“So, I’ll call.Talk to you then, I guess.”
I looked at Miles, at the width of his shoulders and the blueness of his eyes, andwished.Except there was a year of bullshit between us, most of it on my side.Even though I’d just come out to my captain, I didn’t have the right to go up on my toes and kiss Miles.No matter how much I wanted to.“Later,” I told him and jogged back to the boys on the gym floor.
That was perhaps the most distracted workout I ever did.Bubs grabbed me after half an hour and said, “Get your ass out of here before you injure something.”
“I’m fine.”
“I call bullshit.Go do your laundry or something.”
I nudged Bubs, a soft shoulder-check.“Thanks.Really.”
“I’ll ride herd on the rookies.Pete’s gone anyhow.Get out of here.”
Since I didn’t have any better ideas, I went home and actually did laundry.My roommates were in class, so there was no one to watch me cleaning the bathroom, then the kitchen like a madman.When I started cleaning the inside of the refrigerator, I knew I was in trouble.
By five-thirty, the apartment had never been so pristine.Noah had fled to his room, after I yelled at him for making a mess in the kitchen with his after-class snack.I’d changed my jeans once and my shirt twice.
My phone chimed.
Miles:~ Hey.I’m downstairs.
I fumbled to text back:~ Don’t come up.
Logan:~ I mean, my roommate is home.
Logan:~ I’ll come down.
Calling, “Heading out,” to Noah so he’d know he was safe to make himself food, I grabbed my winter jacket, stuffed my feet into heavy sneakers, and let myself out of the apartment.We were the second floor of a duplex, so I took the stairs down two at a time, then froze in the entry.
I’m about to get my heart stomped on again, aren’t I?But I owed Miles that deep apology, and some small part of me clung to hope.He’d come to find me at the gym, to tell me he and Avery weren’t actually engaged.That suggested maybe he wasn’t as done with my bullshit as I’d thought.
Miles’s silver Porsche was parked at the curb three spaces down.I walked along the wet sidewalk, pulled the passenger door open, and got in.
Miles looked my way.“Hey.”
“Hey.”
He didn’t put the car in gear.“I don’t quite know where to go.Avery’s at my house, and while she’d go to the basement or somewhere to give us privacy if I asked…”
“Yeah, no.”I didn’t want to imagine her hovering barely out of sight for this.
“And your roommates are home, and Eugene weather is fucking with us for any of the places we used to go.”
Miles and I had loved being outdoors together, biking, hiking.We had a dozen quiet spots where we’d dared steal a kiss.Sadly, the leaden gray skies overhead were pissing on us with a wintery mix of rain and a few pellets of sleet, and none of those refuges were really sheltered.
“Maybe drive,” I suggested.“Find a place to park.Maybe that old farm we biked to, that one time?”
“Good idea.Except.”
“Except?”
Miles turned to me, his brows furrowed.“If you decide you need to get away from me, like, immediately, you’d be stranded out there with no way home.”
I couldn’t help snorting.“Dude, I guarantee you’re still the Miles I knew.If I needed to run that bad, you’dgiveme your Porsche to drive off in, and hang out on that falling-down porch yourself, waiting for a Lyft.”
Miles chuckled and God, I’d missed that sound.“Okay.Old farm it is.”
We drove in silence except for the swish of the wipers.Words loomed in my head like an avalanche, waiting to come roaring down, where even a basic, “How are you?”would set the cascade loose.I stared at the gray scenery and Miles paid attention to the roads in the drizzling sleet.
