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Joel spit into the bathroom sink, red saliva mixing with the running water and swirling down the drain. There was a slice across the inside of his cheek where his flesh had been ripped by his own teeth, but at least none of them felt loose. He dipped a rag under the faucet, raising it to the purple bruise forming under his eye. Equally swollen knuckles pressed the cloth against his face.
“Really, Joel?”
The woman he had fought over was leaning against the bathroom doorframe, arms folded across her chest in a way he knew meant she was far from pleased.
“Didn’t like the way he’s been looking at you,” Joel said through gritted teeth, tasting more blood on his tongue. “Flirting with you. Trying to touch you.”
---
Joel first noticed Ethan—and his eyes for Tess—in Jackson’s grand hall. The man was helping clean tables while Joel, Tess, and Ellie were in line for food. He kept looking Tess up and down every time her back was turned. Joel shot him a glare and thought that was the end of it, until Ethan conveniently ended up at their table, sitting beside Tess and making introductions.
Tess was cordial enough. Back in the QZ, she was the one who built all their trading connections. She could appear pleasant at first, but quickly set the precedent she wasn’t one to be fucked with. Neither of them were.
Joel had noticed her working the Jackson residents in a similar manner. He could see the gears turning in her head every time she met someone new. Her questions appeared innocent enough, but Joel knew they were strategic. Tess was sizing up the commune’s power dynamic, determining where allegiances and rifts fell and what connections would be most to their benefit.
Joel assumed she was doing something similar with this new man, Ethan. She was an intelligent woman and could get a read on people in a matter of seconds.
But as the weeks went on and this man kept appearing, Joel couldn’t see any benefits or connections he might have to offer. Other than continually hanging around Tess whenever the chance was presented, he mostly kept to himself. He came to Jackson alone and continued to live alone. He didn’t hold any status. He had some background in construction, but that was a skill Joel already possessed. He didn’t want to question Tess’s method, but this man—and the way his partner was spending more and more time with him—left Joel scratching his head.
And bit by bit, Joel’s confusion was replaced by another feeling, hot and swirling deep in his chest.
Ethan all too conveniently arrived at the Tipsy Bison just as Tess’s shift brewing beer was ending, and he insisted she stay for a drink. The saloon was on Joel’s way home from his own shift at the compost heap. He figured he’d stop by, he and Tess could have a beer and then walk home together. But he found his partner already drinking, with another man’s chair pulled a little too close to hers. Ethan’s elbow rested on the bar, body turned towards Tess, nodding intently as she talked about something Joel was too far away to hear.
There was another time when Ethan and Tess got paired together to do some work beyond the commune walls. Joel happened to be outside the stables when they got back on their horses. Tess was laughing at some joke the man told, her head thrown back as the golden streaks in her hair caught in the sunlight. Her smile was wide enough that her eyes and nose crinkled in the way Joel always loved to see. She looked beautiful.
But she wasn’t looking at him.
That night Tess and Joel were getting ready for bed in their shared bathroom. Tess made a show of shedding her clothes before sliding her hands around his waist, the proposition evident in the shine of her eyes. He turned her down, mumbling some excuse about being too worn out. He didn’t miss the crease in her brow, those gears turning in her head again. It wasn’t often Joel turned down sex, and she knew it. But she gave him the benefit of the doubt, kissing the corner of his lips and telling him to get some sleep, that she’d join him after she showered.
Lying in bed and staring at the ceiling, Joel could just make out the sound of Tess’s low moans, barely audible above the running water. The same sounds he usually coaxed from her lips, but now she was left to her own devices. A sharp wave of nausea washed through Joel’s stomach. For a moment he thought he might become physically ill wondering what—or rather who—was going through her mind as she touched herself.
When Tess emerged from bathroom twenty minutes later, Joel was rolled as far on his side of the bed as space would allow, facing the wall. She must have sensed something was off. She didn’t wrap her body around his as she normally would, but let the distance stretch between them as she settled beneath the blankets.
With each interaction, each exchange of words he witnessed between Tess and Ethan, each time the other man’s eyes ran over his partner, gaze often lingering too long on her chest, Joel could feel the pressure building inside of him. It started in his stomach, rising through his chest and spanning down his arms to clenched fists, a tingling sensation in his fingers.
Until the dam finally broke.
Tess wasn’t even there was Joel threw the first punch. He and Ethan were working on a construction project, along with Tommy and a few others from the commune. The man seemed determined to disagree with Joel on everything he said, and Joel felt what little patience he had left wearing thin. In the end they got into an argument over something minute that wasn’t even about Tess (but both men knew that really it was), and Joel felt his blood steaming until it boiled over. He took a swing, feeling a crack beneath his fist as he broke Ethan’s nose. While Ethan momentarily recoiled from the pain, he didn’t seem all that surprised and was quick to punch back. Both men got a few blows in before Tommy pushed them apart. When Joel wiped the blood from his face, the first thing he saw was Maria’s sharp glare, her lips set in a firm line.
“Go home and clean yourself up, Joel.”
---
Tess sighed, crossing the bathroom tile and taking the cloth from Joel’s hand. She rang it out beneath the faucet, the water stream turning a light pink color, before pressing it back to his cheek.
“Why’d you punch him?”
“Just told you why.”
“I think it’s more than that. You’ve always been fiercely protective, Joel. But you’ve never been the jealous type.”
“I was protecting you.”
“From Ethan? First of all, I’m highly offended you don’t think I could kick his ass in a fight. Second of all, he has a crush on me, so what?” she shrugged. “I made it very clear it’s never gonna happen. You think he would actually hurt me for turning him down?”
“Didn’t know you turned him down,” Joel grumbled.
Tess frowned, placing the cloth in the sink and leaning back against the basin. Her arms crossed over her chest again, but her stance was softer this time. Less accusatory.
“Talk to me, Joel. What’s really going on with you?”
Joel sighed, crossing his own arms, not quite meeting his partner’s eyes.
“I know things are different here in Jackson…but I don’t feel any different. Feels like I’ve been itching for a fight since the moment we arrived here. All that adrenaline from the QZ, from the months trekking across the country, I still feel it, and I don’t know if that’ll ever go away. I know we should be safe here, but I just keep waiting for the rug to be pulled out from underneath us. For someone to be plotting against us, or…”
Tess’s face softened as she reached out to place a hand on his arm.
“Joel, look at me, I know. Of all people, I know exactly how that feels. After almost two decades in the QZ that shit feels ingrained. But we’re not in Boston anymore. I know it’s hard, but we have to try to adjust, to be different—better—people, before they kick out asses out. If not for ourselves, then for Ellie.”
And truthfully, Tess did get it. Joel knew she was the one person who could understand. All the shit he had gone through in the last 17 years, she had been right there going through it with him.
Joel was never good with words, let alone verbalizing his emotions. Instead, he gave Tess a look he hoped said everything he couldn’t.
I’m glad you’re here with me.
I don’t know what I’d do without you.
She gave him a half-smile. Over the years, the two of them had gotten pretty damn good at communicating without words.
Joel cleared his throat, looking away.
“For the record, I know you could kick Ethan’s ass. It’s just, back in Boston…”
Back in Boston, any man who looked Tess up and down, paid her extra attention, truly was a danger. Anyone who seemed overly friendly with her more often than not had ulterior motives. Trade relationships had to be tread carefully. Joel was even weary of Bill and Frank at first, until Tess assured him they had no interest in her—or any woman, for that matter.
Tess could handle herself ninety-five percent of the time. She was a ruthless force in the QZ, and the Boston underground quickly learned to fear her. Still, there were men who fantasized about getting their hands on her if given the chance. Joel was determined never to let that chance happen. If they managed to get to Tess before she put a bullet in their skull, they’d still have Joel’s wrath to face. He did whatever he could to keep her safe.
Joel had killed for Tess. Tess had killed for Joel. The fiercely protective nature that coursed through both their veins was not so easily quelled, even here, even in Jackson. While Tess was less likely to show it with her fists, she had been quick to speak up when anyone challenged Joel on the simplest of things, or anytime she thought he was getting the short end of the stick for commune duties.
“I know.” She reached for his hand, bringing it to her mouth and tracing her lips across his split knuckles. “You don’t have to explain.”
“I don’t think I know how to be anyone else.”
“We’re not defined by our history. I’ve always seen more in you than just a fighter, Joel. And I know you better than anyone.”
“What’s the deal with Ethan, then?” Joel’s tone wasn’t angry—that had fizzled out long ago—but he spoke with a cautious curiosity. “You said you know he has eyes for you and you turned him down, but you keep hanging around him. What’s your angel here, Tess? You trying to get in good with him for…for what?”
Tess rolled her eyes.
“You’re going to find this wildly hard to believe cowboy, but there is no angle. I like hanging out with Ethan on friendly terms. It’s as simple as that. I don’t need to use everyone I meet for something. Not here, not anymore. I told you, we’ve gotta try to be different in this town.”
“Well he certainly wants to be more than friends.”
“And like I said, I told him it’s never gonna happen. Joel, you can’t possibly think—”
Joel’s face didn’t change, his brow still furrowed and jaw set, a devastation he was trying (and failing) to mask gnawing at the pit of his stomach. And all the pieces snapped into place as Tess realized, that’s exactly what Joel thought.
Joel had been terrified of losing Tess since the moment she came into his life. In the QZ, that fear was centered solely around death, imprisonment, or infection. Here in Jackson, after 17 years, Joel was finally relinquishing those fears as the inevitable fate he always believed faced his partner. Now those longstanding fears were replaced by a new idea, that Joel could lose Tess in an entirely different way he never imagined. She would live on in this newfound paradise, with a partner that wasn’t him.
Joel’s life after outbreak day had been hell until he met Tess. She could never fix all his wounds, but she brought some shred of comfort and companionship and hope he had been sorely missing beforehand. The last scenario Joel ever imagined when the world ended was developing feelings for someone. But there she was, in the flesh, the woman he found himself thinking of day in and day out until they finally sealed their bond one drunken night between Joel’s tattered bedsheets. The only relief Joel found in all those years outside of pills and booze was wrapped in Tess’s arms.
He dropped his gaze and cleared his throat. “I’ve never been able to give you what you deserve, Tess.”
“Joel, no, don’t you dare start with that shit. I know who I want, and it’s the same man I’ve wanted for the better part of two decades. It sure as hell isn’t Ethan. You have to know that. Things have been different between you and me here in Jackson, and I mean that in a good way. I like it.” She hooked her fingers in his belt loop, pulling him closer until their hips met. “You’re the only one I trust with my life.” She reached up and began undoing the buttons on her shirt. “The only one I want to touch me.” She took his hand, bringing it up over her bra to cup her breast. “You believe me?”
He felt the intensity of her gaze, all the pressure points where their clothed bodies now met: their thighs, their hips, the lower halves of their stomachs, his hand on her breast, her fingers on his arm. He let the weight of her words sink in, then nodded.
He knew Tess never lied to him, nor did she beat around the bush. She was honest, up front. In such an already uncertain world, she said, there was no place for bullshit between them. If she was going to leave him, if she did have feelings for Ethan, she wouldn’t lie once confronted about it. Joel knew that.
“I believe you, Tessa.”
Her gaze softened and the corner of her lips tugged into a half-smile.
“Good, because I fucking mean it. You’re the only person I want, and it would kill me to lose what we have…lose you. I’d never give you up.”
Joel dropping his hand from her chest to squeeze her fingers between his own.
“Now what do you say we put that pent up energy of yours to better use that socking Ethan in the face, hmm?” She leaned in until her lips were next to his good ear, her breath warm on his skin. “How do you want me, cowboy? I’m all yours.”
Joel felt a shiver run down his spine, going straight to his groin. Tess felt him harden against her hips, and smirked over the affect she knew she had on him with just a few pretty words. She reached down to tease the front of his pants as he struggled to think straight.
“On your knees, on the bed. Wanna get as deep inside you as I can, darlin’.”
“Mmm I like the sound of that,” Tess purred, shrugging her shirt the rest of the way off as Joel reached to unclasp her bra. The rest of their clothes ended up in a pile on the floor as Tess climbed into the middle of their bed on her hands and knees, looking over her shoulder at him with a smirk only she was capable of.
Joel lined himself up behind her, running a hand up her thigh and using his own knees to spread hers further apart. He slapped a hand across her ass. She clenched around nothing as her breath hitched.
“Stop being a tease and get inside me already,” she growled. “I need you.”
He traced his fingers up Tess’s spine, stopping at the spot between her shoulder blades and pressing down, guiding her chest all the way to the bed. She caved easily to his touch, relinquishing the control she usually held in their bedroom. He hiked her hips up further to get a better angel, admiring the arch of her back, the curve of her waist and strong muscles of her thighs he could feel flex beneath his hands. His bruised knuckles protested, but he wasn’t letting go of her anytime soon.
Joel pushed inside of her, both of them moaning at the contact. Tess grasped at the bedsheets, one cheek pressed to the mattress, her hair falling out of its half-bun. He began a steady pace, the pleasure of his motions coursed through her body, running up and down her limbs and gathering in her lower stomach. She threw her hips back to meet his thrusts.
“How’s this?” Joel asked.
“So…fucking…good.” she panted.
They continued this way, the sound of skin-on-skin filling their bedroom, both of them completely consumed in the touch of the other.
Joel knew Tess’s body well, and he soon began to pick out the signs of her impending release: her moans gaining pitch and volume, the pace of her hips turning desperate, the way she clenched around him.
He pulled out, earning a frustrated growl from his partner. She turned, giving him a wild look over his shoulder that, given her position arched this way on the on the bed, reminded Joel of a predatory cat. A lioness, perhaps. With Tess’s reputation, the comparison wasn’t that far off.
Before she had the chance to protest further, he flipped her onto her back, thrusting into her again and earning a pleasurable whine from deep in her throat.
“Wanna see your face when you come,” he huffed, smoothing the lose hair from her face. “You always look so fucking gorgeous, Tessa.”
She keened at his words, tightening further around him to the point where he nearly saw stars. He reached between them to stroke her clit until she came apart, gasping and clinging to him as her body shook.
“Fuck, Joel!”
He bit down on the soft skin of her neck as he followed, burying himself between her hips as he spilled inside her. Tess moaned at the feeling, running her nails down Joel’s back, his name a gasp on her lips.
Joel rolled off of her after a moment, both of them panting to catch their breath, but she pulled him back in for a long, languid kiss.
Tess situated herself around his side, one leg thrown over his waist as he laid on his back, her head on his shoulder and her fingers running through the hair on his chest. He wrapped his own arm around her shoulder.
“I fucking love having sex with you, Joel Miller. You know that?”
“Never get tired of this,” he agreed, stroked a hand over her thigh, up the curve of her ass.
They stayed that way as the minutes passed and their mutual high faded. Joel felt like a fool for every doubting Tess. Her loyalty, her affection, her love. She had voiced these feelings openly and honestly for years, even when he couldn’t bring himself to speak of his own.
“I’m sorry, for today,” he said.
“You don’t need to apologize, especially after you just fucked me like that.”
She didn’t miss the look that earned her.
“Joel,” she propped her chin up on one hand to meet his eyes, “I always feel safer with you around, and I appreciate that. Really, I do. But I need your word you’re gonna trust me to handle my own shit. I need to you promise me you’re not gonna go punching people in the town anymore…unless they really deserve it.”
Joel nodded, running his thumb down her cheek. “Okay.”
“Okay. I know we’re still figuring out this whole new life thing together. But I think we’re doing a decent job, all things considered. Speaking of which, I’m gonna go see if our girl’s home yet.”
Tess pressed one more kiss to Joel’s lips, then untangled herself from his embrace to go clean up in their bathroom. She threw on a t-shirt and a pair of Joel’s sweatpants before heading downstairs.
---
Ellie was eating a snack at the kitchen table—leftover potatoes by the looks of it. Tess couldn’t help herself from pulling the teenager against her chest for a moment and kissing the top of her head.
“Hi Tess.”
“Hey sweetheart. Want anything else to eat?”
Ellie shook her head. “This is good.” She stabbed another potato with her fork. “I heard Joel got into a fight with Ethan. Something to do with you?”
Tess sighed, leaning back against the counter.
“Word travels fast in this town.”
“What happened?”
“Joel…misread the way Ethan and I have been spending time together. Instead of coming to me about it, he let these ideas build in his head until his temper got the best of him.”
“Are you mad at Joel?”
“No, not anymore. We talked about it.”
“Is that what the mark on your neck is from? Talking about it?” Ellie made air quotes.
Tess turned to catch her reflection in the dark kitchen window, a purple crescent left by her partner’s teeth prominent against the pale skin of her neck.
“Damn it, Joel,” she huffed, examining the evidence he had left. Ethan was bound to see it tomorrow. She fought back a smirk when she realized that was probably the point.
“Anyway,” Tess turned back to Ellie, “We both need to go easy on Joel for a while. He’s having a hard time adjusting here, after everything that happened.”
“I get it,” Ellie nodded, “So, you and Ethan…?”
“Are just friends. I would never do anything like that to Joel. He would never do it to me, either. Things are good between us.”
Tess’s words flooded Ellie with a sense of relief. A warm feeling in her chest, like the first sip from the hot cups of tea Maria made her. Confirmation all was well between the closest people she had ever had to parents. She loved them individually, but she loved them as a pair even more.
“We’re partners. And nothing’s going to change that. Okay?”
Ellie nodded. “Okay.”
---
Joel was still beneath the blankets when Tess returned to their room, his breathing steady. She thought he was asleep, until she climbed into bed and he rolled over to face her, reaching out to brush a lose strand of hair from her cheek.
“Little old for marking, aren’t we?” she teased.
“Yeah, sorry about that.” He brushed his thumb over the bruise on her neck. Although his tone made her think he wasn’t all that sorry.
They were quiet for a moment, soaking in the comfortable silence and the warmth emanating from the other’s gaze.
“What were you thinking about,” Joel asked, “last week, in the shower?”
“Hmm, heard that did you?”
“You weren’t exactly quiet, darlin.’”
“You. I was thinking about you.”
“Care to be more specific?”
Tess smirked, the memory coming back to her.
“That time we snuck around after hours at the Tipsy Bison, and you ate me out right there on the bar.”
“Little old for that kinda behavior, don’t you think?”
Tess snorted.
“If I’m being honest, maybe I was hoping you’d hear me in the shower. Change your mind and come fuck me properly.”
“Next time,” Joel promised, pulling her against his chest.