Chapter Text
Bar None, Present day
One of your friends had just put Single Ladies on the jukebox when you saw him across the bar. Bar None, the place you’d picked for the night, had one of those stupid app-powered ones and the three girls you had kept in touch with from high school had been abusing it all night long. But the man across the bar was so distracting that you hardly noticed. His eyes were locked on you, so tight and hot that it would send a chill up your spine if it was from the wrong set of eyes. But they were his eyes. Dark and molten and set into a sculpted face with patchy scruff and shaggy curl streaked with gray.
No, you thought, he couldn’t spark anything but desire.
“We should do the dance!” Your friend Emily slurred, tugging your arm. “C’mon! Now that you’re a single lady again, you have to own it.”
She flashed her empty ring finger as Beyonce sang, a cocky - if half drunk - look on her face as she did.
You smiled at her.
“He did put a ring on it,” you twisted the stem of your martini glass. “That’s why there was a problem when he put his dick in someone else. I think I’ll pass on the Beyonce. But thank you.”
“Come on drunky,” your friend Dana looped her arm around Emily’s waist. “Let’s go dance.”
“Woooo!” Emily threw her arms in the air and Dana gave you an exasperated but happy smile over her shoulder as she guided her to the dance floor.
“Jesus, is it that late?” Parker looked at her Apple watch. You half smiled and took a small sip of your drink as she rifled through her clutch for her phone and let out a relieved sigh. “Thank God, Kevin hasn’t been texting with a ton of stupid questions. Why did I think letting a baby get totally attached to me was a good idea? The fact that she only said mama for two weeks was great at first but now that she refuses to do bedtime without me, I’m having regrets…”
“Do you need to go?” You asked, brows raised.
She winced.
“Would you hate me if I left you with the party animals?”
You laughed.
“No,” you said. “Go home, see your husband and kid. I really do appreciate the warm welcome back, you have no idea.”
“See?” She reached across the small table and gave your arm a squeeze. “I told you, just like old times.”
“Did you go back home at 10:30 to make sure a baby was properly put to bed when we were 18?” You teased. “I forgot that part…”
She rolled her eyes.
“Almost old times,” she said. “Besides, you love Bella.”
“I do love Bella,” you said. “And I love you. Go home, I’m good.”
“You’re sure?”
“Positive. Text me when you get there?”
“Of course,” she slipped off the bar stool and came around to give you a hug and kiss your cheek. “I really am glad you’re back. Even if it’s because Reid was a dumbass.”
You just smiled a little and watched her leave, Parker pausing to wave to Dana on her way out the door.
“This seat open?”
The man from across the bar stood beside you, nodding to the seat Parker had just vacated. You smiled a little and nodded once.
“You have very convenient timing.”
“Well,” he shrugged. “Leaving a pretty girl all alone at the bar seems like a crime. Trying my damndest to stay on the right side of the law.”
“And how’s that going for you these days?”
He smirked a little. His cheek dimpled.
“Well enough.”
You looked at him, tracing the creases in his face with your eyes, the streaks of gray catching the low light of the bar. He was probably the oldest man there but damn, did he wear it well.
“You in town for a visit?” He asked, turning his beer bottle in his fingers and nodding to your friends on the dance floor. “Seeing friends?”
You cocked a little smile at him.
“No, actually. Just moved back.”
He raised his eyebrows, a look you couldn’t quite place passing over his warm features. His eyes drifted to your ring finger before he seemed to catch himself and look back at your face. You saved him the trouble, lifting your bare left hand and turning it so he could see. The indentation from your three carat engagement ring was still on your finger but your hand was empty.
“I think we should talk, Joel.”
Bar None, 10 years earlier
The man across the bar had no damn business being that good looking.
It was almost pissing you off how good looking he was. Tall, broad, with golden skin and thick, dark hair, he had the kind of face you wanted to explore intimately, in the way you could only do when someone was inside of you. The way men couldn’t control their expressions then was almost addicting. The way their eyes would roll back and their mouths would fall open, the way they stopped fucking around with pretense and just let themselves feel something - even if it was just your cunt - was beautiful and fascinating and almost elemental. It was like you could look into the very core of them for a moment, the way they always seemed to be able to look into you with just a glance. You wanted that with this man, whoever he was, this man who you caught glancing at you out of the corner of his eye.
“Aww,” Parker pouted happily at her phone. “Kevin misses me!”
“Misses you?” Emily snatched the phone from her grasp, gaping at the screen. “You’ve been gone like two hours!”
“Will you just…” Parker snatched the phone back and looked at the text again. “And I think it’s sweet.”
“You’re ditching us, aren’t you?” Emily sighed.
“I think so,” Parker winced. “Is that OK?”
You just smiled a little.
“Go see the guy who’s got you all crazy,” you said. “But I’ll see you again before I leave town, yeah?”
“Course!” She came and gave you a hug. “Good luck getting rid of me. Have fun at that thing tomorrow!”
“Yeah,” you laughed. “I’ll try.”
Emily rolled her eyes and judged Parker for a bit but it was less than an hour before she was leaving, too, with a man who’d asked her to dance and bought her a beer.
“You sure you’re alright?” She asked as she went to leave.
“Babes, I know how to be at a bar on my own. And my hotel is two doors down. I think I can figure it out.”
She kissed your cheek.
“Love you,” she said. “Try to have some fun!”
You watched her go, thinking about just how long you wanted to be sitting by yourself at a bar versus in a Holiday Inn Express standard room when a voice appeared beside you.
“This seat open?”
The man from across the bar nodded to the seat Emily had just abandoned. You smiled a little and nodded once.
“You have very convenient timing.”
“Well,” he shrugged. “Leaving a pretty girl all alone at the bar seems like a crime. Trying my damndest to stay on the right side of the law.”
“And how’s that going for you?”
He smirked a little. His cheek dimpled.
“Well enough.”
You smiled and introduced yourself before holding out your hand. He took it.
“Joel,” he said. “Don’t think I’ve seen you here before.”
“Because I’ve never been here before,” you smiled. “I’m in from out of town, my hotel is a few doors down. This was convenient and hey, the Yelp reviews weren’t the worst.”
“What brings you to the great city of Austin, Texas?” He asked, settling in on the seat beside you. He was older than you but you kind of liked men that way now that you were in your mid 20s and exhausted by every man you’d dated in college. You liked them a little older, more established, men who knew how to cook their own damn food and give you your own damn orgasm. “Business or pleasure?”
“Neither,” you smiled a little, taking a sip of your drink. “Family event.”
“That’s not pleasure?”
You laughed once.
“Not the way my family does it.”
“That why you’re in a hotel and not stayin’ with them?” He asked, brows raised.
“Bingo,” you replied. “I get in, I get drunk, I get out.”
He nodded slowly.
“Good system.”
“Worked well enough for me over the years.”
The two of you ended up talking about music and books and UT football until last call - far later than you’d intended to stay out.
“Mind if I walk you back to your hotel?” Joel asked. “Not tryin’ to be a creep but… I’d sleep a lot better tonight knowin’ you got back safe. Promise it’s not a ploy.”
“Damn, it’s not?” You asked, tucking your purse on your arm and heading for the door. “Because I was going to ask you to come up to my room if it was.”
“Well shit,” he said, catching up with you. “Maybe it is a ploy then.”
You found yourselves drawing out the walk back all the same, pace more of an amble than a brisk walk, but the hotel was so close that it really only added a few minutes to your walk all the same.
“Well,” you smiled at the door to the lobby. “This is me.”
“Yeah,” he nodded once, looking inside for a moment before looking back at you. “Look… you don’t owe me anything, alright? I’m not the kind of guy who wants to force something. I can just head on back to my truck, no hard feelings…”
“Well maybe none for you,” you teased a little. “But I might have some. Unless you really don’t want to fuck me.”
“Oh, I want to,” he said. “Trust me on that…”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah,” he laughed. “Been at the top of my list since you first walked in that place, baby, lemme tell you.”
“Well then,” you jerked your head toward the door. “Why don’t we cross it off the list?”
You took his hand in the elevator, his palm so broad, his fingers thick and long and callused in yours. You pressed your back against the wall and pulled him onto you so his hips were on yours and his nose brushed your own. His eyes ranged over your face, hungry and soft and open.
“You sure about this?” He asked, looking down at the rest of your body for a moment before going back to your face. “Sure you don’t have something better to do than some old man?”
“I’m sure,” you smiled at him, draping your arms over his shoulders. “Besides, I like old men. How old are you, anyway?”
“Forty-five,” he said. “How old are you?”
You snorted.
“I’m not sure I should say,” you said, holding him a little closer all the same. “Since you’re all hung up on age…”
“Not hung up on it,” he rolled his eyes. “Just… don’t need to be some youthful mistake is all. Wait, Jesus, please tell me you’re at least out of college, tell me you’re not a teenager…”
You laughed.
“No,” you shook your head. “Not a teenager. And I’ve been out of college a few years, I’m 25.”
“God,” he closed his eyes and shook his head once, like he was trying to shake the idea of you loose. “Still, that’s… you’re…”
You pressed your lips ever so slightly against his, more a quick brush than anything else, giving him every opportunity to pull back.
He didn’t take it.
Instead, he pressed his lips to yours, his hands going to your waist and tugging you tightly to his body while he pushed you back against the wall. Your arms got tighter to him and you opened your mouth, his tongue licking into you almost immediately. Joel didn’t need an engraved invitation, all he needed was a sign that you wanted him and fuck, you wanted him. More and more, each passing second, you wanted him. There was heat in you that was starting to flare so molten and hot that you pulled at his clothes, forgetting that you weren’t alone, not really.
The elevator dinged and he all but sprang back from you, both of you panting for breath.
“Fuck,” he breathed, looking you up and down, pupils blown.
“C’mon,” you took his hand. “I’m down the hall.”
You pulled him along behind you and fumbled to get your room key out of your bag. Joel’s wide, thick hands slipped around your waist as you did, tugging your ass back against his growing bulge and fuck, but he was huge. Thick and long and you knew his zipper had to be fucking killing him, cock that big and hard restrained by mere fabric and a slip of metal. His lips found the hinge of your jaw, your neck, down to your shoulder and you groaned a little as you clumsily forced the keycard in the door, the little beep the mechanism gave one of the best damn sounds you’d heard all night.
The two of you practically fell into your hotel room. You dropped your purse on the first table inside the door and started stepping out of your heels as Joel turned you around to face him, manipulating your body to put you right where he wanted you and the fire in you sparked higher, brighter as he manhandled you. Every touch he gave was loaded with need, the air thick and heavy with it as he pawed at your clothes and skin, licking into your mouth at every opportunity, taking your chin firmly in his heady grip to tug you open further for him, all but forcing you to give him everything.
You were as rough with his clothes as he was with your body, pulling so hard and fast at the buttons of his shirt that two popped free, pinging off the glass of the mass produced art that hung on the wall.
“Shit,” you panted, looking around the dark of your room for the buttons.
“Don’t give a fuck,” Joel replied, breathless, clutching you close and tight before you could pull away. “Didn’t really like this shirt, anyway.”
You shoved it down and off as he tugged your dress down your body, leaving it in a pile on the floor before turning you so the backs of your legs were against the bed. He deftly unhooked your bra with one hand then, ripping the straps down your arms but almost reverently lowering the cups, panting for breath as he exposed your breasts to his gaze. Joel tossed your bra to the side before taking the soft weight of your tits in his hands, cupping them, brushing his thumbs over your hardening nipples as he looked down at you with a look of near awe on his face. You half expected him to shove you back down onto the bed after his race to get you undressed but instead, his arm went around your waist, his hand splaying wide over the smooth skin of your back and he pulled you tight against him, making you gasp.
He moaned, deep and low, and dropped his head to your bared shoulder before trailing his nose over you to your neck, the wet heat of his breath on your skin.
“Fuck, you’re so goddamn soft,” he groaned, almost pained, and pressed his lips to your throat, making your breath catch. You clung to the broad expanse of his back, fingertips pressing into him, trying to get at every inch of his skin that you could find.
His mouth found yours and he gently, delicately, lowered you back onto the bed. He cradled your body against his own, keeping the firm line of him taut to you as he kissed you. Joel rested you on the mattress and you let your legs fall open so he could settle between your thighs, the heady weight of him pressing against your clit and making you moan.
“You got a problem if I explore this pretty body of yours?” He asked, his lips still brushing yours when he spoke. “Because fuck, baby, seems like a sin to not touch every goddamn inch of you.”
He rocked his thick, hard, still clothed cock against your core, as if to make his point, and took your responding moan as the yes it was. He trailed his lips slowly over your body, down your throat, your breast bone, your stomach, your navel. His nose brushed against you, his breath covering you in warm and needy pants. When he reached your underwear - the last thing still on your body - his fingers looped through the band before he paused, looking up at you over your stomach and between your breasts.
“You still with me, pretty girl?” He asked, mouth so close to your skin that the wetness of his lower lip had caught on your stomach. “Still good with this?”
“Yes, Joel, please,” you were practically squirming. He was so close to precisely where you needed him it seemed like you might melt with the want of him. “Fuck, please…”
“Fuck, you’re even prettier when you beg,” he said and started to pull your panties down over your hips. You lifted yourself up off the bed to help and it wasn’t long before you were naked below him. He knelt in front of you and took your knees in his hands, parting your thighs for him and groaning when he did.
“Goddamn,” he breathed, so quiet you weren’t sure you were meant to hear it or if he’d meant to say it out loud at all. “Just… fuck.”
He opened your legs enough to lay between them, settling with your thighs over his shoulders. His thumb traced a slow, tender path over your slit, brushing your clit and making you gasp when he did.
“Swear you’ve got the prettiest fucking pussy I’ve ever seen,” he said before he pressed his lips to your leaking hole. He moaned as he did and you couldn’t help but thrust against him once. He pulled back from you just a little, his nose barely touching your clit as he did. “Needy little pussy, too, huh?”
Your fingers knotted in the bedspread and Joel’s mouth found your clit, softly sucking the sensitive nub between his teeth to tease with his tongue. You fought the urge to rock your hips against his face, trying to remember that this man was practically a stranger, not a lover whose tastes you knew intimately. But that was hard to remember as he worked his way lower, his tongue slipping inside of you with a deep groan.
Joel ate you like you were a delicacy he longed to savor. He started slow, tasting and teasing you open, before delving deep like he couldn’t resist it, his thick tongue exploring and finding the soft and tender places inside you. His thumbs spread you open wide to him, his nose against your clit and you couldn’t stop yourself, you rolled your hips against him. He moaned into you and you forced your hips down on the bed, trying to clear your head enough to be still.
“Sorry,” you panted. “I didn’t mean to do that, you’re just… really fucking good at that.”
He stopped and pulled back from you enough to look up your body again, a frown on his face, your slick glistening on his beard in the light from the parking lot outside.
“You think I don’t want you fucking my face?” He asked. “Fuck, baby, I want nothing more than for you to take exactly what you need. Want you to make yourself come on my face, you understand?”
You swallowed and nodded.
“What are you going to do?” He asked, voice almost stern.
“Make myself come on your face?” You more asked than answered.
“Better sound more sure than that,” he said, fingers moving to your clit. You gasped and moaned at the contact. “Come on baby, what are you going to do? Say it. Own it.”
“Come on your face,” you panted. “Fuck, Joel… I’m going to come on your face, I’m going to make myself come on your face, please…”
“Good,” he said, going back to eating your pussy.
It was like he’d been holding back before but had nothing stopping him now. His tongue pressed deep, his nose nestled in your slit to nudge your clit, his arms looped over the thickness of your thighs to keep you open for him while also pressing the softness of you to the sides of his head. Your orgasm built quickly, the heat in you sinking to your core, everything inside you there going taut and tense. You were just on the edge of it, whimpering below his tongue and his touch when one hand left the warmth of your thigh and moved to your slit, his finger sliding inside you alongside his tongue. He pressed into the soft, tender place inside you that seemed to elude other men, finding it with an almost practiced ease and moaning when he did, sending the sparks of your climax shooting through you.
He groaned, needy, as he ate you through it, not letting up, not even for a second until your orgasm had subsided and your head was swimming.
“Fuck you feel amazing,” he pulled himself from you, sucking the finger that was inside you clean before wiping your slick from his beard while his other hand traced over the smooth softness of your inner thigh. “Should’ve asked this sooner but… please tell me you’ve got a damn condom. I wasn’t exactly lookin’ for this tonight, not until I saw you, so I’m not exactly prepared.”
“I do,” you propped yourself up on your elbows, trying to remember where the hell you left your suitcase in the dark. You spotted it on the dresser, thankfully still mostly organized since you’d arrived that afternoon. You nodded to it. “Suitcase, top zipper pouch inside the lid.”
He got one, the crinkle of foil strangely loud in the silence of the room.
“Here,” you sat up and reached for him as he came to stand between your legs at the edge of the bed. “Let me do it…”
He gave you the packet and you opened it before palming the condom, holding it tight in one hand while slipping the other into the open zipper of his jeans and into his underwear to find his thick, heavy cock.
You moaned as you wrapped your fingers around his length, hard as steel wrapped in silken skin, and you stroked him, just half way up his cock at first before going from root to tip. He was dripping there, his arousal making his head slick and wet. You brushed your thumb over his leaking tip, the smooth skin making your mouth water. You looked up at him through your eyelashes as you leaned forward to lick him before taking just the very end of his cock between your lips. You suckled at him gently, lapping up his precome, Joel’s breaths getting heavier and faster as you did, before you took him into your mouth. He moaned as you sucked him, his hand going to the back of your head and holding you against him, your nose brushing against the base of his stomach. You took his head into your throat and moaned around him as you sucked him, making him hiss in pleasure, his grip on your skull tightening.
“Fuck, woman,” he managed as you kept sucking him. “Gonna make me come if you keep doin’ that…”
You pulled back from him slowly, his hold on you easing as you did, until he slipped from your mouth, still slick with your spit.
“Should probably stop then,” you said, a little breathless. You took the condom - warm now from the heat of your hand - and put it over his head before rolling it over his thick shaft. You stroked him once, twice and leaned forward again, sucking his tip for a moment when it was in place and his head tipped back, staring at the ceiling as he groaned.
“Jesus,” he panted. “Fuck, you gonna let me inside that soft little pussy of yours or make me come in your mouth?”
You laughed once, needy and low, before pulling yourself backwards on the bed, Joel’s eyes hungry on your body as you went. He shucked his jeans and underwear off before crawling, finally naked, between your thighs. His head brushed against your sex and he took the base of his cock in his hand, trailing his tip up and down your dripping slit before spreading you open for him, your pussy swollen and tender as he did. He put his tip against your dripping entrance, pressed just the very end of him inside, barely opening you to him. His hands moved to your thighs, brushing over them to your knees before trailing back toward your center, his fingers splayed wide over you soft flesh.
“You ready, baby?” He asked, needy.
“Yes,” you breathed. You’d passed ready a long time ago. You were desperate now, aching and all but begging for him to take up every empty space inside your body.
“Good,” he pressed forward until his head was fully inside your tight channel and you both moaned with it, one of your hands finding the smooth skin of your breast and squeezing it. He groaned at the sight as he started fucking just the tip of him into you, rocking in and out of you in short, sharp bursts. “Fuck, there you go baby. Just like that.”
He started feeding you more of his cock then, driving further into you with each stroke until he fucked all the way into you, his hips flush to yours, his thick length stretching you open, the burn of him meshing with the heady pleasure of being so utterly full.
“Goddamn,” he breathed, his cock buried inside you totally. “This pussy… fuck me.”
One of his hands went from your thigh to over your hip coming to rest and the soft swell of the base of your stomach. He spread wide over your skin, his palm swallowing the space over where he was inside of you and pressing down, making you moan as the tight fullness inside you got more intense. His thumb stretched down toward your clit and he started working you there as he just held himself within you, making your cunt throb once around him. He groaned at the feeling.
“That’s right,” he said. “So full of this cock ain’t you baby? Taking me so damn well…”
He kept working your clit for a minute, not moving inside you, just pressing into your skin until you were practically writhing below his touch. He was so big, you were so full, the pleasure in your body so tight. It made your head spin.
“Joel,” your fingers scratched at the blankets. “I need you to move, please, please, please…”
“Please what, pretty girl?” His voice was dark, low.
“Please fuck me,” you begged. “Please, please fuck me, please…”
He drew back then, achingly slow at first, watching where his cock was pressing into you with a hungry look on his face, before thrusting back in, deep and firm.
This, you thought, was why you liked fucking older men. Joel knew what he was doing. He worked your body with expert skill, grinding his cock deep inside so his head pressed against the most sensitive parts of you, the thick drag of him making your back arch and toes curl. He kept rubbing your clit with his thumb, the pressure and pace keeping your pleasure building and building but never quite cascading over the edge.
He kept fucking into you that way until you were desperate, your whole being drawn tight and achy around his cock. He’d stopped watching where your bodies were joined and had moved to your face, his gaze drinking in your desperate little moans and the way your eyes would scrunch closed as you got so close to coming but didn’t quite make it, whimpering as your climax fell just out of reach yet again.
“Got you so tight and needy, hm?” He said, breathless. You just nodded, trying to rock your hips up against him but held in place by his hand on your stomach. “Why don’t you tell me what you need? Tell me exactly what it is you need.”
“To come,” you whimpered. “Fuck, I need to come, you need to let me come, please let me come…”
“Think I’ve been keepin’ you on the edge too long?” He asked. “Think I should let this little pussy come? Let her just milk me dry?”
“Fuck, please,” you begged, not caring if you sounded pathetic. It’s not like you’d see this man again after tonight, anyway.
He took his thumb off your clit but before you had a chance to whimper in protest, he adjusted your legs to drive somehow deeper and leaned over you, pressing his bare skin to yours before kissing your neck, sucking and licking at the tender skin there as he fucked into you, making you whimper, your nails scrabbling over his back. His lips moved from your neck to your ear, his large hand coming to cup the crown of your head, his pace never relenting.
“Come for me,” he whispered, low and needy. “You can come, want you to come, want to feel you come. Just let go for me, just give in to me.”
His hips rocked against your clit, his cock buried so deep and you saw stars for a moment before you cried out, your orgasm hitting you hard after being on the edge of it for so long. It broke your whole body down, muscle clenching desperately, blood rushing, fingers clinging. You felt it everywhere, starting at your core and radiating out in hot, aching waves.
“Goddamn, that’s it,” he fucked you through it as your core fluttered over him. “Just keep comin’ for me, just like that, feeling so damn good baby just…”
He pressed deep as your orgasm started to fade and moaned, the sound going straight to your raw, fucked out cunt. The pulsing of his cock, in you to the root, rolled you into another orgasm, this one less intense but still making your pussy grip him close and tight as he spilled into the condom.
He collapsed on you for a moment as both of your climaxes eased, his chest heaving. Before his weight became too much, he adjusted, rising up enough to kiss you as he slid his softening cock from your body and falling flat on his back on the bed beside you.
“Damn,” you panted after a moment, staring up at the ceiling.
He laughed lightly beside you.
“Know the feelin’.”
You lay there next to each other, listening to each other as your breaths came back into a normal, steady cadence. Goosebumps started to pebble over your skin, the air cold as you were naked without his body on yours, the air conditioner below the window humming along.
You turned your head to look at him and he did the same.
“Should probably go…” his voice trailed off but he sounded reluctant. Or maybe you just hoped he did.
“You don’t have to,” you said, probably a little too quickly for a man you’d just met. Even in the dim light of the moon and the parking lot lights out your window, you could tell he raised his eyebrows. “I’m just… you can stay, if you want. It’s a big bed. Think we can manage it.”
“Wouldn’t want to impose…”
“You’re not,” you said. “You can leave, too, if you’d rather but… don’t feel like you have to rush out.”
He smiled a little.
“Then I’ll stay. I’d like to stay.”
You smiled back, that blissed out and relaxed feeling you had after you came settling over you.
“Good.”
The two of you settled far across the bed from each other at first but drifted quickly, until your head was on his chest and you were curved around his side as his arm wrapped around your shoulders, his fingers trailing up and down your arm until you fell asleep.
He was somehow even more beautiful in the light of day.
You realized it as the two of you went about the strange intimacy of getting ready for the day side by side with someone you didn’t know. He blinked sleep from his eyes when first woke up and stretched his back before getting out of bed, his curls haphazard and messy and his body soft and warm. He got dressed and ran his fingers through his hair, trying to tame it. You offered him your travel toothbrush as you got dressed and he watched you pull on your jeans as he leaned against the bathroom doorframe.
“Been a while since I’ve done this,” he said, a little hesitant.
“Just how long?” You asked, teasing as you pulled on your shirt.
“Longer than I want to admit,” he said, small smile making his cheek dimple. “Long enough that I don’t remember exactly how this is supposed to work but… I’d like to take you to breakfast. If you want.”
You smiled.
“Sure,” you said. “I’d like that.”
Joel walked back to the bar and picked up his truck before taking you to a diner not too far from your hotel. You laughed with him about menu typos and the questionable song choices coming from the speakers over greasy eggs and toast soaked in butter.
“Know we just met,” he said as you were on your fourth cup of coffee and you were both avoiding the fact that you’d have to leave this table and go your separate ways soon. The remains of your hashbrowns had long gone cold, ketchup smeared across the plate and you weren’t ready to say goodbye to him yet. “And that you’re in town for some family thing but… if you’re not busy tonight, would you want to come with me to this party? Buddy of mine is throwin’ in, supposed to be nice. Think he gave me a plus one in hopes I’d actually use it.”
“Damn,” you winced a bit. “I really wish I could but the thing I’m in town for is tonight.”
“Damn’s right,” he smiled a little. “Think you’d be my best shot for a good time at that thing.”
“Yeah, back at you for my thing,” you laughed.
“Here,” he pulled his phone from his pocket and unlocked it before handing it over. “Put your number in. Maybe we could still get together later…”
You took it but hesitated, thumb tapping on the side of his phone case.
He frowned.
“What?”
“I live hours away,” you said. “Is this really smart?”
He shrugged.
“Don’t really care if it’s smart or not. Just want to see you again. If you’ll let me.”
You smiled a little and shook your head before putting your number in his phone.
“There,” you said, handing it back over. “Let me know when you’re done with your thing. I can think of a few more ways to get some good use out of my hotel room.”
Two more cups of coffee later, Joel dropped you off at your hotel. You kissed him goodbye in the cabin of his truck, moaning against his mouth before pulling away.
“Alright, go before I come back in with you,” he said playfully, reaching across you to open your door.
You laughed.
“Don’t tempt me,” you got out and paused before closing your door, taking one last chance to look him over. “If we don’t see each other again… It was good meeting you.”
“Good meeting you, too,” he said. “But don’t worry. I’ll see you again.”
You went inside, looking back over your shoulder once you were in the lobby, Joel’s truck still sitting near the doors as he waited to make sure you were safely inside.
There was an odd sense of loss in you as you got ready for your parents’ big anniversary party. You hadn’t expected to meet anyone when on your trip back to your hometown, let alone someone you liked so much. You’d been single for a while, doing things alone didn’t really bother you. But now, you felt this tug of desire to have him getting ready beside you where you could help him with his tie and he could zip you into your dress.
But that was stupid. You knew it was stupid. Your job had taken you to Memphis and you liked it there. You weren’t in a rush to move back to your hometown. And Joel had a business here. It wasn’t going to happen. It’d be a lot easier in the long run if you just accepted that now.
You showed up early to the party, your older sister wanting help to get things set up in the tents outside.
“Who all is coming to this shindig anyway?” You asked as you put pictures of your parents out around a guest book near the entrance of the tent.
“Oh, you know,” your sister waved you off.
“Not really,” you said. She gave you a look. “What! I haven’t been home for a family party in… well, it’s been a minute.”
“Yeah, and I’ve been the one doing all the work to help with those for a while,” she said.
“And you’re definitely not bitter about that…”
“Not one bit,” she teased. “But the usual people. The closest neighbors, the aunts and uncles, Mom’s book club, church people, Dad’s friends…”
“Dad has friends?” You gaped at her. “Since when?”
“He’s had friends for years!”
“OK, he’s never had friends,” you said. “Where is he finding friends? Shit’s unnatural…”
“Don’t let them catch you saying shit,” she said. “And there are a few from work, one from this basketball league he joined…”
“Ew,” you crinkled your nose. Your sister laughed.
“Definitely not ew,” she said. “At least not the basketball friend one, he’s weirdly hot, it’s disturbing…”
“Well, there’s no accounting for taste, is there?” You teased.
“You’ll eat those words when you meet the guy,” she said. “Just wait.”
“Whatever you say,” you rolled your eyes, skeptical. You and your sister had never had the same taste in men, you didn’t see any reason for that to have changed.
But still, you were keeping an eye out for this mysterious hot friend of your father’s as people started to arrive for the party. Or trying to, anyway. You kept getting pulled away by distant relatives you hadn’t seen since your cousin’s wedding or to do a favor for your mom as she frantically rushed around trying to take care of everyone while also trying to have fun at the party that was being thrown in her honor.
Everything was in full swing when you heard your father call your name from across the large, increasingly full tent. He waved you over, leaning around a man he was talking to, and you worked your way around the dance floor, trying not to think about how much you’d like to have a date at this damn thing - how much you’d like to have Joel as your date at this damn thing - when you froze beside your dad. The man standing next to him was devastatingly familiar, even from behind. Tallest man in the room, broad shoulders, thick curls. Your heart beat faster.
“Hey honey,” your dad said, tugging you closer. “Want you to meet my friend. Joel, this is my youngest that I’ve told you so much about.”
He turned around, a beer bottle in his hand a smile on his face that fell the moment he saw you. Your dad was saying something else but you didn’t hear it, too busy staring at the man who had been inside you less than 24 hours earlier.
The man who had you thinking about what life alongside another person would be like.
The man who was apparently your father’s friend.
“Hi,” he said after your dad had stopped talking. You hadn’t noticed.
“Hi,” you said, still staring at him.
Fuck, you were in trouble.