Silver ||Joel Miller||

with or without your permission

JOEL

Thirty minutes he'd been waiting for. Thirty minutes of tacking the horses to alleviate some of his anxiety. Thirty minutes of feeling his heart race anyway.

Today he would have to apologise to Ellie. He would give the kid the choice of whether he went with her and Laura or not, as he had discussed with Laura through the night.

Aside from that, his anxiety was spiking because he knew that Laura had the option of getting her bracelet removed. At the thought he twisted his own around his wrist a few times. He didn't know how to explain it, but he knew he liked wearing it. Maybe that was something he would have to work out... what that actually meant. He loved Laura, but he never imagined they would find themselves together once more. Anything from this point forward was a miracle that hadn't been planned... so what did he want for their future?

"You're coming with us, right?" He heard Ellie's voice after the stable door opened. Tommy and Laura were behind the kid, who held onto her bag like her life depended on it.

"If you want me to." He answered, taking a singular step towards the kid. His kid. Or almost his kid. He wasn't sure he was completely there yet, but the thought didn't terrify him. If Laura had already claimed the child as hers then maybe it would be possible for him to do the same. "I still think you'd be better off with-" he was cut off as Ellie shoved her bag into his stomach and she walked over to the horse. Of course she was more interested in the horse than continuing the conversation.

"What makes you so confident he wasn't just here to say goodbye?" Laura asked, a smirk on her face as she walked closer to Joel. Maybe she hadn't noticed the red marks on her neck, or the way her lips were still swollen from the night before.

He had no idea why he'd been so stuck on the idea of not kissing her all those years ago, because there was nothing that even came close to the sensation of it. If they combined all of their activities from the night before, he had to have been stuck on her lips for at least a couple of hours.

"I heard you two last night." Ellie's reply was blunt, to the point, and it made Laura's cheeks turn pink and Joel's neck burn. He looked at his brother, who's eyes had widened a considerable amount. Maybe Tommy hadn't noticed the state he'd left Laura in, maybe he could get away with covering it...

"Laura and I argued last night before we came to an understanding and-"

"Yeah, you two came to a lot more than just an understanding." God damn it. This was a mistake. Going with this kid was a mistake. "I heard you." Right, so there was no possible way to convince the kid nothing had happened.

"Ellie-" Laura's warning tone went unheard.

"I heard you at twelve-thirty after Laura got up, probably to find a book." When Joel had fucked Laura hard and fast, out of pure desperation after years of distance and months of self-torture. "I heard you at two." When Laura had woken to him sitting on the edge of the bed because he was burning next to her and couldn't sleep. She'd come on his fingers before she rode him as he sat on that edge, and he'd looked up at her like she was a goddess as they both came undone once more with his hands running over her back. "Then at three." When he'd tasted her and used his tongue until she fell apart before she used her mouth on him. He hadn't lasted long, not when he watched as her pretty lips ran up and down his shaft and felt the tip of his cock hit the back of her throat. "And then again at four-thirty." When he'd taken her from behind, her hands on the headboard as his fingers left bruises on her hips. She'd always felt best from that angle. "And-"

"I am so sorry, Tommy," Laura cut the kid off. It was a wonder she'd let the kid get that far as her pink cheeks turned red. It had to be up to her to cut the kid off, because Joel was busy focusing on biting back his smirk and hiding the fact he was rock-hard once again. "That was definitely more information than you needed to know. Or probably wanted to know."