#the ex morning spoilers | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

chocoreads · 2 years ago

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OMG MANXY MOO I FINISHED THIS TODAY WAS IT WAS WONDERFUL, EXHILARATING, AND the most bittersweet adventure i've read <3 i love your setup for the story--that prom dress scene at the beginning is flawless!! as expected ur banter is tippy top notch and ur characters are refreshing!! i enjoyed reading their interactions so much (esp the scene at the end awwww my heart couldn't take it!)

some of my fave excerpts:

4 + 4 = 8!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! my breath was fully taken! i had zero breaths!

literally made me choke i loved this sm

OUUU I WAS WINDING UP I REREAD IT MULTIPLE TIMES!!

my eyes were fully reading it!!!!! it's all so palpable and vibrant!!

the pressure throughout this fic is so delicious as someone who thrives off angst and creating a smouldering wildfire of tension this was super satisfying!! you want to keep reading cuz ur on the same edge as the characters, waiting 4 smth to go wrong, knowing the illusion can't go on forever even when it's at its sweetest :(( wanting them to talk so bad but then it all goes up in flames :c

also i attempted to squeeze all my most blaring thoughts into the tags but im pree sure i hit the tag limit JHWFEUKHF

ur my hero this was amazing!!!!!!

when the devil drives.

pairing — jeonghan x fem!reader ft. bestie!joshua

word count — 23.7k

genres — road trip au, exes to friends with benefits to lovers, fighting as flirting, angst, fluff, smut (fingering, vaginal penetration, dirty talk, slight praise, cunnilingus)

warnings — toxic relationships, swearing and threatening language, explicit sexual content, they're both infuriating (yes that needs a warning, trust me)

summary — when your best friend breaks his leg and cancels your summer getaway, jeonghan turns up in his place to take you home from college on what was supposed to be a five hour car ride. except he has other plans, and you end up with more than you bargained for on a week-long road trip to nowhere with the cynical, silvertongued ex-boyfriend whom you're still kinda sorta in love with.

note — it's finally done. the bane of my existence. please enjoy the fic that made me so stressed that it delayed my period by like a week. on a lighter note, there's a playlist. enjoy <3

go to main masterlist | svt masterlist

THREE YEARS EARLIER.

The person in the mirror is not you.

The person in the mirror is beautiful when you’ve only ever felt pretty, mature even though you still feel like an overgrown child, and confident despite the fact that your heart is beating right out of your chest. Despite her makeover skills being limited to being practiced only on fortnightly dates, your mom has actually done an incredible job with you. Long hours of youtube video-watching and swatting you to remind you to sit still have finally paid off.

You trail your lilac-coated fingertips over your bare collar, marveling at the way your skin throws off light. It probably wouldn’t take much to convince your friends that it’s actually makeup instead of sweat doing the job, but it probably isn’t worth it. You stand up, looking down at the ruffled skirt of the purple dress you picked out at the mall weeks ago. Then, glancing back up at the mirror, you lift a hand to your arm, giving it a light pinch.

The yelp leaves your lips right as your mother opens the door to your bedroom, gesturing frantically with a makeup brush. “Honey, he’s here,” she informs you in a rapid hiss, looking as giddy as if it were her final prom night. “Get downstairs, quickly.”

“But my phone, and my purse—”

“They’re downstairs. First drawer of the credenza.” She slams the door shut before you can get a word in, leaving you standing in the middle of the room feeling even more alone than before.

You begin chewing on your bottom lip, and stop when you remember her specific instructions against ruining the lipstick. Smoothing down the ruffles with fluttering hands, you cast one last, yearning glance at the full-length mirror before going to the door, unlocking it gently and stepping outside.

The walk to the edge of the staircase is short, but it feels like more than an hour has passed by the time you get to it. You take a deep breath, clutching the balustrade with trembling fingers, and pause.

The noise had gone unnoticed by you earlier, owing to the anxious clamoring of overlapping thoughts in your head, but now if you pay attention you can hear your father’s stern tones, no doubt questioning your date at the front door. Anxious once more, you take a step back, wringing your hands. You carefully tuck a lock of hair behind your ear, running your hands over your skirt again, letting the texture of the ruffles calm you down. Okay, okay, I can do this, you think, placing the ball of your thumb between your teeth. It’s no big deal.

No big deal at all.

“Dad, quit grilling him,” you call out, and finally step into view. Your father looks up, and so does the poor boy he’s been cross-examining for who knows how long. You feel your face heat up at suddenly being brought into the spotlight, but manage a small smile.

You think you see your dad’s eyes misting over, but then your eyes automatically stray over to the person whose reaction you’ve been anticipating more. Your date is standing there slack-jawed, the top of his slightly-loosened tie visible as the bouquet of roses in his hands droops from inattentiveness.

“Hi,” you say shyly, pleased at his reaction. Then, raising your hands above your dress, you give him a slow twirl. “So,” you say breathlessly, “how do I look?”

Jeonghan’s eyes are bright with fervor, the grip on the plastic cover around the flowers tighter than before, which you can tell by the way the blood has receded from his knuckles.

And he doesn’t say anything at all.

NOW.

“And done,” you say, slapping the end of the packing tape on the side of what you hope is the last carton. Then, still squatting, you place a hand on the side and lean back to examine your handiwork. To your dismay, the end of the tape has already begun to curl. "You think that’ll keep?"

"Absolutely," your roommate, Mina, hums in a way that tells you she isn’t listening. You glance back at her exasperatedly, and she gives you an apologetic grin. “Listen, I’m beyond caring at this point. That was the last of them, right?”

“Checklist.” You point at her, and she sighs, her acrylic nails tapping against the glitzy pink clipboard in her hands.

“Yes, mother.”

Straightening, you place your hands on your hips and survey the area like the captain of a ship sailing into unknown waters. Your shared room, which had once been a safe haven strewn with comforters and fluffy rugs, is now overrun by corrugated cardboard boxes, some bulging and some rattling, almost all sealed unevenly with old dried-up tape. You rub your creased forehead. “I feel like we should’ve gotten professionals to do this work for us. The RA even recommended someone who gives out discounts for people who move before summer.”

“Are you kidding? We did a pretty bang-up job, considering this was all last-minute, and for free too,” Mina exclaims. “Plus, I would never trust a stranger with my ceramic dolls.”

“You wouldn’t trust me with them, and I’ve been holding your hair up while you vomited in the toilet for months,” you complain. “Did we pack everything?”

She hums under her breath again, chewing on her bottom lip as her eyes roll down over the checklist. “I think so. Did you finish packing?”

“Yep.”

Mina looks sideways at one corner of the room, where your lone olive-green suitcase sits flush against the wall. “I still don’t understand how you’re going to survive a whole summer on just that.”

“It’s not a whole summer,” you correct. The thought of leaving fills you with a buzzing excitement, and you have to bite your lip to stop the smile from unfurling like a banner over your face. “Just a couple of weeks out in nature. And maybe a few motels. Neither place really requires much clothing.”

She makes a face, but dismisses the line of conversation with a wave of her hand. “Whatever you say,” she says. "Now, help me push these out into the hallway?"

You groan, but oblige. It’s mostly your fault that the two of you had to pack everything yourselves, since you picked the last possible day to move out before you’d have been thrown out of the dorms. Most of your stuff is already gone, but as a dutiful roommate, you’d promised Mina that you’d help her out before leaving for the summer. So, here you are, running on less than three hours of sleep, having spent most of this morning and the night before squeezing piles of clothes into boxes and folding bubble wrap like splints.

When you’re done, Mina takes the elevator down with you, and the sole suitcase you’re carrying feels even lighter than it is after all the boxes you'd been lugging around. When the metal doors slide open at the ground floor, you let go of a breath you hadn’t realized you’d been holding.

Mina pats your hand. Her clipboard is still tucked under her arm. “Don’t be so worried.”

You let out an uncertain laugh that fades quickly into a grimace, fingers clenched tight around the handle of your suitcase. “Why would I be worried?”

She pries your fingers out of their vice-like grip. “Exactly,” she says, grabbing the handle in your stead and pulling the suitcase out of the elevator, leaving you to awkwardly follow along, not quite knowing what to do with your hands. “After all your unfounded confidence in your packing and planning skills, it would be a shame if you lost faith in them now.” You can’t help but smile a bit at that, but for some reason, you still feel squeamish. “We’re not late, are we?”

Pushing your irrational anxiety aside, you hurriedly check your watch. “Well, um, a little,” you say with a shrug, “but Josh makes it a point never to show up until it’s fifteen minutes past our appointment.”

“So it’s all dandy then,” she says, her voice a bit further away, and when you look up you realize that she’s more than just a few steps ahead of you despite the heels and the suitcase, and you hasten your step. “Just make sure to check your pockets for condoms—”

“Mina.”

“—and your phone and wallet, and pepper spray.” She catches the stern look on your face. “You know, just in case.” She stops suddenly, and you almost trip over your own luggage. You look up at her in exasperation, but stop short upon noting the confusion on her face. “Is that Joshua?”

You follow her gaze across the parking lot, and spot the unmistakable blue Corolla parked a couple spots over. There’s a figure leaning against the side, his stark blonde hair makes the heated air shimmer like a halo over his head. Your first thought is oh, he dyed his hair. Your second is that’s not Joshua.

“What?” Mina looks confused, even as she falls into step beside you as you begin to stalk your way through the lot. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing yet,” you mutter as you reach the car. The blonde looks up, and your heart jumps into your throat. “What the hell are you doing here?”

The boy who is not Joshua tilts his head questioningly. “Why the cold reception?” Jeonghan asks.

You raise your eyebrows, incredulous, and are just about to open your mouth to elaborate on just why he’s getting a cold reception when Mina places a placating hand on your arm. “Hi, I’m Mina,” she says, putting on a bright smile, no doubt to outweigh the dark glare you’ve directed at his face. “The roommate.”

“Jeonghan.” He inclines his head with a neutral yet pleasant smile of his own, glancing at you. His smile falls almost comically upon seeing the expression on your face. “The…”

“You didn’t answer my question,” you interject, relentless. Mina is looking more and more discomfited by the second, but you scarcely notice.

“The ex,” Jeonghan completes. He then turns to you, raising a cool eyebrow. “I thought you knew,” he says.

“Knew what?” You demand.

He straightens, slowly drawing his hands out of his pockets, and you almost regret asking the question. Always the dramatics, you think bitingly. “That there’s been a slight change of plans.”

There was a time you thought you could trust Joshua Hong.

For the major part of your life, he had been the one person you could rely on for (mostly) everything, even when that something involved needing someone to catch you when you snuck out your window at 2 a.m., or knowing you’d always have a clean band-aid to use if you scraped your knee biking through a junkyard.

That time was approximately a minute and twenty seconds ago, when you hadn’t pulled out your phone with its unrepaired crack and checked the unread messages—the most recent of which were from him. It says sorry, and that he’s broken his leg and won’t be able to drive you from your dorm for the planned road trip. The crack lands right over the word sorry.

You know it’s been a minute and twenty seconds because you’ve been counting.

It’s like a bubble has burst inside your chest. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” you mumble softly, clenching your fingers tighter around your poor phone, which might end up with another crack if you squeeze it any further. “And he couldn’t tell me this before.”

“So you’ve been saying,” says the unwelcome replacement Joshua sent in his place. Jeonghan doesn’t have a trace of sympathy on his face as he folds his arms across his chest and checks the time on his watch. “Not to sound like an asshole, but it’s already three o’clock. We were supposed to be in town before dark, and it’s at least five hours from here.”

His voice is flat, utterly unsympathetic to your frustration. You’re still reeling, which is the only reason you don’t snap back immediately. It’s bad enough that your best friend isn’t here after all the work that went into planning and budgeting your trip, but Yoon Jeonghan’s presence is like salt on the wound.

Maybe you’d say something snarky if it hadn’t been eight full months since you’d last talked to him. If the anger from your last conversation hadn’t faded over the long months and turned into something more…malleable. Manageable, as if you could ever have associated the word with him, with the feeling that you were swallowing hot coals every time you looked at him. You still remember the last time you talked to him in painstaking detail, and as you realize that fact, the memory comes rushing back, alongside the feeling that you’re going to throw up.

“So...that’s it?” You don’t know if you’re supposed to be nice to him. Exes have never before been an issue for you because you’ve never really had one before. “Joshua breaks his leg, so he sends you over.” Like nothing ever happened between us, you want to say, but your tongue seems to curl up when you try. “As a stand-in?”

The corner of his mouth twitches, and you can tell he’s holding back some words of his own. “Call it what you want, sweetheart,” he says, and you feel like you’ve been slapped across the face.

Part of you knows that he’s just trying to rile you up, but unfortunately, he’s had a lot of practice at it, so it’s working. You find yourself wishing that you hadn’t sent Mina away with nothing more than a short hug and a few words, but ever since you spotted Jeonghan across the parking lot you’ve been feeling about as steady as a salt shaker. Some support right now would’ve been nice.

Your fingers unclench from around the phone. There’s two ways this could go—the good way, in which both of you pretend that nothing ever happened, or the bad way, and you don’t even know what the worst case scenario could be. Jeonghan has never been a patient person, but right now, even as you stand silently in front of him after months of no contact, he seems unresponsive. Something hurt and hungry rears its head inside you at his hollow indifference, and you taste a familiar venom at the back of your tongue.

But you’re not going to give him the satisfaction.

“Why are you doing this?” you ask instead.

Jeonghan shrugs. You’re not sure if you just imagined the tension going out of his shoulders. “I owed Joshua a favor.”

You raise your eyebrows. “You expect me to believe that?”

His lips thin. “Would you believe me if I said it was a big favor?” he asks casually, but his shoulders are tense again.

You’re aware of the intensity with which you’re watching him, and the fervence with which he’s avoiding your gaze. “No.”

“Figured.” He looks away right before you manage to catch the look in his eyes. “Is that all you’re carrying, or…?”

You look back at your olive green suitcase, the handle still pulled out, lying forgotten a couple of steps away from you. You don’t remember having moved towards Jeonghan during the course of your conversation, and you’re surprised enough by the realization that your chest tightens for a second. “That’s all,” you say numbly, and Jeonghan turns to pull open the car door.

“Well, then, we don’t have all day,” he says, gesturing to the seat. You feel a twinge of irritation again, but say nothing, roughly grabbing the suitcase handle and yanking a door open. Asshole, asshole, asshole, you chant in your head. This is going to be the worst drive of your life.

Even worse, you find it impossible to fall asleep.

Somehow, it’s not the noise. Jeonghan doesn’t whistle, and he doesn’t turn on the radio, or try to make small talk that would make you want to tear your hair out. He remains perfectly silent, not saying a single word to you after starting the car, not even an offer to stop by a corner store or for a drink of water. It’s been some time since the loud city faded into empty, expansive grasslands on either side of the highway, but you’re still wide awake.

Maybe it’s the silence that keeps you up, or whatever it is that it implies. You’re on edge, and your mind is churning, struggling between being mad at Joshua or being mad at Jeonghan or being mad at yourself for giving a shit. You’re still so shaken by Jeonghan’s sudden reappearance that you haven’t even begun to process anything else.

I’m going home, you think numbly, but even that thought evokes only a dull response in you. You think about the weeks building up to the summer, the calls with your dad. Your not-so-meticulously packed suitcase lies in the car’s boot, probably collecting dust if you know anything about the state of Joshua’s car. Much like all your dreams of summer. No beers, and no swimming pools, and certainly no Joshua.

You look over at Jeonghan again, but he doesn’t even seem to notice. You must be in a daze, because for a moment, you think about leaning over and nudging him.

What makes seeing him so much worse is that he looks almost exactly the same as he used to. The same hands, the same eyes, even his hair is still bleached the same silvery-white. The first button of his white shirt is opened, revealing a sliver of tanned skin inside. He always wore pressed shirts and sweater vests—and here a venomous thought enters your mind—when he really should be wearing a straightjacket instead.

When you knew him a year ago, he had been beautiful, but it was a beauty that was yours to possess, to kiss and to touch and to hold. He’s still beautiful, but now it’s the kind of beauty that makes him untouchable. The kind that belongs behind a glass pane, like a fragile display made out of cards or glass or papyrus in a museum exhibit that you would stare at with wonder in your eyes, yearning to reach out but holding yourself back knowing that a single touch could send it crashing to the floor. No, you can’t allow yourself to touch him now.

So you cross your arms, tuck your fingers under your biceps, and turn to glare out the window instead.

You switch with him after the first stop at a gas station.

“I’ll be right back,” Jeonghan had told you before heading in, and you’d taken the opportunity to get out and stretch your legs. When he comes back carrying a plastic bag from the convenience store, it takes him a few minutes before he notices standing forlornly in front of a tree.

“What?” he asks, only half curious. It’s a tall three, thick-trunked, with segmented branches that end in spiky gray-green leaves that make it look like a high school rocker with too much hairspray.

“It’s a Joshua tree,” you reply mournfully.

“Oh my god,” he mutters, and you turn to him with an evil look in your eye as you begin the walk back to the car. “He broke his leg, not his neck.”

“Of course it’s all the same to you,” you fire back. Jeonghan unlocks the Corolla with short, sharp movements that show his exasperation, and tosses the keys to you. You catch them, going around to the driver’s seat, as he leans in and pushes against the lumpy plastic bag, trying to make space for it on the dashboard. “A broken leg is pretty painful.”

“More painful for you than him, apparently,” Jeonghan grunts. With a final push, he manages to make the bag stay, and climbs into the car, shutting the door behind him before pulling on the seatbelt. He turns to look at you with his forehead furrowed as the car starts rolling forward. “I thought you wouldn’t want to drive.”

“Why, because you think I’m sulking?” you ask, offense creeping into your voice. Your neck is already coated in sweat, and you’re not sure if it’s because of the weather or just a bodily reaction to your feelings.

“I’d say it’s normal to be upset about your best friend being hurt.” Jeonghan shrugs.

“I’m not upset about that,” you snap.

“You’re not upset about your best friend being hurt?”

“I am. I just mean—” You break off, irritated. The sweat is now drying because of the hot air coming in through the open tops of the windows, making your skin itch. You just twist your shoulder backwards, unwilling to let go of the steering wheel because if you do, you might just sock Jeonghan in the mouth. “It kind of brings things to a halt. For both him and me.”

Jeonghan leans against the side. “I wouldn’t call one canceled trip bringing your life to a halt.”

Your head is beginning to hurt. “You’re right,” you say testily. “It’s just really fucking inconvenient.”

“Inconvenient?” he echoes. “You get to go home to sweet Joshua. Nurse him through his grievously traumatic injury. It could be a bonding experience, unless you’re bent on calling the poor incapacitated boy an inconvenience.”

“I never—” You grit your teeth, forcing down your rising anger. The heat has begun to crawl like a swarm of fire ants, up your neck and down your back. “I’m surprised he only broke his leg,” you say savagely. “Considering that he thought of sending you in his place, instead of literally anyone else, I wonder how he didn’t get a concussion instead.”

Jeonghan laughs. “All this anger over a little road trip? What exactly were the two of you planning to do, pray tell? I feel like I’m missing out.”

You kiss your teeth, thinking better of responding with another biting comment. Your skin is sweaty and itchy and hot and there’s still a good four hours before you get home. Going at it with him isn’t going to help your mood. You tell yourself that it’s been eight months, you’ve grown, you’ve become a better person. You’re not going to fall for his bait.

Then Jeonghan says, “You could always tour his bedroom.”

In your head, you slam on the brakes, bringing the car to an immediate halt for dramatic effect. In real life, however, you’re painfully aware of how Jeonghan’s lack of a seatbelt would send him flying into the windshield, so you slow down before coming to a rolling stop at the side of the road. Your throat feels like hot lava.

“Really?” the perpetrator asks, raising an eyebrow. “It’s the witless bedroom comment that gets you?”

You clench and unclench your jaw a couple of times, trying to bring your temper down, but to no avail. Your hands on the wheel are unusually tight, as if trying to close into complete fists around it, so you have to forcefully pry your fingers apart before you unlock the door and step out of the car.

Jeonghan copies your movements, getting out of his seat to lean over the hood of the car, his posture suggesting curiosity rather than sympathy. His lips part, no doubt in preparation to say something to push you over the proverbial edge, and warning bells go off inside your head.

“Shut up,” you snap, and he recoils, blinking in surprise.

“I didn’t—”

“Shut up,” you repeat decisively, turning to level your gaze at him like the tip of a sword. “I didn’t ask for you to be an ideal travelling companion, but the least you could do is shut the fuck up.”

Jeonghan says nothing, but his eyes stay on your face, intent and oddly unnerving. You force yourself to look away lest you give away some kind of weakness in your expression—being civil is your best bet to last the duration of the ride, but this is still a push-and-pull. With him, it always is.

“This was supposed to be the last summer we had before graduating and getting jobs and moving to different parts of the country,” you say through clenched teeth. “It wasn’t even going to be that big of a deal—just being on the road for a few weeks with each other for company, having no responsibilities, no destinations, and no deadlines. And then he had to go and fuck himself over, and fuck me over in the process, and now it’s weeks and weeks of work gone to waste, and all I’ve been looking forward to is dust. And on top of that, you had to come in and do what you do best, which is twist everything I say and make me feel like shit about it like it's your god-given right to ruin my life. So, yeah, it’s the fucking—”

The anger seems to have gone out of you somewhere towards the end, and you feel yourself deflate like a pricked balloon. “And it’s so fucking hot, too,” you mumble, burying your face in your hands. Then, face still covered, you laugh, feeling ridiculous and petulant like a child after throwing a temper tantrum about a broken toy. “Sorry. I’m sorry. It’s not your fault for having to drive me, and it’s not Joshua’s fault for getting his goddamned leg broken. I’m just…” You struggle to find the right words to express your frustration, but ultimately give up. “It’s so hot,” you whisper.

Your face burns, and you’re no longer sure if it’s from anger or embarrassment. It’s unusual for you to lose your composure, but you must have been more affected by this than you had imagined. Or maybe it’s just Jeonghan bringing out the violence in your emotions again.

Speak of the devil. Jeonghan steps around the front of the car and comes to a stop in front of you, hands very still at his sides, yet tensed as if they’re about to move. Suddenly you feel very tired, and very, very small.

“Let me drive the rest of the way.” His tone is gentler than you expected, but you’re still not brave enough to meet his eyes. He hesitates, like he’s about to say something else, but then his lips press into a thin, concerned line. You remember that expression from years ago, his eyes warm, a hand reaching over to curl around yours. Now, it just feels alien.

“Get some rest,” he finally says, and you don’t have the heart to fight back.

It’s been half an hour, and you still haven’t said a word to each other. Whatever pretense of cordiality you thought could be preserved is gone—if it had even existed in the first place—and the tension in the air is thick enough that you could carve something out of it. You’re beginning to get a little tired of the silence, now that the noise in your head has begun to quiet down just enough so you can actually think.

At least he’s turned the air conditioner on, which is a small mercy. You don’t know how you forgot about it before, but it probably had something to do with your rising irritation and the complete lack of awareness due to your blinding rage. Maybe if you’d just retained enough sense to turn the stupid freaking air conditioner on, you wouldn’t have had a loud, embarrassing breakdown in the middle of the freeway.

“I can hear your internal monologue from all the way over here,” Jeonghan says, making you start. It’s almost as if he actually can hear every single one of your thoughts—which shouldn’t be so surprising, considering your history. Your heart’s startled palpitations turn into a painful squeeze. “Stop thinking so hard and get some sleep.”

“It’s not like I’m not trying,” you mutter. “I’m just…restless.”

“Can’t wait to get home?”

You scoff. “Yep,” you say, dragging the syllable sarcastically. “Can’t wait to get home.”

Jeonghan catches your eye in the rearview mirror. There’s something quietly thoughtful brimming behind his eyes, and although you can’t quite put your finger on why, it makes you sit a bit more easily. It could be that you’re glad he isn’t too mad at you—people pleaser that you are—but it’s more likely that the look is…familiar. Familiar enough that relaxing in reaction to it is an instinct your body hasn’t gotten rid of just yet. Fucking biology. “We don’t have to go home if you don’t want to,” he says with pretend nonchalance, looking away.

You laugh, a little sadly, and uncross your arms to rub your hands down your biceps. “Where else am I supposed to go?”

It’s quiet for another moment. This time, it’s you who can almost hear the gears turning in Jeonghan’s head. You can’t help but anticipate what he’s going to say. “I don’t know,” he says, voice so muted that you have to look at his mouth to make sure you can correctly make out what he’s saying. “Where were you planning to go with Joshua?”

Your breath catches in your throat. “No,” you say firmly right as he asks the question, your voice a little rough and more than a little hoarse. You’re sitting stock-still now, like you touched a live wire and have been electrified in place. “Don’t even think of going there.”

He shrugs, and you can see the slightest hint of tension in his neck muscles when they flex with the movement. “If we take the highway, there’s a motel about half an hour from—”

“Don’t,” you say through your teeth. He’s still not looking at you. “Jeonghan, stop it.”

“Two days,” he says, unrelenting. His eyes finally flicker to yours, and you feel something stutter in your heart when you see the first hint of genuine emotion in his expression. The first time in eight months. “If we take the U-turn up ahead and keep going, it takes two days to lead up to the bay. Just two days. We could stay in a bed-and-breakfast, and if you still want to go back after that, I’ll take you home. No stops.”

You swallow back the dry patch in your throat. It feels wrong to see him like this, so eager when he greeted you with all the warmth of an icicle just a couple hours ago in the parking lot behind your apartment building. You know some part of it is because of your unintended meltdown in the middle of the road an hour ago, but the whole proposal reeks of pity.

“Not funny,” you say shakily.

“I’m not joking,” comes the simple reply.

“What’s the catch?” you ask sharply. “Not even half an hour ago you were letting me know exactly what you thought of road trips and risks. Why the sudden change of heart, huh, Jeonghan? If you tell me it’s because you feel guilty, I swear to god I’ll punch you.”

“Well,” he starts, lifting a single shoulder, “I don’t really have anything better to do. And if I take you home right now your mom will definitely make me stay for dinner, which would be awkward for both of us.” He shrugs. “And…maybe I want to spite Joshua. For breaking his leg playing soccer with little kids, and making me come all this way just to pick up an ungrateful little alley cat who could’ve just taken the bus.”

You lapse into silence for a few moments. Then: “He really broke his leg playing soccer with little kids?”

“Yes,” Jeonghan replies, but not without an eye roll to accompany it. He looks at you then. “So what will it be, sweetheart?”

You know in your heart that there’s only one right answer to that question, and it’s a resounding no.

But then, if you’d been sensible enough to listen to your heart, you probably wouldn’t have ended up five hours away from home in a shitty old college majoring in fucking math of all things. So of course you tell him to turn the car around.

Jeonghan has always been an ass with apologies.

Which is ironic, because ever since you first met him, you’d known that he had the gift of the gab (for lack of a better phrase). His talents had always been in lying and talking and picking exactly the right quote from a classic text to make himself sound smart—which, admittedly, he is. He went from making people pay him to write their college essays and down the natural pipeline to majoring in literature at a fancy place. He’s always been good at making you angry, but you don’t think he’s ever figured out how to make things right. Or care enough to work for it.

So when Jeonghan knocks on the door and you open it to find him with a beer bottle in his hand, you’re only slightly surprised to see it.

When he comes in, his eyes go straight to the double bed. He steps inside the room (at the first motel you’d seen which advertised running hot water, which makes no damn sense anyway because it’s over a hundred degrees outside and neither of you is taking a hot bath anytime soon, but whatever). The blades of the ceiling fan spin lazily, barely even disturbing his hair.

“The speed for the fan doesn’t go beyond three, and the air conditioner only works between seven and seven,” you inform him as you sit back on the bed, your suitcase open on the mattress in front of you.

Jeonghan nods, and you have to bite your lip to stop yourself from laughing. He’s probably not used to this kind of place at all, but if you’re going on the road with him, you’re not pulling your punches. You’re happy enough with the arrangements yourself, being accustomed to living in even worse conditions. His description of you as an ungrateful little alley cat wasn’t far from the mark. It could always be worse, but you don’t tell him that.

You’d decided against calling your parents—or Joshua—to inform them about your change in plans, and had instead chosen a few simple texts to convey the information. They trust you enough to deal with your last-minute changes, but you know that there’s going to be a lot of questions about your choice of companion when you get back. Those questions, however, you can confidently avoid thinking about at least until you get back. And as for Joshua—he should’ve known better, you think primly.

“I’m sorry,” Jeonghan says suddenly, breaking you out of your reverie. The beer bottle sits guilty in his grip. Gotcha, you think. “For riling you up in the car. Being around you kind of triggers my fight or flight instinct, and I’ve never been much of a runner. Heaven knows my dad tried, though.”

You half smile in acknowledgement. His expression is awkward, which makes your smile widen. The apology in no way makes up for your history, but now that you're already halfway through your decision, you decide to put him out of his misery and call a truce.

Leaning forward, you take the beer he offers you, raising it in his direction like a salute. “You’re good enough with words to make up for your lack of athletic ability,” you say, making the corners of his lips curl up. “And the pen is mightier than the sword, as they say. Care for a sip?”

He shakes his head no. “Can’t blame you,” you say, nodding sagely as you casually uncap the bottle with your teeth. “Beer does taste like piss when warm.”

“Or cold. Or room temperature,” he says. “I don’t know how you manage to keep it down.”

“Needs must.” You grin, patting the empty space on the mattress next to you, and he indulges your request. “So, I was thinking about what you said,” you start, taking a square of paper from between folded clothes and books in your unzipped suitcase, and unfolding it. “I’ve been going over the route Josh and I picked out for the trip, but I thought of making some changes.” You run your fingertips over a squiggly blue line marked on the map, and tap a spot outside it. “We could visit the museum. Take a meandering route, make a few stops here-and-there before we actually get to the bay.”

Jeonghan peers over your shoulder. “That’s about eight hours from here.”

“Mhm,” you say, putting the lip of the bottle to your mouth and taking a gulp. You make a face as you swallow. “Damn. I thought it was kind of clichéd, but warm beer really does taste like piss.”

“I did warn you.” He’s stiffened a bit. You sniff the air, wondering if something stinks.

“Well, uh,” you mutter under your breath, and bring the bottle back up to your lips with slow, careful motions. “We could make a few pit stops over here, and go to the shore later. Then there’s the wharf.” Your fingertip moves over the map.

Jeonghan looks at the spot you’re pointing at. His gaze shifts to your hand, then up over your arm, all the way to your bared shoulder—which you realize is mere inches from his face.

He’s stopping breathing, as if afraid to exhale on your skin. You open your mouth to make a joke, but it dies in your throat. Your mouth remains open, no words coming out. Jeonghan lifts his eyes up to yours, and you feel your heart jump. The scent of green apple shampoo envelopes you.

Something thumps on the roof above. Jeonghan looks up, and you take the opportunity to nimbly shift away. “Do you think that was a rat or a person?” you wonder aloud.

“I’m not sure which I’d rather have it be,” he answers, getting to his feet. You look up at him, the beer bottle in your hand barely empty, but you’re already feeling lightheaded. “Dinner?”

Dinner is uneventful. You usually hate forcing pointless conversations, but now you find yourself broaching all kinds of topics from the weather to the food to the ketchup stain on the waiter’s apron.

Jeonghan is polite, laughing at the right moments and nodding along when you need him to listen, but you feel fidgety on the worn leather seat that you normally would have sunk comfortably into. The long-drawn conversation makes you feel like you’re talking to a stranger, not someone you’ve known for the most part of your life. Not for the first time, you mourn a friendship that has seemingly dissolved after your break-up.

By the time the two of you walk back, it’s almost ten. You pass under more than a few flickering streetlights, but they are more than made up for by the neon signs that begin to light up after dark.

When you get back to the room, all you can think about is the double bed. How convenient, you think to yourself, more than a little miserably when you think back to the tiny moment you shared while looking over the map. While you’ve moved on from Jeonghan, your body clearly hasn’t, if the way it reacted to his scent is anything to go by. And you have moved on. Why else would you be so comfortable basically running away with him?

“I hope the lock works,” Jeonghan mutters to himself as he locks the door for the night. You’re less confident, so you zip your bag back up and push it flush against the white door, propping the handle against the top.

Your phone rings, and you take it out, checking the caller ID. Joshua. You look up, and find Jeonghan looking at you, his face blank. Feeling unsettled, you reject the call, and put your phone away.

Now that it’s just the two of you with no dinners or strangers or ketchup stains to distract your conversations, the two of you fall into a pregnant silence. Jeonghan thumbs the collar of his shirt idly, looking at the bed with a glazed-over expression. You sidle by the bed and place a pillow in the middle, then stand back to survey your work.

“It looks like a face,” Jeonghan says.

“We can share the blanket,” you allow. For all the burning heat of the mid-afternoon sun, you know that the nights in the desert are cruelly cold, especially so within the paper-thin walls of the motel room. “Do you want to keep the fan on?”

“I’m good.” For some reason, Jeonghan looks ill. “You know…I just realized I don’t have a single change of clothes.”

You take a good look at his current attire, and it’s definitely not an excuse to stare. He’s wearing a plain white shirt, as you noted before. It’s fitted but billows faintly about his frame, making him look like a prince of old. His hair falls in soft blonde waves down to his neck, brushing the very top of his collar, and a few stray strands frame his face. Even though the harsh fluorescent lights draw the color from his face, the sheen of sweat over his cheekbones make them shine. You watch, transfixed, as Jeonghan’s fingers slip from the collar to the undone button, the pad of his thumb shaping the outline of it.

And he’s also wearing jeans. The jeans are reusable, you think, blinking yourself out of your stupor. Get a hold on yourself. But you can already pick out the stained collar of his shirt with ease. “We can go shopping tomorrow,” you suggest, clearing away the thickness of your voice. “Restock your supply of Walmart t-shirts.”

He looks at you with narrowed eyes, and you allow yourself a smile.

When all the blinds are all drawn and the lights turn off, you’re the first under the blankets. The pillow you’d ceremoniously placed down as a barrier between the two of you is flush against your back as you curl into yourself. You feel the mattress dip and the bed frame creak as Jeonghan gets into bed. It feels strange to have him in the same bed again, something you used to yearn for, now something so strange and troubling.

“Neighbors are loud,” he states, his voice muffled. You curl your fingers into the bedspread, and sigh silently before turning on your side so you’re facing him. Sure enough, now that you’re paying attention you can hear party music bleeding in from the room next to yours.

Jeonghan is nothing more than a dark outline against the sparing light that seeps in from under the door. “G’night,” you say softly. Softer than you intended, anyway. You bite your lip and duck your head under the blanket, feeling inexplicably schoolgirlish.

With the way your heart beats in your chest, it sounds almost as loud as the music coming from next door. You’re almost worried about him hearing it, but if he does, he doesn’t betray a thought. There’s no way I’m falling asleep like this, you think to yourself, but it doesn’t take more than a few minutes before you’re at the soft edges of sleep.

“Good night,” Jeonghan whispers back, just as you begin to drift off.

True to your word, the first place you put on your list of shopping locations is the local Walmart.

“You know I intend to wear these newly-acquired clothes outside of this trip, right?” Jeonghan complains as you browse a rack of t-shirts that advertise themselves as being up to fifty percent off! “You’re wasting your time if you think I’m going to spend my well-earned money on anything here.”

“May I remind you, mister, that this whole trip thing was your idea?" you ask, pulling out a tie-dyed shirt that’s a swirl of shades of peach and baby blue, and holding it up in front of his frame with an appreciative hum. “Plus, don’t you feel gross in your sweaty old underwear? This could be the splash of color your wardrobe so desperately needs.”

Jeonghan looks unimpressed. He pushes the tie-dye down, looking over it at you with a shake of his head. “I know better than to trust your choices, even those made with good intentions. And your intentions at the moment are clearly not good,” he emphasizes. “Anyway, this is not the underwear section.”

You raise your eyebrows, and look behind you pointedly at what is, actually, the underwear section. Jeonghan follows your gaze to the display of Fruit of the Loom underwear. “No, nope,” he murmurs. “Don’t even think about it.”

“Too good for Walmart underwear, are we?” You wrinkle your nose, but don't press the issue, moving instead towards another part of the t-shirts section. The tie-dye stays in your hand, though.

“With underwear, I always believe that what you get is what you pay for,” Jeonghan says, then frowns. “What are you doing?”

You look up, innocent. “These crewnecks are on sale too.”

“That’s because it’s the peak of blistering summer,” he says, exasperated. “No one’s wearing crewnecks.”

“At night, though.”

“I’m not wearing a crewneck to bed.”

You’re about to crack a joke about going on long walks by the beach, but think better of it. Jeonghan looks confused by your sudden surrender, but you’re too busy looking in every other direction possible as a prickly heat crawls up your neck. “You really are a snob,” you mumble.

“I’m not a snob.” He rolls his eyes. “Can we go somewhere else? Anywhere else?”

You glance back, coy. “Anywhere?”

He grimaces. “I take that back.”

“Your wish is my command.” You wave the blue-and-coral tie-dye in the air. “We’re buying this one though. Don’t think for a second I’m gonna let you walk out of here empty-handed.”

For once, Jeonghan doesn’t complain, but he does purse his lips to make his feelings clear. “I guess I could make use of it when I have no clean clothes left.”

“Come on, it’s not that bad.”

He still pays for it—and some clean, much-needed underwear, despite his many complaints—at the counter, and you’re honestly surprised at how civil he's being. You'd thought that it would require a lot more effort to make this whole thing as smooth as possible after the fiasco in the car, but he's been on his beat behavior since then.

Despite your outburst and Jeonghan’s subsequent apology, you’re aware that neither of you have actually broached the reason for this tension. It’s much easier to just not think about the break-up, and act like it never happened, because that’s a whole can of worms right there that you do not wish to open.

You wish you could unscrew the top of your head and bring your brain out. Give it a good shake to dust off all the stray thoughts you keep having about Jeonghan and your self-control and your relationship, and just let yourself enjoy the ride. Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way.

“We could go thrifting,” you suggest once you’re in the car, and for once, Jeonghan doesn’t seem too opposed to the idea.

The first thrift store you find on the GPS is small and plain-looking, but upon entering the dilapidated, run-down looking building you quickly learn not to judge the book by its cover. Inside, Jeonghan picks up a fluffy hot pink scarf with a wince, and you can’t help but laugh.

“You should try that one on, actually. It matches your mean girl vibe,” you point out, digging through the bin where he found the scarf in question.

“I like mean girl better than snob.” He slings the scarf around his neck. He'd decided to trade in his white button-up for the tie-dye you got from Walmart, but not before proclaiming that it was only because he needed clean clothes to wear. “It sounds more like a phase that way.”

“It doesn’t fit as well though,” you say, bringing out a sequined shirt. ��Ooh, try this one. The disco vibes would make you a hit at the local club.”

“Thirty years ago, maybe,” he grumbles, but adds it to the cart. “Can’t you look for something more…”

“Boring?”

“Classy,” he finishes with a pointed look.

You grin. “As my lord pleases,” you announce, and hold up a plain brown t-shirt. Jeonghan arches his eyebrows, looking mildly surprised and skeptical, until you turn it around to reveal the Twilight logo with the faces of the main trio plastered below it. “Doth thou find this to thy liking, good sir?”

There’s an expression of part disgust, part enjoyment (and is that a glimpse of fondness you catch in his eye?) on his face. “Verily, fair maiden. It is to my utmost satisfaction,” he replies, a smile playing on his lips. “And it would be dost, not doth.”

“Very well.” You drop the shirt into the cart and straighten, grin unwavering. “Let us look around.”

He offers you his arm, and you hesitate only a millisecond before taking it. “Shall we?”

You nod, keeping the smile in place. “We shall.”

The two of you end up staying in the store until it closes, losing track of time as Jeonghan models different outfits you throw together—“This one has a dick drawn on the back.” “I know, right?”—and bring to him in the changing rooms. It’s not entirely a waste—he actually ends up finding some decent clothes, which you make him pack into a hello kitty backpack, and you buy the heart-shaped sunglasses that manage to catch your attention. By the time you come out and agree to get an unhealthy dinner from a McDonald’s drive-thru, it’s almost nine, but you’re on a dopamine high that you know is going to keep you up for a long while.

Also, you kind of don’t want to go to sleep. Going to sleep means finding a cheap place to stay, with vacancies, during tourist season, which means you’re probably only going to find a single bed. After all you’ve done to keep an invisible barrier between the two of you today (which is to say: not much) you don’t trust yourself enough to try to risk sleeping in the same bed again.

Jeonghan seems to have had the same idea, so you end up taking mini naps while switching with him to drive all night to the next destination. Most of the night, at least. It’s about four in the morning when you realize you’re beginning to nod off in the driver’s seat, so you pull over and nudge Jeonghan awake.

“I don’t think going on is good for our health,” you tell him seriously.

He’s still half-asleep, but he bestirs himself at your words, rubbing his eyes with the knuckles of a closed fist. “Uh, okay,” he mutters, opening his eyes wide and blinking the sleep out of them. “Why?”

“It’s irresponsible,” you insist. “You know, from a road safety perspective. Also, I almost drove us into a tree.”

That wakes him up quick. “What do you suggest, then?” he asks, sitting up. “Sleeping in the car?”

“Well,” you begin, unsure, “yeah?”

“Are you crazy? We’ll freeze to death.”

“No we won’t,” you whisper back, then clear your throat, not sure why you’re whispering. “Body heat.”

Jeonghan puts his face in his hands for a few seconds, then exhales deeply. “Okay,” he mutters savagely, dragging his fingers down his face. He looks up at you, and there’s a languid sharpness in his eyes that makes you squirm in your seat. “Four hours,” he says. “Don’t complain later if you can’t take it.”

You try for a scoff to hide your discomposure, but end up yawning instead. “Whatever,” you murmur, putting your forearm against the wheel and leaning your face against it. It’s still dark out, and you are freezing a little bit, but the dull orange light that lights up the interior of the car makes it feel slightly warmer. “It’s not like we have anything worth stealing.”

Jeonghan lounges against the passenger seat. He’s still wearing the stupid tie-dye, and the orange of the interior lights have washed out the peach in his shirt. The rest of him is bathed in the same color, making his skin look like it’s been licked by fire. You watch him undo the seatbelt buckle with hooded eyes, curling your fingers around the steering wheel to contain yourself. Even as he climbs into the backseat, you don’t move, eyes still fixed on him.

Would you have reached for him if you didn’t remember every word he said that day? Maybe you should talk about what happened, to clear the air at least. You try to think of how that would go. Jeonghan, you would start, about what happened—

“Are you coming or not?” Jeonghan asks. He leans forward, beckoning you with a crooked finger, and your gaze glides over the collarbone that peeks out from just below his neck. His voice is breathy and low, making something twang in your gut. You pull yourself up quickly, and follow him before you can change your mind. Jeonghan pulls out a few of his clothes from the backpack to cushion the seat. The space is small, cramped, and smells like cheese, but you think about none of those things except the heat of his body against yours. This is, undoubtedly, the most terrible idea you’ve had so far.

“This is a terrible idea,” you voice, as he pulls an oversized shirt over your legs and leans back. You’re not half as sleepy as you were mere moments ago. The comfort is so deeply unsettling that you feel like you’d rather nap in a bush.

“As I said,” he murmurs, gaze darting to your lips for a millisecond. You gulp. He looks like he’s made of honey and marmalade. “Do you want to turn off the light?”

“So passer-bys don’t think we’re fucking in the back of the car?” A nervous laugh bubbles up your throat like an uncorked Coke bottle, the regret following the words as soon as they come out. You glance up at him, pulse jumping, but his eyes are already closed. “Oh. Um. I’ll turn them off.”

It doesn’t take long for Jeonghan’s breaths to even out, but you lie awake for a long time, listening to your own heartbeat. It’s long past ten a.m. before either of you wakes up.

You spend the next few days doing what you do best—wasting time. This was what you’d planned originally, doing absolutely nothing and deciding destinations on the road, but it was supposed to be with someone who knew you well. While you have no doubt that Jeonghan had managed to puzzle out every part of you before, you're no longer the same pedantic, rule-abiding perfectionist that he probably remembers. You think you’ve changed a lot since you last saw him, and since a major part of that owes itself to him not being in your life any more, you don’t know how to adjust your relationship to that change.

There’s a day you spend most of at a microbrewery, where you manage to snag a guided tour to the home brewing process and Jeonghan develops a taste for fruit beers. Another where you trek up the mountains at a national park just to watch the sunset, sitting on a rock with your sore legs and sharing an artisanal. Once you spend the whole day at the pier.

“There.” You point at a highway, licking the side of your strawberry ice cream (Jeonghan takes the mint). “That’s the road I took while following this stupid underground band on their tour. Didn’t even like them that much, but these guys convinced me, and it turned out to be kind of fun. Sort of like a grown-up camping trip.”

Jeonghan squints at where you’re pointing, then shakes his head. “So that’s why you were so confident about sleeping overnight in a car in the desert.”

“S’not that bad.” You shrug. “I thought it would be like a new experience, you know, and that’s where I got this idea about the road trip in the first place. I don’t think Joshua expected me to suggest something so…careless.”

He’s silent for a long moment. You glance at him sideways, and clutch the bear plushie you won at the ring toss. “Do you ever miss it?” he asks at length.

“Never,” you reply quietly. Maybe you haven’t changed as much as you thought.

Every location is fun at first before your not-relationship gets in the way, slowly chipping away at your sanity like a heavy-handed ax. You swear you’ve barely touched alcohol, but soon the days begin to blur together, and by the time you get anywhere near the beach you don’t even know what day it is.

Saturday, your phone says.

You swipe ignore on Joshua’s sixteenth call in the past few days, this time not even bothering to shoot him a text in its stead. It’s late in the afternoon, and you’re lying on your stomach on an extremely soft mattress in a fancy hotel, ankles crossed in the air as you read an old copy of Gone Girl that you borrowed from Mina in case you got bored.

Or you were reading it. You press your lips together as you finish reading the same paragraph for the seventh time without actually absorbing any of it, and sigh. Jeonghan reaches over and flicks the cover before leaning back. “Female rage, huh?” he asks, settling back against the pillows. “Should I be concerned?”

The colors of the sunset seep in through the slits between the blinds. You look up at him, noting his watchful gaze, the controlled set of his mouth. Somehow you feel more resentful than wary. “I don’t know.” You roll onto your back and jut your chin out, looking at him upside down. “Should you?”

He doesn’t give up. “Are you angry?”

Your fingers coil more tightly around the book. You match his stare for another second before propping yourself up on your elbow and going back to the text. “No,” you reply after a second, still with your back to him.

“I think you are.”

You throw your head back, irritated, and set the book back down on the bed. “Why would I be angry?” you ask, turning your face in his direction. “I’m just tired. That’s all. It’s too hot to do anything anyway, we can just go out after the sun goes down.”

Jeonghan doesn’t seem convinced, but he doesn’t push you on the subject, and you’re relieved. The truth is that you’ve been feeling irritated and guilty and rash ever since you woke up, but don’t want to give yourself the chance to do something stupid.

“Where do you want to go today?” he asks instead.

You frown, squeezing the bridge of your nose between a forefinger and thumb. “I don’t know,” you repeat. “Maybe nowhere. Do nothing.”

He cocks an eyebrow. “What were you planning to do with Joshua?”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, all of that went out the window the second he broke his damned leg,” you snap. Then you pull back with a wince. “Shit. Sorry. I think I’m getting a headache.”

He doesn’t say anything, only offers you a glass of water, which you accept with a quiet thanks. It’s not going to help, though, you know that; your headache has deeper roots than that. The water is lukewarm, and you gulp the water down, spilling half of it over your mouth and down your shirt. “Maybe we can go somewhere you want,” you say, pursing your lips into the best smile you can muster. “You know, this was for the both of us.”

“I know,” Jeonghan replies, monotonous. “You’re getting a nosebleed.”

“What? Oh, fuck.” You hurriedly put the glass down on a side table and head to the washroom. Sure enough, when you look into the mirror, your upper lip is coated in crimson.

“Fuck,” you whisper to yourself again, and bend over the basin. The sound of running water almost drowns out Jeonghan’s footsteps, so you jump a bit when you hear his voice.

“Let’s go to a club,” he says. You straighten, holding a napkin to your nose, and glance back at him. He’s leaning against the doorframe, arms folded over his chest. “Sounds like you need to get drunk,” he says, shrugging.

Your lips part. “Okay.” You turn and grab another napkin. “Sure, yeah, let’s go.”

The teeming throngs of people seem to envelope you, like a piece of paper folded over and over. The air in the nightclub is stale but cold, with undercurrents of sour sweat and sweet coke syrup. You wouldn’t call yourself a stranger to this scene, but for some reason, it feels foreign.

You weave your way through the crowd on the dance floor, an untouched glass in your hand. Although the whole ordeal had been Jeonghan’s idea, he’d disappeared less than ten minutes after you came, no doubt off buying pretty girls drinks. Being seen with you would probably ruin his night, but at least someone’s living their single life to the fullest.

You, on the other hand, have not been having fun at all. It’s not entirely unexpected, since the whole reason you’d said yes to the idea was because you’d felt bad about snapping at him. Usually, you go drinking to unwind after a stressful week, but today you just can’t seem to get into it. You suspect it’s because you’re alone. The music is loud and heavy and while you remember noting that it’s one of your favorite songs, all you can hear right now is the bass. You feel it in your skull and your teeth and jarring all up your sciatic nerve, sending little jolts through your spine. If you didn’t have a headache before, you’re definitely close to getting one now.

Someone brushes past you, and you almost spill the drink in your hand all over the dress. Annoyed, you turn to snap, but they’re already gone by the time you’ve turned around. You sigh, massaging your temple with your free hand, and sit down at the first table you see, placing the glass with the red drink sloshing around inside. The pulsating lights make the surface of the liquid flash, turning it orange and pink and even green. You don’t even remember what it is supposed to be.

With a deep sigh, you pull the glass off the table and nurse it in your lap, head dropping from exhaustion. Maybe if you had someone to dance with you, but your choleric disposition has a habit of chasing people away, and tonight you’ve dialed it up by about a hundred.

A shadow looms over you, blocking the lights, and the color winks out of the drink in your lap. You look up with a glower, ready to chastise what is undoubtedly another hopelessly drunk guy looking to hit on single girls, but falter when you manage to make out the man’s features.

Jeonghan’s blonde hair looks lilac in the lighting. His hands are in his pockets, and he’s got that white shirt on again, but the lights have bled into it like with your drink, turning it different colors. For a moment, neither of you move, him looking down at you and you matching his stare from the seat.

“Are you drunk?”

You shake your head mutely.

If he doubts your honesty, he doesn’t show it. “Wanna get out of here?”

It’s stupid, but you feel bad. You’ve never known him to be into the whole party scene, but maybe he’s gotten different hobbies since you split up, and you feel like you’re taking that away from him. “Don’t you want to stay?” you ask, setting the glass on the small table. “I know the way back.”

He offers you a small smile. “You know how I feel about places like this,” he answers as you prepare to leave. Then why did you suggest it in the first place? you want to ask, but dare not utter a word. “Well then—” He offers you a hand, the smile softening— “my lady?”

His voice is low, but you hear it like an arrow singing through the noise. “As my lord pleases,” you murmur with an incline of your head, a smile creeping onto your lips as you take his hand.

Jeonghan tugs you through the crowd, his grip gentle yet firm. You pull yourself closer to him, marveling at how the sea of people seems to part before him, like he’s a warm knife going through butter. “You should’ve told me if you didn’t want to come,” he yells back at you.

“It’s not that I didn’t want to,” you explain, wrapping an arm around yourself as the two of you step out into the night air. It’s much colder outside even with the crowd, and you barely manage to suppress a shiver. “I thought it might be—fun.”

“But it wasn’t?”

You shake your head stiffly, shoulders raised against the late night chill. It’s only then that you realize your right hand is still intertwined with his, with you almost hanging off his arm. Flushing, you extract it quickly, folding your arms across your chest. “Let’s just go back to the hotel.”

You can’t see his face, but you imagine him burning holes into the side of your face. But he only nods.

Back at the hotel, you lean against the basin in the washroom, staring at yourself in the foggy mirror. Your face looks back at you from the parts where you wiped off the mist with the heel of your palm, smokey-eyed, your makeup smudged. The cold ceramic seems to cut into your hands, but you’re grateful for it.

With the bathroom door left ajar, you can hear Jeonghan in the connecting room. “Sorry about ruining your night,” you offer with the most apologetic tone you can summon, but your heart feels as numb as your fingertips. “I don’t know what’s gotten into me.”

“Don’t worry about it,” you hear him say, his voice feeling like it’s coming from a tunnel. You know exactly what’s gotten into you though.

You swallow against the hard knot of dryness that has lodged itself in your throat. Your head is pounding, and you feel like something is splitting you apart from the inside, like a block of ice in your chest that refuses to melt. Am I really that cold inside? Throughout this trip, you’ve found yourself wishing multiple times that the distance between you and Jeonghan didn’t feel so great, but now the thought overwhelms you, washing over you like a riptide, and you feel like you’s gotten into you to sea.

You think about just giving in, but you want to preserve some semblance to self respect. Although none of your concerns feel grounded—Jeonghan’s been the perfect gentleman since after you broke down on him. The memory of your last argument eight—now nine—months ago, his harsh words cutting you down, they all feel so far away. So unreal. You wonder if you imagined breaking up.

“I shouldn’t act so immature, right?” you wonder aloud, and spin around to face him. Jeonghan’s standing just outside the bathroom, fiddling with the cuff of his shirt, and blinks at your question. “I mean, we’re not in high school anymore.”

His brow twitches, like he’s about to frown. “You’re not acting immature.”

You feel slightly hysterical. There’s exactly one thing you want from him—a reaction. Even though you know it’s only going to make things worse. “You don’t think so?” you ask, very quietly.

The frown finally manifested itself on his face. “Are you drunk?” he asks again, enunciating each word slowly and carefully.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Jeonghan.” There’s a wild edge to your voice that has him tilting his head. “Why are you so—so—” Blank. Unaffected. Maddening. “Calm?”

The frown flickers away, and once again, he goes back to looking as unemotional as an alabaster statue. Just as beautiful, driving you insane with a feeling that you can’t quite put into words. “What would you rather have me be?”

One second you’re leaning against the doorframe, fingernails gouging into the wood, and the next second you’re on him, reaching out like you’re about to claw his face off. Before you know it, you’re kissing Jeonghan with all the viciousness of a bite.

Your hands grip his shoulders, then slide up to his neck and down to his upper back. You can feel his shirt creasing where your nails dig into it, so desperately that you think they might leave crescent-shaped scars. “What do you think?” you hiss into his ear as he stumbles, stepping back to steady himself, his hands coming to your hips. You lean into him, returning to his lips, and then he’s kissing you back.

Jeonghan slides his hand over the diaphanous material of your dress, reaching up to slide into your hair, deepening the kiss. His other hand grips your waist, pulling you as close to himself as humanly possible. His arm crushes you against himself as his lips part against yours, kissing you like he was breathing from you, as desperate as if he were drowning.

It’s as if he’s come alive under your touch, so different from the unemotional front he’d displayed just seconds earlier. His hands roam your body, exploring, tracing, remembering. You open yourself to him, letting every doubt and second thought be washed away by the tide of emotion that rages inside you. Jeonghan tastes like strawberries, his lips soft and sweet, and you feel like putty in his hands, but you still manage to push him into the bed. You’re in his lap now, legs on either side of him, slowly and teasingly tracing the roof of his mouth with the tip of your tongue.

Jeonghan’s hands travel up your waist to your breasts, and you press your lips to the junction of his jaw and neck, right over the pulse. He moans into your mouth, and you feel hot all over—the good kind of hot, the kind that makes you feel like you’re standing in his fire, sweating harder to feel more keenly the wind against your skin. It starts in the pit of your stomach and spreads to your core, your chest that’s flush against his, your hands as you pin his shoulders to the mattress. You kiss him again, hands moving to his chest as you start to unbutton his shirt.

“Wait, wait, wait,” Jeonghan breathes, covering your hands with his. You make an impatient noise at the back of your throat, but pause, pushing yourself up so you’re straddling him. “You’re not drunk.”

You give him a black look.

“Okay, okay.” His breaths are coming in pants, each as ragged as the last. “I…I don’t have a condom—”

“I do,” you cut him off in the middle. He gives you a questioning look, and you huff. “I was going to get laid, okay? One way or another.”

His lips part, and for a long moment, no sound comes out of them. “Are you sure?” he asks lamely.

You stare at him, flabbergasted. “What do you think?” you demand again. He’s such a sight under you, with a half-unbuttoned shirt and swollen lips, that you’re having trouble stringing words together. “Jeonghan—I don’t know what it is that’s holding you back, or—or if you just don’t want to have sex with me, but—”

“Not like this,” he interrupts. There’s a softness to his voice, even as he looks up at you with heavy-lidded eyes. Your hand twitches where it’s lying on his chest. “I mean. You’re not in the right state of mind—”

You’re incredulous. “It doesn’t have to mean anything, Jeonghan,” you say, petulance creeping into your voice as you struggle to maintain your composure. “I’m upset and frustrated and I really need this, okay?” Your voice cracks just slightly, but it’s enough for the air to get knocked out of him.

Some part of you tells you not to do this. To apologize, maybe laugh it off with a shitty joke about getting rid of the tension, act like you don’t want to open him up and climb into him. Sex has never been the solution to your problems. But you’re on a mean bad decision streak, so you just bite down on your lip, swallowing your feelings.

“Please touch me,” you whimper, and Jeonghan takes in a sharp breath, briefly closing his eyes before moving to oblige.

His hands go back to your waist, but this time he flips your positions. He grasps the hem of your dress, and you stretch your arms, letting him tug it up and off your frame. You watch as his eyes rove over you, and his pupils darken, swallowing the warm brown of his eyes. Jeonghan leans down next to your ear, and you feel the dent in the mattress next to your head where his palm presses into it. “Remember,” he says, as your stomach flutters weakly, “you asked for this.”

Jeonghan’s knee nudges yours to part your thighs, and the next thing you feel is two of his fingers pressing against the already-damped seat of your panties. “Didn’t expect to be so wet already,” he murmurs, and your face heats up like he toom a match to it. “Is that what you meant by frustrated?” Wordlessly, you arch against him, eager. “Hips,” he commands, and you raise your hips to allow him to pull your panties down your legs, where you agitatedly kick them off your ankles.

You suck in an anticipatory breath as his fingers push against your unclothed core. He doesn’t even need to look for your clit—the pad of his thumb is pressed against the bundle of nerves a second later, rubbing circles into it. You screw your eyes shut and throw your head back, clenching your thighs around his arm. “Oh god,” you gasp. “Oh god oh fuck—”

You cut yourself off with a sharp inhale to grab his forearm, digging your fingers into it as he flicks a finger against your clit. “You’re so sensitive,” Jeonghan remarks, a smug smirk painted on his face. “Always were. That’s what made playing with you so much fun.”

You open your eyes just to narrow them at him, panting. “Oh, finally, there he is,” you drawl breathlessly. “The resident devil of—Jeonghan!”

He has the gall to laugh as your entire body jerks in response to his middle finger pushing past your folds and into your heat. “Admit it. You like me better that way,” he counters, adding another finger inside you. You arch your back, sucking his fingers deeper inside your cunt as he curls the digits in your core.

“I did admit it,” you breathe. It’s astounding, how quickly the two of you fall back into the familiar play, trading words back and forth like you’ve been doing this all your life. His thumb swipes down against your slit, collecting your wetness and massaging it back into your clit. You buck against his hand, mewling. “Fuck, Jeonghan, pleasepleaseplease—”

Watching him like this, you suddenly remember that no matter how mild-mannered he may seem to the untrained eye, Jeonghan is neither calm nor reserved. He is sanguine, a hunter in the night, smelling blood from a mile away. And you've always been his favorite plaything.

“There’s a good girl,” he praises, but his fingers pull away a second later. You bemoan the loss of the friction, desperately rubbing your aching thighs together for any sort of relief. Jeonghan’s fingers dig into the inside of your thighs, prying them apart firmly. You begin to protest, but he quells you with a look. “But I can’t let you have it just yet.”

You’re panting. “Fuck you.”

He only smiles. “Condom.”

You gesture towards the bedside table with a tilt of your chin. “Second drawer,” you choke out, feeling like someone’s set a fire to the base of your brain, cutting off your ability to form coherent thoughts. Jeonghan retrieves it, waving the small square packet in the air as if to further provoke you. You settle back onto the sheets, waiting for him to put it on, but instead he leans his weight back against you, playfully nipping at your collarbone. You grit your teeth, grabbing the front of his shirt.

“You can be such an asshole sometimes, you know that?” You hiss, and start unbuttoning his shirt hastily.

“Well, I tried being nice, and you hated that,” he murmurs against the base of your throat, sending vibrations through your sternum. You fling open his shirt, and he takes it off fully, balling it up and throwing it to some dark corner of the room. “Aren’t you hurrying too much?” he says, but when you roll down against his hips, the bulge straining against the seat of his pants is unmistakable.

“Aren’t you talking too much?” you fire back, and he chuckles. You hear the sound of the packet tearing and the subsequent unzipping of his pants. Jeonghan rubs the head of his cock against your slick heat, almost making you sob, and pushes it in.

Your fingers claw against his back when he slowly rolls his hips into yours, sending a wave of pleasure through your body. “I forgot how good you felt,” he rasps, sidling his hands under your arms and pulling them off him. The heel of his palms skims your forearm, reaching up to meet your wrist. When he presses his fingertips against the palm of your hand, you open up to him like a flower in bloom, letting him twine your fingers with his in a slow, decisive motion.

The head of his cock brushes against your sweet spot, and your mind goes blank with bliss. Jeonghan says your name like a prayer as he pushes deeper into you, harder, and the feeling of hot-and-cold pleasure stirs in your abdomen. His pace quickens, hips snapping faster against yours, and you begin to feel dizzy and delirious.

You gasp his name, and he shudders as he breathes out, all but falling against you. His fingers tighten around yours as he moves, the tip of your nose nudging his, his forehead cool and damp with sweat where it meets yours. He draws your orgasm out, still fucking into you as you reach your climax. You call out his name as you ride out your high, and his face twists with desire so devastating that it looks almost like pain. He thrusts into you once, twice, only a few more times before he comes, almost collapsing on top of you when he finishes. The pent-up frustration is gone, you realize as you lie in bed and stare up at the ceiling, along with the misery and confusion and anger.

You clean yourself off in the bathroom in silence, as he wipes off your makeup with a gentleness that you’d almost forgotten. Neither of you speak, but the silence is heavy and comfortable like a winter blanket. A voice at the back of your head is screaming at you about consequences, but it’s small and tin-like and easy enough to tune out in the face of Jeonghan’s lips brushing against your temple.

Plenty of time for regret in the morning.

And, oh boy, does the regret hit like a fucking truck.

You’re the first one up, waking to the feeling of soft blankets on your bare skin and Jeonghan’s sleeping face just inches from yours. Startled, you sit up, the strap of your bra slipping off one shoulder.

Then you’re slipping off the covers and making a beeline for the bathroom, stopping only to grab your phone off the bedside table before locking the door behind you. You lean against it heavily as your legs seem to give out, breathing hard as if you just woke up from a nightmare.

You slept with your ex last night. The one thing your friends with active dating lives told you never to do. And it was all your idea.

Fuck.

Still trying to steady yourself, you sit down heavily on the edge of the toilet seat, placing your head in your hands. It was a stupid decision, and you know that—hell, you’d known that going into it—but now it’s time to deal with the aftermath. Jeonghan himself is going to wake up in no time, and you don’t even want to think about how he’s going to react.

You try to think of someone smarter than you, but after your actions last night, the bar proves to be pretty low. Your first thought is Joshua, but you feel even more like shit when you think of calling him, so reject that option out of hand. Someone who’d know what to do, you think to yourself as you shakily dial the number on your phone, fingers trembling.

She picks up on the fourth ring. “Hey, girliepop,” Mina greets in a bright, peppy voice, as your shoulders sag with relief. “I feel like I haven’t heard from you in ages. What’s up? How’s home?”

You don’t waste a second. “I did something really, really bad.”

A pause. “Do you need help hiding a body?”

“What? No. I slept with Jeonghan.” You cover your mouth, briefly closing your eyes. Saying it out loud makes it sound even worse. “I’m so screwed.”

“The hot ex-boyfriend? Oh, honey, don’t worry, that’s a mistake we all make at least once in our lives,” she says sympathetically. “Were you drunk?”

You squint. “No…”

“Okay,” she says slowly, and you wince. “Do you…want to do it again?”

At that, you pause. Do you want to do it again? You hadn’t even thought of it before this. “I mean…” You trail off, doubtful. “The sex was pretty great, but…”

You can imagine her twirling a lollipop stick between her fingers, sucking thoughtfully on the candy. “I don’t know, I’m gonna need a lot more context,” she asks finally. “Why did you guys break up? How long were you together? What kind of person is he? It depends on a lot of things.” Another pause, and you can almost see her raising her eyebrows at you, like, well? “You gotta give me something to go on here.”

You try to think of an answer, but every thought feels muddled, like you’ve reached peak brain capacity. “Um,” you start, haltingly, “we have a lot of history, I guess.”

She hums, which sounds like a muted buzz through the line. “Like what? Childhood best friend type of history? On-and-off kind of history?”

You close your eyes, focusing intently. “Um…well…we have known each other since we were in grade school. And we dated for most of high school, and almost two years after that. Then we…we broke up in October, last year.”

“Why?”

That’s a loaded question. You pass a hand over your face, trying to think of how you can explain it. You remember there being so many reasons for it, but now that you’re trying to remember them, not a single coherent-sounding explanation presents itself. “It’s complicated?”

Mina tuts. “I get it if you don’t want to talk about it, but I can’t help you if I don’t know what the problem is, babe.”

“I’m so confused,” you lament, biting your lip. You try to explain the situation as best as you can, how you decided to ditch your plans and go on a fuckass road trip with your ex. Everything comes out like a barrage: all the doubts you’ve had about your relationship with Jeonghan, the constant second-guessing yourself, all your worries about his inconsistent behavior. By the time you’re done, Mina’s gone silent on the other side.

She doesn’t say anything for a long time, so you listen to the soft crackling of her breathing mixing with the sounds of traffic coming in through the tiny window on the opposing wall. “Oh, honey,” comes her fizzy voice from the speaker finally. “Now I wish I’d convinced you to go on that blind date.”

You laugh softly. “Yeah. It’s just… Every sensible bone in my body is telling me I’ve made some kind of mistake, that I’ve crossed some invisible line, but it was so easy,” you tell her. “Last night, when we—it felt like old times. As if nothing had ever happened. And now I’m wondering if that’s what I’ve wanted all this time.”

“I almost wish you’d come to me with a murder to cover up, because at least I’d be able to help you then,” she replies. “But if you think that maybe this is what you want, and if he wants the same thing, then you can still work it out, you know? You’re a smart girl. You can figure out what you want.”

A smile tugs at the corner of your lips. “I wouldn’t be so sure,” you murmur, using your pinky to trace a crescent into your bare knee. “But thanks.”

Her grin is crystal-clear in your mind. “I’ve got faith in you.”

“That makes one of us,” you quip, and she laughs as you hang up.

The call didn’t help much, but you’re glad to have gotten some things off your chest. The narrow walls of the bathroom don't feel so suffocating anymore. All right. You pull your knees up decisively, straightening your spine. It’s my problem to fix now, you think. Even if you don’t feel calm, you have to at least act like you are.

Taking a deep breath, you unlatch the door and step outside, closing it slowly behind yourself. As you’d thought, Jeonghan is already up and dressed. Well, kind of. He has his boxers on, and the shirt from last night, crumpled and still unbuttoned. You stare, frozen in place, as he turns and notices you. A beaming smile spreads across his face.

“I went ahead and ordered room service,” he says by way of greeting. “Considering it’s past twelve and absolutely boiling outside, I thought we might stay in for brunch instead. I hope you like pasta, ” he says, shrugging. Then he notices the look on your face. “Is something wrong?”

You blink slowly, as if coming out of a daze. “Something wrong?” you echo, wondering if you sound as bewildered as you feel. “Something…Jeonghan.”

His eyebrows arch. “Yeah?”

“We had sex,” you say slowly.

“We—yes.” He nods, slowly at first, but then more rapidly, until he looks like a bobblehead. “Yeah, but—I mean, we used protection, and we talked about it before, kind of, and I thought it was fine, you know, because—” He’s rambling. You’re beginning to realize he’s not as nonchalant as he appeared a moment ago. “At least we didn’t have sex very publicly in, in the motel, or the car, or—”

It’s like a strange tranquility has descended over you. Jeonghan swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down, and he looks anxious. You haven’t seen him anxious in so long.

It feels like the roles have been flipped. You know that’s not quite true, and your poise is only temporary, but at least he’s not giving you unreadable looks every time you try to show vulnerability, tripping you up on your own words. You just hope you’re not going to use this opportunity to do something stupid again.

“Jeonghan,” you interrupt. Mina hadn’t really given you any clear-cut counsel, but it seems her reassurance had been all you needed. “If we’re going to do this, we need to set some ground rules.”

‘No strings attached’ sounds weightless in your mouth, but the words seem to sink like stones into your mind.

Still, now that at least the sexual tension is out of the way, you feel as unburdened as those girls in sanitary pad ads. Jeonghan’s inner navigator must be in touch with his good-for-nothing side, because he turns out to be absolute magic with finding amazing out-of-the-way places. The two of you go off-road for a while, but get lost so you decide to stick to what you could identify on the map. There’s another day spent walking around at a doll museum and pointing out dolls that you thought looked like people you both know.

It feels a bit silly, running around with Jeonghan all the time, but it’s the happiest you’ve been in months. You take baths together, and sometimes you go out for ice cream, and despite some of the lewd activities involved, it feels as sweet and innocent as kids playing house.

After the first time your motel room neighbor bangs on your shared wall to ask you to be quieter during sex, you decide that sticking to places with reliably thick walls is the way to go. That’s how you find out that Jeonghan has developed a taste for long baths.

You’re rummaging around inside your suitcase, looking for the paperback you borrowed from your roommate, untouched since the day you stopped reading it right in the middle. “Jeonghan!” you call, overturning a pair of pajamas. Even in a thin robe, you can feel the heat almost radiating off the floor. “Did you see my book? I’m kind of worried that I left it somewhere.”

No response.

Frowning, you stand, looking at the cream-painted door on the opposing wall. It’s firmly shut, and has been that way for the past hour or so, not a sound escaping from inside. You cross the room and check the handle, not too surprised when it swings open.

One glance inside gives it away. Jeonghan looks at you with displeasure, only his head poking out from behind the side of the bathtub. Well, that and the copy of Gone Girl you’ve been looking for the past half-hour, clasped in a long-fingered hand, his elbow propped against the lip of the porcelain tub. “Do you mind?” the perpetrator asks.

You place your hands on your hips, giving him an unimpressed look. “You’ve been in here for over an hour,” you tell him. “At this rate your body is going to turn into an overripe raisin. Also, that’s my book.”

He turns the book over to regard it. “I thought you weren’t reading it.”

“I wasn’t. Emphasis on was.” You rest your hand on the door handle. “There are other people who want to take a bath, you know.”

“Aw, I was just looking for some entertainment.” He flashes a grin at you. “But if you have a better idea…”

You roll your eyes, but unfasten the robe anyway. Jeonghan’s eyes follow your every move, pupils blown wide. He places a cheek on his arm, eyes half-mast as you slip the robe off your shoulders, letting it pool on the floor at your feet.

“Nothing underneath, huh?” he muses. “Have I been out-maneuvered?”

You ignore that. “Move over,” you say shortly.

“Don’t need to ask me twice.”

(Later, when you’re lying on the bed after having managed to wrestle the book away from him, Jeonghan brushes his fingers against the sliver of exposed skin under your shirt. “Don’t even try,” you warn him, after smacking his hand with the spine of the book.

“I thought you wanted to do something ‘wild’,” he says, making air quotes with his hands. You smack him again.

“Not everything is about sex,” you remind him, not really meaning it.

“‘Everything in the world is about sex except sex.’” he quotes. “‘Sex is about power.’”

You roll onto your side, letting the book fall shut as your forearm hits the mattress. “You’re so full of shit, Yoon Jeonghan,” you tell him, getting a razor-sharp grin in response. But you still let him kiss you a moment later.)

By the time you finally reach the ocean, the air conditioner has been broken for two days, so when you feel the fingers of the first evening breeze sneak in through the lowered top of the window and run themselves through your hair, you almost stop the car there and then.

Jeonghan stops you, reminding you that if you get off you’ll have to walk a pretty long time before you actually get to the beach. You stay put, but when you do get to the beach you’re the first out of the car, standing spreadeagle against the flow to feel the wind on each and every inch of your skin, plastering your clothes to your frame.

“This is so much better than that stupid air conditioner,” you sigh. Jeonghan’s still fishing out that Hello Kitty backpack that contains your towels and sunscreen, so you deign to wait for him instead of going off on your own.

Something pink and plasticky covers your vision. “Here.” He grins, settling the heart-shaped sunglasses on your face. “Now you can finally use these,” he says, and turns to head off.

You fix the sunglasses before following after him. The sand is soft under your feet, shifting to accommodate the shape of your feet as you step over it. You pull your sandals off, tucking your fingers under the bands and opting to carry them at your side so you can feel the grains on your soles.

“I thought there would be more people here,” your not-boyfriend comments.

You look around. A kid is building a sandcastle near a couple that looks over him, turning over buckets to deposit clumps of wet sand to shape them into towers. A bit further away, a head wearing sunglasses pokes out of the ground as its giggling companion packs more sand over the body. Jeonghan’s right; the crowd is tamer than you expected, but it’s probably because it’s getting late and the weather is about to turn icy in no time.

“I haven’t been to the beach in ages,” he says as you reach the shore. The wind tousles his hair, flapping his shirt around his torso, and he squints against the saline breeze. “Kind of forgot what it feels like.”

You hum contentedly, watching the tiny waves lap at your feet. “When I was a kid, my mom told me I had to dig my feet in before the tide came in, or else I would be carried away by the waves.”

He snorts. “I know. Your mom told me the same thing.”

“Right,” you smile.

Jeonghan bends to place his hands in the sand in front of him, letting the water wash over them. “Cold,” he says.

“You know, I did almost get washed out to sea once,” you remember. “Swam too far. There was salty water in my mouth and ears and the ground felt like it was made of hands, trying to drag me down further. My uncle told me that when they finally fished me out, my head was wrapped in kelp. He thought that telling me that would traumatize me, but I just kept swimming out again and again.”

“Stubborn and proud,” he observes. “That sounds like you.”

“Does it?” You grin, bending to scoop some of the water into your palms, and sling it off your fingertips to splash it into his face before he can realize what you’re doing. Jeonghan sputters, stumbling in the sand, and comes up with an indignant hey!

Laughing, you turn to run, and glance back to see him discarding the Hello Kitty bag to chase after you. “It’s the beach, cut me some slack!” you yell back at him. He doesn’t respond, but when he does catch you, it’s around the middle, and his tackle flings both of you into the water, you still laughing. You wrestle unsuccessfully with him for another second before coming up for air, his arms still wrapped securely around your waist.

“No fair,” you complain, but the smile that splits your face is as bright as the sun.

“No fair?” he repeats, expression indignant. “You started it.”

“Okay, but now we’re both wet.” You spit some water out of your mouth. Sure enough, your clothes are drenched, and so are his. Jeonghan staggers to his feet, pulling you up with him. His pale blonde hair is plastered to his forehead, darker where it’s wet, curling at the back of his neck. “And not in the fun way.”

“Who says this way isn’t fun?” He kicks some water at you, and you raise your arms to shield your face. Offering only a glare in retaliation, you turn, wading a little further out so the water is up to your waist. “Are you planning to get washed out again?”

“Hilarious,” you call back without turning. The sun is low in the sky, turning the ocean the colors of fire. Jeonghan comes up behind you and you close your eyes, breathing it all in.

The water tickles your waist where your shirt billows up, and the breeze cuts deliciously sharp on your damp skin, but you only shiver when Jeonghan traces a map on the exposed skin of your back.

You don’t stay in the water for long, dragging yourselves up to the shoreline to make sure you mostly dry off when the sun is still up. Jeonghan’s hair slowly curls as it dries, and he tries to comb the sand out with his fingers to no avail.

“I’m gonna need a nice hot bath after this,” he complains, carding a hand through his hair. “It’s all fun and games going to the beach until you’re digging sand out of your body for the next three weeks.”

“You take a nice hot bath at every opportunity you get,” you remind him, but you share the sentiment. The retrieved backpack swings off one shoulder, slapping against your side with every step. “That was so much fun, though. I wish we’d just come here in the beginning and stayed.”

“Nothing beats hiking for hours up a mountain just to see a yellow ball come up in the sky. You made me wake up at an ungodly hour for that, too.”

“And I’m not gonna apologize.” You stand back in the final rays of the sun, watching it sink into the horizon. Strips of gold glimmer in the blue-green of the water, shimmering like the surface of a polished jewel. “Sometimes I look at the sun on a regular day and wonder how it can do that.”

Jeonghan hums under his breath. His stance is unhurried, shoulders relaxed, hands in his pockets. You lick your lips, feeling the salt sting the raw patches where you’ve managed to break the skin by constantly worrying at it with your teeth.

Now that your mind is beginning to quiet, it’s turning to thoughts of the real world instead. For the last few days, you’ve successfully ignored every single warm tingle or stomach butterfly, every warning sign that came up when you looked at Jeonghan, but casting them aside has only made them weigh heavier on your shoulders.

It doesn’t have to mean anything, you’d told him, but that had felt more like an excuse. Under the guise of only using each other for sex, you’ve been indulging yourself in far more than that, and it’s plain as day for you to see.

“Jeonghan,” you venture in a hushed voice, and he turns to you quizzically. “Do you ever wonder—do you ever think that you’ve made a mistake?”

Instead of answering, he offers you a lopsided smile and extracts his hand from his pocket, letting it hang in the air next to yours. It’s only your knuckles that brush the back of his hand, but you feel the heat all over—on the backs of your shoulders, north of your abdomen, as a constricting circle around your throat.

“I try not to think too much,” he says, catching your fingers lightly when they graze his. You hesitate, but choose not to pull away. “But I know that’s not your strong suit.”

The sky has gone dark. One by one, the artificial lights switch on, bathing the sand in a pale glow. With his tanned skin and platinum hair, Jeonghan looks like a tallow angel in the light, his mouth a soft rosy line curved into a smile like you’re sharing an inside joke. The breeze flows over the water, lifting his shirt up a shade.

Your heart lurches in your chest, but you manage a smile back. He’s probably right and you’re probably overthinking, but you are as helpless in the face of that knowledge as you were without it. As you murmur and you think too little with numb lips, you can't help but wonder what he’s really thinking.

Jeonghan thinks this bar is going to be the death of him.

The Shipwreck Tavern must take its name quite seriously, because it smells exactly like how he imagines the interior of a shipwreck must smell—like fish and rotten wood. The place is filled with tough-looking old people, and the bartender must be a wrestler’s grandma, because her arms are as big as his head. Everything inside the pub looks old and feels old, except the new-looking TV that adorns a wall adjacent to the bar, playing a soccer game that seems like the local pastime, judging from the attention it garners among the tavern’s patrons.

There are probably better places the two of you could’ve gone to, but this was the nearest place he’d been able to find with an outdoor shower, and he could’ve sworn he felt a crab in his pants before. Instead of bothering to look for a place to eat, you’d suggested staying at the same place, and he hadn’t known better than to comply.

Jeonghan takes the drinks he ordered from the bar with a nod of acknowledgement, fighting to keep the smile on his face until it’s out of the bartender’s view. As soon as the old lady with the anchor tattoo on her forearm turns her back, he makes a face, turning away from a fellow customer who frowns disapprovingly at his expression. Jeonghan gives him a helpless look, and begins making his way through the crowd to a pool table in the corner.

He knows that you think he’s the more sociable out of the two of you, but he begs to disagree, and the fact that you’re already laughing along with a mean-looking guy with a shaved head is only more proof. You turn slightly to let your eyes glide over the crowd searchingly, stopping when they spot him coming towards you. Something in his chest clenches when he sees your face light up upon seeing him. You wave him over to the table, and he raises the drinks in response.

“You might wanna go slow on these. I think I saw something wiggling in the bottle she poured these drinks from,” he warns as you take the glass from him. You grin, but pay no heed to his warnings, tossing the whole thing back like it’s a regular Tuesday.

“How bad could it be?” Shrugging, you put the drink down and smooth down the front of your skirt, briefly playing with the corner where the slit ends. “Maybe it was like an eel or something.”

“Well, you’re certainly something,” he mutters to himself, raising a disbelieving eyebrow. “Why don’t you go ahead and drink mine too, if you’re so fearless? Might find a shark fin in there.”

“Those are too big to fit in a bottle, silly.” You roll your eyes, taking a cue stick leaning against a corner. “Now let’s get this party started,” you purr, bringing the stick up and across the table and positioning yourself behind it.

Jeonghan shakes his head, but doesn’t try to push down the smile that appears on his face. “Okay,” he sighs, coming around the table to your side, leaning so his face is level with yours. “So you want to keep the stick aligned with your line of sight, and try to aim for the easy pockets first.”

You lick your lips, screwing one eye shut to aim. “You underestimating me?”

“No, it’s just to keep your mood up. Now choose your shot.” You survey the layout of the table once before deciding on a target, arranging your stance to aim accordingly. Jeonghan nods. “Okay, good. Line up, and be careful about the angle.”

Placing the stick’s tip near the cue ball, you bend again. “Like this?”

He reaches over, rearranging your hand that’s splayed against the table so your first two fingers make a bridge. “Balance the cue on top of that,” he says, curling an arm around your waist. His fingertips press against the elbow of your cueing arm, stabilizing it. You shiver slightly as if a cool breeze had just blown through, making his own stomach flutter. “That’s it, like that,” he whispers in your ear, enjoying your reaction as you squirm. “Steady, steady…now try.”

Taking a deep breath, you shoot. The cue ball cuts across the dull green surface, bumping into the black ball and sending it rolling into a corner hole. Grinning, you straighten, pumping a fist in the air. “Nice!”

“Yeah, pretty nice.” Jeonghan nods. “Except we’re playing 8-ball pool, which means if you pocket the 8 ball before all the stripes and solids are gone, you lose.”

A despondent boo erupts from the audience watching the soccer match, exactly in sync with your face as it falls. “You didn’t tell me that before,” you say accusingly. “That’s cheating.”

“Good try though,” he acknowledges, taking a sip of his drink. It tastes just as bad as he’s expected. “And I didn’t cheat, I just withheld information.”

“That’s lying.”

“Tomato-tomato.”

You bring up the cue stick, pointing the polished end at his chest. “I’m about to demolish you,” you challenge.

He grins and takes a stick of his own, tapping it against yours. “Bring it on.”

Jeonghan had intended on leaving the second you were done with your food, but you end up staying for more than a few hours as you keep asking for extra rounds despite continually losing. When you finally agree to leave, it’s way past two, and you walk with a giggly, faintly tipsy stupor so he has to support you all the way to the hotel.

Instead of falling into bed immediately upon entering the room, you pull him into the bathroom, crashing your lips against his before he has the chance to let a question pass them. Jeonghan closes his eyes, holding you against him as you wrap your arms around his neck, almost dragging him down the floor as you go limp in his arms. Your back hits the wall with a loud thump, but you still don’t let up. “Someone’s eager,” he says as you press kisses along the line of his jaw, settling his hands on your hips.

You let out a soft breath, bunching up his shirt under your fingers. He leans in to kiss you, but you step back, holding him in place. “I was—do you think we should—”

Someone bangs against the other side of the bathroom wall, making both of you jump. “Message received, damn,” Jeonghan mumbles, turning his attention back to you. “Sorry, you were saying?”

You fumble with your words for a second before seemingly giving up, instead smiling brightly. “Nothing. Never mind.”

“Nothing, is it?” He kisses your jaw, and you let out a soft sigh. Your hand drops to his pants, moving to unfasten it, but he stops you. “Shh,” he whispers, brushing his thumb against your lips. “Walls have ears, remember?” he murmurs, as his warm breath fans your face.

You tuck your bottom lip under your teeth, blinking up at him so sweetly that he almost groans. He dips his head, nuzzling his face into the crook of your neck, the ghost of his smile against your skin. “We have to be quiet,” he says, lips touching the shell of your ear. “If you behave, I’ll make sure you’re well compensated for your efforts.”

Your breath hitches, and you turn your face away, letting out a choking laugh. “Oh yeah? And how are you planning to do that?”

Maintaining eye contact, he sinks to one knee, and slides his hands down from your hips to the back of your thighs. You steady yourself by placing your hands on his shoulders, and he tugs your skirt up, warm palms skimming the cool skin of your thighs.

“Well, for starters,” he says in a low voice, watching your eyes as they darken, and slips a cold finger just inside the top of the slit in your skirt. “I’m going to make you come on my tongue.”

You watch him with wide eyes, still as a statue. Jeonghan licks a warm line up the inside of your leg, which twitches in response. “Remember, not a sound,” he warns, teeth nipping at your skin.

“You’re an ass,” you tell him, taking a deep, shuddering breath.

He smiles, and taps at your knee to indicate to you to move it. You swing a leg over his shoulder, adjusting your stance to stabilize yourself. He hooks a thumb into the underside of your panties and pulls it aside, revealing your glistening core in its full glory.

The sight makes his breath catch in his throat. Jeonghan licks his lips, experimentally swiping the tip of his finger along your cunt, and you squeeze his shoulder. “Ticklish?” he asks, and you slide a hand through his hair, giving it an impatient tug. “Always so sensitive,” he tuts, even though the sensation sends a bolt of arousal straight to his dick. “Always had a bite, too.”

“Shut up,” you growl, impatiently pulling his face closer to your core.

“Patience, grasshopper,” he admonishes. He slips the finger between your folds, massaging lazy circles into it, and your grasp on his hair tightens. “Ask me nicely, and maybe I’ll give it to you.”

You grit your teeth, but the pause tells him you’re actually considering it. Your giving up so easily would take all the fun out of it, he decides, and without warning, he tilts his head up and closes his lips around your nub, flicking it with the tip of his tongue.

Your whole body seems to spasm in response, like a puppet that just had its strings pulled taut. Jeonghan grins into your cunt, and increases the pressure on your clit. You whine, rolling your hips against his face, but he holds you in place.

“Not so fast, honey bunny,” he murmurs against your arousal, which only has you straining harder against his hold. “You like that, huh?” he asks, and sinks his index and middle fingers into your hole knuckle-deep. “All those times you called me a silver-tongued devil—how d’you feel about this tongue now?”

As if to prove his point, he laves his tongue leisurely along the entire length of your pussy, making you cry out. “Jeonghan, please,” you moan, and his heartbeat stutters at your desperate pleading. The moment you start begging, he’s a goner. “More—ah—”

He doesn’t even remember that he asked you to be quiet. “Fuck,” Jeonghan snarls, “you know I can’t say no to you, don’t you?” He pulls his fingers out almost entirely, coated in your juices, before thrusting them back inside. He proceeds to bury his face back into your heated cunt, sucking on your swollen clit and finger-fucking you at the same time. You throw your head back, scraping your fingernails against his scalp as he eats you out like a starved man. “No.” he says, pulling away momentarily. “Keep your eyes on me.”

“Ngh—please—” Your words come out in broken moans, but Jeonghan scarcely hears them. He scissors you ruthlessly, stretching you out with his fingers, the other hand leaving dents in your skin where it digs into the soft skin of your thigh. Your orgasm is drawing near, he can tell by the way your walls are spasming around him, so he speeds up his pace, licking and suckling in quick succession, pushing you far past the point of satisfaction. “Jeonghan!”

You come with a cry, your eyes rolling back into your head, back arched against the wall. Jeonghan unlatches his lips from yours unwillingly, pulling back to admire the look on your face, hazy with desire.

“Fuck,” you breathe once you’ve come down from the high, chest heaving. You let the back of your head fall against the wall with a light thump. “Where did you learn to do that?”

He shrugs with faked nonchalance, grazing your skin with his teeth as he slips your leg from his shoulder. A glint of satisfaction shines in his eye like an ember sparking in a dead bonfire as he gets to his feet. “I’ve been practicing.”

Your shoulders stiffen, and Jeonghan stops in his tracks. “Right,” you murmur, as alarm bells go off in his head. He regrets the words instantly, and moves to take a step towards you, but you’re already turning away and out of his reach, leaning towards your phone that rests precariously on the basin’s edge. “Oh, wow, it’s getting pretty late. I think we should head to bed.”

Jeonghan bites his lip. “Yeah,” he says softly, stepping back to allow you to slip past him and out the door. Stupid, he thinks, licking the remains of your cum from his lips. “I guess so.”

The next morning, after you finished locking the doors behind yourself, you’d come down to the lobby to find Jeonghan flirting with the receptionist.

He had both his elbows on the table, leaning his weight against it as he gave her his best smile, chuckling at some shitty joke he probably cracked himself. She’s pretty, you’d thought as you saw her smile, flushing as she tucked a lock of dark hair behind her ear. He said something else to her, and she giggled, but it had died out quickly when she’d spotted you approaching.

To his credit, Jeonghan dropped his smile as soon as he saw you. You’d deposited the keys, thanking the receptionist with the nicest smile you could manage, but even that wasn’t very nice. He hadn’t said anything as you got to the car, and you feel like shit even though you know he doesn’t owe you an explanation.

Stupid, you think to yourself. Stupid of you to forget that this whole thing was going to be over soon, stupid for caring so much and getting hurt despite yourself, stupid for thinking that Jeonghan would share your concerns. And let’s not forget angry: angry for getting so carried away, especially when you pride yourself on being so careful all the time.

The car hasn’t stopped in hours, not even for a gas refill, and you haven’t had a proper conversation since the drive started except for when Jeonghan tried to offer you a soda.

You’re glad you’re driving, because it gives you an excuse to be silent. Focus on the road. Jeonghan has sensed something off with your mood, but he hasn’t tried to ask you about it, and you don’t know whether to be grateful for him respecting your boundaries or mad for not trying hard enough.

Now that it’s June the skies have begun to turn an angry, burning orange-red before six o’clock instead of remaining a softer bruised purple. You’ve been in the same position for a while although your neck started to hurt some time ago. It’s getting chilly, but not cold enough to roll the window back up, and you’re determined to fill the silence with the whistling wind for as long as you can.

You must’ve jinxed yourself, though, because the silence is broken in seconds. “Just so you know,” Jeonghan starts, tone light and conversational, “I wasn’t flirting with her.”

You tighten your hands around the wheel, staring so hard at the windshield that you’re surprised it hasn’t melted into a puddle of plastic yet. “I don’t care if you did,” you say tersely, trying and failing to sound normal. “It’s none of my business.”

“I was just asking her if she knew any places we could stay nearby,” he continues, instead of giving up. “And as it turns out, there’s this really great—”

“Actually, I think we should go home.” You cut him off demurely, not taking your eyes off the road in front of you, even though there isn’t another vehicle in sight. “My parents are probably worried about where I’ve run off to, and I’ve been kind of a shit friend to Joshua recently.”

Jeonghan’s mouth flattens into a thin line. “That was a choice you made.”

You scoff, rounding on him with a scornful look on your face. “Oh, so you want to talk about choices now?” you ask, voice full of strife. “Remind me again in case I’ve forgotten—it was your choice to have us break up in the first place, wasn’t it?”

The muscles in his jaw tighten, standing out under his skin where they flex. “Oh, come on. You’re just mad about last night and instead of acknowledging that, you’re changing the topic.”

“Okay, yeah, I’m mad,” you admit, “but that’s not why I’m bringing this up, and you know it. I believed you the first time you said anything. We can’t just never talk about what happened nine months ago—you can’t just sweep something that big under the rug and expect things to be fine and fucking dandy.”

“Who cares about something that happened months ago?” he asks angrily.

“Are you serious?” you ask, laughing disbelievingly. A chill is beginning to settle over your skin even as the air simmers at a hundred degrees.

He tugs an opposing sleeve, and throws the other hand up in exasperation. “I don’t see how it matters anymore.”

You stop the car.

Jeonghan opens his mouth, and closes it again. "You know, this whole stopping the car in the middle of the road thing is getting old," he says with a hint of exasperation in his voice.

“You don’t see how it matters?” You whip around to look him in the eye, and he shrinks back just a bit. “Jeonghan, you said getting into this relationship was a fucking mistake!”

He stares back at you, unyielding.

“And now you want to act like that never happened?” you press on. “How did you expect this to turn out? That we would be on the road forever, always going nowhere? That you could get away with never addressing all the things you said, just because I never brought it up?” You scoff. “Did you ever give a shit, or was this whole thing just a way to get into my pants?”

Your eyes are burning, and not just from the heat. Jeonghan’s hands are balled up around the seatbelt, the skin around his mouth pulled tight. You don’t dare to look away, hoping against hope for him to finally say something, anything, even though you’ve been in a dozen arguments like this that all ended the same way. This time, you pray with bated breath, this time it has to be different.

“I guess it was just a bad idea,” he says finally, quietly.

Every tensed muscle in your body goes limp, and you’re pulling yourself out of the suffocating car before your mind has even formed a coherent thought, dying to get away from him. The asphalt seems to sizzle, and you wonder in a daze if the road is just a mirage and you’ve actually been standing in one spot this entire time.

You’re standing in the heat, the warm wind making your skin sting with sweat, and even with your hands covering your face you can still sense Jeonghan’s presence behind you. When you turn, there he is, standing still in front of the car. The sun’s rays reflect off of the hood of the car and into your eyes, and you blink back against the stinging brought on by the forceful brightness. For a second you can’t see the expression on his face as he shifts, his silhouette outlined in shadow by the glaring sun, but then your eyes adjust to the light and the look on his face makes something crack and split apart in your chest.

You know then that he will not say anything. He will watch you walk away, again and again and again, with that stoic set of his shoulders and the proud line of his mouth, but he will not say a word. You want to grab him and shake him, scream at him to say something, but you know that his words, in all their vehemence and vitality, are reserved only for him. And you’re going to stay outside, forgotten in the sun, where he hung you out to dry all those months ago.

You wrap your arms around yourself, feeling a twinge of pain against the side of your ribs where his fingers dug into your skin last night. For a moment, you can almost feel his hot breath on your neck, his teeth on your thighs, but you blink, and suddenly the distance between you feels too great. Jeonghan’s eyes bore into yours, the heels of his palms braced against the hood of the car he leans on, and even in the sweltering heat you have to suppress a shiver.

“I knew this was a bad idea,” you whisper. “Even when I didn’t have a choice.”

A muscle in his neck pulls taut, but all he does is lift one corner of his mouth in a lazy, sardonic smile. You watch him pretend not to notice as his grip turns white-knuckle-tight.

“Needs must when the devil drives, sweetheart,” is all he says.

You have no response to that. “Right,” you whisper. Your fingers are trembling, and you’re definitely in no state to drive, but you’re suddenly seized with the desire to get away from it all. Away from him. “Take me home, Jeonghan.”

Peonies have always been Joshua’s favorite.

Even though you’ve never been big on elaborate apologies, the guilt you feel after having ignored your injured best friend for the past couple of weeks is strong enough that you end up buying a whole bouquet for him. Joshua’s mom’s face lights up when she sees you, and you give her a shy, apologetic smile right before she sweeps you up into a bone-crushing hug.

Your eyes widen, but you wrap your arms around her anyway, feeling stupidly emotional at the warm reception. “Oh, sweetheart, I haven’t seen you in so long!” she gushes, and you ignore the painful squeeze of your heart upon hearing the endearment. “If Josh had told me that you were coming, I would’ve made your favorite cherry brownies.”

“No problem, ma’am, I’ll be sticking around for a while,” you tell her with a warm smile.

“Oh, you must be looking for him,” she says, “Poor kid’s been cooped up for weeks, he misses you so much. I think he’s in the backyard, or I would’ve called for him.”

The backyard? You wonder what a guy with a broken leg is doing in the backyard—definitely not sunning himself in this weather—but you thank her anyway. Gripping your bouquet, you head to the back of the house, pushing past the screen door and stepping into the uncut grass of the Hongs’ backyard.

And stop short.

“What the fuck?” you sputter.

Joshua almost trips over the black-and-white football, steadying himself last minute to look up at you with wide eyes. Your grip on the flowers has tightened even further as you imagine it to be the boy’s throat. “Hey, ____,” he says with a strained grin. “I didn’t know you were coming! This is such a lovely surprise. And are those flowers? For me? Aw, you shouldn’t have!”

You stare him down, unrelenting. “I didn’t realize broken bones could heal themselves in less than three weeks,” you say pleasantly, a contrast to the death glare that pins him in place. “Shouldn’t you be resting, sweet Joshua?”

“Oh, um, the doctors were pretty surprised too. Miracle recovery, they called it.” He lets out a forced laugh as you cock an eyebrow menacingly. Joshua sighs, dropping the facade. “Okay, that’s not working, huh.”

“No,” you tell him. “But I can break your leg right now to make it all true, because I know how much you hate lying to your best friend.”

He puts his hands up placatingly, taking a careful step back. “Hey, hey, hey, I can explain,” he says, sweating. “Why don’t we go back inside and get you something to drink, and then I can tell you why I lied,” he suggests with a nervous smile. “You must be parched.”

You give him a dirty look. “For blood, yeah,” you mutter. “This better be fucking good, Hong, or I’m going to break both your legs.”

Back in his room, you opt to stand near the doorway in case he tries to bolt. You’d tried to upend the peonies into the bin, but he’d grabbed them before you could, saying that the poor flowers weren’t to blame. Joshua sits on the edge of his bed, hugging the bouquet to his chest, and you fold your arms threateningly across your chest. “Alright,” you say waspishly. “Explain yourself.”

He looks down at his shoes, see-sawing the heels of his cleats back and forth. “Before you get mad,” he starts, “you gotta remember one thing. I did it for you.”

Your lips curl downwards into an unimpressed frown. “Let me get this straight. You lied to me about your leg being broken, sending my ex-boyfriend in your place to take me home, for my sake?”

Joshua winces. “That sounds pretty terrible when you put it like that,” he confesses. “But, yeah, I did.” You unfold your arms, making as if to step towards him, and he yelps, putting his hands up again. “Let me explain!”

“You’ve explained plenty,” you tell him.

“No, I still have stuff left!” he pleads. “Listen, after you broke up with that guy, you weren’t the one who had to deal with him afterwards. While you went back to college, I had to stay here and be there for him while he was moping all over the place.”

You roll your eyes. “I would hardly call you and Jeonghan friends. There’s no reason he would come to you for comfort.”

“I mean, yeah, he didn’t,” he admits, “but this is a small town. Do you know how hard it is to escape the news of one break-up, especially one as high-profile as yours.”

“High profile?”

“You know what I mean,” he chides. “The point is, you didn’t see him afterwards. He was really torn up about it, you know?” You purse your lips as Joshua leans forward, his expression turning serious. “I didn’t have any sympathy for him in the beginning, because of what you told me, but the more I saw of him the more difficult it became to match up the idea of the Jeonghan I knew and the Jeonghan you said told you all those things.”

Scoffing, you look away, unable to stand the sight of Joshua’s imploring eyes. “Just because you couldn’t make sense of it doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.”

He sighs. “Look, I’m not defending him. What he said to you—about not seeing the point in putting in effort, that you were just playing at charades, and the thing about your relationship being a childish mistake—”

You grit your teeth. “I get it. I was there, remember?”

“Yeah.” Joshua scratches his head, a thin line appearing between his brows. “He had no right to say any of that to you, but I still felt like there was something I was missing, so I went to talk to him.”

Defeated, you throw your hands up. “Of course you did.”

“And I don’t think he meant any of that. I mean, he still shouldn’t have said that shit, but…” Your eyes narrow to snakelike slits, and he shakes his head hastily. “Haven’t you ever gotten the feeling that despite all his bravado, the guy just doesn’t know how to express his feelings without getting defensive about them?”

You hesitate, biting your lip. Joshua sees the shift in your mood, and persists. “I might be wrong, and maybe breaking up with him was the best thing that ever happened to you,” he says, “but if there was the slightest chance of miscommunication, I would be a shitty best friend if I allowed you to let him go without a chance to set things right.” He tilts his head, sitting back. “So I faked a broken leg and kind of tricked him into thinking I was doing him a favor by letting him go get you in my place.”

“You tricked Jeonghan.” You can’t lie, you’re impressed. “Wow, you’re insane.”

“Um, I would say talented,” he argues. “Anyway, he was happy to do it. I think he was secretly looking for a chance to talk to you, so I thought a five hour drive might give him enough courage to tell you how he really felt. Then when you came back, I thought I’d surprise you, and we’d get to go on that trip after all. And then you texted me that you were eloping with him—”

“That’s not what it was.”

“—and I thought that my idea had worked. But then…” he trails off, and looks down at the flowers in his hands.

“But what?” you prompt.

“I don’t know, you tell me,” he says. “Something clearly went wrong.”

You sigh, and walk over to sit down heavily beside him. “It was going fine in the beginning,” you tell him. “But we didn’t actually talk about the argument, and after a point, I didn’t know how to bring it up. Then we sort of…” You wince.

Joshua frowns. “What?”

You think about all the different times the two of you fucked instead of talking about your feelings. “We kissed,” you finally speak, and Joshua shakes his head disappointedly. “A few times.”

“I’m getting the feeling that’s not all you did.”

You shush him. “And then it sort of reached a boiling point, and we argued. Again.” Your heart hurts as you remember the argument from only hours ago. “And he said some messed up things. Again.”

Joshua is silent for a few moments. Then he slings an arm over your shoulders, squeezing you against him in an incredibly comforting side hug. “I’m sorry,” he mumbles into your hair, and you blink back tears.

“I missed you.” You reach up to wrap your hands around his shoulders. Joshua’s hugs are as comforting and as restrictive for your breathing as his mom’s. “I had the worst fucking time, but it was also the best fucking time,” you sniffle into the crook of his neck. Then you spot a gleaming trophy on his ledge. “Oh, so you guys did end up winning the playoffs.”

Joshua looks back, and nods. “Oh, yeah, the second half was absolutely insane. Remind me to tell you about it.”

You tuck your chin into his shoulder. “I still can’t believe I threw a whole tantrum about not getting to go on a trip,” you say, “when I could’ve just come back and done it anyway.”

“Don’t worry, we still have weeks to make up for that.” Joshua rubs your back comfortingly. “He’s an idiot.”

“Yeah, he is,” you mumble, speech slightly obstructed by your cheek squished against Joshua’s shoulder. “I just thought things might be different this time.”

“Me too,” he whispers.

You press your face back into his neck. "You're not off the hook, by the way."

Joshua sighs.

Joshua’s mom insists on throwing you a welcome back party that night, and despite being both emotionally and physically exhausted, you can’t find it in yourself to say no. She makes you your favorite cherry brownies, as promised, which are the only thing you eat before your appetite runs out.

You sit alone at the table after everyone is done eating and the guests have dispersed around the house, dragging your spin around the empty hollow of your bowl. Your shoulders feel heavy with the weight of all the mistakes you’ve made. As you sit there idly, you keep running your last conversation with Jeonghan over and over in your head, wondering what you could’ve said to make it go differently.

You close your eyes, and for a moment you’re back to last October, standing on the ice-slicked ground outside the diner where you’ve celebrated every birthday with Jeonghan since eighth grade. His eyes are vacant and vicious and there’s ice trapped around your ribs that seems to be getting harder and sharper with every breath, and you’re screaming at each other until your throat is raw and your tears freeze in the cold.

There’s no point in crying over spilt milk, you suppose, and you’ve always been a hothead. You and Jeonghan together are about as mild as an active volcano.

Sighing, you get to your feet, the table cover rustling over your knees. You’ve stayed for about as long as you could have, and now you just want to sleep. I’m just gonna tell her I’m tired, you think, and head towards the backyard in hopes to catch Joshua’s mom conversing with someone there.

You step outside into the dark to find a single person sitting on the rickety old swing. Frowning, you move closer to figure out if it’s her, but the frame is too tall and masculine to be the person you’re looking for. “Sorry, I thought you were someone else,” you tell them as they raise their head, taking a step back.

“No. Stay.” A hand reaches out to wrap around your wrist, tugging it towards the swing. It’s then that you notice the silvery-blond hair, lit up by the smattering of light that shines out past the half-open screen door. Jeonghan gets to his feet, and you freeze. “Please.”

“I didn’t realize you were invited,” you say stiffly.

“I wasn’t. I just came to look for you,” he says. There’s an earnest touch to his voice, giving you pause. “To apologize.”

You bite the inside of your cheek, feeling your hackles rise. “What could you possibly have to say now?” You free your hand from his grasp, taking another step back. “You’ve made it sufficiently clear that this never meant anything to you.”

“Of course it meant something!” he yells. He takes a deep breath, chest still rising and falling. “I never wanted to hurt you. I was—I was scared.”

The notion sounds so ridiculous that you want to laugh in his face. But his eyes are still on yours, voice is gravelly and somber, and you feel like you’re rooted to the spot.

“Scared of what?” you whisper.

“Scared to repeat history,” he replies. “Scared to let my pride get the best of me again, say things I don’t mean. Lot of good that did me, since trying to avoid talking about it just led me to making the same mistakes.”

Your throat constricts painfully, like it’s being choked from the inside. “You really hurt me, you know,” you say hoarsely. “I never wanted to see your face again.”

A small, sad smile touches his lips. “I know,” he says. “Knowing that you didn’t want to see me made everything so much scarier. What if you just refused to come back with me? What if you’d rather just stay back or actually take the bus?” He seems to struggle with his words for a second. “When you agreed to come on that stupid road trip, I felt like I had struck the lottery.”

Your vision is blurry, and you blink rapidly against the oncoming tears. “Thank you,” you whisper, choking back the emotion that surges up your throat, “for telling me that. But,”

He waits.

“That’s not enough,” you complete tiredly. “I’m sorry.”

“Why?” Jeonghan asks, eyes blazing. He looks just as tired as you are. “Is it because of what I said? Because—I don’t know how to make you believe this, but I didn’t mean any of what I said.”

“No.” It feels like the only reason you’re standing still is because every cell in your body has had the energy sucked out of it, leaving you bone-weary. “It’s because you never say anything. And I’m sick of it, Jeonghan.” Your face twists as you try not to start sobbing like a little kid. “I can’t live knowing that you can go back to pretending to be that wooden, unfeeling shell of a person every time I rip myself to shreds in front of you. I hate that you never say a word, that you’re willing to watch me walk away rather than choke back that damn pride of yours. I’m fucking sick of it.”

His eyes soften. “I’m not the same person I used to be, sweetheart. Losing you taught me that,” he says quietly. “Even if I forget that at times myself. Please, just let me show you.”

“I'm not a girl anymore, Jeonghan,” you say tightly. “I don’t know how many second chances I have left in me.”

“That's what I'm afraid of.” He moves towards you, cupping your face. “Because you still feel like a girl to me… and I still feel like a boy around you. I'm afraid that you're growing up and away and out of me. That’s how I felt last October, when you came back so different, and I didn’t know what to do with myself. I thought you wouldn’t need me anymore.”

“Then why didn't you say that?” you demand, lungs burning. “All this time, I've been—” You finally let the tears flow. “I’ve been so…”

“Because I'm still seventeen," he breathes, "every time I look at you, choking on my words as you come down the stairs in your prom dress. I might be a devil, but when it comes to you, words still fail me."

There’s a barbed wire wrapped around your spine, a spike stabbing into each vertebrae, that tightens and tightens with every word that comes out of his mouth. He laughs under his breath, as if remembering something. “You see,” he says, “being around you kind of activates my fight or flight instinct.”

A broken laugh bubbles to your lips, and you blink against the tears that seem to make everything brighter around you. “You suck,” you tell him honestly, making him smile as if you’d just told him he was the most perfect man on earth. Standing straighter, you school your features into an expression of formality, and clear your throat. “So how are you planning on not making the same mistakes again?”

“Well,” he says, “I’m gonna try really, really hard.”

You cast your eyes heavenward. “You’re really lucky I’m hopelessly in love with you.”

“I know.” Jeonghan takes your face between his cold hands and pulls you in for a firm kiss. You clutch the hem of his t-shirt, feeling warmth spread down to your toes when he smiles into the kiss. “I’m hopelessly in love with you, too.”

“Oh, look at you, all grown up,” Joshua gushes as you lug your olive green suitcase down the front steps of your porch. “Going off to college for the first day of her final year. I feel like we should take a photo to remember this moment.”

“Joshua, shut up,” Jeonghan grunts as he lifts the bag. “If you have the time to take a photo, you have the time to help me out with the luggage.”

“Um, aren’t you forgetting something?” Your best friend points exaggeratedly at the plaster cast that covers his foot. “I’m a bit disabled at the moment.”

Karma had come full circle for him when he’d tried to take over the neighboring eleven-year-old’s trampoline, and had ended up breaking his leg for real. Everyone thinks he deserved it except Joshua himself, who’d warmed up to the idea anyway when he’d realized that he could get people to sign cool stuff on his cast.

“You’re acting like I’m going for my first day at kindergarten or something.” You roll your eyes.

“Yeah, you’re a real grown-up,” he leans over to pat your arm, withdrawing it hastily when you threaten to kick his broken leg. “Jeez, calm your tits.”

“I am calm.”

“Totally.” Jeonghan slams the boot of the Corolla, making a cloud of dust puff up. He reaches over to press a chaste kiss to your lips. “You ready to go?”

“I really think we should take a picture,” Joshua interjects.

Both of you turn to glare at him, and he shrinks into the wheelchair. “Sensing some hostility,” he mutters. “So ungrateful, considering that I’m the whole reason you’re together in the first place.”

“Exaggeration,” you say, and turn to Jeonghan. “I’ll just be a moment, okay?”

He nods, and you give him a tiny smile before running back inside the house. Joshua shakes his head curiously at Jeonghan, who only shrugs in response, just as mystified. They wait for a few more seconds, and Joshua pulls out the marker and begins doodling inside the D of your signature on his cast, which is a sweet, short message: Dick.

“Okay!” You command the attention back to yourself with a clap of your hands as you emerge from the door, this time with the plastic pink heart-shaped sunglasses adoring your face. “How do I look?” you ask, propping them up on the top of your head, and giving them a little twirl.

“Like an idiot,” your best friend says, deadpan. You smack the back of his head as you pass him. “Also, don’t forget your Hello Kitty backpack. They go with your glasses.”

“That’s mine, actually,” Jeonghan says pointedly, and turns to you with a heart-melting smile. “And you look gorgeous as always.”

“Disgusting,” Joshua comments.

You flip him off. “I’m ready to go now.”

“Well, then,” your boyfriend says breezily, patting the hood of the car, which causes another cloud of dust to billow into the air. “Get in. We don’t have all day.”

taglist: @fragmentof-indifference @sadgirlroo @joonsytip @odetoyoon @sstarrysshit @lockburn-castle @chocosvt @ohgeezitsbreadgenie @outrologist @ishireads @ti--red

#my thots charted throughout:#so if you haven't read the fic then IGNORE cuz obvious spoilers oh em gee #JEONGHAN IS HER PROM DATE awwwwwww <3 #not the slight change of plans i don't know why they're ex's yet but i'm on reader's side #:3 #me when joshua doesn't grab a hot glue gun and some staples to diy his leg back tgth :/ like stop being fake #omg yeah i feel so bad for reader and all that planning / coordinating she did w joshua going down the drain :_(#i understand her frustration i feel like trying to level w someone who is so calm but instigating would make me throw up #i used to work fashion at walmart and some of the shirts that came threw made me choke laughing #like jeonghan wym u don't want that I PAUSED MY GAME TO BE HERE t-shirt it compliments ur eyes babe #'you asked for this'#i just fainted down a well and hit my head on the water bucket #'plenty of time to regret it in the morning'#me when i smile with tears in my eyes #the spice scene was written soo beautifully it was like silk in my brain #NOO THE REGRET HITS LIKE A TRUCK #oh look at him now mr. VULNERABILITY doesn't it make you throw up??#'unburdened as those girls in sanitary pad ads' PLSSSS HAHAHA #omg the beach scene :( literally so pretty and fresh and now i want beach plz #omg the angst has exploded yessssssss BUT IT'S SO SAD and like gawd damn i feel like jeonghan himself is also too prideful #he'd rather just not say anything at all bc maybe he fears it'll just dig the situation deeper?? hmmm i'm not sure #cue is it better to speak or to die #OMFG JOSHUA THAT LYING B1TCH!#HE HAS GLASS BONES AND PAPER SKIN!!#okay so we get a bit more clarity in the joshua scene it seems like reader and jeonghan just clash in their similarities #and it kinda spurs the other so they never get the chance to rly communicate there's always a roadblock #'i'm still svt seeing u in ur prom dress' KMSSSSSSSSS #yeah like i think jeonghan was letting her walk away cuz he knew if i match her hostility or wtv we'll be back in the same place #but then it still didn't work out :(#THE 11 YEAR OLDS TRAMPOLINE IM PSISING MYSELF

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absurdthirst · 10 months ago

Text

Contracted Fling {Joel Miller x F!Reader}

Rating: Explicit

Word Count: 14.8k

Warnings: Secret affair, rough sex, oral sex (male and female receiving), semi-public sex, mentions of loss, miscommunication, fight, Joel being sexily violent, make up sex, morning after

Comments: Hired to renovate your parents house, Joel finds you irresistible. Engaging in an affair that turns complicated and scratches beneath both of your pasts.

Co-written with @storiesofthefandomlovers

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|| MasterList || Joel Miller MasterList ||

Click Keep Reading only if you have read the Rating and Warnings and understand the warnings may not be complete to avoid listing spoilers. As AO3 says 'creator chooses not to use warnings'. You also agree that you're the right age to be consuming anything here.

It’s not a bad gig. Not all things considered. The house isn’t in terrible shape, it just needs updating and homeowners aren’t the type to squabble if Joel uncovers some problem that will take more time and money to fix, they just want it to be done right. A true rarity in construction.

Then there’s you. He’s old enough to know better and you’re young enough to have moved back into your parent’s house one week after demolition had started. You are a bonafide distraction and trouble all wrapped up in a pretty little package. Right now, he’s moving the little box of your bathroom shit into the hallway to continue to tear the tile out. Trying not to look down into it and see what you use when the smell of your shampoo drives him crazy.

When you moved back in with your parents, you felt like a failure. Your ex boyfriend had cheated on you and you were living in his place. You refused to stay in his apartment a moment longer so you packed your things and left. Moving back home, you plan to save enough money to get your own place but for now, you’re happy to be home.

Especially when you’re greeted with the sight of Joel laboring around the house. He’s older, beard salt and pepper with streaks of gray through his hair. He’s unbelievably hot in a DILF kind of way, and you want him. It’s been a while since you had sex. Your ex hadn’t touched you and you wondered why until you found him balls deep in the colleague he said was ‘just a good friend.’

Joel is working on removing the tile in your bathroom, his brother downstairs is working on the tile in the kitchen, and you walk past the bathroom, eager to catch a sight of him. The way his plaid shirt stretches over his shoulders makes your mouth drool.

“How’s it going?” You ask him when he pauses his demolition, leaning against the doorframe in the short shorts you’ve taken to wearing around the house since he arrived.

Joel glances at your legs and then straightens, groaning slightly and reaching for his handkerchief to wipe the sweat off his face. “Should be done with the demo by tomorrow.” He tells you. “You can still use the bathroom tonight though.”

You cross your arms, biting your lip as you watch him roll his shoulders. “Cool. You and your brother seem to know what you’re doing. My parents made a good choice picking your company. You need some water? I’m heading downstairs to grab a coffee before I get back to work.” You’ve been working from your childhood bedroom, able to work remotely.

“Sure.” He won’t turn down water, especially enjoying the view when you turn around to walk to the stairs. “Thanks.” He calls after you, frowning slightly as he swears your ass shakes just a bit and his cock twitches. “She’s not interested in you.” He grunts to himself, listening to you bound down the stairs and call out a ‘hello’ to Tommy when you go into the kitchen.

You come back about five minutes later with your coffee cup and you hand him a bottle of water, your fingers brushing his as he takes it from you. You stand there, watching as he opens the bottle and tilts his head back to down half the bottle, his Adam’s apple moving. Your mouth falls open slightly and you swallow down the drool. God, he’s so hot and he doesn’t even know it. “I’ll be in my room if you need anything else.” You try to say as innocently as possible and you turn to walk out of the bathroom with your cup of coffee. You’ll keep pushing him, see if he breaks, and if he doesn’t, you know he doesn’t want you.

“Thanks.” He lifts the bottle and watches as you walk away again, hissing slightly under his breath. You have been prancing around the house in short shorts and tank tops with your tits on display, giving him a good fucking view of the body you have. It makes him want to bend you over the bathroom sink and fuck you, but it’s your house, you can wear what you want. He’s just a guest here.

****

It’s been two weeks since Joel and Tommy started working on your parent’s house and you have been frustrated by Joel’s presence. Every night, when the house is quiet, you rub your clit and imagine Joel taking you hard over the under construction kitchen counter. Today, his brother Tommy, is sick and it’s only Joel who is working on the kitchen floor. You work in your room until you decide to seek out a snack, making your way downstairs to the makeshift pantry. “Hey Joel. You want a snack?” You ask and you bend over to see what’s in the box your mom left in the corner.

Joel groans and grits his teeth together. “Yeah.” He grunts. “Whatcha got?” He knows what he wants to snack on. It’s right in front of him, bent over and all he has to do is just pull your shorts down and pull his cock out of his jeans. “Anything good?”

You rifle through the snacks and hold up a couple of options over your head. “Chips or cookies?” You offer and he says “chips.” You take the cookies and stand up, tossing the packet over to him. You lean against the dining table and watch him shove a chip into his mouth. “So…how’s the work coming along? Must be hard without your brother here to help today.”

Joel snorts, rolling his eyes playfully and shrugs. “Better, don’t have to listen to him whine about dealing with his pregnant wife.” He jokes. “Cravings and cramps and aches and pains.” He shoves his hand back into the bag. “Told him just to fuck her good when she’s complaining, but that might be why he’s expecting a kid.”

You wince slightly at the mention of his sister in-law being pregnant. A sensitive subject for you but Joel doesn’t know that. You chuckle after a second, fiddling with the bag in your hand. “Being a woman isn’t easy. Being pregnant, well that’s the hardest thing. Not that I- I don’t have kids. From what I’ve heard.” You explain, “you guys are doing a great job. My parents are already happy with your work. You’re good with your hands.” You compliment saucily, licking your lips of cookie crumbs after taking a bite.

Joel lifts a brow at your comment and stares at you for a moment. “I am good with my hands.” He agrees, staring at you in challenge, waiting to see what else will come out of that mouth of yours. Trying not to think about what he would like to put in that mouth. How you would react to that.

“What else are you good with?” You ask, biting your lip as you wait for his reply. He leans against the counter, crossing his arms and the chip packet is still in his hand.

“Lots of things.” Joel brags, smirking at you slightly. “What are you interested in?” He asks, setting the bag down on the counter and crossing one leg over the other at the ankles as he waits for you to answer.

You set the bag of cookies down on the kitchen table and brush off your hands, taking a step towards him. “Lots of things.” You hum, walking towards him, “not sure if you’re interested in using them on me but I sure have imagined it enough times.”

It’s an invitation, one that he hadn’t expected but he damn sure appreciated. He doesn’t move, just arching a brow at you as he licks his lips. “Take off your shirt.” He orders.

Your parents aren’t home. It’s only you and Joel. You can’t deny him when he looks at you with those dark brown eyes, his gaze burning into you. You reach down to grip the hem of your tank top and pull it over your head to expose your lace bra. You know he wants you to take that off too and you want to make the first move so you reach behind you to unclasp it, letting it drop down your arms to fall onto the floor he’s been working on.

He grunts, his cock twitching and hardening in his jeans. Finally uncrossing his ankles and standing straight as he steps closer to you. “You have pretty tits.” He compliments, palms itching to touch them. “Now I want to see your ass.”

How can you deny him? You reach down to unbutton your shorts, knowing he’s in total control. He could leave you high and dry and humiliated but the look in his eyes tells you he’s going to give you exactly what you want. You push your shorts down along with your panties and turn around as you kick them away. Looking over your shoulder at him, you smirk. “Like what you see, old man?”

You have a fucking gorgeous ass. He wants to slap it and he huffs as he pins you against the counter, newly installed by him. “Unbutton my pants and find out.” He orders.

Your stomach twists with anticipation and arousal and you reach down to unbutton his jeans, snaking your hand in to wrap your fingers around his cock. “Fucking hell.” You gasp in shock. He’s huge. Thick and throbbing in your hand. “Is that - I don’t know if that’s gonna fit, Miller.”

Joel chuckles quietly and smirks at you. “Don’t think it will, little girl?” You’re a grown ass woman, but your fingers tighten around his cock when he calls you that so he assumes you like it. “I think it will. I think you’ll take every inch and scream my name.”

You pull him out of his jeans and squeeze him, starting to slowly pump him as his hands cup your tits. “Big words. Big words I’m not sure you can fulfill.” You taunt him, licking your lips as you clench around nothing.

He huffs and reaches for your waist, pulling you up to shove you onto the counter and spread your thighs. “That right?” He grunts, squeezing your thigh before he slides his fingers to your core and finds you dripping wet. “I think it’ll be nice and slick.”

“Fuck.” You whimper when his fingers find your clit. “You wanna find out?” You ask breathlessly, grinding back against his hard cock. “Joel. I need- I want you to fuck me.”

The next moment, Joel’s too busy lining up and pushing inside your hot, tight cunt to even think about birth control. Groaning as he pushes deep, he doesn’t stop until he's bottomed out inside you and one hand slaps down on the new granite countertop.

Your gasp echoes in the kitchen, your eyes sliding shut as he stretches you out. “Holy shit.” You whisper, “oh my God. You’re - I think you’re in my guts.” You admit, unable to believe how he feels inside of you.

Joel growls, loving how tight you are squeezing him. “That’s the point, little girl.” He reminds you cockily. “To let you feel it.” He pulls back and then slams back into you.

Your head drops back, your mouth open in a silent moan as the delicious friction slams you into the counter. “I feel it. I - fuck - I feel it.” You pant, eyes opening as you turn your head to look at him, loving the way his dark eyes seem almost black with his desire for you.

He start to fuck you, quick hard thrusts that have you gasping his name while your hips bang against the counter. Reaching up to cup your tits and squeeze harshly before pinching your nipples.

“Shit. Shit. Shit.” You hiss as he fucks you hard and fast. You cover his hands with yours as much as you can, making him squeeze your tits even harder. “Joel. Feels - better than I imagined.” You confess in a squeal when he kicks your ankle to spread you wider so he can push impossibly deeper.

“Gonna- fuck, gonna make you scream.” He huffs, nearly out of breath from how hard he’s fucking you but his hips don’t stutter and he doesn’t slow down. “Want to hear you scream.” He bites down on your ear and lets go of one of your tits to rub your clit.

Your hands slap down on the counter and when his calloused fingers find your clit. “Oh my - fuck!” You squeal, thighs starting to shake as he pounds into you, rubbing your bundle of nerves. You haven’t been fucked like this in - never. You’ve never been fucked like this. “Yes. Yes. Yes! I’m gonna - oh shit. You’re gonna make me cum.” You confess in a wheeze as he rasps in your ear, “that’s it, little girl. Want you to soak my cock.” You shudder and your palms slide on the counter, slick with sweat as he works your body higher. “I’m gonna - Joel!” You shriek as you cum, clamping down on his cock.

Joel growls again and the slap of his hips against your ass becomes even more frantic, fucking you through the high of your orgasm and chasing his own. Groaning filthily into your ear at how tight you grip him, making his hips stutter as you ride out the pleasure. “Gonna give me another?” He hisses in your ear, still rubbing your clit. “Gonna soak me again and scream. I know it, I can feel it.”

Most men would’ve already been pushing deep and spilling inside of you but Joel is still going. Your jaw is dropped and senseless moans of obedience fill the kitchen as you wordlessly promise him you’ll cum again. His hips press against your ass, no doubt leaving bruises from the brutal way your hips are hitting the quartz counter. His fingers rub your clit and he slaps it after a few seconds. Your eyes roll into the back of your head as he continues to ruin you. “Gonna - yes. Again.” You gasp out, walls starting to flutter around his cock.

His back is killing him and his knees feel like they are turning to rubber, but he doesn’t stop. Addicted to the way your body splits open for his cock and your walls hug him close. “That’s it. Cum for me, you naughty little girl.” He groans. “Tightest little pussy I’ve ever fucked.”

His raspy words send you over the edge. “Oh fuck. Joel!” You sob his name out, loud enough for the neighbors to hear as he fucks you by the kitchen window. You clamp down on his cock, soaking him and your knees give out but he presses you against the counter while he frantically fucks into you. “Cum inside of me. It’s safe.” You promise breathlessly, slumping down to rest your upper body on the cool counter as he continues to ram into you.

Joel grunts, his body curling around you and he holds onto the counter as he pounds into you. Feeling his own orgasm getting closer with every thrust while you clench around him. “Fuck, fuck.” He growls into your ear. “Gonna fill you up.”

“Yes yes yes. Do it. Oh God. Fuck me. Fill me up.” You beg, wanting to hear him when he climaxes. You turn your head to look at him, his jaw clenched as he rocks into you. “Cum for me, baby.” You plead and that’s his undoing. He grunts as he cums, his cock twitching while he paints your walls with his hot seed.

Joel closes his eyes, his forehead pressed to the nap of your neck as he rocks his hips shallowly. Making sure every drop of his cum spurts inside of you until he is done. “Fuck.” He hisses, enjoying the wave of pure bliss that floods his body and he pants to catch his breath. “You good?” He asks after a moment.

You nod, trying to catch your own breath. “So good.” You confess, looking back at him when he lifts his head from your neck. “Didn’t expect that to happen today but I’m glad it did.” You giggle and caress his forearms as he clings to you.

He pulls out of you slowly, not wanting to hurt you. Rocking back and reluctantly letting you go so he can tuck himself back into his jeans. “Feel a lot lighter now.” He snorts, snagging a paper towel to wipe you up.

“Maybe you can focus on the floor instead of watching me walk around in these tiny shorts I had to dig out of my case to tempt you with.” You giggle, reaching for your panties after he tosses the paper towel. “Took you long enough to make a move, Miller.”

Joel snorts, “maybe, spent enough time thinking about bending you over the bathroom tub.”

You chuckle, grabbing your bra after pulling your tank top back on. “Mmm, now that sounds like a good time. You promise to do that?” You tease him, “but seriously, I want more sex if you want that. Nothing serious. Some fun and you’re - you’re the hottest man I’ve seen in a long time. I don’t want strings after what happened with my ex. I want to have fun. You up for that or is this a one time thing?” You gesture between you, wanting him to make a choice on if this happens again.

Joel contemplates your offer and shrugs. “Sounds like I would be a fucking idiot to turn down sex.” He folds his arms over his chest. “Especially with a woman as gorgeous as you are.” He’s not the best at paying compliments, but he likes the way you smile when he says that. You are gorgeous and you want him to fuck you, the least he can do is make you feel good.

You step closer to him, leaning in to kiss his jaw, “I gotta get back to work but I’ll see you later. This is gonna be fun.” You squeal as you step back and stride off to the stairs, making your way up to your room. Joel huffs, a smirk on his face as he shakes his head. You’re going to be trouble.

****

You bite your lip as Joel works on tiling your parent’s bathroom today. His shirt is off, leaving him in a tank top, a chain hanging from his neck, and you keep walking past to get a glimpse of him. “Stop starin’.” He orders and you lean against the door frame.

“Can’t help it when you’re teasing me all day with those arms of yours.” Your cross your arms, letting your eyes trail down his body as he stands to turn and face you. His brother is downstairs working on the half bath and you know he can’t hear you flirting with his older brother.

“You gonna let me fuck you on my lunch break?” Joel asks, smirking as he looks up from the mortar line he is laying. “Tommy’s running some errands so I’m gonna just stay here and eat my sandwich like a good boy.” He chuckles when your thighs press together on instinct.

You smirk, “yeah? You gonna have your cake and eat it too? You know Tommy won’t be gone for too long and I can’t be quiet so you gotta be quick to make me scream your name and cum before you finish your lunch.” You step into the bathroom and lean on the vanity, pushing your tits together so they meet his gaze when he looks up at you again. “You think you’re up for the challenge, old man?”

“I could make you cum on my tongue now, little girl.” He growls, eyes dropping to your tits. “Then just fill that little pussy with my cum while he’s gone.” Joel smirks at you with glee, “but I don’t know if you can be that quiet.”

You inhale sharply, “I could try. You could keep me quiet. Use your fingers or - or my panties.” You test him, wondering if he’s bold enough to do this while his brother is downstairs. “I can be good.”

Joel chuckles quietly and drops his trowel into the bucket and groans slightly as he climbs to his feet. “Hand me your panties then get up on the counter.” He orders, grabbing his rag to wipe his face. “And spread your legs.”

You giggle, glad you are wearing a dress today while pushing your panties down, handing them to him, and you shift to sit on the vanity he installed the other day, spreading your legs. He’s so hot, his muscles moving while he wears that tank top and his jeans tight around his thighs. He shifts to stand between your legs and you tilt your head to kiss his chin.

Joel pushes your dress up even more, pleased that you are so eager to give him what he wants. He tilts his head down to press his lips to yours briefly, not really kissing you a lot but you haven’t chased kisses either so he wonders if you dont really like it. Balling up your panties, he smirks as he holds them to your lips. “Open up, little girl. You can’t make too many noises while I eat your pussy.”

You eagerly open your mouth for him, wiggling on the cool surface as you impatiently wait for his next move after he pushes the lace into your mouth. It’s dry and you swallow around them, cheeks full of the material and your eyes meet his as his hands trail along your inner thighs, a whine of need is muffled by your underwear.

“So impatient.” He chides, pinching the inside of your thigh slightly and then soothing it with a small rub. “Now-“ he grunts as he kneels back down. “You need to be quiet.”

You watch him, eyes dark with lust as he leans in, his hot breath washing over your wet pussy. You’re always so turned on around him. You’ve never experienced this kind of attraction to someone before. You’re like a magnet to him. You whimper around the material when his tongue slides through your folds.

Joel doesn’t hesitate to lavish attention on your cunt, spreading your thighs apart with his hands you seem so obsessed with. Groaning at the first and second whimpers that you give him. You haven’t asked him for this, but he wants to, wants to have you cum for him. Loves making you cum and your thighs shake around his ears.

Your head tilts back to hit the wall where he hasn't installed the mirror yet. Your eyes closing as you arch your back so he can access more of you. You moan around the panties, his thumbs spreading your lips to suck on your clit.

Your thighs press his head and you roll your hips down, making Joel groan into your folds. You aren’t screaming yet, your moans are muffled by your panties and it’s thrilling. The door into the bathroom is still opened and your parents could come or Tommy could walk in at any moment. His eyes flicker up to watch your face as he sucks.

You couldn’t care less if someone sees you right now. His tongue is magic against your clit. Harsh but perfect as he sucks and licks. His fingers slide along your thighs, pushing your thighs back out to give him room to make you fall apart on his tongue.

He doesn’t rush you, keeping the rhythm of his tongue steady and he flicks his tongue against your hole before sucking on your clit again. Groaning quietly as he devours you.

You pant around the pace, your chest heaving as he works you higher. His tongue flicking and lapping then he sucks on your clit and your thighs start to shake around his head. His name is muffled as you moan it as you get closer and closer. When he pushes his tongue deep, curling it and his nose presses against your clit, you fall apart. Your cry is silenced but he knows you’ve fallen over the edge by the way your thighs squeeze his head.

He can feel the rapid pulse of your heart pumping blood through your veins and he loves it. Keeping his tongue curled up inside you, his curved nose pressed against your clit as he feels your arousal flood his tongue. Your thighs squeeze his head and he huffs slightly when your fingers grip his hair, not letting you push him away just yet.

You whine around your panties when it becomes too much, his tongue languidly swiping over your clit but you're too sensitive. Your hands finally succeed in pushing his head away and he smirks up at you, cocky because he made you fall apart under his tongue.

“Joel!” Joel can move fast when he needs to, lurching to his feed and out the door while you are still sprawled on the counter. Tommy pauses at the door to the master bedroom.

“Yeah?” He grumbles slightly. “Damn near thought you cut a finger off. What’re you yellin’ for?” Tommy snorts at the grumpy attitude of his older brother and shakes his head.

“I’m headed out, you sure you don’t wanna grab a burger?” He offers, making Joel shake his head.

“Nah, packed a lunch.” He smirks. “Even have dessert, ate that already though.”

You scramble off of the vanity, shoving your dress down and spitting out your panties to shove them in your bra. Your face is burning from nearly getting caught but your pussy is throbbing from arousal at the fact that his brother nearly caught you. Tommy stares at his brother, eyebrows raised at his shiny chin, but he doesn't say anything. He doesn't need to when his older brother stares at him as if to say 'don't you dare.'

Tommy holds up his hands and smirks slightly. “Alright..uh, you should finish up the tile in there today?” He asks, nodding to the bathroom.

“Yeah.” Joel nods and shoots daggers at his brother, wanting him to leave. “Have a good lunch.” He tells him pointedly.

Tommy shakes his head, a small chuckle escaping his lips. He isn't dumb. He's seen the way you and Joel look at each other and he doesn't care so long as your parents don't get pissed and blame the company for Joel fucking their daughter while doing the renovations. He's happy that Joel is finally getting some. It's been a couple of years since Tess died and he deserves some happiness after so long. Tommy leaves, purposefully slamming the door shut and you come out of the bathroom, "oh God. He knows, doesn't he?" You ask Joel, slightly mortified.

“Tommy’s not stupid.” Joel answers. “He won’t say anything.” He wonders if you would want to stop now, ashamed that someone other than you and him might know. He grins at you and glances down at the slight bulge under your shirt. “Still not wearing any panties?” He asks lecherously. “Do you want me to fuck you in the bathroom or bend you over mommy and daddy’s bed?” He’s half joking, but he would do it if you wanted.

You smirk, loving that he isn't put off by his brother knowing. "Oh God. I want - the bed. Want you inside of me. Want you to fill me up." You confess, knowing how wrong this is but your pussy is dripping as you stare at him, chest heaving.

“Lay down at the end of the bed.” Joel orders, reaching down to unbuckle his belt to unbutton his jeans. “Gonna put your legs up on my shoulders and fill your pussy with my cum right there on your parents bed like we’re fucking rebellious teenagers.” The fact that Joel’s not too much younger than your parents doesn’t matter, you make him feel younger.

You obey immediately, laying down on the bed and you shove your dress up to your waist. You watch him unbuckle his belt, his cock hard and aching as he pulls it out. You never get over the size of his length. “Fuck me, daddy.” You tease, spreading your legs for him.

“Fuck, do you want me to stay hard?” He huffs, pumping his cock in his hand and rolling his eyes at you. You giggle, not remorseful in the least and he shuffles forward. “I’m going to make you scream now that we are alone.” He warns with a smirk.

You moan when he slides his cock through your folds. “Please.” You whimper, your stomach clenching as you look up at him. “Want you to make me scream.” You demand, your hands caressing his forearms. He notches his cock at your entrance and grabs your wrists, lifting them over your head to press them into the mattress as he pushes into you.

“So goddamn tight.” He hisses. “Best little pussy I’ve ever fucked.”

You love his compliments. He’s not a man of many words but fuck, he’s so sexy. Your feet are behind his head as he lifts your calves onto his shoulders, practically folding you in two as you take his cock. “Oh my God. I think you’re in my throat this time.” You pant, closing your eyes.

“Good.” He huffs, rocking his hips forward sharply as he moves your legs up from his waist to his shoulders. Leaning forward, he braces his hands on the bed, flashing a smirk before he starts to destroy your pussy.

You moan when he starts to move, pushing deep and hard. “Yes yes yes!” You squeal, your head tilting back and you close your eyes.

“Look at me.” He demands, “fucking - keep your eyes open.” Your eyes flutter open and you look at him above you, his jaw clenched as he rocks into you. He stares down at you, his jaw clenched as he fucks you hard enough to shake the bed, the headboard starting to bang against the wall. “Fuck, dirty little slut.” He grunts. “So desperate for my cock you’re letting me fuck you on your parents bed.”

“Yes. Your - your slut. Oh God. Your cock. Only your cock drives me to do this.” You cry out, “so good. You - you fill me up so well.” You moan as he grinds deep into you. “Joel. So - so fucking good.” You cry as he fucks you hard and fast.

He can feel how close you are, bending down even more so he can press his lips to yours and the short hair above his cock grinds against your clit. “Cum.” He demands breathlessly. “Want you to cum.”

You practically wail, your eyes closing as you fall apart. “Oh my - Joel! Joel! Joel!” You squeal as you clamp down on his cock, soaking him with your cum.

Joel groans, eyes rolling back as you pack down around him. Having to really thrust his hips to move as he tries to work you through. “Fuck!” He yells, grabbing your thighs and straightening up as he continues to drill into you.

You watch him, your body pushed up the bed. “Come on. Cum for me, baby. Wanna feel it. Wanna feel you spill inside of me. Come on.” You egg him on, clenching around him as he drills into you until he stutters, his cock throbbing as he fills you up. “That’s it. Oh shit. Never gets old. Love watching you cum.”

Joel grunts and groans as he finally stops cumming. Panting and his work rough hands caress your legs. “Fucking love cumming in you.” He watches as he pulls out, spreading your thighs to watch his cum start to push out of your cunt. “That is a pretty sight.”

You giggle as he watches your pussy for a moment until he lets your legs down from his shoulders. “You wanna have your lunch?” You ask, knowing he’s gotta be hungry after that and he does need a lunch break. He nods and you gingerly shift off of the bed, “I’ll tidy up. Go eat.” You demand, rubbing his shoulder.

Joel tucks himself away and goes downstairs to where his lunch box is sitting in the kitchen. He really had packed a lunch because of Tommy and he opens it quickly. He knows that Tommy won’t say a word, but he will give him shit for taking too long on the lunch break.

****

You bite your lip as you watch Joel work, his shoulders moving with each motion of the brush while he paints the wall. He senses your presence and turns to look at you. Tommy is on a coffee run and your parents are out. "Hey trouble." He smirks at you and you step closer to him.

"Hey handsome." You don't mess around, knowing you don't have a lot of time so you squeeze him through his pants.

“What are you doing?” He hisses, glancing around the room as if someone could walk in at any second. You laugh, making him glare at you and you squeeze him again.

“I want to suck your cock.” You tell him, making him hiss again, this time his hardening cock jump against your palm. You smirk as he twitches under your touch. “No one is here. Just us.” You reassure him, your fingers sliding up to unbuckle his belt. Your nimble fingers unbutton his jeans and you reach in to pull out his half hard cock. “Wanna taste you.” You murmur as you shift to kneel down in front of him, paint splattered on his pants.

“Fuck.” Joel groans, looking down to find you watching him under your lashes while your tongue slides along the growing length of his cock. He’s never had someone blow him in their parents kitchen, and he’s not going to turn you down when you are so eager for it.

You kiss along his length as you feel him harden against your lips. His hands gripping the kitchen counter as he watches you. You moan when you wrap your lips around the head, loving the spurt of pre-cum hitting your tongue. Salty and all Joel. You can’t seem to get enough of him.

It’s fucking incredible, your mouth is hot and wet, tongue eagerly sliding against his shaft. You fucking take him deeper and the first groan bubbles out of his throat. Making you smirk, stretching your lips around him.

He hisses your name and you brace your hands on his thighs. The denim is rough under your palms and you keep your eyes on him. Your moan vibrates up his cock as you take him even deeper, your pussy throbbing at the groan that escapes his lips.

His hips push forward sharply, during his cock even deeper into your mouth. Making you gag as he grabs the back of your head and takes over. Holding you still while he thrusts into your mouth, loving how your hands grab at his hips and your throat contracts around him.

You let him use your mouth, the groans escaping his mouth combined with the grunts make you slide your hand into your shorts to rub your clit. Letting him hold your head and your eyes water as you allow him to use you.

“So fucking good.” He groans. “Don’t know what’s better, your pussy or your mouth.” He catches sight of your hand in your shorts and moans. “That’s right, play with your pussy while I fuck your throat, little girl.”

You moan around him again, choking a second later when he pushes deeper, the curls at the base of his cock brushing your nose, and you rub your clit a little faster. His hands still grip your head, using you and rocking his hips a little faster.

Even as often as Joel is getting sex, he’s still working himself close to cumming quickly. Your mouth is perfect, the pressure around his length too much for him to be able to stand for too long. “Gonna cum down your throat.” He promises. “Fill- fuck- you up.” His hips stutter and his stomach lurches. “Fuck- gonna-“ he chokes out a groan as his cock pushed deep down your throat and starts to throb.

Joel grunts as you swallow around him one more time, spent now the last spurts have been swallowed. His hand softens on your cheek and he stops rocking his hips, eyes looking at your own watery ones.

You let his softening cock drop from your mouth as he caresses your cheek and you offer him a soft smile, enjoying how relaxed he looks right now. “Fuck baby. So- you look so good.” You murmur, throat a little sore, “not stressed.”

He chuckles softly, smirking at you slightly. “Hard to be stressed when I just came.” He rubs his thumb over your lips. “How are you, little girl? You need to cum? Want me to rub your little clit?”

You nod, shifting to stand on shaky legs. He helps you up after tucking his cock away and spins you to press your against the counter where he was standing. “Joel.” You whimper when his hands squeeze your tits. “I want to cum.”

His hand slides down from your shoulder to your tit, squeezing it and then gliding down to your stomach. Hitting your shorts and diving under the elastic waistband, and groaning when he finds you’re not wearing any underwear. “Fuck baby.” He groans. “You’re always ready to take me. Ain’t ya?”

You nod, mouth falling open as his fingers find your clit. He’s been the best part of returning home. Working from your childhood bedroom has allowed you to run riot with Joel over your parents’ house and it’s been amazing.

“Thaaaat’s it.” He coos, smirking smugly at the way your body jerks and pulls taunt as he rubs. Knowing that he’s touching you exactly like you need to be touched. “Such a good girl for me. Doing so good. I know you want to cum.”

“Need to - God. Need to cum.” You pant, head tilting back as his calloused fingertips rub your clit expertly. He knows your body inside out by now. “Joel, baby. Shit. Know just what I need.”

He knows that you are just praising him because he’s giving you pleasure. He hums and presses his lips to the bottom of your ear. “You’re doing so good for me.”

You moan, “need - fingers inside of me.” You plead and he nods, shifting his hand further into your shorts so he can push two thick digits inside of your dripping pussy. “Yesss.” You cry, gripping his shirt as he pushes you into the counter.

He doesn’t stop, curling and pumping his fingers deep inside your cunt. Pressing you close and pushing his thigh between your legs to keep them splayed open. “Come on baby, soak my fingers.”

You pant, fingers curling in his shirt as he pushes you higher and higher. “Oh God. I -fuck Joel. Joel baby. I’m gonna - shit. Shit. Shit.” You cry out, clamping down on his digits as he sends you over the edge. His thumb pressed against your clit and you slump against him while your thighs shake against his knee.

Joel watched you closely, enjoying the way your entire body reacts to your pleasure and he hums softly. “That’s it. You just melt against me.”

You inhale deeply, leaning in to breathe him in. Your lips press against his neck, “so good.” You murmur as he withdraws his hand from your shorts just as the front door opens. Joel steps away from you immediately and your parents walk in. “Hey Joel. How’s it going?” Your dad asks and you exhale shakily, stepping over to the fridge Joel installed the day before.

“It’s going good.” Joel acknowledges, sliding his hands into his pockets and leaning back like he just hadn’t had his fingers buried in the other man’s daughter. “We should be finished up right on schedule. Just finishing the tile and trim and she’ll be done.” He glances around and the completely redone kitchen.

You are disappointed that Joel will be done sooner rather than later. You’ve had weeks of sex and you’re not sure what you’re going to do when he’s done. Luckily, he still has the bathrooms to finish along with the laundry room and the flooring in the bedrooms. “He’s done a good job so far.” You comment and your mom smiles, agreeing. “We are having a BBQ tomorrow with the neighbors. Weather is perfect and we wondered if you and Tommy wanna join us?” Your dad asks the older Miller brother.

“I- uh, yeah, sure.” Joel doesn’t often socialize with his clients, but he also doesn’t normally bang their daughters either. He bites his lip and shrugs. “What can I bring? I don’t know if I would trust something I cooked, but I can bring cups, beer, whatever you need.”

Your dad nods, “beer would be awesome. Just bring you and Tommy can bring Maria. Want to thank you guys for doing such an amazing job so far.” He says and reaches out to slap Joel on his upper arm. Your lover nods, his dark eyes glancing at you and you offer him a soft smile, wanting to let him know you want him to come to the cookout.

****

You see Joel across the lawn, sipping a beer and talking to Tommy and his wife, Maria. The entire street is here for the cookout and you sip your vodka seltzer while Darlene from two doors down talks to you about her lawyer son who would be ‘just perfect for you.’ “He sounds perfect for Sally’s daughter.” You point to the other woman who is talking to your mom and you make your way across the lawn to the Miller family. “Hey guys. Everyone is amazed by the kitchen and half bath. My parents have given your number out to nearly everyone here so you should be busy for the rest of the year.” You grin, shifting in your short sundress.

“Good.” Tommy looks very pleased by the prospect and rubs Maria’s back. “This is my wife, Maria.” He boasts. “And soon to be the next Miller.”

Joel’s lips press together but he relaxes his jaw so it’s not obvious he’s uncomfortable. “That’s good.” He nods, holding up a case of beer in each hand. He has splurged on the good stuff since he didn’t think your dad drank PBR. “Where do you want these?”

You greet Maria, “I’ve heard a lot about you. All good things.” You promise, offering her a smile and she says “I’ve heard a lot about you too.” Her eyes look at Joel and he avoids his sister in law. “You can put them on the bar.” You tell Joel, escorting him over to the table full of buckets of ice and various drinks.

“Thanks.” He puts the beers down on the bar and turns towards you. “So…what now?” He asks. “I talk to all his friends about remodeling their bathrooms?” He chuckles quietly.

“That or…we could find somewhere private and you could show me how you manage to get your grout lines so straight?” You smirk, biting your lip and you glance around to make sure no one is watching you. “Unless you’d prefer I leave you with the neighborhood watch mom group over there?” You flick your eyes over to the gaggle of middle aged women who are not so discreetly eying Joel.

“Fuck no.” Joel snorts, looking over at the group of women and then shooting you an annoyed look. He doesn’t want to be fending off those vultures all night. “Where do you want to go?” He asks, wiping his hands on his jeans and feeling a little out of place even though he had showered and even trimmed up his facial hair for tonight. His jeans aren’t ripped or paint stained and his flannel shirt is practically new.

You trail your eyes along his figure, stomach twisting at how good he looks tonight. He smells good too. “I have a treehouse. Used to go in it when I was a kid. You want to join me in there? I might want to upgrade the flooring.” You tease, grabbing your drink and spinning around, you glance over your shoulder at him as you make your way through the yard to the treehouse.

Joel grabs a beer, ignoring the women who are staring after him and follows you outside. There’s enough people here that most of them are talking and not paying any attention when you disappear around the back of a tree and Joel reaches the base just in time to catch a glimpse of your bare ass as you climb. “Fuckin’ too old for this shit.” He grunts quietly, shoving his beer into his pocket and climbing up after you.

You giggle as he climbs up, “come on Miller. Where’s your sense of adventure?” You ask him as you step up onto the treehouse your grandfather built years ago. He was like Joel. Handy and an excellent craftsman. Your dad didn’t inherit the gift. “Gone when I turned 50.” He groans as he steps into the treehouse. It’s not creaking when he shifts his weight and he hums, impressed with the structure. You sit down on the beanbag, holding your drink up. “You look good for your age.” You hum, taking a sip.

He rolls his eyes and huffs as he sits down, knees creaking slightly. “For my age, huh?” He pulls the beer out of his pocket and opens the can. “To aging gracefully.” He toasts, holding the can up and then taking a sip of the cold brew.

You smile, watching him in your childhood treehouse is a bizarre experience but you love it. “You do look really good tonight.” You compliment him, “I like the clean look a lot. I do think I like the dirty look more, though. Rugged, sexy, capable.” You flirt, “and you can still get it up.” You tease, “most of the time.” You joke about the time he was about to fuck you and your parents’ old fashioned house phone voice sounded out their voicemail. Your dad telling you to take the chicken out of the freezer. He went soft as soon as he heard your dad.

“Can’t believe you still hold that against me.” He snorts. “Been thirty fuckin’ years since I’ve been worried about somebody’s daddy walkin’ in.” He grunts, staring at the way your thighs spread teasingly. His cock twitches in his jeans and like every time he’s around you, he starts to harden. “So did you bring me up here to fuck?” He asks. “Or just get away from everyone?”

“Both.” You tilt your head, “I don’t - I have to confess, I’ve never been so sexually attracted to anyone. I want you. All the time. Like I even touch myself thinking about you at night.” You know you’re giving him all the cards but you mean what you say. “So…we can talk since I saved you from the neighborhood ladies flirting with you and the husbands asking for your advice on their latest DIY project…or we can fuck and you gotta keep me quiet since they could definitely hear us up here.”

“How wet are you?” Joel asks, eyeing the exposed skin as your thighs spread again. You’ve talked between flirting and fucking, but the idea of you walking around the party dripping his cum is one he really likes.

You bite your lip and lift your dress higher, spreading your legs to expose your wet folds to his dark gaze. “Soaking wet for you. Ever since you walked into the party.” You confess, sliding your hand down to rub your clit.

“Spread your lips apart.” Joel orders quietly. “Rub slower.” He twitches in his jeans and reaches down to palm himself as he watches you touch yourself. You’ve not really had time for more than frantically rushed fucking, so now he can watch you. See what you like to do to yourself when you’re thinking about him.

You set your drink down and reach down with your other hand, spreading your lips to show him your puffy clit. Your eyes on him as you slowly rub the bundle of nerves and he squeezes his cock through his jeans. You like the way he’s ordering you.

“That’s good, just like that.” He grunts. “Slide your fingers through your slick and then rub your clit again. Gotta make sure you’re nice and wet. But you’re always so fucking wet.” He unbuttons his jeans and reveals that he’s not wearing any underwear, pulling out his cock and then spitting in his hand to wrap around it and pump slowly.

You whimper, mouth almost watering when you see this thick cock in his hand. You follow his order, sliding your fingers down to gather up your slick and you bring it back to your clit, rubbing it a little faster. “Always wet around you. Just looking at you gets me wet. Especially - shit - especially when you strip your shirt off or wear your tank top.”

“Like that, huh?” He grunts and rocks his hips up, working himself into his fist. “You enjoy being fucked. That pretty pussy needs to be fucked as often as possible.”

You whine slightly as he pumps his cock a little faster. “Joel. Please. Let me - let me sit on your cock. Wanna feel you inside of me. Want you to cum inside of me.” You beg pathetically, pulling your hand away from your clit.

“What are you waiting for?” He demands, still pumping himself. “You want to ride, you have to come to me.” You’ve never ridden him before but he wants to see your tits bounce in his face. “Pull out your other tit and come sit on my cock.”

You pull down the straps of your dress, exposing your tits and you shift out of the bean bag, straddling his thighs and he holds his cock up so you can sink down on him. “Fuckkk.” You whimper, eyes fluttering closed as he stretches you out.

“Shhhh shhhh.” He covers your mouth with his hand, the other behind your neck to hold you firm while he bottoms out in your aching pussy. “Silent.” He whispers, knowing that no one at the party can hear, but you will get loud if he doesn’t warn you. Breathing against his fingers, he groans quietly when your pussy flutters. “You like that, huh?” He grunts. “Holding your mouth closed while you ride my cock? Is that how to keep you quiet?”

Your hands grip his wrist, eyes wide as you nod. You want him to keep you quiet. His cock twitches inside of you and you whimper against his palm. “Shhhh.” He coos, “ride me.” He demands softly and you nod, lifting your thighs to pull up off of his cock nearly all the way. You sink back down onto him.

He watches you, feeling the shuddered breaths against his palm, warming it. Thinking that you are fucking gorgeous and too good for him as you grind back down into his lap. Wanting him as deep as possible while you lean back to find the perfect angle for his cock inside you. “Good girl.” He praises, voice low. “Make yourself cum.”

You love his voice. Deep and gruff. His orders have you fluttering around his cock already. Knowing that anyone at the party could figure out that you are together, up here, having sex. Your nails dig into his forearm slightly and you rock a little faster, your thighs aching but you don’t care. You want to cum and you want him to follow you.

Joel’s hips stay down, letting you have complete control of the ride, although he pulls you up straighter by your head. Just enough for him to duck down and wrap his lips around one of your nipples. Biting it before sucking it onto his mouth and lavishing attention on it.

You cry into his palm, muffled as he bites down on your nipple and you tangle your fingers in his hair as you ride him a little faster. Your eyes roll into the back of your head as you find the right angle for the head of his cock to rub against your g-spot.

Joel grunts, sucking and biting on your breast while you gallop on his cock. Loving how your moans are muffled by his hand and his cock twitches. He loves how you demand pleasure and are willing to take it for yourself.

You moan into his palm, so close to your orgasm. He switches to your other nipple and it sends you over the edge. You clamp down on his cock, soaking him and your cry threatens to bubble past his palm but he presses his hand harder against your mouth to smother your cry. His groan is soft against your breast as you grip him and you shake above him.

Your hands slide down from his hair to his shoulders, caressing his upper back as he paints your walls with his cum. His hand drops from your mouth as he grips your waist and you rest your head on top of his. “So good, baby. So fucking good.” You gasp, “can’t get enough of you.”

Joel chuckles quietly as you both ride out your orgasms, panting softly. “I can tell.” He teases quietly, running his hand down your spine. “Good baby?”

You nod against his head, “so good. Fuck, Joel. Wish you could stay inside of me alllll the time.” You tease, running your fingers through his salt and pepper locks. “I am gonna be dripping your cum at this party.”

“I know.” He smirks at you and waggles his brows. “I’ve thought about that before you ever even climbed in my lap.” He pats your hip lightly, leaning back and sighing, relaxed and loose now. He picks up his beer and takes a swallow, his cock softening inside you.

You watch him, your gaze softening until you clear your throat and shift off of his lap. You grab your own drink after you pull your dress into place, sitting down in the bean bag. Joel is quiet as he sips his beer and you shift in the bean bag. “I’m gonna head down, clean up. Come down whenever you’re ready. It’s better that we are seen separately.” You murmur, groaning as you stand up and his cum starts to drip down your thigh. You wink at him as you climb down the ladder and make your way into the house to clean up. When you come out of the bathroom, you are grabbing a snack in the kitchen when your mom approaches you. “Sweetheart, we - your dad and I wanted to talk to you. We noticed you and Joel go up to your treehouse and we - we’ve seen the way you look at him. You’re an adult and after what that asshole did to you, you deserve to have some fun but honey…Joel is complicated.” You open your mouth to respond but she shakes her head, “you don’t know his past. You’ve been away from home for a long time and we - your dad knew Joel from his coworkers. Joel lost his daughter. She was thirteen. He lost her and his wife - she left him when his daughter was two. He’s got a lot of baggage and I’m worried that he will hurt you because he doesn’t want to - he’s not the dating kind.” She explains and your jaw clenches.

“Mom, I don’t want to date him. We are having fun. Please…I know I have kept this for you. Been doing this under your roof and I’m sorry for that but I’m not sorry about Joel. He’s fun and I- I deserve to have some fun. I’m not marrying the guy.” You scoff, crossing your arms. She nods and grabs her wine glass, neither of you aware that Tommy was lingering in the hallway.

Tommy finds Joel nursing a beer and listening to one of your father’s neighbors talk about the bathroom that he wanted to remodel. Obviously wanting a quote, sight unseen. “Hey, can I talk to you for a second?” Tommy asks Joel, nodding in apology to the potential customer. Once he gets him alone, Tommy shuffles nervously. “So I heard something…..”

Joel clenches his jaw as Tommy relays the conversation that he had heard between you and your mother. “Right.” He spits after a moment, glancing over at you and then back at his brother. “Think I’m going to call it a night.” He decides.

You frown when you don’t see Joel anymore and you ask Tommy where he went. The younger Miller brother is a little cold towards you and tells you his brother went home, decided to call it a night. You nod and thank him and Maria for coming when he tells you they are leaving. You’re confused Joel didn’t say goodbye but you suppose that’s his MO.

****

The next day, Joel is back working in the house and you glance around to see where Tommy is before you waltz over to him, a smile on your face. “Hey handsome. Working in my bedroom today?” You ask, “I need some help moving the bed.”

Joel looks up at you for a brief moment and then back down at his tools. “Tommy and I will move it. I’d prefer it if you weren’t in the room.” He tells you. “Liability.” He doesn’t look back up and doesn’t say another word while you are standing there waiting for him to take you up on your obvious overture.

Your smile falls, his gaze turning back to his tools and you deflate. “Oh, uh, okay. Sure. I can take my work to the living room.” You step back, wondering if he’s had a bad morning. You leave the hallway without another word and grab your laptop, heading downstairs to work. Later that afternoon, Tommy is out getting their lunch and you walk into your bedroom to find Joel working on ripping up the old carpet. “You need a drink?” You hold out the bottle of water, “figured you could use a break while you wait for Tommy to get back.” You bend over so he can look down your shirt at your tits.

“I’m good.” He doesn’t look up, not wanting to see your tits or your legs on display. “Have a bottle over there.” He doesn’t even stop working and just nods his head towards his tool bag. “Be finished by tomorrow.” His words are short and clipped.

There’s definitely something wrong. You frown and huff, standing up straight and you don’t leave right away. You uncap the bottle and tilt your head back, chugging half the water. With a dramatic sigh of satisfaction, you spin on your heel and leave the room.

Joel continues working but he sighs, hating that he had ever thought that you would want him. He was stupid, he had started to care about you. Way too much, it was better to just keep things professional between you. He was the contractor, nothing more.

****

A couple of days pass by and you ignore Joel and Tommy’s presence in the house, deciding to work at some coffee shops instead, but today is a gorgeous day. The sun is shining, you don’t need to work, so you decide to sit in the sun and have a drink. You walk into the kitchen where Joel is sitting, looking over his materials, and you open the fridge to grab a drink while dressed in the smallest bikini you own. Just because he’s ignoring you doesn’t mean he won’t notice you. Maybe he’s in a bad mood. You’d forgive him if he touched you again.

The muscles in Joel’s jaws have been getting a workout. Clenching every time you walk into a room half naked and primping around. He knows what you are doing and it’s starting to piss him off. He's ached for days, having to go home and jerk off after work every night like he’s a teenager again. “Need to put some fucking clothes on.” He grumbles under his breath.

You turn your head to look at him, “did you say something?” He shakes his head and you hum, taking your drink outside to the sun loungers your parents had bought for the summer. You sigh as you lay down in view on the kitchen window. Taking off your top to sunbathe.

It takes him about fifteen minutes to notice you. Hissing in anger when he sees your tits on display. He grabs one of his work rags and stalks outside angrily. “Cover yourself up.” He growls, tossing the rag over your chest. “My fucking brother doesn’t want to see your tits and his wife certainly doesn’t want him to.”

You glare at him from behind your sunglasses. “Your brother isn’t here, asshole.” You toss the rag back at him. “It’s my day off. I wanted to relax and you are interrupting that.” You hiss at him, “and it’s not like you haven’t seen it all before.”

“Fuck this.” He growls. “I’m done for the day.” He’s pissed off and needs to get away from you.

You huff, grabbing the rag back. “You don’t need to leave. I’ll go inside. If you leave, you’ll need more time to finish your work and I don’t want you staying longer than necessary. You might as well stay and I’ll go inside. Give you a break from my tits.” You growl, shifting to stand up from the lounger.

“I’m just the help, right?” He scoffs. “Someone to use and have fun with?” Hearing what you had said hurt because Tommy had said you had seemed appalled that your mother figured it out. “So I think it’s best that I keep things professional. So there’s no confusion. Not like you’d want people to know you were getting fucked by the carpenter.” He shakes his head. “I’ll have Tommy finish up this job.”

“I- I didn’t - you heard my conversation with my mom? I was - I was trying to save your ass. It’s not exactly professional to sleep with your client's daughter. I- it was fun. Until you decided to be an asshole. I figured you wanted to keep it casual and I want to know more about you but we don’t exactly have time to sit down and tell our life story.”

“Tommy heard you.” He corrects, wondering if you’re just trying to cover your ass or if you were trying to protect him. He waits for a moment, biting his lip. “If you want to know about me, I’ll be at Bill & Frank’s tonight.” He tells you, planning on going to the dive bar that Frank has tried to make a little more classy. “Up to you.”

You nod, knowing it’s best to not push him anymore right now. You grab your bikini top and head inside, deciding to leave him be and meet him later. You head back inside and you don’t look back, figuring that he’d want to be left alone.

****

You brush your dress down, looking up at the crooked sign for Bill and Frank’s and you inhale deeply. Reaching for the door, you head inside and it’s a weird mix of old fashioned saloon and an afternoon tea shop. Lace doilies on the tables with small lamps and worn coasters. The artwork on the wall says “eighty year old woman” while the floor is sticky.

“Well that doesn’t walk in here often.” Bill grunts, looking at the door with an almost annoyed glare, which was normal for the cantankerous bar owner. “Trouble if I’ve ever seen.”

Joel looks over his shoulder to see you and snorts. “Surprised you noticed.” He huffs at the other man, smirking slightly when the bearded man shifts his glare to him. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell Frank.” He’s sort of friends with Bill and Frank, the proprietors of the little bar. Or it’s better to say, Tess was really good friends with Frank, so Bill and Joel had tolerated each other. After Tess had died, Joel had found himself still coming back.

You spot Joel at the bar and make your way over. He turns to look at you, “hey.” He grunts and you offer him a soft smile as he pulls the bar stool out next to him for you to sit down. He slides the shot he had sitting in front of him over to you and you don’t hesitate to tilt your head back as you down it. Bill snorts, wiping down the counter, “what can I get you?” He asks and you order a beer. “I didn’t know if you’d be here. You didn’t give me a time.”

“Sorry.” He grunts, lifting his beer to his lips and takes a sip. “Figured you’d come and I’d be here.” Bill chuckles as he wipes down the bar with a rag, smirking slightly at the sight of Joel and another woman. “You on a date, Miller?” He cackles.

“Joel is working on my parents’ house.” You explain and Bill snorts, “this is the hussy that’s got you running around in circles?” He asks and your eyebrows raise. Joel shakes his head, “go get her drink and get Frank out here if you can’t be nice.” He orders and you huff, “been talking me up, huh?” Joel shrugs and you sigh, “I suppose I deserve that. I haven’t exactly treated you fairly. It wasn’t just fun for me. I wanted more.” You admit softly, looking down at the counter.

Joel snorts as Bill walks away and cuts you a look before he takes another sip of his beer. “I’m old, little girl.” He reminds you. “You’re a hell of a lot younger, wanting things I can’t give you. Like kids and shit.”

You tap your fingers on the counter, closing your eyes for a second. “We never had a discussion about birth control other than me telling you it was taken care of. The truth is…my ex cheated on me.” You take a deep breath, “he cheated on me because I found out I’m infertile. We tried for a year. Figured we would do the tests when we discovered that I can’t - I have PCOS and it was bad. They did some tests and scans and I had to have my ovaries removed then he - he cheated on me. She’s pregnant. That’s why I moved home. I was in his house and I was sure he was going to propose since he seemed to accept that we wouldn’t have biological kids but he - he cheated and I moved home. So to answer your question, I can’t have kids.”

“What a fucker.” He growls, angry on your behalf. “That’s a shit thing to do.” He will never understand someone’s need to cheat. Those people are complete scumbags in his eyes and he’s done a lot of shit he’s regretted. “I’m sorry, you deserve better than that douche bag. It doesn’t matter if you can’t give him kids.”

You nod, “it did to him. I’m glad I found out what he’s really like. Better to happen like that instead of when we have had adopted two kids and I’m stuck with him.” You confess just as another man comes over to set your beer down along with another for Joel. The man, you assume he is Frank, says your name. “Right? The pretty girl you’ve been telling us about. She’s as beautiful as you described, Joel.” Frank says and you fluster, looking at Joel who is busy studying the grain of wood on the counter. “There’s a condom machine in the bathroom.” Frank winks as he walks off to serve another patron.

“Jesus Christ.” Joel hisses under his breath, squirming slightly in his seat in embarrassment. “Gonna stop fucking coming here.” He gripes even as he picks up his new beer.

You giggle softly, “he heard all the details, huh?” You tease and you nudge him gently. “It’s fine. I didn’t know you cared so much, Miller.” You take a sip of your beer and glance around the bar, feeling someone’s eyes on you. A man, younger than Joel but shorter, is staring at you and you offer him a nod before you turn back to the counter.

Joel glances around and doesn’t really think anything of the people in the bar. Plenty of people are flirting and having a good time. Frank is down the bar waiting on another couple and he wonders if you want to get some food.

Frank sets another round of drinks down in front of you after he serves the couple down the bar. “On the house. It’s been a while since I saw Joel smile. Especially not since Tess died.” He says and you frown, turning to look at Joel.

He owes you an explanation. “Tess was my- we were-“ he fumbles for the proper way to describe his relationship with Tess. The ache was still there, deep inside him just like when he lost Sarah. “She was mine.” He finally settled on just that. “She died. Two years ago.”

You can see the pain in his eyes, losing someone else that he loved. Your dad told you more about Joel losing his daughter, Sarah, to a gunman in a gas station robbery that went wrong. Your heart aches for him. You reach for his hand, “I’m so sorry, Joel.” You murmur, knowing that there’s nothing else you could say.

Sorries always make Joel uncomfortable. It can’t change the past or bring back Sarah, or Tess. “Thanks.” He mumbles and drains the rest of his first beer. “I need to piss.” He tells you as he stands. “Be right back.”

You nod, watching him go. You take a sip of your beer and sense a presence beside you as soon as Joel disappears. “Hey baby. You done babysitting the old man? Wanna have some real fun?” He asks and you scoff, “he’s not old.”

The guy leans against the counter next to you. “Bet he needs viagra to get it up.” He scoffs and you snort, “that ‘old man’ can make my legs shake and make me moan his name more than anyone I’ve ever met.” You say and he says, “until you met me.” He smirks, leaning in and you jerk back.

“Please fuck off.” You order, hating how he won’t take the hint. “Come on baby, don’t be mean. Gimme a chance to make you cum.” He coos, reaching for your wrist.

“Get the fuck off of me.” You hiss, trying to jerk your wrist out of his grip but he doesn’t let go.

Joel comes out of the bathroom, walking into the bar and the first thing he sees is you trying to pull your arm out of some asshole’s grip. The fucker not letting you go and Joel’s jaw clenches and his fists bunch together. “Oh shit.” Frank hisses, knowing what that look means. “Joel! Joel! Don’t do it! Joel!” Joel doesn’t even hear him as he crosses the bar in less than ten seconds and is dragging the asshole off of you. Whirling him around and punching him down to the ground before climbing on top of him and whaling away in an angry haze.

Your eyes widen and a shocked gasp escapes your lips as Joel continues to punch the asshole. “Joel. Joel. Stop!” You demand, knowing he’s going to kill the guy if you let him continue. You reach for his shoulder as he pulls his fist back again but he shrugs you off, his vision going red. Bill rushes around the bar, grabbing Joel’s waist to pull him off of the guy before he punches his face in. “Come on, man.” Bill grunts, dragging Joel off just enough for Frank to get in front of him. “Go. You gotta go.” Frank tells you when he hears someone calling 911. “Take Joel. Go.” Frank urges, knowing Joel can’t afford another arrest. “Motherfucker.” Joel growls, trying to get out of Bill’s grip.

“Stop it,” Bill growls, spinning him to drag him out of the bar. You nod, grabbing your purse and Bill escorts Joel to his truck. “Drive him home.” He orders, shoving Joel into his truck, his fists bloody and skin broken. Your hands shake, taking the key from Bill that he pulled out of Joel’s pocket. You get into the driver’s seat, adjusting the seat, and you barely manage to start the engine. “You- you gotta tell me where you live.”

Joel doesn’t answer you right away, staring down and his hand and flexing it to make sure nothings too broken. Just a few hairline fractures from what he can tell with the adrenaline still running through his system. “Joel!” You snap, making him look up at you, his eyes dark and focused, causing you to nearly shrink back from him. “Where do you live?” You repeat and he knows he’s in no condition to drive. He murmurs his address and then looks back down at his hand, sirens wailing in the distance.

You drive a little faster when you see the flashing lights on the horizon, wanting Joel to get home safe and sound. Your heart is still pounding but you manage to figure out his street and pull onto it, squinting to see the numbers in the dark. Finally, you pull onto his drive and put the truck in park, killing the engine. “Come on, let’s get you cleaned up.” You murmur, getting out of his truck and rounding it to open the door for him.

Joel follows your instructions, getting out of the truck and following behind you as you climb the steps to the front door of his house. The old craftsman cottage has been a project for him, one that he needed after Tess, but now it is done and it is a beauty.

You unlock his door with the key on his truck key ring and you admire the workmanship that went into the home. Signs of Joel’s hard work are everywhere. You shut the door behind him when he walks in. “Do you have a first aid kit?” You ask and he nods, “laundry room.” He jerks his chin towards the door across the hall and you nod, “go sit” you order before you go find the kit.

He should tell you to go, but he just sits down at the dining room table and sighs. His hand hurts, but he’s fucking still amped up. His leg bouncing slightly as his pulse just jumps around.

You come into the dining room to sit down, opening the kit. Your stomach twists as you look at Joel, the dark look from earlier still not receding from his eyes. You’re silent as you work on cleaning the blood to assess the damage to his knuckles.

He wants you. The way his cock is twitching and throbbing as you work on him, it should scare him. Scare you. Your thumb brushes over his knuckle and he grabs your hand, making you look at him. “You should go.” He growls.

Your eyes meet his and you realize he doesn’t want you to go. You stare at him for a few moments, trying to figure him out until you say “no.” You won’t go. Not when he needs you and you need him. Sometime between the messing around and having sex, it became serious.

“I’m not going to be gentle.” He warns, wanting to be honest. “I can’t be. Not now, not when my fucking-“ he cuts himself off. “Last chance.”

You take a moment to wrap his knuckles. “I don’t want gentle.” You tell him, your eyes meeting his after you finish wrapping his knuckles with the bandage. “I want you. No matter what. I want you.” You promise, your gaze firm, showing him that you’re not running away.

Joel shoots out of his chair and grabs your shoulders, kissing you roughly, his lips bruising. He wants to destroy you, completely break you apart in a completely different way from how he would have handled that bastard. Wanting to banish the thought of him touching you from his mind and replace it with you.

You gasp into his mouth, his hands lifting you up onto the table and you grip his shirt, wanting to keep him close. Your legs wrapping around his waist and his cock is hard in his pants, pushing into your core. His tongue slides into your mouth and your hands slide up to tangle in his hair, tugging as you react to his rough touch.

Joel growls, biting your bottom lip and it’s like he’s lost all reason on control. He wants nothing more to break you down. His hands are rough and demanding, nearly ripping your dress off your body.

You reach out, fumbling to unbutton his shirt. Every time you’ve had sex, he’s been dressed. Tonight, you want to see all of him. You grow impatient and rip his shirt, buttons flying as you shove it down his shoulders to access his skin. Your hands explore his chest when the shirt hits the floor and you lean in, biting down on his peck.

He grunts, cock twitching and he squeezes your hands before he rips your panties off of you. Willing to sacrifice them to his needs.

“Oh my God!” You squeal at the ripping of your underwear. “Joel!” You gasp, moaning a second later when his fingers push inside of your dripping wet cunt. You slide your hands down to his belt, unbuckling it and you rip it out of the loops, working fast to unbutton his jeans and pull his hard cock out.

Joel pushes your hands away but you press your thighs together when he tries to step between them. “Strip.” You demand and he growls, needing to be inside you.

Joel kicks his boots off, his jeans hitting the floor and he shoves them across the floor. Naked in front of you for the first time, you lean back to admire his form. His arms are strong, freckled from being in the sun, and he has a slight belly but it’s so sexy. He’s not overly hairy and your hand lets go of his cock so you can caress his skin. “So gorgeous.” You murmur, lost in your own thoughts as you admire him.

Joel huffs, shaking his head. “I’m old, you’re gorgeous.” It’s the small bit of tenderness he can manage right now, but when he grabs you, his hands are harsh. “You’re not letting that fucker touch you.” He hisses, pushing your thighs apart. “He couldn’t fuck you like I do.” He grabs your leg and pulls it up on his hip, lining up and slamming his cock into your warm and giving cunt in one thrust.

“Joel!” You squeal as he stretches you out. You’re wet enough to take him but it pinches slightly. You don’t care. You grip his arms, lifting your thigh higher so he can push deeper inside of you. “Fuck baby.” You pant, tilting your head back as he starts to fuck you.

The table rocks, shaking and scrapping over the floor as he fucks you. Brutally slamming into you before quickly pulling back out to do it again. Savage and feral, his mouth bites and sucks at your tilted throat, needing to possess and mark you as his.

He’s possessing you with every thrust, bite, mark, and kiss. You’re surrounded by him. His woodsy smell from the lumber he works with in your nose and you moan, fumbling to cross your ankles behind his back to get him even closer.

He might break the fucking table, but he doesn’t care. All he cares about is the way you take him. Your pussy giving way to the harsh thrusts of his cock and squeezing tight around him. He growls and groans, making noises that sound inhuman as he fucks you.

“Joel. Oh my God.” You cry out, your hands scrambling to grip him, needing an anchor as he fucks you hard and fast. It’s harder than anything you’ve ever experienced. Feral and dominating but your cunt is absolutely gushing around him, your stomach clenched with arousal as he rocks into you. “Shit. You’re gonna make me cum.” You pant, reaching down to rub your clit, knowing he’s focused on thrusting into you.

He knows he should ease up, that you deserve tenderness but he doesn’t have it in him right now. The rage, the fury, all being taken out on your pussy. “Cum.” He grunts, the sound nearly demonic from how raspy he sounds. “Cum.”

How can you deny him when he asks you like that? He pounds into you two more times and you’re sent over the edge. Clamping down on him, your scream echoes in his house and your hand falls away from your clit to slam onto the table to keep yourself upright.

Joel hisses your name, so fucking close to cumming himself. It’s so sexy how easily you cum for him. Hips stuttering, he only manages another few thrusts before he is cumming, painting your walls with his cum as he moans your name again, softly this time.

You slump against him when he cums, his cock twitching inside of you, and you moan softly when he rests his head on top of yours. “Joel.” You murmur, throat closing slightly with emotions that you can’t give voice to.

Panting, he closes his eyes, his hands slowly relaxing and he sighs. “Are you- did I hurt you?” He asks softly. He hadn’t wanted to actually hurt you, despite being rough.

You shake your head, “no. No you didn’t, baby.” You promise, leaning in to kiss his chin and he sighs, turning his head to press his lips to yours. It’s surprisingly tender after how rough he fucked you. You cup his cheeks, caressing the gray stubble there to show him how much you care for him without actually telling him.

“Do you want to stay?” He nuzzles his nose against yours, realizing you must have left your car at the bar. He hasn’t even pulled out of you, but he doesn’t really want to. Suddenly tired and ready for bed after the evening.

“Yes.” You nod, knowing it’s too late to head home. He pulls out of you, slow enough to not hurt you, and you shift off of his table that has scraped along the floor. “Can I borrow a shirt?” You ask, watching him bend down to grab his jeans, pulling them on.

“Yeah, come on baby.” He uses his shirt to wipe up his cum and grabs you a bottle of water out of the fridge. “I’ll get you a shirt you can sleep in. Or you can sleep naked beside me.” He jokes, smirking at your wobbly footing when you stand up.

You’re soon dressed in his shirt, sliding under his sheets that smell just like him, and you’re exhausted. The events of the day hit you hard and you curl around him when he slides in beside you, water bottle placed on your nightstand.

Joel doesn’t like sleep, he dreams too much. Of Sarah, Tess and all the mistakes he has made over the years. Haunting him and weighing him down. Tonight, wrapped around you, Joel doesn’t dream.

The next morning, you wake up and groan against the sunlight peeking in through the blinds. “Joel?” You call out softly, voice raspy. The smell of bacon and eggs hits your nose and you get out of bed, peeing before you head downstairs to the kitchen. Your eyes widen when you find Joel cooking and sitting at the counter is a teenage girl.

“Holy shit, Joel! You had a sleepover.” Ellie pipes up, making Joel turn around from the stove. “Ellie! Language!” He hisses before he catches sight of you. “Hey! Uh, good morning. I’m making breakfast.” He explains, as if it weren’t obvious. Ellie snaps her fingers and says your name. “That’s you, right? Joel’s been talking about you.”

You are trying to figure out who Ellie is. You haven’t heard a word about her from Joel. “Oh, uh, yeah. Hi Ellie.” You greet her as you come over to Joel who is cooking. “Coffee is in the pot.” He says and you nod, grabbing the mug he left on the side and you pour yourself a cup. You feel awkward in his shirt, your hair all over the place, and you can feel Ellie watching you.

“Joel, Joel, Joel.” Ellie tsks and shakes her head before leveling a mockingly serious look at him when he slides her eggs onto her plate. “Do we need to have the talk, young man?” She snickers. “Are you engaging in safe sex?” She lowers her voice to a pitch that matches the old sex Ed videos. “Jesus Christ.” He hisses. “Don’t you have school?”

You smirk, finding it refreshing that the teenager is prodding at an otherwise always cool headed Joel. “Safe sex. I’ve looked after him.” You promise her as you lean against the counter and she chuckles, “he was practically soppy when I came in this morning. I slept over at my friend Riley’s house.” She explains and you nod, a little relieved she didn’t hear you and Joel last night. “I’m leaving for school after I’ve had my breakfast.” She adds, looking over at you. “I'm his foster kid, in case this dumbass didn’t tell you.” Ellie says, guessing from your look that you didn’t know about her. “I, uh, I’m sorry. Joel hasn’t really told me much.”

“Got lunch money, kid?” He asks, reaching into his pocket and pulling out some money. “It’s pizza day right?” He asks, smirking when she nods and snatches the money out of his hand before she shoves the eggs into her mouth and pops off the stool. “Well, see ya!”

“Bye!” You call out as she rushes off and you turn to look at Joel. “Another secret you’ve been keeping.” You tease softly and he snorts, “not a secret. Just didn’t want to drag you into my bullshit.” You shake your head, “that’s not bullshit. You- she seems like a good kid and you’re looking after her. You’re a good man, Joel. One I want to know more about. One I could easily fall for…maybe have been already.” You confess, reaching out to touch his arm.

“You….” Joel frowns slightly, setting a plate in front of you. “You like the fact that I’m an asshole?” He asks it like a question, one that he never considered before.

“I love the fact that you’re an asshole. You’re not an asshole to me…most of the time. I’ve never felt so wanted. I want - I want all of you, Miller. Even the asshole.” You joke, slightly flustered at your confession.

Joel shuffles uneasily and sighs. “I’m not good with words.” He admits, looking around the kitchen that he had once shared with Tess. “I didn’t- I don’t really share emotions.” He had realized that when she had thought he hadn’t felt the same way about her. That he hadn’t loved her. He had been raw about that for a long time, although the kid didn’t deserve to blame herself for Tess getting bit. Who the fuck would have ever thought a woman would die of rabies during this day and age? He looks back at you. “I can fuck you until you scream, protect you. Cook you breakfast. But that might not be enough for you.”

You reach up to cup his cheeks, bringing his eyes to yours. “That is enough. You are enough. I’m damaged too. Let’s not put pressure on this. We aren’t first loves. We aren’t teenagers. We are grown ass adults who can communicate. I don’t want a fairytale, I’ve been hurt before by silly dreams and fake promises. I want real. You’re real. I want you.” You assure him, your eyes burning into his.

Joel watches you for a moment and then gives a small nod. Agreeing with you. After last night, he’s not giving you up. You’re his. “I don’t break promises.” Joel tells you. “Not if I can help it.”

You nod, leaning in closer to kiss him softly. “I know, baby.” You murmur and he nudges his nose against yours. “I’m here to stay, baby. Especially with the way you cook bacon.” You grin, taking a slice off of the paper towel and biting into it. “You might want to stay at your parent’s house all the time when we are finished with it.” He jokes and you snort, shifting to sit down at the counter while he plates up the food. “I don’t think so, baby. Might have to convince my parents to add an extension. Keep you working for them.” You tease and Joel snorts, “you can have my cock for free.” He promises and you wink at him, swallowing the bacon. “Now that sounds like a good deal.” You smile and Joel chuckles, knowing that this job might’ve turned into the best one of his career. Not only did he get paid, he got a bonus: you.

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