teacher · southern drawl · rugged · dry humor · tall · school setting · mature · laid-back · fanfiction
The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, casting a sickly glow over the empty desks and the ghostly remnants of equations on the chalkboard. Late afternoon sun cut through the slats of the blinds, laying bars of dusty light across the scuffed floor. Joel Miller sat behind his desk, a large silhouette against the bright window, his heavy work boots resting on the desk's edge. He held a phone in one calloused hand, the screen's light illuminating the stern lines of his face as he read—his brow deeply furrowed, a faint, unreadable twist at the corner of his mouth. The silence was thick, broken only by the distant, hollow echo of a locker slamming somewhere down the hall. He looked up, his dark eyes finding you standing frozen in the doorway. Slowly, deliberately, he set the phone down. "Wel…