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joelswritingmistress · 1 year ago

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Last Halloween: Chapter 3

Summary: After a tragedy involving Joel happened on Halloween one year prior, the town now shuns him while ignoring the details of the now closed case. You are seemingly the only one to offer empathy to a man the town is making out to be a monster.

Warning: Angst, mild language

Pairing: Joel Miller x f!reader

"He's coming?" Your friend Jessie asked, practically letting her jaw drop to the floor as she adjusted her cowboy hat in the mirror.

"Shh." You put a finger to your lips and pulled on a pair of black spandex for your cat costume. "I don't want to tell Winnie or Chris." You knew they would give you a hard time, but Jessie was a little more open minded.

"Okay, okay." She pretended to zip her lip. "I won't say anything."

"Thank you." You tossed on a black shirt with lacy sleeves before grabbing the cat mask. After Jessie checked herself out once more in the bathroom mirror, you reached for your keys. "Let's boogie," you whispered.

The ride over was focused on Joel talk, and you didn't particularly mind. You were kind of itching to talk about him.

"Are you into him?" Jessie asked.

You weren't a good liar so you were honest, despite the potential backlash. After that motorcycle ride it was like a switch had been flipped inside of you.

"Yeah. I mean, I think so."

"Wow." She giggled, "It's so.. random. Not judging. I just.. wow. Why?"

"Why?" You shrugged as you drove. "He gave me a ride on his motorcycle earlier and-"

"Wait, what?" She grabbed your forearm without even realizing it.

You laughed. "We rode around town and then he drove me back to pick up my car at the junkyard. That's why I was so late getting home."

"How old is he?"

"I'm not sure."

"He's a least ten years older than us. Probably more."

You shrugged again. "I'm just feeling things out. I really just want him to have a friend." You turned to look at Jessie for a quick second. "Ya know?"

"Oh, I know." She chuckled. "A friend with benefits."

You laughed and swatted at her. "Cut it out."

"Just let me know what color bridesmaid dress I should wear."

You rolled your eyes with a grin and the two of you had another laugh.

The sign for the tavern came into view by the road side and you pulled into the parking lot, allowing your car to merge in with all the others. You both reached for your purses in the back seat and then headed toward the door that led inside.

On your walk up you heard someone call out your name and turned to see the man in the plastic scarecrow mask. Joel. Seeing him there alleviated any anxiety that lingered on the chance of him not showing up. He *had* showed up, and you knew how big of a step that was for him.

"Hey!" You greeted him with a hug and he partially lifted the mask as your roommate began to introduce herself. A moment later, the three of you were walking inside, welcomed by the beat of the old time seasonal song, Midnight Monsters Hop.

"I'm gunna go get a drink," Chrissy shouted, using her thumb to motion toward the bar that was overflowing with ghouls, ghosts and everything in between.

"Okay." You gave a thumbs up and looked to Joel. "Want a drink?"

He nodded, "Yeah, sure."

You reached back behind you for his hand and felt that similar electricity from before when he took it.

Up at the bar you flagged down the bartender.

"I'll do a vodka soda and.."

"A Bud Lite," Joel added, reaching into his wallet. Like his habit at the coffee shop, he paid with cash despite your attempts to try to pay for the round.

You looked at one another and without saying a word, you tapped your glasses together and then took a sip from your drinks. Joel hesitantly lifted his mask partway. You felt so bad for his inability to be free.

When another old Halloween song came on by The Dead Kennedys, you pulled Joel with you into a crowd of people who had begun to dance along to the rock music.

The beat was fast and upbeat. Without thinking you shoved Joel playfully with a grin with one hand to his chest and then closed the gap again and began to dance right next to him.

A moment later he was following your lead. He was having fun. You were having fun. The dim lighting in the bar was intersected by strobes of oranges, greens and purples, highlighting your every move.

When Joel really began to relax you could see it in his body language. He was dancing around, grabbing your hand to twirl you and being less cautious about lifting his mask to take a sip from his beer.

The rock music never seemed to let up. You needed a break from dancing as sweat began to make your face glisten. You eyed an old photobooth in the back corner of the bar and reached for Joel's free hand again, towing him with you.

When you pushed your way through a pale, white curtain you pulled him down into a seated position beside you and inserted a five dollar bill into the money slot beneath the camera screen.

With the first 3-2-1 countdown on the screen, you both kept your masks on and you stuck out your tongue. For the second photo, Joel lifted his mask so it sat on the top of his head and he managed a half smile. For picture number three, Jessie came out of nowhere, leaping into the booth for a photobomb and then exiting just as quickly.

You were laughing. Joel was laughing. You were both genuinely enjoying the night. Seconds later, the pictures developed and you took a copy while handing one over to Joel.

He kept his mask up as you pulled him back out into the bar where you resumed dancing. The energy was fiery. You loved every minute of it. More so, you loved seeing Joel at ease and having fun. Prior to recently you had never even seen him smile.

That night, in the freaky, flashing strobe lights, things felt perfect - as perfect as they had felt on the back of Joel's bike a few hours earlier. You knew this was manifesting into one of those nights - the type of night you looked back on that was on the border of magical, at least the type of magical that existed in real life.

It was everything. The music, the lighting, the look on Joel's face as his eyes found yours and never left. You were two giddy children that night and it felt so damn good. Never in a million years did you think you'd be able to get him out of his shell.

A break in the song left the two of you breathing heavy with smiles.

"Want another drink?" He shouted.

"Sure." You smiled, and a ringing stuck in your ears with the brief absence of loud music. The next song quickly picked up and Joel smiled, squeezed your hand and then made his way through the crowd.

"Another round, please," you heard him order.

Your eyes were on him as he stood there by the bar. You still smiled. He was contagious; perhaps the definition of a diamond in the rough. Joel Miller was.. dreamy.

"Hey killer." A voice interrupted your temporary euphoria. It wasn't directed at you. It was directed at Joel. Your daydream was suddenly interrupted when you saw a man approach him as he waited for your drinks. "You're in here dancing and having a good time. Where's Johnny? Hmm?" The guy shoved him now and you ran to Joel's defense.

"Enough!" The bartender scolded but the guy went on.

"You kill a local legend and you think you can just move on?" The guy shouted.

"Stop!" You intervened, standing with Joel as others began to turn in your direction.

"Oh, you even got a girl, that's great," mocked the stranger. "You know what Johnny's girl does on and off every week? She cries. Because you killed him!"

Joel tossed a twenty on the bar, left the drinks and stormed out of the establishment. You chased after him, bursting outside and shouted his name when a car whizzed by and almost hit him on the Main Street road.

"Joel!" You shouted and hurried the rest of the way to him. "Joel, stop!"

"I can't do this!" He shouted, "You just don't get it!"

"I know." You shook your head. "Joel, I'm sorry."

"I'm not your little fucking project," Joel went on.

"I know that, Joel." You shook your head, feeling the first sting of tears in your eyes. "I just.. I like you. I was having fun with you."

"I don't belong here. Not in this town. Not anymore! Nothing is going to change that."

"It's not fair," you went on, "I know-"

"You don't know anything!" He waved his hands wildly to the sides. "You don't know how I feel every single day."

"I know I don't," you agreed, "But I want to be here for you. I want to help you. Be your friend."

"What and relive this shit show of a night almost daily with me?" He made a face and shook his head.

"This night hasn't been a shit show," you argued. "Up until two seconds ago this was one of the enjoyable nights I can remember. It started back at the junk yard and on the bike-"

"Well, I'm glad I could give you a thrill ride," Joel said in a snarky fashion that cut you a little deep.

"Joel.." you shook your head. "I enjoy your company." You extended both of your arms in his direction with your palms up.

He looked at them but distanced himself further back a few steps. "Just.. go back to your normal life and stay away from me."

He scoffed turned away from you, storming off into the darkness as you still held your arms out in front of you. Despite having just formally met him, a single tear left each of your eyes.

"Joel!" You called. "Joel, please.."

He didn't turn back around. It broke off a piece of your heart when he disappeared around the corner of the building without so much as looking back.

CLICK HERE FOR CHAPTER 4

@untamedheart81 @amy172

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roosterbruiser · 2 years ago

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𝐒𝐢𝐥𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐒𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 ✯ 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐎𝐧𝐞

✯ 𝐉𝐚𝐤𝐞 "𝐇𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐦𝐚𝐧" 𝐒𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐧 𝐱 𝐘𝐨𝐮 (𝐍𝐢𝐜𝐤𝐧𝐚𝐦𝐞: 𝐅𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐲) ✯ 𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: You and Jake go to your house after a night of celebrating your high school graduation. Things get cloudy quickly. ✯ 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐬: 8.7K ✯ 𝐒𝐢𝐥𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐒𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 𝐨𝐟𝐟𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐲𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 ✯ 𝐅𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐲'𝐬 𝐦𝐢𝐱𝐭𝐚𝐩𝐞 #𝟏 ✯ 𝐉𝐚𝐤𝐞'𝐬 𝐦𝐢𝐱𝐭𝐚𝐩𝐞 #𝟏 ✯ 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐒𝐢𝐥𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐒𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 ✯ 𝐫𝐨𝐨𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐛𝐫𝐮𝐢𝐬𝐞𝐫'𝐬 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭

𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐎𝐧𝐞 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐎𝐧𝐞 𝐒𝐢𝐥𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐤𝐞𝐞𝐩, 𝐓𝐗 𝐌𝐚𝐲 𝟐𝟒𝐭𝐡, 𝟐𝟎𝟎𝟖

The ugly little radio on your cluttered desk is on right now, playing very lowly.

Free Bird by Lynyrd Skynyrd is playing now and you’re bobbing your head along as you steady yourself by gripping the edge of the desk. You’re definitely drunk--can feel the beer pulsing in your veins. You can feel the lining of your stomach practically deteriorating in a pool of Busch Lite.

“Careful now,” Jake teases quietly, chuckling. “Don’t disturb all your study materials.”

He’s saying this because your desk contains precisely zero studying materials--and it never has. It has random Monopoly cash with little notes written on them, expired nail polish, a few empty containers of Bug Juice, some plastic butterfly clips you stole from the local beauty supply, a dinky slinky, soda-flavored chapstick you also stole from the local beauty supply, and a couple bottles of Citrus Mistress that are all half-used.

“Didn’t need to study as hard as you,” you quip, “and we still graduated with the same GPA. Life is such a mystery.”

“What’s a mystery is how you sleep on this tiny bed,” Jake groans softly, trying to get comfortable on your unmade bed.

“Well, I’m not a six-foot baseball player,” you respond, shrugging. “So that definitely helps.”

“Aren’t you supposed to have Southern hospitality or somethin’?” Jake complains, a smile still tugging on his lips.

It makes you giggle. You and him climbed in through your bedroom window only ten minutes ago and already he’s insulting your hospitality--rightfully so, really. You’re not doing much to make him comfortable in your cramped and unruly room. Not that you ever really have to--he has been coming in through your bedroom window a long time and doesn’t ever require an invitation or welcoming. He’ll moan all day about your tiny bed, but will still sprawl himself out on top of it and rifle through the books you keep at your bedside. You will sometimes even come home from work and find him already there in your bedroom, blowing cigarette smoke into the little blanket you keep at the end of your bed just like you always do.

“Can’t help the way I was born,” you sigh, tapping your finger on the worn wooden grains as you search for a matchbook among all your clutter. “Which was apparently without hosting skills.”

Jake laughs, shaking his head softly.

“So, it’s in your DNA to be so rude all the damn time?”

You nod, grabbing the matches finally. They were hiding beneath a few Dum-Dum suckers.

“Exactly,” you breathe, shooting a grin over your shoulder.

Jake’s grinning at you, pretending to roll his eyes.

“Smells like fuckin’ oranges over here,” Jake mumbles.

Of course he’s also pretending like this fact bothers him--like he isn’t fighting an overpowering urge to bury his face in your quilt and smell you. He doesn’t even love the scent of that body spray you practically bathe in--he only likes it because you wear it, because he associates the smell with you now. He can never remember the name of your body spray--something dumb like Orange Cream Dream or Obscene Tangerine--but he could pick that scent out of a line-up.

“Anythin’ else you wanna complain about?”

You peer at Jake from the corner of your eye, biting your lip. He thinks for a moment before shaking his head.

“Not presently.” He smiles.

“From now on, you can start submittin’ your complaints to the official complaint box,”' you tell him, cheekily nodding towards the overflowing wastebasket stuck beside your desk. “Your feedback is valuable to us here at Filly’s Lodge.”

“Noted,” Jake says with a grin. “Love that face, too. Service with a smile!”

You poke your tongue out at him, ignoring the burning in your cheeks.

Jake smells like springwater and cigarettes. He’s sitting on top of the tired quilt that covers your twin mattress, leaning against the wall lazily with a half-smile on his wet lips. Whenever he leaves, carefully climbing out of your bedroom window and over the buttonbush that sits below it, your bed will smell like him. You’ll be able to bury your face in the quilt, that worn cotton pressing into your cheeks and lips, and pretend like he is still here.

You think he’s still high and know he’s still drunk.

“Wanna play Misty,” Jake whispers, narrowing his eyes at you as you try to fruitlessly strike a match. “C’mon, I’ll play quietly!”

You’re drunk, too--drunk enough that you keep having to lean against the wobbling three-legged dresser and blink away the bleariness in your eyes. But you’re not drunk enough to take his words at face-value. He can’t play his guitar quietly any easier than you can fucking light this match.

“Is it that you’re stupid or that you think I’m stupid?” You whisper. “Just tryin’ to get the full picture here.”

The match finally strikes in a wisp of sulfur; you light the candy-scented candle and settle it on your dresser before shuffling across the carpet to the bed. Jake doesn’t move from his spot in the middle of the mattress, limbs strewn all about. They’re thin and sinewy, still paled from wintertime.

“Oh, Filly-girl,” he moans lowly, collapsing into you when the bed dips beneath your weight. The springs groan and you know, even as drunk as you are, that it’s too loud. “You’re a mean little thing, ain’t you?”

“Hush up, Seresin,” you hiss in a whispered tone, leaning your head on his chest. “You’re too damn loud without Misty in the mix.”

“You love how loud I am,” he accuses.

“Or you’ve just broken me down finally,” you sigh.

He grins.

“I may be good at makin’ nice with all them horses at the Carolina’s,” Jake starts, stretching his fingertips towards the ceiling and giving you a fleeting glimpse of his taut belly, “but I don’t think I’m good enough to break you, Filly.”

This pleases you enough for heat to rise in your cheeks--if you’ve never been anything, it’s shy. It’s difficult for you to hide whatever emotion you’re feeling--it’s always written clear as day on your face. Even if it wasn’t, you’re sure that Jake would be able to figure it out in a few seconds flat.

“Damn straight,” you tell him with your brows blanched. “No one is. It’d do you good to remember that, too.”

He mockingly salutes you, which has you batting his hand away with a giggle.

His weight is a familiar one, one that is as regular to you as a cigarette after lunch or a swim in the spring. He’s warm and you know that it isn’t just because of all the beer he drank--he’s perpetually radiating heat, oozing out of his body in thick and suffocating waves. He’s laughing a breathy sort of laugh, his aspen-colored eyes hazy and far away even as his nose nudges against yours during his bid to regain his posture.

God--his breath smells yeasty. His saliva must be thick with alcohol; it makes spit gather under your tongue just thinking about what his mouth must taste like. And when he’s this close to you, falling sideways into your body so that he’s very nearly on top of you, you can smell him exactly: the American Spirit cigarettes he smokes but doesn’t like, the muddy water of Silver Spring, the musty smoke from your bonfire, the marijuana you smoked, the beer he drank, the dirt you laid upon.

“M’fallin’,” he mumbles once he realizes that he’s on top of you.

“You’re fallen,” you correct, carefully slinking out from under him. “All over my bed, might I add. Scoot over!”

“Sorry,” he slurs, rubbing his eyes and raking his hands through his shaggy locks. Then he gives you a grin, one that is toothy as it is wide. It’s the kind of grin that usually prefaces something brash and stupid. “Watch how shhhh, quiet I can be when I play guitar,” he whispers, raising his eyebrows as he sits up against your chipped wall again.

The world is fuzzy as he pretends to grab Misty--which is not actually physically on the floor or even in this room, for that matter--and settle her over his lap. Your throat is caked in beer still as he even pretends to tune, closing his eyes like he’s trying to really hear if she’s ready to be played. There’s a bubble in your chest--one that is bloated and filled with all the noise that you’re trying very hard to keep behind your grinning lips--and you’re afraid it’s going to burst when Jake starts strumming his faux-strings.

“This one goes out to my best friend, Filly,” he says to his invisible audience, leaning up against the wall when he starts to slump over again. “She’s a pain in my ass and the love of my life,” he finishes.

“Really know how to make a girl swoon, don’t you, mustang?” You tease him, rolling your eyes to the high heavens but letting your cheek rest against the warm skin of his shin anyway. His leg hairs, the ones that you’ve teased him about since they first arrived in middle school, tickle your cheeks.

You’ve been calling him mustang for a long, long time. Neither of you really remember when it started: it was sometime after you met in the quaint carpeted Sunday school classroom at Silverkeep Baptist, but sometime before you were old enough to steal cigarettes from your mama’s purses. You’ve always been a bit of a precocious child, unruly mop of curls a mirror of your quick wit and tenacity. Mustang just falls from your mouth so easily--partly teasing and partly not.

He’s been calling you Filly for as long as you can remember. It’s what everyone has always called you; your daddy started it up when you were young and you grew so used to the name that you preferred it. You even had teachers calling you Filly by the second week of kindergarten. It just suited you.

“Every now and then,” he answers cheekily, giving you a grin that could blind a driver with his white teeth and wet lips and dimples and tan skin. “Shh, m’playing my lady.”

You aren’t sure if he means you or imaginary Misty--he definitely means Misty, though.

You’re biting your lip hard, numb from the terrible beer Hyde was able to snag from the corner store, batting away the glassiness of your eyes as Jake pretends to stroke his guitar. He’s good at it, even if his guitar isn’t really in his arms. Lord knows you’ve seen him play enough times to imagine what the tune would sound like had he really had Misty sitting on his lap now. He’s good at a lot of things, which both endlessly annoys you and enamors you. He’s the best damn pitcher the Silverbullet’s have ever seen (and probably ever will see now that Jake’s aged off the team), he can handle more of that piss-tasting beer than anyone you know, he’s charming as a TV weatherman, and he ain’t half bad at riding all those horses he tends to on the Carolina’s farm on the edge of town.

He’s still strumming that pretend instrument while you watch on, pretending to be annoyed. Really, though, you’re the opposite of annoyed: you’re overjoyed to be in here with him. He’s not supposed to be in your bedroom, especially without your parents knowing, especially this late, especially when the both of you are drunk.

But the two of you are too excited to not be with each other right now. You graduated high school today, sweating through your polyester robes, walking across that rickety stage holding each other’s arms, celebrating with Hyde and Ruth with an entire afternoon (and evening) of drinking and smoking on the banks of Silver Spring. And when Ruth and Hyde decided to finally call it quits, Ruth whining about how early church was tomorrow morning and Hyde hardly able to keep his eyes open, you and Jake had silently agreed to keep your party going privately.

So that’s how the two of you have ended up in your little bedroom, half on top of each other, Jake serenading you silently, your giggles hardly muffled by your wet lips.

Free Bird finishes and Me and Bobby McGee by Janis Joplin begins quietly.

“Any requests from the audience?” Jake asks, pretending to scan over a crowd as he looks over at your overflowing hamper and your drugstore makeup and your mismatched socks and your crate of old records. “I’ll take what I can get!”

“Play Free Bird,” you mockingly call to him, grinning when he spurts out laughter.

You’re definitely not sober and even if that fact had been lost on you earlier, the shiver that tickles your spine when his throat opens up and vibrates like that would basically be a flashing red neon sign that says you’re drunk! And also the fact that the two of you are being audacious enough to laugh out loud when your parents are sleeping a measly twenty feet away through two flimsy plywood doors is a screaming indicator.

“Don’t know if I have a fourteen-minute guitar solo in me tonight,” Jake says quietly, raking his hands through his hair and finally dropping Misty back into the air she was born from. “What else can we do?”

The two of you both know the logical answer: go to bed. Jake should really get up and out of your bed while he’s still sober enough, walk on down to his house, climb into his bedroom window, and get a few hours of shut-eye before church.

But neither of you are willing to leave each other.

“Drink?” You suggest with a shrug.

Jake points at you, lips pursed.

“I like the way you think, Filly-girl,” he says.

So you sink to the floor again, trying hard to be quiet as you push through all your old stuffed animals and candy wrappers and dust bunnies to pull out the dwindling case of Blue Ribbon you’d gotten ahold of a few weeks ago.

It’s lukewarm at best, especially since your room is always so hot, but it’s all the two of you have right now.

“Here,” Jake slurs, gesturing for both cans. He pops yours open for you so your fingers don’t get wet, never mind the droplets that landed on your quilt. “Drink up, buttercup.”

The two of you unceremoniously clink cans before swigging the liquid. You can’t drink it without grimacing, even if you don’t exactly mind the temperature of it. It’s just that it tastes like fucking piss. Jake is too drunk to care about what it tastes like, but even if he did, he’s sure that twist in your lips and pitiful squint of your eyes would numb his tongue.

“That’s good stuff,” he teases and you laugh again.

He really loves that sound, even when it’s whispered.

“We’re livin’ the high life over here,” you whisper, biting your lip hard. “How’s your day today?”

It tickles him that you’re asking as if you weren’t with him all day.

He sighs, deciding to play along as he rests an arm behind his head, taking another long drink of the beer as you sip on yours.

“Fine. Nothin’ much happened. Graduated high school. Smoked some weed. Drank some beer. Went swimmin’.”

You nod, taking another drink, still trying to conceal a toothy grin. Your cheeks feel warm and fuzzy--probably from consuming another beer.

“Sounds like every other Saturday,” you tease.

He nods, taking another drink.

“Just another day in paradise, I guess,” he says. Then he looks at you with his eyes very soft, with his face very open. “How’s your day?”

You know why he’s asking you. It’s because today marks the beginning of something that feels a lot like an end. It’s something that makes your belly ache just to think about. Today, the two of you graduated high school in the same building you started kindergarten together in. This will be your last summer with both of you living in Silverkeep because come August, he’ll be going to the University of Austin on a baseball scholarship--a full-ride. And you--well, you’re just staying here.

“My day’s okay,” you tell him, trying not to let your face reflect the bitterness that has suddenly settled in the pit of your belly. “Ready for this summer.”

At the mention of summer, and because of the way your lips twitched into an unintentional frown and your eyes getting glassy, Jake sighs.

“Still got a weddin’ date in you?”

That makes you smile. He’s really, really glad to see that little gap between your front teeth. He’d do just about anything in the world to see your lips curl upwards, to see those cheeks of yours turn pink as an apple.

You are mildly surprised, though, that it’s you he’s taking to the wedding.

“‘Course you do,” you tell him with a smile, throwing your hair over your shoulder as you adjust to get comfortable on your little mattress. “Wouldn’t make you go to that weddin’ all on your lonesome.”

“You’re a saint,” he says with a grin.

The wedding the two of you are talking about is his oldest sister’s wedding. Harper Seresin is marrying Curtis Bennett, who is ten years older than her and looks and acts it, late in the month of July. Harper, who still lives at home, drives Jake absolutely up the wall. So does his other older sister Callie and his younger sister Brandy. Jake reckons the only people that don’t drive him crazy are you and his mama, who you affectionately call Mama Fran.

“Yeah, I’m pretty much the best,” you sigh, pressing your face against his legs. “Gonna make me slow dance with you, mustang?”

Carefully, you begin to stroke his leg. It’s honestly an absent movement, just something that you do to feel close to him, something you do without even really thinking about it. But you’ve grown so comfortable to the feeling of his soft sandy hairs against your skin that it soothes something in your chest that seems to always ache.

“Hell yeah I am,” Jake says. “Gotta show you off!”

You roll your eyes--ignore the stuttering of your heart. You take another drink and he can feel it against his ankle when you swallow. It’s such a fluid and soft movement, one that makes his own throat feel tight.

“Sorry in advance for when I step on your toes,” you sigh, smiling coyly.

“No, you’re not,” Jake snorts quietly.

You laugh--your breath is warm against his leg. It’s the warmest thing in the entire room despite the lack of air conditioning in your entire house, despite how stuffy it is in here, despite the rickety fan in the corner blowing warm air over his face.

“No, I’m not,” you confirm.

He’s grinning at you now, basking in the warmth of your flushed cheek against his naked shin. He’s certain there are little stars in his eyes as he lets them rest on the sweet curve of your nose and the pucker in your lips as you flutter your eyes shut to think of what to do next. Your face is a familiar one to him--one that he can hardly remember a time before, when he didn’t know those long lashes and that little gap between your front teeth. Everything about you is familiar; the sound of your open-mouthed laughter, the feel of your chipped fingernails against the skin of his scalp, your skin against his skin.

He can’t help himself--he knows he’s drunk, he knows it only exacerbates his throbbing need to touch you all the time, but he submits to it now--as he leans forward just slightly to let his thumb rest against your lips. He’s not even thinking about his girlfriend right now--Hell, he hardly thought about her at all today. He left Emmaline in the dust today to spend the first day of summer break with his friends--but really, he ditched Emmaline to spend the first day of summer with you.

“Like your lips like this,” he says quietly, pretending like your spit on the pad of his finger isn’t making it hard for him to breathe.

“Like what?” You ask softly, voice thin.

Your heart is starting to race--you can feel it pulsing behind your eyelids.

“Naked,” he answers after a moment, throat impossibly tighter.

What he means is that he didn’t like that Barbie-pink lipstick you wore to graduation, the one that came off in crumbs. He didn’t like your blue eyeshadow either or the way it coated your freckled cheeks when you blinked. Or the neon blush on your cheeks or the smudged glittery eyeliner haphazardly smeared on your eyelids. He likes your face like this: open and bare.

The only thing he liked about that cheap-ass Barbie-labia lipstick was that you were unable to stop disturbing it, so it kept ending up smeared in the corners of your mouth or on your teeth. So Jake, being the Southern gentleman he is, corrected it for you. Which meant that he got to touch your mouth--which felt unholy and downright sacred. Once, when it was smeared across your teeth, he told you to snarl before he let his thumb run across the silky wetness of your teeth. Under the Texas sun on that stupid little football field with all of your graduating class (which was a whopping twenty-seven students), he was sure he was going to melt from the heat of your mouth on his finger alone. Especially when you had quickly kissed his finger, effectively staining it in the shape of your mouth, in a very you-way of showing gratitude.

Your breath is hitched right now as he stares at your lips.

He’s drunk, you remind yourself. He’s drunk, he’s drunk, he’s drunk.

“Naked, huh?” You whisper, trying hard not to just open your mouth and let his finger come inside. “Reckon that’s scandalous, what with your girly-friend and all.”

You’re teasing him to mask the throbbing between your legs. You suddenly wish you weren’t on this bed with him, the bed that hasn’t been big enough to fit both of you since you were in eighth grade, the bed you two always squish together on.

You gulp your beer, finishing half of it.

But Jake knows you--knows you better than anyone else in the entire world. So he knows that when you tease him, when you call Emmaline Odette his girly-friend with that little bitter lilt in your voice, when your eyebrows blanche, when your lips part wetly that you’re defending something. He isn’t precisely sure what it is that you’re defending, but it’s something big--something soft.

Jake is just drunk enough to say it to you, just drunk enough to get it off his chest the way he’s been wanting to since, what feels like, the dawn of time. He feels like he’s just the right level of lovesick and inebriated to say fuck Emmaline, I’m in love with you. If he was sober, he would feel instantaneously guilty. Emmaline isn’t a bad girl--she’s just prissy, which is why you don’t like her. And it isn’t Emma’s fault that she’s prissy, that she’s never really struggled in any capacity. It also isn’t her fault that she’s just a placeholder--a placeholder for you.

“You’re right,” Jake says finally, pushing aside all thoughts of Emmaline and the voicemails she’s probably left for him on his family’s phone despite him constantly asking her not to do that. “Maybe I should just break up with her.”

You’re shocked for a moment--shocked enough to laugh dryly. But his face is unchanging as he gazes down at you: his eyes soft and wickedly beautiful in the plastic lamplight of your room, his lips pink, his finger still pressed against your mouth.

But then something changes. Your spine is tingling as you straighten it, fingers wet against the aluminum can in your clutches. You’re something between nervous and audacious.

“Didn’t know you wanted to break up with Emma,” you whisper, unwilling to move your mouth away from his finger.

When his thumb comes down to grasp the point of your chin, when he practically holds you in place as his eyes darken, your toes curl into the cotton pillow they’re resting on. If your mama was in here, she’d be sighing and groaning about you laying on your bed without showering--especially since you were swimming all day. But right now, as Jake gazes down at you and lets his middle finger rest on your bottom lip too, you don’t care about any of it.

“Do you want me to?”

Jake has put the ball in your court--he knows it and so do you.

“I don’t know what I want,” you answer.

It feels layered and you suppose it is. You don’t like Emmaline as much as she doesn’t like you. Girls like her, with their clean hair and manicures and thin eyebrows and bedazzled jeans, aren’t friends with girls like you. You haven’t had a new pair of jeans since your freshman year of high school, you bite your nails when they’re too long, and your hair is too rambunctious to even try and brush. You two are as different as silk and leather; one of you is much tougher, but more people prefer looking at the softer one.

It isn’t that you want Jake to be alone, even if you don’t love when he has a girlfriend. Of course you don’t like it--you’re in love with him, you think. Of course you’re not gonna like any girlfriend he has. But he’s a good sport when there’s some plaid-wearing boy sniffing around you and you try--not very hard, but still--to be good for him.

“You don’t like her,” he says and he isn’t angry when he says this. He’s not accusing so much as stating.

“No, I don’t,” you say, nodding.

You’re an honest person--a brutally honest person. He likes that about you. You don’t dilly-dally around.

“You don’t hide it very well,” Jake tells you.

You nod again.

“No, I don’t,” you repeat, a small smile tugging at your lips. “Do you? Like her?”

Jake shrugs before he even means to. He knows that he shouldn’t be shrugging when you ask him if he likes his own girlfriend. But he can’t help but be honest with you--he’s always been honest with you.

“She’s fine,” he answers. “She’s probably gonna be pissed that I wasn’t with her tonight.”

He says this like he doesn’t already know that she’s pissed. They had argued about it earlier that day, just like they’d argued about him walking with you instead of her, just like they argued about him pointing to you in the crowd before hitting home runs instead of her. He couldn’t help it--it was just in his blood to think of you first.

“Probably,” you answer. “She gonna leave one of those pissy messages on your house phone again?”

Jake groans and smiles at the same time.

“How’d it go again? What’d she say that one time?” You’re laughing, basking in this feeling right now, laughing with the boy you’re in love with about the girl he’s dating.

“This really reflects poorly on your character,” Jake imitates Emmaline, letting his voice raise a couple octaves--just because he knows it’ll make you laugh.

And you do laugh--the pretty, pretty laugh that he swears he hears in his dreams sometimes. It’s a beautiful one--a perfect one.

“Oh, that’s good,” you breathe, still giggling. “What a fuckin’ princess.”

“What--you don’t think me missin’ our eight o’clock phone call reflects poorly on my character?”

He still has his finger pressed against your lips--it’s grown comfortable there. There really aren’t many places on your body that he hasn’t grown entirely comfortable touching and your mouth is no exception; he pulled every single one of your baby teeth because it made you too squeamish.

“She reflects poorly on your character,” you whisper, a boldness biting your tongue. “Don’t you worry about what she says ‘bout you when you’re not there?”

Jake’s spine prickles at the thought.

The Odette’s are probably the richest people in Silverkeep--like the kind of folk that could afford to live really anywhere else. The first time Jake went over to her house, the big old brick thing with freshly-painted shutters and bright green grass, he was afraid of drying his hands on the monogrammed towels in the guest bathroom. He felt dirty when he was around her--even if he’d just bathed. Even having sex with Emmaline was like taking a shower; he felt cleaner after.

“Well, now I do,” Jake laughs dryly, pinching your lip softly.

You don’t move away, just blinking up at him.

“You should,” you tell him honestly, fingering the tab of your beer can. “She ain’t our kinda people.”

Jake tuts, shrugging again. He knows you’re right. He really, really knows you’re right. And really, you’re the only person brave enough to say that about him. Your family is poor and so is Jake’s. Your parents work themselves to the bone to give you guys off-brand cereal and cramped bedrooms, neither of you have cars, all of your clothes are stretched to the limit, and a portion of both your paychecks go towards the house payment. Emmaline’s never worked a day in her life--if she didn’t want to, she probably would never have to. Jake knows this. And he’d be lying if he said the tightness in his chest was only from being so close to you.

“Can’t say that,” Jake says, but his voice is thin. “We’re all supposed to love each other, right? Or whatever hippie-shit Hyde’s always preachin’.”

He’s trying to make you smile, but you’re not. You’re suddenly worried about what Emmaline says about him when he’s not there. You’ve wondered the entire three months they’ve been together what she sees in him. It isn’t that you think there’s nothing about him that’s attractive--Hell, you think everything about him is achingly perfect. But it’s just that girls like her usually date boys that get regular haircuts and drive big trucks. They don’t usually date the fatherless boy that works his tail off shoveling horse shit to lessen the financial burden on his mama.

“You deserve someone nicer,” you tell him finally, your voice quieter than before but just as serious. “Someone that won’t make you get your license.”

Jake nods along, not disagreeing with you.

“Probably good to have a license,” he tries softly, shrugging.

“You don’t have a car,” you say with a pointed look.

You don’t say it, but you know that he probably won’t have a car for the foreseeable future. The only way he’d be able to afford a car is if he won the lottery or if someone died and left him money.

“Fine,” Jake sighs. “Then who should I be with?”

You’re turning pink again--you can feel it flooding your face and chest. And you’re overwhelmed by the scent of him, by all the places your bodies are touching. So you just blink up at him, hoping that he can’t see the lump in your throat.

And Jake is looking down at you with a sweet sort of softness, one that is usually attached to his level of drunkenness. He’s seems to have hit that sweet spot right now, that spot that makes him feel lovely and brave and scared and elated all at the same time. Just looking at you, looking at the flush in your cheeks and the slight tremble of your lower lip underneath his fingers--it makes him want you bad.

He retracts his grip from your mouth, aching for the warmth and familiarity of your lips, but pushing through it. He picks up your hand, carefully detaching it from your beer can. He holds your fingers, his heart thumping in his throat, and glances down at your fingernails. They’re bitten things, always short and never even. There’s little half-crescents of dirt beneath them, too, because there isn’t enough time in your day to care about something so trivial.

“Someone who’ll get some dirt under their fingernails?”

He’s not sure why he’s said it--but he has and now it’s lingering in the air. And it isn’t regret that he feels slinking up his frame, no, not at all. It’s a strange sort of relief. He’s said it--or at least suggested it. He’s never gotten so close to just blurting it out. But this will work for now.

You’re certain that your heart stops for an entire minute as you stare up at him dumbly. You’re in a state of total disbelief right now because as much as you two touch each other, as much as your harbor feelings for him, as in love with you as you are, you’re entirely sure that it is one-sided.

But you know, know with your entire heart and every other organ in your trembling body, that there is dirt under your fingernails right now.

And then he softly brings your fingers up to his lips, his eyes flickering shut as he kisses your knuckles. Now you really can’t breathe, really can’t move because you’re sure that if you do, this fragile thing will collapse.

Jake feels the same, just inhaling your skin while you’re allowing him to, just trying to memorize the placement of every bone in your sweet hand, just trying to remember the exact way you smell. He can’t look at your face--terrified that you will be horrified.

But you’re not moving away from him. You’re not moving at all.

He lets your hand fall back onto the bed and it lays there limp because you simply don’t have it in you to pick it up--you’re entirely paralyzed right now, trying to blink yourself back into reality.

Then he touches your mouth again and you let him, trying to hide the hitch in your breathing, trying to swallow the bundle of nerves sitting thickly on your tongue. And this time, he doesn’t ask--he just presses until your lips are parted and then swipes his thumb across your teeth. There it is--that little gap he loves so much.

“Someone with a gap between their front teeth?”

You nearly moan out loud. Your thighs are burning because you’re pressing them together so hard, suddenly desperate for some sort of friction. In fact, you’re paralyzed all except for an ache in your core that is starting to radiate all across your body. You’ve felt this before, sure, having a handful of romps with boys here and there. But it’s never been from something as simple, something as sexy, as Jake touching these little parts of your body.

“What’re you doin’?” You ask, voice trembling.

And Jake retracts immediately, heat flooding his cheeks, a sick feeling washing over his body at the very notion of making you uncomfortable.

But then you reach out and grab his wrist. You’ve touched his wrist before--Hell, you’ve touched just about every spot on his body. But right now, wrapping your fingers around those bones and that skin and feeling that quickened pulse, it feels very intimate.

“I didn’t say stop,” you breathe.

And maybe it’s because you’re drunk still, though significantly more sober from his touch, and maybe it’s because he’s drunk and a little bit high. Maybe it’s because he’s looking at you with such softness, his eyes wide and swimming in sweetness. Or maybe it’s because you’ve only dreamed about moments like this one.

But you lead his hand back to your parted lips, eyelashes trembling terribly as you press his fingers into your mouth and let them fall on your tongue. His response is immediate--a little gasp catching in his mouth, his eyes bleary and wide, his cheeks reddening.

You almost can’t believe that it’s happening; his fingers are in your mouth and you’re tasting his skin, all that dirt and beer and water and oil dissolving in your warm saliva. It slides down your throat as you very softly suck, swirling your tongue on his fingertips, blinking up at him with big eyes.

He can’t believe it’s happening either--watching your tongue work around his fingers like you were born to do it, your lashes trembling ever so lightly as you look up at him, your body radiating heat. His mind is swimming and his heart is pulsing and his cock is starting to throb, but above all of that, all he can think about is you, you, you, you, you.

So he takes his fingers out of your mouth slowly, basking in the feeling of your tongue sliding across his knuckles, and catches a glimpse of that saliva coating his fingers before he lets his hand float down to your chest.

Your breaths are rapid as you eagerly await his touch, suddenly dizzy with want for him. And he looks up at you as his fingers tug at the hem of your dress, the one you outgrew a few years ago, and you just nod. Of course you do--you’re desperate for him.

His hand snakes beneath your dress, skirting across the curve of your hip and stilling when they land on the hills of your breasts. Your bra is honestly ill-fitting, too, and he already knows that from swimming earlier. He knows that you’re wearing yellow cotton underwear, too, and that they’re probably dried of spring water now but wet with arousal.

Jake indulges that overwhelming desire to get closer to you. He moves clumsily and so do you, tangling in each other with bated breaths, trying to fit on your stupid twin bed.

Then the two of you are laying nose-to-nose, looking deeply into each other’s eyes, each of you too afraid to speak for fear of breaking whatever trance has fallen over the both of you. You’re close enough to kiss each other, but you don’t. He just rests his forehead against yours and you nudge your nose against his softly.

His hand is still under your dress, hovering your breast. And before he can change his mind, before he can ruin this perfect moment, he swiftly pulls the flimsy fabric of your bra aside and lets his palm cover your exposed breast.

Your moan is the most beautiful thing he’s ever heard--it’s raspy and breathy, even better than your laugh, even better than your silly singing voice. His entire body reacts to the sound like some sort of dog-whistle. His shoulders relax, his heart practically melts in his chest, his cock jumps, his legs tense.

Your breasts are just as soft as he imagined they’d be--supple and wanting beneath his palm. And when he pinches your nipple, lets it pebble between his fingers, you moan again. Now he’s beginning to ache with want, growing desperate for some sort of gratification. But he’s still too afraid to make any sudden movements, like you’re an animal that’s easily spooked.

That’s the precise moment that you reach out for the first time and tangle your hands in his hair. You’re breathing hard, eyes shut, heart racing, beads of pleasure swirling around in your belly. You’re so close to him, so achingly close, but it is not nearly enough for you. You have to touch him in more places than just your noses, have to feel him all against you and all over you.

So you let your fingers grip those shaggy locks, bask in the little sound in his throat, try not to let tears cloud your eyes when he grows confident enough to press his knee between your legs to effectively part them.

“Jake,” you whisper, entirely breathless as he pinches your nipple again.

“Don’t,” he whispers, shaking his head, pressing down harder on your breasts and relishing in that sweet sound again and again.

“We shouldn’t--I can’t, you have a--we can’t…” You’re trying very hard to make sense as you speak to him but it’s proving to be very difficult, especially when he presses his naked leg up against your heat and gives you that sweet, sweet friction.

He shakes his head again, his beer-scented breath fanning out over your face.

“Stop talkin’,” he whispers, eyes fluttering shut. “Unless you don’t want this. Then you gotta say it. You gotta say that you don’t want it.”

You’re silent. You want this bad--you want it so bad that your fingers are starting to tremble. You want it so bad that your mind is totally empty except for thoughts of him. You’ve already submitted entirely to him and his hands.

“Okay,” you whisper, nodding.

He grins, eyes still shut as he shakes his head lightly.

“I said stop talkin’,” he whispers.

“Sorry,” you return in the same hushed tone.

And usually, you wouldn’t be so malleable. You wouldn’t be so easy to render silent. You wouldn’t usually be so compliant. But you feel like you’re in some sort of dream-state right now, like you’re floating between this realm and a better one, like things are finally going your way. Because as unreal as this feels, you know that it is real. You know especially when his breath puffs against your face as he laughs softly and when a laugh bubbles out of you, too. This is real; it’s you and it’s Jake. It’s his hand and your breast. It’s his leg and your clothed cunt.

He’s silent after that, just looking at your face as he kneads your breasts and rests his forehead against yours. Your eyebrows are pinched and your lip is bitten and he can see that little gap between your teeth. And he can feel how warm you are between your legs, can feel wetness gathering in your underwear as he presses his leg up against your cunt. And your fingers are softly tugging his locks as you moan quietly and all those little touches and sounds are making him painfully hard.

All thoughts of Emmaline have dissipated entirely--not that he even thinks about her very often at all.

Your lips are so close to touching his. You can almost feel the outline of his bottom lip against your top lip, can almost feel how wet his mouth is, can almost feel how warm his tongue is. But for some reason, you’re not kissing. You’re just hovering over each other, moaning softly, panting into each other’s mouths.

The Killing Moon by Echo & the Bunnymen is playing now.

“Can I?” Jake asks, letting his fingers dance across your belly again and land on the band of your underwear.

Silently, you nod. Your heart is in your throat again, beating erratically. But you want this--you know in your bones that you want this. You want it so bad that you could cry. You’re glad that you’re not totally sober, glad that you have a bit of beer loosening your joints.

Jake is so turned on that he could explode, but he’ll be damned if he won’t savor every single moment of this. He lets his fingers slip beneath the cotton underwear and keeps a careful eye on the hitching breaths in your chest.

He moans softly when he feels your cunt for the first time. Here is a place he has never touched you before, maybe one of the only ones. And you are perfect, he knows it without even seeing you up close. The little stubble you have there pricks his skin as he carefully slinks his way to your folds.

You’re gripping his hair, hips bucking towards him, eyes screwed shut when he lets just his middle finger carefully part your lips. Pleasure explodes in your body, hot as a gas stove, and you have to bite down hard on your lip in fear that you’ll wake your parents up. But it feels so fucking good just having his one finger against your wetness, pressing down on your clit.

“Fuck,” Jake whispers, shaking his head softly, shuddering.

He’s fingered his fair share of girls--being on the baseball team has its benefits--but he’s suddenly nervous to mess this up. You’re the most perfect person he’s ever met, the most perfect person he’s ever touched. He wants you to feel good and he wants to be the one that makes you feel good.

You, on the other hand, have never been touched here. There was that one boy at the drive-in about a year ago that got a little handsy, but he never breached the waistband of your panties. This is entirely new pleasure for you, one that feels paramount and out of your control. You’re not sure if you loathe it or love it yet, so you just rest your cheek on the bed and gasp for air like a fish out of water.

And Jake is moving closer to you, pressing his hips against your body. You can feel how hard he is, how uncomfortable that must be. But you’re too nervous to reach down and touch him, too paralyzed with pleasure to even move at all.

Jake is panting now. You’re so wet and silky, hips moving subtly to meet every movement of his hand. And you’re breathing so loudly, redness gathering on your chest, mouth endlessly parted.

This still feels like a dream.

But it’s the best dream he’s ever had.

He moves quicker, the pace something that he knows Emmaline and the other girls have liked, and presses his nose into yours as you grip him harshly. You’re so hot, squirming beneath his fingers, moving closer and farther from him at the same time.

You’re not necessarily uncomfortable right now, but you feel like you’re rapidly approaching it. He’s touching you almost too perfectly, going almost too fast, pressing that one spot so harshly that it’s too much. And you’ve never been touched here by him or any other man and that thought alone is making you dizzy. You feel like something is approaching rapidly, like all of this is about to come to a head, and you’re afraid of what that is.

So you clamp your legs together, pushing yourself against his chest. He removes his hand at once, jolting back into sobriety momentously. And he’s searching your face as it pinches, as you recover from almost cumming on his fingers, as you try and catch your breath.

“Y’alright?” He asks, shaking his head softly as you swallow hard.

You’re hot with embarrassment now, trying desperately to get some moisture on your tongue. Jake is worried he crossed a line, worried that you didn’t want it as badly as he did. But then you’re hesitantly looking up at him, shaking your head softly, and he knows that isn’t the case.

“It--it was too good,” you whisper, pulling your dress down over your thighs as you swallow harshly again.

Jake sighs, his shoulders slumping. So you did want it--he didn’t cross a line.

“You ever done that before?” He asks.

You both move to prop yourselves up on your elbows, still looking at each other. Jake subtly lets his fingers air out against his shorts as you pull into yourself with your hair mussed and eyes bleary.

“No,” you answer honestly. “Not with anyone else.”

He nods. He didn’t know that.

“Should’ve taken it easier on you,” he whispers.

You’re burning under his gaze, squeezing your thighs together as aftershocks of pleasure ricochet through your still-taut body.

“Maybe,” you whisper.

Then it’s quiet for a moment.

Jake’s still trying to gather his thoughts and you’re still trying to get your heartrate back down. Both of you are in a state of disbelief, reeling at how quickly that all went and how sudden it was.

Neither of you will ask what it meant. Neither of you will tell the other that it isn’t just hormones and alcohol that made you feel the way you did just a few minutes ago. You’re both stubborn people and your boots are faster than your brains. Neither of you are the admitting type, especially when it comes to big things that matter.

Because for Jake, the worst thing that could happen is that he hurts you. He says something dumb and he makes you cry or he does something you don’t like. And maybe you’ll forgive him, but you probably won’t because you don’t like to forgive people. He wants to be on your good side for the rest of his days. And if he fucks up and tells you that he is in love with you and that every other girl he’s ever touched has just been a temporary fix, he’s afraid that it will frighten and hurt you.

And for you, the worst thing that could happen is that he doesn’t feel the same way you do. You’ve been in love with him for so long that the feeling has almost become a part of your personality. You are hopelessly in love with his shaggy hair and his stupid calloused fingers and his laugh and the dimple in his left cheek and the hair on his legs and the way he looks when he rides his bike. And if he didn’t feel that way about you then you would be turned inside out.

“Do you want me to leave?” Jake asks softly.

He had planned on staying before it all happened, planning on crashing on your bed and waking up in a few hours to walk home to shower before church in the morning. But now he isn’t so sure.

He’s blinking at you, wishing that the two of you were still touching. He’s bracing himself for your answer, bracing himself for that stiffness in your limbs and the bitterness in your tone when you tell him to get out.

But none of that ever comes, none of that ever happens.

You shake your head, your eyes soft and your lips parted.

“No,” you tell him. “Stay.”

And, really, it’s the most vulnerable thing you’ve said. Your mind is still clouded with a billion different words and thoughts and worries. What had he thought of the way your cunt felt against his finger? Had he wanted you to touch him? Is he just drunk right now? Had you really dreamt the whole ordeal? Was it going to happen again? Was he going to say anything about it? But you will never ask these things to him and it’s because you’re far too afraid that he will answer.

“Okay,” he tells you.

He’ll stay.

It’s something between awkward and familiar as you two settle back down on the bed together. You’re lying close to each other, which you always do anyway, but now there’s a hesitance on either end.

He’s looking into your eyes, trying to gauge what you feel, trying to figure out what the right thing to say is. But nothing is coming to his busy mind, no words are biting at his lips. So he just leans forward slightly and rests his forehead against yours.

For right now, it’s enough for both of you. Just to have that point of connection, just to touch skin against skin, just to know that the other feels the staleness in the air too--it makes you both sigh into the bed. Even with all these unspoken minutes and actions between the two of you, all these confusing little moments, the both of you accept this small touch.

You move a little bit closer to him and he moves his arm to rest across your body, which is a familiar motion. He weighs you against the bed and you sigh into his mouth. Your breath still smells like cigarettes and beer.

“I’m breakin’ up with her tomorrow,” Jake says as your eyes flutter shut.

He’s still watching your face, watching the way it finally goes slack in the pink light of your bedroom. You barely react, just nod very softly.

If you were braver, you’d say why? If you were braver, you’d say good.

But instead you just whisper, “Okay.”

Neither of you are certain what the morning will hold. But Jake’s holding you and your arousal is dried on his fingers and there’s finally saliva on your tongue and you know you’ll be okay. At least for right now, you’ll be okay.

Just as you fall asleep, crossing that threshold of dreamland with a rapid pace that always sparks envy in Jake’s belly, he leans forward and dusts his lips against your nose. Just the very tip of it, that warm place that he’s kissed before. And you don’t move at all, barely even to breathe. Then he falls asleep, too, letting his forehead rest against yours.

Neither of you stir once.

✯ 𝐧𝐞𝐱𝐭 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫

✯ 𝐩𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐛𝐨𝐚𝐫𝐝

✯ 𝐜𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐤 𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐞 𝐚𝐝𝐝𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐢𝐥𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐒𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 𝐭𝐚𝐠 𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭

✯ 𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐬: @hazyretina @violetta-ximena @illicithallways @winterrebel04 @chicomonks

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