“You’re a good son, Miles.”
He shakes his head. “I still think about it… leaving this place.”
It’s obvious Miles is giving so much of himself to his dad. He deserves for someone to do the same for him.
“Why don’t you?”
“I can’t. I see how frail he’s become in the last year. Sometimes he even puts himself at risk with a low insulin supply, just to cut corners. I can’t leave him again.”
I grip his forearm so he will stop walking and look at me. “Miles, if you ever wanted to leave… here, I mean, I would go with you.”
My eyes flare.Woah, where did that come from?We barely know each other,and I’m inviting him to leave with me?
His eyes knit together in confusion too. Like he’s considering it, even if he thinks he shouldn’t. Somehow in the short amount of time we’ve spent together it’s feeling harder to imagine leaving here at the end of the summer.
“I can’t,” he says.
And a part of me feels saddened by that.Did I just want this for him, or do I want him to come with me?I can’t want someone from my past to come with me. That goes against the entire purpose of leaving. But Miles doesn’t remind me about my past every second. In fact, he doesn’t remind me about it at all.I’m not sure I even want to know the Miles I used to know when I’m starting to like present Miles so much.
“Okay, well maybe you don’t have to go very far to get that feeling, ya know? What if you could go somewhere new for the day. Somewhere you’ve never been before,” I suggest.
“You speak about it like it’s some exotic place. We’re in Bear Lake, Idaho. The most exotic thing within twenty miles of here is the new gas station in Paris that has a rainforest-themed bathroom.”
I giggle. “That actually sounds awesome. But if I think of such a place…” I start as Miles gestures for me to traverse a log that stretches across a section of the lake leading to the rope swing. It’s a wooden tight rope as I plant one foot in front of the other, but the idea of going somewhere new with Miles has me feeling like I could skip across the damn thing. I spin around to face him.
“Would you go with me?”
Miles cocks an eyebrow. “You know, you really should keep your focus forward. One wrong move and you’ll be plunging into this thing fully clothed.”
“Answer me, and I’ll turn around,” I taunt, extending my arms wide like a gymnast on a beam.
“I’ve never have been able to say no to you,” he says.
I blanch and almost miss a step, but still I say, ever so quietly, “I’ll take that as a yes.”
Satisfied, I whirl back around, lose my balance, and plummet with my Taylor Swift towel into Bloomington Lake.
“You’re pretty glad you asked me to bring that towel right now, aren’t you?”
A smug look paints Miles’s face. My own towel lies in a sopping wet heap in the grass while he pulls his taut around my shoulders.
“Very funny,” I stammer. The towel isn’t big enough though to get my shivering under control.
His eyes pinch. “Okay, maybe I should have brought a blanket.” He analyzes my lips—most certainly blue—and the uncontrollable chatter of my teeth. His arms wrap his shins, hands fidgeting.
“I don’t know how to ask this without sounding forward…” he says carefully. “But can I hold you? I don’t like seeing you cold.”
My skin is a live wire in anticipation. “Okay.”
He moves closer to me. I pull a quaking stream of air through my nose to calm my erratic heart. It’s an impossible situation with his body pressing against me. He pulls me so close that my legs drape over his lap. His arms stroke up and down my sides. Heat begins to build with the friction between my skin and the towel, the flush rising straight to my cheeks. But it feels so good I don’t dare ask him to stop.
I hadn’t realized just how much I was trying to keep it together, but I lose all sensibility the moment I nestle into his warmth. A soft moan escapes my lips.
“This feels nice.”
I don’t have time to get embarrassed. His arms wrap tighter, tucking my head beneath his chin as he groans along with my sound. “Yeah, it does.”
Even with the blanket between us, it feels good to be hugged. But Miles isn’t just hugging me; he’s holding me like I might disappear. We keep finding ourselves in these situations where we want to cling to each other, like there’s an invisible magnet drawing us together beyond our control. Not until the quiveringin my body subsides does he let go. I feel the loss as his arms fall away from me. I want to hold on to him likehemight be the one to disappear.
