Chapter Six
Another three days passed before Jun replied. Not that Miles was counting. Or obsessively refreshing his DMs. Nope. Not at all.
When the reply did come, Miles was cuddled up in bed beneath his mountain of blankets and throws. It was starting to get late in Aurora, but in LA, where Jun lived, it was only nearing the end of the workday. He’d likely just wrapped up whatever he’d been up to that day.
Miles snuggled one of his softest pillows to his chest, took a breath, and opened Jun’s message.
Jun_iper: So here’s my idea:
Jun_iper: Let’s get you some practice reaching out. Here’s my number. Txt me just to say hi and I’ll shoot you back my response when I’m able
The irony of Jun providing him with his phone number was not lost on Miles.
It was so ridiculous it was almost funny, although he wasn’t sure Jun would find it very entertaining if he knew that Miles didn’t even need to look at the number left in his DMs, because he had already anxiously memorized it when it had been left on a blank document on his laptop two months prior.
What was even more ridiculous was the sheer terror that seized him upon seeing the number a second time.
Miles closed his computer instantly upon seeing it and buried his head in his pillow, muffling a scream.
Why was his brain like this? It wasn’t like he wanted to be this way.
If he had it his way, he would have texted Jun right then and there and come out with the truth at the same time.
But life wasn’t so easy, and he wasn’t nearly so brave.
He didn’t have the courage he needed to do it.
Not that night.
Or the next.
Or for several nights after that.
Jun’s message had hit his inbox on Tuesday. Now it was Saturday and all Miles had to show for it was a graveyard of abandoned texting attempts. What. Was. Wrong. With. Him?
At work, during the morning rush, his phone burned a hole in his pocket.
When they’d been communicating through Twitch, replying to Jun had felt like an “at home” activity, but there was no such barrier now.
There was no reason why he couldn’t text Jun a quick “hi!” while at work, and as the rush wound down and all the necessary prep work had been done to make sure they’d have enough goods on hand for the church crowd the next day, Miles found himself lacking an excuse.
It was time.
He was finally going to do it.
He didn’t have to come completely clean, but he did have to take the first step.
Miles braced himself for what he was about to do while out at the front counter with Astrid, needing some cooler air after standing near the hot ovens for so long. Phone in hand, a blank text with Jun’s number at the top pulled up on the screen, he shed each new anxious thought as it arose.
He would not back down.
He was going to text this man, dammit, and he was going to do it right now.
“You’ve been doing that all week,” Astrid said, not bothering to look up from her own phone, where she was scrolling through TikTok videos with the sound on mute.
She was leaning with her elbow against the checkout counter, her head lazily propped up in her hand while they waited for another customer to show.
Startled out of his own little world, Miles jumped, then shot her a narrow-eyed glance. “Been doing what all week?”
“Pulling out your phone and then just standing there staring at it like your entire memory has been erased and you don’t know how you got here,” she said easily. She snorted at some video.
“Yeah, well,” Miles said, trying not to let his face reveal anything damning, even though Astrid didn’t seem remotely interested in looking at him. “Why don’t you do your work instead of being nosy?”
“Miriam hasn’t made you a co-owner yet,” she said, the corner of her lip twitching into a smirk. “That means you’re not my boss.”
“Mm,” he hummed, unimpressed.
All at once, Astrid pushed herself up from the counter and faced him with a hand on her hip and a stern expression on her face.
“You should just text him,” she said authoritatively.
“Text who?” he asked, caught off guard.
“Whoever it is you keep chickening out on texting.”
“Who says that’s what I’m doing?”
“You’re not saying you’re not.”
They stared at one another, unblinking, until Miles finally looked away with a muttered, “Damn!”
Astrid laughed in triumph.
“You’ll feel better if you just do it,” she said, with all the wisdom a nineteen-year-old could possess.
“And if you’re worried about him being mad that you took so long, just tell him, I dunno, that a falcon swooped down and stole your phone out of your hand and you just now were able to replace it. ”
“A falcon, huh? Sounds foolproof.”
The bell above the front door rang as a heavily pregnant man pushing a toddler in a stroller entered the bakery, his gravid belly turning his walk into a waddle as he approached the counter.
Miles was torn between wanting to stare and wanting to get far, far away, so he settled on just giving the man a tight nod and heading back into the sweltering kitchen to finish off the last of the cleaning so he could go home for the day.
“Trust me,” Astrid said over her shoulder, just before Miles slipped through the double doors leading to the back. “Falcons.”
Miles snorted and gave her a thumbs-up, then left her to deal with the customer. He tried not to think about how, in a few short months, he would be just as round.
Forty-five minutes and a visit to the grocery store later, he found himself sitting behind the wheel of his car in the parking lot, typing out a message as quickly as he could, and hitting send before he was able to overthink it.
He tossed his phone so hard into the passenger seat that it bounced off and fell onto the floor, but he didn’t bother to grab it.
He’d pick it up and deal with the consequences later, but for now he at least had the drive home to pretend everything was normal and fine.
Maybe Jun wouldn’t even reply.
He had said he was busy and would text when he was able. That could mean days, right? Weeks. Maybe years. There was no way he would take time out of his busy schedule to reply to someone like Miles.
But when Miles made it home from the grocery store, there was a new text from Jun waiting. He put away his groceries in record time, flung himself down onto his bed, and read.
Miles: Hey. It’s kilometers. Sorry it’s been a few days.
Remember how I’m a chronic overthinker and worrier?
Yeah, let’s just say there were quite a few written and deleted texts before I finally sent this one.
It’s not all anxiety, tho. I also just haven’t really been feeling well, and am still not doing super hot, so if I don’t reply right away it’s either bc I am afraid of you or bc I’m throwing up.
Or ig it could be that a falcon swooped down and snatched my phone out of my hand thinking it was a small rodent.
Definitely one of those three things. Ok, shutting up and hitting send, omfg.
Jun: Hey, are you okay? Like have you been to a doctor? Sounds like whatever you’ve got going on is serious. I’m just an internet stranger but what you wrote is worrying and I hope you’re doing all right
Are you okay?
God, Miles ghosted him for days—or months, if you wanted to get technical about it—and Jun’s first concern was making sure he was okay.
This man deserved so much better than him.
At least the second text was a lot easier to send than the first. He’d have to purposefully fuck up a strawberry cupcake next time he was at work and then give it to Astrid in thanks. Those were her favorites.
Miles: Ah. Yeah. I’m fine. Or, at least I mean I know what’s causing it. Fine is… maybe not the adjective I would use, but I’m not dying at least.
He read over his message and, realizing he sounded like he was being held hostage and trying to speak in code, he sent off a third text. He was nailing this.
Miles: Just realized how not reassuring that probably sounded lol. I’m fine. Actually fine. I appreciate your concern and didn’t mean to cause you to worry. You’re very sweet.
Too mortified to continue texting, Miles hid his phone beneath his pillows and went to grab one of his new Pop-Tarts out of the pantry. Normal human interaction? He was acing it. Nothin’ to it at all.
It was late when his phone buzzed with Jun’s next incoming text, but Miles was wide awake, sleep refusing to claim him, so he snatched up his phone and read it immediately.
Jun: If you say so. In the meantime, if you need me to fuck up some falcons for you, I’m there.
Jun: But yeah, what I wanted to say on twitch was:
Jun: I understand being anxious about the situation, but if the guy liked you enough to leave you his number, it was probably because he likes You.
All of you. Not just the parts that bring him pleasure.
The whole package. The guy I was with was shy, too, and fuck, that’s what I loved about him.
How cute he was. How much the way he acted made me want to keep him safe.
Like don’t get me wrong, the sex was fantastic, but that’s not what made me want to stay.
He was so complex, like this adorable mess of contradictions, and I wanted so badly to get to know him better and figure it all out.
I feel like I could’ve spent forever doing that.
Just. Falling for him more the more I uncovered.
Getting so wrapped up in the jumble of threads that make up the fabric of who he is that there’s no hope of ever getting untangled.
Jun: It’s not about interesting jobs, or hobbies, or the money in his bank account. I want him because of who he is, not what he’s done or accomplished, and I’d bet my brain parasite charity stream earnings that your guy feels the same about you.
Jun: So if that’s all that’s holding you back, let’s work on it together. I might not be getting my fairy-tale ending, but yours is still possible. Let me help you get there
Despite himself, Miles laughed humorlessly.
Goddammit, this guy was unreal. Every word he said was the exact right one, just like how every touch he’d placed on his body that night had been unbelievably perfect.
There was something in the way he spoke to Miles that made him feel like maybe they really could have a shot at something real, if he could just muster up the courage to admit his true identity.
Except, just as he thought that, the image of the man at the bakery flooded his mind. The way he ran his hand over his bump while he smiled easily at him and Astrid, his little toddler babbling in the stroller.
Miles knew he was being presumptuous, but that didn’t stop him from being jealous of the life he had made up for that man.
The one where he had someone he loved to come home to.
The one where he slept in a bed he and his lover had purposefully made their children in together.
That man hadn’t created a family by accident.
When he had seen the plus sign on the test, he had been euphoric instead of terrified.
He had been able to tell his lover without being afraid of being met with a bad reaction, because it was something they had done deliberately.
Jun was taken with him, sure, but he hadn’t asked for this.
He had wanted to keep the condom on—had even gone as far as to check to make sure Miles was on birth control, even though he had intended to keep it wrapped.
And yeah, okay, they’d had chemistry. Unbelievable amounts of chemistry.
Enough so that they were both still thinking of the other over two months later, but that didn’t mean jackshit in the scheme of things.
Chemistry alone did not a family make.
Orgasms, no matter how mind-blowing, were not the same as love.
Jun had a life—one he had worked hard at establishing, and one in which he was tremendously successful.
It had been Miles’s own negligence that caused all this to happen.
He would not jeopardize Jun’s future by burdening him with such a tremendous obligation.
If he was going to do this—which he hadn’t decided yet, because he still had a few more days, okay, get off his back—he was going to do it alone.
His next text was easy to send, but the words it contained were hard ones to admit.
Miles: I really appreciate that, I mean it, but it is too late.
I fucked the whole thing up worse than you could possibly imagine, and I doubt there’s any coming back from it at this point.
I don’t just mean not calling him or whatever.
I made a big mistake, and I can’t burden him with it.
Fairy tales are for storybooks, it seems.
He was surprised when Jun’s reply came less than five minutes later. Apparently, sleep wasn’t eluding only him tonight.
Whatever. In for a penny and all that.
Jun: You’re being way too hard on yourself. What kind of a mistake could you have made that would change this guy’s mind? I doubt there’s anything you could have done that would be bad enough
Miles: Can I ask you a hypothetical question?
Jun: Yeah, shoot
Miles: What would you do if you hooked up with a total stranger and they assured you that it was safe to… you know, not use anything. But then you find out months later that he’s actually…
Miles: Omgggg, this is so stupid lol. I can’t even say it when I’m pretending it’s a hypothetical situation. I haven’t said it out loud to anyone. Nobody knows.
Miles: I am one hot fucking mess and I am so unbelievably screwed.
Jun: Wait, did you give this guy an STD? No shame or anything, but if you did, you need to call him so he can get himself checked out
Miles: Yeah, not *that* consequence they talk about in sex ed class. The *other* one. God, I’m so pathetic I can’t even type it. I’m…