if i had a gun
cowboy like me chapter 12.5 (joel's pov)
long-awaited, pain-packed, and sealed with a bow by yours truly. i love y'all. thank you for being so patient and kind with me on this one. this chapter is joel's experience of the end of illicit affairs and all of hits different. you might wanna check those chapters out before you indulge in the angst-fest that is this one. hope you enjoy 🧡
pairing: dbf!joel x fem!reader
summary: walk a mile in joel miller's shoes. see if you'd do anything different
warnings: more heartache, more angst, lois, alcohol + drug consumption, mention of reader being roofied, very brief mention of joel punching knox, age gap (reader is 23, joel is 48), cursing
word count: 9.8k
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“Right. Sorry. It’s just…we kinda have a…situation, here.”
It’s you. He fucking knows it’s you. His heart begins to hammer. He doesn’t give a fuck whether she puts two and two together or not when he asks –
“Where is she?”
“We’re still at Frank’s,” Anna says, sniffing. He can hear the booming bassline of music, muffled; the sharper chatter of voices. She’s on the street. In his head, he can see her shoulders hunched; her bare arms wrapped around her body for warmth. She goes to say it again. “We’re still at –”
“’n where is she?” Joel cuts, and she finally cracks.
You’re still fast asleep when he lifts his head.
You’ve had this argument plenty before. I do not snore. Yes, baby, you do. I’ve heard you. I don’t! It’s alright, it’s okay that you do. It’s a cute snore. Joel, I don’t fucking –
Right now, he’s pretty certain you’re snoring. He just wishes you were awake to hear yourself.
He thinks about pulling his phone, taking a video so that once you’re up, you can hear the little bursts of air, the tiny rasps from your nostrils as you snooze. But if he ever did record anything like that – just like the Hillcrest pictures, until you’d found them last night – he’d keep it for himself. Wouldn’t offer it up so easily.
Just something for him to have, for all the time he spends without you.
Your hair’s still all over the place. Tangled in Joel’s right arm, still smelling of chlorine and sex. Your head rests softly on the crook of his elbow like it’s a pillow; your lips and eyes are puffy, tired. You have this ridiculously strong vice grip on his left arm; during the night he felt you wrap your wrists around it and pull it into your chest, tucking it gently under your chin until your entire upper half was drowned in his.
His chest snug against your back, his arms encasing you safely, and his hips…his hips lined with yours. His now semi-hard cock buried between your legs – he’d slept inside you last night, and it was like, after forty-eight years, someone finally took him by the shoulders and said: This is how you do it. This is how you rest.
He was out as soon as his head hit the pillow, soon as his eyes fell shut. He stirred only to feel you maneuvering his arm, and then fell straight back asleep.
He felt comfortable. He felt safe. Big, old, tough guy Joel Miller. Never let anybody in since Sarah’s mom left. Alone for almost seventeen years, and fine with it. His cheeks heat at the idea of needing – of wanting to feel that. Safe. But then you came along, and he realized he’d been waiting his whole life to feel it. Didn’t even notice he’d been missing it.
That’s how these things go, right? Can’t miss what you don’t have, and all that.
But now he has it. Now he has you.
And you make him feel things he’s never felt before, or if he has, it was so fucking long ago that he’s forgotten. You drive him fucking insane. Keep him up at night, wondering what the hell he’s gotten himself into. Make him do stuff that his reflection glares at him over. Are you being serious right now? Make him…different. New.
The night before last, when he’d picked you up from Frank’s after rodeo night, he promised to make you a big breakfast in the morning. Compensation for not swinging by McDonald’s on the way home. But then your dad called, and you had to take off before Joel had even properly woken up.
When he eventually rose from the bed, he went straight to the store. Stocked up on eggs, flour, sugar, bananas. He’d printed a recipe from his computer while you were gone. Marked the items off as he meandered through the store. Stood for ten minutes deliberating over which gluten-free flour would be best, before an assistant asked if he needed any help.
I’m good, he muttered, and then, as the kid wandered off, cleared his throat and said, Actually –
Greg – the kid assistant in question – had suggested the red bag. Said it’s corn flour, instead of wheat. Joel can’t pronounce the brand name. He just knows it’s tucked behind a box of cereal in the cupboard downstairs – he hid it there so you wouldn’t find it and snuff out his plan.
His plan, which he now has to put into action. Without waking you. He’d lie here forever just staring at you, if he hadn’t sworn to himself to make good on his promise and cook you some damn pancakes.
So he slowly pulls his left hand from between yours, loosening your death grip, and steals it back across your waist. He does the same for his right arm – more careful, though, so he doesn’t tug on your hair. Like some kind of wild cat creeping through the jungle, every moment calculated and careful.
He bunches the comforter up a little at your back, so that if you do stir, it might feel like he’s still there. Still a weight, curving around you. He takes a good five minutes just to travel the length of the room – the lightest he’s ever walked, dodging the spots on the carpet that he knows make the floorboards squeal.
When the door gently clicks back into place, he heads downstairs. Cracks out his frying pan – non-stick, obviously – and all his ingredients, pulls the printed recipe from its hiding place between two cookbooks and lays it out on the counter, flattening the creases and unfolding the corners. And gets to it.
His first egg cracks messily over the lip of the bowl. The yolk runs down the outside, and he curses before swiping it back up with his index finger. The second egg empties fully inside the bowl, but drags with it tiny fragments of shell. Joel spends five minutes focusing on picking every single piece out of the mixture. He crouches to make sure he’s poured the exact amount of milk, eyes level with the top of the liquid, and he double checks every step before he follows it.
This has to be perfect. Has to be. For you.
The entire time, all he can think about is you asking to sleep with his body inside yours. Wanting him closer than you’d ever wanted him before, as close as he could physically be. Your sleepy voice circles between his ears on loop – want somethin’ else. That safe feeling creeps up on him all over again.
He knows he shouldn’t. He can’t. He’s spent the last month purposefully pushing those feelings down, dampening them anytime they rose to the surface. Only allowing himself to feel them, to acknowledge them, when you’re around. Because he can’t fucking help but acknowledge them when you’re here – they stare him straight in the face.
So he’d been making peace with letting the floodgates open just a little bit at a time – one quick rush whenever you’d give him one of your meaningful glances, when your hot skin would brush against his, when your mouth would fall open at the feeling of his first deep thrust inside you.
And then he’d bolt them back up.
Except that, now…he’s not sure the dam can hold much longer. There are cracks he’s not repairing quickly enough. Unintended consequences hammering against the other side of the stone in the form of angry white waves.
He’s staring at the beige circle of batter in the pan, swept off with the waves into someplace far from his kitchen, when the sound of your voice draws him back.
“Joel? You down there?”
The floorboards at the top of his stairs creak. You’re leaning over the banister.
“Yeah, darlin’, I’m here.” He slips halfway out of the kitchen door, closing it over his body in hopes you won’t smell the pancakes. You ask what he’s doing, and he says, “Just makin’ a coffee. You want anything brought up?”
“I’m good,” you reply. “’m gonna take a shower.”
“Alright, baby. There’s probably some stuff in Sarah’s bathroom you can use.”
He listens closely as your footsteps recede, waiting to hear the hum of his shower before he relaxes again, flipping the pancake over. It sizzles away as he runs one thick finger along the inside of the bowl and tastes his handiwork. Pretty damn good, he thinks. He’s sucking his finger clean when his cell goes.
Joel swipes to answer, and before he can utter a Hello?, your dad’s voice is screaming down the line to him.
“Mornin’, pal! You in? You up?”
He figures this is the infamous speakerphone you rambled for ten minutes about last night. Like a fucking foghorn, man. I’m deaf in this ear now.
He doesn’t wait for Joel to respond. “I was just passin’ by, remembered you got that leakin’ pipe, or whatever it is. Under your sink, right? You good for me to drop in ‘n take a look?”
“Uh – uh, I’m –” Joel stammers his way through a sentence he doesn’t know the ending of, slotting the phone between his cheek and his shoulder and giving the pan a rattle against the stovetop. He slips the spatula under the mixture, and when he flips it over, the pancake is charcoal black. “Fuck.”
“What’s that?” you dad roars, deafening in Joel’s ear. Fuckin’ speakerphone.
“Nothin’, it’s…” He sighs, accepting his new-found position: backed into a fucking corner. What’s new these days?
“Yeah, I’m up. See you in a bit.”
He hangs up the phone midway through an Alright, buddy from your dad, and whacks the chargrilled pancake on top of the pile. His phone surfs across the counter in a blur of blind panic, before Joel’s taking the stairs two at a time to get to you.
The door’s ajar. He can hear you quietly singing to yourself. Same song you’re always fucking singing, always trying to coax Joel into singing along with you. You’re humming the guitar solo when he whips the door open.
“Hey, hey,” he’s panting, taking your towel in one hand and reaching for the shower door with the other, a blur of movement before his eyes like he’s not in control of his own body. “Out.”
“Huh?” you reply, blinded by the soap suds running down your forehead and into your eyes.
“Baby,” Joel whispers, desperate, “you gotta get out. He’s here. Your damn dad’s here.”
He drags you over to the first place he spots: his closet. He knows it’s no fucking good, but he can hear your dad’s car squealing to a halt in his drive, and he’s in a blink panic wondering what artefacts, what evidence of your being here lie dotted around his house. Your bikini’s hanging up out back, there’s probably a hoodie still strewn over the back of his couch.
He doesn’t have time to think, though, because in the midst of his mental scan of every room whilst explaining to you what’s going on, your dad’s heavy boots just thudded onto his doormat.
“Miller?” he calls up the stairs. And Joel closes the closet over.
----------
He stands by the front door watching your dad’s car purr off down the street, waiting until it turns left and disappears behind the Dawsons’ back fence to shut the door. When he turns back into his hallway, the house is uncomfortably silent. You’re still up in his room.
The weight of your phone pulls at the waistband of his jeans. He slips his hand into his back pocket, fishes it out, and takes one step toward the stairs. The screen lights in his palm.
There’s a cluster of notifications from some film class group chat, a couple Snapchats from Sarah. A reminder to take your birth control from some pink-icon app, and then –
I’m heading over to Joel’s to check something out for him. Wanna meet me there?
He stares at it until the text burns into his eyes. Blinks, and it’s seared into his lids. His breath leaves his chest in a heavy, burdened sigh. It trembles as it pushes from his lungs. He feels something burning under his skin. All over.
He’s angry. And he’s trying to keep it contained.
Keep it where it lies, keep it beneath the surface. Stop it from pooling right behind his lips, collecting in the light of his eyes. Keep it from revealing itself. But when his foot lifts to the first step, it’s like a deadweight in the air.
He’s angry. But he’s fucking exhausted.
The bedroom is empty when Joel pushes the door open. You’re still hidden in the closet. You don’t look up at him when he pulls on the shuttered door, letting light flood across your hands, still covering your face. There are flicks of dripping wet hair peeking out from under the towel on your head.
He wants to put his arms around you. Wants to kiss you all over. Tell you, It’s okay, it’s alright. He didn’t see nothin’.
But he can’t. Because neither of those things are true.
Your dad saw the cowgirl hat. Hell of a lot like a hat my daughter has. It sent a sharpened bolt of panic through Joel’s body the second the words came tumbling out. He might’ve seen your bag lying at the bottom of the stairs. Might’ve passed your car on his drive here. There are so many loose fucking ends.
And more than that – harder to accept: maybe this isn’t okay anymore. Maybe it hasn’t been the entire time. And maybe, despite all his good efforts and the fucking way you make him feel, despite it being weeks now of tiptoeing and lying and covering your tracks – maybe you finally crossed a line.
He can’t look at you a second longer. His heart’s in his throat. If he opens his mouth to speak, he’ll probably choke. Break down. So he walks away.
You follow him downstairs a few minutes later, fully dressed and silent. Your touch sweeps across his shoulder blades, and it takes everything in him not to turn to you then and there. Come here, kiss me. Pretend none of it’s happening, just for a moment.
He sets your plate down in front of you. He’s taken the burnt pancake. He follows a pattern: cuts into the food, glances out to the backyard, and back to the plate. It’s the only thing keeping the words from rolling out onto the table in front of him. The only thing stopping him from –
You kick his leg. So gently, he barely feels it.
“You gonna eat?” he asks in response, chewing on the smoky flavor of burnt batter. Your hands hesitate, and he feels his own flinch as if to take them, rub them, squeeze them. And then he watches as you drag your knife through your own breakfast.
He wants you to yell at him. He wants to give meaning to the guilt he feels. He knows what’s coming, and he isn’t so sure that you do.
This is…impossible. It has been, from the start. Always sneaking off, coming up with excuses. So many fucking excuses, he can’t even keep them straight in his head anymore. She’s here, droppin’ my flannel off. Now we’re upstairs, I’m showin’ her my guitar. Need her to help with decorations. Your TV’s broken, did you know that? Don’t mind us, just sat in this private corner of my backyard, out of view of fucking everyone. I’ll pick her up from her rodeo night, take her home. She’s at Anna’s all day today, right?
And your dad – kind and naïve, or maybe just so fucking gullible that every single one lands like the flour did in the egg mixture. Just gracefully floats down into his brain, absorbs itself and folds perfectly into place.
So, yell at him. Get mad. Make him feel like the fucking asshole he knows he is. Leading you on, and letting you get close to him, and then when it gets too hard – pushing you away. Doesn’t matter if that’s what he did or not; doesn’t matter whether he did or didn’t mean it. He wants you to be mad at him. To justify what he’s about to do.
He slides you your phone. Motions for you to read it.
“Fuck…” you whisper, and then he thinks you get it.
But then you say, “…he didn’t see me, though. Right?” and his heart sinks.
No. He didn’t see you. But he saw so many little pieces of you, that Joel finds it impossible to consider that he isn’t already seeing the entire picture. He’s picturing your dad at home in the living room, one hand on his hip, the other running through his hair, adding two and two and two and two and –
You’re bickering. Actually arguing. He doesn’t know how to navigate it, save for letting the frustration take the wheel and drive the point home: you came too close to being caught.
You’re smarter than this, he knows you are. He knows that you can see plain as day, everything that he can. The bag, the hat, the fucking home-cooked breakfast sat on his kitchen counter. He’s watching you argue your point, hands dancing in the air animatedly, eyebrows lifting, eyes widening. Hear me out. Listen to me. Hear me out.
“I didn’t fucking mean to let him see the b–”
“That’s not the point,” Joel says, before he has time to stop himself.
“Then what’s your point?”
He feels his voice carry off into the air with the images racing around his head. Hank’s shadow under the door. The roar of voices downstairs as you climaxed. Your body pinned under Joel’s on your couch. The way the morning light screamed into the house as your front door burst open.
He doesn’t sound like he has much of a point, even to himself. He’s in it just as much as you are. He’s lied and he’s hidden just as much as you have, and made mistakes that are…worse, as far as he’s concerned.
And the worst one of all sits directly opposite him. Head low, eyes boring into the wood of his kitchen table. He can see the tears swelling across your waterline. Can feel the heat from here as it spreads across your face. Anger thrums through his chest again, and his teeth grit.
He murmurs, pushing himself up from the table and away from you. Tells you there’s some stuff he needs to see to. You’re mad about it, like he knew you would be. Like you should be. He promises he’ll be back in a couple hours; promises you’ll talk when he gets home.
And then he leaves.
----------
Clark’s is on the other side of town. It takes him nearly forty minutes to get there, and more than half of that time is spent staring at the tail lights of a Honda in front of him. Some accident up ahead. His eyes bore into the burning red strip of brake light until it’s singed into them, a blur of blue when he finally rips his glare away and stares up at the white sky.
He thinks about calling you. Saying, Hey, I’m stuck in traffic, talk to me, but he doesn’t. He just…doesn’t.
Instead, he wonders what you’re doing. Whether or not you’re still at his place. He wouldn’t blame you if you weren’t. But if you are – and he hopes you are – what are you doing?
He thinks: She’s on the couch. Bundled in blankets. Grey’s is on TV. She’s rewatchin’ her favorite episodes.
Least, that’s what he wants you to be doing. Wants you to be making yourself feel better, because he knows he was a complete ass earlier. You didn’t deserve any of it. Nothing that he didn’t deserve himself, just as much, anyway.
He thinks about coming home, and you hitting pause, pushing yourself off the couch and sauntering around to him. Wrapping him in the blanket until your bodies are pressed together under the woven red, and kissing him. Kiss me kiss me kiss me.
And the thought of you, standing on your tiptoes to press your soft lips to his, your fingers sifting through his hair, is like a cold pack on a searing wound. Dulls his anger, even if it’s just for a second.
His wide tires crawl silently across the smooth lot of the plant hire, parking right in front of the wire fence. The truck door slams shut when he gets out. He doesn’t mean it. Maybe he does. But he does it without thinking, and with a hot head, a temper sharper than nails, he strides over to the glass-paneled door and swings it open.
She’s sat behind the desk, same as always. Dark, deep auburn hair, groomed and set to perfection so that when she looks up, it doesn’t move an inch. Curls around the sweetheart shape of her face, smooth and shining. Her blue eyes twinkle in the glaring light from outside, and she stands.
She tugs lightly on the hem of her white blouse. You’d probably elbow him and say, That’s cream, not white. She smiles at him and it doesn’t look a thing like your smile. He doesn’t remember the last time he saw your smile. Fuck, he thinks, when did I last make her smile?
And he’s still wondering, when Lois says, “Hey, stranger,” and puts a gentle, pale, red-nailed hand down on the desk. “Long time, no see.”
“Yeah,” Joel grumbles, clearing his throat and glancing at the man in a pair of thick, steel-toe boots, sat in a waiting area to his left. He thinks it’s probably polite to ask how she is. It’s been seven weeks since he blew off her hint for a date.
“Good, thanks,” she replies, cheeks swelling even more. They’re lightly shaded crimson, a soft shimmer to them against her snowy skin, dappled with light freckles. “You?”
He nods once. “Good,” he echoes, not sure what else to say. He’s lying, and she doesn’t seem to figure him out the way you would.
No. Instead, Lois steps back, straightens up, and twirls the pen in her fingers. “What can I do ya for?”
“Got some equipment I’m after,” he mutters, hand slipping into his back pocket for his phone. Lois’s eyes flit up and down his body as he taps his passcode in with his thumb.
She asks him something, but it sounds like she’s speaking through a closed door. He’s elsewhere.
The phone unlocks, screen lifting to reveal the last open app: his camera roll. His thumbs hover over the screen, tracing where yours would’ve tapped last night.
The video’s muted, she won’t hear it even if he let it play, but he swipes away the second he recognizes the tangled mess of your hair, his fist locked tight in it. His own hair, salt and pepper buried deep in the crook of your neck.
Something in his chest aches. Pulls tight, hurts his heart. He takes a deep breath and scares the feeling away. He’s staring at his camera roll. Staring at twelve little square thumbnails – couple of them work stuff, couple of them lists of supplies he has to remember to pick up – and then. Then.
You. At the Hillcrest. Dimples in your cheeks. That’s what made him take his phone out. The soft dips in your skin that appear anytime you smile, laugh, sometimes even just when you talk. He’d first noticed them when you had a mouth full of pizza, chatting animatedly about Meredith and Derek, and he’s noticed them every time since.
He’d seen them, as you posed with Sarah for a selfie at lunch. And his hand had slipped into his pocket before his brain even had the chance to finish the thought.
His quiet way of marking how he felt in that moment. How his chest seemed to fill as if with air, or something thicker. Sweeter. Like it was trying to push words up, a comment to tell you how beautiful you looked. Trying to make him move, run his thumb light as air across that tiny valley in your cheek and look at you with eyes that translated the words hammering behind his eyes.
But you had company. And all he managed to do was take two fucking photos.
Lois talks again, and this time, there’s no closed door.
“Huh?” Joel’s head snaps up, takes a few seconds to focus on the red hair in front of him. “Sorry, Lois, sorry.”
“’s alright. You okay?” She’s smiling so warmly, so sincerely. And there are no dimples in her cheeks.
“Yeah,” he clears his throat, “just checkin’ for the address.”
She holds out a pad, a stack of hire agreement forms hovering between her body and his, but he’s not looking. He’s still scrolling through his phone, thumbs searching your dad’s text thread for the information. Lois lowers the pad to the counter, places the pen on top. Fiddles with it until it’s lined up with the top of the form perfectly.
Then Joel looks up, and she smiles again.
“Not for you, then?” she asks.
He shakes his head. “Just the messenger.”
“Got it. Well, you know what you’re doing. Let me know if you need anything.”
Lois takes a step back, eyes still on Joel, who smiles politely, then swipes the form from the desk and takes a seat between Steel-Toe Boots and some tall, leafy plant that he has to bat away when he sits down. He’s copying the site address, phone resting on his thigh, when the receptionist speaks again.
“How’s Sarah doin’? She home yet?”
“Yeah,” Joel replies, “been home a couple weeks now. She’s been in Nashville this weekend.”
Lois lifts her head, blinking slowly. “Nashville. Nice. So, you’ve had a weekend to yourself.”
He scoffs. “Yeah,” he croaks.
“And what does Joel Miller get up to when he has an empty house for a few days?”
His fingers squeeze around the pen, pushing deeper into the paper. His expression hardens. “Nothing excitin’ enough to share. Sat by the pool yesterday. Was nice out.”
She agrees. “Sure was. You have company?”
Joel shakes his head once. Blinks the image of you and your red bikini from his vision. Focuses on dragging the pen one digit at a time across the line labeled Phone Number. If he cared enough, he’d give the obvious hint a couple seconds’ consideration, even just to protect Lois’s pride a little.
But he doesn’t care. And right now, he ain’t interested in protecting anyone but you.
“Nope. Just me ‘n a few beers.”
“Better off that way,” a hoarse, forty-cigs-a-day voice rasps from his right. “Less fuckin’ problems.”
Joel’s jaw rotates a degree towards the work boots; notices the folds of dry, leathery skin piled atop the raised gray eyebrows of their owner, and then turns back silently.
Lois clears her throat awkwardly. “Well, I spent the day with my book. I’m readin’ a Colleen Hoover. Adam’s at camp, so – quiet house for me, too.”
Joel finds himself nodding. Autopilot. He’s pretending he’s listening.
You’re still in his sight, wandering over from the sliding kitchen doors, a bottle in each hand. He can hardly see you when he looks up, the sun’s so bright. You hold a beer out, condensation dripping down your fingers towards Joel’s when he takes it, and then you slump down in the sun lounger next to his.
His arm reaches across, and your small fingers wrap and then unwrap around his, running across his knuckles, nails lightly scratching his worked hands. And he’s smiling, and he doesn’t even notice it until his eyes meet yours and you laugh, and he asks, What? through a chuckle, and you say, Nothin’, you just look happy.
Your dimpled blush blurs back into checkboxes and scrawled handwriting. You’re gone again. He’s in a white office, and the gentle lapping of the water on the pool’s edge fades into the headache noise of a fan humming, and he feels the warmth of your gaze on his skin turn into the cold, harsh spotlight glare of Lois’s eyes on him.
He looks up. She’s still smiling. At this point, he finds it fucking unnerving.
He rises from his chair, swings a wandering leaf from that ugly green plant out of his way and paces back over to the desk, sliding the pad back across to her. Their hands brush as she takes it from his grip, and he pulls his wrist close to his body. Lois doesn’t seem to notice.
She’s running the pen down the form, checking everything he’s filled in. Her tongue moves around the inside of her cheek, sucking on a hard candy. “Delivery on Friday?” she double checks, and Joel nods. “Alright,” she says, tearing away his copy, “we’ll call ya.”
“’ppreciate it,” he mumbles, folding the paper into his back pocket.
She turns, reaching to slip the form into a blue tray, and Joel pauses. Thinks to say something – he hopes Adam has a fun time at camp, or that Lois enjoys the rest of her quiet week. But then he sees you sat opposite him, staring fixedly at the plate before you, tears threatening to spill down your cheeks. He feels your hand laced in his, hears your laugh still ringing in his ears.
He misses you. He should never have left you. You matter more to him than some equipment for a site. Matter more to him than anything. He should’ve never fucking left.
Joel nods. Reaches for the handle of the door. Glances back to Lois. “There a florist anywhere near here?”
----------
He pulls the truck in alongside the florist. Teal window frames, a little pink door. He can hear you now. How fucking cute is that store? Give me your phone, I gotta get a picture. Mine’s is in my bag in the back. Look, the traffic’s movin’, Joel, give me your phone – quick!
His fingers hook around the silver door handle. He pats his jeans once – wallet’s right there – and goes to pull, when his cell vibrates from the center console. He can see himself in the glass screen, your dad’s name written across the reflection of his forehead.
He bites down on his lip. Hard. Glances up to the road ahead. Blinks. And decides to answer.
“Joel,” your dad chirps down the line. “Sorry, buddy, you’ll be sick a’ the sight ‘n sound of me today.”
Joel manages a convincing laugh. “What’s up?”
“Just makin’ sure you’re rememberin’ to put Friday’s date down for delivery on that order. We’re gonna need the stuff over the weekend, so.”
“Yep. Just been to do it right now. Friday’s date, Harvey’s site, your card details ‘n everything.”
“’attaboy. Good job. You’re all grown up.”
“Funny.”
“Thanks, pal. I appreciate it. There wasn’t no chance I was gettin’ time to do it myself,” he lowers his voice, “I’m still stuck here with Kelman.”
Joel’s fingers trace around his steering wheel. “Oh, yeah? He keepin’ you busy?”
“You bet. Had to haggle with ‘im just to get a lunch break. Speakin’ of – I swung by the house and that daughter of mine wasn’t home. Haven’t seen or heard from her since yesterday mornin’. I’m just checkin’ she ain’t stop by to see Sarah or som’?”
His fingers lock tight around the leather. “Sarah’s still in Nashville, she gets in tonight. Couldn’t tell you where yours is. I’m not home yet, so.”
It’s a half-truth. He could wager a pretty good guess, but he can’t be certain, can he?
Your dad chuckles down the line. “She spent the night at Anna’s. My house must be like prison to her – she’s never around anymore. I’ll hear from her soon, I’m sure. Alright. Thanks, again, Joel.”
He drops the phone back into the cupholder with a sigh, leaning back against the headrest to stare at the roof of the truck. He’s still picturing you in his living room, head turning to the street at every sound of a car door, or tires rolling by. And then the image is marred by your dad, peering in the window back at you, catching you wrapped up in a situation you shouldn’t be in.
He doesn’t want your dad to find out. For obvious reasons. Because it would mean the collapse of their friendship, the collapse of the world they built between them – for you, for Sarah, for themselves. Comfortability, and normalcy, and routine and order all thrown to the wind on account of some month-long fling.
But more important than all of that: it would mean dragging you into all of that, too. Fucking up your relationship with your dad. Making things weird between you and Sarah. Ruining whatever’s left of what you and Joel had, before you both took it too far.
And if he doesn’t want all that – if he doesn’t want your dad finding out – then something has to change. Something’s gotta stop.
His fingers wrap tight around the key and turn, and the truck jumps to life. He turns away from the teal-colored florist as he pulls off.
----------
You take it about as well as he reckoned you might. About as well as you should, given the circumstances. He isn’t surprised, and he doesn’t blame you. He’s probably on your side, when you argue back with him.
“You’re not serious, right? Joel. You’re not –”
“Kid, I…”
“No. What? Because of a fucking bag?”
He lifts his gaze and pleads with you. “Because of the lying.”
You’re right, with your response: it’s never been an issue until now. He’s been more than fucking happy to sneak off, take you as his own, and then return with a satisfied grin and a mouth full of excuses to feed your company. He almost agrees.
It’s just: this time, your dad’s at your heels like a bloodhound. A little less sharp, maybe. Blind as a fucking bat, sure. But he can smell something’s up. And he’s circling it, nose to the ground, drawing nearer and nearer to the pair of you with each step.
You ask if he wants to tell the truth. That thought scares him just as much. Knocks him back a few steps. No, he doesn’t want to come clean.
The words fly back and forth like a tennis match. Too fast for him to keep control of what he’s saying and how you’re hearing it. He wants to break it off – is there anything to break off? – but he doesn’t want to lose you – how can you lose something you never had? – and then: did he ever have you in the first place?
You’re standing over him, between his knees. “End it,” you tell him. “I’ll go.”
There’s a casualness in the loose shrug of your shoulders that scares him more than the prospect of you actually leaving. How easy it looks like it could be, for you to just wander out. Sling your bag over your shoulder and revert back to the start of the summer, when he was just a ride home after a rainy day at work.
Forget how to touch him the way he’s certain only you can, forget the secret language between you, forget every stolen glance and whispered word and every thought that ever translated from your brain to his as easy as they would pass between your lips.
“You don’t mean nothin’ to me? That what you think?” He’s laughing. Disbelief, fear, shock. Whichever one it is, it pulls across his cheeks painfully. Somehow, you’ve ended up at the foot of his bed.
“Well, what else am I supposed to take from this, asshole? That you’re fuckin’ in love with me?”
It’s cold water over an already-dying fire. The words smother into ash on his tongue. No more come to the front. He just stares at you. His phone starts to chitter out into the silence between you.
You take a step forward. Your voice is low. “You don’t get to do this, you know. You don’t get to pull me in and then drop me…once you’re done with me.”
“Don’t.”
It’s not much, but it soars from the pit of his stomach, through his throat and past his lips like a final arrow. All he can muster up.
“Don’t.”
There’s a weight where the words originate from. Something deep in his gut, an ache pulling its way upward, swelling across his chest. His ears are screaming.
Of all the things you might think – he’s an asshole, he’s a liar, he doesn’t know what the fuck he’s doing – the worst one would be that he spent this entire time leading you on. Making you feel special. Making you think you were something to him.
You are something to him. You’re – you’re fucking everything to him. It’s why he’s doing this, right? Going against every instinct, every gut feeling. To protect you. To do what’s right by you. He’s not fucking done with you. He wonders if he’ll ever go another day in his life without thinking about you.
“I can’t read your mind anymore…” you whisper, and his lungs steal a breath. His lack of response flattens your expression.
Joel might not be done, but you are.
He can feel you slipping from his grasp like sand through his knuckles. Each grain rocking itself loose, choosing to throw itself to the depths below rather than spend another second wrapped in his clutch.
He’s trying so desperately to hold onto you. Listen to me, he thinks, and he knows you can’t hear him anymore. Because now you’re really going – you’re tripping out of his room. Your heel catches on the threshold, like one last-ditch attempt from fate to pull you back into him, but you stop yourself and spin, fleeing down the hallway.
He takes a loose grasp of your wrist, fingers barely meeting on the other side of your skin before you tear it away from him like he’s scalded you. The look on your face makes him think for a moment that he might actually have done it – burned you. Pained you. Raised the skin below your gentle palm in a furious, red glow.
He’s swapping words out like they’re tools, each one immediately breaking and being flung back into the box. He’s trying any combination, any useless, futile order of words to make you stop in your tracks. You know how much I care about you, ‘s why I’m doin’ it, baby, come back, we can talk about this.
And he opens his mouth to give voice to the only words he knows would stop you – the reason why he’s doing it in the first place, the only thought he’s had anytime he’s looked at you for the last couple weeks. He opens his mouth to say it, or say something like it, when the machine silences the ringtone and the pair of you, too.
Her voice is like ice down the back of his shirt. He stares at the machine, red light blinking like a rag to a bull. He could walk over to it and smash the ever-loving fuck out of it with his fists until it’s dust on his coffee table. Until it shuts the fuck up, stops interfering with his fucking business.
And then he thinks about Lois, and her cream blouse, and her red nails, and her big, blue eyes, and her soft drawl and everything about her that is so entirely opposite to everything about you.
And how much – despite how nice and friendly, or funny and good-natured she is – how much he hates her right now, and how much he fucking loves you.
But you’re gone, now. Washed away by the tide. No more sand in Joel’s palm.
He tries to stop it. Tries to wind back a little, tries to make the sea cough up what it just stole from him. Give her back, you fuck. His eyes are stinging like salt water. Why are they stinging? There’s a roaring in his ears – the waves laughing in his face. Sickly and deafening.
He’s doing his best to keep a hold on his trembling voice. He knows he sounds pathetic. But yours is louder, stronger, steadier. And when you talk, it’s with an air of finality. Like you’re turning over the horizon. The last time he’ll ever see you again.
“I’ll see you ‘round, Joel.”
----------
He doesn’t call or text you that night. He doesn’t know what he’d say. Doesn’t even know where he’d begin. You’re mad, and Joel figures you got every right to be. This entire thing – today, this weekend, the whole month you’ve been together – is one big fucking mess.
He spends the afternoon hunched over his kitchen table, trying to distract himself with work. Twirling a pencil between his fingers, reading three, four, sometimes five times over the same building plans before deciding that the words and numbers won’t fucking sink in. He leaves them strewn across the table, wanders aimlessly upstairs and takes a cold shower.
Sarah’s flight gets in at 8PM. Joel’s sat curbside, truck engine humming, scanning every single figure that walks out of the airport building. When he spots the gray hoodie, the brown hair tied back with a pink scrunchie, the much-too-big-for-four-days-away suitcase rolling at her heels, he gets out.
She hugs her friends, they nod in passing greeting to him, and she skips over.
“Hey,” he breathes as she wraps her arms around his waist. “How was your flight? Saw you comin’ in.”
She shrugs in response. “I’m hungry. Wanna go get McDonald’s?”
Joel grumbles, slotting her case in the back of the truck. “You don’t wanna get home? Take a shower first? You smell like plane.”
“Ha! No.”
She opens the passenger side door and hoists her foot up on the seat, retying her sneaker. Joel’s already in and buckled up, hands on the wheel, watching her blue nails loop the laces.
“There’s one, like, ten minutes away.”
He’s shaking his head. “We got food in the house.”
Her gaze lifts. Her foot drops. “Oh, c’mon, it’s on the way home. We’ll be, like, five minutes. I just got off a two-hour flight, dude, right through dinner. I’m starving, I –”
“Would you just get in the damn truck, Sarah?”
It’s shorter, snappier, angrier than he meant. But he’s parked in the middle of the packed pick-up area, and the rattling of suitcase wheels and the whistling of cab drivers and the fucking roaring of planes overhead are making the headache behind his eyes worse.
Sarah freezes, one arm still leaning on the doorframe. “Jesus. What the fuck?”
“Sorry,” Joel mutters, shaking his head. “Sorry. Just – get in.”
“No need to be an asshole about it,” she murmurs, pulling herself up into the passenger seat.
Joel’s face is in his hands, elbows atop the steering wheel. “I’m not tryna be an asshole,” he says into his palms.
His daughter looks at him. Concerned. “Somethin’ happen? While I was gone?”
He shakes his head again.
Nothing happened.
He’s quiet the rest of the night. The rest of the week. Sarah notices, he knows she does, because she pries. In her own way. She’s smarter than he is. Less obvious.
She’s already up and in the kitchen when he rises on Tuesday morning. Spins around at the toaster, tells him the machine’s ready for his coffee. Asks if he wants her to make it. Asks if he wants any breakfast.
Thanks, kiddo. No, I’ll get it. No, you’re good, thanks.
They sit opposite one another in silence, save for the crunching of Sarah’s toast. He can feel her eyes on him, same way he felt Lois’s. Trying to burrow deep inside, take a look at his brain. Catch a glimpse of the words he’s thinking over and over and over.
There ain’t no words, though. It’s just images. Video replay of your back as you strode down his driveway, the way the wind caught your hair and brushed your cheek, the way your hand came up to wipe your tears. And the way he stood there, like a fucking idiot, and did nothing.
His chest hurts any time he thinks about you. Pulls in, knits itself together in knots. He’s good at pushing feelings down, good at turning them away from the sunlight like faded pebbles. But this is different. It’s a different kind of hurt.
It’s unresolved, it’s an open wound. It’s you. And it’s every time he hears REO Speedwagon, every time he pulls a flannel over his shoulders and catches the scent of your perfume on it, every time he’s flicking through the TV and catches a flash of a hospital setting, it’s a pair of hands deep inside the wound, pulling it a little wider.
It aches. It stings and it aches and it winds.
And then he turns the pebbles around. Back to the shade. Over and over and fucking over.
On Wednesday night, he caves. Asks Sarah if she’s spoken to you.
She’s chewing on a slice of pizza; licks the grease from her fingertips before she answers. “Not really. She’s been quieter than usual. Why?”
“She’s been quieter than usual?” he repeats, playing off the way his head shot up by looking straight back down at the pizza box.
Sarah narrows her eyes. “Yeah. I figure she’s working a lot.”
“Right. Right.”
“She gets tired of being in the house all the time, I think. Getting treated like a kid still. So I guess the more time she can spend outta there, the better.”
Joel nods slowly. He already knows that much.
Sarah studies him. Watches his hands as he dabs a pizza crust into the dip. When he tosses it in his mouth, he looks back up at her.
“What?”
“Nothing,” she says. “You want the last slice?”
“You take it,” he mutters, sitting back and wiping his hands on a napkin. “I’m stuffed.”
She hums, reaching forward. “Whatever it is,” she says, pulling the dough apart, “that’s got you this down –”
“Ain’t nothin’ got me down, kiddo.”
“– whatever it is,” she continues, “I bet it works itself out.”
Sarah stands up, taking her water with her, and wanders out of the kitchen.
----------
Joel struggles through another sleepless night, Thursday through Friday. His eyes don’t close over once. He hauls himself out of bed early in the morning, forces a black coffee down his throat, and heads off to work.
He’s up at some new client in Waco. Andrew Curtis – or, well, Andrew Curtis’s father, but Joel’s been dealing primarily with the son, and the guy’s a fucking imbecile. Doesn’t know his head from his ass, probably. And he has a voice like nails on a damn chalkboard, and his shirt’s untucked around the back, but Joel ain’t got a tone kind enough, or half the wordsmanship, or an ounce of energy to tell him.
Anyway – he spends all day at this dusty site, trying to work and instead, thinking about whatever the fuck you’re doing. Wherever you are, whoever you’re with. It’s almost seven by the time he’s leaving, packing up his truck and watching Andrew Curtis across the yard. He’s spotted his own shadow; he’s twisting around to reach the ducktail poking out from above his belt loops.
Joel thinks to call you about it on the way home. Tell you all about the guy: his dry conversation, his flannel, the fact he kept calling Joel Joe all day. He figures it would make you laugh, least the way he’d tell it, and he reckons that’s exactly what you need right now. That’s exactly what he needs, right now.
When Clark’s call him, he dials your dad. Has his ear blown half to hell by the speakerphone. Learns midway through the conversation that you’re right there in the car, too, and bites back a stream of incoherent, senseless words. Settles for a quiet reminder: he’s right here if you need him.
He doesn’t expect you to take him up on it. Knows you got better things to do than deal with some asshole who’d rather break your heart than have a few difficult conversations. You’re probably having fun, probably finally feeling good again. You’re probably fine.
But still. He doesn’t sleep that night, either.
It’s just gone two when Anna calls. He’s lying in bed, some shopping network on loop on the TV. His tired eyes bore into the screen, defocusing over the pixels, not watching nor listening and barely fucking breathing until he picks up the phone. Her voice is panicked, shrill, and shaking so much he wonders if his own phone is trembling with it.
“Mr. Miller?” she asks, and Joel sits up. “Got your number from Yelp. ‘m sorry it’s so late, it’s…oh, fuck – it’s, like, 2AM.”
“Anna,” Joel says hoarsely. Get to the fuckin’ point.
“Right. Sorry. It’s just…we kinda have a…situation, here.”
It’s you. He fucking knows it’s you. His heart begins to hammer. He doesn’t give a fuck whether she puts two and two together or not when he asks –
“Where is she?”
“We’re still at Frank’s,” Anna says, sniffing. He can hear the booming bassline of music, muffled; the sharper chatter of voices. She’s on the street. In his head, he can see her shoulders hunched; her bare arms wrapped around her body for warmth. She goes to say it again. “We’re still at –”
“’n where is she?” Joel cuts, and she finally cracks.
In one long, drawn breath, she spills. “She was fucked from the second we walked in here; she drank too much too quick, Mr. Miller – Joel,” she says when he corrects her, “and then she just – I dunno, she just – fucking disappeared with these guys, me ‘n Kara never saw ‘em in our lives – and they went upstairs we think, and she came back smelling like weed, and then this guy – he just, like, scooped her off, Mr. M– I mean Joel, like, totally dragged her away, and then –”
“Who–? Anna – Anna, wait,” Joel says, shushing her between her rambling, trying to rein in what she’s saying. When she finally shuts up, he speaks slowly and calmly. “Who dragged her away?”
“We don’t fuckin’ know!” she almost shrieks down the line. It cuts out for a second and Joel’s heart stops dead.“– so we don’t know,” she says when her voice filters back through into his ear, “but Sam said he saw the dude drop something in her bottle when he turned away. A pill or something.”
Joel’s body tenses. Freezes solid, with the blood in his veins. His eyes fix on one spot on his dresser: the loose handle that sits a little squint. He stares at it until his peripheral starts to blur.
“He – say that again?”
“He roofied her, we think. But we can’t fucking find them. Sam and Kara are in there just now looking. The guy pulled her away, that’s what I’m tryna say!”
“Right,” whispers Joel, nodding. He drags a heavy hand over his eyes, tries to push the image of you in danger out of his head for one second so he can figure out what to do.
Anna doesn’t hear him. She keeps talking. “…and then Sam said she told him not to call her dad, but I had to call someone, y’know? You’re the only person I think she wouldn’t – I think she wouldn’t mind me callin’. Please.”
He’s already halfway down the stairs, arms pushing through the sleeves of his shirt. He keeps the phone against his cheek when he bends to reach for his boots, ties them loose and grabs his keys.
“You call me as soon as you find her, you hear? I’m on my way,” he tells Anna, and hangs up.
He’s panicking. Fear, transferred between her cell and his, creeping over his shoulders, wrapping long, cold fingers around his throat. He’s panicking. He’s panicking. He never panics. Where the fuck are you? Who the fuck are you with?
There’s barely any traffic on the road, but the drive takes for-fucking-ever. The lights at the side of the road blur into long, thin streaks of orange. His hands are tight around the steering wheel, his jaw clenched. Your name lies loose on his lips.
He pulls up right outside the bar. There are small clusters of people, congregated tight together under the streetlights; cigarettes hanging from lips, bottles loose in hands. He shoves by them on his way to the door. Some guy shuffles out of his way, looking up to cuss Joel out and quickly dipping his head again when he locks eyes with the grizzly expression.
He shoves the door open with his shoulder, and spots you instantly.
----------
His knuckles are throbbing. Skin stretching anytime he moves his hand, searing hot and sharply stinging across the bone. Your touch is the only thing soothing them right now.
He got two good punches in. Just two. Burst the guy’s nose. He would’ve kept going, had he not been in a bar full of people – people who knew who he was – and had you not been stood behind him, body liquid-like from how much you were swaying.
But he has you home now. Up in your room, settled in bed. You’re safe. You’re with him.
You’re fucking wasted. Like, can barely lift a glass of water to your lips unaided wasted. He spent the entire drive watching over you, stealing glances when your head turned or your eyes lulled closed, checking you were still awake, still talking, still fucking breathing.
Whatever that asshole gave you, you don’t seem to have had enough for it to do too much damage. The alcohol is the real culprit. Though you were cognitive enough to yell at him over Lois in the kitchen, which relieved him for a second before it fucking crushed him. He’s lying awake right now – listening to the sound of your snoring – replaying the argument in his head. Over and over.
You’re an asshole and a liar. Just stringing me along this whole time.
He’s some awful cocktail of angry and terrified and fucking heartbroken. You’re lying inches from him, your hand resting softly on top of his, and yet – you’re miles away. The space between you both – fragmented, treacherous.
In a perfect world, he’d have wrapped his arms around your shoulders. He’d have pulled you against his weight, against his strong, steady form. And he’d have walked you, as slow as you needed, out of the bar and to his truck. Maybe laughing. Maybe singing.
He’d have told you everything was fine, told you he loved you, told you he was gonna get you home, make you feel better. He’d hold you until the sun came up, and then hold you until it went back down.
He’d love you. And you’d let him.
Maybe that world doesn’t exist, Joel thinks. And maybe that’s for the better.
It fucking hurts, though. Stings like a hot blade through his chest. All this time, messing around, pretending there was nothing more to it. Letting his feelings through like water in a fucking dam. It was bound to break eventually.
And maybe he really thought, even just for a fleeting moment, there could be something here. Something worth holding onto. More than two idiots messing around, more than sex and secrecy.
He didn’t even realize. Didn’t notice the shift. When did he start feeling…more? When did it cross that line?
He’s staring at the end of your bed. Thinking about you under him, gripping onto his shirt, his hand between your legs. The very first time. And every other fucking time since then. Which one was the threshold? Who pushed who?
His ringtone bursts through the silence, making him jump. His arm swings to fish it from the nightstand, swiping to answer before he’s even read who’s calling, just to shut the thing up.
“Hello?” he murmurs.
“Hey, Joe? Uh, I mean, Joel? It’s Andrew Curtis here.”
He rolls his eyes. For fuck’s sake. “Mornin’, Andrew.”
“Hi. Sorry, I know it’s super early. I’m just checkin’ we’re still good to go. I got my guys ready, we’re rarin’ to get goin’ whenever you are.”
Joel clears his throat, pushing slowly off the plush mattress, resting your hand on the sheets. “Yeah, uh…” He slips out of your room, hopping over to the bathroom and closing the door over. “…I had a, uh…a family emergency durin’ the night. I’m gonna be a little late, but I’ll be there.”
“Oh, gee, I hope everything’s alright?”
He phrases it like he wants Joel to clue him in. He considers for a second actually saying, Yeah, my best friend’s daughter – who I’ve been sleeping with for the last month – got plastered at a bar – Frank’s, local place, you heard of it? – because I broke things off with her – but I didn’t want to, I was just tryna be fuckin’ noble – and I went and picked her up, punched a guy who was tryna hurt her, because guess what, Andrew – I’m in fuckin’ love with her.
He sums it up with: “Yeah. Everything’s fine now. Thanks.”
“Alright, well, great news! Call me when you’re twenty minutes out, I’ll have the guys here for you arrivin’. Safe journey, Joe!”
Joel breathes an Uhuh and hangs up, holding the bridge of his nose. He has a headache, like he’s the one who’s been drinking. It’s only going to get worse, too, heading off to go spend his Saturday with Andrew fucking Curtis and his loose flannel.
The sun’s rising slowly, lighting the hall in a warm glow. Joel pads quietly into your room and pulls the cover back over his side of the mattress. You stir; your head jerks only to move some hair from your face, and then you sigh, sleep pulling you back into its arms.
He watches you for a second. Wishes he could run a light hand down your cheek, kiss your head. Whisper a goodbye, the same way you did to him almost a week ago.
He shakes the thought, collecting his boots from the floor. His hand hovers over his shirt for a moment. And then he lifts it by the collar, lays it neatly on the pillow by your head, and leaves. You can keep it, trash it, burn it. But it’s yours. Everything about him is yours.
In the kitchen, he stands by the sink, nursing a cup of coffee. It’s a quarter to six. This early on a Saturday, he figures he’ll be in Waco by seven, seven-thirty latest. His eyes fix on the spot you two stood last night, yelling back and forth about Lois. She seems so far away, now. He can barely remember the shape of her face, the sound of her voice.
His grip tightens around the mug. He places it in the sink, and grabs his keys. As he passes the stairs, he pauses. Leans on one foot, head tilted to listen out for any sound of life. Any fucking sound – the creak of a floorboard, the squeak of a door handle. Anything to keep him here. Anything.
Nothing comes. No sound, no movement, no you.
He closes the front door gently on his way out.
----------
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model!steve and voice actor!Eddie (part 2)
part 1 here | ao3 link here | the temp is up on this one so like... dni if under 18 pls
Steve spends a lot of his spare time at the gym. Comes with the territory of modeling or whatever. Gotta keep himself strong, without developing bulging muscles. Gotta keep himself toned, without becoming too lean. Somewhat of a balancing act to this media fuckery circus.
Times are changing, yeah maybe. But not for puffy-lipped preps with killer bone structure. Steve still falls under the category of stereotypical Pretty Boy, and he’s chill with that. Fucking owns it.
Most days…
He’s currently cooling down on the treadmill - brisk walk, almost a jog. It’s a good pace for multitasking some adult shit that he needs to get done. Staying hydrated, keeping his photoshoot calendar up-to-date, answering a few emails. Yada yada.
Steve takes a swig of his seaweed (more like arsenic) smoothie. Opens the top email that reads:
The Fallen King - Final Commercial Cut
Right. Steve almost forgot about this particular shoot. Well, tried to repress the thoughts of that mega-douche director who kept referring to Steve’s ass as ‘prime real estate.’ Fucking creep.
He scrolls down to the attached file and slides his headphones back over his ears.
The ad opens with a wide shot of Steve draped over the throne, fog swelling around the bottom of the screen. The music is an eerie cello solo, set to a heavy bassline.
Just another oversexualized cologne campaign, he thinks. Probably will barely feature the product because they paid big money for Steve’s body. Gotta get their fill of it (ha, they fucking wish Steve would fill them up).
But then the narration rolls into his ears and the room does a somersault. Practically inverts it’s axis at the sound dripping in Steve’s ears:
‘The mighty will fall from grace…’
“Oh shit.” Steve almost wipes out on the treadmill, has to catch his fall on the side bars. His knees are tingling, calves molten and shaky. Already half hard, which is definitely going to be a problem in these flimsy, mesh gym shorts.
‘Forbidden love and public slander…’
But that voice. That tone. That sinful register set in the minor key of Holy Fuck.
‘Will bring them to their knees.’
Alright, that fucking does it. Steve pauses the video before he’s fully tenting-out in a goddamn fitness center. Packs up his shit, chucks the sludge smoothie in the trash, and finds an empty stall. Emphatically locks it.
“Agh, damnit!” Steve's thumb slips over the screen and exits out of the video. It scrolls back to the top of the email - a new message has been added to the chain.
Seriously, what obnoxious fucker does ‘Reply All’ these days?
The new message reads:
Great work, team.
(Sorry for being such a vocal slut.)
(… Not that sorry though.)
- Eddie Munson
That’s right - the voice artist. Almost didn’t recognize the voice, but the repressed memory of that day comes flying to the surface when Steve sees the name.
He recalls the guy being objectively cute too. Not in the California ‘sun-kissed skin’ kind of way. More in the Seattle ‘rain forces me to be a pale homebody’ kind of way. His eyes were something else though. They reminded Steve of the sepia tone filters he used in his early modeling portfolio. No way in hell Steve could ever forget knockout eyes like that.
The locker room is empty. Steve reopens the video, raises the volume high enough to mute out the thin hum from the air conditioning unit. Only wants to hear Eddie’s voice. That’s it.
He’s already touching himself when the first phrase falls out of the headphones. Can’t even help it now that he’s alone. It’s all too good. Works himself up all stuffy and sensitive by the time the new part comes up:
‘Drenched in their guilt. Soaked in their shame.’
Fucking christ.
‘Choking on worthless confessions…’
Nope. Nope. Absolutely not. Choking? Worthless? What is this, a sado hotline? Steve feels the heat spreading on his neck, flushed over in a non-exercise way. There’s a thump in his dick, has to squeeze his fingers around it. Like his body needs a reminder to calm the fuck down.
‘Until all that is left of them is desolate darkness.’
Pretty sure the raspy exhale after every phrase is going to do Steve in, saturate his last ounce of dignity with want. Eddie’s breathing is taking Steve’s breath away, and that’s an outright mindfuck. Earfuck.
Something is getting fucked, and somehow, Steve still needs more.
While the song sustains, Steve strokes himself to the percussive rhythm.
‘The Fallen King. The scent of secrets.’
The hiss on the last syllable fades into the music till everything fizzles out, going dead silent.
Well, everything goes silent except for Steve, who is utterly rattled. Can hear his dense breath and it’s way too noisy for a public space. The pulse in his neck is irregular, hitched the fuck up. His smartwatch is buzzing, alerting him that his heart rate is elevated, which duh. His whole body feels like it underwent some sexual awakening in the middle of a fitness center.
And, sure. That’s a common place for people to realize how gay and desperate they are, but not like this. Not with zero visuals of sweaty bodies.
Before he starts the video over to… finish the job, a phone call lights up his screen. Because of course it does.
He reads the name and swipes it open. “What’s up, Buckley?”
“I need coffee.” Robin whines, already pouting into the phone speaker no doubt.
“You always need coffee.”
“Yeah but like… it tastes better when you buy me coffee.”
“Oh, so you want to mooch off of your own client?” Steve teases because he can. They can annoy the shit out of each other and write it off as endearment. “Pretty unprofessional of you, Ms. Manager.”
Robin groans. Makes it a long one too - probably to show off both her annoyance and lung capacity. “Fuck all the way off, you were my friend first. Always friends first.”
“Always friends first.” Steve agrees. She’s right, usually is about most things. Robin has been his manager since his last agency went bankrupt from pouring their funds into promoting Fyre Fest. And everyone knows that turned out to be an entire fuckshow.
Honestly, it’s easier this way - Robin being his manager. They get to hang out more, he has more input on gigs that he’s interested in…
Interested in. Huh. The metaphorical lightbulb flicks on in Steve’s voice-drunk brain. Having his best friend as his manager is also convenient when Steve needs the phone number of a certain co-worker.
“Alright, fine.” Steve has a sly grin on as he talks. “I’ll bring over some coffee.”
“Thank god.”
“If!”
“Ugh.”
He huffs out a laugh. “If you can send me the cast and crew contact sheet from the Fallen King commercial.”
“Ew, why?” Robin asks, sounds totally repulsed. Valid, that shoot was Objectification Station.
But truly, Steve’s not in the mood to make up an excuse. He’s sore and sweaty and half-hard. So he just gets to the damn point. “Look, do you want coffee or not?”
“Okay okay.” That’s one way to speed up the process. Caffeine threats - works every time. “Dropping the file to you now.”
“You’re the best.” Steve sings.
“I know, I know.” And the line clicks dead.
Okay. This is not a booty call, it’s not.
Steve is just texting a semi-stranger to tell him that his voice is potentially the hottest thing he’s ever heard. Okay, he’ll definitely phrase it better than that, maybe throw a few emojis in there to normalize the tone. Soften it up to sound very un-stalkery.
Yeah. Not a booty call. And if Eddie happens to send an audio message, and Steve happens to jerk off to it… still not a booty call, right?
Pathetic, maybe. But not basic, thank fuck.
He types, then re-types the message out way too many times before settling on this:
Steve: Great work on the commercial voiceover!
Got ur number from the call sheet. hope that’s cool.
Steve hits send before realizing he didn’t have the goddamn common sense to introduce himself. He’s not even a rookie at hookups, why is he suddenly so frazzled by this guy?
“This is Steve by the way…” he mumbles into an audio message. Hits send, then quickly makes another:
“The… model guy.”
The model guy? What in the flustered hell is going on with him?
A chime notification goes off maybe two minutes after Steve sends the last message. Which is like… hot. Shameless fast texters are a millennial turn-on, for sure.
It’s a voice text, so Steve takes thirty seconds to calm down whatever involuntary throb just happened in his sweatpants. He sucks in some air and presses play:
“Pretty sure all the kids these days just send a ‘u up’ message to people they wanna dick down at midnight.”
Damn. Eddie’s voice sounds totally different, but just as sexy. Like amateur porn sexy. Is amateur audio porn a thing? It should be.
Steve quickly saves the audio file and types back.
Steve: Ok pls don’t mention ‘kids’ while I’m trying to flirt with u
Eddie: Waitwaitwait
So we're definitely flirting right now?
I actually interpreted that correctly?
Steve: Like u said
It’s midnight
So…
*shrug emoji*
And a phone call comes through. Eddie’s contact name flashing in a harsh light, too blinding and too unexpected. Steve’s heart is hammering at his rib cage, suddenly so fucking nervous. He waits until the last ring to answer, buys himself some time cause god knows, he needs it.
Steve takes a breath and swallows. “He-”
“Okay, so you do realize this is the sewer rat voice actor guy from the commercial shoot, right?” Eddie interrupts, sounds out of breath. “And not like… a fellow model or Timothee Chalamet’s cousin or something?”
That earns a hearty laugh and eye-roll from Steve. “He is so not my type.”
“Thought he was everyone’s type.”
“Nah.” Steve rolls onto his belly, very giddy and disarmed by the ease of the exchange. His nerves are set aside, replaced with his usual confidence. “More into sewer rat voice actor guys.”
“That… is some very specific criteria.” Eddie coughs or maybe it's just a dry laugh. He sounds pleased as hell, so laugh seems more likely. “Holy shit, I’m flirting with a model!”
“You’re cute." Steve should not be so charmed right now, but the impulsive honesty is really doing it for him. "Dorky, but cute.”
Eddie mumbles something incoherent, then clears his throat. Speaks quieter this time. “So why’d you text?”
“So why’d you call?”
“Just, uh… needed confirmation that this is real life.”
Steve lets out a ‘hmm,’ thinks of a proper response to that. “If I was there, I could pinch you. Ya know... so you’d know it’s real.” Okay. Maybe not proper, but whatever. It’s late. His brain is half scrambled from hormones and exhaustion, cut him some slack.
“Would do a lot more than pinch you if you were actually here.” And sure, Eddie might have mumbled that, but Steve clearly heard it. He heard exactly what Eddie just suggested.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Tell me about it.”
“Fuck, we’re doing this?” Eddie whispers.
Steve turns onto his back again, lets his hand wander down. “If you’re into that. Like hearing your voice, Eddie.”
“Like hearing you say my name like that.” And Eddie sounds like he means it. His tone is smoothing over, the same way it did in the narration. “You sound so worked up already.”
Steve moans, chest falling hard enough that the phone slips. Has to reposition it to get all that good vocal seduction back in his ear.
“God, wish I could see what you look like right now.” Eddie exhales, getting that nice rasp that Steve likes so much. It’s sultry and rich. Breathless at just the right moments. “Bet you’re lying down, aren’t you? Phone wedged between your neck and ear cause your hands are too busy to hold it properly. Am I right?”
“Yeah.” Steve pushes past the waistband of his sweatpants, then his boxers.
Eddie hums. Growls. “The things I’d do to you like that. Lying down, looking so eager to please. Saw how good you are at taking direction that day of the shoot. Does that apply in the bedroom too, baby?”
“It… fuck.” Steve strokes himself slowly. Can barely get the words out cause it feels like he's chewing on Eddie's voice. Swallowing every syllable. “Yeah, it does.”
“See - that’s the problem, isn’t it?”
“Problem?”
“That I don’t know what you’re into. How you like it.”
“Pretty open to… trying things.” Steve reassures, eyes closing to soak in every sensation. “Just keep talking.”
And thank all that is holy, Eddie does just that. He keeps talking. “Can’t stop thinking about that pretty neck of yours. How I’d kiss it, suck on it till your skin goes tender and soft under my lips. Till your head rolls back like it did in that video.”
Eddie's words are syrup. Heavy and tempting. “I’d let you rest it on my shoulder while I get my hands all over you. See what sweet spots drive you wild, get you to squirm for me.”
Steve's grip tightens, pumping at a pace that’s close to getting fucked. A pace that makes it easier to pretend that it’s Eddie’s hand wrapped around him, making his vision blurred and spotty - even with his eyes screwed shut.
“Eddie, you’re… oh my god.” Steve whines, knows it must be pretty fucking loud with the speaker smushed against his cheek. “You’re so good at this.”
Eddie shushes him, sounds like he’s snickering a bit. “I’d tease you like that until your thighs start to tremble. Until you beg me to go further. End the torture.”
“Fucking christ…please.” Guess Steve really is that good at taking direction. Or maybe he’s extra easy for guys that turn his brain into liquor. Too busy begging to know which one it might be. “Keep going.”
Eddie’s laugh is dark and rough. “Sounds nice hearing you beg like that. Like sin.”
Feels like sin too.
Steve’s fingers are slicked nicely with precome. The friction of his palm is making everything warmer, better. And stirring all of those feelings up with Eddie’s voice? Fucking hell, Steve is close. He’s so damn- “Okay, okay. If we don’t stop, I’m gonna-”
“I know.” Eddie purrs, sweetly mean. “Thought that was the point.”
“Cannot believe I'm about to say this, but maybe…” Steve has to dig his hand out from his boxers to complete the sentence. Knocks his head against the wall because his behavior is totally batshit right now. “Maybe I want to see you again first? Is that weird?”
His skin sort of tingles from going this long without finishing. Never solved the blue-balling issue back at the gym either, so Steve’s on the verge of climax insanity right now. Didn’t think he’d discover an edging kink at the ripe age of twenty-five, but eureka. Here it is.
“Not weird.” Eddie’s voice returns back to a calmer one. The one that doesn’t make Steve want to bend over and get fucked so hard that his organs shift around. “I mean, I’m weird, sure. But wanting to complete this in person is not weird. Very un-weird, in fact.”
“You talk a lot.”
“Yeah well… voice actor.” Eddie says, sort of deadpan. “You couldn’t see that, but I just did ‘razzle dazzle’ hands.”
Shit, Steve really likes this guy. He just used the phrase ‘razzle dazzle hands,’ and Steve is still horny for him. Wow.
“Is tomorrow too soon?” Steve manages to say before overthinking it.
“Tomorrow-tomorrow, or like today-tomorrow?” Eddie asks. “Cause it’s past midnight.”
Right. Booty call time moves at an entirely different pace than normal time does. “Today-tomorrow. If you’re free.”
“Free as a dead composer’s anthology of music.” Eddie answers happily.
Steve opens his mouth to respond, then shuts it because what? What does that even mean? Is that a yes or a no? Goddamnit, his head hurts. Too many questions, not enough orgasms.
“Most classical music is royalty-free.” Eddie clears his throat, sounds like he’s tapping on something. “… So yeah. I’m free.”
“Right.” Steve chuckles, hard to believe he’s unapologetically gushing. “Well, I’ll see you tomorrow, Eddie.”
“Great. See you today, Steve.” Eddie is still snorting at his own joke while the call ends.
They haven’t sorted out any of the details yet, but it doesn’t matter. It’s happening. It’s real.
So real, that he wants an actual date with Eddie before steamy phone sex. He wants to make Eddie laugh before making him come. That's like... unheard of for Steve. Uncharted.
Damn.
Today-tomorrow can’t come soon enough.
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