You grew up with Sarah Miller. 

Soccer teams, high school football pep rallies, prom, homecoming, college acceptance season. Even though it turned into long distance facetime calls, and text chains nine messages long once college hit, Sarah Miller will forever and always be your best friend. 

It’s good to be back in Texas. Both you and Sarah moved back into your childhood homes the second after graduation hit. It’s good to be back, good to see her, your parents, and…Joel. 

You hadn’t seen him in a while. The last time you remember spending more than five minutes in his passing presence was when you and Sarah decided on that Chinese place for a post-high school graduation ceremony meal. He’s close with your dad. In an old school kind of way. In a lets raise our kids together kind of way and a the wives can go shopping together kind of way — before Sarah’s mom split, that is. 

Joel Miller, always brooding, always gruff and quiet. He’s never different. Though, you can’t help but think things might be different now—

No. You almost have to remind yourself out loud. He’s not different. He never is. He’s Joel Miller and you’re — you’re just a kid. You’re as old as his kid. 

Sarah, despite your hardened efforts, managed to drag you out of bed and into the shortest dress you own for a night at some club halfway across town. 

“Sarah, are the shot glasses still in the top cabinet?”

You reach for the knob, barely getting onto the balls of your feet before slipping on the cold laminate tiles in the kitchen. Your open palm balls into a fist and makes the cabinets shutter. Sarah responds with something from her room equally as unintelligible as your question was to her. You can feel your dress starting to ride up a little in your efforts, but you rifle through the Miller’s cabinets like it’s your own home. In some ways it is. 

“Hey, kid.”

You spin around, and quickly shuffle the hem of your dress back down. He nods his head in a lazy greeting. 

“Hey.” You’re breathless for some reason. It’s not because of the shot glasses. 

“Been a while,” Joel says, shuffling into the kitchen and setting a mug in the sink. He looks the same. Tousled hair and a beard just beginning to tinge gray. He’s always — always the same. 

You clear your throat. “Yeah. Been a while.” 

“Congratulations.”

“Thanks.” 

“Good to have you back,” he mumbles, settling back against the kitchen counter. You can see his arms flex when his palms settle onto the countertop. He’s strong, so much bigger than you. You never really noticed the big broadness of him until now. You’re not used to guys like him. All the boys you ever really experienced were clean shaven, soft in a way that told you they’ve never hauled ass through a day’s work. A lifetime of work. 

“Good to be back.” He clocks your outfit. You try to change the subject. “How are things?”

“Same ol’ same ol’.” He grabs a beer from the fridge. “Your dad’s gettin’ into golf. Tryna make me go out with him.” 

You laugh. “Not your scene?” 

“No, not quite.” He shakes his head, sipping on his beer with a smirk that almost makes your knees weak. “What’d you study again?” 

You scoff playfully. “Like you remembered in the first place.”

“Play along.” He smirks.

A knot sticks to your stomach, just below your navel. His voice is sickly sweet. Syrupy and Texan. His voice is like medicine. 

“Education. Just applied for jobs in the fall.”

“You teachin’?” 

“That’s the plan,” you let out with a breathless kind of laugh. 

“Smart girl.” 

His head cocks, and tilts it to the side. Your breath catches in your throat, palms sweaty against the black fabric of your dress. “Hardly.” 

He pauses, eyes you. It’s fleeting—you might think you dream it. You pick at the skin of your own thumb. 

“Your dad know you’re goin’ out?” 

You scoff. “I’m an adult. Don’t need my dad’s permission.”

“Don’t be a smart ass.” 

You eye him, a smirk plays on his lips. 

“I’m not—just…grown up, I guess.”

Something unreadable spreads across his face. “I guess.”

You hitch a tough breath. 

“What’d you need?” He swigs at his beer. 

“Oh.” You look back towards the cabinets, then. “Shot glasses.” 

“Moved ‘em,” he nods and stalks forward, backing you against the counter. He’s got a dark swirl of something warming behind his gaze. You don’t try to scoot away. Even when he reaches up next to your head and you hear the clink of two shot glasses brush up against each other in his fingers. 

“Don’t have too much fun,” he whispers while he pushes the glasses into your hands and leaves the kitchen.

__

You desperately, for your life, cannot keep up with Sarah Miller. 

She drinks entirely too quickly, efficiently, and practiced for your poor alcohol tolerance to keep up with. She’s a machine, and after three shots in, you’re already wasted. It wasn’t even midnight when your vision started to pull in a sideways direction and everything seemed a little slow. You knew things were taking a turn for the worst when the blonde quaffed frat guy with a Texas A&M polo shirt started sounding a little too funny. He was glued to your hip the entire night, though you aren’t sure you even remember his name correctly. You have your bets set on Colter, but then again, after your second shot, everything started to sound a little fuzzy to your rosied ears. 

And when Colter called you and Sarah an Uber at three a.m., you didn’t have the guts to ask him his name, only shooting him a half hearted thanks over your shoulder—your liquid courage having sobered up by the time the Uber rounded the corner to the Miller’s house. 

Even though Sarah Miller can throw back shots like it’s her day job, she passed out onto her bed as quickly as you both left her childhood bedroom while running late for your driver to the club. 

Before she promptly fell asleep, she mumbled something almost unintelligible into the pink sheets of her twin sized bed. But you could make it out enough to spring back from her words while your heart skipped a beat. 

“Get a shirt from my dads room.” 

So you knock, quietly, almost too quietly, and when you rap your knuckles against the wood of Joel Miller’s bedroom door a little harder, it pushes open slightly. The crack of it floods black, you can’t see inside, only the dim night sky illuminating the window sill and curtains in its wake.

When you push it open a little further, the door creaks so loud you push your eyebrows together with worry and freeze in your timely steps. But it’s empty. The bed isn’t entirely made, the covers a little rumpled and haphazard. You spot his dresser and make a quick beeline for it, itching to get out of your uncomfortable dress. 

The drawer slides open with a shift of wood on wood and you snatch up the first black t-shirt you find sitting neatly on top of the pile. Subconsciously, you bring it to your nose—sunlight, and evergreens, and a little hint of musk that peaks through the laundry detergent. The worn, soft cotton of it makes you sigh deep into the dark bedroom. You close your eyes, ball your fist up around the collar and lean into the dresser with your palm fitting against the edge of wood. Just as you turn around and move to close the drawer in your exit, a voice pulls your eyes up from the darkness. 

“What’re you doin’?”

You jump, almost instinctively bringing his shirt to your chest. A sinking, uneasy feeling settles right under your throat. It’s almost like you’ve been caught red handed—you most definitely were. 

You don’t say anything. The light pouring in from the hallway surely illuminates you enough. Joel’s eyes trail down to your bare legs, then to his shirt you have clutched in your hands. 

“That my shirt?” He points to your chest with a vague gesture of his hands. You look down at the material balled up in between your shaky fingers, then back to his eyes.

“I don’t—” You shake your head even though you know your efforts are fruitless. The least you can do is tell the truth. 

“Sarah—she’s—she’s sleeping. Told me to get clothes in here.” You make a slight nod of your head towards his open dresser. He doesn’t say anything, but he takes a step towards you. 

“Sorry, I can just—” You point towards the door behind him, and move to leave. 

“‘S fine,” he mumbles in that deepened, soaked drawl. All honey, and velvet, wrapping you up into something warm and inviting. It tugs at something just beneath your belly. 

When he gets closer, your breath punches out in a staggered rise and fall of your chest. Your fingers don’t move from clutching his shirt. When he nears, he slips a hand past you, brushing your waist, and shuts the drawer closed with a soft thunk. 

Your breath catches in your throat, his eyes trail your figure. 

“Fun night?” 

You clear your throat, nod, slowly, still studying his darkened gaze. “Yeah.”

You clock how close he is when you put your weight on one hip and his jeans brush up against your bare thigh. His breath swirls on your eyelashes. He tugs on his shirt in your hands and lets out a hearty sigh. Shifting from one foot to the other, then again. It seems like you both stay like that for years. 

Brown. His eyes are brown—maybe a little darker than they normally are. His eyes try not to roam, but that hint of something is gone before you can blink. 

He backs away then, towards the door. Most likely seeing you out. He settles near the entrance and looks back at you. Your bare feet shuffle through the carpet. He nudges the door open with a rough palm on the doorknob, leaning against the frame as you approach. 

You’re about to leave, but he catches your elbow, and you spin back to him in a desperate kind of way. 

“You look pretty,” he whispers to your surprise. “Forgot t’mention it earlier.” 

Pretty. 

He thinks you’re pretty. You didn’t even think pretty was in his vocabulary. 

You didn’t think he would notice. 

You don’t say anything. Your eyebrows furrow with want. You study him, eye his brown stare and the way his chest rises and falls under the navy blue t-shirt he’s wearing. And you slowly—slowly push the door shut. You both watch it close. It clicks, the sound of it deafening to your ears. 

He would never, ever make the first move. You’re smart enough to know that for certain, but—pretty. He thinks you’re pretty, and after all this time, it’s still always Joel. 

So you turn your back to him, swipe your hair over one shoulder and turn your head to the side. You can hear him silently swear under his breath. 

“You mind?” you say, gesturing to the zipper of your dress. His soft steps pads on the floor. You can almost feel his chest against your shoulder blades. 

His fingers toy with the zipper, hot and rough but—hesitant. He pulls it down slowly anyways, exposing your back to the crisp air conditioned air, and the heat of his gaze. The straps fall as the zipper does, he curses again, succumbing to your decided fate. 

You hold the front of your dress to your body on instinct, even though the only thing you want to do right now involves him ripping it off you. 

He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t do anything else—doesn’t back away or come closer or leave. So you reach your hand backward to find him and gasp softly when his fingers tangle with yours. You pull his hand to your body. He locks onto your waist like a leech. 

“What’re you doin’?” He rasps against the shell of your ear, almost like he’s pleading with you. He sounds like he’s in pain. Maybe he’s torn between pleasure and good judgment. You want him to forget about the latter entirely. 

Your stomach drops, you glance to the side again. 

“I thought—” 

“You thought, what?”

Your face goes hot, stare at your feet instead. His hand doesn’t leave you. 

“I don’t…” 

“You thought this was a good idea?” 

You don’t say anything. For some reason you didn’t think it was a bad idea. Not when his hand reaches around to grab your hip.

“What would your daddy think?” 

“I don’t really care what he thinks.” An admission more than anything. 

He sucks in a breath. A quiet contemplation. The look on his face doesn't read pissed, but it's a far cry from happy. You don't know what is behind his gaze.

“Nothin’ but trouble.” He breathes out in a heavy sigh. “Ain’t ya?”

His voice is so much deeper now. His accent shows through, silken and so southern it makes you grip your dress a little harder on instinct. You’ve lost count of how many times your breath has gotten caught up in the tightness of your throat. 

“‘S one word for it.” 

He almost growls, his hand skits down to the hem of your dress and pushes his fingers under it, trailing upward, but stopping before he meets lace. 

“You shouldn’t be in here.”

“No,” you agree breathlessly. “I shouldn’t.”

He slots himself against you, his other hand grips your hip and pushes you back into him. You gasp softly. 

“Let it go.” You realize he’s talking about your dress. You squeeze your eyes shut. His lips skate against your neck in a way that makes you dip your head to the side in a silent surrender. 

“Let it go,” he repeats. 

You drop the hand on your chest and his t-shirt with it. Your dress falls to the floor in a black blanket of smoke. You gasp when his hands are on you, inching slowly from the hem of your underwear to grasp your breast in a rough, teasing palm. 

A small sound escapes past your lips. His other hand, quick to respond, slots over your mouth, silencing you and your whiny moans. 

It’s — rough. The way he pushes his palm into your face to quiet your whimpering, forcing your head back to rest against his shoulder. The way he pushes your underwear down your thighs to rest with his forgotten t-shirt, and your all too tight, too short dress. It’s rough, but so, so gentle. 

It feels like heaven. 

You pitch your back, arching into him in a desperate way. Writhing against him when he finally pushes a calloused finger in between your dripping folds. 

“Jesus.” He shakes his head. You can feel the scratch of his beard against your temple. You wonder what that scruff might feel like between your thighs. “Been wantin’ it all night, huh?”

It’s a question, but not one he needs an answer to. The mess between your thighs is evidence enough. 

Joel. You try to plead, but he’s relentless in his quieting attempts. The pad of his finger brushes against your clit and you’re keening against him. You can feel him smile. 

“Quiet,” he whispers into your ear, then lifts his hand from your mouth, hovering, waiting until the inevitable moan to escape past your lips. But you try your hardest, bite at the skin on the inside of your lip, and he rewards you. He’s a gentleman like that. He sinks his middle finger into your cunt, rubbing tight circles on your swollen clit with his thumb. Everything about him is just so, just right. 

Maybe, usually, with other guys, you’d be disappointed if they’re stingy with the foreplay. But you walked throughout the bar all night with slick dripping through soaked lace just at his words in the kitchen. Smart girl. So you push back into him and beg him—

“Joel.” You’re breathless. You plead at him with your body, with everything you have. “Please,” you whisper simply. 

Something like desperation and want and a little twinge of anxiety settles in your stomach when he releases you. He walks you back to the edge of the bed. It smells like him when you lay down and the softness of the blankets kiss the edges of your face. You can hear the clink of his belt buckle and you suck in a tiny breath.

“How do you want it, baby?” 

You push him back, and his eyes go wide. It’s the first reaction you’ve gotten out of him the whole night. A peak behind his brooding mask. And when you settle each leg on either side of his hips, he groans. It makes you a little more brave. 

“Like this,” you whisper, placing your hands on his chest. He grabs at your wrists, and pushes them under his wide palm to his stomach so you lean forward down to him. He pushes his boxers down and you try not to look, but you make a small sound at the sight. 

“Look good—” he grunts. You take his tip and notch it at your entrance. “Always look so pretty.” 

Your heart pounds in your chest. Everything is different. Everything is new. 

Pretty. 

“Fuck,” you whisper, glancing down at just the sight of him. The size of him. 

“You’re okay, angel.” 

Your gaze snaps to his face. He nods. You believe him. 

“I—ah—” you whimper. “I can take it.” 

“I know you can,” he grunts when you sink down an inch and take the tip of him. Your hips cant at the feeling, taking more of him through groans and pressing whines. He lets you set the pace. Let's you take your time. Even when he’s panting through his gritted teeth and tight lips. 

You sink down on him until there’s nothing left to take. It’s almost painful. But he’s right there, playing with the pearl of your clit, massaging your hips. He knows how much you can take and when you can take it. He seems to know alot about you while knowing very little. 

“Shit,” you groan. “Oh my — god.”

You can hear him muttering something along the lines of perfect. 

It feels that way—perfect. He fits inside you with a tight stretch but nothing compares to the feeling of his throbbing length resting inside you. You would die here with your wanton moans and you would wake to find nothing less. 

“Joel,” you whine, clenching around him, the stretch starts to sweeten. 

“That’s—fuck—yeah, good girl,” he whispers. He sounds like something sweet and dark and rough. You fist at his t-shirt. Just like the one left forgotten by the door. You don’t remember what you came in here for anymore. Not when you’re dangerously close from his thumb rubbing slow circles on your clit. 

“Fuck. Yeah?” He can feel it. From the inside. “Y’gonna come, baby?” 

It’s embarrassing. That you could come like this, with him waiting patiently inside you. You don’t have it in you to lie, you don’t have it in you to bounce up and down or move at all. He turned your legs to jello. 

“I-I don’t—” 

“C’mon,” he grunts and grips your hips to keep him flush to your body. “Know ya want it.”

It only takes one swift rock of your hips. His hands, broad and sprawled out across the plushness of your sides. Your body stalls out on top of him. He sits up to wrap his arms around you and brings you close on instinct. If your brain wasn’t so hazy and you weren’t so lightheaded your heart might swell at the thought. You bite out something sounding somewhat like his name—it’s a garbled whisper and cut of words but you think he gets the gist. 

“I—Ngh—fuck,” he whispers into the crown of your hair. You can feel him throbbing inside you. You chuckle something halfway coherent and let him flip you over, settled on your stomach with your face in the sheets. His fingers skip over your backside. 

“Joel,” you breathe. “I—” 

“Relax,” he says behind you, spreading your folds and staring at the way your cunt clenches around nothing. “Just relax, angel.” 

So you do, you sink boneless into the mattress and let him press you down into the sheets. He feels so broad. He feels so good. You tell him quite as much, in not so many words. You feel the weight of him settle behind you, his hand coming up to brace himself by your head. 

“God, you feel so fuckin’ good.” He sinks in, inch by inch. It’s not so much of a stretch anymore. Carving a place for himself inside you. It feels like he belongs there. You think to yourself that he probably does. You’re squirming beneath him, wringing your fists in dark blue sheets. 

You clamp your eyes shut when he bottoms out. Even more so when he finds a pace he likes and sets it. You don’t have to beg him anymore. Your legs shake beneath his hips, even more so when he hikes your leg up on the bed so he can push deeper. 

Something deep rolls through you again. It shocks you. Most of the guys you’ve been with haven’t made you come once, let alone twice. 

“I can’t—” you whine. “I—fuck.” 

He picks up the pace. 

“Y’can,” he grunts. “Know y’can, c’mon, baby.” 

You nuzzle your face in cotton. His hips chase his release and you know you’re close when he nudges against your g-spot.

“Don’t stop,” you whine. “Please don’t fucking stop, Joel, please, it—ah."

When you come, he grunts through ragged breaths. White hot pools in your stomach and you whine so loudly you’re worried about the neighbors. His hand comes to brace against the back of your neck. You’re so fucking soaked he slides through you easily. 

“Jesus, fuck,” he growls. He bears down on you and your hips and sinks to his elbows when he can’t keep himself up anymore. You feel the cotton of his t-shirt brush against your back. It sends a shiver up your spine. He comes, pulling out and spilling over your back. You try to hide your disappointment. 

He lays beside you for a minute, you barely reach your hand up from the bedsheets to brush against his bicep. He studies your face and pants through a slack jaw. He’s scruffy and broad and — perfect. 

Your gaze flick to his mouth, then his eyes. You silently realize he never kissed you. 

“Gonna get me killed,” he whispers. It’s almost weirdly affectionate in a way only Joel Miller could say. Still stuck in a limbo between pleasure and reality. You smile, softly. 

He climbs off you, and slinks to the bathroom. You wait with baited breath until you hear the water run. He emerges with a soft looking towel, damp with water, clinging to his fingers. You watch him and shiver when the towel touches your back. 

“Okay?” he whispers when you sit up and turn to look at him. 

“Yeah, okay.” 

It feels like something is supposed to happen now. You’re not used to this. Everything slowly comes back as the pleasure ebbs and you blink back to reality. You open your mouth, then close it. He does the same. 

You can hear Sarah’s door open and you both freeze. His brown eyes search yours through a furrowed brow. Your heart goes back into normal rhythm when you hear the bathroom door shut. Then nothing. 

He snags a new shirt from his dresser and tugs it over your body. 

The Texans. 

“Cute,” you gesture to the shirt. It’s soft underneath your fingers, worn. A gentle kind of faded navy blue. Joel picks up your dress off the floor and folds it into your chest while scoffing. 

“Shut up,” He shakes his head, but he can’t hide the smirk on his face. “Get outta here.” 

It’s all oddly playful. Like you both can’t believe it and are giddy at that fact.  

“Same time next week?” 

Something deeper flicks across his gaze at the doorway. “Is that a promise?” 

“You can’t answer a question with another question.” 

You turn when you leave the doorway and settle into the hallway. He’s got his hand on the doorframe, leaning into it—towering over you and already burning something hot through you. Again. 

“I just did,” he grumbles with a smug look, and then shuts the door.