperatedly–you'd just been messing around, casually jumping in when he'd started strumming the familiar intro. But then he'd gone and looked all proud and smiley and impressed and curious and now it may as well be a goddamn singing lesson with the way he's bossing you around.

You straighten your spine, fill your tummy with air just like Joel had taught you, and nod. "Okay, okay."

He plays you in, and then you sing for him.

I don't want to know the reasons why Love keeps right on walking on down the line I don't want to stand between you and love Honey, I just want you to feel fine

He lets you get through half a verse before he stops you. 

"Good," he says. "Feel where that's sittin'?"

"No," you scoff. You don't even know what that means. "I can't sing, Joel."

"You can," he insists, smirking. "And you're doin' great. Try it again."

You roll your eyes now, taking another deep breath before he leads you into another refrain.

Only this time, when you start singing, he joins in too. A harmony, lower than the part you're singing, the two lines perfectly melding together in the space between your bodies. Your eyes widen at the sound you create, something beautiful crafted from two voices coming together as one. It tickles your ears in the strangest way, and by the time you get through a verse together, you're laughing in wonder, Henry finally jumping out of your lap, clearly betrayed by the unpleasant vibrations of your joy.

"Sounded pretty good, huh?" Joel grins.

Your eyes are still wide with shock and even if you still highly doubt your abilities, you can't deny that it did, in fact, sound pretty fucking good. "That was so cool."

"See?" He cocks his eyebrows, setting the guitar down beside him so it's leaning against the front of the couch. "You can sing."

"Yeah, yeah," you laugh. From the other room, you hear the front door open and close–right on time. "You're just a good teacher."

"Who's that? Joel?" a familiar voice says, your father rounding the corner from the hallway into the living room, shrugging off his jacket as he goes. "Yeah, right."

"Hey, dad," you greet him, as casually as you can muster.

He hesitates in the doorway, still a bit uncertain of his place here, even though it's become fairly standard now for him to pop in on the weekends like this. The three of you had made the decision to work towards normalizing your relationship with Joel even if it feels…less than comfortable sometimes. You try to think of it as a win-win; your dad gets his friend back, and you get to feel like at least one of your parents supports your relationship. 

You smile warmly up at him from your place on the carpet, and at last he eases into the room, stopping to pull you into a one-armed hug on his way to the La-Z-Boy.

He's giving you his own best attempt at a smile as he sits himself down on the chair next to Joel, the two of them greeting each other in that grunted, male way, hands slapped on shoulders with all the casual friendliness of two people who've known each other for years.

It's a work in progress. But you're grateful that he's trying. 

"Can I hear?" your dad asks, nodding towards the guitar perched beside Joel. You cringe at the thought of that, immediately glancing at Joel with barely-concealed horror in your eyes. 

"Oh, I don't–" you begin to protest but your father cuts you off. 

"C'mon, just a little."

Joel's cheeks flush a light shade of pink, his own embarrassment showing through the crooked smirk he's wearing. He tilts his head at you and shrugs, resigned. Might as well. 

"Alright," you reluctantly agree. "Sure, okay."

Joel's lips split in a genuine smile then, as he reaches for his guitar and your father sits back into his chair. You can feel him looking between the two of you, assessing the silent conversation you share with your eyes, the familiarity, the safety, the love. The way Joel nods at you encouragingly and shoots you a little thumbs up, watching you with furrowed brows until you nod back, a quiet indication you're as ready as you'll ever be. 

Then he starts to play.

You keep your eyes on Joel, not just because the even nodding of his head helps keep you in time, but also because it's just too embarrassing to look at your dad. Joel holds your stare, and together, you sing. His voice rings out in that same harmony from before, seamlessly knotting with yours. He lets it go on longer this time, watching your confidence grow as he guides you through the song, all the way through once, then again. Eventually you start to forget your father is there at all, honestly too enraptured by how easy it's starting to feel to hold your harmony alongside Joel's, how satisfying it feels to hear the two melodies intersect and resolve, stronger and stronger with each passing refrain. 

It's kind of magical, how something that once felt so foreign feels so comfortable with Joel. 

You get through two rounds of verses and choruses before Joel finally cuts it off with a chuckle and a final little flourish of his guitar. 

It's quiet for a moment as the remnants of your duet fade into the ether. You're still staring at Joel. 

"You guys sound really good together," your dad eventually says and when you turn to face him, you find his lips are pressed into a tight smile, an earnest sort of warmth swimming in his eyes. "Real good."

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