When I turn back, he’s trying not to smile, but failing. Then I glance down at my plate.
“Son of a bitch,” I grumble. “The first bite? That’s brutal.”
Milo laughs and hands me his pie plate. “Take as much as you’d like in compensation.”
I chuckle and shake my head, then stab his apple pie. It’s just as good as he promised, flaky on the top and warm and gooey sweet inside. A satisfied groan-grunt slips out. “All right,” I say. “Excellent bakery. Great idea.”
“A good bakery is hard to find.”
“I know. Used to stop by one on the way to the docks. I still think about their coffee.”
Milo sips from his mug. “Can I ask you something?”
For some reason, my pulse jumps. His voice is a little tender, almost unsure.
I can’t imagine lying to him, which makes me scared of what he might ask.
“Sure,” I say with a nod. “Go ahead.”
“You said you’re not interested in a relationship, right?”
My pulse kicks again. “That’s right.”
Milo nods. “I heard that. I just wasn’t sure… If you want me to stop eating off your plate or whatever.” He pauses and swallows, then sips from his coffee again. “Just let me know if it’s, um, too much.”
Aw fuck. That hits me in the gut.
I take a second to compose myself, then lift my plate and hand it to him. “Here,” I say and push about half of my pie onto his plate. “And for me,” I add and do the reverse, pushing half of his onto mine. “Good?” I ask, arching an eyebrow.
I want to say a hell of a lot more, tell him that whatever he wants of mine, he can have it, but that’s crazy.
Luckily, the gesture seems to work. Milo smiles to himself, clearly pleased, then stabs the two kinds of pie together with his fork and eats them. “Yeah, that’s good,” he says, and laughs warmly.
Now that I’ve gone and done that, though, I feel like I owe him a little more. “Just so long as I’m not leading you on,” I tell him. “You know I mean what I say, right? I’m not available for a commitment, nothing like that.”
Milo nods. “You’re not interested in a relationship. I get it.” He lifts his mug. “Is that something you’ve never wanted, or…?”
“No, I’ve dated,” I tell him. “But I’m best on my own.” I take a deep breath, then ask, “You’re looking for someone special, I take it?”
“I guess so.” Milo bites down on his lip while he looks at the pie. “I’ve always wanted to settle down with someone and plan a life together. But my last relationship didn’t end really great. Or the ones before that.”
I lean back in my chair. “I remember. You talked about it when you were getting your ink.” He’d thought things were going well with his ex, then got caught blindsided with a breakup.
Milo rests his hand on his bicep. “Oh yeah.” He laughs and looks a little embarrassed, then drinks from his coffee again. “I forget how much I told you about myself.”
“If someone doesn’t appreciate you, they don’t deserve you,” I tell him. “It’s as simple as that.”
“Yeah, I guess that’s kind of true,” Milo says, thinking about it like I said something profound, although I’m just running my mouth, really. “What about you?” he asks. “What was your last relationship like?”
I grit my teeth. This is one of those topics I definitely don’t want to talk about. There’s no way to explain it without explaining the whole fucking thing, and I’m not about to get into that.
Milo chuckles. “Really that bad?”
I grunt and grip the mug. “It was messy.”
He hums. “Wow, this coffee is making me hyper,” he says, then laughs. “Anyway, you’re so sweet, I’m sure it couldn’t have been that bad. It’s not like you tried to kill each other or burn each other’s houses down.”
Again, I don’t say anything. Adrian and I didn’t try to kill each other, but with the shit he was pulling, one of us could easily ended up dead, and he fucking knew it.
