Chapter 16 #2
Ohmigod, this is pathetic.
“I wanted to.” He shuts off the water, and I realize suddenly that he’s finished rinsing the dishes and tucking them in the obviously newly installed dishwasher already. “Besides, did you know, it’s been ten and a half years since I last watched Phantom of the Opera?”
“I’m sure you missed it so much,” I deadpan, but the effect is probably ruined by the totally too sentimental smile that sneaks over my lips.
“I did. I miss everything we used to do,” he smiles back, every bit as sentimental, and that weightless, floating happiness is back. “But I genuinely missed this movie. C’mon.”
The space between us on the sofa is mocking me. One and a half feet of you can’t scoot any closer to him without making things weird, so don’t even think about it.
When Myles and I were kids, we didn’t keep much of a space bubble between us.
More than I wanted, obviously, but less than I feel like I have to keep from him now.
Difficult, especially because not only do I spend an entirely unreasonable (and probably unhealthy) amount of time wanting to touch him, but I’m just a touchy-feely person in general, and this distance between us feels forced.
A lot of that touching I want to do is definitely not the innocent kind, but I have to admit, I do spend just as much time fantasizing over far simpler things too. Like how perfect it would feel to just snuggle right up against him, so close, the two of us could feel each other’s breathing.
Once, about a month or two before my family left Riverside, Gemma and her sister and her sister’s boyfriend came and stayed the weekend with us.
Myles was there too, of course, and the five of us had all piled onto my parents’ couch and watched a movie one night.
I’d ended up smushed in between Myles and Gemma.
While Ellie, on Gemma’s other side, kept telling Alex off for his attempts to pull her into his lap—something it was clear she only objected to out of a totally unnecessary and (at the time) extremely patronizing feeling worry about mentally scarring us “kids”—I’d totally tuned the two of them and even Gemma and the movie out.
For two hours, I’d sat, drinking in the way Myles’s body softly rose and fell with each breath.
How solid his thin arm and shoulder, hip and thigh felt, pressed against mine.
How easy it was to ignore the smell of popcorn and Gemma’s fruity body spray and instead just breathe in his familiar scent of forest and fir needles and Myles.
How much I’d wished he’d lift his arm and wrap it around me.
How much I’d wished I could wrap mine around him.
It was the longest I’d spent touching him since that night the year before, when I’d slept in my bed with him after he’d been hurt at football practice.
With a huge effort, I tear my mind away from that memory and from the gap between Myles and me, forcing my attention back to the TV.
Onto Raul as he rises to his feet in the Phantom’s box at the Opera Populaire, staring in open-mouthed shock as he realizes it really is Christine singing on the stage below him.
The parallels between my own life and the two long lost friends unexpectedly finding each other after years of separation are not lost on me, though as Raul applauds Christine with tears in his eyes, I can’t help a bitter twinge of jealousy at the knowledge that neither of them are to be doomed to the pain of unrequited love.
Like he’s dangerously close to tapping into my thoughts, Myles turns toward me, speaking above the sound of the movie. “Do you still like the Phantom best?”
“Always,” I smile innocently at him, forcing myself to remember that Myles has no idea just how personally I’m identifying with that particular character’s lifetime of longing and unreturned devotion. Besides, don’t I have a long list of less incriminating reasons for preferring the Phantom anyway?
“He’s—” my eyes choose that unfortunate moment to track down Myles’s chest where his tee is pulling indecently perfectly over his pecs, and I very nearly blurt, hotter. “—more interesting of a character than Raul.”
Oh thank god. Way less shallow. Way closer to what I’d actually meant to say.
“I can see that,” Myles muses, leaning back into the sofa. The movement makes his thighs spread wider—totally distracting—bringing his knee a little closer to mine. “How he could never love anyone but Christine.”
“Raul never loves anyone else either.” I have no idea why I’m playing devil’s advocate when I completely agree.
Myles shrugs. “Not in the story, and maybe not when he has a chance with her. But I always felt like he could have loved someone else. She was the only one for the Phantom though.”
Those words land heavy and aching in my chest. Far too close to home.
Why did I have to provoke him into saying that? And since when do I identify with the Phantom?
Ohh, but Gemma would be dying of hilarity if she knew what was going through my head right now. Particularly since my bizarre analogy seems to cast Myles in the role of Christine, which is where it deteriorates entirely. If it hadn’t already.
Twinkiest Phantom! Gemma’s voice giggles in the background of my thoughts.
Good grief, maybe watching this particular movie with Myles was not the best choice…
Thank goodness Myles doesn’t seem to need a response as he settles back into watching, distracted as the Phantom appears in Christine’s dressing room mirror.
I try to focus on the movie. I really do. It should be easy. I hadn’t been exaggerating when I told Myles that it’s still my favorite. Well, that and Les Mis, but still.
Instead though? My very unhelpful eyes will not stay on the screen.
Nope, they just keep drifting. Straight over to where Myles is sitting, fortunately totally unaware of the fact that it’s not the movie I’m watching but him.
Watching, checking out, trying my absolute hardest not to mentally undress… same difference, right?
I’m fighting a losing battle with myself not to look at how Myles’s faded jeans pull tight over his thighs the way he’s sitting, showing off exactly how thick and toned they are, when the sound of his voice makes me jump. Literally jump, like the guilty creeper I am.
“W-what?” My eyes snap up from his lap, and onto the screen where they were supposed to have been all along before I very noticeably turn to face him.
Please don’t have noticed. Please don’t have noticed. Please don’t—
“You want some popcorn? A beer?”
Oh thank god, he didn’t notice.
He wouldn’t sound so normal if he had, right?
“Popcorn sounds great.” No beer. I have pretty much zero tolerance for alcohol, and the last thing I need is to get tipsy around Myles. Ohmigod, the total disaster that would be is beyond horrifying, even just to imagine. “But only if you’re having some?”
“I’ll be right back.” He chucks me on the shoulder as he hops up from the sofa, pausing the movie as he goes.
Just like any time he touches me, I can feel the warmth of that quick, totally casual touch radiating out from my shoulder as I force myself not to stare after him as he heads into the kitchen.
Sharing popcorn with Myles was the best and worst thing ever. The first time our hands brushed reaching into the bowl? Total accident. The second? Ish. The third? Totally willful. All the other times? Some of each, if I must be honest.
“So you actually expect me to accept that he’s not a total asstoad anymore, and that he’s trying to make his former asstoadery up to you?” Gemma’s sigh is as absurdly dramatic as her choice of words is ridiculous.
This dispute has been going on between the two of us since my rather giddy call to her the moment Myles had left from dinner at my house the night he’d rescued me by splitting Byron Dutch’s unsplittable firewood.
As I’d expected she would, Gemma was already blowing up my phone long before Phantom of the Opera was over, demanding to know how tonight had gone.
She’d picked up on the first ring when I’d called her from my car, as soon as I was safely out on the main road.
“I think you’re the one that’s starting to realize you’re accepting it,” I tell her, flicking on my turn signal as I approach my driveway.
“Besides, what do you think he’s possibly trying to get out of everything if he’s not sincere?
Some pasta salad? Someone to watch a movie with and talk and laugh with at dinner?
Oooh! I know, he really wanted to split all that firewood for me. ”
I don’t care that it’s impossible. I can hear her eyeroll over the phone.
“Sounds an awful lot like being a friend, Gemma,” I push. “Admit it.”
“Fine,” she huffs after a drawn-out pause. “I’ll admit that, maybe, he’s not a complete asstoad. Anymore.”
“That is all I could ever ask for.” Because I know full well that asking her to forgive Myles for what happened ten years ago is literally asking for the impossible.
“Charlie darling.” I can hear the smile in her voice now. “If he really isn’t an asstoad, you know I’m happy for you about this, right?”
“I know. Thank you, Gem.”
“Love you, babe.”
“Love you too.”