Nights Like This One { a joel miller fanfiction }

VI.

A.N. lol hi. sorry, i'm cranking these out really fast, so i'm using you all as my beta audience before i post elsewhere. inevitably, updates will slow way down later on, so i promise they won't always be coming at you this fast. ily have a wonderful tuesday <3

"We're on the borderline, caught between the tides of pain and rapture." — Tame Impala, Borderline

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April 4, 2003

Joel didn't think anything had ever governed so much of his thoughts.

He thought about her when he woke up, while he showered, as he dropped Sarah off at school, in every mile that he drove, every step that he took, she consumed his mind, lived there like that's where she was always supposed to be.

It didn't help that Sarah hadn't stopped gushing about her all week, constantly asking him questions he wished he had the answer to.

"Does Lily like pizza?"

"What do you think Lily's favorite animal is?"

"I bet Lily is good at math."

"Dad, when am I going to see Lily again?"

She was relentless, almost as merciless as his own thoughts.

Something had broken open inside of him after he'd watched her interact with his daughter— something heavy and desperate, clawing, needy creature pacing away in his gut— and he feared he may never close it, may never be able cast that deprived creature out.

He wanted to be near her in a way far more involved, severely more intimate than what his work on her house allowed. He wanted to see more of her, uncover more of her, dig under that hard, taunting shell she hid herself inside of, hold whatever soft, tender bit lived underneath.

He didn't want to admit, even to himself, that he was obsessed with her, but there really was no other term that encapsulated just how incessantly he thought about her, how gravely he wanted to be near her, how terribly he just wanted to know her.

He was horribly out of practice when it came to dating, or anything even remotely related. It'd been over a year since he'd been out on a date, nearly the same amount of time since he'd last slept with a woman. He didn't really know what exactly had been holding him back, a lack of time, perhaps, little interest in the women he did encounter on a regular basis, the fear of having to tell them he was a single father, the dread of introducing a woman to Sarah only to have her disappear just like her mother had.

In that way, it did make it easier that Sarah was already infatuated with Lily, that both already knew of the other's existence.

But it also made it far more terrifying.

He didn't want to break his daughter's heart.

But he also didn't want to give up before he'd even given this a chance.

That was, if Lily was even interested.

He had little insight regarding what she thought about him, how she thought about him. He knew he made her blush, sometimes— though he wished the occurrence was far more frequent, because the pink hue her cheeks would take on when he was successful was so pretty it almost hurt to look at. He knew she thought he was grumpy and aloof, knew that until recently she thought he hated her.

In all honesty, he didn't have much evidence that she was interested in him at all.

Except that gut feeling, that incessant tug in his core, the desperate way— even if it had only been for a moment— that she had clung to him when he'd taken her in his arms after her bathroom flooded.