“You’rebothhandsome young men,” she said and he gave her a questioning look as he folded a slice and took a large bite and chewed, waiting for her to elaborate. “You’re even more oblivious than your father,” she eventually muttered.
“I like being oblivious. The less I know, the less trouble I can get in.”
She cleared her throat suggestively. “Is there a chance you could be attracted to each other?” she asked quietly.
Milo groaned as he dropped the slice on his plate. “Mom!” he complained. “We don’t have that kind of relationship and you know how much romantic stuff and bodies weird me out.”
Allbodies weirded Milo out, including his own. He didn’t mind as much when it was someone he knew well, like Luna, his parents, or the Camerons, but Milo felt too nervous and too aware of himself when strange people entered his personal space. He had an imaginary force field and Milo was constantly gauging the distances between his body and limbs and the nearest person.
The only thing that weirded him out more was sex. Milo wantednothingto do with sex and didn’t understand why humans hadn’t evolved and lost the urge to procreate. He had never felt the urge himself and firmly believed that other people’s bodies were none of his business.
“Okay! I was just wondering!”
“Don’t,” Milo said and was about to follow Luna when Claire humphed thoughtfully.
“He could be the perfect catch for someone like you, if you think about it.”
Milo slouched and sighed down at his plate, wishing he was already in the tent and eating with Luna. “Why would I?” His dads had given him “the talk” when he was fourteen and explained that sex and masturbation were healthy and normal activities and that he could ask them anything. But Milo hadn’twanted to ask, believing thathehad evolved and that it was all moot because he was never going to try it. “The perfect catch makes him sound like a fancy fish,” he said under his breath, making Claire snort.
“He’s not a catch because of the title. The von Hessens are a great family and Elio is kind of like a rock star.”
“Exactly. Why would he be interested in an anxious nerd like me? I’m pretty sure he picked me because he feels sorry for me,” Milo said, then ducked and ran before she could swat the back of his head.
“You better take that back!” Claire shouted, which was hilarious to Luna.
“Scoot over and find something for us to watch.” The tent was made from four king-sized sheets, clothes pinned together and suspended from the entertainment center and over the back of the sofa so they could watch television and play video games. Luna’s lights were plugged in and swagged from the pastel floral and striped ceiling. It was like a fairy dream fort and Milo’s favorite place in the world.
Thanks to Claire, Milo was too distracted to play a video game.
Could he have more in common with Elio and could they be more than coworkers and academic peers? Friends seemed possible but a romantic or intimate relationship? Milo couldn’t picture anything beyond platonic friendship, everything else was so foreign and mysterious to him. Mostly because he had never cared and got nervous whenever someone who wasn’t his parents or Luna entered his orbit.
He wasn’t as nervous around Elio anymore and found that helikedwhen they were working at the touchscreen together or comparing notes. Elio’s appearance didn’t really register, except when Milo caught himself studying a peek of a tattoo he hadn’t seen before. But when he really thought about Elio’s featuresand his build, Milo did like them... Particularly Elio’s face. He “talked” with his hands and his expressions a lot and he had beautiful brown eyes. Milo liked that he rarely had to guess what Elio was thinking.
Milo was less curious about the act of being intimate, more intrigued at the idea of being intimatewithElio. The odds of Elio finding Milo desirable were probably nil. But the idea of exploring something new with Elio was fascinating to Milo—on a purely scientific level, of course—and didn’t seem as intimidating or strange as it did with other people.
That alone was a huge development for Milo and one that he would need to explore on his own more before involving anyone else, despite his mother’s hopes and schemes.
Seven
Motion.
Be it on a train, riding his skateboard, or falling or flying through the air, nothing soothed Elio more than the physical experience and expression of motion. It was why he couldn’t work at a desk or sit still and why he preferred to hop on a train or his board when his thoughts lingered somewhere heavy or he was stuck on a problem.
Riding his skateboard on the pavement in Manhattan was a nightmare, so Elio was on a train, attempting to ground himself in a podcast as the rocking of the car lulled his restless nerves. He ate a piece of pizza as he made a half-hearted attempt to focus on a discussion about peer review in the age of artificial intelligence. Unlike many of his peers, Elio loathed the rise of artificial intelligence and distrusted it. Computers weren’t smarter than the smartest people or they would have already solved the problems scientists like him toiled over. Algorithms couldn’t analyze and reason past data sets the way humans could, therefore were bound to be fallible.
The banter was dry and the observations were recycled and stale so Elio’s thoughts meandered to Milo and how much had changed at Starlight since they began their research on P versus NP. Coming into the institute was less of a chore and Elio was happier, now that they had a worthwhile project and less exposure to the rest of the Computational Astrophysics department.
Milo was finally thriving and Elio’s moods were rarely heavy lately but he was having a hard time focusing in his new office or at the Olympia. He had no idea why, but Matteo’s wish for Elio to find romantic and sexual bliss and Leo’s “observations” about Milo had a destabilizing effect. More than that, they had thrown Elio’s world out of orbit, if he was being academic and honest about the matter.
Sex wasusuallythe last thing Elio thought about and only perked his interest when he was bored and uninspired with his work. That rarely happened but when it did, Elio’s social antenna would flicker back to life and if he detected interest and the conditions were right, he would engage. For Elio, the basic chemistry and simple mechanics of sex held no mystery and he found little inspiration in the brief euphoria of an orgasm.
He had been confounded by his brothers’ fixations with sex, particularly Theo’s. But Elio had been content to observe from a distance and experience romance vicariously through them. Had Matteo and Leo cursed Elio? Was he too much like his father and brothers? Or were his useless, primitive instincts and hormones finally rearing their heads?
Why now and why with Milo Ashby?
Coming to Manhattan was supposed to be the turning point but every time Elio cleared one hurdle, another presented itself and threatened to derail his progress. And it wasn’t lost on Elio that after railing about Starlight and his peers there being jokes,hewas the one who couldn’t pull his head out of his arse and had deeply unprofessional thoughts about his new project partner.
Elio’s self-flagellation was interrupted when he heard an aggressive “Come on, baby!”
