#i forgot to put the trigger back in when i put it together the first time and only noticed when i tested it and tried to fire and realized | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

featherandferns · 9 months ago

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guilty as sin? (fic - part 1/2)

jj maybank x fem!routledge!reader | largely inspired by the bible

content warning: sexual content; mentions of parental abuse (physical abuse) | any questions for trigger warnings, feel free to inbox anonymously

word count: 14k.

blurb: when you, John B's half sister, return to Kildare after over two years of living in Colorado, your adolescent crush that you harboured for his best friend comes screaming back. Because you and JJ can't be together in real life, what's the harm in a fantasy?

“And this is your room.”

The syrup-coloured wood is the first thing your eyes meet when John B pushes open the bedroom door. There’s the vague lingering smell of teenage boy which he’s tried to air out, the window open ajar, and the clutter of his belongings has been moved to make space for your own. As you drop your duffel bag and step into the room, you take in the walls. There’s posters and prints stuck above his bed, dotted around on slats of wood separating windows: someone surfing; a rockstar smashing his guitar. An old skateboard deck is nailed into the wall alongside a license plate. The sheets are bright blue, the bed freshly made, and a clean towel is folded up at the foot. It’s well-lit with plenty of daylight flowing through the many windows. Homely and inviting.

“Is it, uh, alright?”

You turn to find John B leaning against the doorframe, hands in his short pockets. Smiling, you nod.

“It’s perfect,” you tell him. “I’m honestly chill with crashing on the couch, though.”

It’s pretty obvious this was his room: you feel guilty kicking him out.

He shakes his head and gestures with his thumb over his shoulder. “I moved into my dad’s room anyway. This has been the spare for a while.”

“Well, thanks,” you smile.

He nods, mirroring your content. “I’ll let you settle in and stuff. I moved all my crap out the closet so you can put your stuff in there, and the top bedside drawer is empty.”

“That’s perfect,” you say. You lift your bag with a grunt and dump it on the bed.

“I gotta go to work but call if you need anything. Shouldn’t be back too late.”

Unzipping your bag, you look to him. “Where’d you work?”

“Got this gig helping out at Ward Cameron’s. Don’t know if you remember him?”

“Course I do,” you snort. “The kingpin of Kildare, and your dad’s treasure hunting buddy.”

There’s a tense silence as your words catch up with you. You press your eyes shut, embarrassed.

“Shit, sorry. That didn’t come out how I meant it to.”

“It’s cool,” John B says, graciously gliding past it. “Anyway, he pays pretty good so can’t complain. Mostly just handy-man odd jobs.”

“Very noble work,” you joke.

With a quiet laugh, John B nods and backs out the door. He lingers another moment, contemplating saying something else. “Look, uh, I know it isn’t ideal circumstances, you coming back to Kildare and stuff, but I’m glad you’re here. Really. It’s nice having you back, sis.”

Your mood sobers, smile turning solemn.

“Thanks,” you quietly reply.

He nods once more and pats the doorframe in farewell. “Right, I’ll let you get unpacked. See you later.”

“See ya.”

When John B leaves – the front door shuddering against the house as it slams shut – you’re overcome with quiet. In Colorado, where you lived with your mom in the city, there was little nature. You forgot how peaceful Kildare is. Through the crack in the window, birdsong and cricket chimes accompany the sound of your unpacking. You turf out your clothes and take to putting them in the closet. Shoes and bags and bikinis. A jacket and a few sweatshirts. It was easy enough to plan for your outfits considering you’re only staying the summer. You remember the weather in Kildare well enough from when you used to live here.

Once you’ve unpacked your clothes, you find your paints. A box of watercolours which have seen much use and love, the hinges rusted and the inside of the palette smeared with dried mixed paint. Turning to the bedside table, you pull open the bottom drawer on accident. You come face to face with corny porno magazines, a box of tissues, two wrapped condoms and a half empty bottle of painkillers.

“Gross,” you mutter, slamming it shut. Yep, this was definitely a dude’s bedroom.

The top drawer is empty, like John B promised. You fill it with your paints and sketchbooks and pencils.

As the day ploughs on, the room becomes increasingly saturated with your personality. Postcards from Colorado, of the towns and cities you visited, photographs from school of your friends and classmates: you scatter them along them wall, amongst John B’s. Some of your favourite paintings, alongside artists which inspire you, join the mix. On the desk you add a few of your own books to the haphazard stack of abandoned homework and school reports.

At the bottom of your duffle bag is your penny board. You look around the room, searching for empty space to slot it without adding to already cluttered surroundings, and opt to slot it under the bed. Ducking down, you come face to face with a collection of empty beer cans. Clearly the spring cleaning only went so far. It’s noisy as you drag them out, but you’re certain you hear someone shouting. Pausing, sitting back on your haunches, you turn to peer out the open bedroom door. It’s silent for a moment, and then you hear footsteps.

“Yo! JB, you home?”

It’s a guy shouting. His voice sounds vaguely familiar. When he comes into the corridor, he glances into Big John’s bedroom (now claimed by your older half-brother) first. Blonde messy hair and well-worn combat boots instantly name him. JJ. He turns to the spare bedroom and stops short the moment his eyes land on you, sat amongst a pile of trash.

“You’re not John B,” he says.

“What gave me away?” you reply with a lift of your brows.

There’s a long awkward moment where he stares at you. You can practically hear the cogs turning as he takes you in. When you lift your arm up to scratch the back of your neck, realisation dawns upon him. You imagine your scar on the outside of your elbow gave you away.

“Holy crap! Little Routledge?” he gapes.

You laugh. “Haven’t been called that in a minute.”

JJ steps into the room and you get to your feet. He tackles you into a hug. It’s too short, too sudden, and then he’s stepping away from you again, leaving you dizzy on your feet.

“The fuck? You’re, like, grown now,” he says.

Rolling your eyes, you reply, “well, I am sixteen.”

“The fuck!” he repeats. He then takes in where you’re standing, and the state of the room, and frowns. “Wait, what are you doing here? I thought you were in Colorado with your mom?”

“I was,” you say. You kick one of the cans out the way and fold your arms over your chest, shrugging. “I came back for the summer.”

“Oh, that’s sick!”

You laugh. It’s a nice reaction to have from someone who you haven’t seen for over two years.

“John B gave you his old room then?”

He walks into it as if it’s his own. You watch as he studies the new additions to the wall that you’ve added. Lingers on one of your paintings.

"Yeah, he’s moved into his dad’s, apparently.”

“Yeah, he moved in there a while ago,” JJ tells you. “I’ve been sleeping in here most of the time.”

Your mind flashes back to the bedside drawer stocked with teenage boy necessities. Ah, makes sense. You remember how JJ was when you were a dorky thirteen-year-old. At the ripe age of fourteen, he had girls fawning after him. He was shameless in his reputation. The conversations you overheard between himself and John B as he’d brag about his escapades are seared into your memory, as you felt your wasted preteen heart splinter with every tale. It’s no surprise now that he’s probably just as unruly. Especially considering how he looks. There isn’t much time to ogle though because he’s looking away from the décor, meeting your gaze again.

“That explains all the empty beer cans, then,” you say.

He cringes. “Yeah, uh, sorry ‘bout that.”

You shrug. “It’s cool. I need to toss ‘em out but I don’t know where the trash bags are…”

“Oh, right,” he says, breezing past you. His cologne lingers in the air when he leaves. There’s the smallest moment for you to catch your breath as JJ bangs around in the kitchen, and then he reappears with a roll of black bags. Tosses them to you and you catch. “Here.”

“Thanks.”

You begin to shove the cans into the bag and JJ starts to help. His black button-up gapes open as he leans over and it takes everything not to glance down his shirt like some pervert.

“How come you didn’t want to stay in Colorado for the summer, then?”

“Change of scenery,” you vaguely reply. It isn’t a complete lie, but it isn’t the whole truth either.

“Well, you chose the best summer to come back. Our mission this year is to have the best summer of all time.”

“Pretty lofty goal to set,” you chuckle.

JJ glances up at you, flashing you a grin. “Nah, we got it in the bag.”

You find yourself smiling back, held captive under his stare. When he takes the now full trash bag off you, tying it off, you snap out of it.

“So, where’s your brother at then?” he asks, heading out the room. You follow.

“At work. Said he does jobs for Cameron now.”

“Oh, yeah. Cameron sorta took him under his wing after his dad…went missing,” JJ replies.

You have a feeling that the way people talk about John B’s father is rather doctored.

“I can’t believe he’s gone,” you tell him, referring to Big John.

As you step on the porch, the sunlight warms your face. The floorboards creak as you make your way down them, to the garbage can outside.

“It was insane,” JJ says to you. He tosses the trash away. “I mean, we all knew Big John was a bit too into the whole royal-merchant thing but…we never thought it’d go that far, you know?”

“Yeah,” you nod. “Scary.”

JJ looks at you a moment longer. Then, he laughs to himself and shakes his head. “Can’t believe you’re sixteen now.”

“Can’t believe you’re seventeen.”

“What? I look good or something?”

He does a small spin on the spot, arms held out by his sides. You roll your eyes, acting as if you’re unaffected. It’s hard to swallow the reflex reaction of yes.

“Or something,” you say.

JJ takes it in stride. “Well, you look pretty cute yourself considering you’ve been in the mountains for the last three years.”

“I don’t live in the mountains,” you snort. The word ‘cute’ rattles around your head like a pinball.

“You’re taller now too. Practically come up to my shoulders. I remember when me and John B could pick you up by your ankle like a marlin.”

“Yeah, I remember that too,” you not-so-fondly recall.

JJ grins and steps over to you. Despite both of your growth spurts, you still have to look up at him, and him down at you. His eyes are just as dreamy as you remember them. When you first left for Colorado, you hardly had time to pack. In the midst of chaos, taking a picture of your brother’s best friend didn’t seem all that important. Cut to you spending endless nights trying to remember his eyes, the exact colour and the exact shape. Trying to remember the dimples that popped out when he smiled. The pure joy in his laugh. The way your heart felt like it might explode whenever he looked at you, even if it were for a second.

But when JJ pats your head, your chest deflates.

“Well, see you around, little Routledge,” he says, stepping away. “Tell your brother I was looking for him.”

Because even after all these years, you’re still just John B’s little sister in JJ’s eyes.

~*~*~*~*~*~*

You stare into your can of cider. In the night, the only light being that from the bonfire John B started up in the backyard, you can’t make out the colour of it. Just the swirling of liquid. You’d spent the last three days working on a watercolour of the marsh side to John B’s house, but you couldn’t capture the movement of the water quite right.

“Wait, I’m confused,” Pope frowns.

“What’s there to be confused about, Pope?” JJ sighs, seemingly exhausted from the questions. There had been an influx of them the minute John B brought you out of the Chateau. “His mom shagged her dad and boom, here she is.”

“Charming mental images there, JJ, thanks,” John B cringes.

You laugh into your drink.

“No, I get that. But…You used to live here, right?” Pope asks you.

You nod.

“But then you moved to Colorado?”

“Yeah?”

“But now you’re back here?”

“Apparently,” you say.

Pope’s frown deepens: apparently that cleared nothing up for him. You’ve never known someone so analytical. “This is complicated,” he observes.

“No shit,” Kiara quips.

It was complicated. Families usually are. You and John B had different dads, in short. Your shared mom cheated on Big John when John B was hardly a year old, putting you around 11 or so months behind him. She ran off to Raleigh with your dad to try and fix their tumultuous relationship, leaving you with Big John for practically thirteen years. Whilst he wasn't unkind to you, he never saw you as his. You supposed you were a reminder of his ex-wife's unfaithfulness. But John B treated you like blood, as did his friends.

Just after your thirteen birthday, your mom decided to flee the state, and she was taking you with her. It all came out of the blue. You weren’t exactly thrilled to go to Colorado. You liked Kildare, and North Carolina, and John B and his friends. Kiara was always nice to you. She never talked down to you, despite you being seen as John B’s little sister. You bonded over turtles and Bob Marley. JJ was different. He’d prank you with John B and tease you about your dolls, but he’d also patch you up if you fell and calm you down after a nightmare. Your crush on him evolved naturally over time. What started as childhood infatuation with the supposed delinquent of Kildare became real. You liked JJ. He was funny and rambunctious, but he had a kindness and tenderness that he kept hidden below. He was often at the house as his own family situation was far from perfect, so having him around became as familiar as John B’s presence. When you left, JJ gave you a hug that you wished would last a lifetime.

But you drifted away in Colorado. You didn’t have anybody’s phone number, save for Big John’s (which your mom refused to let you use), and you were too young to remember addresses to write to them. Social media was never something you latched onto and eventually it all faded away into a strange, dreamlike memory. Being back here is almost proof that you didn’t imagine the whole thing.

“We’re half siblings,” you say, whittling down your family history into a simple statement. “That’s all you really need to know.”

“Damn straight,” JJ whoops, downing the last of his drink. He crunches the can in his fist and heads to the cooler for another.

“You’re staying for the whole summer then?” Kiara asks.

You nod. “I’m tryna get a job at this restaurant in town to keep me busy.”

“Screw that. Just come smoke and surf with us all day, that’ll keep you occupied,” JJ grins.

He’s comfortable in himself, relaxing in a lawn chair, legs outstretched and crossed at the ankles. His t-shirt represents one of Kildare’s small-town establishments and his shorts are stained with dust and dirt from riding his bike.

“She��s the good one out of us lot,” John B announces, gesturing to you. “Out of all the Routledge offspring, she’s gonna go places. You’re not gonna taint that, JJ.”

“And by ‘all the Routledge offspring’ you mean yourself and her?” Pope checks.

John B nods fervently. “I’m telling you! She’s madly talented.”

“You’re drunk; it’s giving you beer goggles,” you dismiss, finishing your drink.

“You were always the creative one,” JJ remarks. Everyone looks over to him. “Me and John B would be out on the water and she’d be drawing it.”

“Maybe you can show us some of your stuff,” Kiara says.

You laugh and shake your head. “Maybe not.”

The alcohol wizzes up your body as you get to your feet and you take it as a good time to call it quits.

“I think I’m gonna head in.”

“What?”

“No!”

“Come on!”

You laugh, shaking off the group’s disputes. “I’m tired!”

“Lightweight,” JJ teases. You flip him off as you pass, ditching your empty can in the garbage as you go.

“Night guys!” you holler as you head back into the house.

“Night!”

The bedroom John B offered you is starting to feel less like a guest house. You shrug off your cardigan – it stinks of smoke from the fire – and close the door. Through the window, you can hear the group chattering.

Pope seems nice. He hadn’t been around when you lived in Kildare, but you recognised his name. Heyward was a legend on the Cut; you could see his dad in his eyes. Kiara was just as you remembered her, if not more consumed by her environmental activism than before. JJ was the most staggering change of all. He’d grown into his looks, matured around the face. Any puppy fat that you remembered from childhood had vanished. Lithe and lively, he was an American heartthrob, through and through.

As you do your skincare, you glance out the window. You can make out JJ, sat with his back to you. His arms are flailing around as he tells a story. You can’t make out the details through the window but the looks on everyone’s faces tells you it’s pretty damn entertaining. He was always the joker, humour hiding whatever was happening underneath like he was arming himself with a grin. The unexplained bruises on his face and the painful batterings on his body were never explained whenever he’d stay at Big John’s, when you were younger.

The moment he shifts in his seat, you dart away from the window, scared to get caught, and finish getting ready for bed.

A bad dream rouses you awake. It was about Colorado. The warped memories keep you from falling back asleep, no matter how hard you try. Sighing, you stare at the ceiling. The room is bathed in moonlight, cosy in the wooden interior, and you contemplate sitting outside for a bit. The same cardigan from earlier gets pulled on over your vest top and you slip into some crocs.

You head for the front door, creeping past John B’s room, and step onto the porch. There’s a warm, humid air in the night. The crickets and owls harmonise with the faint buzz of mosquitos who surround the porch light. That’s when you realise that it’s already on, and you’re not alone. JJ’s on the porch, laid out on the sofa. He’s smoking a joint. The smell of weed merges into that of the dying embers from the abandoned, extinguished bonfire. You rap gently on the wall as you approach, hoping not to startle him.

“Hey,” he says, looking up at the sound.

“Hey.”

“Can’t sleep?”

“No,” you say. “I thought everyone went home.”

“They did. I’m crashing here tonight. My dad’s…”

He falters, glances up at you, and shakes his head.

“Don’t need to bore you with it.”

“You’re not boring,” you hear yourself tell him.

Smiling, JJ offers the joint to you. You take it, sitting down in the red armchair at the foot of the sofa. The weed consumes your senses when you take a drag, hitting the back of your throat and dulling your thoughts.

“Haven’t smoked in ages,” you say.

“Big smoking community out in Colorado?” JJ asks.

You laugh. “Not where I live, no.”

He takes the joint back when you lean over to him. Tilts his head back as he takes another hit. He’s in the same clothes as earlier, hasn’t even taken off his boots; his hair is tousled like he tried to sleep but couldn’t. You’re caught in the act of staring at him. He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t even make a joke. Instead, he holds your gaze. It’s almost like a silent challenge: who’ll break first?

“Can I say something kinda inappropriate?” he asks.

“I feel like you have to, now.”

JJ grins at that, amused. “You’re way cuter than I remember you.”

“Oh? You mean sweaty thirteen-year-old, chalk-highlight-pink-hair wasn’t cute?” you joke.

Shaking his head, he adds, “No. Well, yeah, but not in the way you are now.”

Your stomach tightens and heart constricts, and you wish you had the joint to have something to distract yourself with. You hope you sound calm and collected when you say, “thanks. You don’t look too bad yourself.”

“Oh, you’re too kind,” JJ jokes. He takes another long, deep drag. “Is it nice? Being back in Kildare?”

You glance off to the marsh. You forgot to check the time when you got up but judging from the endless navy blue of the sky, it’s still late.

“Sure.”

“Sure?”

You look back to him. “It’s better than Colorado.”

“So, you’re not missing home then?”

The blunt is passed back to you. Taking a drag, you ponder his question. “I don’t think I know where home is right now. I don’t think it’s Colorado, but I don’t know if it’s here either. Maybe I don’t have one.”

JJ doesn’t say anything and you remember yourself. Laughing self-deprecatingly, you shake your head.

“Sorry, think this joint’s going to my head. That was dramatic.”

“No, no, I get ya,” JJ assures. “I know what you mean.”

“You don’t like Kildare?” you ask him.

His expression darkens like a shadow has cast over him. “It depends.”

“Hm,” you say. Nothing more is said on the matter. You get the sense that JJ was vague on purpose.

Pulling your legs into your seat, you glance around at the clutter on the porch. A surfboard is lent against the nett lining of the porch; a rusting duck ornament balances on one of the beams. What looks to be a broken radio sits beside a half-full bottle of rum on a small table by the couch.

“I think it’s good for John B, having you back.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” JJ smiles. “He sorta spun out when his dad disappeared. You’re kinda the only family he has left.”

“You’re his family too. Been around longer than I have,” you tell him.

JJ’s smile softens. He glances away from you, fiddling with the paper of the joint, almost as if he’s flustered. “Thanks.”

“So,” you say, “you got some poor girl on this island falling after you?”

“Rude of you to assume there’s only one,” JJ grins wickedly.

You roll your eyes.

“What about you? Some West Coast jock waiting for you back in the home state?”

The sarcastic ‘har har’ that he gets has JJ frowning, bemused.

“Definitely no guy, and definitely no jock.”

“Now that I find hard to believe,” JJ says.

Before you can ask what he means by that, or spiral out by thinking too much about it, JJ’s getting to his feet. He puts the blunt out on the window ledge, ditching the empty butt in a filthy dish. Stretching his arms over his head, sighing, you watch as his t-shirt rides up. The tensing of his abdominal muscles is like torture. God, to run your hands up his chest, over his shoulders, tangle them in the salt-soaked strands of his hair…

“Right, night Little Routledge,” JJ says.

You blink away from his chest and meet his gaze. There’s a strange expression on his face, one you don’t recognise, and you want to scrutinise it and find out what it means. But it’s gone in a flash, as is he as he heads back into the house. You watch through the window as his silhouette drops onto the pull-out sofa.

It takes a minute to regain your composure.

You can’t think of JJ like that. He certainly doesn’t think of you like that, and that childhood crush has long been put to bed. Shaking it awake is the last thing you need right now. Besides, he’s John B’s best friend. Your brother’s best friend. The same brother who’s taken you back into his house, offered you a room, free of charge, without complaint or question. And it seems like John B needs as many people around him as possible right now. But it’s hard to maintain that line of thought, when as you lie back down in your bed, desperate to get some sleep, you can vividly picture the slit of JJ’s chest that you were privy to just moments ago when you close your eyes.

~*~*~*~*~*~*

You follow Tom through the restaurant. He’s the supervisor, eighteen and a fresh high school graduate. It’s hard to keep up with him as he points things out: waiter’s station; kitchen; storeroom…You’d forgotten how overwhelming job orientations can be.

“And this,” he pushes a door open, “is the staff room.”

You glance in and take in the messy pile of shoes, the overflowing trash can, and the three coat pegs overwhelmed with bags and hoodies.

“Love what you’ve done with the space.”

Tom laughs. He closes the door and leans against the doorframe. Broad shouldered, he stands taller than you by a couple inches.

“So, what made you want to work here?”

“I’m really interested in not being broke,” you reply, making him laugh.

“You new to the island? Feel like I haven’t seen you around?”

“This island that small?”

“Or you’re just that unforgettable,” he smoothly returns.

Your face fires up. Laughing nervously, you shift your stance. “I just moved in with my half-brother for the summer. Need something to keep me busy for a few months.”

“Ah, sweet. Anyone I’d know?”

“Dunno,” you say. He starts back into the main restaurant building. They haven’t opened yet. It’s void of life. “John B Routledge?”

“Oh shit, yeah. JB,” he says, flashing you a grin.

He’s charming in a disarming way. The kind of face that a modelling agency would swipe up because of his easy marketability.

When the two of you approach the bar, there’s a girl stood polishing wine glasses. She looks to be about your age, maybe a couple of years older. Her smile is sweet and welcoming like warm hot chocolate on a winter’s night.

“Hey, Lizzy. This is the new starter,” Tom introduces.

“I’m guessing I got the job then?” you ask him. He nods. With that, you offer a hand to Lizzy.

“Nice to meet ya,” she says, shaking it. “Could do with more girls around here.”

“Happy to help,” you reply.

“So, you think you can cover a shift tomorrow night? I figured cause you’ve waitressed before it shouldn’t take too long for you to learn the ropes here,” Tom says.

You nod. “Sure. Sounds good.”

“We’ll see you tomorrow then,” he says.

You bid farewell to himself and Lizzy, seeing yourself out the front door. The restaurant is in the heart of the cut, surrounded by other small businesses and hipster start-ups. You begin the journey home, plugging in your headphones and submerging yourself in Reggae music. Children play in the local park and preteens chatter as they speed past you on their bikes. There’s a warm breeze that brushes past you; it smells of sea water and fried fish. You’re passing the harbour. Eyes land on Heyward’s store, the logo just as you remember it from all those years ago. It’s surreal being back.

When your phone buzzes, you pause your sightseeing to check it. It might be John B asking after the interview. Your throat closes up when you see your mom’s contact pop up. A text. ‘Call me back.’

Just like that, you’re dragged out of Kildare and are back in Colorado.

It’s impossible to ignore the text, but you do your best either way. You don’t even remember half the journey to the Chateau as you walk through the door. JJ is home. He’s sat at the messy dining table, eating a bowl of cereal and scrolling through his phone. Tugging out your earbuds, you give a small wave hello.

“How’d the interview go? That was today, right?”

“Smashed it. Got the job,” you say.

“Oh, sweet. Congrats.”

“Thanks.”

You ditch your bag by the door along with your phone. Taking the seat opposite him, you sit cross-legged on the wooden chair. The sketchbook you’d abandoned earlier lays dormant. Opening it up, you flick to your latest piece of the marsh. It’s coming together rather well. You’d decided to add the H.M.S Pogue, sat harboured on the grass. JJ peers over his bowl to the painting.

“Holy shit. That’s sick,” he says through his mouthful of Captain Crunch.

“Thanks,” you smile. “I’m pretty happy with how it’s come out, considering how old these paints are.”

JJ watches as you crack open the aforementioned watercolours. The smell of artificial paint teases the air. Dampening a thin brush in the mason jar of water, you dip into the blue.

“They bad quality or something?”

“A little. They best ones are Winsor and Newton, but I can’t justify spending over twenty bucks on paints.”

“Why not? You’ve clearly got a gift,” JJ says.

You hate how casual he is when he says things like that to you. Like it doesn’t knock the breath out of you like a sucker punch to the chest.

“S’just practice,” you mumble.

You can feel his gaze as you paint. Resting your chin in your hand, you work at the water under the jetty, trying to perfect the shading. You want to feel as though you can walk into the painting; like you could drown in the crystal clean waves.

Painting had become an escape when you were in Colorado. Whatever you could remember of Kildare, you’d paint. When that well ran dry, you began to paint places you wished you could go. Anywhere but the dilapidating family home you’d found yourself in. Secret gardens made of twisting ivy and crumbling, ornate statues hidden amongst orchids and rose bushes. Cosmic planes with make-believe ice cream stations snuck onto Mars and Venus; whales which bathed in the stars and caught a tan in moonbeams. Underwater societies full of sea kelp and multicoloured coral reefs, with octopi hiding amongst crabs and shellfish.

You glance up to find JJ transfixed on the painting. There’s a crease between his brows as if he’s the one concentrating. It makes you laugh, quiet and under breath, and he looks up. Holds your stare.

“That’s amazing, that you can just do that,” JJ says, remarking to your work.

You swallow the sickly rush that his words give you. His tongue dampens his lower lip, tantalisingly slow. You feel it hit somewhere deep inside of you. Something in the air shifts.

Then, so quiet neither of you can be sure he really said it, he utters, “you’re amazing.”

“Yo!”

The door swings open with your brother’s arrival. Your head spins over your shoulder to the front door. John B stands holding a bag of takeout burgers in the air beside his head.

“Y’all hungry?”

“Hell yeah,” JJ says.

When you look to him, it feels as if you could have imagined the whole interaction had just moments ago. JJ’s sat in his seat as he was before, unfazed.

He abandons his cereal and follows John B into the kitchen like a starving dog, begging for food. You place your paintbrush back into the water and join them. John B unpacks the burgers and fries onto half-clean plates. You watch JJ toss a fry into the air and catch it, whooping in celebration. A plate is handed back to you, over John B’s shoulder.

“Beef burger with cheese, no pickles.”

“Thank you,” you sing-song, taking the plate off him.

JJ turns around and looks at you with faux disgust. “No pickles?”

You shake your head, heading back to the table. JJ and John B join you with their own quick dinners, and the three of you eat. You tell John B about the summer job you secured, and he tells you and JJ about Sarah Cameron and her new boy-toy Topper. JJ says he’s “biceps without a brain” when you ask which one Topper is.

“That can’t be his real name,” you snort.

“Oh, it is,” John B replies.

“His name is almost as dumb as he is,” JJ sniggers.

There’s the sound of chewing and swallowing.

“Two official weeks into summer,” John B randomly announces.

You quirk a brow. “Two weeks since I came back to Kildare.”

JJ holds his cup of soda up in a toast. John B wipes his mouth and raises his own, as do you. The three of you clink cups, smiling at the stupidity. As you bring your cup to your lips to drink, you find your eyes meeting JJ’s across the table. He holds your gaze as he sips, swallows and licks his lips of the sugar. You feel it hit somewhere deep, deep inside of you. JJ looks back to John B and starts recounting his tales of the day fishing, leaving you stumped.

What the hell was that?

~*~*~*~*~*~*

As your days in Kildare stretch on, your imagination becomes your most loved and loathed place all at once.

The Pogues had taken you under their wing without a second thought. It felt as if it wasn’t just because you were John B’s younger sister. Kiara would spend hours talking to you about music and star signs. Pope would discuss books and artists that he’d read about, falling into a huge debate about whether Andy Warhol is as legendary as everyone makes him out to be (the answer is, of course, yes). You and John B connected as brother and sister, filling that hole of ‘family’ that had been taken from both of you within the past year. Movie nights sharing popcorn and critiquing corny horror films, and mornings spent tending to the yard and fishing at the jetty: you felt yourself coming back bit by bit, in the company of the brunette.

But spending time with the Pogues came with spending more time with JJ. That little childhood crush that you’d claimed had succumb a long, undisturbed slumber…Oh, she had been awoken. Him staying over more and more on the pull-out when him and his dad ‘got into a thing’ meant the throw pillows smelt like his cologne and soap. He’d offer you his sweatshirt when sat around the bonfire on evenings drinking, and the warm distinct smell of him would consume you, drown you in the pheromones, affecting you like some pathetic animal in heat. Days spent surfing and sunbathing at the break gave you space to shamelessly ogle his bare chest, splattered in sea water, scorched and tanned with sunlight. The ripple of his lats when wearing his useless muscle tees as he waxed his board in the surf shack. His jawline strong and steely when annoyed or focused, with faint blonde stubble a week after shaving. But you swear he knew how it affected you. Swear he knew it drove you crazy whenever he’d fleetingly touch your back, brushing past you in the kitchen to grab a drink, or adjust your grip when helping him fix up his bike. When sharing a blunt on the porch (as you often did when sleep couldn’t come), he’d take his time passing it to you, fingers brushing. Innocent, incidental touches that felt calculated and planned. The way his eyes would gaze into yours, like he could read your thoughts and decipher your wants. A vague, barely-there smirk to his lips, constantly tortured by his tongue and teeth…

God, your whole body feels as if it has been on fire for the past week.

You blame your overactive thoughts of JJ on your boredom. Working at the restaurant hadn’t been sufficient distraction from the mess that is your life right now. Even now, as you stand before the till, typing through an order for the kitchen and bar, you feel your mind wandering. To thoughts of the Chateau, and to a certain blonde-haired guy sprawled on the pull-out sofa, shirtless, back on proud display…

“You gonna be much longer?”

“No, I shouldn’t be,” you say to Tom.

You hope your embarrassment doesn’t read on your face. It’s not as if he could hear your thoughts, so you’re not sure why you feel caught in the act. You finish selecting the sides for table 16 and press ‘store table’. Stepping to the side to grab some side plates, Tom takes over the till.

He’s nice. Makes you laugh a lot at work, as you slander rude tables and gush over those that tip an extra twenty.

After depositing the side plates at the table, you head to the bar to run the drinks you put through. Lizzy is mixing the cocktail you ordered. She pours rum into a shaker and then passionfruit puree.

“Can I ask you something?” you say to her.

She glances over. The two of you had gotten closer at work. You were hoping to hang out with her one time down at the beach, or maybe grab lunch after a morning shift. She runs a hand over her buzzcut hair style and nods.

“Do you think there’s such a thing as bad thoughts?”

“Bit deep to be asking that at eight o’clock at night, don’t you think?” she smirks.

You roll your eyes. As she goes on making the cocktail, you elaborate. “I have this dumbass crush on this guy which I know I shouldn’t have…I just feel bad for thinking about him so much.”

“Well, that’s dumb,” she snorts.

There’s the loud rattle of ice against stainless steel as Lizzy shakes the cocktail. Then, as she strains it into a martini glass, she looks up at you once more.

“Who’s this guy? Do I know him?”

“Maybe.”

Her eyebrows shoot up into her hairline. “Is it Tom?”

And, no, it isn’t Tom, but maybe saying it is means she won’t keep digging. You’d rather keep your embarrassing years-long infatuation with your brother’s best friend close to the chest. So, you do your best to look meek as you nod.

“Holy shit! Well, if it makes you feel better, he’s totally into you,” Lizzy tells you.

“He is?”

“Hell yeah. Guy practically ogles you across the room,” she says.

You glance over to Tom. He’s stood before a table, talking away, scribbling down their order on a notepad. At the feeling of being watched, he looks up and meets your gaze. You flash him a small smile and he mirrors it quickly before returning his focus to the task at hand.

“So, do you?”

“Think there’s such a thing as bad thoughts?” Lizzy checks. You nod. She ponders the question whilst garnishing the cocktail. “No. No, I think only actions talk. I mean, I think bad things all the time about customers who are dicks. I could put glass in their drinks: that’d show them sort of thing. But I don’t actually put glass in their drinks, so I’m off the hook. Nobody’s the wiser.”

It’s a somewhat extreme example but it gets the point across. You take the tray and nod.

“I mean, maybe fantasising about it might be cathartic. Get it out your system, you know?” Her sly wink speaks volumes as to what these ‘fantasies’ are about. You roll your eyes.

“Thank you for your advice, Lizz. I’ll keep it in mind.”

“Anytime sunshine.”

With that, you walk over table 16 and deliver their drinks. The rest of the shift passes by rather quickly. You end up making a bet with Tom that you can sell more pints of larger than him and come up victorious, leaving work with an extra ten dollars in your pockets.

The streets are painted sunset purple, orange and pink. You spot John B’s campervan, known as The Twinkie, in the parking lot; he’d promised to pick you up after work tonight. But as you walk up to the passenger side, you realise it’s JJ behind the wheel. You’re not sure if the feeling of your organs shrinking is a good thing or a bad thing.

“Where’s John B?” you ask, climbing in beside him.

“Nice way to say, ‘hi JJ, it’s so good to see you!’”

“Okay, hi JJ,” you say, rolling your eyes. He starts the engine. “Now, where’s my brother?”

“He had to go do something for Cameron.”

“At ten at night?”

“Dude, I just work here, a’right? I do as he says so he lets me stay on his sofa,” JJ says. You laugh.

The radio kicks on and ‘Downtown Lights’ starts to play. You look out the window as he drives, watching the houses fade into overgrow and trees.

“Hey, you hungry?”

“Starved.”

“We can swing by a Wendy’s on the way home, if you wanna,” JJ says.

You smile as you look over to him, nodding. With that, he takes the next left and the two of you make your way in comfortable silence to the drive through. At the worker’s request, JJ recounts his order: two hamburgers, both with cheese, one without pickles. Oh and a large Pepsi.

As he pulls forward to pay, you say, “you remembered I don’t like pickles?”

He glances over to you like you’re stupid for even asking. “Course.”

Food secured, Pepsi in the cupholder for you both to share, you start the journey to the Chateau.

“Feed me a fry?”

You laugh and oblige. It’s the least you can do, considering he bought you takeout, after all. You turf one out the brown paper bag and hold up to his lips. His breath fans against your fingers as he takes it. Chews and swallows. You managed to tear your eyes away. That man could yawn and you’d be mesmerised, you swear. It’s pathetic.

“Thanks.”

“Course.”

The ride back is over way too soon. You take what’s left of your food and your bag, opening the door. “You staying over tonight?”

JJ contemplates a moment before shaking his head. He studies his hands as they run up and over the steering wheel when he says, “no. No, I gotta go home sometime.”

“Right,” you quietly say. The last fight him and his dad got in was ugly. He came over, shaking with anger, a purple bruise forming under his eye. It scared the shit out of you to let him go back there alone. “Well, thanks for the food.”

JJ looks up from the steering wheel and takes you in. His lips move, like he wants to say something, but he seems to abandon the thought. You take it as your cue to leave.

“See you soon.”

“Yeah. See you soon, Little Routledge.”

You hate that nickname. The resentment is thick to swallow as you say goodnight, stepping out the van.

John B isn’t home when you walk into the Chateau. The lights are off, dirty dishes piled up in the sink. The sofa bed is unmade from the last time JJ slept on it. You contemplate crashing on it for the night, just so you can feel as if you’re near to him, but you know that’s insane. If John B were to find you there, he’d only be concerned that something was wrong with your own room, either way. So you trundle back to your bedroom and strip out of your uniform. Makeup rinsed off and teeth brushed, you crawl into bed and drift off easily.

~*~*~*~*~*~*

His lips are hot and wet on your skin, kissing down your stomach. Your breathing’s laboured like you’re fighting an adrenaline rush. He seems to notice, laughing darkly against your tummy.

“So wound up already and I’ve barely touched you,” JJ croons in his southern drawl.

Your eyes slip shut, fighting back a whimper as his fingers dip teasingly into the waistband of your panties. A moan finally lets slip at the sensation of his lips pressing against your crotch, over the cotton.

“You want it?”

“Please,” you whisper.

“Yeah? You want my mouth?”

“Yes, JJ, please.”

It’s embarrassing to beg but you don’t have much left in your mind other than thoughts of him to even care.

Fingers knotting into his hair, you try and coax him lower still. And he obliges. Drags your panties down your legs like time is a luxury. You wonder if he likes teasing you; if it brings him pleasure like the feeling of his hands on your body does for you. He leans back on his haunches and runs his palms up and down your thighs, staring at you exposed pussy. His shark tooth necklace sits against his toned chest and you’re jealous of how close it gets to be to him.

“Fuck,” JJ groans as you open your legs.

He leans back down and nuzzles your inner thigh, pressing a sharp kiss with his teeth, sucking in the skin and relishing your pleasured yelp. It feels as if he’s marking you as he leaves the hickey: mine.

“Been dreaming ‘bout this.”

Before you can let out another pathetic plea, JJ situates himself between your legs and goes down on you. Eats you out like a man who’s been lost at sea, like a man starved. Sighs at the taste of you on his tongue, kissing at your thighs as if to catch his breath, dragging you closer and closer to the edge. The damp of his tongue laps at your clit and your legs lock around him in a vice. He’s indefatigable, insatiable and…it’s too much.

“I can’t,” you whine hopelessly. Your fingers grasp at the sheets, eyes clenched shut.

“Come on,” JJ preens. “Wanna see you come.”

He leans close to your ear, taking your lobe between his teeth, and slips a finger into your seeping hole. Your orgasm comes like waves crashing over splintered rocks; breathing jagged and vision blurring behind eyelids. Somewhere in the euphoric haze you cry out his name. Flashes of colour blending into a mercurial high as he works you through your ecstasy, unrelenting.

You gasp awake.

Had you been sleeping?

Your forehead is damp with sweat, throat parched and chest heaving. Anyone would have thought you’d have just sprinted three miles. When you sit up in bed, you register the pulsing between your legs and the telltale stickiness of your thighs.

Shit. Good thing there’s no such thing as bad thoughts.

Wiping at your face, your skin feels red hot. You venture to the bathroom and drink water from the faucet. Making eye contact with yourself is too hard right now, considering you just had the most incredible wet dream about your brother’s best friend. Now that the high is passing, you’re overcome with shame and guilt. You’re delusional. Maybe you should submit yourself to be sectioned. Would be a good way to kill some of these summer weeks…

Heading back to bed feels like returning to the scene of a crime. Instead, you head out onto the porch, dressed in nothing but a t-shirt and panties. John B’s a deep sleeper, you’ve come to learn. You’ve never heard him get up in the night, in all your moments of insomnia. There’s no risk of crossing paths with him out here.

Stepping out onto the paint-peeled floorboards, you notice he forgot to turn off the porch light when he came home. Great, I guess I know where my wage is going. But as you head to your favourite red armchair, ready to gaze out at the marsh and watch the waterside plants dance in the breeze, you freeze.

JJ’s on the sofa. And he’s awake. You can tell just from where you’re stood.

Before you can flee back to your room, the floorboard creaks. JJ jolts up and looks around, eyes landing on you. You swallow. The moment you lay eyes on him, part of your dream comes screaming back to you. The way your voice cracked as you cried out his name, tumbling over the edge. You quickly shun away the thoughts, slamming them closed in a box, before your body can lose itself to the fantasy once more. Please God tell me that I didn’t actually scream his name.

“Hi,” you dumbly say.

“Hey.”

“I thought you were staying at your place tonight,” you say.

JJ shrugs. “Change of plans, I guess.”

“Oh.”

He looks back ahead at the armchair, back to you, and you can’t help but pull a face akin to holy shit what the fuck do I do? When he holds up a joint, you decide to stay. Panties are just the same as a bikini anyway, and he’s seen you in those. You make sure to wear your cutest ones when he’s surfing with you. The ones that are tight in all the right places and hug your figure in a way that you wished he would. Oh my God, shut up. You wordlessly take the joint as you quickly step past him, planting yourself in the armchair. You pull your legs up and sit atop of them, taking a long drag to try and calm your racing mind and heart. Inspecting the floor seems a good thing to do, suddenly. The divots in the wood from worms and the strips of paint. Looking up, you find JJ’s eyes trained on your legs. His gaze diverts when you lean forward, offering him the blunt again. As he lifts himself to take it, you see him wince, and now in the light of the porch, fully taking him in you, you can make out the bloody cut beside his eye.

“Jesus Christ, JayJ.”

“It’s fine,” he reflexively says. He takes another hit. “Just need some self-medication.”

“Bullshit. You need to clean that thing ‘fore it gets infected.”

“Be my guest,” JJ scoffs.

With that, you get to your feet and head back into the house. The first aid kit is under the bathroom sink. It’s probably the least dusty thing in the whole room. Returning to him, you forget all about the reason that you got up in the first place and shove it to the back of your mind. This was more important than worrying about some dumb dream. Shoving his legs off the couch, you force him to make space for you. You place the first aid kit on your lap and open it. JJ keeps smoking. The smell of weed clouds your senses. Picking out a disinfectant wipe, you turn to him.

“This’ll sting,” you say, opening the packet.

“That’s what she said.”

You frown. “What kind of kinky ass sex are you having?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” he grins.

For a moment dread drops down your body, chilling your spine. Did he hear you? No, no he couldn’t have. You probably didn’t make a noise. He’s just being his usual, salacious self.

You take his jawline in hold gently between your fingers. The bone is hard beneath the soft of his skin; fine stubble scratches your fingertips. Leaning up, you try not to get distracted in his eyes as you dab at the cut. You apologise as he hisses. It doesn’t look as intimidating when clean of blood, which is more than a relief. You dip back into the first aid kit and offer up two band aids. One is plain nude and the other Hello Kitty.

“Take your pick.”

He rolls his eyes with a small smile and grabs the Hello Kitty one, holding it out to you. You shift onto your knees, bending over him to plant it over his cut. You notice a bruise forming on his cheek bone on the other side, and a cut lip. You should have insisted he stayed over when he dropped you off. He looks up, as if he can hear your thoughts, and meets your gaze. You can’t seem to find it in yourself to move away.

“It’s not your fault,” he quietly says.

You swallow. It’s scary how easy he can read you. Makes you worry what other thoughts he can tell from your face. “Wished you just stayed here.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Hate the thought of you going back to that house.”

“That’s sweet,” he smiles. “But if I didn’t go, I wouldn’t have you here taking care of me.”

“Oh, was it all part of your masterplan?” you joke, finding your smile again. His seems to grow at the sight.

“Something like that.”

When his lips press to yours, you’re taken aback. It feels like fire, searing hot, and you flinch like you’ve been burnt. You gape at him, wide eyed, and it seems to register what he’s just done. You both move to put as much space between you as possible, as if trying to keep the blaze from spreading.

“Shit, I—”

“I should go back to bed,” you hurry out.

JJ nods. “Yeah, yeah. Course.”

In your scramble to get back to your feet and back in your room, the first aid kit falls to the floor, the contents spilling out. You cuss and drop to your knees, rushing to retrieve all the clutter. JJ joins you, passing you gloves and bandages. You find some nerve to meet his gaze.

“I’m sorry,” he says. The sincerity in his voice…It’s painful.

“It’s okay. I don’t…It isn’t…”

You sigh. Your speech is just as messed as your mind. Closing your eyes, gathering your words, you take a deep breath. Looking back to JJ, you shake your head.

“We can’t.”

“I know,” he replies, almost sadly. Nods once more. “Yeah, I know. I’m just…high. And tired.”

“Right. Course.”

And whilst his excuses should sting, they don’t, because you don’t believe them. JJ smokes enough weed to not be affected all that much by half a joint. But you don’t argue. Instead, you close the box and go to head inside. You stop in the doorway.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” you say.

You spare him one last glance. He’s on the floor, head hung and back to you, and you consider staying. But you don’t. You go straight to bed, acting as if a fresh start tomorrow will reset the entire thing.

~*~*~*~*~*~*

In the morning, JJ’s gone. John B doesn’t seem to have even realised he’d stayed over. You find your older brother in the kitchen, washing up the dirty dishes. Swiping up a towel, you come to help.

“Hey. Sleep okay?”

“Yeah,” you lie. “You?”

“Like a rock,” he grins. “You still up for that keggar tonight, at the boneyard?”

“Oh shit, that’s tonight?”

“Yeah. All the others are going,” John B says.

“Yeah, I’ll go. I think I’m catching a ride with Lizzy from work.”

“Alright. Just stay safe.”

“I will,” you drawl. He smiles at you before turning back to the washing up. “Hey, John B?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you. For letting me stay here.”

“Yeah, course,” he says. He pauses his handy work, turning his attention to you. “You’ve always got a bed to crash on here, even if child services are up my ass.”

“I appreciate it. I really needed to get out of Colorado.”

The seven missed calls from your mom slip into your mind. Her texts go unanswered, but she knows you read them. You don’t want her to think you’re in danger. Talking to her is just too much right now.

“Well, if it makes you feel any better, I needed you back too,” he says. “Things have been kinda messy since my dad…disappeared. I don’t know what I’d do if I was on my own.”

“You’re never gonna be on your own, though,” you smile. “The Pogues would do anything for you. It’s actually kinda scary.”

John B laughs at that. “Yeah, yeah, they’re, uh, not the smartest.”

“Apart from Pope,” you point out. He nods, smiling as he looks back to the soapy water.

“Yeah, apart from Pope.”

“JJ cares about you a lot,” you feel the need to add. His voice last night, apology ready, after your kiss, echoes in your mind.

“I know. I feel like you two are the best things in my life right now,” John B admits. The guilt multiples by tenfold with that. You fix your face when he looks to you. “So, thanks.”

“No worries, big bro,” you reply, nudging his shoulder with yours.

He laughs. “Thanks, little sis.”

With that, you both continue cleaning the pots. The shame from last night gets shoved down into the deepest, darkest pit of your stomach, and you try to go about your day without sparing another thought to JJ.

On the way to the keggar, Lizzy grills you about your ‘crush’ on Tom. “He’s gonna be there tonight, I think.”

“Oh, really?” you say. You know you don’t sound enthused. It’s too much effort to pretend.

“Everything good?” she frowns, glancing away from the road.

You nod and plaster on a smile. “Yeah, yeah. Just tired, I think.”

“Couple drinks in you and you’ll be wide awake, I promise,” she assures.

Nodding, you shift in your seat and look out the window. Your skirt rides up in the processes. It’s a little short but it’s so ridiculously hot tonight, you can’t seem to care. A crotchet style crop-top dresses down the outfit. You don’t want to seem like you’re trying too hard for a beachside keggar. As you pull up closer to the boneyard, cars line the roads. Lizzy finds a spot and parks. You grab the crate of Budlight and her the box of White Claw, and you hop out the car towards the beach. Her stories about work and school have brightened your mood.

She’s tall and remarkably cool in a way that you never will be. She has stick and poke tattoos on her knees and elbows, and nine piercings on one ear. Her nose ring and snake bite piercings are far from intimidating on her cherub like features. The buzzcut has been dyed neon blue, standing bright against her dark skin. As you pass groups of teens, she shouts hello to those she recognises and shares the odd bro-hug.

You add your drinks to the pile of booze before grabbing a can, cracking it open. A quick scan of the scene tells you that the Pogues are still pre-drinking at the Chateau. You’d managed to dodge JJ so far.

“This is a pretty decent turn out,” Lizzy tells you, swigging from her can.

“Know a lot of people here?”

“Sure,” she says. She points to a gaggle of polo-shirt wearing pretty boys who look like they could snap you with one finger. “Those are the gym rat kooks. That tall blonde Topper is with the princess of Figure Eight, Sarah Cameron.”

JJ was right: biceps without a brain. You watch as he shotguns a drink and cracks the can on his forehead. Sarah Cameron, blonde hair straight flowing down her back, does not look impressed.

“And her brother Rafe. That guy’s all kinds of whacked out,” Lizzy mutters. You follow her finger to spot a tall, short haired guy. He looks unapproachable, even from far away.

“Yo Lizzy!”

You both turn to find a crowd of girls and guys. One of them is waving at Lizzy and she waves back.

“Come on, I know these guys. They’re cool,” she tells you, taking your hand and guiding you over.

You’re introduced to everyone and soon enough are roped into beer pong and shots. It’s fun though. Everyone’s having a laugh, cheering each other on. You hear about some good spots to grab food and learn Michael, Lizzy’s closest friend, can drink you under the table. A few hours in and there’s a comfortable buzz to your bones. You haven’t thought about the Pogues, or JJ, or the fleeting kiss all night. As you laugh along to one of Michael’s soccer stories, someone taps you on the shoulder. You turn around to come face to face with Tom.

“Hey,” you smile, squiffy.

“Hey! I didn’t know you were coming tonight.”

“Yeah, I came with Lizzy.”

“Hey, Tom,” she smiles before sending you a more than suggestive look. Oh, shit. The lie. “Hey, why don’t you go get my girl a top up?”

Before you can contest, she’s taking your half full can out of your hand and coaxing you away with an assuring smile. Tom takes it in stride and walks with you to the coolers. He grabs two cans of beer, passing one to you, and you cheers him.

“How you finding Kildare?”

“Good.”

“Yeah? You been hanging with John B’s crowd, right?”

“Most of the time, yeah,” you smile, nodding. He makes a face before taking a drink. You frown. “What?”

“Nah, nothing. They’re just kinda…well, I mean, some people think they’re bad news.”

“Some people, huh?” you say cautiously.

“Just reputations and all that. Like that JJ guy. He’s got slippery fingers, if you know what I mean,” Tom says, wiggling his own in demonstration.

Suddenly this conversation is very unappealing. You glance off to Lizzy and the others. “I should probably get back to them. Thanks for the drink, though.”

“No, hey, no,” Tom says. He grabs you by the wrist. “Come on, I was being a dick. I’ve had one too many. Let’s just hang, alright? I really wanna get to know you.”

You look between him and Lizzy and sigh. Taking a swig, you shrug. “Alright.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to tick you off.”

“I like the Pogues. They’re a good group,” you feel the need to defend.

“No, yeah, they are!” Tom agrees. You can smell the stench of liquor on his breath. “I just don’t want you to get corrupted by them.”

“Excuse me?”

“Just, you’re new here—”

“And so I’m clueless on how to judge people?” you finish sardonically.

Tom rolls his eyes and it makes your anger tick. “Come on, you don’t gotta be a bitch about this.”

“What did you just call me? You know what? Forget it,” you scoff, snatching your arm away from his hold. “Have fun drinking on your own.”

But you don’t get very far before he’s grabbing at you again. “Calm down, would you? Just gimme—”

“Let go!” you demand.

His grip only tightens. The strong front you’re putting on begins to crumble under the panic of this guy is way bigger than me.

“Just quit bitching and we can talk,” he says harshly.

“I don’t want to talk. Now please let go of me,” you firmly return.

He doesn’t let go. Keeps chattering away, insisting that you have to hear him out.

“Let go, Tom!”

“Everything good here?”

Your wide eyes look away from Tom and land on JJ, and your whole body relaxes. He’s looking at you and the panic must read clear on your face because his demeanour changes in a split second. Jaw tight, he turns to Tom.

“I think you should let go, man.”

“You think I’m gonna listen to you?” Tom scoffs.

JJ takes another step towards him. He towers over Tom by enough to be intimidating. “Think you should listen to her.”

“Oh, I get it,” Tom snarls. He lets go of you and you can feel your skin breathing. You rub at the pink marks, easing the sting. Tom gets into JJ’s face, undeterred from a fight. “You wanna keep John B’s sloppy sister for yourself, huh?”

JJ’s fist flies at Tom’s face, making an ugly, visceral sound as it lands on his left cheek. You gasp. Nearly knocked off balance, Tom stumbles on the sand. The commotion has drawn in somewhat of a crowd. Before you can intervene, Tom’s throwing hands. He aims an upper cut to JJ’s jaw but he’s quick to dodge, landing his own punch instead by Tom’s eyebrow. That one seems to deter him. He trips backwards. The chanting of the crowds egging it on makes you feel sick. You’d just finished patching JJ up last night, and you’ve seen his anger before. It takes control quickly and blinds him to reason. The last thing he needs is to wind up in a cell. So, before he can land another hit, you’re stepping forward and grabbing at his arm, stopping him.

“Come on, let’s just go,” you say pleadingly.

His chest is heaving with anger, breathing short and jaw heavy set and tense. He hesitates, looking between yourself and Tom. He’s still cradling his last hit, trying to regain his composure. Sighing, JJ lets you lead him away. Tom’s heckling is laced with slurs directed at you, and you have to keep a steady grip on JJ to keep him from going back.

“He’s not worth it, JayJ,” you mutter.

“You’re so wrong,” JJ darkly returns, but he doesn’t go back.

Away from the beach, back on the road, you let go. He paces for a moment, trying to calm himself. Tugs off his cap and rakes his fingers through his hair, breathing deep and slow. You don’t speak: just let him go through the motions. Babying him through this isn’t going to help anyone.

Whilst violence isn’t the answer to anything, you’d be lying if you said you weren’t grateful for JJ’s help.

Letting him cool off, you take a seat on one of the fallen tree trunks.

“Hey.”

Looking up, JJ walks over. He’s mostly back to himself.

“You okay? He didn’t hurt you, did he?”

“No. Just freaked me out a bit. He’s not usually like that. He’s just drunk.”

“Like that’s an excuse,” JJ scoffs. He takes the spot next to you, sitting worryingly close.

The culmination of last night and tonight makes your head spin. The effects of the alcohol vanished the moment Tom took a hold of you. Now you just want to forget the whole thing.

“Wanna get out of here?” JJ asks.

You turn your head to face him and smile smally, nodding.

“Come on. I brought my bike.”

His red bike is parked beside the Twinkie. He climbs on first and offers a hand to help you onto the back. Your arms slot around his middle, circling around his taught chest, pressing yourself against him. Face resting on the middle of his back, you try not to inhale the smell of him. It might be too much for tonight. His calloused hands on yours have you shifting your hold, ensuring your tight against him like a backpack.

“Good?”

“Good,” you quietly reply.

He kicks off the stand and starts up the engine. You pull away from the keggar and up the road, zipping down the isolated streets. There’s nobody around at this time. Not a soul in sight. It feels so right, wrapped up against him like this, safe in his presence. Tom was wrong: JJ wasn’t bad news. Sure, he was a klepto, but he was the same guy who learnt how to sew to fix your favourite pair of shorts when you were little. The same guy who stepped up when some dirtbag was harassing you. The same guy who remembered you don’t like pickles on your burgers. Who looked at your paintings as if they were Picasso.

Somewhere along the ride, one of JJ’s hands comes to rest on your own. You don’t ask why and don’t pull away. Just let the reassuring weight of his hand on yours stay there and ground you to him like an anchor. Here, flying through the night, you can pretend like all the other shit doesn’t matter. It’s just you and him.

He starts onto a dirt track, slowing down, and a house emerges. Pastel yellow painted exterior hidden behind porch netting. There’s clutter of engines and fishing gear amongst surfing supplies. He pulls to a stop and kicks on the stand, turning off the engine. It’s quiet now, without its rumble. “Your dad home?” you can’t help but ask, staring at the front door.

JJ shakes his head. “No. He’s out on Friday nights. Kinda the only routine he has.”

You don’t ask where and he doesn’t expand. You step off the bike and watch as he clambers off too. Fixing your skirt, you wait for him to talk. He doesn’t. “I should probably head back,” you say. You’re not entirely sure why you came to his place instead. You’d assumed when you got on the bike that he’d take you back the Chateau.

“I mean, we can share a joint first if you want. Help you calm down and stuff, after that shitshow,” JJ half-chuckles.

There’s something heavy in the humid air. It’s hard to describe, hard to place, but you can feel it like static electricity. You find yourself nodding. He nods too and starts up to the house, hands in his black short pockets. You watch his feet sink into the grass and guide your eyes up his figure. His shoulders are tense, dressed under a thin t-shirt. He ditches his cap on the kitchen counter when you walk through the door. Through the house, past the neglection, and to his bedroom. He flicks on the light and clears his throat as he goes to his desk drawer.

You stand, leaning against his door until it clicks closed, and look around his room. There’s a world map pinned to the wall but no markings on it asides from one: Kildare, North Carolina. Print outs of palm trees and pressed, framed butterflies and leaves seem less innocent when placed between posters of models on the beach. The floor is a mess of dirty clothes and empty beer cans. Several dead vapes litter near the overflowing bin, and cigarette and joint buds scatter the windowsill and beside table. But the smell of JJ hangs strong in the air; it makes you smile to yourself.

“Alright,” JJ sighs. The desk drawer slams closed and he turns around, holding up a fresh joint and lighter. His initials are scratched into the metal: JJ. He sits on the bed and places the blunt between his lips, flicking at his lighter. You watch him take a drag and take it off him when he offers it over.

No words are shared as you pass the bud for several minutes. You both glance around the room, at the floor, at the ceiling, anywhere but each other.

“How’s your face?”

“Huh?” he asks, finally meeting your eyes.

You nod to his cheek. “Your cut from the other night?”

“Oh, right,” he mumbles. He lifts a finger and strokes it absentmindedly. “It’s alright.”

“Good.”

JJ hands you the joint again, you take a drag, you pass it back to him. That same feeling from earlier, when you first climbed off the bike, has only amplified.

“So…”

You brave clearing the distance between you. You take the spot next to him on the bed.

“We gonna talk about it.”

“What’s there to talk about?” JJ deflects, studying the floor.

“Well, you kissed me,” you eventually reply, taking the joint back. “So, there’s that.”

“I already told you,” he sighs. “I was tired and doped up.”

When you say nothing, he looks up at you. "What? You think I'm lying?"

You take a drag. Shrugging, you honestly reply, “yeah, a little.”

He holds your gaze as if challenging you to back down. You don’t. Beating around the bush won’t help anything here, and its obvious you can’t go back to acting like it didn’t happen. You can’t move past it until you know why he did.

“S’just weird,” JJ mutters, looking away. “What happened last night, with me and you. S’just weird.”

“Yeah, it was weird for me too,” you agree. Swallowing, you take another hit. “But not bad weird, right?”

JJ’s head lifts once more. His eyes flash across your face like he’s searching for some kind of trap. He sucks his teeth in contemplation. “No. Not bad weird.”

Your heart stutters, breathing shaky and unsure. You feel your eyes dart down to his strawberry pink lips, and his to yours. But then he’s shaking his head. “What are we doing?”

“I don’t know…” you breathe. You’re transfixed on his lips. Can’t move away, can’t bring yourself too. The blunt in your fingers is burning away, ash dropping to the floor, but you don’t care. All of it, everything but JJ, is white noise.

The moment you flit your eyes up to his, something shifts in him. His jaw ticks as he clenches it. Your brows pull in thought but there’s no time for you to ask.

“Fuck it.”

His lips are on yours within a breadth. He consumes your senses like a drug, dulling down anything else until all your thoughts are on him. He grabs for the blunt in your fingers, haphazardly putting it on the bedside table, and then his hands are sliding up along your sides, up your back, into your hair. One finds purchase on your cheek, and you rest your jaw in his hold like a bird settled in its favourite branch. The way he holds you like you’re something holy is different to how sinful his kiss is. It’s pure passion: raw, animalistic heat from weeks of build-up. And, God, it feels so right. The way his tongue brushes against yours, warm in your mouth, heavy in your head. The nip of his teeth on your lips and the fanning of his breath when he has to break for air. You’ve never been kissed like this before, not by anyone. It’s dizzying.

Until it isn’t, and he’s pulling away. His forehead rests against your own. You’re both panting. “We shouldn’t be doing this,” he says.

You slide a hand up his neck, tracing his jawline with your fingers. He practically melts under your touch, eyes slipping shut. “I know,” you whisper distractedly. Your thumb traces his lower lip. It’s swollen from your kisses.

He blinks his eyes open. “I’m serious. He can’t know.”

“He won’t,” you say, going to reconnect your lips.

But JJ stops you. “No, he can’t. He’d…God, he just can’t.”

You want to cry, seeing the moral dilemma weigh on JJ, feeling you share the burden. But the thought of walking away from this, of not feeling every inch of him, of never hearing him fall apart, makes you want to sob.

“Maybe just one time,” you murmur. Your finger traces down his chin, along the centre of his neck. “And we can just get it out of our system.”

“Yeah,” JJ mumbles. “Yeah, one time.”

“Yeah?”

You meet his gaze. His pupils are dilated, heavy with lust, and you feel your body ignite. “Touch me, please.”

With that simple mark of consent, JJ’s unchained. He doesn’t hold back when your lips reconnect. Somehow it becomes deeper, rougher, better. It’s such a strange oxymoron, the way he touches you and kisses you. You pull away to remove your crop top, and he takes the moment to strip off his shirt. The two of you are shameless as you take in the other. Reaching out a hand, you run your fingers up his chest in the way that you’ve imagined so many times before. It’s funny how in your head, you’ve already done it. His eyes dip down, watching your hands explore. You lean forward, pressing a kiss to his left pectoral, then his right. Sighing, his chest drops up and down with uneven breathes.

“So pretty,” you say through your kisses.

His fingers tether into your hair. There’s a slight tug that sends ripples of pleasure through your body in ways that it shouldn’t as he pulls you away, guiding your lips back to him. As he crawls atop of you, you inch up the bed, skirt riding up. You settle on our back. JJ’s greedy in his touch. Strokes your skin, explores your body, like it’s his own. And in a way it is because you’d give him anything if he asked. When his fingers slip behind your back, searching for the clasp of your bra, you lift yourself onto your elbows. He holds your gaze as he unfastens it, guiding it off your shoulders, helping it off your arms.

“Fuck,” he sighs.

A smile teases at your lips. It takes a certain type of guy to make you blush at the sound of his curses. Your head rocks back, eyes sinking closed, as his lips latch around your nipple. A hand palms at the skin, teasing your breast, exploring your reactions. You sigh out your pleasure, bringing a hand up to mess with his hair. It’s better than you imagined. Tops every fantasy, every wet dream, every sinful thought. And it’s only just begun.

“So fucking sexy,” JJ groans, kissing up your body until he finds your lips.

You don’t want him away from you. He looms over you, encasing you in the safe, consuming feeling of his presence, trapping you in the smell of his cologne and soap that you’ve tried so desperately to avoid. Through the kisses and love bites marked into necks and collarbones, you feel one of his hands ghost the outline of your figure. Traces down so slowly like you might not even notice. Down, down, to your panties. It’s there that he sweeps over your cotton covered mound. You sigh against his lips in anticipation.

“I know you’ve been thinking ‘bout this,” JJ says.

His voice is just as you pictured it: deep and crooning, his Southern accent at forefront. You want to bottle it like brandy and drink it until you black out. His lips work down your neck as he lightly circles your clit over your panties and you can’t stop your moan.

“I heard you, the other night.” Your eyes shoot open. JJ meets your gaze. He’s dying, the desperation clear as day on his face. His eyes themselves could send him straight to hell. There’s the shadow of a smirk.

“Were you thinking of me, whilst you were getting off?”

You go to push him away. The last thing you need is for him to tease you about it and make fun. But he doesn’t let you. Instead, he kisses just below your ear.

“Cause I think about you. Every night since you’ve been back. Can’t jack off to anything else,” he confesses into the crux of your ear. Your only reply is a small, surprised gasp. Your body’s ablaze with his words.

His fingers finally dip below your panties, sliding between your soaking folds. He groans at the sensation and you feel your legs give way. He works at you for a while, toying with you like it’s a side hobby. You’re only half aware of the sounds you make. One of your hands has situated itself on his upper back, nails scratching at the skin. JJ can’t seem to keep his mouth shut. It’s one blasphemy after another, and it drives you deeper and deeper into the abyss. He seems to become impatient. He removes fingers to push your underwear down. You kick them off at the ankles with a small giggle.

The moment his finger sinks into you, you swear you’ve seen heaven. JJ worships you, taking his time to inch you closer and closer to the edge. Another finger, then another. The stretch is heaven. Your back arches off the bed, mouth agape, brain dumb with pleasure. He won’t be quiet. He whispers praises into your ear. Narrates his own fantasies he’s harboured about you. Know you’ve been teasing me with those tiny bikinis. I wish I fucked you on the porch the other night. The moment his thumb swipes over your clit, you know you’re close. And then he’s bending his fingers just slightly, hitting that spot. You abandon all religion: this is the only type of prayer you need.

JJ has the audacity to laugh as you climax. You grasp uselessly at his body, the bedsheets, anything. You use a shaky hand to push his fingers away, overstimulated, and he finally relents. Starts kissing at your neck like a Goddamn vampire.

“That good, huh?”

You can’t really formulate words. You just drag his face to yours, kissing him senseless. When you inevitably part for breath, JJ leans back. He pinches your chin between two fingers, gnawing at his lower lip, and parts your lips for him. Your body pulses at the submissiveness he’s placed you under. Then his used fingers are slipped into your mouth. You close your lips around them, holding his gaze as you suck them clean. The salty distinct taste is unfamiliar but not necessarily unpleasant. He gives a small laugh, like he’s in disbelief.

“Fuck. Why did we wait so long to do this?”

You pull his hand free, taking grip on his shoulders. Pushing him against his bedroom wall, you move to straddle him. His hands fall onto your hips. Somewhere in your heady make-out, you rock yourself back on him. JJ groans; his head knocks back against the wall. He’s rock hard. It must be torture. You shuffle off him to make room to pull his shorts off. They join the mess of clothes on the floor. The tip leaks precum, straining painfully. You go to jack him off but JJ stops you.

“I won’t last,” he admits, half-embarrassed.

You nod, biting back your smile. “You got protection?”

“Top drawer,” he says, nodding to the bedside table.

You lean over and dig about before finding a condom. You come back, tear it open, and gently slide it over him. He lets out a shuddering breath at your touch, eyes clenched shut in concentration. It makes you feel slightly guilty for letting him indulge you for so long, but this will pay it back.

Straddling him once more, you steady yourself with one hand on either shoulder. His find home on your hips once more, and he helps you line up. Then you slowly sink down onto him. The stretch stings despite the earlier efforts. Head hanging forward, mouth falling open in silent moans, eyes clenching shut, you take him in. JJ’s mumbling praises, eyes transfixed on where you connect, spurring you on. Taking me so good. Jus’little more. You rock against him, using whatever energy you have to ride him. He helps guide you, head resting against the wall. You love that he isn’t quiet. Love that you’re on top and can see every ripple of pleasure course through him, reflect on his face. But when his eyes slip shut, you take a hand and guide his face to yours. Pressing your forehead against him, you lean forward and steady yourself with a hand on his chest. The new angle is euphoric. You moan and whine against his lips, eyes staring into his own. It’s the most hideously lewd symphony as the two of you chase your highs. There’s only one thought in your mind. And when JJ comes unannounced, shuddering as he finishes, never looking away from your eyes, only one thought is in your mind.

If it can only happen this once, it has to be perfect...

to be continued (part 2 will be released later this week)

#jj #jj maybank x reader #jj x reader #obx #outer banks #obx fics #outer banks fic #obx fic #obx preference #outer banks preference #jj preference #jj maybank preference #routledge!reader #jj x routledge!reader #brothersbestfriend!jj #brothersbestfriend!jj x reader #jj x fem!reader #jj maybank x fem!reader #fem!reader

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naughtyneganjdm · 1 month ago

Text

Love's Second Chance: A Holiday Reunion - Chapter 15

Summary: Joel wakes up half naked in bed, foggy of what happened during the middle of the night. When he remembers, it makes Joel learn something about himself that he's not willing to accept just yet. Everyone shares their final day together in New York City and emotions are high when Joel begins to realize that he is confused with what he wants in life in terms of Negan and Y/N.

Characters: Joel Miller, the reader (OC), Negan Smith, Elizabeth, Peter, Maggie, etc.

AO3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/60501985/chapters/156789391

Warnings: Swearing, angst, two men sharing some smuttiness on their own, dirty talk, heavy touching, did I mention angst? there is a lot of it, Joel is kind of mean in this (but he's going through things), etc.

Notes: If you have a problem with two men being together, I suggested avoiding the first scene in this chapter. I also want to stress that this is a story where someone is having a hard time coming to terms with the fact that they are bisexual due to some abusive situations that they experienced when they were younger. That could be triggering to some. This chapter is also VERY VERY LONG. Thanks for those that read the story! I appreciate all of you. I'm also sorry that this was put up so late. I was really busy yesterday and this was long so I needed the time to edit it properly.

Groaning out, Joel felt an overwhelming ache in his head. Burying his face deeper into his pillow, Joel tried to focus on something other than the pain. Everything hurt right now. Attempting to open his eyes, Joel realized that everything was a blur. Forcing his eyes closed, he hissed out and tried to get more comfortable. Every muscle in his body was fatigued. Even though Joel was used to having a very physical job, the last two days had worn him out.

Clinging to the cold sheets beneath him, Joel’s palms curled into a tight fist. Trying to focus, Joel couldn’t even pull together where he was right now. Struggling to open his eyes again, Joel grumbled under his breath and turned his head. Hell, his eyesight was still hazy. Focusing on what happened that led him here made him think about the bar. After he talked to Negan in the alleyway, Joel remembered going back in with Tommy. Truthfully? He drank a lot. Him, Tommy and Negan all seemed to drink extensively last night. People were buying Joel drinks and he wasn’t turning them down. And now he regretted it. Because that hangover was hitting him and it was hitting him hard.

Waiting a few minutes, Joel’s eyelashes fluttered to an open. Even though everything was still fuzzy, he forced himself to keep his eyes open. By the time everything came into focus for him, Joel could see that it was dark. For a moment? He forgot where he was.

Using the strength that he did have, he outstretched his arm to hit at the nightstand that was beside the bed that he was laying in. Amongst the dark, the vibrant red colored lights showed that it was four in the morning. What the fuck happened?

Gazing over his shoulder, Joel lifted his head up from the bed. And really? He didn’t do it very well. His eyes were narrowed and he was still unbelievably tired. Still, his eyes had a hard time focusing until he realized the large glass panel wall that was at the bottom of his bed. It was his room in the apartment that Negan had taken them to. Cussing to himself, Joel dropped his head back into the pillow and adjusted his body.

Starting to come to, Joel grunted when he realized that his lower half was cold. Lifting up just enough, Joel looked down between him and the bed. A slur of curse words fell from his lips when he finally realized he was naked below the waist. The sheets were hanging loosely at the bottom of his bare ass. Swiftly lowering back down to the bed, Joel was afraid to learn more.

Swallowing down hard, he squeezed his eyes shut and attempted to remember what the hell happened last night. The last thing he remembered fully? Having Y/N pull him out to dance with her at the bar. Even though he didn’t want to and he could barely stand on his feet. And while he wished like hell that he remembered the conversation, all he knew as that it was a serious one. That was really the last thing he could remember.

The warmth of an arm wrapping around his waist caused his whole body to tense up.

“Oh shit,” Joel stammered, his Adam’s apple bouncing in his throat. The weight of another body shifted behind him alerting him to the fact that he wasn’t alone. And that’s when the panic started to set in. Last night? Joel was very, very emotional about things. The alcohol likely didn’t help either.

Fuck, remembering the details of what happened took way too long. Why the fuck was he blanking in that moment?

Small flashes of memories were starting to come back. He remembered Y/N and Negan having to help him back to the apartment. Stumbling through the streets of New York at night. Even though he could barely stand he was singing in the somewhat still busy streets. It had Negan laughing, but something inside of him made him think that Y/N wasn’t too happy with him. Then again, he didn’t think she was happy with Negan either.

Then he remembered being sat down in the kitchen with Negan while Y/N made them coffee. Again, the discussion that all of them had was but a blur. He knew it had something to do with the three of them. But he didn’t remember what it was for or what the outcome of it was. All he knew was that things had been tense after he had almost been caught by Tommy with Negan in that alleyway.

That’s when it hit him.

Looking over his shoulder, Joel let out a strained breath when the small amount of light allowed him to see who was laying beside him. And that was Negan.

Dropping his head back down onto the pillow, Joel tried to recount everything that happened last night. Closing his eyes, he focused hard recalling that he stumbled his way up the stairs. Sat alone to himself in his room for a while. Letting his emotions run wild until Negan came up to his room. Joel had been sitting in one of the chairs by the window when Negan came in and asked to talk. Joel really didn’t give him an answer, he just allowed Negan to do what he wanted.

“I know that I’m probably one of the last people that you want to talk to right now,” Negan had commented, lowering himself down to the corner of Joel’s bed at the bottom. Staring out at Joel, Negan shrugged his shoulders and took a minute to think about what he wanted to say. “I’ve been thinking about this since we’ve talked. And I’m sorry. You’re right. I put you on the spot. And it was wrong. I would have been shitting my fucking pants if I was in your position too. I don’t care how big my sack is. I just didn’t tell you because I was fucking worried you wouldn’t come. Y’know?”

After Negan said that, Joel didn’t respond. Which made Negan nervous and he just continued to ramble continuously about why he did what he did. Explaining that he wanted Joel to be happy. That he wanted Joel to be able to live his dream. It was everything you would want to hear from someone that you trusted. But for some reason? Joel still stayed quiet about everything.

Beside Joel, Negan was also laying face down with his head buried in the pillow. Deep in sleep. It made Joel wonder how long he had been there like that. Taking a quick glance back at the nightstand, Joel’s eyes fell to a bottle of lube that was tipped over on its side. Suddenly his heart started to hammer in his chest. He wanted to blame the alcohol for being so out of it, but at the end of the day he was pretty sure that it was exhaustion that caused it. But now that he was starting to remember what happened with Negan it made him begin to get anxious.

After Negan did his extensive apology, he realized that Joel may have not been in the mood to forgive him so he went to get up. When Negan stood to leave, Joel stood up too. And the next thing he knew he was slamming Negan up against the glass panel window. Demanding a kiss from Negan like he had wanted to do in the alley before Tommy had interrupted them.

“Oh fuck,” Joel rolled over onto his back, looking up at the ceiling. Reaching up, he rubbed at his eyes and felt the sheets tugging at his hips. The room felt like it was spinning with his heart rate elevated.

A few hours ago? Joel had sex with Negan. And only Negan.

Licking his lips, Joel reached for the sheets again to pull them up slightly. Underneath, Negan was completely naked only confirming for Joel what had happened. Dropping the sheet back down, Joel swallowed down hard.

Maybe part of him was fired up about everything that happened. Maybe part of him was confused. But one thing he remembered thoroughly now was the kissing. It was hungry. Passionate. Forceful. Both of them fighting for dominance in the moment. He remembered the way that Negan touched him. How good it felt in the moment and how he wanted more of it.

More of it is exactly what he got. It could have been the liquid courage, but there was an eagerness for Joel to get his pants off. To let Negan have him. In ways he never expected to let another man have him.

When he closed his eyes, he could still remember what it felt like. How Negan went above and beyond to make him comfortable. Proving to Joel that Negan knew exactly what he was doing. What Joel expected to hurt actually felt good after getting over the hurdle of being nervous. Negan was meticulous with his fingers helping to prepare Joel and get him ready for what Joel desperately wanted. All the while making sure to keep Joel’s sounds muffled since they were on the second floor which was dangerous in itself.

He remembered allowing Negan to flip him over onto his stomach. How he enjoyed the way it felt when Negan entered him slowly giving Joel time to adjust to the way things felt. He could still hear the sounds of Negan’s muted moans in his ears, the smacks of Negan’s hips up against his ass with every move that their bodies made together. How Negan’s fingers hooked with his and Negan talked him through everything. Then he remembered having to bite his fist to keep himself from making a noise when he experienced his first prostate orgasm.

Wincing out, Joel’s eyes opened when he felt an ache straining at his body. Raising the sheets, he took notice of is semi-erect cock resting at his lower abdomen. Cussing out to himself, he dropped the sheet back down and threw his head into the pillow. Just thinking about it had him getting hard. What the fuck was he thinking?

Gazing over at Negan, Joel outstretched his fingers to touch Negan’s arm having him shift in the bed beside him. Joel’s breathing grew labored remembering that after Negan took Joel, he allowed Joel to have him afterwards. Unlike Negan, Joel was not as careful about things. Actually, he felt kind of bad remembering how he was. Rough. Powerful. Desperately wanting to chase the orgasm that was building up inside of him.

“Fuck, you have to stop,” Joel demanded of himself noticing that his body was getting way too worked up over the memories of what they had done. Everything had Joel’s body on fire, his heart hammering away inside of his chest. How the fuck was he going to explain this? Even to himself? There was no explanation really. Things just happened and he allowed them to happen.

With a loud exhale, Joel noticed that Negan’s long eyelashes started to flutter to an open. A rush of panic flooded Joel’s veins. What the fuck was he supposed to say after everything? This wasn’t a dream. This was very much a reality and Joel knew what they did, they couldn’t take back.

“Are you okay?” Negan yawned, stretching his body out and getting more relaxed beside Joel. Placing his hand in over the center of Joel’s chest, Negan almost instinctively caressed at the lengths of his abdomen. What sounded like a moan that Joel was desperately trying to bite back on had Negan’s eyes fluttering to an open. “Did you just moan?”

“No,” Joel lied provoking Negan to reached for the sheets to lift them up to see Joel’s rock-solid erection that he was trying so hard not to get. Moving Negan’s wrist, Joel shifted in the bed and slid up into a seated position. Leaning back against the headboard, Joel grabbed the pillow that he had been laying on and covered his groin. “I’m sorry.”

“Why?” Negan rubbed at his tired eyes, rolling onto his back and licking his lips. “I mean if you want to go again, I’m kind of tired but…”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Joel announced, his voice broken and stammering. Tipping his head to the side, Negan’s hazel eyes narrowed when he began to realize that Joel appeared to be freaking out. “It shouldn’t be happening in the first place.”

“I mean yeah, you might be tired after the last few days, but your dick is like the energizer bunny. Which is fucking crazy because you sell yourself like this old man that can’t keep up with things, but…” Negan chuckled with Joel hushing him. Dramatically shrugging his shoulders, Negan rolled over onto his side with his hand stretching out beneath the sheets. Moaning out, Joel dropped his head back when Negan’s fingers curled around the rigid length of his manhood. Teasing the flesh over Joel’s tip and then back down again. Even though he knew he shouldn’t have, he actually liked the way Negan’s touch felt over his distended flesh. “Don’t feel ashamed of getting an erection. It’s impressive.”

“Yeah, but,” Joel started, licking his lips uneasily as he tipped his head back further against the headboard. Swallowing down hard, Joel felt Negan’s fingers pushing at the bottom of the shirt that he was wearing. When Negan’s mouth surrounded his nipple, Joel bit back the next moan that wanted to follow. With Negan’s tongue circling his nipple it had Joel’s back arching in closer to him. “What we did tonight…”

“Yeah?” Negan slurred, nipping faintly at the skin getting Joel to wince and suck in a large amount of air. “What about it?”

“I don’t know if it was okay,” Joel admitted, forcing himself to look down at Negan who simply just tipped his head back and smirked.

“Why wouldn’t it be okay?” Negan grumbled under his breath having Joel’s abdomen contracting with the way that Negan was touching him.

“Well,” Joel knew he should have been turning Negan away, but he couldn’t help but enjoy how good it all felt. “You’re a man.”

“I’m a what?” Negan chuckled, his nose wrinkling in amusement. Pulling his hand away from Joel’s body had Joel frowning, his hips desperately arching up wanting to experience that touch all over. Lifting the sheets up, Negan looked down at his body and then dramatically gasped. “Holy shit, you’re right. I am a man.”

“It’s not funny Negan,” Joel hushed Negan, waving his hand about in the air. Smacking at the back of Negan’s chest had the lines in Negan’s forehead growing deeper. What sounded like an amused wheeze escaped Negan’s throat and Joel just found himself getting more embarrassed. “I’m straight. I like women. What we did last night.”

“You’re not straight though because straight men don’t want another man to fuck them,” Negan declared, the vein at the side of his neck bulging slightly. “You’re bisexual Joel. And there is nothing wrong with it. I don’t understand why you are having such a hard time coming to terms with that.”

“Because I’m not…I didn’t think…” Joel couldn’t even form the words, dropping his head back again against the headboard. “I’ve only been with women. You’re the first guy I’ve slept with and I’ve never…”

“Had sex with another man. Yeah, you’ve told me. A lot,” Negan stressed to Joel, pulling himself up into a seated position beside Joel on the bed. Gazing over Joel, Negan cleared his throat and shook his head. “Why are you suddenly so worried about things? You’re the one that pushed for this. Are you hurt?”

“No. Well, not really,” Joel answered, his jaw flexing at the idea of what took place. “At least I don’t think so. I ache, but…”

“Which is bound to happen, but if you’re not in a lot of pain that’s good,” Negan was still trying to understand why Joel was so upset. Smirking, Negan lowered back down in the bed and laid down. Reaching up to rub at his eyes, he could hear Joel’s breathing growing louder.

“Are you in pain?” Joel whispered, his southern drawl incredibly deep with how quiet he was being. Repeating Negan’s question was probably stupid, but it was a thought in his mind.

“Hmmm?” Negan dropped his arms down at his side, his head turning on the pillow to stare out at Joel with his big eyes. “No Joel. I’m fine.”

“I was really rough with you,” Joel thought back to what it was like hearing the winces that Negan made with every thrust Joel did at the beginning.

“I’m resilient,” Negan grumbled under his breath, his fingers squeezing tightly around the sheets. Trying to force his eyes open, Negan shrugged his shoulders. “It’s not like I haven’t had someone pound my ass before Joel. It was your first time, not mine. I helped you prepare me, it was fine. You are the one I’m worried about.”

“Was your first like this?” Joel was very quiet in the way that he asked Negan about his first time. There was a curiosity to know more about Negan with men. Especially since Joel had never experienced things before with another man. Yet it seemed like Negan had multiple times. “Did you hook up with someone like you?”

“No, not at all,” Negan grumbled under his breath, his long abdomen stretching out drawing Joel’s eyes to it. Why was he all of a sudden so keen on watching Negan’s body like this? “I let Lucille peg me. I was always curious. So I let her do it to me. It was strangely thrilling and she got a power kink from it. So it was a success in that way. I think she liked that she took both of my virginities so to speak. Fucking thrilled her.”

“And she didn’t look at you differently after that?” Joel swallowed down hard, scoffing when he realized that he was holding the pillow that he had grabbed earlier in his arms. Moving it back to where it was, Joel noticed that Negan was smirking at him.

“She loved it. It gave her a sense of power,” Negan explained, thinking back on his past with his late wife. “Of course, she wasn’t a man so she had to get used to the whole thing, but the more we did it, the more comfortable it got for us. And the better she got at it. It really turned her on. Lucille was a very dominant woman.”

“And what about your first man?” Joel wondered, his chest tightening when Negan flashed him a big smile. It was obvious all of Joel’s questions were amusing him.

“I don’t know. Lucille and I broke up a few times. So I…experimented? I don’t remember it too well. It was a really long time ago,” Negan claimed, throwing his hand about in the air as he spoke. “You got lucky. You were with someone who knew what he was doing at least and how to take care of you.”

Turning toward Joel, Negan pushed up at the material of Joel’s shirt again leaving small, wet kisses over Joel’s abdomen. Wrapping his fingers back around Joel’s body had his dark eyes coming to a close and it made Negan smile, “You don’t have to be ashamed of feeling good Joel. It’s okay for you to open yourself up to feeling really fucking good.”

“What are we going to do though?” Joel searched for answers, his breathing growing broken while Negan pumped his hand over his length. Biting down on his bottom lip, Joel watched Negan’s other hand disappear beneath the sheets where he assumed he was jacking himself off too.

“Get you to come and then sleep?” Negan continued to pepper kisses at the length of Joel’s torso. A moment later Joel was grasping firmly to Negan’s jaw forcing him to tip his head back to meet Joel’s stare.

“With Y/N?” Joel stressed, his facial features showing just how conflicted he was about all of this. Clearly, he enjoyed what Negan was doing, but at the same time he was worried. “I love her. So much.”

“As do I,” Negan commented, his eyebrows furrowing and his head tipping in confusion. “We talked about this last night Joel. Where’s the problem?”

“We cheated,” Joel blurt out, wincing when he dropped his head to watch Negan’s movements under the sheet. An amused rumble escaped Negan’s throat when he turned his head toward Joel’s hand to press a kiss at Joel’s pulse point. “She’s never going to look at me the same when she knows.”

“Who are you talking about?” Negan grunted, his facial expressions making it obvious that he didn’t agree with Joel with the stuff that was spewing out of his mouth. Pulling his hand away from Joel again had Joel whining because he wasn’t ready for Negan to stop touching him. “We talked about this equals things yesterday. The three of us. Being open to being with each other. I’m okay with it. She’s okay with it. You’re just the remaining factor. And I thought by you doing this—it was your answer.”

“I don’t remember that discussion. I remember bits and pieces,” Joel confessed, wishing like hell that he did remember that conversation, but he didn’t. So while this may have comforted Negan? It didn’t exactly comfort Joel. Turning on the bed, Negan adjusted his positioning to give Joel his full attention. “You’re telling me that you’re okay with sharing her?”

“If it makes her happy, that’s all I want,” Negan admitted, his jaw flexing while explaining himself. “Sometimes the healthiest relationship is a poly relationship. When you love two people, you’re able to open yourself up to more. I’m okay with sharing both of you. I don’t see a problem in it. As long as it’s just the three of us?”

“You’re telling me that you’re going to go back to work and tell the people you’re working with that you’re fucking your ex-best friend and her ex-husband? And you think everyone is going to be okay with it?” Joel’s voice almost sounded condescending and it had Negan scoffing. “I don’t believe that Negan.”

“Well that’s unfortunate because I can assure you I don’t give a fuck about what other people think,” Negan asserted, adjusting his body allowing the sheets to pull further at his lap where they were wrinkled in a mess. Joel’s eyes dropped down, his throat going dry at the sight. Right now he should have been focusing on Negan, but his brain was thinking about how Negan barely had that sheet covering him. “People should honestly be jealous because I’m getting to fuck two hot people. And I really don’t care if people judge me for being in a bisexual relationship with another man.”

“I’m not bisexual,” Joel interrupted Negan evoking an eye roll from Negan who shook his head and stood up from the bed. “Negan, I’ve always thought I was attracted to women. I’ve never done this before and…”

“We both know that’s not true,” Negan scoffed lifting his head up to glare at Joel before looking back down to search for something. “You know, it’s completely okay to be fucking bisexual Joel. I’ve always been bisexual. I knew it my whole life. But I did have a preference for women. I’m pretty sure you’re the same exact way.”

“You’ve always been bisexual?” Joel scoffed, pulling himself to the edge of the bed watching Negan look for something. Negan nodded while reaching down to grab his shirt. “Y/N knew this?”

“Of course she did. I told her everything,” Negan repeated what he had already said multiple times to Joel. “I have always been honest with her. And I still am.”

“You said you didn’t tell her what I did,” Joel reminded Negan with a frown, his fears getting the worst of him. Dropping his hand at his side, Negan shook his head. His thick eyebrows bounced up and Joel knew that Negan was irritated.

“I didn’t fucking tell her Joel,” Negan assured him with a sense of annoyance in his tone. There was a visible doubt in Joel’s eyes with the line at the bridge of Joel’s nose becoming more prominent. With the topic of the woman they both loved, Negan threw his hands up in the air and shrugged. “Considering how happy you made her, it wasn’t worth it.”

“But if you told her, she would immediately pick you,” Joel suggested drawing out a long sigh from Negan. This was a conversation that Negan thought they were well over with. “You know I’m right.”

“You’re panicking for no reason,” Negan stammered, brushing his fingers through his messy hair. “Don’t panic. I didn’t tell her anything. I’m not gonna tell her anything. It was the past. What you did will remain in the past. What matters is right now. And right now she wants to move on. I want to move on. If you would get over this…I don’t even know what is going on with you right now, we’d be fucking fine. You could be happy. She could be happy. I could be happy. But instead, you’re fighting this brick wall you keep putting up.”

“Brick wall?” Joel repeated observing Negan looking for something on the floor again. “The hell are you looking for?”

“My pants!” Negan scoffed, causing Joel to gaze over the side of the bed. Beside him laid Negan’s pajama pants that he had come into his room with. Tossing them to Negan, Joel breathed loudly, his eyes watching Negan’s every movement. “I don’t know who you’re trying to fool more. Because right now, I’m pretty sure it’s yourself. You are so used to being fucking miserable that you aren’t allowing yourself the opportunity to be happy. This trio thing? It’s the best option here Joel. You get what you want. With both of us.”

Attempting to put on his pants, Negan winced when Joel moved quickly to shove him firmly against the glass panel again. Placing his hand firmly against Negan’s throat, Joel kept his strength locked in when he lowered his free hand to wrap his fingers around Negan’s semi-erect cock. Angrily their eyes locked when Joel tipped his head to the side, “You’re arrogant.”

“And you’re an idiot,” Negan grumbled, hissing out when the pressure at his neck grew stronger. Tipping his head back, Negan’s eyes came to a tight close with Joel working to jerk him off. There was a raspy moan that only partially escaped Negan because of the pressure on his neck and it had chills flooding through Joel’s body. Extending out his hand, Negan’s long, slender digits circled around Joel’s shaft. Putting a bit of pressure, he started to caress at Joel’s body matching the tempo that Joel set between them. Keeping up with the same strength, both of them were breathless. “You are a fucking mess.”

“And you need to learn to shut up,” Joel hissed, his forehead pressing forward to rest against Negan’s. With every touch, Joel’s hips bucked up toward Negan wanting to feel and reach that release that had been building up inside of him. Right now he was fighting very hard to stay quiet.

By the time both of them came, Negan’s face had gone red from the pressure of Joel choking him. Releasing his grasp, Joel’s head dropped against Negan’s shoulder and it had Joel panting, “You’re so fucking confusing. Are you straight? Or are you bisexual Joel? Do you want my cock or not?”

Stumbling back toward the bed, Joel dropped down and laid out across the top of it with his breathing loud and broken, “Are you going to tell her about what we did tonight?”

Joel seemed nervous at the idea while Negan took his time to gather his breathing, “Am I not allowed to? You know she’s not gonna have a problem with it.”

“I had a shitfit yesterday,” Joel admitted, licking his lips and looking up at the ceiling. There was a sense of guilt eating away at him with the way things had gone down. “I thought by the three of us hooking up, it meant she would eventually be picking me. That there was still a chance that she would choose me over you. When she told me that wasn’t possible, I got angry. I reckon she’ll be upset that I did this. She’ll think that I did this out of spite.”

“Joel,” Negan scoffed, rolling his eyes when he stumbled over toward the nightstand. Pulling out a few tissues, he worked to clean himself off before tossing the tissue box onto the center of Joel’s chest. “She already thought we fucked in the past. I don’t think she’s gonna care. In fact, I think the only thing that she will be fucking upset about is that she didn’t get to see it.”

“People aren’t going to be accepting of this Negan,” Joel panted, reaching for the tissue box to set them aside. “The children won’t understand. People won’t understand. The town we live in gets into everyone’s business.”

“What’s really the problem here Joel?” Negan started to work his clothes back on, grumbling something under his breath when he got his shirt down over his body. “You’re worried that people are gonna find out you like men, right?”

“I don’t like men,” Joel snapped at Negan, lifting his head up from the bed to stare out at him. There was anger in his eyes when Negan rolled his eyes and laughed once more. “I don’t.”

“You like me. You come fucking buckets when you’re near me. We both know how things were when we were younger,” Negan insisted, throwing the tissues away that he used to clean himself with.

“I don’t know what you’re insinuating,” Joel pushed up onto his hands, his chest rising and falling while he watched Negan pacing.

“I’m insinuating that you love Y/N, just like I do. And you want to fuck me, just like I want to fuck you. And maybe more emotions can come from this. When you attempt to trust me more and we can all…” Negan rambled on, getting a glare from Joel and he scoffed. “What do you want to happen here Joel? Do you want her to pick one or the other? Do you want her to be sad? Because as far as I can see. She loves both of us. If she picks you or me solo, she’s going to be upset. Are you really so worried about what people will think about you that you aren’t gonna allow yourself to be happy? Who cares what the people in town think? Given the opportunity y’know most of them would love to suck my cock. They might talk shit, but deep down it’d just be jealousy. And I don’t think Tommy would care.”

“I don’t even know how I feel about you,” Joel declared having Negan’s Adam’s apple bounce in his throat. Negan’s hands settled at his hips, his jaw flexing while he eyed over Joel. “It’s a lot to process. Going from women to…women and you. It just happened tonight Negan. You can’t expect me to think everything is going to fall into place.”

“Are you like this because of what happened with your dad when we were teenagers?” Negan blurt out getting Joel’s dark eyes to narrow at Negan when he turned to look at him. “Your dad was a Texas man through and through. Okay? I know you came from a religious family. And he freaked out when he found the two of us jerking off together watching what we were, but…”

“Stop, right now,” Joel demanded, standing up from the bed and reaching for his pants to pull them on. “This has nothing to do with my dad. You’re the one that had a shitty father Negan, not me. My dad did the best that he could and even though he wasn’t the best father, I know he meant well. He just wanted to raise me and Tommy right.”

“You’re second guessing everything because of how you feel for me,” Negan could tell by Joel’s breathing that he was angry with Negan bringing up his past. “You think because your dad called you that word that everyone is gonna see you that way, but who cares? Your mom and your dad have been gone a long time Joel. You can be who you are. Who we both know you are. I think your mom would have been okay with it.”

“I said enough,” Joel warned, his finger raising up to point at Negan who uncomfortably licked his lips. “Just because the two of us had sex doesn’t mean that you get to come around assuming things. You’ve been around here, what? A month? And suddenly you think you know everything. Newsflash Negan, you don’t know shit. My family loves you because you’re famous. You give them nice shiny things. My kids would like anyone famous that gave them things. And Tommy? He’s the same way. And Y/N? The reason she is so hooked on you is because you give her what she always wanted me to give her. But she’s still so hooked on me because I’m the love of her fucking life. Not you. I’m her soul mate. Not you. You’re just fun for the time being. Because she always comes back to me. I’ve been here for twenty years. You left. You had every opportunity to come back. But you spend a month with us and you think you can just walk into our lives and determine you know everything? You need to learn to shut your fucking mouth sometimes.”

Smirking, Negan dropped his head down and nodded his head about, “Yes Negan. You are so fucking good with making people feel good. You put on the charm and I reckon you get the pants off anyone. You’ve always been a charming son of a bitch. And that’s why people like you. You’re like a fucking drug. You look at a person and you just…”

“Careful, you might admit you have feelings for me and the gay might start coming out,” Negan warned wincing when Joel moved forward to shove him firmly against the wall. “Are you really having this shit fit because you want Y/N to yourself or is this because you don’t want people to call you gay Joel? Because the anger really comes out in you when I mention having feelings for men.”

“But you’re also poison,” Joel snarled, his voice growing darker when the color drained from Negan’s face. A silence fell between them with Joel shaking his head. “Yeah, you’re fun now. You’re going to be the good guy for as long as you can be. But then the poison is going to seep through. Like it has for every relationship that’s meant something to you.”

For the first time in a long time, Negan was silent, “You can pretend to be the good person for so long until the real you starts slipping through the cracks. The only person that you were ever perfect for was Y/N growing up. And she still picked me over you.”

“I’m sorry your dad was a raging narcissist and a homophobe Joel,” Negan finally shoved Joel away from him after taking it for so long. “Because it made you an asshole. Maybe if you stop keeping that side of him alive inside of you, you might actually allow yourself to be happy for once.”

“And you think you’re going to be the one to make me happy?” Joel scoffed, his eyes narrowing when Negan headed for the door to leave.

“I think if you continue to keep this up, you’re never gonna be happy Joel,” Negan frowned lowering his head down, considering his next comment. “When you finally give yourself the chance to be the person you want to be instead of the person the world forces you to be, I think you’re gonna be a much happier person. And I truly want that for you.”

Giving Negan one final glare, Joel rotated on his heel and went over to the bed to drop down on the side of it again, “You have the world right in front of you Joel. A world full of opportunities. And you’re shutting yourself down from it because you’re afraid of a word that your father called you when you were sixteen. Yeah, I know I’m not your dream here. I’m just an extra added bonus. But you love Y/N, maybe consider her for once instead of yourself. And you may find happiness in that.”

Refusing to lift his head, Joel felt the lump that grew at his throat that continue to stay there regardless of how many times he swallowed, “Goodnight Joel.”

And with that, Negan left his room. A tremoring breath escape his throat when he was finally alone to himself. Biting down on his bottom lip, Joel knew that he was being overwhelmed with so many emotions right now that they were too hard to comprehend. And he was going to have to figure out what to do with them. Because as of right now? He had no idea. And that scared him.

----

Today was another busy day of walking around all of New York City while they tried to fit everything in on their last day. And right now? Joel was alone to himself sitting at the top of the red stairs in the middle of Times Square. Truthfully? This part of New York was hell for him. Everything was busy. There was no doubt about that, but being in the middle of Times Square? It was a once in a lifetime thing. This was not his favorite part of New York City and he never looked forward to coming back. To say he was uncomfortable would be an understatement.

Even though this wasn’t on his to-do list, this was a place that the children were eager to come to. They didn’t want to miss the opportunity to be here. Problem was? With it so close to Christmas, people were shopping. And they were last minute shopping. So that meant that people were rude and it was even more trafficked than it would have been on an average day.

Peter had finagled his mother into taking him to get some donuts. Negan and Elizabeth were checking out something that she wanted to see. And Tommy was in the middle of everything taking a shit load of photos with Maria. Eating it all up.

After Negan left his room last night, Joel couldn’t sleep. His mind was running wild and it was hard to get a brain like that to relax. So that meant he had a lot of coffee today to keep him going. But the number one thing Joel noticed this afternoon when he checked his phone? Just how many e-mails he had received that was linked to his business. Part of him didn’t understand what the hell was going on. Maybe he had been hacked or spammed. So that’s when he decided to look into things. Doing a google search on Negan’s name led him to the most recent articles that were written about him. What came up surprised the hell out of Joel. Because of what happened over the last two days, hundreds of articles appeared to be written about Negan.

Where it seemed to have started was after the day they did that piano playing moment at the toy store. Originally, it seemed to just start off as videos that people posted. Joel knew that people had recorded them and taken photos when they were doing it, but he didn’t expect people to post the videos. Nor did he expect them to go viral like they did. Going through the videos, Joel noticed that a lot of people were making comments about him. Some of them were smart ass people who had to make negative comments. Others were talking about how hot both him and Negan were.

But then came the articles that were written. Some of the paparazzi sites were talking about Negan and how they had obviously picked up on the fact that he was dating Y/N. At this point? She was nameless, but Joel figured that wouldn’t last because people had his name. It wouldn’t take long to do a search on him to realize that he was Y/N’s ex-husband.

Even though he knew it was against his better judgement, Joel couldn’t help but keep looking at these things that he found. Reading the articles about how sexy it was that Negan was dating someone that was unknown. People were saying that Negan was a trendsetter because more people should be dating single mothers. And the thing that infuriated him the most? Those stupid assholes who were making comments assuming that Elizabeth and Peter were Negan’s secret children that he had kept hidden until the end of his career. But deep down Joel knew they were just stupid, trash articles that people were creating in order to draw clicks.

After what Negan did last night for Joel? It ended up everywhere as well too. People showing Negan introducing Joel, but also keeping the cameras rolling to record his performance. And because of that people were writing Joel endlessly at that e-mail. His name had gotten out and obviously people had gone searching for him. The internet moved fast. So that meant he was being sent job offers, e-mails that had nothing to do with his work and people just wanting to interview him to talk to him about Negan. It was infuriating to go through and on his phone it was impossible to fix.

For once in Joel’s life, he was getting a ton of attention. It was the one thing that Joel had wanted more than anything growing up, but today? He found it more so annoying than something he wanted.

After his discussion with Negan last night, this was exactly why he didn’t feel comfortable letting the world know that the three of them could potentially be together. The whole world would know. And they would know almost immediately.

There was part of him that wanted to show Y/N all the articles. Let her know that her face was plastered all over the internet and news channels with people speculating on her relationship with Negan. Some people thought she was a hidden lover. Others thought she was a gold digger. Jealous fans were making nasty comments about her in general. Negan was a hot commodity and people were digging their nails into whatever gossip they could get. This was the thing he was never comfortable with when it came to Negan. All the attention that came with being around Negan. It could be good, but there were also incredible amounts of bad.

“You are surrounded by the prettiest things and yet your nose deep in your phone,” Elizabeth’s voice lured Joel into looking up and gazing over at her with a weak smile. Slowly making her way up the steps had Joel lowering his phone into his lap. “Who are you and what have you done with my father who hates cell phones?”

“The prettiest thing in the world is sitting right now next to me,” Joel flashed a cheesy smile as Elizabeth took a seat beside him. Placing her hand over the center of her chest, Elizabeth played it off like she was touched by her father’s comment.

“Oh, that was good dad,” she admitted, her face scrunching up when she let out an amused sound. Patting her father on the chest, she got more comfortable beside him and sighed. “That was real good. Warmed my heart. Real smooth.”

“It was honest Ellie,” Joel swore, reaching out to wrap his arm around her shoulders. Shoving his phone back into his pocket, he didn’t want to focus on things like that when he should be spending these moments with his daughter. “Nothing else compares to you.”

“There’s a reason I love you as much as I do,” she slid in closer to Joel having him wrap his arms firmly around her to cuddle in next to her. Where they were at, they were in the middle of all the craziness. With Christmas days away, in the middle of Times Square, it was insanity. Growing up, Joel came to love and embrace the quiet life. Here, things were too damn busy with so many people. “Are you doing okay?”

“I’m great,” Joel was quick to respond with Elizabeth pulling back just enough to stare up at him with her dark eyes. Her dimples were visible with the way her eyes narrowed at him. Okay. So that was a lie she no question just picked up on. “What?”

“You’ve been acting weird,” she noted letting her father in on the fact that she wasn’t oblivious to the way that things were. “Especially on this trip. I wish you would be honest with me about things. I know I’m your daughter, but I’m also not far from being an adult. You can talk to me about things.”

“It’s hard for me to acknowledge that you are close to being an adult,” Joel confessed, cringing at the thought of his daughter turning eighteen soon. “I still remember you being a baby, so tiny in my arms. Counting on me to take care of you. It’s hard to think about you being all grown up.”

“You’re being sweet, but changing the subject,” she lowered her head back to Joel’s shoulder to rest her head against it. “We’ve always been really close you know.”

“And I hope we stay that way,” Joel stated with a sigh, his arm loosely hooking around her lower back while he sat with her. “Because I love you, very much.”

“And I love you too,” she assured him with a long sigh. Together they sat in silence until she finally spoke up again. “You’re upset about mom and Negan, right?”

“That’s not really something I should be talking to you about,” Joel admitted, his brow line creasing while considering the question. Although, that probably answered her question without answering it.

“I’m not blind dad. I can see that Negan and mom being together is bothering you,” she pointed out with Joel cuddling her in closer to him with the cool chill that was around them. With them sitting there, it had only just started to snow again and it had Joel huffing out. “And I understand because I always thought you and mom would get back together.”

“Children always want their parents together,” Joel commented and it made Elizabeth scoff. Glancing over at Joel with her eyebrows furrowed made Joel shrug. “They do.”

“Lydia couldn’t wait for her parents to split,” Elizabeth recalled how her friend felt about her own mother. “She couldn’t wait to be with her dad and get away from her mother.”

“Her mother was insane. That’s different,” Joel countered with a grunt remembering the stories that he heard when Lydia moved to town with her father. “I don’t think we are ever going to get back together Ellie, so don’t hold out your hopes for something that may never happen.”

“So you are upset about mom and Negan,” she gathered reaching out to hook her fingers with her father’s. Staring out into the crowd, she couldn’t spot Tommy with Maria nor her mother with Negan and Peter. “Did you tell mom?”

“I think your mom is well aware,” Joel was quiet in the way he said it, being honest but not fully forthcoming. It would be completely inappropriate for him to vent to his teenage daughter about the things he was feeling right now. “I was just too late with things to get back with your mom.”

“So you regret that you two got divorced?” Elizabeth lifted her head to lock eyes with Joel. It looked like he was having conflicting thoughts of what to say or do. So he just nodded his head once and swallowed down hard. That was something Joel had thought about a lot over the last few months. How much he wished he would have just seen someone for help instead of letting his life fall to shit. What he thought he wanted back then was just wrong. And he wished that he had never done it. “I never understood why mom agreed to it.”

“I didn’t allow her the option to say no,” Joel mumbled, his chest aching at the memories of their past. Recently she had stressed to him how the children blamed her for everything and by the children’s comments lately? He realized that Y/N was right. And that was sad because all of this was Joel’s fault. Not hers. “I was going through some things. I was really depressed. I thought it was your mother’s fault and I blamed a lot of things on her. I was just going through a phase and didn’t realize the mistake that I was making.”

“Peter and I were really mad at her for a while,” Elizabeth recalled how they were toward Y/N when their parents first split. “We never understood. When it was the four of us, we were all so happy. And then when night came, we always heard the two of you fighting. Then the night you left…we came to the stairs right before you left. She was sobbing and we heard her scream at you to leave. We always thought it was her fault for not fighting hard enough for you.”

“Your mom fought harder for me than anyone ever did,” Joel reasoned with his daughter, squeezing his fingers tighter around hers. “I was just too blind to see it. I should have seen someone about the depression that I was having, but I confused it with other emotions.”

“Did we really depress you that much?” Elizabeth put the blame on her which had Joel’s heart breaking. “I never really thought it was that bad.”

“It wasn’t you that depressed me Ellie. You and your brother are the only things in this world that I’ve done right,” Joel declared, using his free hand to place it in over his chest. Giving her a weak smile, he squeezed his arm around her to give her a half hug. “I’ve never loved something as much as I love the two of you. I never blamed the two of you for things because you were the only things keeping me here. The things that kept me fighting every single day.”

“You know how much I love you, right?” Elizabeth stammered, evoking a nod from her father.

“I will never turn away hearing it,” Joel insisted glad that he still had this relationship with his daughter because at the end of the day the children meant everything to him. “And I love you so very much. More than anything.”

A grunt escaped Joel followed by a laugh with her arms wrapping around his mid-section to squeeze him close. Appreciating the moment, Joel knew that this would probably be his favorite part of visiting Times Square.

“I wasn’t exactly comfortable with Negan and mom dating at first either,” Elizabeth spilled after releasing him, shifting beside her father to pull her jacket in closer to her body. “It’s kind of weird having your mom dating your celebrity crush that you’ve liked since you were a kid. You two probably should have told me how close mom and him actually were when they were younger. It might have swayed me from liking him as much as I did.”

“I never thought I’d see him again,” Joel grunted with a wrinkle of his nose finding himself still creeped out by the idea that she did have as much of a crush on Negan as she did. “I thought it was innocent. Although, I did tell you for years it was really uncomfortable with you having a crush on a man that was my age.”

This really had to be strange for Elizabeth and it wasn’t something that Joel really thought about. It was an odd place to be put in having your celebrity crush suddenly dating your mother and being around all the time. Then again, if she knew that Negan had slept with both him and Y/N? Well, he could only imagine how she’d feel.

“You don’t still crush on him, do you?” Joel was almost afraid to ask, but he was thankful for the disgusted face that she made.

“It’s kind of creepy thinking about it to be honest with you dad,” she stressed how she felt, waving her free hand about. “I try to forget that I crushed on him as much as I did. He’s cute. He’s nice. And I see why mom likes him, but he gives off such…dad vibes.”

Dad vibes? That wasn’t really the thing that Joel wanted to hear because he was her father. Not Negan. But then again, he was glad that the idea of Negan not being her crush anymore was a plus.

“Negan is really good with us. And he doesn’t look at me like that. It’s like he already stepped into the role of stepdad and he’s…he’s good at it,” Elizabeth continued which only further boiled Joel’s blood at the thought. “I think I was more attracted to the idea of Negan than actually him. Because now when I look at him, he’s more like a soft teddy bear than what I pictured.”

“What did you picture?” Joel wondered, his eyebrow arching in curiosity with the way that his daughter’s face reddened over.

“I don’t think I want to talk about that. Let’s just say that I’ve had to burn a lot of memories, thoughts and feelings in this brain over the last month,” she hissed in an uncomfortable breath, lifting her fingers to point at her temple.

“Dear God,” Joel lowered his head into his other hand and knew this was all so fucking complicated. Of course almost everyone in his family had to be attracted to Negan. This wasn’t Elizabeth’s fault. Being attracted to Negan ran in her blood. “He is charming.”

“Sorry?” she spoke with a smirk having Joel lift his head to gaze out at her. Maybe that was bad to say out loud. No, that wasn’t a maybe. That was bad. His thoughts on Negan should have been kept to himself. “You think he’s charming? I thought you hated him.”

“I do, but I don’t,” Joel didn’t know how to explain it to her. Hell, he didn’t even know how he felt about Negan. There was a side of him that hated Negan with every part of him. But then there was that side that fought so hard to come out that felt something very strong for Negan that he couldn’t explain. And that’s the side of him that confused him the most. But that wasn’t something he was going to tell Elizabeth. “It’s complicated. And I don’t think I should say much more than that.”

“I think you should talk to mom,” Elizabeth brought back their previous conversation having Joel’s jaw flex in frustration. What his children didn’t know was just how hard Joel was really trying to get back with their mother and how many times he had been turned down. “It might not be too late for something between you two.”

“I’ve talked to your mom,” Joel responded with a frown, shaking his head when he spoke. “She knows how I feel, but you see the way she looks at Negan. She’s happy. He makes her happy. The slate is clean with Negan.”

“I…” she started, stopping when Joel looked to her with his saddened brown eyes. Resting her head against his shoulder again had Joel resting his head on top of hers. “I’m sorry.”

Even Elizabeth in that moment could agree that he wasn’t wrong about Negan and Y/N’s relationship with him. He wished he could have moved faster. That he could have done something. But there was nothing that could be done.

At the bottom of the steps, it was then that Joel noticed that Y/N was taking photos of him and Elizabeth together, “Speak of your mother…”

“What?” she lifted her head to see that her mom was standing at the bottom corner of the steps taking photos of them. Rolling her eyes, she looked to Joel and there was a smirk over her young features. “She’s making use of that camera of hers after all these years.”

Getting up from where they were seated, Joel helped Elizabeth move down the steps making sure that she wouldn’t slip. Once they were back on the ground, Elizabeth went to her mother to give her a big hug. Joel was slow walking over to them.

“Where’s Negan?” Joel looked around noticing that neither Peter nor Negan were around.

“A few people stopped him back there somewhere and Peter offered to take their photos for them,” she waved her fingers back behind her with Joel rolling his eyes and shaking his head. Why did that not surprise him? Of course people were jumping on Negan and Negan was going to eat up that attention. “You two looked cute up there.”

“Hey!” a voice boasted causing them to jump only to notice that it was Peter running up to them. “We’re going to go the Hershey’s store!”

“That’s exactly what you need. More sugar,” Joel teased his son, reaching out to stroke his fingers throughout his messy hair. “Didn’t you just eat a donut?”

“I did, but I counter you this,” Peter held his finger up in the air dramatically, his dimples much more visible now that he was being silly with his dad. “I need some for when we go home. A stash if you will.”

“Oh, I see,” Joel snorted noticing that Negan was headed back to be with them. Instead of looking at Negan, Joel hooked his arm around Peter and grumbled something to himself. “Where’s Tommy?”

“I think he said he would call me when they were headed back here. Him and Maria wanted to walk around on their own,” Y/N answered him tipping her head back to press a quit kiss over Negan’s lips when he returned. With a nod of her head, she motioned all of them toward the Hershey’s store with Joel walking with Peter.

Since they had been with Negan, Joel was extremely paranoid. After discovering those articles, videos and photos Joel couldn’t stop thinking about them. There were so many cameras in Times Square but a lot of the time he thought he’d see people taking photos of them. Which annoyed the hell out of him. There were probably those that were taking photos of Negan, but his family being in those photos? That really didn’t work well with him.

Inside the store, Peter made immediately for the shakes area interested in getting one. Joel pulled Elizabeth with them since he was still kind of protective of her. Joel opted out on getting one for himself because his stomach was just not in it right now.

Looking around while they were waiting for their shakes, Joel noticed Y/N and Negan at the other end of the store whispering to each other. They were smiling and laughing which had Joel’s insides turning. When they started kissing, Joel felt his heart rate quicken inside of his chest. It was then he noticed not too far outside of the window there was someone taking photos of Negan with Y/N.

“Hey, can you watch your brother for a second?” Joel requested, side stepping away from his children. Yeah, it probably wasn’t the best move as a father to do this, but he felt a sense of rage flooding his veins. “I’ll be right back. Okay?”

“Everything alright?” Elizabeth seemed worried with Joel heading toward the entrance of the store.

Instead of answering, he was quick to make his way out. They did have someone following them. It looked like a skeezy paparazzi photographer and it infuriated Joel. Thinking of the best way to do this, Joel pulled his jacket in closer to him and started walking fast. It was a busy place, it would make sense if someone ran into another person in the middle of Times Square.

As the photographer lined up another shot, Joel put his head down using his shoulder to plow into the guy knocking him to the ground hard. Just in time Joel was able to catch the camera. With the man on the ground, Joel took advantage looking through the photos realizing that they had been being followed all morning. With quick hands, Joel managed to get the memory card out of the camera and curled his fingers around it.

“Man, you need to learn to be careful. You could have broken this,” Joel handed the camera back to the guy once he started moving. Keeping his head down, Joel did his best to hide who he was with him heading back into the store. Once he got back inside the store, in the distance he could see that Elizabeth and Peter were seated talking to one another while they had their milkshakes. With a huff, Joel pushed the memory card into his back pocket and felt like his face was on fire. There were photos of his children from what he saw on there and that pissed him off. The guy was lucky all he had done was knocked him over.

Right now, more than anything he needed a moment to calm down which had him catching his breath in one of the aisles in front of a shelf with gigantic chocolate bars. Scoffing, he reached out to pick it up reading that it was five pounds of chocolate.

“I bet you could eat that all in one day with your sweet tooth,” Joel heard a whisper in his ear having his eyebrow arch and he looked back over his shoulder to see that Y/N was smiling big behind him. With a shake of his head, Joel put it back down and turned on his heel toward her. “You’re not going to get it?”

“I only have a sweet tooth when it comes to your food,” Joel declared, pushing his hands into his pockets letting out a long exhale. “People don’t make things like you do.”

“Is that what it is?” she smirked, reaching to straighten out his heavy, brown winter jacket. There was a moment of silence between them with her frowning. “I feel like you’ve been avoiding me a little bit today.”

“I have been,” Joel responded with a shrug of his shoulders surprising her with his honesty. After last night Joel was confused. And then finding out all the information he did that was on the internet? It was just hard not to vent about Negan and the negatives that came with being with Negan. “I really wanted to stay away from both you and Negan today.”

“Oh,” she thought about what he said, her face twisting with confusion. He could tell that it upset her. There was color that flooded into her face. “Why? Is this about what happened with Negan last night?”

“Of course he told you,” Joel wasn’t surprised to hear that since Negan did pretty much tell him that he would be telling Y/N everything. Pinching at the bridge of his nose, Joel felt frustrated. He really wished it could have been told to Y/N on his terms. “That’s not the only reason.”

“What’s going on?” she seemed genuinely worried and when she reached for Joel’s hand, he pulled it from her and shook his head. This wasn’t what she was expecting from him. That was for certain. “Talk to me.”

“Not in the middle of the store,” Joel refused, throwing his hand up to bring attention to all the people that were around them. What they needed was to talk. Alone. That’s what they had needed for a very long time, but they hadn’t had the opportunity. “Now really isn’t the time for the two of us to have a full-on discussion about things.”

“Okay,” she didn’t fight him on it because she didn’t want to upset him any further than he clearly already was. Motioning toward the children, Joel left Y/N standing where she was wanting to just focus on spending time with the children right now.

After Joel blew her off, she looked sad, but Joel realized he was probably just reading too much into things. So he avoided it. He spent time with the children. Did what a dad should. Focused on them. They were in Times Square longer than he wanted to be. After their shopping, they walked back to the apartment to drop things off. Then they went walking around again sightseeing.

They stopped in at the St Patrick’s Cathedral which Negan insisted was an absolute must for Joel to see with his contractor background. Y/N and the kids went to sit down, but Joel was uncomfortable so he walked the outskirts looking at the church. Christmas decorations donned the place and Negan was right, this was a stunning location.

“In the summer we should plan a longer trip,” Negan’s whisper pressed in beside him with Joel tensing up. “We can hit up more things. Three days never really feels like enough, does it?”

“You’ll be doing baseball,” Joel reminded Negan who tipped his head from side to side. It sounded like a nice idea, but Joel was a sports fan. He knew the schedule that baseball had. There was no way that Negan would be able to pull that kind of shit off. Unless he didn’t sleep and care to rest. “Hard to make time for things when you’re going to be busy with your job.”

“You guys can come with me when I go to certain cities,” Negan offered, pushing his hands into his pockets with Joel looking around the church. “Spring training is in Fort Myers. It’s about three hours from Orlando. The family can come down and we can all go to Disney World together. I think it would be fun. You’d be surprised how much fun it actually still is even as an adult. It brings out the kid in you and…”

“The kids have school,” Joel scoffed with a shake of his head. Once again Negan was trying way too fucking hard. “They can’t just up and leave whenever they want to.”

“Spring break,” Negan stammered with a weak smile, throwing his right hand up in the air. Somehow, Negan had a response to everything. “Don’t you want to go to the beach? Get some sand between your toes? Have that saltwater touch your skin? We can get you out of all these clothes and get you into a bathing suit…I think you’d look good in a pair of trunks.”

“Enough,” Joel warned Negan who was eyeing Joel over with a smirk. Having Negan so blatantly flirting with him in public felt crazy to Joel. Especially since they were in the middle of a busy church. “How are you even comfortable being anywhere near me right now in…this place? After last night.”

“The church?” Negan snorted, his brow line furrowing with Joel giving him attitude. “What? You think the two of us are going to be set ablaze the moment we step inside of a church? If that was the case, everyone would probably be on fire in here right now.”

“We’re not together Negan,” Joel made it clear for Negan who tipped his head to the side. Even though something happened last night, there were a lot of negative emotions that Joel had toward him. Especially after what he had seen this morning with Negan being in the news and all this attention being brought on him and his family. “I’m not even comfortable with what happened last night. Acting like we’re all one big, happy family that is going to take trips together all the time is just…weird.”

“Why is it weird?” Negan pushed, his eyes narrowing when he stepped in closer to make their conversation quieter. “It’s bad that I want to be close to you and your family?”

Letting out an extended sigh, Joel folded his arms in front of his chest and didn’t even know what to say. Stepping forward, Negan whispered in Joel’s ear so only he could hear, “How are you uncomfortable with last night when you came as much as you did those three times? You’re the one that wanted it. And you sure as hell didn’t sound like you hated it.”

Shoving Negan back had him stumbling over his feet again but managing to catch himself before he fell. It drew some people’s attention, but Negan held his hands up with a simple shrug, “Sorry. I’m a klutz.”

Grabbing Negan by the arm, Joel led him back toward the front of the church. Getting him outside on the steps, Joel pulled him over into the corner so they were alone, “Don’t mention last night again. Last night shouldn’t have fucking happened.”

“You liked last night,” Negan reminded Joel with confusion behind his hazel eyes. “I know it’s hard coming to terms with your sexuality. Especially when you think things are a certain way most of your life and then you…”

“I’m nothing like you,” Joel grabbed a tight hold of Negan’s jacket pressing him against the wall of the church. There was a rush of heat flooding into Joel’s face. For the last few weeks he had been fighting to get Y/N’s attention. To get back with her. And now having feelings for the man that was supposed to be his competition while also still wanting to get back with his ex-wife was throwing him through the ringer. “Do you understand me?”

“Fine, you’re nothing like me,” Negan didn’t know what to say, dragging his tongue across his bottom lip. There was still obviously that trouble Joel was having getting used to the idea that he may have feelings for another man. “But pretending you are one way when you’re not is really fucking sad Joel. You gave into what you wanted last night Joel. You shouldn’t feel bad about it. I’m not ashamed of it. And neither should you be. Everyone has done something that people will fucking judge. People fucking suck. They are gonna judge you whether you do what they want or not. Do things that make you fucking happy and feel good. Fuck everyone else.”

“Just…back off for a while Negan,” Joel requested, releasing Negan and shaking his head. Brushing his fingers shakily through his dark hair, Joel felt his heart pounding in his chest and he knew that he had to calm down. “My children don’t need to know that both of their parents are fucking you. You are making it way too obvious in public. And Ellie already feels weird enough that you are fucking her mother.”

“That’s not my intentions,” Negan stammered, his thick eyebrows arching with frustration. “I just care about you. A lot. I care about Y/N and your children.”

“You’re not our family Negan,” Joel reminded Negan having his jaw flexing in upset. It felt like a lot of the time Negan forgot how things were and Joel felt like he had to put Negan in his place. “You abandoned all of us. You could have been family this whole time. You could have been part of everything, but you ran off and you left us behind. Now it’s almost twenty years later and you’re acting like you’ve been here all along. You’re a stranger to this family. And you didn’t have to be like that.”

An array of emotions flooded into Negan’s face and it looked like he was ready to say a whole lot more, but the sound of Peter and Elizabeth calling out to them was heard. Instead they both shut up real fast and followed the children around for what would be their final walk of the night. In the morning they would pack everything back into the car and head home.

When they got back to the apartment, everyone headed upstairs, but Y/N had asked Joel to walk with her and promised they would be back inside soon. They headed over to the Christmas tree at Rockefeller and found a place to sit where they would have some kind of privacy. It irritated Joel because he really didn’t want to be here. If anything, he was just getting angrier about everything.

“This is really beautiful,” she alerted him, pointing toward the tree and enjoying the environment that was around them. It surprised him that was the first thing she said, but she seemed to be really taking it all in. A tense exhale escaped his lips when he felt her hand slipping in with his to hold it. Right now? He didn’t realize that they were at a point where they were back to handholding. “We always talked about coming here, but I think with it being Christmas it was really the best time to come. It’s beautiful. Our town tries, but you can’t really beat the magic of this.”

“I guess,” Joel didn’t know what to say. Again, he wasn’t the biggest fan of Christmas. So for him, this was just an experience for him to have with his family. “It should have been me bringing my family here first though. Not Negan.”

“I think he was just excited,” she made an excuse for the way that Negan was. “You weren’t around at this point, but when Negan was a kid his dad went on a business trip to New York. Brought home this Statue of Liberty bobble head for Negan and always promised that he would take him. And you know that Negan’s dad never really did anything for him and his mom. So that was the thing he always longed for the most growing up. When he heard that we never went, I think he wanted to be different than his dad.”

“Are you trying to say I’m like Negan’s dad?” Joel snarled with her eyes growing big. Shaking her head immediately, she sat forward where she was sitting and Joel could feel his heart pounding inside of his chest. Pulling his hand away from her, Joel realized there was a heat rushing to his face.

“No,” she was strong in the way she stood her ground. “Not at all.”

“You were comparing me to Negan’s dad. I always told our children that we would come here, and we didn’t. Just like Negan’s dad did to him,” Joel stated, his eyebrows showing that he was angry. Color flooded into her features and she was stammering over her words.

“Joel, no. I was just explaining why Negan was eager to bring everyone here. He wanted to do something nice because when he was younger he was denied the chance of coming here when his father came here all the time,” she defended herself, placing her hand in over the center of her chest. “I swear to you, I would never compare you with Negan’s dad. You are an incredible father. You never hurt your children the way that Negan’s dad hurt him.”

“You know…” Joel was ready to erupt, but instead he bit down on his bottom lip and grunted out. “Forget it.”

“I’m sorry, I just think we’re all happy to be here,” she reached her hand out to place it in over Joel’s knee to give it a firm squeeze. “You and I wanted to come here for our honeymoon. Then we wanted to do it for an anniversary, but…”

“We were poor,” Joel hissed out, lifting his head to meet her stare. “We didn’t come here for a honeymoon because I was a twenty-year-old doing everything that he could to keep his head above the water. Not wanting to drown his little brother, his wife and his daughter with him. We never had the money to come here Y/N,” Joel seemed to be letting loose on all the things that were deep in his mind. There was so much stress that had been building up inside of him that he was having a hard time keeping it back. “You see, this was the thing about our relationship that always sucked. You were always so focused on the things I wasn’t doing. Instead of the things that I was doing.”

“Where is this coming from?” she seemed genuinely confused, her back straightening with her trying to touch Joel, but he slid further away from her. “Joel?”

“I wasn’t romantic enough for you. I didn’t think out good gifts. I wouldn’t cuddle you at night. I didn’t talk enough to you. I didn’t show you that I loved you. I didn’t do the fucking dishes,” Joel recalled their fights from the few years before they got divorced. “It wasn’t, hey…my husband goes and works his fucking ass off every day to make sure we don’t lose everything.”

“I never doubted the things that you did for us Joel,” she stuttered, visibly distraught with his explosion. Looking around, she made sure that people weren’t paying attention to them and she shook her head. “What’s going on? I thought we were okay. After the talk we had at the bar the other night…”

“What talk at the bar?” Joel snapped, his voice growing more tense. That was when he realized that a lot of what happened that night, Joel had forgotten.

“When we danced. You were really sweet,” she reminded him getting Joel’s expression to soften and she shook her head. “We were talking about you up on stage. How the only thing that kept you from freaking out was me. How I was the thing that grounded you. Kept you from running away. And then you started talking about how good Negan was for both of us. That you thought the best way for us to be together was to have him with us. And when we got home you talked to us at the table about it. Telling Negan how in love you were with me and how you couldn’t give me up. How you didn’t want to fight anymore. But you were still upset with him over the whole singing thing because he put you on the spot.”

“That doesn’t sound like me at all,” Joel snorted, his heart racing at the idea. How was that something that he would even do or suggest? “I was loving and sweet with you at the bar? After I was infuriated with you for deciding that you wouldn’t leave Negan for me?”

“You were,” she insisted, her face showing that she didn’t understand why he was acting out again. “We danced a long time. And you kept singing to me. Saying things…” she paused, her lips parting and he could see that she was upset. “You sounded like the old Joel again.”

“I’m fairly certain that was a dream you had,” Joel stressed, his chest aching at the idea that he couldn’t even remember doing that. Yeah, he remembered dancing with her. But other than that, there wasn’t much he did recall from that night. And when he was at the dinner table? He thought that Y/N was lecturing him. Not that he was making a deal for all three of them to be together. “After today? I know for a fact that I would never think that Negan being added to our relationship would be a good idea.”

“It wasn’t a dream Joel. Why would I lie to you?” she inquired, looking around to make sure that no one was listening in on their discussion. “Negan didn’t believe you at the table either. That’s why I assumed what happened with you and Negan happened. Because you wanted to prove that you were okay with it. You said that I was the happiest you had ever seen me on this trip. That you made me happy and he made me happy. That you just wanted to give it all a try.”

“The person you’re talking about doesn’t even exist,” Joel noted, his hands resting in his lap while he circled his fingers there. “Because I’m ashamed of what I did with Negan. My father would be rolling in his grave that I let another man do that to me. And the people in the town? They would have a field day with this. Have you even looked at the internet the last few days? Our family? You and me? We’re all over it. And it’s not good things Y/N. If you think Negan would be good for us, then you are a fool. Because he’s not. And trust me, whatever may have happened the other night. Whatever I said? None of it was real. The old Joel? You didn’t love the old Joel. You divorced the old Joel.”

“None of it was real?” she countered, her eyes narrowing. A flood of emotions were running through her and Joel went to speak up, but he couldn’t. “But you were so sweet. And…I’m not the one that wanted to divorce you Joel.”

“As you like to remind me,” Joel noted with a roll of his eyes, dropping his head down noticing the way that his body was tremoring.

“Why is it always the same fight with us?” she frowned, biting down on her bottom lip. Considering what to say next, she sighed and felt a chill around her. “This is where I would remind you that when you were with me that the only things you focused on were the things you could never have being with me. The things that I kept you from,” she felt like she was beating the same drum watching Joel’s Adam’s apple bounce in his throat. “I don’t want to fight anymore. I thought things were getting better between the two of us…”

“Why? Because you let me have your sloppy seconds in a threesome with Negan?” Joel turned his head, his words coming out sharp. Clearly she thought things were okay because of whatever conversation they had the other night before he slept with Negan. With what he had just said, he could tell that it really surprised her. “Thanks Y/N. I’m glad that I got to share your pussy with your boyfriend. Heaven fucking knows I should feel lucky.”

Something changed in her eyes and she nodded her head slowly, lowering it to look down at the ground, “What did you think was going to happen with the two of us? That I’d be through the fucking roof? That I would go home waving a flag around telling people that I’m in a poly relationship with a woman and a fucking man? Do you really think that I’m that type? You knew what my family was like Y/N. How do you think I would be okay with something like that?”

“I don’t know,” she exhaled, keeping her eyes locked on the Christmas tree. Clearly, she thought this was going to be a sweet moment between the two of them, but he was releasing all of his stresses on her about everything that was going on. So he could see by her body language that she was just shutting down all together again.

“You know if I asked you to be part of a threesome with me and Tess, you would have slapped the shit outta me,” Joel grunted, his jaw flexing when she nodded her head about. There was a rage that had been growing inside of him for days. From the over stimulation of everything to seeing how the news articles were reporting about their family. This was all too much for him and he was finally exploding. “I don’t get to flaunt my girlfriend off in front of you, but you can flaunt your perfect boyfriend off in front of me?”

“You flaunted every chance you got with Tess,” she corrected Joel, her eyes tearing over when she looked to him with anger in her eyes. “Don’t pretend you didn’t. You wanted me to hurt. You fucking hated me when you were with Tess and you wanted me to feel pain. To know that you found someone other than me.”

An angered sound escaped Joel’s lips when he rolled his eyes and leaned forward to rest his elbows on his thighs, “I thought you liked Negan. With the two of you doing what you did last night, it sounded like things were good. The difference between Tess and Negan is that you have always liked Negan. Except when you didn’t. I always thought something happened between you and Negan when we were younger. I knew Negan was a virgin, but the way you looked at him…I don’t know. I always figured that was kind of why you didn’t like me when I liked you. And then when you started getting all handsy with him and the two of you slept together…”

“Please don’t talk about it,” Joel begged, holding his hand out in a pleading manner. “I can’t. I can’t do this.”

“Why are you upset about this? If you didn’t want to do something, you wouldn’t have,” she whimpered, the warmth of her tears burning at her eyes. “You never did something unless you wanted to do it Joel. There is nothing wrong with you for being attracted to…” her words came to a halt with Joel glaring out at her behind his angered brown eyes. “There is nothing wrong with it. I get it. Negan has always been very appealing. And I’m okay with all of this.”

“There is something wrong with you for being okay with it,” Joel claimed, his voice growing deeper with disbelief. “You shouldn’t be okay with us doing what we did.”

“I just thought it was the three of us so…” she began and it had Joel laughing in a way that felt like he was belittling her. “I love the both of you. And you seem to feel a certain way about Negan that’s…”

“You don’t love me,” Joel interrupted her, his eyes narrowing at her. Right now he was hurting her and he knew that, but he didn’t’ care in the moment. “You know, he’s not as good of a man as you think he is. Right?”

“I don’t think you nor Negan are bad men. I know who Negan is,” she decided for herself, pulling her coat tighter to her body. “He’s never hidden who he is from me.”

Of course that’s where she was going to go with it. Negan told her everything so that was another thing that could be held over him, “And what he did for you yesterday at the bar, that was really nice of him. You wanted to be a musician so bad and you really haven’t played in front of people since high school. You did amazing.”

“Yeah, Negan is a fucking saint,” Joel mocked, cussing under his breath at the thought of it all. “Do you know that I can’t even read my work e-mails? After the whole piano thing and what happened at the bar, I have so many fucking people contacting me. Wanting to hire me or contact me for some other kind of business opportunities? I have hundreds of e-mails today because of him.”

“That’s a good thing,” she thought aloud, circling her finger around them. “Think of all the opportunities it can open you and the business up to.”

“But you’re missing the whole point,” Joel asserted, throwing his hands up in disbelief. “These aren’t people that are contacting me because I’m good at my job. These are people that are contacting me because I went viral. Our fucking piano dance went viral on social media. So did what happened at the bar. These are people contacting because I’m friends with fucking Negan Smith. It’s not because I’m a good worker where they saw what I was capable of.”

“I’m confused, isn’t this a good thing?” she questioned, her face twisting with trying to understand where he was coming from. “At least you could be able to prove yourself to people with this chance you are being given.”

“Everything I’ve done for myself, I’ve done it on my own,” Joel fumed at the idea of people wanting to hire him just for knowing Negan. “I don’t need Negan coming into my life and making my life suddenly magical. Because then I owe him everything and I don’t want to owe him anything.”

Hearing Joel go off, she didn’t know how to respond to his rant. There were positive things that she could say, but everything seemed to be wrong between them right now.

“You know, Negan has the life that I always fucking wanted,” Joel confessed with a hesitant laugh, shaking his head and squeezing his palms into fists. Even though he didn’t mean for it to happen, he was exploding all of his emotions onto her. “And Negan has shown me what a hypocrite you truly are.”

“What?” she didn’t seem to understand where he was headed.

“You always told me that it didn’t matter that I was normal. That even though I didn’t get to become famous you still loved me. That I was perfect just the way that I was,” Joel reminded her of the things she would often say to him to make him feel better when he’d have depression when they were younger about the things that never came in life. “Yet Negan comes in and he has everything I wanted. He’s rich. He’s giving. People love him. And he can make anything happen with the snap of his fingers. And you are fucking twitterpated. You are obsessed with him. You told me that wasn’t the life you wanted. That wasn’t the kind of person that you wanted, yet you are picking him over me in every way. So either you are a hypocrite or you are a liar. Or maybe you’re both.”

“I don’t see Negan like that,” she swore, placing her hand in over the center of her chest. “You know how I felt about Negan when we were younger. He was the most important person in the world to me. My best friend. He was the boy that lived next door to me. He was sweet. He was caring…”

“And you didn’t want him,” Joel interrupted her with a scowl getting her eyes to lock with his again. “You didn’t care about him. You wanted me. I was the one that you wanted. I kiss you once and you’re eager for me to take you back to my bed to have sex with me. You ripped Negan’s heart out of his chest, you stomped on it and you didn’t give a shit. You didn’t care about that poor boy that lived next door. No, you care about him now that he’s perfect. Now that he has so much fucking money.”

“Are you insinuating that I’m a gold digger?” she wondered, her bottom lip trembling with the things that Joel was saying about her.

“No, I don’t think you’re a gold digger. I think you’re enamored by shiny things because you never got to have them in your life,” Joel claimed, stroking his fingers through his messy hair. “Negan offers you the life that we both wanted but couldn’t have. Instead of working for it, Negan can easily hand it to you. You’re happy. You’re off living the glory life with Negan while I’m still at home, fucking alone and miserable. How is that fair?”

“I’m sorry,” she apologized with a shuddering breath. “If anything, I can admit this, maybe I’m selfish and greedy. Because I love the both of you. I don’t want you alone Joel. There is half of me that loves him, but the other half is head over heels in love with you.”

Joel looked to her, his brown eyes lacking emotion right now while she tried to explain herself but she was coming up short, “Maybe with you playing last night, you can finally have some of the life that you always wanted that you could never have when you were with me. I thought the three of us together was an option that you were okay with. I thought having both me and Negan would make you happy too. Negan brings out parts of you that I couldn’t even do. Getting you to do that piano thing? You were so happy and you had so much fun. Then getting you up on stage? No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get you to do that growing up. You love me, but with Negan…”

“There is nothing between Negan and I,” Joel stressed, the muscles in his body locking up when she explained clearly where she was getting that information from. Sitting to himself, Joel hated that he allowed himself to get so comfortable and relaxed with Negan like he did for a while. Liking a man like that, just didn’t seem right. So he swiftly changed the subject. “I bet if I had the life that Negan had, we would still be together,” Joel commented, his muscles flexing with him trying to hold his anger in. “I could have cheated on you and you’d still be with me because at least you’d have those shiny things and we’d be happy.”

“Cheated on me?” she repeated with Joel looking to her with his eyebrows bouncing in the air.

“I’m just making a point,” Joel scoffed, leaning back to brace some of his weight on his hands. “I think you picked me over Negan when we were younger because I was the one with more potential. I was the more popular one. I had the better parents. I had better prospects. Scouts already planning on snatching me up when we were younger. I was the shiny one that you were drawn to. I guess it’s too fucking bad that you picked the wrong one.”

“Yeah, that’s exactly why I was in love with you Joel. I knew before I was even a pre-teen that you were made for glorious things and that’s why I crushed on you. I thought you were going to make loads of money and that’s exactly what a little girl thinks,” she pressed at the tears over her face hating that Joel was going straight to this. “I knew nothing about you. When you came to that door the first time? I saw you and I fell in love with you immediately. It was love at first sight for me. With your big brown eyes. The dimples where one was more prominent than the other. You were so cute. And then when you were around…”

“I treated you like shit,” Joel reminded her of what he was like when he was a child. “I was miserable. So I treated everyone like shit. I didn’t want to be there. I wanted to go back to Texas. But you didn’t take the hint. You wouldn’t leave me the fuck alone. I couldn’t stand you at first Y/N. The only reason we started hanging out was because you beat the shit out of that kid that was bullying Tommy. I thought then maybe you were worth my time. But even then? I still preferred to be around Negan. You were so desperate to have me like you. And I didn’t. You were a cool girl that everyone liked because you were awesome. But I never liked you like that. You even knew that, that’s why you and Negan hooked up. And I know you used Negan to make me jealous. I just think it’s a little sad that he never realized it. It was cruel. Which is why I have a hard time believing right now that Negan is the man for you. Because the moment I felt anything for you, the moment I gave you attention. You hopped on my dick as fast as you could. I kissed you once, I took you back to my home and you were just begging for me to take your virginity. And I didn’t even have to be romantic. So whatever you’re pulling with Negan right now? You need to let go of it. Because I know I’m your obsession. Not him. It’s always been me. You never loved him. He’s just everything you want me to be so you feel like you have to be with him. He’s too nice to let go. Me? We have history. There is pain. But you know, just as well as I do that your heart? It belongs to me. And you will go through endless amounts of whatever life throws at you because you want to be with me. And you’re hurting the both of us right now because you feel bad. You made Negan think there was something there and there isn’t.”

“I really can’t tell whether you like me or not,” she claimed with a broken breath, her eyes narrowing showing that she was hurt. “Right now, I think you’re upset because you realize that you love me, but you’re attracted to Negan. And that scares you. So you’re taking things out on me. Like you have always done in moments of being upset and not being able to handle things. I’m the only person you can treat like shit because you know I’ll always take it because I love you.”

“Is that what is going wrong with me?” Joel chuckled, his eyebrows bouncing up when he shook his head slowly. “I’m having a hard time coming to terms with being bisexual so that’s why I’m feeling the way that I’m feeling. It can’t possibly be that I’m upset with how things have been?”

“Do you know what the difference between you and Negan is?” she interrupted his thought process.

“Oh, I can’t wait to hear this one,” Joel snickered, his head following her movements when she stood up from where they were seated.

“I broke Negan’s heart and he forgave me,” she acknowledged with a nod of her head, stray tears still falling from her eyes. Broken breaths escaped her throat as she tried to wipe them away. “You keep breaking my heart and I’m supposed to be the one that apologizes for it. You shattered my heart into pieces and I blamed myself. It was my fault. And then you kept breaking my heart, but I apologized to you. Because it had to be my fault. I had to have done something wrong.”

Joel said nothing with her starting to sob before him and she shook her head, “forget it.”

“Hey!” Joel called out to her, stopping her when she went to head back for the apartment. Hooking his fingers around her wrist, Joel pulled her back to him.

“You had four years,” she breathed out, sounding incredibly sad about this whole discussion. “Four years to do the bare minimum and I would have taken you back in a heartbeat because I am so head over heels in love with you.”

There were so many people around them, but in that moment it felt like she was the only person that was there for him.

“I don’t question that Negan loves me,” she whispered, her reddened over eyes staring up at him. “But I can’t tell if you love or hate me Joel.”

Sure, he should have said something, but nothing was coming out, “I have always loved you. When I married you Joel, I never loved something more in my life. You were everything I wanted and more,” she whimpered, her head shaking when she spoke. “You want me to pick you Joel? Give up everything with Negan? Prove to me that you love me. Show me that I’m the person that you want to be with. Convince me that you love me. I will reconsider everything if you prove to me right now that you love me. If giving up Negan is the thing that will bring the old Joel back and we can be happy again, then I’ll do it. Just give me a sign that’s what I have to do. If it’s going to make you happy and it will bring back the man I originally married? Then I will do it in an instant.”

Dropping his hand down at his side, Joel’s eyelids grew heavy with his eyes hooked on hers. A breath caught in his throat when she stepped in closer to him. Pressing her hand in over the center of his chest, she tipped up on her toes to faintly brush her lips over his. Letting her kiss him, Joel imagined this was exactly the kind of thing she would have found romantic when they were younger. Kissing in front of the tree, the snow, the moment all together.

What was sad? He believed that. He could tell by the way that she was kissing him that she meant everything that she said. All he had to do was promise her that they could be what they were and she would give up Negan for him. Because that was the time where she was the happiest. He was her happy place. There were no doubts in his mind that if he promised her what she wanted to hear, he could have exactly what he wanted.

But as she kissed him, he thought about the other things that were said before this. How he treated her just being upset about things now. Truthfully? She probably was right. This was his anger about his emotions toward Negan making him feel wrong because of his father. So he was erupting on her. Just now? He treated her fucking terrible. And she was willing to give everything up for him. And then that made him think about how happy Negan seemed to make her. How Negan went above and beyond for everyone. Even though Joel didn’t agree with the whole paparazzi thing and his family being in the limelight, Negan would never hurt her like this. Negan never hurt her like he had. And he’d likely hurt her again. Because Joel was a negative person. Someone who tried hard to be the best version of himself, but he still had a lot of negative thoughts and angry emotions inside of him. And she didn’t deserve to constantly be sad. She deserved to be showed endless amounts of love where she was pampered.

This was everything he wanted, but he knew that he couldn’t take it. And he knew the only way for him to get her to pick Negan completely was to break her heart again. Joel wasn’t good enough for Negan nor Y/N. It just made more sense for him to be alone.

When she pulled her lips from his, he tipped his head back and shook his head, “You’re not the woman I married. I was confused. I thought I loved you, but I don’t…” Joel paused, letting a tremoring breath escape him. It was a lie, but he had to say something to push her away. Right now he could have gotten her to leave Negan in an instant. That was how certain he was after that kiss, but then he couldn’t stop thinking about all the horrible shit he had done to her. How broken he made her. And he realized…she deserved better than him. Even if it was with Negan. “We only got married because you got pregnant with Ellie. Do you really think we would have done that if you didn’t?”

She said nothing. He wasn’t sure if she could. Emotional was an understatement.

“Let’s think like adults for a minute,” Joel began, his throat going dry. “If my parents never died, we would have never gotten married. At home, I was infatuated with you. You were mine. But if I would have went to school, I would have slept with lots of other women. Then you would have gone off to school and started a life of your own. We would have never stayed together.”

Nothing. No words. That shocked him even more.

“Or if we played things out this way. My parents died leaving me to take care of Tommy. I was stuck here. We had sex all the time. You got pregnant. Your parents kicked you out of your home because you refused to get an abortion. I married you because I thought it was the right thing to do. Not because I wanted to get married. Because I was responsible for you now and the baby growing inside of you,” Joel’s voice grew darker when he recounted their past together. What he was doing was selling their life short and making a mockery of it because it was the only sure way that he knew she would go directly to Negan. “If I would have pulled out or spent the extra bucks to get condoms you would have never gotten pregnant. You would have never moved in. You would have gone off to school and you would have abandoned me. We both know the only reason we got married is because of Ellie.”

“I would have abandoned you?” she whispered with Joel nodding. “You were my whole world. I picked you over everything. My whole entire life.”

There was silence only interrupted by the sob that she released, “I’m not the woman that you married? Well, you’re not the man that I married Joel. The Joel that I married was selfless. He showed love. He may have been depressed, but he loved and he loved deeply. You pretending it was something less than that is an absolute lie.”

“You tell yourself whatever makes you feel better,” Joel suggested with a tip of his head. “I don’t love you Y/N. You were a marriage out of guilt. Nothing more. I’ve only been so focused on getting back with you because…”

A shuddering breath fell from her lips with a single nod of her head, holding her hand up to alert him that he needed to stop. In those last few minutes, he broke her heart again and he knew it. Giving Joel a final once over, she headed back toward the apartment building leaving him alone.

Inhaling sharply, there was part of Joel that wondered if he should go after her. Instead, he just let her leave. Going back to where he was sitting with her previously, Joel stayed there for quite some time just waiting. Watching people together. So many people around him were happy. They were with their families, friends, their loved ones and they were swept up in the holiday spirit.

And then there was him.

Getting up from where he was seated, Joel started to walk around knowing that he wasn’t ready to go back to the apartment just yet. Stopping at the bar that Negan took them to last night, Joel considered things and got in line to get in. Maybe he would just take a moment to relish one more time. It was highly unlikely that he would ever come back to this place. He would get wasted and then head back to the apartment.

In the distance, Joel saw a pair of eyes locking on him and he noticed it was the security guard that had pushed him up onto the stage last night. Moving down the line, he wiggled his fingers at Joel to follow him. Thinking things over, Joel realized that he was having a lot of problems with being treated better because of Negan, but right now he was going to take up their offer.

“What were you doing getting in the line Mr. Miller?” the security guard stammered, leading Joel toward the entrance of the club. “You know that you will always be welcome here. Either mention the owners name or if you see me, come to me.”

“That’s…nice,” Joel didn’t know what to say stepping into the bar realizing how many people he just got to pass up in order to get here. Instead of what it was like last night, Joel just headed over to the busy bar and order himself a whiskey. Sitting to himself listening to the sounds of the loud talking and the music booming through the place had him feeling even more lonely than he thought he would feel.

“Mr. Miller,” another voice boomed with an arm wrapping around his shoulders eliciting an uncomfortable breath from Joel. It was the owner of the club and he looked excited to see Joel there. “I thought that was you! We had a lot of broken hearts last night with all the women that were here wishing that they were going home with you, but you left.”

“I’m sure,” Joel managed to snake himself out from underneath the arm of the owner, going back to drink his whiskey.

“What are you doing with this shit?” the owner scoffed, waving his fingers at the bartender to come over. “You get this man the highest quality whiskey we have. And the bill is on me. Get him whatever he wants.”

With an obedient nod, the bartender did just that and Joel huffed. All this because he was friends with Negan?

“Have you come to play for us again tonight?” the man questioned having Joel laugh and shrug his shoulders. “I’m serious. I think the people here would really enjoy it.”

“Why?” Joel was blunt, his eyes narrowing when he turned on the bar stool that he was seated on. “What do you owe Negan?”

“What do I owe Negan?” the man repeated with a wrinkle of his nose. “Nothing. I just like what I heard last night and I wouldn’t mind hearing it again.”

“It wasn’t my music and I don’t have a guitar,” Joel pointed out, drinking down the glass of expensive whiskey that he was given letting out a loud hiss when he swallowed.

“No one here sings their original music my friend,” the owner pointed toward the stage where a younger artist was also singing popular music of the time. “You want someone here to steal your music and then claim it as your own? No, I don’t think so.”

Waving for another drink for Joel, the owner sighed loudly and shrugged his shoulders, “I hate the audience that we are drawing lately. You are a different kind of a draw and I like it. We have the same guitar in the back, I’ll get it for you and you can sing some things for us.”

“Did one of your acts not show up?” Joel inquired with a smirk when the owner didn’t respond. With a laugh, Joel pointed at the owner and shook his head. “That’s what I thought.”

“You don’t like having the limelight on you?” the man stammered, eyeballing Joel over when he swallowed down the next glass of whiskey that was before him. “Sing for these people. Sing whatever your heart desires. You’ll be doing me a favor and you get to know what it feels like to have people wanting you. To be the center of attention for the second night in a row…”

“Fine,” Joel grumbled having the man clap his hands together. “I can’t promise I’ll be any better than yesterday. I’m kind of in a shit mood.”

“Angst. That shit sells better than anything,” the man suggested, motioning Joel to wait. “I’ll go get the guitar. When this act is done, you can go up. Just don’t try to run this time. Okay?”

Doing as he was told, Joel listened like a good boy. Got another drink in before he was called to the stage. Tonight, he didn’t have a support system. Y/N wasn’t standing by the stage to let him know that everything would be okay. That regardless of what happened, she would be there to stand by him every step of the way. Today he was alone. The very thing he did to himself.

Starting to strum at the guitar, Joel let the first thing that came to mind fall from his lips.

“I hurt myself today,” Joel sang with an awe from the crowd to those that knew the chord and the lyrics. “To see if I still feel. I focus on the pain. The only thing that’s real.”

With this one? It was mixed this time from both men and women that liked it. Last night, most of the audience was women that were enjoying the things that he was singing. They were romance songs. This song? Hurt was about self-destruction.

“The needle tears a hole. The old familiar sting. Try to kill it all away. But I remember everything,” Joel continued on, looking toward the place Y/N had been standing the night before. Telling her that he didn’t love her echoed in his mind. Replaying like a moment from a movie. The way she looked at him. The pain she undoubtedly felt. “What have I become? My sweetest friend. Everyone I know goes away in the end. And you can have it all. My empire of dirt. I will let you down. I will make you hurt.”

Misery flooded his veins, but he kept at it. Maybe it made him sound better. But he continued the song. Having a bigger reaction than he did last night by the time he finished it. Several more songs came to him, until he decided he had enough. Right now? He felt empty. And singing what he was just made him feel worse.

Avoiding the crowd of people, Joel went back to the bar and got himself another drink. He regretted doing that. It was stupid and unnecessary. Finishing his drink, Joel slammed the glass down on top of the bar and started to head toward the door.

“You’re leaving so early?” a familiar voice called out to Joel having him stop before he could leave. Looking back over his shoulder, Joel saw the same familiar set of green eyes. “You didn’t even look like you enjoyed that today. And people were sold on it.”

“Maggie,” Joel breathed her name, surprised that she was there. Then he remembered what Negan told him about her. “You’re here again?”

“With a few of my friends too,” she responded, nodding her head back toward a table in the corner. “You’re alone this time?”

“I am,” Joel answered, straightening up his posture when she stepped in closer to him.

“So tell me Joel,” Maggie stepped forward, her hand dipping between them to palm in over the center of Joel’s pants having him let out a sharp exhale. “Is everything bigger in Texas?”

“You tell me,” Joel grunted, his brow line creasing with her pressing in closer to him.

“My friend lives a few blocks from here. There’s three of us,” Maggie alerted Joel with a tip of her head. “What do you think?”

“You’re persistent,” Joel reached for her wrist to pull it from his body with a scoff.

“Tonight I’m willing to share you,” Maggie offered with a shrug of her shoulders. “Wouldn’t you like that? Being pampered by three beautiful women? It looks like you could use it.”

Thinking things over, Joel bit down on his bottom lip and then nodded once, “I’ll be right back.”

Waiting, Joel wondered if he was making a mistake or not. He would have loved something like this when he was younger. Three women willing to pamper his every need. He’d be crazy to turn something like that down.

But then again? He was crazy. Because he just devastated the woman of his dreams because he didn’t think he was good enough for her. She was willing to give herself over completely to him and he hurt her again.

Swiftly stepping aside, Joel was quick to move toward the exit of the building. When he gazed back over his shoulder he saw Maggie returning to where she was with her friends looking for him. That wasn’t what he wanted. And he was a fool for even considering it.

Sneaking out as quickly as he could, Joel was swift to make his way back through the streets of New York. Finding his way back to the apartment building, Joel knew that he needed to tell Y/N how he really felt instead of letting his hurt feelings speak for him. Allowing her to think that he didn’t love her was the worst possible thing he could do tonight. Not having her at the bar tonight made him realize that without her, things weren’t gratifying for him. Even if he did have the life that he always wanted, it wouldn’t make him happy. Because she was the thing that made him happy. Not the spotlight of music. She was his inspiration. The thing that made his heart full. With her there last night, he knew that he had someone there that loved him. Someone that would lift him up if everything failed.

At the apartment, he almost slid across the floor with how fast he was moving when he got through the security to get to the elevator. He couldn’t push the buttons fast enough. She left him crying tonight and that really was the last thing that he wanted.

With the elevator doors opening, Joel ran out into the apartment realizing that the lights were off. Everyone had gone to sleep and no one was up waiting for him. Clearing his throat, he stumbled through the living room and headed for the bedroom that he knew Negan and Y/N were in. He’d just ask to talk to her alone so he could do exactly what she asked of him. Tell her how much he loved her and how nothing felt worth a damn with her not in his life. That was his problem. Life felt empty without her.

Pushing open the door, Joel stopped in his tracks when he saw with the small amount of light that was filtering into the room that her head was buried against the center of Negan’s chest. She had been crying and he knew that by how she looked. Stepping back toward the doorframe, Joel hid himself in the shadows.

Negan had her wrapped up in his arms in a loving manner. Holding her in a way that Joel hadn’t in years. This was the very thing she wanted. The thing that she had begged him for when they were still married. Tenderness. Love. Affection. Everything she wanted from him, she had with Negan.

A shift in breathing alerted Joel that Negan had woken up and instantly he lifted his head to check on Y/N. His fingers brushed over her shoulders and he placed a loving kiss over her head, “I love you. So much.”

That was all he needed to hear to realize that nothing he could do would prove that he was the better option. Negan was everything she wanted, everything she needed that she was lacking with him. There was nothing he could give her because in Negan, Joel saw exactly what it was that Y/N wanted. Pure love.

Backstepping away from the bedroom, Joel felt like a house was crushing him with the weight of the world falling on his shoulders. It hit him then just how much he truly fucked up in life and it hurt. The one person who had always loved him and supported him even at his worst had found someone else. And she deserved so much better than Joel.

Heading up the stairs, Joel kicked his boots off and headed over toward Elizabeth’s room. Stumbling into the room, Joel laid down on the floor beside her bed and stared up at the ceiling. It didn’t take long for Elizabeth to notice he was there with her lifting up and looking over the side of the bed.

“Dad? Are you okay?” Elizabeth reached for his hand, her fingers hooking with his realizing that Joel was crying. “Dad?”

Sliding over in her bed, she pat the bed beside her begging Joel to come lay with her. Getting up on the bed, Joel laid in beside her and Elizabeth held tightly to his hand. Crawling in beside him, she rest her head against the center of Joel’s chest and he cuddled her close.

“It’s going to be okay,” she assured Joel with a worried breath and Joel gave a small nod, nuzzling his nose in over her head.

He hoped so. But he wasn’t sure it would ever be okay again.

----

Tags: @chainsawsangel @fancypeacepersona @violent-darkness @negansbestie @elegantfanficluv

@sanctuaryforthelost @dead-of-niight @dilfsandmartinis @jennydehavilland

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leighsartworks216 · 28 days ago

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Self-Destruction

Zayne x gn!Reader

Based on my actual teacher and when I used to sh when I got angry. Please please don't read if you think this could trigger you <333

Warnings: hurt/comfort, swearing, anger, implied/referenced self-harm, self-destructive behavior/tendencies, no real ending

Word Count: 731

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It takes every ounce of self-restraint you have left in your body not to slam the door shut behind you. It doesn't matter, in any case, because the second the door is closed, everything bursts out of you.

You toss your bag to the floor with an angry groan. Tears burn your eyes. You can feel your lungs shaking with the effort it takes to try breathing normally. It feels awful. You wish this feeling would just go away, but it doesn't. It burrows deeper and deeper into your body, tearing through muscle and bone. You wish you could claw it out. The best you can do is bury your face in your hands and will away the rising need to break something.

"Love?"

Fuck, of course Zayne's home right now. You forgot he was taking a half-day, working at the hospital in the morning and finishing the rest of his work from home.

"What happened?" he asks with that gentle sort of urgency. "Where's your painting?"

Ugh, that fucking painting! "I threw it away," you grit out.

His footsteps are too loud as he approaches you, quicker than his usual steps. He grabs your hands, urging them away from your face. "Why?"

You feel hysterical as the emotions pour out of you. He interlaces your fingers together, holding your hands hostage even as you try to gesture with them.

"Because my teacher fucking sucks! I worked so, so hard on this one! You saw! You know! I just- I put it on the easel to present it and she fucking tore it apart, Zayne! Every little fucking thing! I tried to, you know, explain the fucking thought process behind it, just like everyone else, and you know what she did?! She ignored every single word I said! She said she didn't like it, she didn't understand it, it doesn't make sense, so she just shut down every single explanation I had! She wouldn't listen to anything! It's just-" Zayne tugs gently on you. You give in easily, dropping your head to rest on his shoulder. "It's not fair."

He squeezes your hands. They're cold, and you don't know if it's because of his Evol or if you're just running that hot from your outburst. "She only did that to yours?"

You nod against him, curling your nails toward his skin, before easing them flat against the scars on the back of his hands. He rubs his thumb against the meat of yours in small, soothing circles. "She actually critiqued everyone else's. But everything she said about mine? That wasn't fucking constructive criticism, it was just her own grievances. And I don't know if it's just me-"

"Whether she has something against you or not, that does not excuse the blatant unprofessionalism and disrespect she showed you," he interjects. "If you would like, I can help you file a complaint against her."

"Yes, please," you agree immediately.

He huffs a slight laugh. "Let's calm down first, alright?"

He lets go of your hands to hold your wrists. He guides them to sit on his chest, over his heart and lungs. Each breath he takes pushes against them, raising and falling in slow, even breaths. By your ear, you can hear those same slow breaths. You follow along.

Inhale for four seconds.

Hold for two.

Exhale for four.

The pattern continues for a couple minutes, until the anger simmers down. If you really needed to, Zayne would let you stay there for hours. It was better than the alternative.

When you got really angry like this, when it feels like breaking something is the only way to get it out of you, you'd turn it back on yourself. Destroying your art supplies may sound like an instant soother, but you're all too cognizant of how expensive and important it all is. But skin can heal.

Zayne, for obvious reasons, immediately worked to find solutions to help. Namely, holding your hands to keep them off of your arms or legs, and putting himself into position to take the pain. Not that you ever were able to dig your nails into him, even at your most desperate. The guilt of hurting him was too strong to even consider it. So, this way, no one got hurt.

"Better?"

(After this, he would help you file the report and retrieve your painting from the trash <333)

---

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#fanfic #fanfiction #zayne #zayne x reader #love and deepspace zayne #lads zayne #lnds zayne #love and deepspace #love and deepspace x reader #lads #lads x reader #lnds #lnds x reader #gn reader #x gn reader #gender neutral reader #x gender neutral reader

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puppeat123 · 1 month ago

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Homicipher

Mr Scarletella x GN reader

Wrong locker!

Trigger warning: Homework, STUDYING crushing on Mr.crawling 😨‼️ MR DELULU, small amount of angst, starts one sided be trust it changes cause Mr delulu

Quick run down-

You transferred schools and made many friends among them was Mr crawling today you will confess to him! By leaving a confession letter in his locker . However you seem to have found yourself now being observed by a certain red haired someone.

Enjoy!

~~~~~~~~~~>>>>𖤐ᝰ.ᐟ𖦹₊⊹<<<<~~~~~~~~~~~

You recently transferred to a new international school, Cipher University. It has been wonderful so far.

You went to orientation week, and you found lots of cool people there! Some of them you kept in contact with throughout the whole school year; others, not so much. Amongst the many people that you spent time with was a tall guy; he is a tall, pale guy with beautiful long black hair, and he is a little blind, always misplacing his glasses on the floor or dropping them. He was so kind to everyone and helped people who were confused on their first day.

You fell for him so quickly; I mean, who wouldn't!

His nickname was Crawling because he was always on the floor looking for where he put his glasses. You hung out with him very often after school. He would study with you and buy something to eat and chat during the study session. More chatting than studying was happening, though.

Over time your feelings for him grew, so much so that you felt today was the day you would leave him a confession letter in his locker. You made sure to plan out everything so there was no way he would see you putting the letter into his locker.

You remember asking him his schedule a while ago so that both of you could hang out and study.

You felt nervous and excited all at the same time!

You are hoping he feels some sort of way about it, and hopefully he says something about it or a response to it. You poured out your heart to him in that letter!

————————————————————-

You walked into the school building at the main entrance, where everyone had their lockers; meanwhile, his class was on the opposite side of the building. This made it perfect timing to slip a letter in his locker. You waved bye to him as you saw him walking away to the other side and going up the stairs. Once you saw him gone, you quickly rummaged through your bag and found the neatly folded letter sealed with the usual heart-shaped seal. His locker was 01010; you remember watching him put his stuff there last year before break, so that should be his same locker. You quickly slide the envelope in the small opening of the locker. Hopefully he feels the same way about you too! You quickly turned and started walking towards your class. You passed a student who you almost bumped into on your way there. What was he doing out of class? All the classes start around the same time! Whatever, though, Ms. Blue would be upset at you not being in class 5 minutes before it started.

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌'*•.¸♡ ♡¸.•*'﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

He forgot his textbook for Mr. Hood's English in his locker. There were still 5 minutes before the class started, so Mr. Hood let him get his book really quickly since his class was 3 doors away from the locker area. He quickly opened his locker and saw a beautiful white one with a cute red heart seal in it.

He took the letter and his textbook before closing back his locker. He quickly hid the cool letter in his pocket before rushing back to class.

Today's lecture was over the topic of the book and a refresher over the syllabus and who has signed it and who hasn't.

While he goes over all that useless stuff, it is time to see what the letter in his locker says.

———————

Dear love

I remember the day we met. You stole my heart, and made it skip twice. You have been the highlight of my life. When I sleep, I dream of you, when I study, we study together, when your heart beats, mine beats with yours. We have been friends for some time now; not one day has gone by without me thinking of you. I think of you, and the biggest smile comes across my face, I feel warm all over and my heart still skips a beat for you whether we're on the phone or just being in the same room. Sweetheart, just looking into your eyes still makes me feel like the first day we met. I have the same dream we both want, and that's to fall in love with our bestfriend. I fell for you so long ago. Do you feel the same way about me?

Love always,

Yours sincerely your secret admirer.

——————-

Warmth crept slowly onto his deadly pale cheeks, almost turning the same shade of red as his hair.

He couldn't believe it. Who could it be? It only made sense that it was the other student he almost bumped into when getting his textbook.

There was no one else by the lockers. The note was still pretty cool to the touch when he took it from his locker. They ran into room F0100. The other student did look pretty cute. They looked pretty flustered with them almost bumping into him. They liked him so much that they wrote him a beautiful letter so cute!

But what were they like? He doesn't interact with many people outside of school; when he did, many didn't want to interact or kept it short. So this was news to him!

He must know more about them. If they knew him and liked him enough to confess, then he must learn about them as soon as possible to give a proper answer. He couldn't keep them waiting after all the effort and time they put into writing the letter and placing it into his locker. On top of that, they didn't even write their name in the letter; they must be so shy!

He will make sure to get your name!

After all, you really liked him, and he was more than willing to do anything it takes to help you out of your shell.

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌'*•.¸♡ ♡¸.•*'﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

You waited patiently for Crawling to say something about the letter he found in his locker.

You decided to try and ask him or press a little about it.

"Hey, how were classes today?"

"It was okay! I found so much paper in my locker today!"

Is he going to talk about the letter? It was close to the Japanese equivalent of Valentine's Day for them. So could he have more admirers?? Why did he say he had so many papers in his locker?

"I got a new locker because I needed something closer to my classes, and man, that thing was not cleaned out!"

"Oh, you got a new locker?"

Panic slowly settled in you. If he changed lockers.

Whose locker did you slip your confession into?

Hopefully it was a random nobody. This was an international school after all, so who knows how someone might take it? Hopefully it wasn't anyone crazy or weird.

Right..?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~>>>>𖤐ᝰ.ᐟ𖦹₊⊹<<<<~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hello!

Thank you so much for reading I hope yall enjoy. I’m working on the next part of this I want to make a mini series cause I can’t keep it together sometimes!

Next chapter 2:

#mr scarletella #homicipher #homicipher mr crawling #homicipher mc #homicipher x reader #homicipher mr scarletella #mr. scarletella x reader #wip #x reader #mr crawling fluff #crush

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inhurtandincomfort · 27 days ago

Note

What are your favorite ideas for aftermath of "noncon" scenarios? As in trauma recovery or lack thereof.

Thank you for the ask! Sorry I'm late, I meant to reply yesterday and wrote out my response and everything, but forgot to actually send it lmaooo

Scenarios for trauma and recovery of noncon under cut, aka me yapping

First off I really love whumpees who are... messy, in their recovery. They're so angry at themselves, at everyone around them, but they refuse to tell anyone why. They're too guilty, too ashamed to even confront the truth of what happened to them. They wind up pushing everyone away, until one day, somehow, one character finds out and it all just makes sense. I adore friends finding out of course, but I also love when enemy or rival finds out. They thought Whumpee was just a being a dick for the sake of it - bonus points if rival has noncon related trauma too.

-Adding on to that, whumpees who engage in risky behaviour in an attempt to gain their life back. I'm talking going home with strangers, getting drunk and letting themselves be taken advantage of, even if they know they've been drugged. Never saying no, to anything, even non-intimate things because they're so used to it being ignored. Just. Dangerous self-destructive behaviours just to gain some semblance of control.

-Perhaps a scenario for the first one, whumpee who never speaks a word to anyone of what happened - Whumper was someone highly respected. Team Leader, or Medic, or Hero, even just a Friend, someone beloved so whumpee things no one will believe them. They keep quiet with all this angst and rage building inside them. At a party -maybe celebrating Whumpers promotion or heroic deed- Whumpee drinks a little too much. They get into a small argument with whumper that escalates until it all comes out in one tearful confession. And personally I'm a fan of whumpee being believed immediately after this, every face in the room a mixture of concern, shock, anger and horror

-I see a lot about hypersexual whumpees after trauma and that's very good. But I really like whumpees who completely clam up at the prospect of any touch or intimacy, even non-sexual. It leaves room for some wonderful moments when the slightest innocent touch, brushing against them in the hallway - or needing to touch them to treat their injures - leads to a panic attack

-In fact, I love whumpees who's trauma response makes them act the opposite to how they normally would, and the confusion of friends/family/team that follows

-Whumpers who become so loving and tender afterwards, cleaning whumpee up and offering soothing words no matter how violent they were moments before. Even kindness can become a trigger

-When whumpee was captured with the team and abused - I'm not a fan of forced to watch in this regard, but I love when they take whumpee to another room but the team just knows. And if Whumpee did it in exchange for necessary supplies - one or more of them are sick or injured, and desperately need water and medicine- well then there's just a whole bunch of trauma and guilt for everyone involved! It will either make them grow closer as they work through it together... or drive them apart because it's all too much.

-I LOVE when whumpee is able to enjoy intimacy again. Whether it's a new relationship after the event, or an old relationship where intimacy had to be put on hold - there's little I love more than a Partner who really doesn't care how long it takes, even if it never happens, just having Whumpee safe is all they want; but it bothers Whumpee. They refuse to let whumper steal this from them, too. The moment they finally do it without crying, without being triggered, without having to stop and apologies - I think it's so sweet and a real marker of whumpees progress.

-I'm not just talking about sex, I mean intimacy in general. I really love Caretaker bathing a whumpee who's too injured or weak to do it themselves, gentle touches, tenderly washing their hair and it's so innocent yet such a private, intimate moment

-But also the lead-up to that moment too. It ends in a success, but there will be failures along the way. When partner is so careful, so perceptive, and when whumpee is triggered they keep crying and apologising and feeling guilty they can't share this with the one they love anymore, but partner keeps assuring them that it's okay, they can take as long as they need, that there's nothing wrong with them for being upset.

-There is also something to be said for a bad partner who does make whumpee feel guilty.

-After the event, Whumpee changed part of themselves that Whumper loved. Whumper loved their long hair? Cut it short. They liked the makeup they wore? Whumpee stopped wearing it altogether. Friends and team knew how much Whumpee loved doing those things, but it's too painful now. It's such a cathartic moment the first time Whumpee wears their hair long again, or comes down with a full face of makeup - and looking genuinely happy about it.

-I don't write it often, but I love when it goes to court, and whumpee is brave enough to look Whumper dead in the eye who tries to avoid their gaze. It's been a long fight, Whumpee often wondered if it was worth it, but when that guilty verdict hits they break down crying in relief. All that pain, reliving their trauma, it was finally all worth it.

#sorry I went off #tw noncon #noncon whump

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intheorangebedroom · 1 year ago

Text

Tonight you belong to me, chapter 1

Summary: He comes to you every Friday, in a shady motel on the outskirts of town.

Guilt is a wild trip, but so is desire. How the hell did you end up in this divvy motel? And now, what's next?

Pairing: Frankie Morales x fem!Reader (OFC)

Rating: Explicit 🔞

A/N: Happy Frankie Friday, orange besties 🧡 PLEASE, see series masterlist for extensive trigger warnings. Now I'm off to disappear for another month, heehee. To anyone who celebrates anything, happy whatever you celebrate. Ily 🧡

@frannyzooey And to you, Kelli… Thank you 🧡 Thank for your help on this chapter, without you it wouldn’t exist. Arguably, without you I wouldn’t exist (my gothic ass) and without you I would certainly not be writing at all. You’re the kindest, most generous, most beautiful person I’ve ever met, you shine so brightly and I love you more than all the Frankies from all the universes put together 🧡✨

Word count: 6.5k

[prev] * [series masterlist] * [next]

Chapter 1: Dirt

Guilt, you’re about to find out, is an interesting feeling.

A viscous, gluey business that sticks to your skin and clings to your frame. It’s a prickling tickle under your armpits, a rigidity in your legs. It’s a tightness in your shoulders, and it pulls on your face. It has a density, and it’s tangible, not only do you feel it, you see it in every mirror, every reflective surface.

A pervasive, shape-shifting torment that unfurls gradually, and comes in many colorful shades, when you begin to take in the gravity and the ramifications of your actions.

The first wave is darkened by fear, black as petrol, trickling down your insides when he says his name.

Frankie.

Like an invitation, an opening. Gaping, abysmal, pulling you in and you remain silent, struggling on the edge of it, grasping for balance. Drawn in, but too stunned to let go and dive in yet.

It’s a violent crimson, next, shame creeping over you when you walk back inside the bar to retrieve your purse.

Facing Mark is difficult, but talking to him is beyond your strength. You gesture toward the handbag waiting for you on the other side of the counter. He hands it to you in appraising silence, judgmental, surely, and you smile, or you wince, you can’t even tell. With shaky hands, you fumble inside it for your wallet, his green gaze strained on your face.

You know that your entire appearance gives away the narrative of what just took place in the back lot of his establishment. Your face is flushed, your lips swollen, your hair undone. Your clothes are rumpled and in his eyes, you will from now on and forever be this woman.

After what feels like several minutes, he takes pity on you, and reiterates his offer. You’re good, he says. Sweetheart. The first pint’s on him.

You don’t stay long enough for a second drink, however.

Back outside into the muggy night, you crumble onto the passenger seat of your car. The polyester lining of your skirt clings to the bare skin at the back of your thighs, damp with sweat and what is left of your inconsequential desire, and you feel appallingly filthy, bone-deep disgusting.

Guilt washes over you in blue waves of regret, welling under your eyelids when you notice that the red truck is gone. And with it, the gaping, abysmal possibilities of another you, reinvented with him.

The shaking starts as you’re driving, trembling hands gripping the steering wheel. A brutal, chilling comedown, guilt experienced in bright and blinding yellow at the belated realization of your betrayal.

How easily, how rapidly you forgot, trapped under Frankie’s gaze, coming undone between Frankie’s hands, that your life isn’t truly yours. That it has never been. You’re not on your own, no matter how much you long to be. You have never been afforded the privilege of independence, nor do you possess the necessary strength to break free from your family.

And who has Frankie betrayed? What faceless, nameless woman has he gone back to? Remorse blends in with envy and resentment, painting green ring-shaped stains in your peripheral vision as you get out of your car and into the lobby of your building.

Eyes to the floor, you step into the elevator, this oversized coffin lined with mirrors reflecting your image with a silent scoff. There’s dust from the gravel on your leather pumps.

Inside your apartment, the clickety-click of your heels on the tiled floor bounces off the walls of your skull. You hate that sound, eminently cold and giving away your presence.

The living-room television is on, probably set to a news channel, most likely broadcasting a financial show in which white men over 50 listen to the sound of their own voice and debate about obscure economical regulations you’re supposed to care about.

Adrian’s already here. Uncharacteristically early. Friday evenings usually mean late night poker or whatever his own excuse is to get away from your cribless home.

Hoping to go unnoticed so as to avoid him, you take off your shoes, but it’s too late. He calls out your name from the kitchen, his intonation surprised but cheerful.

Head hanging low, heartbeat picking up, you make a silent dash for the upstairs bathroom, remorse so pungent you fear no shower can ever wash it off your skin.

Under the scolding high-pressure stream, you scrub your body raw with a soapless loofah, but there is no scrubbing away the feeling of those hands over your skin.

Eyes drifting closed, you lean your forehead against the anthracite marble of your Italian shower, and let your chest heave around a suppressed sob.

Guilt, shame, and remorse are powerless to outweigh your want, undeterred, unabated, unquenched.

Back in the parking lot, it had been a moment before you were able to push away from the side of the truck and stand upright. He stood there, silent and immobile in front of you. Waiting, as if to shield you from the street and the rest of the world. Silence hanging charged and heavy between you, as you wouldn’t offer your name in return.

When you started moving toward the bar’s entrance, he stepped aside, and that’s when your body moved of its own volition. You took his hand in yours, palm against palm, trembling fingers wrapped around his knuckles.

“Can I see you again?” you asked, pleaded, begged. You didn’t recognize your voice.

He swallowed hard, shook his head at you for the third time, and squeezed your hand in his bigger one.

“I don’t think so. You know that’s not a good idea,” he said.

—

Grief settles like dust over the first weeks of September.

You are surprised, almost shocked, to observe how little your life has changed. You get up in the morning, you shower and get dressed, drink coffee, go to work. You attend meetings about maritime trade regulation, sitting at your father’s side, go over endless spreadsheets detailing import-export profit and loss, you pretend to understand them, and you pretend to care, like a pretty human puppet.

You come home at night, skip dinner when you can. You lie in bed next to Adrian. You seek out warmth where there is none. You perform sex without satisfaction.

There has been no question asked. No suspicion, no doubt cast.

You wear the same clothes, drive along the same roads, walk around the same hallways.

And no one seems to notice that you are different. That you experienced imperious want and incandescent pleasure. That you carry a secret. Nestled, dormant and quiet, between your lungs, like a wild and unknown creature.

Whatever part of him you welcomed inside you transformed the hollowed spaces of your existence. It redefined the void, creating a place of your own where to curate your new desires.

His lips on your lips, your body molded into his, and pressed against your hips, an unfulfilled promise for more.

In the palm of your hand, the ghost sensation of Frankie’s hold, now forever gone and lost, and your highlighted loneliness feels like a barless prison. On your own, always, again, to divert the old familiar pain of being you.

Weeks go by. The guilt recedes, and sadness takes its place, like clockwork, like physics. Like a new sort of weight coating your limbs. A nostalgic longing without any object.

In the idle moments of your day, when you’re stuck in traffic, in a meeting, or in a conversation, your mind wanders back to him. The solid slope of his shoulders. The strong span of his back. Muscles bunching up under your grip. His scent, his curls, his taste. An organic trace seared into your being.

His rebuttal, after he’d given you so much, felt less like a rejection than like a refusal to heed a deeply rooted instinct.

His stare was no longer hard and cold. It carried only sorrow and loss.

Does he think of you like you think of him? Does he miss the contact of your skin, or the abandon of your kiss?

Did he walk away from your embrace with something to keep, like you did?

Day after day, summer fades into fall, the change hardly perceptible through the consistently sweltering weather.

Day after day, focusing becomes tricky, finding sleep more and more difficult and your train of thought turns downright maniacal.

Ava’s calls go straight to voicemail.

More often than not, you start drinking as soon as you come home to fence off the tears of exhaustion, hoping Adrian won’t notice. Another line you had promised yourself never to cross, and under the combined effects of the alcohol and the antidepressants, you feel drowsy and dizzy, increasingly disconnected from your reality. A nagging sting settles on the left side of your lower abdomen. But you don’t mind the pain as much as you mind turning into your mother.

Some days, you think you’d like nothing more than to give way, allow yourself to drown into the proven refuge of self-abuse. Whenever you indulge the thought, soothing images spring to mind, oil on canvas, deep green, tender brown. Ophelia, crowned with wild flowers and rings of violets, sleeping peacefully in a shallow stream.

When you finally return to the Hole in the Wall, it’s only with the hope of hindering your impending tailspin.

In the parking, after turning off the ignition, you sit in your car for the whole of five minutes, staring numbly at the dark lot where the red truck had been parked.

Mark’s hesitant greeting puzzles you; by now you have lost most of your ability to read people’s reactions.

You walk to the counter and choose to sit on one of the high stools. Somewhere deep down, you enjoy his distance; you relish the sadistic pleasure of reliving the humiliation you felt standing before him, freshly fucked dumb on a total stranger’s fingers.

Besides, you’ll take the attention, however uncomfortable it may be.

“Long time no see,” Mark says, and you produce a poorly executed smile.

“I don’t know… two weeks? I’ve been busy,” you add as a way of apologizing.

“It’s been a month,” he replies curtly.

You try a brown ale, this time, rich and bitter. He busies himself behind the counter, cleaning and wiping, while you drain your glass in silence. You haven’t eaten all day, and you’re drinking too fast. Nausea laps against your diaphragm. It’s the last missing scene from this scenario: you, throwing up in the toilet of his bar.

You’re considering leaving when he speaks again.

“Trucker hat dude came by.”

Your head shots up and you glare at him, eyes widening under your pinched brow, a new wave of sickness nudging further up. He gauges your face, twirling a towel inside a pint glass, waiting for your answer, but when you give him none, he goes on.

“Did he…” he starts, and his eyes slowly go back and forth between yours, “he didn’t hurt you or anything? Cause if he did, if you wanna press charges, I can—“

“No,” you cut him off, “god no, I’m fine. I’m perfectly ok,” you add unnecessarily when his gaze narrows.

He pauses for a moment, like he’s the only one who can judge if you are, indeed, perfectly ok, before he faces away from you to put back the clean glasses on the lower shelves behind him.

When he’s done, he turns back around, props his hands low on his hips, and for the first time since you’ve entered the place, he stands perfectly still.

“He’s been asking about you.”

Between your lungs, the creature begins to stir.

“He came back,” you say, surprisingly matter-of-factly.

“Yeah, that’s what I said. Asked if you come here every Friday.”

Piece by piece, your mind starts swiveling, sluggish and blunt after being successfully dulled out by the past couple of weeks of excessive drinking. You picture his tall figure standing in the small bar, perhaps he sat on the stool you’re sitting on now? Did he lift his cap to comb his hair with his fingers before he spoke?

Mark is talking again, and it’s a conscious effort to bring your attention back to his words.

“Asked if you always come on your own. If I know your name.”

“I never told you my name,” you panic, “what did you tell him?”

“I see your name every week on your AmEx Gold, sweetheart, but I kindly told him to go fuck himself,” he scoffs.

His sardonic tone snaps you out of your drifting daydreaming. Your face immediately hardens. You sit up straight, drawing further away from him and he seems to change his mind. He’s softer when he speaks next.

“Look, I don’t know what’s the lowdown between you two, you understand? And anyway, I’m not in the habit of discussing my regulars with just about anyone. That kinda goes against the job’s ethics, you know what I mean?”

You shrug away the rational, albeit patronizing explanation with a huff of annoyance. You feel more alert than you have in weeks.

“When was that?” you ask.

“Last week. Thursday, I think.”

“Shit.”

Mark lets out a heavy sigh, resembling that of an exhausted father, and he opens the cash register.

“He left a note for you.”

—

An address. Written in all caps, black ink on a white piece of paper torn from a lined notebook. No phone number, not date, no time… and no name. Just the address. Under the feeble cabin light of your car, the paper looks old, like it’s been carried around tucked inside a wallet for years, and time has turned it yellow.

The coordinates on the dashboard GPS are identical to the ones on the paper. They were identical back in the parking, at the bar, when you typed them in; they were identical at every single red light you stopped at and checked. And they’re still identical now, glowing in blue letters, cold and synthetic, above the message You have reached your destination.

You raise your head again and stare at the building in front of you.

It’s a motel. One floor, L shaped, slightly sloping roof. With wrought iron details, a porch hanging low and square wooden pillars demarcating each room, nine of them in total. On the right, underneath a bare bulb, a large ice machine gleams like a beacon for lost time-travelers, next to a pay phone with a cut-off cord and a missing receiver. On the rear end of the building, to the left, above what looks like the reception, a 4 feet tall sign spells MOTEL in red neon letters.

At its height, the place probably looked nice. But that was a rough 55, 60 years ago, you estimate. Now it’s nearly derelict, with visible cracks streaking the yellowing walls, several broken drainpipes, and a missing number on the door of room 7.

If you cared about these kinds of things, you’d figure that the diversion of the main road further south is responsible for the motel’s decaying state.

Your attention is elsewhere, as usual. The parking lot is deserted, save for three vehicles. The red truck is here, parked a couple of places away to your right. Engine off. Empty.

The drive here from the Hall in the Wall was nearly an hour long. The car cruised along poorly lit, narrow two-lane roads, lined with luxuriant vegetation, dense and confining in the pitch darkness of the suburban night. You’ve lived in Tampa your entire life and have never set a foot in this part of the Bay Area. Technically, you’re not even in Tampa anymore.

He’s inside one of these rooms, somewhere. Waiting for you, and that thought alone makes your breathing difficult and your hands clammy.

What now? What’s next? Are you supposed to walk up to the reception and ask about him? A tall man wearing a trucker hat? Frankie?

And what will happen, once you’ve found him?

This is ridiculous. Sordid. It’s gone too far, whatever that is. A motel outside of town. The worst possible cliché. The most degrading place.

Between your lungs, the creature is clawing at your chest.

You shift nervously on the creaking leather seat, exhaling long and shaky, no longer repressing the memory of his sturdy fingers curling inside your warmth, of his tongue swirling inside your mouth. The instant intimacy of your furtive encounter, that turning point, when he briefly relinquished his control.

A chorus of voices rumbles like tumbling boulders inside your head, a cacophony of rules and guidelines, tacit and unspoken, ingrained and internalized. But with every passing minute staring at the bright motel sign, your resolve grows surer.

The yellow curtains ripple behind the rectangular window of room number 2 and you quickly pull the key out of the ignition. Grabbing your phone from the dashboard, you stuff it inside your purse, which you slide under the driver's seat.

Eyes locked on the curtains, you make a fast-paced beeline to the door. Around you, the night is bustling with the sounds and noises of the invisible wildlife. Revealing nothing, containing so much.

With a quick rattle of your heels, you step under the porch, hand extended and ready to knock on the door when it opens for you.

Oh he’s broad, so much broader than you even remembered, blocking the entire doorway with his frame, blue jeans, black shirt, and this goddamn hat that’s already haunting your dreams and your nightmares.

Looking down on you, irate, defiant, daring you to push him aside and enter. Behind him, the room is plunged in darkness. Above you, the porch lights cast a warm hue on his face, that fails to soften his expression. The crease between his brow is deeper than your fears.

You take a step closer, on instinct, but he moves to the side as if to avoid any contact with you and you enter the dark bedroom, carried by your momentum.

Guilt will come back to you later, sporadically, in episodes, but for the most part, you forfeit it wholly when you cross the threshold of room number 2.

He closes the door behind you and flicks up the toggle switch near the door frame. Two quaint lampshades blink to life on the headboard, casting a warm, subdued light. There’s no AC, or he hasn’t turned it on, and the atmosphere inside the room is already stifling, charged with his scent.

“Took you long enough. Thought you wanted to see me,” he grunts, and the creature purrs inside your chest.

“I did. I do.”

Stopping in the middle of the room, you turn around to face him. He’s standing tall and firm and mighty, feet planted apart on the carpeted floor, arms crossed over his chest. Yet you note his hands are splayed across his biceps, as if he were attempting to hug himself.

Perhaps that’s when you convince yourself Frankie is not his real name. Somehow, it makes it easier to believe you’re not the object of his ire.

“Your friend didn’t tell you–”

“He’s not my friend,” you interrupt. “I only got your note earlier. Tonight.”

You let the implication sink in and your gaze travels down to the dip at the base of his neck and back up. The square, yellow bedroom provides you with the brightest environment you’ve ever had the leisure of observing him in.

He’s beautiful, stunning, really, with unique and complex features. Almost pretty, but in a reluctant way, as if it was irrelevant to the life he’s chosen and led. His face speaks so loud, washed over by so many emotions, frustration, doubt and anger, and that lingering sadness in his dark eyes that tugs at your heart and twitches your fingers.

“What’s your name?” he asks, tilting his chin in your direction.

Janet Leigh’s face pops up in black and white inside your mind, driving through a curtain of strident violins, skittish eyes flicking between the road ahead of her and the rearview mirror.

“Marion,” you answer, inexplicably.

“Marion,” he repeats, and you know he knows you’re lying.

Unable to hold his gaze, you look away to the side, and he gives you time to take in the surroundings. The medium size bed with a stained, synthetic bedspread, the practical, shipped furniture, an angular chair and a desk surmounted by a rectangular framed mirror, the antique cathodic TV set hanging from the wall in the corner. The brown carpet. The yellow curtains. The painting of the Appalachian.

And whatever your face says then makes him huff.

“Not what you expected? How did you think this was gonna be? How do you think these things go?”

You look at him again, stunned, lost, hurt maybe, that he should recognize you for what you don’t want to be.

“I don’t know. I’ve never done this before,” you tell him in a small voice.

He shakes his head, like you aimed to wound, and unconsciously, your fingers find your sternum, jittery, anxious to appease this wild creature scrabbling against your rib cage.

“I shouldn’t be here,” he mutters hoarsely, shaking his head again, or still, “and you shouldn’t be here either, this is bullshit.”

And he’s right, once more, he is right, neither of you should be here. All the lines you walked, all the rules you abided by, meeting expectations and doing as you were told, and you still end up here, on the outskirts of town, in this gloomy motel. Facing this stranger, begging to surrender to him, with your heart in your hand and your life on your lips.

Eyes strained on his, you move closer, cautious, with your palms upward, as if he were to jolt and scurry away if you were too sudden. If you tame him, perhaps you will tame the wild creature between your lungs as well.

Drawn to his skin, you brush the tips of your fingers along his bicep, and the taut muscle thrums under the freckled, tanned surface of him.

He’s holding his breath, hardened face, hardened stare, deepening crease, and your fingers skate up along the slope of his arm until they meet his hand.

He’s difficult to catch, you think, even when willing to be caught, but it’s now very clear what you want for yourself. You want him.

It matters not that he belongs to somebody else. If you’re here, it’s because he wants you too. Despair and desire have brought you together, combined, conjoined, converging.

Your hand travels round to the back of his arm, soft and feather-like, up under the hem of his t-shirt, lifting his sleeve. His eyes are boring into yours. You lick your lips, slowly, and lower them to his skin. A light kiss, testing, tender and wet, and underneath it, a tremor.

There’s a terrible density to his body. He’s tension and heat. Pressing your parted lips to his shoulder, you let your tongue peek out between them. You take in the tangy taste of him, it travels through your body like lava, like syrup, heavy and sticky and sweet and it pools down between your hips.

He’s completely still, eerily so. Emboldened, hopeful, you tug on his t-shirt, tentatively at first, and when he doesn’t stop you, when he unfolds his arms, you pull it off his frame, the hat coming off with it. You suck in a sharp breath at the sight of his naked head full of curls, lush and tousled. You want to run your fingers through them. You know that’s probably not a good idea.

His chest, broad and solid, fills your vision, and your hands fly to his sternum where you press them, chasing something invisible, roaming up the plane of his chest, as delicately as possible. Your fingertips drum lightly along his collarbone, as if you were seeing him with your hands, as if all your senses were necessary to take in the whole of him.

His frown turns imploring, his breathing shallow.

“Tell me your name,” he murmurs, his deep baritone a pleading husk.

“You can call me whatever you like,” you answer, lifting his hand and taking his two first fingers into your mouth, eyelids fluttering. You cradle them with the flat of your tongue, brushing against the callous tips of them, saliva flooding your mouth around the salty taste. A moan escapes you, imperceptible, and his jaw ticks around a curse, something you don’t make out, something in Spanish, you’re too dazed with want, too dumb with thirst.

Fire licks up your spine when he moves, fast and sure. His hand tangles in your hair and he sharply tugs your head back, his fingers popping out of your mouth with a hanging thread of saliva. His face has become a threat, a warning, a promise. He’ll give you what you want until you regret asking for it.

His mouth crushes yours, teeth colliding, and his tongue is inside you, swirling and licking.

Like a dam that gives, his strength breaks and sweeps over you, crushing you into his chest with his hold and his kiss, fingers gripping your hair, your ass, and you let him have it, let him bruise your flesh with his need, scraping your fingernails up his arms, on his back.

You’re smiling into the kiss, with relief and eagerness, squirming into him and he hardens his hold before releasing you, swift and sudden, grabbing your blouse and pulling it up in a feverish movement that you follow, lifting your arms like a docile little girl. A seam of the silky fabric rips around your shoulders. You don’t notice it.

His face dives into the crook of your neck, the scruff of his beard grating your skin, and he sinks in his teeth, sucking hard and feral, and at first, you melt into it, before you remember. You force his chest away with both palms, whining, urgent, plaintive, “I can’t– can’t have marks,” when what you really want is to be covered in him.

It makes him chuckle, and it sounds like a growl, so terribly dark, so profoundly disillusioned, that you shiver in the heat of his body. He squeezes your breasts through the thin cotton of your bra, it’s brutal and it hurts like retaliation.

“Get fucking naked, Marion.”

Drawing away from him, you start working the button and zip fly of your skirt with fumbling fingers, blood beating fast and booming in your eardrums, while he toes off his shoes and undoes his belt buckle. Hard metal, the same one that was scraping against your belly when he was crushing you into his red truck, into white-hot pleasure.

His skin looks amber and smooth under the mellow lighting, the harmonious muscles you guessed under his shirt on the very first night highlighted in shadows. A soft belly, and a long, sideways scar on his left side. Would he tell you the history of his wounds? Will you ever have the chance to ask?

Your skirt crumples at your feet, you’re lost in the sight of him, arms falling limp at your sides. Self-consciousness skirts the edges of your lust. This body that you neglect and ignore at best, despise and mistreat if given the chance, will it be worth anything to him? Will he want you like you want him? With determination. Without dignity.

When he pulls down his jeans and his boxer briefs in one deft motion, your eyes widen, but he’s grabbing your arm already, spinning you around like a doll and throwing you onto the bedspread. He climbs on the bed after you, the mattress dips with his weight.

His firm hands spread your legs; he’s manhandled other bodies before yours, the skill evident with his dexterity, the experience obvious in his assurance, and you want to be all of them at once, lovers and enemies.

His hand rubs over your damp panties and you buck into it, trying to raise yourself on your elbows to turn around. You want to see his face as he touches you, see his reaction at the evidence of your arousal, you want to watch his eyes when his cock breaches you, but he presses a large hand between your shoulder blades and pins you into the mattress with a grunt.

He’s unlike anyone you’ve known before, brisk and rough and domineering, and you blush at your inexperience, at his irreverence, when he yanks your panties to the side and spits on your folds. The sheer obscenity feels like a reward for coming this far.

Sprawling your arms forward, bunching the slippery fabric of the bedspread in your fists, you brace yourself, the round tip of his cock lining up at your entrance.

He shoves himself inside you to the base, and you cry out at the blinding intrusion, the strength of his thrust hauling your body forward on the bed. With a harsh grasp, he slides you back down on his length and you bite down another cry, flesh gushing through the splayed fingers clutching your hips.

Crouching over you, he presses his forehead heavy against the back of your head.

“Don’t move,” he hisses through clenched teeth, “don’t fucking move.”

His cock pulsates angry and swollen inside your throbbing pussy, his chest pressing down on your back with each uneven, shaky breath burning your nape.

Sitting back, he wraps his right hand around the strap of your bra and twists it around his fist, pulling on it for leverage as he begins to fuck into you. The thin elastic bands bite into your shoulders, raspy vibrations echoing from your throat straight into the bedding with each of his rhythmic pushes forward.

He’s too much, too fast, too sudden. And he picks up the pace, forcing your right leg up with his knee and angling up his strokes, reaching deeper inside your core. He’s going to puncture your body from the inside, and you contract tight and rigid around his length, writhing underneath him, until he leans into your neck, close to your ear with a command, voice low and gravelly.

“You want it, just fucking take it, then.”

That wild thing inside your chest is swelling, madly swirling, your slick floods around his drilling length. Closing your eyes, the side of your face smearing makeup on the bedspread, you nod with just enough strength to exhale a breathless yes.

Yes. Yes, you want it, just like so. You want to be used, shattered, obliterated by this man.

And so you relent. Curling your fists and sinking your fingernails into your palms, as the pain turns to pleasure and he rams into your taut heat, rams against your cervix, bending you backward, spine ready to snap with each forceful shove.

The room is filled with the explicit sounds and noises of your emerging dirty secret. The relentless smack of his hips against your ass, the lewd squelch of his cock slamming in and out of your cunt, the creaking bedding, his feral groans, your grateful moans.

He’s miles away from you, but that’s what you came here for, drain the sadness from his eyes, make it yours, understand. If you’re only going to have him once, then you want it all.

But his rhythm is faltering already, and it stops abruptly. He releases his grip on you and pulls out with a loud curse, leaving you empty, for all those things you never wanted in the first place to fill you up again.

You feel his knuckles brushing against the swell of your ass as he strokes himself into his release. He loses his balance, and braces his hand next to your face to catch himself as come spurts hot and rich into the curve of your arched back.

He slaps his cock into the cleft of your cheeks once, twice, pumping out the last drops of his spend, and he collapses next to you, with a grunt when his back hits the bed, his chest heaving with exertion.

Unshed tears weigh down your eyelids. Your heart rattles against your rib cage, frantic and irregular. Your blood is thick as molasses, of amber and gold, coursing dense and languid down your limbs, but your nerves are crackling like electrical wires of blue and purple.

The creature between your lungs has tripled in size and your sore cunt throbs with your suspended orgasm.

Sunk into the mattress, you’re unable to round your back or turn your head towards him. Everything hurts. Everything is alive.

Reaching back blindly, you dip the tip of your fingers into the pool of his spend, and bring them back to your lips. Tasting him with delight and a quiet, strengthless moan.

The mattress moves with him as he shifts on the bed, and you feel the warmth of his large hand covering the expanse of your lower back.

Before you can relax into it, he flips you on your back with an easy strength, and you wince with the sudden change of position. What a mess you must look like, flushed face, sweat-damp hair, clotted mascara.

He’s heavy, in his straddle of your thighs. He brings his hand to your mouth, and you open up for him, pulling out your tongue to lick his come-coated palm, wrapping your lips around his fingers as they glide over the hot wet muscle. You swallow his essence with fluttering eyelids, grateful, tears rolling down your temples.

The soft light catches at the sheen of sweat gleaming over his chest, like he’s made of gold, leaning over you like a magnificent and merciful god, like you’ll grant him everything, and you bask into his radiance, your lips pursed into a new smile around his digits.

The frown that hasn’t left his brow softens ever so slightly. His throat bobs, corded muscles, pebbled skin, the tension barely relieved. His fingers slip out of your mouth and come to cup your chin, so gentle your mind fails to comprehend. His touch lingers, warm and relenting and it becomes a caress, trailing down the line of your throat and coming to rest over your beating pulse at the base of your neck.

“Are you real?” he asks, sorrow blurring his dark eyes.

“I don’t know,” you murmur, beading sweat, beading tears. “Make me be.”

He breathes in deeply, and perhaps it’s the first time in years he breathes in so freely.

“Okay,” he nods.

Slowly, with the tip of his tongue darting between his parted lips, he tugs down your bra to the side. His calloused palm finds the soft swell of your breast, and his warmth radiates through your skin. His hold strengthens, he pinches your nipples with his two first fingers, the ones you took in your mouth earlier, harder, until your mouth goes slack with pleasure and with pain, and you keep smiling at him through it all.

Loose, trustful, pliant, you watch as he drags your panties down along your damp skin and spreads your thighs. He pauses, eyes on your core and you lie still, exposed and opened, feeling no shame.

His curls, matted with sweat, are stuck in locks to his forehead. Where was he, when you were still hopeful? Were you too young for him, then?

He dives between your hips, and his teeth bite into the soft skin of your inner thigh. You jerk, palm pushing feebly onto the crown of his head and he freezes, eyes shut, like he doesn’t have enough willpower to let go, like too much of his control has already waned and thawed.

“Please,” you coo, “please. I’ll get in so much trouble.”

And your heart sinks a little with apprehension because, surely, he’ll scoff at you again, but instead he just lets go, bringing his fingers to your swollen folds to part them.

A small whimpering sound escapes you when he latches his lips around your clit, but the sensation is nothing like what you anticipated. Of his previous roughness, only the bruising digging of his fingers into the plush of your hips remains.

His mouth is warm and soothing, a liquid caress, the touch from the tip of his tongue precise but gentle. He shifts with a soft groan, applying more pressure and you keen, head trashed back into the bed. Instantly, he adjusts his grasp, pulling you closer to his face, suckling on your clit with more insistence.

The smooth skin of your calves brushes over his shoulders, your heels digging into the muscles of his back and you’re reminded of that first night again, when he swiveled around to meet your gaze, soft sad eyes, hard cold stare. Your orgasm builds up fast, embarrassingly so, encouraged by his heavy breathing fanning the soft curls on your mound.

The wild creature melts into your blood and flows down to your core, branching out to every nerve from the top of your head to the tip of your toes. And when you come, you come sharp and bright, with your hand clasped over your mouth to muffle a loud mewl and your back arched from the bed.

He forsakes his restored restraint when you recoil from the overstimulation, hardening his hold and fastening his mouth over your cunt to lap up your release, tongue diving in, greedy, burning your walls.

You’re still shaking with the aftershock when he releases you and rises above your trembling body. Lying his forehead on your belly, heavy head, heavy breathing, sweat dripping on your skin, he stays there until his breathing slows down, falling in rhythm with yours. You reach down for his hair, threading your fingers through his curls, at last, and he gives in, leans into the tenderness of your touch.

A stray tear slides down into your hairline and it’s over, he’s gone, standing up, his broad back turned to you, gathering his clothes and dressing up.

The notion of the world around you resurfaces. Outside, tucked away in the heart of the night, countless other wild creatures dwell and carry on, moved by fear or desire, and you lie still in that crushing knowledge. Soon, you will have to leave this bed, confront your solitude to theirs.

You roll to your side and curl up on yourself, drifting with the soft droning from the sleeping creature between your lungs and the sweet soreness thrumming between your hips.

He’s at the door, putting his hat back on, when you call out his name.

“Frankie.”

It passes your lips for the very first time, a long kept secret, a forbidden vow, a usurped oath, and immediately you want to say it again. You want it to be real. You want it to be yours.

Frankie pauses and tilts his head towards the bed without facing you completely.

“Thank you,” you say.

He opens the door to a draft of air wafting in, charged with the salty, humid scent of the faraway bay. He’s about to cross the threshold, and disappear into the night, when he speaks.

“The room is paid for til morning. I’ll see you next Friday.”

****

Additional note: I woke up on day and decided to build a multiverse of orange bedroom Frankies 🧡 For those who've read PTMY, can you spot all the clues? This Frankie is really pissed off, though, but I kinda like it. I hope you'll like it too 🧡

Taglist (thank you 🧡): @elegantduckturtle @mashomasho @lola766 @flowersandpotplantsandsunshine @nicolethered @littleone65 @bands-tv-movies-is-me @the-rambling-nerd @saintbedelia @pedrostories @trickstersp8 @all-the-way-down-here @deadmantis @hbc8 @princessdjarin @harriedandharassed @girlofchaos @gracie7209 @mrsparknuts @your-voice-is-mellifluous @mylostloversbookmarks @readingiskeepingmegoing @lovesbiggerthanpride @youandmeand5bucks-blog @sarcasm-theotherwhitemeat @southernbe @blackvelveteen1339 @anoverwhelmingdin @casa-boiardi @nandan11 @jessthebaker @pedroshotwifey @angelofsmalldeath-codeine @noisynightmarepoetry

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