No one wins but somehow they still played
Chapter 47 : the night we met
Summary : Love is kind. Love is humble. Love forgives. But does Joel know this ? Is Joel willing to forgive ? After everything you've done, can he move forwards ? Or is the hole left by Ellie's death to deep to close ?
You stand still, stupefied by Joel’s calm but also because your hand hurts like hell. Of course, you had to fucking slap him with the wrong hand and now you’re paying for it.
“Nice speech!” you shout before he can say anything, “Nice speech?”
Joel isn’t in the mood. What Tommy just announced him was disturbing but he made him swear to not do anything stupid tonight. He would have run out immediately if you didn’t show up and slapped him without a word.
It didn’t hurt as much as watching you dance with his brother earlier.
“ It was a nice speech,” is all he can mutter.
He walks away and joins the safety of his porch, ignoring you, hoping you’d just give up and go away but he knows you.
A fucking pitbull you were. Never letting go.
You rush behind him, cursing him in silence, cursing yourself for running out in the cold with a jacket too thin and shouts the moment he touches the door’s handle.
“Two months! You left for two months, you come back for whatever reason and that’s all you have to say ?”
There is a crack in your voice Joel doesn’t understand. You hate him. You chose Tommy. There was no reason to care about him anymore.
“You told me to fuck off, I listened,”
“Fuck you Joel!” your fist finds his chest and vibrates on his sternum, “ Since when do you listen to what I say ?” the air strains in your throat, “ I begged you to stay…and you…you abandoned me,”
Your fist lingers on his chest as he stiffens but you fingers relax one by one until you meet his fast heartbeat under your palm.
He takes your hand and let it go gently at your side, “You know why I left, we talked ‘bout it,”
“We didn’t talk shit! You chose for the both of us, that’s what you said right ?…meanwhile I was…just dying to know if you were alive and you were talking with Tommy this whole time ?”
“He’s my brother,” his voice drops low and he the crease between his eyebrows deepen.
You slap his chest again, this time with less conviction. His jaw clenches but he doesn’t react or pushes you away.
“And I’m your…I’m…I don’t even know what I am or what we are, were, but please… don’t go again…just stay Joel, stay we can figure everything later,”
He swallows, undone by the tears pushing behind your eyes. He reflects upon what he saw and heard, the speech, the dance, your anger, not sure if he should have believed his first impression. There is no hate on your face, just the lassitude of a dying hope forced to live.
Out of habit or pushed by something deeper, he takes back your hand and opens it, gentle as he used to be, then brushes along your scar.
“Look at you, Tommy said you were doing good lately, I can’t ruin this,”
“Ruin it ? There is nothing left to ruin and I’m not doing good,” your rub your arms together as the cold slowly gets under your skin, “ I tried to hate you…to move on…but I just can’t and—
“ Let's talk inside before you freeze to death,” he cuts.
“ I’m fine,”
Joel tilts his head, looking you up and down as your whole body gets livid, every hair up on your arms, the pink in your lips turning to a pale purple.
“Stop being this stubborn, come in, I have some coffee left,”
He doesn’t give you the time to protest, opens the door and walks in, leaving you to make your decision. You glance towards your home, then back to Joel and you surrender.
You follow. Your heart is burdened with troubling memories and against all reasons, it beats louder. Blood rushes through your veins to your face as you watch that stupid old man takes off his jacket and walks to the kitchen.
He’s lost some weight out there in the wild, wherever he went. Beneath his black shirt, there’s no trace of that old man belly you loved so. Survival forced him to be fit again.
Stop.
You shouldn’t even care about this.
“Help yourself, “he exhales, “you know the place,”
You do and it hurts.
The place you shared your love is dusty, his books still spread out, one mug shattered on the kitchen floor, forgotten.
You get rid of your jacket and follow him in the kitchen, cautious and watches as he prepares the coffee.
“I missed that,” he mumbles, and for the first time of the evening, a real smile tugs the corner of his mouth.
“I bet,”
The kitchen brings you back to those few summer nights, but you don’t allow the warmth of the memories to fool you. Joel hurt you. He left you.
Yet, there in the dim light of the room, Joel prepares his favourite drink like the last two months never existed, like the summer you tried to kill each other never happened.
And for a moment you want to believe too.
He dusts off two cups, fills them and gives you one before leaning forward on the kitchen island and inhaling the bitter smell of the dark liquid. You sip, silent, waiting for whoever will start talking again, both aware a heavy conversation is waiting at the corner.
The liquid burns your throat, but you drink it anyway so you can spare some time. Joel does the same and you both look down, cautious about each other.
You shouldn’t be here. Not like that.
“Elena came last night,” he finally says after a few minutes of unbearable quiet.
“So I heard,” you drag down a thick swallow.
“She warned me…threatened me not to ruin the weddin’ but then…she said to do right by you,”
Your cup halts mid-air and your breath stutters.
Your teeth grind and you let the cup burns the palm of your hands until the words settle.
“Might be too late for that,” you put the cup down, your voice bitter.
He lifts his gaze and your eyes meet, “Maybe, maybe it's not…”
There is a low rumble in your heart, behind the walls you erected to protect yourself. It grows stronger the more you drown into his dark brown eyes. Joel is miserable. You can’t quite figure why. Which of all the things you’ve done to each other makes him look this pitiful? And why do the bricks fall one by one ?
You want to hold him, to feel him. but you don’t. Nothing change the fact that he abandoned you when you offered him a solution, when you were ready to forgive. You gave him a hand and he brushed it away.
Your silence shatters his heart. His sorrow builds stronger and steals a tear from him. He doesn’t wipe it, he doesn’t hide. He faces you in all his sadness and drops his mug, his fingers tapping along the counter in an irregular rhythm.
“I saw the Cordyceps plants everywhere, Runners and Clickers, some of them coughing spores,”
Silence. Still. You don’t want to give in, not yet.
Joel is tough. Joel is strong. Sometimes it makes him stubborn. Most of the time actually. Joel is also not good with words. Silence is an answer he likes to use. But for once, he wants to try.
His eyebrows furrow and he looks down on the counter, his moustache quivering, his jaw unsure, mouth opening and closing every time he tries to find the right words.
You watch him, a man who fought against the world for so long, a man whose answers and purpose lied in the blood of others, struggling to talk and open up until finally, he darts his eyes on you, fearful.
“When Ellie died, I…blamed myself because I couldn’t save her, because…I already failed once.” His chest vibrates with every heavy beat, “ I was supposed to take her to the Fireflies and walk away, she was just cargo…but…you go halfway across the country with someone…” his breathing staggers, “she needed her immunity to mean somethin’ but I was too weak to see it…how could I just let her go ? But I saw…I saw outside and you might have been right…the Fireflies… they might have been right, maybe whatever you did worked…maybe…” he gasps, “… and it kills me…to know she was right and I was wrong,”
The air thickens and you hang on his words. What seems like a disguised apology makes your heart stop and you resist your own tears. How lord how much have you cried for him and for this moment?
“Where does that leave us in all that?” you ask.
You put down your cup and move closer where you can see Joel’s internal struggle. He is so close to face his truth, yet he doesn’t yield.
He empties his cup and walks to the sink, away from you before whispering in a defeated tone.
“You should go back to the weddin’,”
Your stomach twists.
“Don’t you dare push me away again Joel Miller…answer me!”
You grab his forearm tight and dig your nails into his skin, forcing him to watch you with his mourning eyes but he shoves your arm away and pushes to the counter where he holds you by the shoulders strong enough to petrify you for a quick second.
“Answer you? Didn’t you guess it already? I left because of you! And I came back for my brother; here is your answer !”
He lies.
The weary lines on his face are tense and quivering. Your pulse hammers in your ears and you want to dig inside his ribcage to prove his beats for you. Trying to scare you won’t work. Not anymore.
You know he’s close, that it's easier for him to threaten you rather than accepting his feelings.
“Why do you keep lying to yourself ? I’m here, I’m yours and I can see it...you…you want the same thing, so stop fighting Joel, I’m tired to fight you, I'm tired to hurt…I just want you to fight for yourself,”
Joel ticks and his cheek is seized with tremors as he gazes into your teary eyes. Those eyes he never wants to hurt again, those eyes he thought would never look at him like this ever again. But there he was, drowning into you, seeing a glimpse of the redemption he doesn’t deserve.
“I don’t know how princess…I…I forgot how to live, I made my peace with my misery, I just…wanted you to be happy, even if it meant with my brother, because I—
“Hell with Tommy!” You shrug him off, “ I’ve had…every occasion to choose him only I didn’t…He was there, waiting, kind and patient, yes I Should have picked him of course I should have ! He’s the better brother, right ?” You pace the kitchen, gesturing, throwing your hands in the air then turn back and point your finger at him, “ Actually, we even kissed once and it felt good and I wanted to fuck him because I was so lonely and I wanted to be loved for one moment… but I couldn’t… because even in your absence I chose you Joel ! So you can blame yourself or blame me for what it’s worth or you can choose to move on and forgive because I’m ready too…it’s you…it's always been you,”
You press your hand on your forehead, getting a sense that you’re losing yourself to say thing that you shouldn’t but Joel is silent, the corner of his outer eye twitching, his lips pursed.
He approaches you, and the more you back up, the more he cages you in the corner of the kitchen as your tears flow.
“I’m yours Joel…From the mom…” you catch your breath, “ from the moment I fell through the ice I was yours and I’d fall again just to—
“I love you,” he takes your hand before you slap him again, “there are things I don’t know if I can forgive you for…”
His calloused hands shatter your heart with a gentleness you’ve longed to remember and he wipes your cheek dry with his thumb as your chest jerks.
“But I’m willing to try,”
The tension burdening your shoulders lift, and in the aching sound of silence, you gasp. Joel reaches for your hair then curls his hand in a fist instead.
The tears cascade, uncontrollable, burning your cold skin until he tilts your chin up and faces the result of his own destruction.
You.
The cause for his sorrow but also…his deliverance. Joel hangs on the cliff, ready yet terrified at the idea of letting go.
The sorrow, the grief…the rage. It's all he had. When he looks at you, when he feels your skin under the palm of his hand, your cheeks, your salted tears, he understands there is another path, one he can reach and welcome into his heart.
Life is like the foam; he just needs to give himself away to the sea.
But Joel spent most of his life in agony. His heart is frayed, used, undone by the diamonds rolling down your face. He’s lost, ready to flee and hide again but when his chest tightens and blood thunders in his head, you kiss him.
He resists you at first, the salt on your mouth burning all his wounds, but when he tries to push you away you press your body against his and run your hands through his hair, pulling him closer.
You hold him tight yet gentle, showing him he could escape your embrace if he wanted to, proving him that he doesn’t want to, and when the sting from your lips fades, he melts on them. He nudges himself against you and answers your kiss, slow and reverend, his hand wrapping around your back then sliding up to the base of your neck.
Love suffers long and is kind. Love hopes all things and endures all things.
Love is humble.
Love forgives.
It will take time and it won’t be easy but in the kiss you share lies the promise that you will both try.
The kiss grows hungrier, weeks of aching for him haven’t been easy on you and you want more than sleepless nights with a ghost.
More.
Always more.
You part his mouth open and your tongues meet while you cup his face and let his beard scratches the palm of your hand. Joel grunts in your mouth and grips your hair without any strength, just to hold you, as gentle as he can, fighting against his own urge.
You smell good and he can feel your body against his, your nipples erected beneath the thin fabric of your green dress, longing for him, trusting him. He’s hard already, his cock yearning to be freed from his jeans.
You want to cry, you want to laugh, maybe all at once.
“ I'm sorry Joel, for everything,” you whisper through the kiss, “ I’m so terribly sorry,”
Joel’s tongue shut you up and his thumb brushes along your cheek, rubbing your skin like he can’t get enough of you, his head tilting to get the best angle, pushing your head backwards.
“Not tonight,” he stops then stares at you, his lips coated wet, “tonight we…tonight we love, tomorrow we can apologize and forgive,”
The pad of his finger presses your lower lip down and his breath stutters when it touches your wetness. He opens his mouth in awe. He had forgotten how beautiful you were when your eager heart thundered for him, when your breasts ached to be touched.
He lingers there, lost in your eyes, seeing you for who you are for the first time, no lies, forgiving and forgiven, your soul exposed bare in front of him.
“I will never hurt you ever again princess,” he murmurs, the gravel of his voice dragging along your ear like a melody.
You steal his mouth and hang from his lips, your legs growing weaker by the second.
“You deserve to be loved Joel Miller,”
A repressed chuckle slips from his mouth.
“What’s so funny?”
“Forgot how insufferable you could be,”
He kisses you again before you protest and sticks his tongue deep in your mouth, choking you with love until you shove him away.
“You are…insufferable so maybe—
He grabs your ass and lifts you on the counter before holding your face like it's the first time he sees you. He stays there, his greyish moustache shaking, his throat repressing emotions he can’t allow himself to feel yet.
You’re so beautiful in your green dress he’d forgot everything you’ve done. He doesn’t want to remember, doesn’t want your past to define your future, may it be for the two of you.
For years the guilt had burdened him like ball and chain, making it impossible to move forward. He was an open wound for everyone to sniff out and grief was all he had. Maybe it helped him cope with the atrocities he had committed. All those people he had murdered and for what? He had told himself and Tommy it was to keep them alive but the truth was, he’d rather hate himself for killing innocent than failing to save Sarah.
Ellie closed the wound and it didn’t last. And then came you.
And then the wound turned into a gaping hole.
And he hurt you for it.
And you were still there.
And despite everything he loved you.
It had to mean something.
Leaving was a good idea at first, because how could he be happy with you ? How could you both go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? When he hated himself more than he loved you and God did Joel love you.
He was addicted to it, the self loathing, the never-ending storm rumbling in his mourning head. He had forgotten the taste of joy and only knew the bitterness of tragedy, because God forbid him ever take a chance at life, a chance at happiness.
He spent the last twenty years running away from himself and the few people who cared for him, wondering which version of himself will cross the finish line alive.
But today he’s done running.
“My love,” his lips brush against yours, “you’re as beautiful as the day I lost you,”
Your pulse flutters like it's trying to escape and your mouth parts open to steal his air.
In the dim light of the kitchen, you see him as he truly is, a simple man damaged by time who survived the only way the world showed him how: with violence.
And right now, maybe for the first time since you’ve known him, it's all gone. The violence has faded, the sorrow, all replaced by something different.
A second chance, hidden in the small crease between his eyebrows as they drop to the sides. Hope tugging the corner of his mouth in a timid smile.
“Love me Joel, kiss me now because if you don’t we—
His mouth collapses on yours once more and he spreads your legs before kissing every soft spot on your skin. He learns you again, every inch, every curve and line, mole and freckle he memorizes, the only constellation he desires to observe every night.
His lips drag down your cleavage and the second you moan his name in his ear; he grunts and lifts you in his arms.
“Let's do this right,”
“I don’t think it matters anymore,”
You wrap your legs around his waist, and he stumbles to the couch, hiding the pain in his leg before pushing you down carefully.
Your skin gets warmer, your breath is ragged but somehow all the hair of your body are up on your shivering skin, longing for his touch as he takes his brown shirt off.
The air thickens when you see his chest, his hair you missed twisting between your fingers, his stomach rising below chiselled muscles. He’s handsome.
He sees your heaving chest, your breasts pushing along the green fabric and his cock twitches harder below the fabric.
“ Take it off, I want to see you,” he exhales in one long breath.
“ Yes, yes”
You swallow and don’t waste any second ; you lift it past your hips and Joel helps it out, freeing your breasts for him to admire.
“Fuck, you're so georgous, let me take a look,”
He stops, straight on his knees, topless while you lie below him, naked and vulnerable. Your breasts fall slightly to the side, ready to welcome his hands, rising high like they’re inviting him.
You're beautiful.
How could he have hurt you ? How could he let anger drive him to hurt you ?
“ Come here already I need to feel you,” you moan and touch your chest the moment you see the change in his eyes, snapping him out from his thoughts and he crawls over you, “Yeah just like that,”
His beard is rough, more than you remember it to be, his skin hardened by the cold, but you don’t care, it's yours. He is yours. He will be. He caresses your breasts, fingers circling your nipples, then goes down your belly, his palm flat against your stomach rising in anticipation, just to make sure there isn’t any other scar he would have forgotten, and when he got you right where he wants to, panting and asking for more, trembling under his touch, he slides his hand down your underwear and pushes his fingers in you without hesitation like he knows there is not time to lose.
“ Fuck,” you gasp, “ Yeah, just…just like that, yes,”
Joel grunts, his fingers slipping in your pussy, one, two, then three until your arch your body against his, your toes curled in agony from the pleasure he gives you.
“Damn, you’re so wet,” he gasps, “ Yeah you're so good my love,”
You manage to wrap one leg around his lower waist and he spreads your thighs only to reach your closer and kiss you all while fingering you.
He pushes his arched nose against you, breathing you in and you grab his forearm as he thrusts you fast and hard, sending you to hell or heaven you can’t quite decide yet.
“ Is this how you like it ?” he mumbles, his voice hoarse and husky.
“ Yes,” you moan in his mouth.
“ Fuck, I missed this, I missed you, being all wet for me, so good to me, you're…you're everythin’ I only dreamt of princess,”
His body rolls on yours, his chest hair electrifying your nipples in the best way possible, making your body warm and protected, his beard rubbing your cheek with each kiss and grunt.
And among all of this, vanilla and leather, wood and old book emanate from his pores and flood you in his sweat.
He is so good, rolling over you, lost in your burning skin, plunging his fingers in and out in a cadence your heart can’t follow.
More. You want more and you can’t wait.
“Take off your pant,” you pant.
“Now ? I’m just getting’ started my love,”
You caress his chest, crossing every scar, pulling on some of his hair, tightening your legs around him.
“We have all the time in the world for foreplay, right now I need to feel your cock inside me and your eyes on me,”
“ Sure ma’am,” he pouts, “as you wish,”
He straightens himself up, rubbing his hand along your leg then pulls out his fingers. He wipes them on his pants, slow, a smug smile on his face, leaving a white trail on the fabric before unbuckling his belt and loosing his pants.
For a moment silence is back and laughter are gone.
It's just two lovers or two strangers, discovering one another and for the first time in months, you contemplate the toll you’ve stole from one another.
The scars on your right arm, some smaller ones on your face, the fingers you’ll never be able to use fully and that light in your eyes, wiser, wary, as if you’ve grown much more in the past year than the previous two decades facing the virus.
He is the same, the two scars left from your bolts looking straight at you like the quintessence of your guilt.
“I deserved worse, don’t worry ‘bout that,”
“I’m so—
“shh-shh, tonight is just you and me, we’ll let the past in tomorrow,”
You swallow then nod while Joel slides his underwear down. He never takes his eyes off you, soaking in your anticipating panting, covering you with admiration and love.
His cock springs free against his stomach, hard, erected, making your pussy throb and leaks on the couch just from the sight of it.
“Touch yourself,” you murmur, already lost in the minutes ahead.
Joel is caught off guard, but he doesn’t flinch. It takes him a few second to register what you said but your stare doesn’t let him any chance.
“ So much for no foreplay,”
You wink, “ Well, I changed my mind,”
You're determined and yearning, mouth almost foaming at the idea of watching him touch himself in front of you.
He grins and takes his penis in his calloused hand then strokes it up and down, slow without ever breaking eye contact with you.
“Harder, and don’t you dare cum now,”
His jaw flexes and he contains a comment, but he eventually complies and he squeezes himself harder.
“You're cruel,” he groans, air wheezing in his mouth as his hand goes faster, and his eyes flutter close.
“We’ll see about that tomorrow my love, now tell me, did you touch yourself thinking about me, about us when you were away? And don’t lie, we all have our own struggles,”
He grunts but his chest rises higher, his muscles strained on his chest and arms, every vein pulsing hard in his body.
“ Y-yes, I did,” he confesses in one ashamed breath, “ more than I should have,”
Water fills your mouth and you bite your lower lip hard enough, so you don’t start touching yourself immediately. Instead, you get on your knees and slides a finger from the V-shaped line near his hilt up to his abs and chest, all while he struggles to maintain a steady rhythm without exploding.
“ It's alright my love, go slower,”
You are cruel indeed. Whispering in his ear, taunting him, pushing your body as close as possible without truly touching him except fort that insidious finger triggering his fighting instincts. He listens and he takes a small break, touching his cock with a lighter hand.
His swollen and pink tip meet your stomach, and you moan when precum leaks and coats your bellybutton. His heart stalls in his chest for a moment but you crawl up to him and cradle his face, enjoying the power you have over him, although he's giving it to you willingly.
“ I touched myself too, one day hoping you'd come back to me, then hoping I’d never see you again the next and yet nothing make me more wet than watching you now,”
Joel let out a guttural sound, undone, and hides his forehead in the depth of your neck in a delicious agony, relentless on his sex yet ready to break down at any time.
“Please baby, let me come inside you…I-I can’t… I won’t last long,”
His quivering voice fills a hole in your chest. The vulnerability, the letting go. For you.
Here masturbating against you, his massive frame shakes. Pearls of sweat roll down his forehead on your collarbone. His breathing hitches but he keeps going until your hand brushes between his ass up to his balls and kneads them gently.
“ Fuck !”
He dares a glance in your direction, panting, his lungs begging for air, his aching cock twitching for more.
“Don’t ever leave me again Joel Miller, you get it ? Whatever we go through we go through together,”
His eyes flick to the left as he tries to catch his breath then come back to you, his mouth open, longing to fill your mouth with his tongue the moment you’ll allow it.
He takes a deep breath.
“I won’t,” he pushes his forehead on yours, “ I swear I won’t,”
You're not quite sure if you trust him but in front of his shiny and desperate eyes, you chose to.
“fine, then now finish your job and—
“Stop talkin’ for fucks sake,”
He frames your face and steals your mouth before pushing himself on you. Your heart drops below your legs as he pulls them on the couch and he adjusts himself between them before filling you up in one big thrust, fulfilling his desire in one pleasured exhale as you clench around him.
He crawls on you only to find your face with his mouth and covering it with gentle kisses.
“ I like when you do that, keep goin’,”
You clench again around his pulsing cock and he groans in your mouth like a wounded animal.
“ Like that ?”
“ Yeah, just like that baby, fuck, you're doin’ so good, I wont…you tortured me, I won’t last long,”
“I don’t care, I just want to feel you,”
He pulls back but not quite full, leaving his tip taunt your entrance and your clit then dives right into you but not with all his strength, just slow and controlled, up to the hilt so you can feel every inch of him. He stays there long enough to see your face come undone, sucking in a sharp breath as he tortures you back, one inch at a time.
You can’t recall if you have ever been this close, or even this intimate. It feels different and lighter because…
It’s you. Not a false version doomed by guilt and lies.
With each thrust, his arms enveloping you and the praise of his lips, Joel makes peace with himself, with you. Each moan, each grunt, each kiss and wet slaps is a melody your bodies hum as one, two broken instruments finally harmonizing with one another in a symphony only made for you.
Yes.
You are allowed to be happy.
But this melody is nothing like the song he sings to your ears.
“ You're doin’ so good my love,”
His hips roll against your pelvic, lascivious.
“ Yes Joel,” a tear rolls down your cheek, “I love you, I love you so much,”
Joel pushes himself deeper and notices it.
“ You okay ?”
“ Yes…i'm…I think i'm just happy right now,”
He kisses you and you can feel him smile through it, his hand cradling your head and caressing your hair as he makes love to you in the most intimate way, his whole frame rubbing against your squished breasts, his long legs stroking yours.
“ I think I’m happy too,”
He adjusts himself and finds a new rhythm, faster, steadier, his mouth exhaling near yours as he grows heavy and tired, but he never stops, always caring and loving, praising your body, making sure you're okay and never stops talking to you.
You melt into his touch. He is so warm and despite his body growing exhausted by the second he doesn’t give up.
“I need you to come Joel,” you moan, “ I'm so close, I want you to come when I finish,”
“ Fuck, if you keep moaning like this, I will,”
“ Joel,”
You moan his name. Once, twice, until the song turns into an opera and every muscle sings its own part.
Joel holds you dearly against him as he goes stiffer and hides again in your neck, huffing and puffing as pleasure builds in lower belly. He grunts, an octave higher, raw and reckless as he pounds in your pussy and it sparks your own climax.
It comes without a warning and rushes between your legs, a tsunami against your shore. You grab his hair and scream his name, forcing him to the edge of his own pleasure.
“ Joel,”
“ Yes baby, I got you, keep goin’, keep goin’, you’re so wet my love, fuck,”
He’s at loss for words, gasping for air, thrusting hard until your orgasm snaps low and you let out a low agonizing growl. He joins you a few seconds later after one final thrust and you come together as one, your moans and whimpers intertwined in the same air and when he’s empty and you're satisfied, you fall silent and happy.
You lay there, undone in that sweaty haze, catching your breath. Your heart throws itself in your chest and you feel his on your breasts, pounding.
“Not sure if it was great but damn does it felt good,” he says after a while, breaking the silence of the room.
“ I think it was amazing,”
He nudges himself in your curves and you wrap your legs around his as he gently caresses your nipple without thinking much of it.
It's casual, romantic even, the way your bodies are entangled on that couch. No rush of going out or escaping, no pain, nothing of that sort.
You play with his curls, twirling the grey streak between your fingers, brushing along his weary skin with the other. Then he takes your hand again and looks at your scar
“ Do you think you will ever shoot—
“Let's go to the Ocean,” you cut before he brings back the awful memory, “ You and I travelling the world together, away from here,”
He sighs, giving up on any heavy subject and lifts his head so you can see his eyes.
“ Then Paris,”
You grin and blush.
“ You remember that ?”
“ I paid attention in class,” he says with a cocky smile
“ I mean, an Eiffel Tower with a red cowboy hat on top must be one hell of a view,”
Joel scoffs and rubs his face against you.
“ It is quite a view, not the most impressive but quite somethin’, we can also find your missin’ book on the way,”
You smile. Of course he remembers.
“What ‘bout all the forgiving and apologising ?” You add, “ I'm not sure this is the best way to handle what comes next…after everything we’ve done and everything we’ve been through, the one thing we need is time and I don’t want to—
“ We can figure that out later, we will not leave tomorrow anyway,”
His voice drops low. You don’t pay much attention but then you remember the main reason he came back. You remember witnessing his conversation with his brother, the way his face fell, how Tommy held him back.
The grey area sends shivers down your spine. You don’t want to ruin the moment but you have to.
“ Joel...What did Tommy tell you earlier ?”
He goes stiff, his thumb stills on your chest.
“Nothing that concerns you,”
You blow and purse your lips before sucking the air, “ I’ve heard that already,”
He shrugs and rolls on you with a cocky smile on his face, your skin fusing together because of the sweat.
“Listen princess, Tommy is my brother and while we… you have to believe me, there’s so much that you don’t know ‘bout us and that’s one of them, I…”
He pauses, his gaze lingering on your for too long before dropping low.
“ I came back because Tommy called and I didn’t plan to stay, didn’t even plan to come to that stupid ass weddin’ until Elena knocked, but here we are and now I have all the reasons to stay, but before we can think of us, I gotta think of…other things,”
You roll your eyes, not much convinced.
“ So once you're done with Tommy, I can count on you to come back home…to us ?”
“ Maybe you’ll have to stay in your place a little while longer, let's not rush things, right ?”
“ Right,” you sigh, “ after all, we only met tonight ?”
His eyes find yours, then follows his hand. He kisses your collarbone then trails small kisses up to your neck, where he presses his lips longer, feeling your pulse until it's calmed down.
Then he stands up and helps you before holding you in his arms.
“ Exactly, tonight is the first night of many, so let's do it the right way and now if you will, I’m…exhausted, would you care to join me on the second floor ?”
He offers you his hand, and the rest of the evening is spent like you used to. You share a shower and few more kisses then head to bed, exhausted by this eventful day and those months of fighting, relieved from the burden you both had to carry for too long.
You fall asleep in his arms last that night after finding each other on the second floor, after laboured breaths and bed sores hummed your favourite song, knowing you're closer to forgiveness than ever and that somewhere on a beach or in Texas, you can actually see days of you and him.
