At some point, my feet begin moving us backward, pulling Milo along with me as if our lips are magnets. We walk toward the couch in the living room, bumping into a chair, the corner of the arched entryway, and the coffee table on our way as our kiss deepens and hands begin to wander.
He lays me down on the powder-blue plaid couch my parents have had as long as I can remember and climbs over me, supporting his weight with his forearm next to my shoulder. He removes his hood, tosses his cap across the room, and dives back in for more.
I feel myself getting lost in our kiss, further approaching a dizzying, feverish pitch when Milo moves to cup my breast in his palm and grinds his hips against me, the thin layer of my leggings doingnothingto shield me from his erection. The need I feel for him between my legs grows and builds and swells as he continues pressing into me, kissing me so hard my jaw begins to ache.
That is when I open my eyes and see Milo’s face: his pinchedbrows furrowed by tension, the reddened skin under his eyes, reminding me that he’s been rubbing tears away. I decide I want to be his friend tonight, more than anything else.
“Milo,” I say, leaning back an inch to catch my breath. I press my forehead to his, pushing against him so he has to come back to me from that mindless, numbing oblivion I’d almost joined him in. “Hey,” I say alongside panted breaths.
“Sorry, did you need to stop?” He blinks rapidly, wide-eyed in between as he scans my face.
“No, no, sorry,” I say as he releases a sigh of relief. “But, yeah, I think we should…”
“I’m not following.” Milo sits up, turning to sit on the couch with one of my legs behind his back and the other in his lap. “Did I do something wrong?” he asks, voice defeated as he runs a hand through his hair.
I pull my leg out from behind him, moving to go on my knees next to his lap. “No,” I tell him, brushing a hand over his jaw and ear. By the time my hand rests on the nape of his neck, he’s turned to face me. “I just…I can tell something is bothering you.”
He scoffs. “I told you…It was a shitty day.”
I swallow back my reaction to his sharp-edged tone.
“Sorry,fuck,sorry. I should go,” Milo says, patting my wrist as if he wants me to let him leave.
A newfound, bold determination floods my chest. “Nu-uh,” I say, climbing into his lap to straddle him. “You, sir, are not going anywhere. You told me we were going to communicate, remember?”
“I remember,” he says, running a hand down his face before he gingerly places it on my thigh.
“So? Talk.”
“Like this?” Milo’s eyes flick to the little space between us. “You’ve made it hard to focus.”
“Well, I can get off you—” I move to lift a leg off of him.
“Whoa, let’s not get hasty,” he says, tightening his hold on both of my thighs as a small smirk pulls at his lips.
“C’mon, Kablukov. Talk to me,” I command, grabbing hold of his hoodie’s strings and wrapping them around my fists.
“I had…” He looks up to the ceiling, letting his head fall onto the back of the couch. “I had a fight with my brother, I guess.”
“About what?”
“Prue, I…” He fixes his gaze to mine, pleading. “It’s heavy shit and I’m…” He sighs, deeply. “Iwantto tell you, but—”
I press a chaste kiss to his lips, cutting him off. “If you want to tell me, tell me.” I drop his hoodie’s strings after tying them into a bow. Milo leans in closer, pressing the side of his head to my collarbone. I thread my fingers through his hair, playing with it as he takes some long, drawn-out breaths.
“Nik, Nadia, and I didn’t have the best childhoods.” Milo’s tone tells me that that revelation is probably a massive understatement. “Our parents—my dad, especially—they…”
I continue wrapping strands of his hair around my fingertips, releasing, and starting again as he gathers himself.
“They yelled a lot. Dad hit us. He…well, he’d take his punishments a little too far, when he’d been drinking or when his team lost or…when he felt like it, I guess.”
I hope that if he can hear how fast my heart is beating, with his ear pressed against my chest, he doesn’t take it as a sign to stop. It’s just my anger threatening to beat out of my chest, as it so often does.
“I never knew if—” Milo swallows loudly. “I didn’t know forsurebefore today that those extra-special punishments were not just for me.”
“Milo, I’msosorry.”
“Nik, he, uh, wants to talk about it. Share the gory details. Get it off our chests, or whatever.”
