Silver ||Joel Miller||

goodnight, darlin'

LAURA

2019

Laura took in the room around her. Now that she wasn't bent over the kitchen bench while getting fucked from behind she could actually focus on what was around her. Compared to her apartment this was... well, hers had been well maintained and this one hadn't. But it was where Texas lived, and it was the first time he'd asked if she wanted to come here instead of going to her place like they normally did.

Apparently the person he lived with was out for the night, and wouldn't be coming back until the next evening. It was something super secret that she couldn't know about, but she was fine with that. The less she knew the better.

She'd covered herself with his flannelette shirt since it was the beginning of winter and she hadn't know when the night started she would be staying here. As normal they had made a plan. They communicated when to meet during their last rendezvous, and he'd thrown her off by asking her to go to the place they'd met instead of him just turning up at her door.

It was far too cold to sleep without any clothes, like she did regularly with him during the summers, and she had not brought clothes she liked to sleep in. Even after twenty years of living in the QZ she was still fussy over her sleeping arrangements, but she was happy to jump into the less than standard bed with him after she had a cold shower in their small bathroom.

"I know this is nothing like your place," Texas said as she clambered under the covers with him. It had become usual for her to sleep on the left side of the bed and him on the right. It meant he was closer to the door, and while she didn't need the protective aspect, she still appreciated it.

"It's perfect," she said as she lowered her head onto a pillow, facing him.

"Don't patronise-"

"I'm not, I'm serious." She cut him off, narrowing her eyes at him. "This is where you lay your head at night, it's your safe space. It is perfect." She shuffled on the mattress, trying to find a comfy spot. "Although the mattress could be a little less springy."

"I'll put getting a new mattress at the top of my priority list then, darlin'." A smile brightened his face, and she returned the expression.

"What made you want to bring me here? We've been doing this for three years and you've never shown any interest of bringing me to your place." The smile fell from his face, and Laura didn't exactly know how to backtrack her words.

"I do live with someone and you don't, in case you forgot." A good point.

"Yeah, but surely they've been gone before," she asked, sitting up in the bed again. She wasn't going to get an answer. "And I noticed that this is the only bed in here... I'm not a long-term affair or something, am I?" There was a part of her that hoped she was, because it would give her a reason to leave.

This was the second time within the space of a week that they'd seen each other. Between the ever decreasing breaks from each other and the increasing need to hear her real name fall from his mouth, the situation was getting dangerous. But there was no way she could leave without reason. If she was honest, she'd been searching for one for the better part of two years, after he shut her down while attempting to open up to him. All she'd wanted to do was tell him about her past, which he already knew parts of, but she'd wanted to tell him everything.

He seemed like he might be one of the few people who could understand what she'd been through and what she'd had to do. She wanted to tell him what she was still doing, wanted to tell him about Ellie. God, did she want to tell him about the kid.

"No. No, it's nothing like that. She and I, it's not like that." Texas also sat up next to her, and she just held his gaze. It was a way to communicate with him, to tell him to continue talking. "I mean, it used to be, a long time ago but I couldn't... I couldn't open up to her so she ended it. And in this fucked up place, it was easiest and safest for us to stick together, so we did. Also, our business functions best when we work together." She nodded.