Don't Tell This Heart

Sun streaming onto the porch, scorching eyes red rimmed and burning with fatigue and worry. Gilding the tumble of blonde hair as Dolly had strutted off of the porch, a swagger to her walk that hadn’t been there before. The feel of her lips still on his, the taste of lip gloss sticky and sweet as he’d pressed them together. His tongue gathering that and the taste of her from them as that light made his head swim. It had been the last time he’d seen her, Dolly disappearing into that light more thoroughly than Jeanine had into the ground. At least there’d been a stone for him to visit for Jeanine, the name and dates etched into the stone enough to close a fist around his heart. Dolly, she’d just been gone. Years of searching and he hadn’t found a damn thing, some part of him believing that maybe she’d gone the same as Jeanine in the end but Joel knew that without a record somewhere he was never gonna believe it.

No sun now, not in this grimly lit room at the back of something akin to a circle of hell for him. A gritty dark, illuminated in those stark pools for idiots who signed their safety and probably their lives away on that scrap of paper at the door. Enough to paint the bare flesh of the dancers in neon splashes, enough to silver Dolly’s blonde hair as she slipped behind the bar in front of him now. Echoes of then and now, that sticky sweet ghost of the taste of her on his lips as he moistened them. Not gone, not the way he’d feared, Joel thought, just a world away from the farm and that day on the porch when he’d lost his best friend.

His lips parted, his breathing raw as he stared at her. Joel swallowed, half dipped his head as a frown worked its way over the smile that tried to break free. He saw her eyes fall to his hands, his left hand, the ring that still held him to that promise he’d made at the head of a church aisle. For better or for worse, in sickness and in health. Whether they were struggling or not. Joel closed his left hand into a fist, his thumb skimming that edge of the ring as he cleared his throat to try and work words free when astonishment continued to snatch them away.

Her painted lips creased into that same smirk she’d worn when she’d pulled back from their only kiss, that one that had been so unlike the Dolly he’d known. Joel shook his head, sucked in a deeper breath to try and release what had gripped him. His brows rose, his own elbows finding the edge of the bar. ”Harder than it had yours, obviously,” he drawled. A breathless laughed huffed out, his head shaking tightly as he looked at her. ”Surprised to see you? Yeah, you could say that Doll. 11 years is a long time to wait t’get blindsided.” And God had he missed her, especially in those first lost days when the pall of grief had still laid thick over him, over Cunningham and Dolly gone like a vacuum in the middle of it all.

The even shorter version of his name he’d always slipped into had damn near stuck in his throat, wedging tight enough that he had to fight it free again. Joel tilted his head, shreds of that smile clinging to his lips as he studied her. ”I mighta done but that ain’t a bartendin’ get up…” His gaze dropped, darted over the acre of bare skin that had him swallowing hard. The heat of it had ghosted over his skin that last day, hands rising, fingertips hovering until she’d pulled back and walked away, closer than ever in that way that hadn’t been platonic. ”You able to get someone to pour ‘em up and let you come on round here?” To talk, to ask where the hell she’d been all those years that he’d kept one eye out for her. Joel’s gaze caught the reflection of a dancer circling one of the poles in the mirror though, the sudden awareness of what the outfit and Dolly’s presence here met. His posture stiffened, fine lines springing up around his eyes as his gaze slid back to her face. What the hell had happened to the Dolly he’d known?

Tagged: HANNYA * Word Count: 743

She hadn’t been the kid she’d been those last couple of days before she’d disappeared out of town. Dolly striding into school like a butterfly emerging from a pupae a transformation he hadn’t seen coming. Gone was the girl who’d followed him around the stables, neither one of them caring about the dirt smudged on bare skin, the hay clinging in dirty blonde hair. Heels swapped for boots or bare feet, a gloss on the fall of her hair that caught the light as it had been flipped back from her shoulders. Calculated he’d guessed later, to draw every eye in the place. Dolly’s swan song in their tiny corner of the world. Only he’d been the one dropping like his strings had been cut at the end of the play when she’d walked out of his life.

Joel felt like it had happened again now. What he’d thought he’d known cut loose, the lead weights holding his life in place gone in an instant, maybe for an instant, as Dolly leaned over the counter, tongue tracing the full curve of her upper lip. Dolly, his Doll, just like he’d called her in that first session with the Doc. Here. Unbroken. Hell. All grown up.

It wasn’t had to notice it as she’d leaned in, studying him, moving in that calculated way again that should’ve maybe bothered him more than it did. The shock had started to wear off, replaced by an unexpected kick of happiness at seeing her again that lasted until she was looking down at his fingertip. Dolly was here, and so was Jolene. While his wife was at work he was in what was barely a step above a strip joint, his eyes not failing to take in all that bare skin, what was barely covered before they skittered away. Pale eyes focused on the mirror, on one of the dancers working their way around the pole Joel felt the edge of shame and confusion bite deep again. The Dolly he’d known wouldn’t have set foot in a place like this, hell, if it hadn’t been for Ricky, he wouldn’t have done either. Vaughn maybe, some call coming one day from a place like this to drag his back out of the trouble he’d landed himself in.

Clearing his throat, Joel looked away, about to flag down another server to ask for a drink to cool this off, two, one for him, one for Dolly as he tried to work the story out of her but as his hand peeled off of the bar to gesture, Dolly was there instead. Hoisting herself up onto it in front of it, muscles rippling under smooth skin, sinuous enough to draw his eye back and have him swallowing even before she dropped down into his lap. More intimate than the last time they’d been together, his heart lodging in his throat as his hands flailed for purchase, finding the edge of the bar and biting hard.

The feel of choking on his own heart didn’t ease as he swallowed, the fist around it all just gripping hard as Dolly curled an arm around the back of his neck, the other hand coming up to rest on the suddenly searing skin of his jaw. He huffed out a breath that felt like it was washing over that bare skin, his lips curling faintly as he met her eye up close now, blue on that familiar hazel. ”Always, you know … hey!” There was an ounce of confusion in that rough voice that shouldn’t have been there considering where they were. Joel frowned, pushing into that touch, his mouth almost skimming hers and then the loose strands of blonde hair as she eased closer, her lips close enough to his ear to have a shudder working through him with every word.

Joel’s eyes fluttered shut, his mouth pursing as he cursed his partner. His hands peeled their white knuckle grip away from the bar, another wave of a shudder coming on as they came to rest on her hips, like somehow if he could peel her far away all of this was suddenly gonna make sense. ”I wasn’t here to hook up. That wasn’t…” What every other sap in this place was here to do? He shook his head, knowing he couldn’t whisper anything about the investigation that’d put a bee in Ricky’s bonnet about this place. ”It’s … It’s good to see you Doll, really. What are you doin’ here? How’d you get from there to here, Doll. What are you doin’?” Whore, she’d used the word like it painted her just as garishly as any of the women twirling around those poles.

One hand peeled off of her hip, not having done a thing to push her away. He curled it at her jaw, drawing her back to face him, his brows rising slightly. ”Hey, you can talk to me, you always could. What’s goin’ on?” Something told him that was like trying to close the stable door after the horse had bolted. Too late to dial everything back and stop the Dolly he’d known from walking out of his life that day, leaving a hole behind that didn’t fit the Dolly shaped peg trying to slide back into it now.

Tagged: HANNYA * Word Count: 882

This was closer than he’d been to Jolene in months. The intimacy that had been there in the early days of their marriage giving way to something he couldn’t even call a surface fondness. The morning kiss goodbye gone, the feel of his wife’s hand curled over his hip in sleep. Stripped away by time until Joel wasn’t sure he could even recall clearly how it had been. Hell, he was just sure it hadn’t been like this in forever. A woman pressed up against him, the sensation familiar-strange enough at first to have him frozen, bringing a heat back to the surface that he’d thought long dead, a dormant volcano of passion meant for a woman who was a wife only in name now. Mrs. McGrath scrawled on an appointment book for a therapist working the steps one sided with him.

The doc would’ve had something to say about this, notes scrawling across that ever present book, maybe disapproval in her eyes but the thought of that condemnation had been left distant and indistinct by Dolly’s presence. Once upon a time they’d shared a bed, in that innocent way kids had before hormones and feelings started creeping in – not that he’d allowed himself to pay attention to feeling that way about his best friend until she was gone with the ghost of her kiss still on his lips, laced with the taste of guilt.

Now those lips were practically closed around his earlobe. Joel’s eyes fluttered shut, his hands on her hips like maybe he’d push away instead of in like he had done, mouth almost on hers as he assured her he’d always missed her. That part of his heart where he’d locked the memories of what had been before the darkness had come to Cunningham that summer laid wide open now, as meaty as the cheek Dolly skimmed her lips over before she bit down on. Those blue eyes rolled up to meet his as she eased back, something so guileless in them as she’d tossed all his shields carelessly aside. ”’s true,” he murmured, the words heavily laced with the soft accent before the added admission slipped free. Joel was squinting as the ugh fell from her lips, something else in that groan, less nostalgic.

Hazel eyes rolled, a herald to her questions. Joel let out a low sound of his own, his head dipping slightly. His tongue running over the inner border of his lip before he bit down on it. ”Maybe my tastes changed over the years. Seems like got beer on tap and enough liquor to at least fill a couple of shot glasses. Come on, Doll…” Drink with me. The offer stayed silent, washed away by that heat rising from under his collar. The part of him that was still shackled to the ring on his finger wanted to ease her back, to convince her to slip onto the stool beside him and drink until he’d worked every step of her trail out of Cunningham out of her.

He prodded now, tip-toeing around what the truth had to be given appearances here. A hand at her jaw, turning her back to him with those pale eyes searching her face out of concern. He’d worked his ass off to stop anybody else ending up in Jeanine’s place. Dead in the woods, poison in her veins after a tumble down a slippery slope. Joel swallowed as he felt Dolly’s lips skim his fingers, her voice slipping out broken on a sigh. ”Whatever was goin’ on, you could’ve stayed. Ya know I woulda done anythin’ to help. I still can, Dolly, whatever ya need.” An intervention with a badge, crammed in Latimer Crane’s face to break whatever tether was holding Dolly here. Those tears getting under his skin.

Joel shifted his hand, frowning as he thumbed her cheekbone, like he could erase those tears the way he’d once done with hugs, skinned knees forgotten with someone there to distract you. Those eyes filling with concern as she wrapped her arm around him again, closing the gap between them until she was brushing her nose up against him. ”They ever hurt you Doll, I’ll get you out of here. If you want it … we can go …” Out of the lion’s den that Ricky had alluded to before he’d sent him in. He could feel that gold band on the hand that still cupped her hip. Thumb on warm bare skin, fingers gripping hips that had filled out in the intervening years. He cleared his throat, avoided looking down at it as he shook his head. ”Jo didn’t move to town til after … she’s uh … a lawyer. She’s …” What was he gonna say? She’s pretty great. Like you were talking about dinner at a restaurant, some sort of critique on the flip side. Not I love her, or you’d really like her, both were bigger lies, stoppered up in his throat. The counsellor’s words were back in his head – be honest with yourself, Joel, don’t sugar coat the state of things or you’ll never be able to move past this. As though there was some way back for his marriage.

Tagged: HANNYA * Word Count: 928

Concern clung with fingers tighter than the ones that fixed in the front of his shirt. Blue eyes scanning what he could see of Dolly’s face up this close, looking for some sign of what’d been done to her in the years she was gone. Something had to have been done, marks of it left on the girl he’d never have been able to picture in a place like this. Dolly in boots and worn jeans, smile bright as the sun streaming in through the boards of the barn. None of this effortless guile, just the women peeking from beneath all of this sticky bright gloss like she didn’t need to be hidden away from the predators probably walking inches away from the two of them. Like one crack would spill her into the worst parts of the viper’s nest Ricky was sure was here.

A frown carving deep as he shook his head softly. His thumb rising from the line of her jaw to skim under her eye like the tears were gonna send the dark eyeliner and mascara cascading down the golden skin. ”Anythin’, Doll. It don’t matter what they…” What they’d done to her … what they were doing here … he wasn’t sure. The latter he wasn’t meant to know but Ricky had spilled enough of his suspicions for his shoulders to be going stiff beneath the cover of his shirt now.

There it was. The tear finally breaking free over the painted lashes, rolling down her cheek diamond bright under the lights to splashing the crook of his thumb and forefinger. The pad of his thumb easing the line of it away as he shrugged. He hadn’t thought it through, if he’d need to just get her out of here … or out of town entirely. Maybe it’d finally have Jo’s head coming up from the sand they were both burying theirs in. ”Anywhere but here,” he rasped in the end. Joel slicked dry lips with the tip of his tongue. ”You need me I’ll be right there with ya. I let you go once and it …” Had obviously been a mistake. Stunned at the press of her lips against his he hadn’t called out to stop her as she’d slipped off the porch and right out of his life. Disappearing from town and fetching up in somewhere that was a thousand times more hellish than Cunningham had ever been.

Cunningham had its problems but until Ricky had decided to follow some trail that had led right here he’d never considered high tailing it out of there. His history caught up in that tiny spot on the map, the good, the bad … the apathetic.

The mention of Jo was all it had taken to get him feeling that ring like a shackle. Joel kept his eyes on Dolly though, like just a single glance at that symbol of his marriage would shift this precarious balance and have Dolly slipping away from him the way she’d done before. His grip on her was sure but he’d thought that once before too. Throat tight he’d answered her question, Jo’s image slipping into his head all too easy and bringing all too much guilt with it. ”Hey!” There as a slight bite to his voice at that, the hand on her cheek jostling slightly to try and get her eyes back on his. ”It ain’t a comparison, Doll. I met her … it’s just a job and it don’t mean anythin’.” It had been an echo between the two of them at the start, that joint belief in the law, in the power of it, only becoming a bone of contention after, one Jolene would surely get her teeth into if she realised that his past was sitting there right in his lap while bodies writhed around the two of them.

If there was any real rue there it disappeared in another wave of that bravado, all surface seduction that had the memories of that afternoon on his porch trying to well up again. Painted lips on his jaw that’d leave him staring in the mirror, trying to scrub them away after. The scarlet letter for a man who’d found his past right there in his voice again. ”Doll.” Her name rasping off of his lips as she slipped down out of his lap. Joel followed her down, boot heels not feeling entirely steady on the floor as she took the hand he’d curled around her hip. Wherever was quiet in this place was probably somewhere he didn’t want to be, even if it’d likely have Ricky salivating like he’d been handed a cup of damn matcha tea.

Gaze skittering, Joel allowed himself to be towed through the crowd. Head half down to avoid the rest of the staff and the eyes of anybody in here who had a chance of recognising him. The shriek of ‘cop’ didn’t come, their path to what was apparently the dancers’ dressing room clear enough that Dolly was leading him through the door without anyone stopping them. The place was lined with glittering mirrors, the scent of powder and perfume in the air, things he wasn’t sure he wanted to recognise draped like confetti around the room.

He cleared his throat, glancing up from something that looked like a tassel, all glittery gold and attached to a small cupped end, to meet dolly’s eyes as she was gesturing him to a stall in front of one of those mirrors. Feeling a decade older than he’d started out, Joel sank down on it, fingers fluttering uncertainly as she set it on her bare rump. Heat rose above the scruff of his beard as he slid it down an inch, into safer territory. ”I told ya, didn’t I?” The stilted conversation at the bar tripping back through his mind. He hadn’t. It’d been the shock, met with the sudden presence of the woman in his lap, the girl he’d known peering through in those open moments. Nothing about himself, just Jo. ”It’d be awkward if you weren’t.” A little more confidence in the drawl as he took another glance around, settling anywhere but those eyes that had always stripped some part of him bare. ”A job. Like I’m guessin’ it always is. There was a spot here … a chance at a transfer. What about you, Doll? How’d you get here? What happened to you after you walked away?” After she’d kissed him and left some new part of him bare and aware, only for it to be razed to the ground a day later when they’d found Jeanine out in the woods.

Tagged: HANNYA * Word Count: 1111