Chapter 29
CHAPTER
TWENTY-NINE
ANNIE
“Thanks for picking me up,” I tell my mom as I slide into the passenger seat of the Jeep.
Mom turns down the moody Noah Kahan song playing from the car speaker and smiles at me past watery eyes. “Of course. There’s no better way to end a good cry session than picking up my beloved daughter to drop her off at the apartment of the man she abandoned me for.”
“ Mom ,” I groan. “I did not abandon you. Our motel room sprung a leak and we both needed somewhere to go,” I remind her.
“Oh, right.”
I plop my backpack down on the floorboard and tug my seat belt on as my mom drops her lead foot down on the gas pedal. She isn’t exactly Formula One driving material.
“Did you know that Miles doesn’t believe in brunch?” Mom blurts out.
“Okay…” Yes, I did know that. He’s mentioned that detail no less than six times to me over the past week.
“What does that even mean? He doesn’t believe in brunch.” She huffs. The Jeep lurches forward as she hits the gas a little harder than necessary.
“It means he doesn’t eat avocado toast and isn’t into mimosas.”
Mom gasps and takes one hand off the steering wheel to clutch dramatically at her chest. “What do the two of you even do when you hang out? And what do you talk about? He’s like an alien from another planet. One where they don’t eat brunch or comb their unruly hair.”
I shrug. “He knows all the words to Hamilton.”
She pauses in silence for a long beat.
“For the love of tacos and Betty White, that is impressive. Wait… does he know all the words or just the most popular bits?”
“He knows all of the words, Mom.”
She whistles as she turns on the main road leading from campus to Miles’ apartment. I called her for a ride since I knew her workday would be ending around the time I decided to give up waiting for Lainey after my run-in with Cameron.
Having a little uninterrupted time in person with my mom is nice. I’ve missed her during the brief time I’ve stayed with Miles. We’re usually pretty inseparable.
I know I’m in college now and we’re supposed to grow apart a little.
That doesn’t mean I have to like it.
“Miles still isn’t getting a free pass from me.” She taps out a beat on the steering wheel, drumming to the erratic beat of a tune that only exists in her head. “I’m not sure if he’s going to be a good influence. He looks like he spent time in juvie. I bet he stole a car with his troubled brother as a teenager.”
“Are you fanfictioning my life with old episodes of The O.C.?” I ask incredulously.
“Oh… maybe.”
A little distance hasn’t changed my mom at all. She’s still the TV-obsessed chatterbox she’s always been.
There’s a lot of comfort to that.
“If you’re done treating my boyfriend like a character in a teen drama from the 2000s, I want to ask you something.” I didn’t plan to start poking around about her parents—I know the subject is a sensitive one—but my outburst stirred my curiosity.
Her hands go still on the steering wheel. “Oh, that’s your serious voice.”
“Don’t you think every tone I use is my serious voice?” I tease.
“Duh.” She glances over with an encouraging smile. “Go ahead though, ask me something. I love being asked things. All of your attention on me supplying you the answers to life’s great questions? Sign me up!”
I recognize the change from her general rambling to a nervous ramble based on the higher pitch and slower pace of her speech. I feel bad for potentially deflating an otherwise nice moment between us.
Still, we haven’t talked about her family in a long time.
“Did you ever…” I think I’m losing my nerve.
Mom slows the Jeep as we turn off the main road onto a side street. Her parent senses must be tingling because she pulls off to the side of the road and puts the Jeep in park.
“What’s going on, kid?” She twists in her seat to face me and reaches over to cover one of my hands with hers.
Now or never. “Did you ever think about reaching out to your parents after you left home?”
The silence that falls between us speaks volumes. Mom doesn’t move her hand away from mine but she shakes slightly. Her eyes go glassy as she holds eye contact with me. I feel bad for the turmoil my question is causing her. This has never been an easy topic for us.
Eventually, she takes a deep breath and says, “I did reach out. Once. I sent them a short letter with a picture of you right after I brought you home from the hospital. I guess I hoped seeing you might soften them.”
“Did they respond?”
She responds with a slight shake of the head. “In my letter, I told them not to respond unless they were ready to be better for you than they had been for me. I told them I would never settle for you living a life designed to please them .”
Wow. “And you never heard back from them.”
“No. They never wrote me back.” She pauses for a moment, head tilting to the side as she squints and seems to remember something. “Although, we did receive a collection of expensive encyclopedias the next month that had no return address. I always assumed that came from them. I’m not sure who else would buy a newborn an encyclopedia set.”
I loved those encyclopedias once I could read them. We never talked about where they came from.
I’m so sad for my mom knowing that she set a very normal boundary and her parents didn’t even bother to try. I wish I knew what went through their mind when they chose not to respond, effectively giving up any hope of having a relationship with us.
I turn my palm over so that I can squeeze my mom’s hand. “They suck.”
Mom snorts a laugh, thankfully lightening the mood. “Eh, that’s alright. I figured the trade-off for a shitty parent relationship is that I learned what not to do with you.” She heaves a heavy sigh. “There are times over the years when I considered reaching out again. I always thought maybe things would be different after more time passed. Ultimately though, I think I got too stubborn to reach out. I always kind of felt like it needed to be their job to bridge the gap since they were the ones who broke the bridge between us in the first place. Maybe that was too much to ask for.”
She wants so badly to shrug the past off but there are some things I’m not sure a person ever gets over.
My mom, a pregnant teenager, needed support. Not to be guilted into marrying her high school boyfriend for the sake of both family’s reputations. Her boyfriend wasn’t husband or father material. Not then and maybe not even now. As far as I know, he’s still unmarried and has never had another kid.
The mistake was already made once she was pregnant. I can only wonder what might have been if they supported her the way she needed back then.
“I don’t think it’s too much to ask for to be loved even when things are hardest.” I tug on my mom’s hand so that she leans forward and then I throw my arms around her and squeeze as tightly as I can.
Despite all of her quirks, this woman is my best friend and a great mom. A lot of things in my life feel unstable right now. I’m just grateful my relationship with my mom isn’t one of them.
"Hello?" Miles calls out.
I freeze with my hands over the keyboard of my laptop. Miles has been a surprisingly easygoing host, but I'm not sure that me working at his desk in my pajamas is going to go over well. I meant to be in bed already, but I realized I answered a question wrong on an Astronomy assignment and needed to fix my answer pronto before turning the assignment in... next week.
"Hi," I call back halfheartedly.
His footsteps start down the hall toward me, and I rush to save the changes to my assignment and shut my laptop down for the night. I'm scrambling to gather my charger and my Astronomy notes when Miles stops in the doorway.
"What are you doing in here?" he asks. He sounds curious, not mad, so I let myself relax a smidge. I still feel a little on guard after his cryptic message about being home late. If he's upset with me, at least me being at his desk doesn't seem to be making anything worse.
"I wanted to fix an assignment before bed."
He smirks. "Let me guess, that assignment isn't due tomorrow."
I shake my head vehemently. Procrastinating to the last minute is not my style. I like being able to revise my schoolwork at least three times before finalizing my work.
"How was your day?" Miles asks, leaning against the door frame.
I'm frozen in silence for a moment. He seems genuinely curious, his eyes bright and roaming over me casually. His attention is on me more intensely than I'm used to. He usually does his best to avoid giving me his full attention for too long. As if he's worried I'll turn into Medusa and my hair will turn him to stone.
I can't tell him the truth. "My day was fine. How was yours?"
"Fine," he echoes. There's a flicker of something in his expression that I can't read. "Things are looking more interesting now, though."
"Oh?" I don't know what he means.
Miles straightens and prowls further into the room, stalking toward me with his gaze pinned to me like I'm prey. I fidget my hands as I abandon my things on the desk. I turn to face him as he gets close.
"There's something in here I've been meaning to do..." His voice trails off.
"Oh, okay. I can get out of your way." I reach for my things again, but his hand jolts out to grab one of my wrists, stopping me.
"You misunderstand me, Annie." He moves closer, practically pressed up against me. His voice drops to a whisper as he says, "The thing I've been meaning to do is you."
I choke on my spit as he smirks.
"Funny joke," I manage to squeeze out even though my throat feels like it's constricting.
"Who's joking?"
Miles leans around me and picks my laptop off of the desk. He strolls over to set it on top of the short bookshelf by the window. I stand frozen in place, waiting to see what he intends to do next. When he returns, his hands go to my hips.
"Your pajamas are cute ." He snorts as he looks down at my Dolly Parton themed pajama pants.
"My mom bought them for me. They're comfortable." I can't defend my choice of pajamas too much. I think I secretly chose to wear the gaudy sleep pants knowing Miles would be put off by them. I wanted to feel a little distance from the man I'm too caught up in.
"I bet they'd be more comfortable off." He shoves them over my hips and down my legs. Once they pass my thighs, they slip easily to the floor.
I gasp.
I don't know how to feel about this. Uncertainty swirls low in my belly even as my heart leaps with excitement. Is this how being seduced feels? I've never been looked at with such open lust before, Miles' gaze drawing over my bare thighs and between my legs with hooded eyes.
"I should have come home sooner," he murmurs as he looks his fill.
I fight the urge to cover myself. I'm not normally brazen enough to stand half-naked in front of someone with the lights on at full blast like this. Something about Miles has a way of simultaneously making me feel off-kilter and right at home.
I'm not sure if I like the feeling.
Before I can examine my emotions too closely, Miles picks me up and easily lifts me on top of his desk. My eyes widen as he plops down in his desk chair and rolls himself closer.
"What are you doing?" I ask breathily.
His lips twitch. "What do you think I'm doing?"
I can't answer that. There's no way I can say my suspicion out loud. I don't use the kind of language a woman would need to describe what I think he might be about to do.
"My cock is rock hard," Miles says as casually as if he was sharing a weather report. "But for tonight, I just need a taste."
Cock . Not a word I would usually say, but there are no circumstances where I could imagine referring to Miles' penis in clinical terms. My face is so hot that I'm sure I must be bright red. Miles doesn't seem to notice or if he does, he doesn't care.
I glance down at his lap and can see the bulge in his jeans. He's not just giving lip service, he's very turned on right now. I'm not sure why since all I did was exist in his office. His interest in me seems to have peaked.
"Lean back," Miles tells me.
I hesitate a second until he presses his hand against my stomach to nudge me backward. Putting myself on display like this is terrifying. I don't think Miles is leaving me much of a choice, though. I'm sure he would stop completely if I asked...
I don't want to ask.
As soon as my back hits the cool wood of his desk, he dives between my legs.
I can't see more than the top of his head, curly hair wild and poking out in all directions as if he was running his hands through his hair anxiously at some point. The stuff I can't see, I can certainly feel.
Miles blows a warm breath directly between my legs before nipping at the inside of each of my thighs. I suck in a harsh breath at the feeling of his teeth digging lightly into my sensitive flesh. I'm throbbing with awareness as he teases me. As desperate as he sounded to do this, he takes his sweet time exploring everything but where I'm anxious to feel him most.
He uses his tongue and teeth all over the inside of my thighs until I'm writhing on the desk, desperate for him to taste me like he said he wanted.
"You smell so sweet for me, Blue," he murmurs so softly I'm not sure I'm meant to hear him.
I whimper as he finally slips his tongue directly between my legs, tasting me. His tongue works with an expert pressure that makes me crave more. When I tilt my hips up to meet his mouth, he flicks his tongue across my clit.
Moaning, my hips flatten back against the desk. I'm struck by the urge to get as far away as possible even while he feels so good that I want more. The sensation is almost too much as he focuses his attention on my clit, working my bundle of nerves into a frenzy.
Miles is a man who came in on a mission. Usually, I struggle to relax enough to orgasm. That's not even remotely the case now. He's only been touching me a few minutes and already I feel the pressure building low in my core, threatening to overtake me and bury me under an avalanche of pleasure.
If I wasn't already conflicted about my feelings toward this man, this would push me right over the edge into dangerous emotional territory.
Miles gives oral sex with an enthusiasm I could not have anticipated. He doesn't so much as come up for air.
"Are you going to come for me, Blue?" he croons out, the words spoken directly between my legs.
I don't bother answering. The orgasm that tears through me is answer enough. My legs quiver on either side of his head as I cry out a bunch of jumbled nonsense about how good I feel. Every muscle in my body seems to tighten and then fall loose.
My stomach bottoms out like I'm riding the dip on a roller coaster and terrified of going off the tracks.
A thin sweat breaks out around my hairline as I reach down and tug at strands of Miles' hair, silently begging him to move away because I can't possibly take any more. I think all of the bones in my body have been melted down and now I'll never be able to walk again.
Miles' chair scoots away, wheels squeaking as he gives me some space to try to revive myself.
I don't know how much time passes before I feel capable of pushing myself up on my elbows to look at him. He's leaned back in his chair with his hands cupped behind his bed. His lips glisten with evidence of what he just did.
His whole face is smug as he smirks, casually studying me as he asks, "Ready for bed?"
I nod wordlessly.
Miles stands first and strolls closer to offer me a hand to help me off of his desk. I fight the urge to be embarrassed now that the moment is over. He wanted that or he wouldn't have done such a thing.
He pauses to lean down and grab my abandoned pajama pants.
I mutter, "Thank you," and tug them on.
He waits patiently until I'm dressed to grab my hand again. I shoot him a questioning look but he tips his chin to avoid looking at me. I wish I could read his mind and have some idea what he's thinking as he leads me by the hand to his bedroom.
I'm feeling a lot of things. I can only hope that maybe I'll sleep off all of them.