Ren
The ink on the back of Miller’s hand pulls taut when he clenches his coffee cup, shifting back and forth in his seat. He swallows, tossing the occasional worried glance over his shoulder before he lifts the steaming mug, offering me a grin that looks unsure, unused almost, before saying, “You didn’t have to get the coffee.”
“Oh.” I wave a hand. “It’s the least I could do. I should really be thanking you. You’re the one who saved me from the embarrassment of having to sit with a stained shirt in front of my entire department.”
I leave out the part about Scott and the job he stole out from underneath me just because he could.
“Sorry I couldn’t do anything about the mustard.” The corners of Miller’s eyes crinkle, and that blue, almost like the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, that looks a bit like he might be drowning—swirls, shifting, sending him towards more shallow waters.
Scrunching my nose, I shrug a shoulder. “Shampoo works wonders.”
He nods, a muscle ticking in a stubble-dusted jaw. He stays silent, until his teeth come down on the inside of his cheek, and he gives a dry snort. He looks up, apologetic. “Sorry. I’m ... bad at this now.”
“At having coffee?”
A smile whispers over his lips but he shakes his head. “No ... being in public. Talking to people.”
“I don’t mind. I spend my days with fossils.” I lean forward, like we’re colluding over the ancient secrets of the dinosaurs. “They aren’t particularly talkative.”
He huffs a laugh. “Right. Ren Jacobs, collections manager of vertebrate paleontology at the Royal Museum. Knower of fossils.”
I glance down at my blouse. I don’t remember putting on my name tag today—kids don’t particularly care who or what you are.
It’s not there.
But the sound of my name on his mouth is.
“Sorry,” he mumbles. And that same mouth that said my name—not like I was nothing, but like I wassomething—turns lopsided and sheepish. “My publicist ... she told me who you were ... but I didn’t introduce myself.” His tattooed hand abandons his coffee mug when he scrambles to hold it out for me. “I’m—”
I meet it with mine before he can finish. “That’s okay. I know who you are.”
Apprehension draws a line between his brows. “And who’s that?”
“Miller Colson-Burke. Shortstop. Rescuer of collections managers with sticky shirts.” I tip my chin up. “Secret dinosaur enthusiast.”
“Dinosaur enthusiasm is yet to be determined.” He holds my hand in his for a second longer, and I’d swear his thumb twitchesacross the back of mine in a phantom brush. “But I guess the other things are true.”
I settle back into my chair, hands wrapping back around my mug in the absence of his. “You guess?”
“I guess,” he repeats, taking a long swallow of his coffee.
My eyes cut to the back of his hand and the M inked there, and they skip to the empty space on his jacket above the heart that lives in his chest. A heart that I don’t think is very empty at all.
“You can ask,” Miller cuts in, voice rough.
I look back up at him with soft blinks. “Was he—”
He takes another measured swallow. His thumb taps against the rim of his coffee mug, and I think a dam bursts somewhere inside him. “We were cousins. Our moms were sisters. Mine ...” He pauses, chewing over the next word, but the water rushes through and the rest of the story comes with it, all hurried. “Left. When I was seven. His parents, my aunt and uncle, adopted me.” Miller taps his sternum absentmindedly. “One last name became two. I was ... never much of a Colson anyway, I don’t think. I didn’t know my dad. So I was, uh, always a Burke.” His eyes darken again, and I think he might get swept back into the ocean, but he keeps talking. “Matty was ... my best friend. More like my ... brother.” His voice cracks on the word. “We played together since we were hitting tee balls around a field. He started pitching and I moved to shortstop. Played competitively until we went to different schools in the States. Different teams in the minors, too, but we both got drafted back home. Played together for a few years. Won the World Series together last season and uh ... the rest is history.”
He chokes on the final words, and it hangs heavy—what he means bythe restbut won’t say.
Miller takes a deep inhale, shoulders stretching his jacket, and he looks up at me, jaw set in a hard line like it’s those sharpbones, the angle of his mouth that seals the dam again, so he doesn’t have to say any more.
I could Google it. But I don’t think I will.
It might be public information for most people, but it feels like something private to him.
“I’m sorry,” I murmur. “Is that what you meant? When you said earlier that after the last game, people finally started talking about something else?”
