Apple

｡𖦹°‧⭑ apple ! 🍎

🍎 20s

🍎 MDNI, ageless accounts do not interact, this account is for adults.

🍎 currently writing for The Pitt, but may expand in the future to other fandoms (we’ll see)

｡𖦹°‧⭑.ᐟ masterlist .ᐟ⭑‧°𖦹｡

Dr. Micheal Robinavitch 🧃🍎

Dr. Jack Abbott (loading…) 🧃🍏

Joel Miller (loading…) 🥃🍎

Paint Job 🤍🏠

Summary 🍎🥃: After the weather closes the construction site early, Joel takes up an odd painting job to pass the time till Sarah gets off school.

Tags 🍎🥃: grumpy Joel, neighborly banter, fluff, no outbreak

🍎 Masterlist 🍎 | 🍎🥃Joel Miller Masterlist coming soon 🥃🍎

Something something Neighbor! Joel watching you paint your nails in the rain while waiting for Sarah to get off the bus.

Approaching out of gentlemanly concern, seeing you curled up on the steps. Assuming you were laying on the porch cause you were hurt.

His sight of his imposing figure and the sound of his footsteps all clouded from your perception by the rain and your focus on your streaky nails.

The weight of his steps made a steady rhythm against your mamas garden stones, rivaling the beat of the rain on the roof above you. His cursing finally drew your attention from your nails and your gaze up at the garden gate. Just in time to see his coarse hands reach around your garden gate to finger the lock in a familiar way. Intimate with the funny way it needed to be tugged and pushed all at once to open.

Having unlatched it a couple dozen times — having promised to fix it a million more in passing to you and your mama each time he crossed that road to take a look at the car.

Carry over mail.

Chat with your mama on Sundays to make up for missing church again.

And now, he palmed the lock to see you holding your foot out to the little sunlight the clouds allowed.

You heard him let out a deep, near paternal sigh. Akin to the one you’d heard him let out a million times from his side of the road. Usually when Sarah and her friends were hounding him to haul them somewhere half across town or for pocket money for something silly that meant to world to them. The sound was usually followed by the unwadding of a few bucks, or the start of that old truck.

This time it was followed by an order and the sound of his boots on your mamas wood steps.

Impolite, familiar.

“Scoot.” He instructed.

Joel taking a seat on your mama’s porch, on the step just below you with a grunt and a wordless pat to his lap. Your brows rose up at him. Bold as the day was long, asking a lady to hop in his lap right on her mama’s porch.

Him eyeing you down, barking but not biting.

Guiding your feet into his broad lap, resting your feet against the denim clad capable muscle, full of rested potential. While the old man they belonged to looked over the colors you’d set up waiting for you to pick one.

“Fork it over..” He commanded. Examining the messy state of you, and extending a large rainy hand out for the color of your choosing.

Joel’s kindness was funny like that. It held a grudge against you for bringing it out. Generous and warm, but shy about it, mad about being shy about it.

You fork over the little silver bottle.

“Matchin’ the clouds, what’s the sense? What about pink or blue i thought girls liked colors..”

You chose it as a little joke for yourself.

To match the color at his temples that caught the stormy light while he bent over your legs and worked, and complained about working. Patting your thigh when it was time to switch legs. Your knees clumsily, but comfortably bumping up against his chest every now and then.

Him shaking his head, grumbling about getting wet, worried about you keeling over.

Old Miller was all talk.

Not in reality.

The man actually talked very little if he could help it.

For pretty neighbors however, he offered customary southern small talk while you felt his thumb wipe away wherever his painting got too sloppy around the edges.

“How’s your mama?”

His voice rich and slowed by his focused state, trying to get the texture just right with no smudges. Wordlessly reprimanding you, pinching your thigh when you giggled at how his hands felt on you. Or try to squirm away when his callouses tickle the soles of your feet.

You wondered if the wood he worked with all day felt this ticklish under his touch.

“Easy.” He warns with another half hearted pinch to your leg. “Gimmie your hand- come on ‘fore you mess ‘em up” he grumbles annoyed on the outside but clearly taking his job very serious.

Joel pressing your hand against his knee while he paints. Gently resting some of his weight on your knee, to steady his arm while he worked. The pair of you tangled up and huddled together just beyond where the rain could reach. Him, far more invested in your manicure than he ever imagined he would be, and you peering over his shoulder to see watch his painters hands at work.

Smelling his cologne, the earthy scent of the wood he handled earlier that day before the rain closed down the construction site, and the cigarette he smoked in secret each day before Sarah got back. The cigarette he was in the middle of before he crossed the road to paint your nails while he waited out the worst of the rain.

“You’re home early… you close the site?”

“Mmm… gon’ rain all week” he said with a clear touch of worry about bills and pocket money for the little girl he was passing the time waiting for, sitting on your porch with your hand on his lap.

“M’sorry… maybe you could come by and do my hair-“

“Shut up.”

He pinches again for laughing.

“Gon’ mess me up” He warned feeling your eyes on his hands, both of you holding every other breath, hoping to keep still enough for him to get the next nail just right.

Swatting his arm when he cursed after smudging one.

Joel glancing over his shoulder at you trying to be intimidating on the surface. But grinning the moment you start teasing him.

“Makin’ sure I’m getting my moneys worth” you argue, handing him the clear coat as well.

While being careful not to move where he doesn’t instruct you to, so you don’t get another pinch from the mean old man.

“Is that a fact.. how much you reckon I can get for a paint job like that?”

He holds your hands up for both of you to compare — still too stubborn to wear those glasses the littler miller forced him to buy months ago.

“Don’t hold that nail against me, you got a funny finger-“

“Shut the hell up”

You go to pinch him then only for him to capture your hand and hold it still.

“You smudge em’ again imma leave you like that” he warned clearly having hit his kindness quota for the day.

“Fine fine… 20 bucks?” You say, wiggling your pretty hands up in the air while he stares you down.

“20?”

“I was gon’ say 5 I’m being nice, Mr. Miller. You’re still in training..”

He kisses his teeth when he gets up. Tossing your pretty little bottle of nail polish back in the bag it came from.

“Keep your money.”

He snaps, playful. His boots returning to his side of the street just as the school bus finally pulls in.

“I’ll be sure to refer my girlfriends to you! Practice’ll do you some good.. I can see it now Miller Construction and Cosmetics, Joel! You listenin’ to me?”

He swats at the air beside him as he crosses your garden gate, dismissing your teasing, while you prop your legs up to dry on the railing.

If that whole construction thing didn’t work out, the old man would make a half decent beautician.