“Oh, Milo…” he hummed, striding up to the couch and looking down at me with concern. “Baby, please don’t cry. I’m so sorry I put you in that position.” He got to his knees before the couch, handing me the bouquet, which I took on reflex. Confusion welled up and mixed with my anxiety.
“Am… am I fired?” I asked quietly. My fingers shook, causing the cellophane on the periwinkle blossoms to crinkle loudly.
“What? Of course not.”
What?
“What do you mean? I’m on probation, and I broke one of the biggest rules. I waskissingyou! They don’t even need to write me up to terminate me right now.”
Jay frowned, reaching forward to brush away one of my tears, his lips forming a firm line.
“Ikissedyou,Milo. You didn’t do anything wrong. It was my fault. You’re not fired. I talked to Seb, and he’s not going to tell anyone what he saw.”
Hope bloomed in my chest as Jay cracked open the can he’d brought and handed it to me next.
“Here, drink this. I want you sober for the rest of this conversation,” he said, and I took the drink from him, abruptly realizing how thirsty I was.
The alcohol and all the tears had left me dehydrated, and I gulped down the fruity drink eagerly.
Jay watched me, his head cocking to the side in amusement as I chugged the entire can in one shot.
“What is this?” I asked when I was done, examining the nondescript can curiously.
“It’s a Neurovance product we’ve been developing. It’s like an electrolyte sports drink on steroids. You’ll be sober in a few minutes.”
“Wow… handy.” I smiled as I felt the effects almost immediately kick in. My sluggish, drunken mind cleared, and the headache that had been forming melted away.
Jay took the empty can from me and set it on the coffee table behind him, giving me that tender smile of his.
“How do you feel? Better?”
“Physically, yeah. I still feel mortified. Maybe more so now that I’m sober.” I sniffled. “We shouldn’t have done that. I’m so sorry, Jay. I hope I didn’t get you in trouble. It was a mistake, it won’t happen again.”
He frowned at me, growing frustrated.
“You think kissing me was a mistake?”
“If it means getting you in trouble and losing my job, then yes! Of course it was! It’s not worth it, Jay. I know why you wanted to kiss me. You’re probably so lonely here, and I’m the only one desperate and pathetic enough to break the rules to be close to you.” My fingers trembled around my forget-me-nots again, and suddenly, Jay was nearly on top of me, his fingers tangled in my hair again, and I whimpered in surprise.
“You need to stop talking about yourself like that, Milo. It reallypisses me off,” he growled, and I swallowed, clutching my flowers to my chest like it might protect me from Jay’s fury.
He must have seen the fear flash across my face, because he immediately softened, his tight grip on my hair turned gentle, and soon he was stroking me again in that way that felt so good.
“You’re not pathetic or desperate. Despite what you may think, people break the‘no touching’rule all the time. It’s not realistic to expect people to never touch each other. It’s one of Luke’s fucked up ways of trying to control us.”
My mind whizzed at his words, and the way he said it made me think there was more going on here than met the eye. Both Jay and Sebastian seemed to have complicated opinions on Luke and how he ran Neurovance. Sebastian had seemed straight-up afraid of Luke the last few times he’d come up, and I wondered what it was I was missing here.
“I’m the CMTRO. Do you know how many people have tried to get close to me in an effort to advance their positions at NeuroWell? I could have anyone I want, Milo. But I chose to kissyou.What does that tell you?”
“I-I don’t know.”
He glanced down at the bouquet I was still clutching tightly to my chest like it was a life raft.
“If I thought that kiss was a mistake, do you think I would bring you flowers?”
“Uhm—” I looked down at the pretty sky-washed blossoms, my self-deprecating mind fighting tooth and nail against the truth that was staring me directly in the face.
“Come on, Milo. Use that insanely impressive brain of yours. I thought I’ve been pretty obvious about how I feel about you, but do you need me to spell it out?”
