“Why not,” I said, holding out my hand for it. It probably wasn’t wise, but I seemed to have stopped caring.
When he dropped onto the couch with his own, we sat drinking a few minutes in silence, weighed down by food coma. Miles looked as satisfied as I felt, and I couldn’t but think of Arnaud saying he had come-fuck-me eyes. I hadn’t been able to see it, but right now I could well imagine those eyes saidyou fucked me and it was great.
Miles lifted a brow and I realised too late that I’d been staring. “Yes?” he said.
“I was just wondering what the dessert is,” I replied because I had to say something.
He shook his head and set his empty bottle on the table. “Still a secret. Though you had better not be lactose intolerant or something. Forgot to ask.”
“So, it’s got cream in it. I’m not, but I might have another food intolerance. Like . . . fruit. Or chocolate. Or coffee.”
“Not going to work, Russo. You have to wait.” He nodded at the TV. “You can put that on if you like. If it works.”
“It works. What do you want to watch?”
“I don’t know. What do you like to watch?”
“Tennis?”
Miles groaned. “Oh my god, you’re so boring. You can’t only watch tennis.”
“I like tennis.”
“Yeah, but it’s also work, right? What about when you want to relax? Or when there’s no tennis?”
I sat my own empty bottle next to his with a shrug. “I don’t really watch anything.”
“What do you do then?”
Not a question I would normally risk answering, but with a full stomach and a light head, I said, “I read.”
“Read? Like . . . books?”
“Yes, like books,” I laughed. “What else?”
“I don’t know! That’s why I asked. What sort of books?”
Not even double the amount of alcohol could have loosened that answer from my tongue, but I made the mistake of glancing at where my e-reader sat charging beside the TV. In a heartbeat, Miles was up and lunging for it like someone had just spun a dropshot over the net.
“No!” I cried, the word torn from a deep, instinctive fear.Unfortunately, it was also the word most likely to egg him on. I leapt up after him, diving for the reader as he yanked it free, but he spun away, pulling it from my hands as he flipped open its worn cover. Miles froze there a moment, staring at the screen, and I suddenly felt far less drunk than I had mere seconds before, breath crushed from my chest.
“Mat?” he said, turning a sparkling look at me over his shoulder. “Is this . . .romance?”
I snatched the reader from his slackened grip, cheeks heating. “If you tell a single fucking soul about this, I will murder you, Callahan.”
His grin broadened, warm amusement crinkling the corners of his eyes. “I’ll take that as a yes.”
“Fuck you.”
“Aww, come on, it’s fine, just surprising. Mostly because I don’t know many people who read.”
A sigh blew out as I dropped onto the couch. “I loved books as a kid, but I didn’t get back into them until after my accident.”
Miles stilled, his smile slipping a little.
“After it happened, I was just angry all the time, you know?” I went on, the sudden need to explain like a bursting dam. “Everything had been so good. I’d been inside the top fifty. Was beating seeded players. I’d stopped lying about who I was. And then . . .” I pursed my lips, forcing back the emotions that were never far away whenever I talked about it. “And then it was all gone and there was no one I could blame, not even myself, because accidents just happen and sometimes it’s you they happen to. But without a target, the anger had nowhere to go.”
I dared a glance up to find Miles watching me, all trace of his smile gone. I should have stopped there, I knew, but the moment felt companionable enough that I said, “Mum had cancer when Iwas a kid and she’d been angry too. So I asked her if anything had helped.” I tossed the e-reader onto the armchair beside him. “Romance books. They always have a happy ending. And it turns out that once you start reading them, it’s hard to stop.”
