When Calvin finally puts his phone away, he gives Miles an odd look. “Are you really that excited because they’re coming?”
“Yes, absolutely. Also, because of this!” Miles points at the screen.There are two songs by the band, “Garden”and “Someone To You.” Calvin looks horrified when he sees it.
“Please don’t choose one of those.”
“I totally am. Let’s sing ‘Garden.’” He loves this song because it reminds him of Mom’s garden, and also because it’s the band’s debut song. It was the first thing Miles ever heard from them.
Calvin tries to grab the remote from him. It startles Miles, but he’s not about to let Calvin win this, and he cackles as he attempts to get away. Calvin shoves him, anddear god, how’s he so fucking strong?And the air is knocked out of Miles as he falls back against the couch.
“What the hell?” Miles wheezes. He holds the remote tightly against his chest as if it were a prized possession and scrambles to break free once more. Scowling, Calvin throws a leg over Miles and digs his knee in the space between Miles’s hip and the couch, and pins him down by the shoulders. Miles’s brain short-circuits. He squeaks, “It’s only a song!”
“Not that one,” Calvin says, face red. When Calvin settles his weight on his lap, he makes a surprised noise and goes limp.
Miles gives up and lets him take the stupid remote, shoving it at him.
Smirking, Calvin lets go of Miles’s shoulders so that he can take the remote, and sits up in the process. His hips shift against Miles’s and, caught off-guard, Miles makes an embarrassing sound that’s somewhere between a sigh and a groan.
That finally gets Calvin to realize that he’s straddling him, and for a moment, he looks as horrified as Miles feels.
Miles wishes he’d get off him, but instead, Calvin stays put andhis expression melts into something much darker. It makes Miles’s breath get stuck in his throat.
There’s something here that Miles can’t explain, a heavy tension in the air, and the TV continues to play that nameless tune as Miles watches the lights flicker over Calvin’s face.
He doesn’t miss the way Calvin’s gaze drifts down to his lips. Then it snaps back up to meet his stare, and Calvin’s jaw clenches.
“Um,” Miles says, feeling dizzy and overwhelmed, especially with how the scent of Calvin’s vanilla soaped skin floods his senses. Calvin is a warm weight on his lap and Miles is about to have a really embarrassing problem in his pants if he doesn’t move. And he’s not sure their friendship can survive that. “Can you get off me?”
Calvin climbs off him, and Miles doesn’t say anything as he sits up and blinks at the tv screen. The couch dips as Calvin moves to the furthest edge, seemingly trying to put as much distance as he can between them.
“Sorry,” Calvin mumbles.
Miles is kind of afraid he’ll tackle him again if he says something wrong. “No, you’re good. That was a totally normal reaction.”
He gets a glare in return.
A knock jolts both of them. “Five more minutes,” says the staff, his voice muffled through the door.
There’s silence, and Miles still isn’t sure what happened here. He looks at Calvin, then at the screen, then back at Calvin. When he can’t hold it in anymore, Miles wheezes. “I can’t believe you tried to murder me over your own song.”
“Shut up.” The corner of Calvin’s mouth twitches. “We might aswell go.”
“Wait, no, tell me. What was that about?”
Calvin doesn’t answer, simply takes the gardening gloves from the table and throws them at him.
***
It’s not until much later that night, when Miles is alone in his childhood bedroom, that he attempts to organize his steadily growing jumble of thoughts.
Calvin’s a puzzle he’s constantly trying to figure out. He confuses him to no end. Miles had even forgotten to actually show him the sketches he made for his commission, which was the reason they were supposed to meet up tonight.
He’s listened to him sing so many times, and he’s heard their songs on loop for years. It doesn’t make sense to Miles why Calvin would react the way he did—literally pinning him down and straddling him, just to stop him from listening to their debut song. Miles can’t forget the memory of it—the weight on his lap, the sound of his breath, how his gaze had dropped to Miles’s lips as if he could have kissed him if he asked.
In a moment of clarity, Miles realizes that he’s never wanted to kiss someone so badly as much as he wanted to kiss Calvin at that moment.
As if his world has been turned upside-down, Miles also realizes that he wants more than just to kiss him. He wants things beyond that, such as romance anddates.He wants to go on more car trips,hang out in the roof garden, and do karaoke again. He’d watch a stupidly boring ocean documentary with Calvin, just to spend more time with him.
And, earlier, if Calvin had shifted, even slightly—if he had leaned down, or if Miles had lifted himself on his elbows and inched closer? If Miles had put a hand on his nape and brushed his lips against his jaw? He wonders what sounds Calvin would have made if he had let Miles do all that.
