by Penny Reid
I stared at him, openly assessing. He stared at me, looking guarded. When this continued for many seconds, I nodded, my stomach sinking.
“Okay, okay. If you’re okay, then I guess I’ll be going. Do you want the tacos?”
Milo’s stare grew less guarded and more . . . something else. Something I couldn’t define. Distracted maybe? Frustrated? It was a look I didn’t recognize, so I waited for his answer.
At length, he sighed loudly and stepped back from the door. “Come in, Alice. We’ll have tacos.”
I clutched the bag to my chest protectively. “Are you sure? I don’t want to force my tacos on you. I did not come here to make you eat unwanted tacos.”
The side of his mouth curved, just the slightest fraction of an inch, and his handsome green eyes twinkled at me, just the slightest fraction of twinkle. But the sight made my heart go flip-flop and my sinking stomach reverse course.
“I’m starving, and I want your tacos. I want your tacos real bad.”
I grinned, resisting the urge to squeee. Instead I nodded and stepped into Milo’s apartment. He took the bag, turning away and crossing to the kitchen table as I closed the door.
“Do you want something to drink?” He placed the bag on the table next to a big glass of water. “Tea? Water? Wine?”
The word wine came out weird—or at least it sounded weird to me—all sardonic and brittle, like wine was code for something else.
Maybe that’s why I said, “Yeah. Sure. I’ll take some wine.”
Milo glanced at me over his shoulder, a single eyebrow raised. “Really?”
“Yes, really.” I smiled in spite of his weirdness. It was such a relief to see Milo, spend time with him, be near him. If he wanted to be weird, I’d let him be weird.
“Okay.” He said the word haltingly, his eyebrow lift persisting, and crossed to the sideboard where he had a tabletop wine rack.
Meanwhile, I watched him move. I watched his long fingers pull a bottle from the rack. I watched his strong hands hold it. I watched his dark curly hair fall over his forehead and his achingly handsome profile as he studied the label.
Who am I kidding? I’m not watching, I’m admiring. I might even be lusting.
And I couldn’t stop. My eyes traveled over his broad shoulders, his bared bicep and arm, his tapered waist and hip and long, lean legs. Mouth suddenly dry, I wished I’d asked for water. But it was too late. Milo had already started opening the bottle, cutting away the foil at the top.
I tore my gaze away, telling myself I hadn’t come here to ogle him, and forced my attention to survey the apartment. It was just the same, just the—
“Wait a minute.” I frowned, my head turning toward the patio door, the entryway table, the corner of the living room. “Where are all your plants?”
Milo’s back straightened and he rolled his shoulders, momentarily pausing his progress with the wine bottle, but he didn’t look at me. “I—uh—I gave them away.”
“You . . .” All the breath left my lungs, forced out. He’d knocked the wind out of me.
He snuck a quick look in my direction, the line of his mouth stern. “Yes. I gave them away. All of them.”
“I see,” I said weakly, my eyes dropping to the floor, my brain rioting. “I see.”
But I didn’t see.
I’d given him those plants. He’d said he loved them. He’d said he loved that they reminded him of me. He’d said he would always take care of them. And he’d given them away?
I couldn’t think past this news, which was probably why I blurted, “Why would you do that?”
Milo chuckled, shaking his head. It was not a friendly sound, and it confused me. “Come on, Alice. We both know it was never going to happen.”
This sounded like more code. “What wasn’t going to happen?”
“I was never—am never—” He waved a hand in the air, as though looking for the right words. “I’m never going to be good at taking care of houseplants. It was time to, you know, face reality.”
More and more and more code. But unlike computer code, this was a cipher I couldn’t solve. “So you gave them away? To whom?”
“Carly.”
“Carly?” I blinked rapidly. “Do I know her?”
“You don’t know all my friends.” He shrugged, the words dismissive.
I continued staring at him, watching him. This time not with admiration but with worry. An odd, unpleasant sensation took up residence in my stomach. Something was wrong.
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I'm fine. You want to unpack the food?” His voice flat, he finished uncorking the bottle and reached for two glasses, setting them on the sideboard. They were huge, and he filled them almost to the top.
“Oh no.” I stepped forward, walking to the table. “Milo, that’s too much for me. If I drink all that, I’ll have to stay the night.”
“You know you can stay any time you want.” He walked around the table to the kitchen, throwing away the cork and foil while saying something under his breath I didn't catch.
“What was that?” I opened the bag of tacos. Oddly, I was no longer hungry.
“Unless your boyfriend minds,” he said much louder and firmer, nearly a shout.
“My boyfriend?” I didn’t have a boyfriend. Why would he think I have a boyfriend?
Not looking at me, he returned to the sideboard and picked up the wineglasses, placing them on the table. “Yes. You know, your date.”
My date . . .? I didn’t have a date tonight. I’d decided to stop all that nonsense, but Milo knew nothing about that since we hadn’t talked in months. “I don’t have a date.”
He claimed his seat at the head of the table, accepting the wrapped taco I held without meeting my eyes. “I’m talking about the guy you were dating after I got back from Nepal.”
“Oh! Peter?” I grimaced. That was so long ago. “Blah. No. He's not my boyfriend.”
“Oh?” He peered at me while unwrapping his dinner.
“No. No, we just went on the one date and then he wouldn’t leave me alone.” Going through the motions, I took the chair next to his and unwrapped my taco, even though I had no plans to eat it. “I actually had to get campus police involved. It was an unpleasant experience.”
Milo grew very still, and his stillness had me glancing at him.
“Just the one date?”
"Yes.”
His eyes moved over me, his eyebrows pulling together. “And then he stalked you?”
“No. Not stalk. Not really.” I leaned back in my seat and crossed my arms, thinking back over my last few months. “More like, he kept coming to my office even after I told him I was no longer interested, wanting to chat and saying we should be friends. When I made it clear I didn’t want to be friends, he kept doing it anyway. And then it got awkward when he followed me as I met a different date and then watched me the whole night from his table across the restaurant.”
“Wait. Wait a minute.” Milo held up a hand and scrunched his face, making me think I'd confused him. “He stalked you?”
I grimaced. “No. More like hovered, unwelcome, in a creepy fashion.”
“Stalked.”
Waving away the word, I sighed. “Whatever. Anyway, that’s done. He’s stopped and all other dating is at an end.”
“Other dating?”
“Yes.” I chuckled. “It’s been an interesting few months, and there have been a lot of dates, all bad. Some horrifying.”
“What do you mean a lot of dates?”
“Jackie helped me set up an online dating profile and I went on a lot of dates.” I picked up my wineglass and watched him stare at me over the rim as I took a sip. That odd, unpleasant feeling in my stomach unfurled and then swirled, making the wine taste sour. “I don't really want to talk about it, and it's irrelevant now anyway.”
“What do you mean irrelevant? Why is it irrelevant?” Milo moved to the edge of his seat, having no problem making eye contact now. In fact, he
seemed engrossed. “Did you . . . find someone?”
“No. Not at all. And that's why it's irrelevant.” I set the wineglass on the table. “I've decided you have the right philosophy on these matters.”
He squinted, his eyes moving back and forth like he was rummaging through his brain, searching for his philosophy.
“I no longer believe in relationships,” I filled in, giving my shoulders a little shrug.
Everything about him went still again, eerily still, and he looked at me. He just simply looked.
I glanced at him, then away, then at him again. I reached for and took another sip of my wine. I set the glass on the table, nudging it farther away from me with my fingers. His look turned into another stare as he sat on the edge of his seat, his eyes narrowed, his lips parted as though words were gathering on the tip of his tongue.
He held so still and stared at me for so long, I felt prompted to ask again, "Are you sure you're okay?"
He sighed, closing his eyes as though exhausted, and his breathing seemed to grow labored. “Actually, no. I'm not okay. I'm not okay.” He leaned back in the chair and covered his face with both hands. It took me a minute to realize that his shoulders were shaking, and another few seconds to determine if he was laughing or crying.
“Are . . . are you laughing?”
“Oh yes.” He nodded, his hands still covering his face. “I am laughing.”
I felt my eyebrows pull together. “Did I do something funny?”
His hands slid away, he gathered a slow, deep breath, lifted his eyes to mine, and glared. I flinched. He looked mad. Really mad. His jaw ticked and his usually smiling lips were curved in an unhappy frown.
“Alice,” he said.
Now I held very still. “Milo.”
“I love you.”
I studied him, pressing my lips together as I considered what he might mean by this statement. “You love me,” I repeated, turning the words over and over, another coded message.
Usually, in ye times of old, I wouldn't have done this with Milo. He was the one person I'd never had to do this with. But tonight he was acting strange, and he wasn’t okay but kept insisting he was, and I felt like secret messages were everywhere.
He nodded, still looking positively irate.
“I . . . love you . . . too,” I said. We'd never said this to each other before. Some friends did, but it was a first for us. And it wasn't a lie to say I loved him. I did.
My response only seemed to infuriate him further, and he grit his teeth. “No, Alice.”
“Yes, Milo.” Abruptly, I became aware that I was nodding and likely had been for a while. So I put a stop to that.
Milo continued to glare, blinking rapidly, as if I'd blown dust in his eyes or he was absorbing some bad news. At least that's what I thought the look on his face meant.
“As a friend?” he ground out, making the word friend sound like it really meant toxic waste which only served to further baffle me.
“What’s wrong with being friends?” I felt my head begin to move in a nod and quickly put a stop to it.
He flinched, seemed to struggle around a swallow for a moment, and leaned forward again, placing his forearm and hand on the table, his fingers just two inches from my wineglass, which he stared at, and said, “What if I told you that’s not what I want?”
He doesn’t want to be my friend? Was that what this was all about? Was that why he’d ghosted me? I was going to cry. I could feel it.
Don’t cry.
Before I could sort myself out, he asked, “What if I told you I'm in love with you?"
I recoiled at the blunt force of his hypothetical question, and my frown was immediate. Something in the vicinity of my chest ached—my heart—and my ears rang. We regarded each other, and the ache in my heart became a hurt, a wound. Now I was the one breathing hard.
“What the hell is going on?” I demanded.
“Alice—”
“Are you making fun of me?”
He shook his head, some of the anger dissolving, leaving his features pained. “I'm in love with you, Alice.”
I recoiled again, closing my eyes because I couldn't look at him right now and make my body move. “Very funny, Milo,” I mumbled, standing and blindly walking to the vicinity of the door. “Forget it. Forget I came over. You can keep the tacos.”
I heard his chair scrape against the floor and his footsteps follow before I heard his raised voice close behind. “Why would you doubt it? How could I be any more obvious?”
“Oh, I don't know. You could always ask me on a date.” I tried to keep my voice light, but I could feel tears gathering behind my eyes. “But that’s right. You don’t do relationships.”
Had he found out? Did I leave a page of my letter behind? Why would he do this to me?
His hand caught mine, stopping me, and I tore it out of his grip, spinning to face him as an uncomfortable rush of heat pulsed through my body. “Don't touch me.”
He held his hands up, taking just a half step back. He was no longer glaring, yet the intensity of his stare hadn't lessened. “Maybe this isn't something you want to hear, and maybe I'm ruining our friendship, and I don't want to do that. But I can't do this anymore.”
“Do what?”
“Pretend I don't want more—” His eyes dropped to my lips, lowered to my neck, chest, stomach before he slammed them shut. “So much more with you.” His eyes opened and hooked into mine. “I'm—I have been—in love with you for years. Before you and Will divorced. Hell, before you got married. And I thought—I hoped—” He stopped himself, swallowing thickly, his breath fast and shallow, his eyes darting between mine.
A crack of doubt opened up inside me, that maybe he was telling the truth?
Milo took another step back. “After you and Will split, you needed time, to heal and figure things out. And so I waited. I waited for you to be ready to date. And I waited for you. But—I know that's not fair, to put that on you. And—fuck, I'm messing this up.”
He speared his hair with his fingers, his face contorting. And that crack of doubt widened into possibility.
“What are you saying to me?” I gained the step he'd retreated.
“I adore you. I think about you all the time. Being with no one, it hasn't been a hardship because I'd rather have a part of you then a whole of someone else. I’m in love with you and I want us to be together. I want you to give me a chance.”
A shaking breath burst out of me and I covered my mouth, closing my eyes, afraid to look at him or speak or move because how could this possibly be happening? How could this be real?
“I'm sorry I was a dick tonight,” he went on. “I was a giant, colossal, monster dick. I'm sorry. Please, please forgive me. No matter what you decide, if things can go back to the way they were and you can forget about this, if we can pretend it never happened, I would be fine with that. I would. I just want to—I want to know you, whatever that means for you.”
How many times? How many times had I thought about this moment? Except I’d been the one spilling my guts. “I can’t believe this is really happening.”
“Are you . . . Have I ruined everything?”
“No!” I laughed even though my eyes were leaking, the emotions of the moment overwhelming, which made my voice unsteady. “No. Not at all. You’re perfect.”
I heard his breath hitch. I felt him move closer, his hands grabbing mine and pulling them away from my face.
“Alice.” My name was a rough whisper, like it was torn from him, and in the next moment I stiffened because his lips brushed against mine. “God. Alice. Kiss me.”
A burst of heat, a shock, pushed outward against my skin and I held my breath, my chin lifting an inch, searching, seeking. But an inch was all that was necessary for our mouths to meet, and a tremor went through me at the contact. He groaned, like the feel of my lips hurt, like it was torture. His arms surrounded me, holding me tight; his hands grabbed fistfuls of my shirt; and his tongue swept out to test the s
eam of my lips.
Immediately, I opened to him, for him. Not content with fabric, I filled my hands with him, his body. I touched what I’d so desperately admired earlier, mindlessly sliding my fingers under his exercise shirt to caress the shape and texture of his skin while he devoured me with teeth and tongue, hot and searching, savoring yet frantic, like he expected me to pull away, like he expected this to end.
I didn’t become aware that we were walking until my back hit a wall and he rocked his hips against mine, a rhythmic movement that made me gasp, the hard length of him not quite where I needed.
“Milo!”
“I need you.” His mouth trailed down my neck, kissing, nipping, sucking, tasting. His arms loosened as his hands mimicked mine, delving under my shirt to slide across my bare skin, lifting my shirt. “God, Alice. I need you so much.”
Finally, finally, nothing about his words sounded like a puzzle or a code for me to break. They may have been spoken unintentionally, mindlessly, but they were real, raw, honest, and they stole my breath.
“Touch me,” he demanded on a growl, capturing my hand and bringing it to the front of his shorts.
I did. I touched him. I stroked him through the thin layers of fabric, and he shuddered. He sucked in a shaky breath, pressing himself into my hand, lifting his chin to gaze into my eyes. Milo’s typically jade green eyes were now emerald flames, and the exposed desire felt almost violent, a torrent of suppressed yearning that strangled me.
How had I not seen it before now? How had he hidden himself from me so completely? And why had he never told me?
I wanted to ask the questions circling around my head, but Milo had captured my mouth again, his kiss harder this time, hungry, and we were moving again. Pulling me from the wall, his hands at my thighs, hitching the hem of my skirt, his fingers hooked into my underwear. He steered us into his bedroom, kissing me, his tongue in my mouth an expert invasion, making me wild. I was surprised when the back of my knees hit the bed, and as we separated, as I fell backward, he pulled off my shirt in one fluid movement. His soon followed, then his shorts, and I lifted onto my elbows to watch him, to see him.
My mouth flooded with saliva, my eyes trailing over his gorgeous body. So beautiful. He was—everywhere—beauty. A single lamp on the nightstand cast his strong, lean, muscular body in shadowy, sharp relief as he reached for and rolled on a condom. I swallowed, my heart racing, but I wasn’t given long to admire him before he moved above me, his eyes on mine, no longer merely hungry but ravenous.