Nights Like This One { a joel miller fanfiction }

XII.

A.N. hiiii! sorry this took me so fuckin' long. i got a new job!!!! so things have been a little chaotic as i try to wrap things up at my old company and prep for my new one. anyway, this is short and sweet. next time i will begin my process of absolutely demolishing all of our hearts (sorry). ily, have fun while you still can! 

"And I'm gonna keep on lovin' you,

'cause it's the only thing I wanna do"

— Cigarettes After Sex (REO Speedwagon cover), Keep On Loving You

______________________

August 9, 2003

Joel watched Lily intently, as she speared a piece of steak and lifted her fork to her mouth, chewing while her eyes flitted over the newspaper draped on the table between them.

"Anythin' interesting in there?" he asked around a mouthful of potatoes.

She shrugged, a small motion of one of her small, rounded shoulders. "Not really, the Austin press as a whole leaves something to be desired."

He chuckled, cutting off a piece of his own steak and popping it into his mouth. "M'sure you're gonna change that soon."

Lily had finally mustered the courage— through what was undeniably her newfound stability with Joel— to apply to some of the local papers. The Austin American-Statesman— the biggest paper in the Austin area— had jumped on her application right away, asking if she was free to start at the beginning of September. She'd accepted immediately, and since then, had spent an ungodly amount of time reading through all of the local papers, not sparing her critiques of them.

"It's just lazy journalism, I can't tell if it's the editor's fault or just a lack of enthusiasm," Lily said with a sigh, flipping the newspaper closed and focusing more intently on her dinner.

"Maybe it's 'cause Texas ain't nearly as exciting as California," Joel said with a little flick of his eyebrows darting toward his hairline and a teasing lilt in his voice.

Lily rolled her eyes, "Watch out cowboy, they might revoke your Texan card if you keep talking like that."

He chuckled, finishing off the last of his steak, then taking a large gulp of his beer, eyes slowly raking over Lily while something heavy and taut sprang up in his core. For the last month, longer than that if he was being honest with himself, he couldn't stop himself from imagining her with a delicate band on her left ring finger, couldn't stop imaging her in a pretty, white dress— her dark tattoos strikingly beautiful in juxtaposition to the light fabric— couldn't stop imaging her all round and swollen, carrying a little piece of the two of them all safe and warm inside of her belly.

There was no doubt he was moving too fast, too fast for anyone let alone someone with as much reservation and trauma as Lily, but he couldn't seem to subdue his desire, his need to cement her into his life in a much more permanent fashion, so as never to feel that canyon in his core open again.

Maybe that was selfish, certainly was if she didn't want those same things, but it wasn't solely his own fear of that cavern opening up again that plagued him, it was that intense inclination to keep her safe, to keep her here, to never again let her doubt that she was loved, that she had a home, here, with him.

Lily was about to stand up and take her plate to the sink when Joel sprung out of his chair, the thing scraping across the hardwood to make space for the bulk of him.