Live and Let Grow

by Penny Reid

  Live and Let Grow

  Penny Reid

  www.pennyreid.ninja/newsletter/

  Copyright

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, rants, facts, contrivances, and incidents are either the product of the author’s questionable imagination or are used factitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead or undead, events, locales is entirely coincidental if not somewhat disturbing/concerning.

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  Copyright © 2021 by Cipher-Naught; All rights reserved.

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  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, photographed, instagrammed, tweeted, twittered, twatted, tumbled, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without explicit written permission from the author.

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  Made in the United States of America

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  eBook Edition:

  978-1-942874-75-1

  Contents

  Part I

  Part II

  Part III

  Part IV

  About the Author

  Sneak Peek: Homecoming King, Three Kings Book #1

  Other books by Penny Reid

  Part One

  *Alice*

  “I’m doing it!”

  “Alice—”

  “No.” I jabbed a solitary finger in the air. “No, Jackie. You listen to me. Do you hear that?”

  “Hear what?”

  “The determination in my voice? The lack of doubt? That’s the sound of willpower. I’m doing it this time. I’m in it to win it.”

  “Oh, Alice.” Even through the phone I could detect the sympathy, the worry, the compassion, and perhaps just a wee bit of exasperation.

  “Don’t you ‘Oh, Alice’ me. Milo is coming home tomorrow, and I’m ready for him this time. I’m so ready. I wrote a letter.” A letter which I’d already placed on his kitchen table along with a new houseplant—an anthurium, which had heart-shaped leaves. I’d wondered if the symbolism was a little too on the nose, but oh well. Too late now. He loved plants, and I loved him.

  The day had come, and I was seizing it!

  “A letter,” my sister said, like leaving a handwritten love letter wasn’t one of the most revolutionary things someone could do. I felt like a Bolshevik, a real radical, just . . . you know. Less murdery.

  “Yes! A letter!” Spinning in a circle, I took one more look at Milo’s apartment to ensure all was as it should be and then skipped to his bathroom.

  When he left on his months-long work trips, I was his designated plant-watcher and mail picker-upper. I also ran his sinks and flushed his toilets because dry sewer pipes sometimes stank, and prolonged stagnant water is never a good thing.

  Sometimes I’d hang out in the apartment on my own, reading books or working. I loved his apartment. It felt like being with Milo but without constantly having to fight the eruption of butterflies every time our eyes met or we touched. Or he laughed. Or smiled. Or spoke. Or breathed.

  Point was, I felt close to him here, even when he was gone. Large photographic art prints hung on the walls, remote and beautiful places he’d visited and told me about upon his return. His décor, the colors, were all cool and relaxing—sand, pebble gray, stone blue—and no matter how long he’d been gone, the bathroom always smelled faintly of his aftershave.

  “So, you’re leaving a letter, exactly like the last time,” came my sister’s flat voice. She paired it with a sigh.

  “No.” I ceased sniffing the bathroom and flipped off the light. “This is completely different. Like I said, this letter is handwritten. I can’t hack into his email server and delete it from his inbox this time, or hack into his Facebook account and remove it from his personal messages. Or hack into his Instagram, or his—”

  “Yes. I know. I was present each time to watch over your shoulder because you wanted a witness to watch you not look at or read any of his other messages. What night should I keep free so I can watch you do it again.”

  It’s true. My sister had been in the room with me each of the other eleven times. She’d watched me get in, delete my message, and get out. And yes, I realize hacking into anyone’s personal accounts is an extreme violation of privacy, which is why I’d told Milo about each of the hackings.

  I’d say, “Milo, I hacked into your Instagram account last night and deleted a message I sent you. Jackie was there to ensure I didn’t look at anything else.”

  And he’d say, “Okay,” and shrug those broad shoulders, a quizzical-looking smile on his handsome lips, his green, sparkly eyes unconcerned because he trusted me. Then he would offer me wine, which I always turned down. When we spent time together, he was always drinking wine and I was always turning it down, but he continued to offer.

  It’s not that I didn’t like wine. I did. A lot. I drank it when we went out with other people, when it was more than just the two of us. I just didn’t want to drink wine in Milo’s apartment when it was just me and him. Sober, I was honest, but not too honest. Like how some people show their ID when buying alcohol even though the checkout person probably wasn’t going to ask for it? That was me when I drank, but instead of an unsolicited ID, I handed over honesty.

  I supposed, after fifteen years of friendship, Milo’s trust was warranted. Also, he knew I was a weirdo. So . . .

  “So, tonight? Tomorrow?” My sister no longer attempted to conceal her exasperation. “When should I be available for your inevitable panic attack?”

  “You’re not listening, Jackie. I can’t hack a piece of paper.” Picking up my coat from the couch where I’d draped it, I balanced my cell against my shoulder and shoved my arms through the sleeves.

  “Okay, paper. Wow. But what’s going to keep you from ripping it up ten minutes before he arrives? You’ve had a key to his place forever.”

  “Ah-ha!” I pulled my key ring out of my coat pocket and, still balancing the phone between my shoulder and jaw after adjusting for my coat, I unclipped his key. “I’ve thought of everything. You see, after one has chickened out eleven times, outsmarting oneself is difficult, but not impossible.”

  “In English, please.”

  “I’m leaving the note inside his apartment.”

  She made a small sound of weariness. “You’re talking in circles. I don’t see how this makes a difference. You. Have. A. Key.”

  “But I’m slipping the key under his door so I can’t sneak back inside and destroy the letter before he sees it.” While I said the words, I walked out of Milo’s apartment, shut the door, locked the dead bolt, and slipped the key under the door. There. All done. Man, that felt good.

  “This time I’m serious. No backing out. No take-backsies. I might be a coward, but I am a persistent, determined coward.”

  “Okay. Okay. I see you’ve thought this out. But Alice . . .” I heard her shift in her seat or maybe stand. “You are my sister, and you know I love you.”

  “Yes. I know. I love you.” Marching down the hall away from Milo’s door, I stood tall and proud. This was it. This is it! GAH!

  “And you know I think Milo is hot and charming and brilliant.”

  “You think he’s hot?” I paused at the door leading to the stairwell. He lived on the third floor of a twenty-five-floor building. I always took the stairs.

  “Sorry. Sometimes his hot professor vibe is all I see,” my sister said. “He seems like a lovely, lovely person. But he’s also hot.”

  I guess Milo was hot. Actually, no. He was definitely hot.

  But on the list of reasons of why I loved Milo, his hotness was not even in the top ten. He was hilarious, often when I least expected it, stealthy, catching me off guard. He was smart—so smart—and loved to learn. He loved to share what he learned. I never grew tired of
talking to him, and we always had too much to talk about; our evenings together often ran past midnight.

  Also, he liked me for me. He seemed to sincerely enjoy my company and value my opinion. He asked me questions and always seemed interested in my responses, even when it took me a half hour to explain the context for my answer before I gave it.

  And, yes, in eleventh place, he possessed an extremely pleasing exterior: jade green eyes with starbursts of gold, dark black lashes and dark brown curly hair on top of a face with sharp cheekbones and a square jaw. He’d rowed in college and kept up with it, even now owning an ergometer. He also climbed mountains and scaled the sides of cliffs whenever he traveled.

  But it was his smile I loved the most out of all his physical attributes. There was just something about it; when he laughed with abandon, that made me feel like I was floating and my heart had wings. Oh, how I loved his smile.

  “Okay, sure,” I conceded. “I guess Milo is hot. So what?”

  “Therein lies my main concern.”

  I frowned, trying to think through her words and discover the hidden meaning. My sisters—and other people—did this. Ultimately, speaking in code was why my ex-husband and I had divorced. But he wasn’t the weird one, I was. I was the problem. I understood now that humans spoke in code, hoping I would pick up on some underlying message so they wouldn’t have to say whatever it was out loud. It annoyed me to no end. Why can’t people just say what they mean?

  “Are you saying you think he’s too hot for me?” I switched my phone from my right hand to my left.

  “No. I think he’s too hot for anyone. Hot guys like Dr. Milo Manganiello are genetically incapable of relationships.”

  “Genetically incapable?”

  “Yes. It’s a defect in their DNA.”

  “Ha ha.” She had to be joking. I pushed open the stairwell door.

  “Okay. Listen to me. Take Will, for instance.”

  “What does Will have to do with anything?” My fingers skimmed over the rail as I descended. My ex-husband and I got along fine whenever we crossed paths, which wasn’t often. But it was unavoidable since we worked for the same university.

  “Will is super hot, always has been. And why did you and he get a divorce? Because he couldn’t stop having sex with—”

  “So what?” I wanted to argue with Jackie, tell her that the real reason for our split was because Will spoke in code and I didn’t. Communication had been our downfall. His infidelity was just the symptom.

  “So I’ve dated hot guys before too. I just broke up with a hot guy. It’s always the same, isn’t it? And there are more red flags than just what Milo looks like. He’s almost forty, and he’s never been married.”

  My feet stalled on the first landing and I leaned my shoulder against the wall. “You’re thirty-eight, and you’ve never been married.”

  “It’s different for women and you know it. When was the last time he had a girlfriend?”

  “A girlfriend?” My voice cracked. I noticed a chip of paint on the wall. I turned away from it.

  “Doesn’t he tell you about all his girlfriends?” she asked, even though she already knew the answer.

  “He doesn’t date, Jackie. But you know that already. And you know why. With all his traveling and work, it doesn’t make sense.”

  “Yes. You’re right. Milo dating doesn’t make sense, especially when he has you there, watering his plants and waiting for him whenever he comes home.” A growly edge entered her voice. “You don’t think he’s hooking up with people on these trips? Come on. Hot professor traveling the world? You are naïve, but you can’t be that naïve.”

  A sick feeling settled in my stomach. “I guess I am that naïve,” I admitted quietly, not needing to contemplate the level of my naïveté.

  Not only was I naïve, I was a sucker, gullible in the extreme. I took things too literally; I knew this about myself. It was why—after so many painful experiences in my twenties—I avoided making new friends and remained suspicious and guarded with new people for years before trusting them. But after so many years of friendship, I didn’t think I needed to be on guard with Milo.

  In the past, even during my marriage to Will, when I’d check in and ask Milo if he was seeing anyone, he’d say, “You know I don’t have time for relationships,” and then he’d make a face.

  But that wasn’t really an answer, was it? Maybe that was code for something else? But no. Milo didn’t use code with me. He was one of the few people I could count on to just say what he meant.

  “All I’m saying is, think this through,” she said. “You two are good friends. You know he doesn’t date. And you’re going to confess that you love him? Do you want to lose him as a friend?”

  “Of course not.” I rubbed my chest with my fingertips. The sick feeling had spread to my lungs. I swallowed around something rough and thick, crossing the arm not attached to the phone over my stomach. “Why didn’t you say something before now? You know how I—you know how I’ve felt about him for years.”

  My sister must’ve been standing because I heard footsteps and then a click, like a door closed. “I didn’t say anything at first—none of us did—because he was a good friend to you when you were going through your divorce.”

  I nodded, biting the inside of my lip. Milo and I had met in college. He’d been a physics grad student and I’d been a computer science undergrad. He’d needed a tutor for a programming class, and I was a volunteer with the comp sci department. Tutoring looked good on grad school applications, but I also volunteered because it was one of the only—and most effective—ways I’d been able to make friends in college.

  Milo and I did become friends. Good friends. Will and I were engaged at the time, but Will went to school on the West Coast. Milo and I would go out for coffee, go out to dinner, be each other’s friend-date to parties. He’d been at my wedding to Will and, ten years later, he’d taken me out to dinner the night my divorce had been finalized. I wanted to think, first and foremost, Milo Manganiello and I would always be friends.

  “I was honestly really impressed with him after your divorce, keeping you company, helping you stay busy, going on that trip with you to Montreal. He was such a sweetheart.”

  Now I made a sound of distress, and my eyes lifted to the stairway door I’d just passed through, one landing up. “Then why are you saying he’s a jerk now?”

  “No. I didn’t say hot guys are jerks, I’m telling you they’re rarely, if ever, monogamous. And as long as they’re upfront about it, then that’s not jerky. But we’re getting off topic. The reason I never said anything after the divorce is because you two were really good friends, and you needed a good friend. But then you started . . .”

  “What?”

  “You started having feelings for him, or saying you did, and I thought that was great. You needed to move past your ex. Will had been your high school boyfriend, your college boyfriend, and then your husband. You’ve never been with anyone but him. Showing interest in Milo was a good thing . . . two years ago.”

  “I was with Will for almost seventeen years. Two years doesn’t seem like such a long time to me.”

  “Except you’re thirty-six now, and you’ve only had one relationship. You’ve been stuck on this one guy for two years. Haven’t you wasted enough of your life? Don’t you want to get out there and start living?”

  “That’s why I wrote the letter on paper this time.” I gestured wildly to nothing. “I’m trying to—I need to tell him how I feel.”

  “Why?”

  “You know why.”

  “Because you’re in love with him? Because you won’t give anyone else a chance? Because your life—a life you fought hard for—is slipping away because you can’t get over a guy who is never going to see you as anything but a really good friend?”

  Ugh. Now my stomach hurt. “You don’t know that.”

  “No, I don’t. But I’ve been through heartbreak, more than once, and it sucks. You’ve been through an
epic heartbreak too. Think of what happened with Will. If I can protect you from that, from the destruction of another unrequited love with a hot guy, I will.” She sighed, sounding tired. “So before you plant the letter and slip the key under his door, think about this. REALLY think about it. You two are best friends. Best friends for fifteen years.”

  “Yes. I know. And you know I love him.”

  “Yes. He also clearly loves you too. As. A. Friend.”

  “Or he just needs a little push?” I asked hopefully.

  “Or he’s an almost-forty, hot professor in his prime who travels all over the world and isn’t ever going to be ready to settle down, even with you. And you’re fucking amazing! It’s not you. It’s him.”

  “Jac—”

  “Hasn’t he told you over and over that he doesn’t do relationships? Now you’re going to ask him to try with you? No, girl. No. Don’t you believe if Milo had feelings for you—any romantic feelings whatsoever—he would’ve brought them up by now?”

  “Ugh, that’s another good point.” My stomach filled with dread. Great. Now I have a doom stomachache.

  “And what about all the times he’s tried to set you up with his friends since your divorce?”

  I grimaced, the hand holding my stomach moving to my forehead. “He hasn’t tried to set me up, he’s—” I didn’t know what to call it.

  Milo had never suggested I date any of his friends. Not exactly. More like, he’d say, “Are you open to dating someone yet?” and I’d say, “I don’t think so.” And he’d say, “Promise me you’ll let me know if you’re ever interested, I’ll set you up.”

  I would always feel a little squicky afterward, off-balance, confused. And sad. Really sad. I think Milo assumed I wasn’t yet ready to get back out there after the divorce. Little did he know I’d never wanted to “get back out there” because I was head over heels for him.