“How slick is the pavement?”I asked after a bit.“Maybe we should stick closer to home.”
“Nah, not that bad.”He took the turn onto the county road.Five more minutes, and he left the pavement onto the dirt lane we’d decided to explore that summer day.The track twisted and turned through cedars and evergreens, their heavy branches dripping and dark in the looming dusk.After a quarter-mile, the lane opened out to a clearing with the remains of an old wooden farmhouse.
Even on a sunny summer day, we’d decided the roof and floor looked too iffy to explore.On this cold January evening, Miles simply pulled over near the foot of the stairs and put the car in park.
“So.”He took off his seatbelt and turned to me.
“Wait.”I unbuckled too and pivoted as much as I could in the seat.“Let me go first.”I cleared my throat.“I am so,sosorry about how that whole day went down.And about the stuff I texted.I was… Okay, no excuse, but I was in shock.I’d spent a month anticipating that evening, gathering the courage, and then everything shifted under my feet.I handled it really badly.I wasn’t fair to you.”
“Fuck fair.”Miles stared at me.“Do you have any idea how scared I was?”
“Huh?”
“I thought maybe you were dead.”Miles scrubbed his face with the heels of his hands.“You vanished.All I knew was, you had practice and then a tape day.You were supposed to be done at three, maybe three-thirty.Then back to my place by four, so we could get dressed together and shit bricks together over the speech.”
“I’m sorry—”
He waved me down.“So when you weren’t there by four-thirty, I started texting.I figured tape ran late or your coaches had something to discuss with you.Five o’clock rolled around, and I started calling, but your phone went right to voicemail.”
“I turned it off.”My voice came out thin.I’d known at the time what I was doing sucked, that I was wrong to avoid Miles, but my brain had felt like a bag of marbles in a tornado.I’d focused on the easy stuff.Showering, packing, letting my roomies know I’d be gone, maybe for weeks.
Miles huffed.“Yeah, apparently you did.So there I was, on the biggest night of our lives, and I didn’t even know if you were alive.You know, I drove past the arena in my fucking suit.”
“You what?”
“Yeah.I asked one of the maintenance guys if any of the players got hurt at practice.He said no, but then, they’d probably be trained to say no even if someone got knocked out or broke their neck.NDA, you know.”The raggedness of Miles’s voice made my chest ache.
“I’m sorry.”
“If Rachel had been in town, I’d have had her calling the hospitals.”Miles’s blue eyes bored into mine.“I went into that dinner not knowing if you were even alive, or if you’d freaked out and were ditching me.Not just ditching the speech, but the rest of our lives.”
I swallowed hard.
Miles pressed a fist to his lips for a moment, then went on, “I sat there, not knowing, while all those other folks gave their lovely, happy speeches.And then it was my turn, and even when I got up behind the podium, I still thought maybe you arrived really late.Maybe you were sitting in the back, so you didn’t disturb anything, and when I said, ‘a man I fell in love with,’ you’d come walking up the aisle in the suit we picked out for you and stand next to me.But you never did.”
My vision blurred, even as the dome light went out, leaving us in darkness lit only by the dashboard indicators.I couldn’t see Miles’s eyes now, but I could imagine the pain in them.“Fuck.”I pinched the bridge of my nose and closed my eyes, blotting out even the big, familiar silhouette of him.“I didn’t think.I wasn’t… I ran on blind fear and instinct that day.I wanted to stand next to you and I wanted that chance with the Tornados, and I didn’t think I could have both.I told myself I had a contract with the team, no choice.”
“Well, the contract was real.”
“Yeah, but I still could’ve done the banquet and gone up to Tacoma afterward.I didn’t have to report till practice next morning.I just, fuck, after all that time working up to that moment, I turned chickenshit.”
“Listen, Logan.”Miles’s hand landed warm on my knee, and I opened my eyes.Now dark-adapted, I could see the thin line of his lips pressed together and the glint in his eyes.“Logan, why didn’t you fuckingtellme?”
Shame flooded through me.“I was scared.I was selfish.I thought, if I talked to you and you asked me to come to the banquet anyway, I’d do it and fuck up my future with the team.Or if I said no, I’d fuck up my future with you.So I… didn’t.Until it was too late.”
Miles peered at me, his hand heavy against my leg.“Logan?Why didn’t you trust me to understand?”
All the love, fear, uncertainty, and sheer panic of that evening rose in my throat to choke me.To my horror, I burst into tears.I slammed my hands over my face and turned away from Miles toward the window, but I couldn’t hold back the sob that racked my chest.So humiliating, to fuck up the apology and burst into tears.I owed Miles a fucking lot more than this, but I sat there in the dark cab, eyes burning, throat locked down, and totally failed to keep my shit together.
Chapter 8
Miles
Logan was crying.Logan never cried, not when the Tornados called him up for a moment of hope, sat him on the bench for three whole games, and sent him back down with zero playing time; not when he told me about his childhood with his mother in short, flat sentences; not even when my old cat who’d loved Logan died.He’d comforted me when I broke down over Lily’s small furry form, but his eyes had stayed dry.Now, he sobbed like his heart was breaking.
For a second, I resented that.Logan was the one who’d screwed up, the one who didn’t talk to me, the one who’d told me to fuck off and leave him out of it.I was the one who’d been left hanging, not even knowing if he was alive.Then he’d blown me off an hour later like it was nothing.Why did Logan get to cry and I didn’t?
But the sharp rasp of his breaths, sucked through clenched teeth, made it hard to hold a grudge.I’d loved him then, and fuck if my heart didn’t hurt for him now.I rubbed his shoulder, and he flinched under my touch.
