Chapter Nine #2
This was it, then, he thought. This was where he was going to go from here.
If he’d made different decisions, maybe it could have looked different, but he hadn’t, and now this was his mess to deal with.
But it was going to be okay. He’d be sad for a while, sure, but that was okay, too.
He was allowed to be sad. In fact, being sad was exactly how he wanted to spend the rest of his night.
Resolving himself to this fact, he detangled his comforter and sheets and prepared to drape them over himself as he curled into the fetal position like a pathetic little worm, but right as he was lowering himself down to the mattress, something interrupted him.
Someone was knocking on his door.
Miles froze.
Hovering in the air, head inches from his soft, warm mattress, he waited and listened, unsure if he’d been hallucinating—but then it happened again. Three sharp knocks on his front door as real as anything.
Someone was out there.
Someone who’d come to see him.
Stomach exploding with butterflies, he bolted upright and launched himself out of bed in a mad rush to get to the door.
It was Jun. It had to be Jun. Never mind the fact that he was currently streaming from his home in Los Angeles two thousand miles away, Miles’s heart had overridden every ounce of logic he possessed and decided this impossible outcome was the only explanation.
He wasn’t expecting anything, after all—well, anything that would come in the mail—and his friends and family knew better than to show up unannounced.
Somehow, someway, it was Jun.
Forgetting propriety and eschewing stranger danger, he flung open the door without checking the peephole to see who was on the other side—
—only for his heart to drop into his stomach.
It wasn’t Jun.
Of course it wasn’t Jun.
It was Astrid. She was in her apron and had a box from the bakery balanced flat on her forearm. Had Miles not been so disappointed, he would have been confused—Astrid had no business being here. She was supposed to be on shift at work.
“Are you all right?” was the first thing he thought to ask, because why else would Astrid have come over if something wasn’t wrong? Then, “Is everything okay at the bakery?”
Astrid looked at him like he’d grown a second head. “What?”
“The bakery.” Miles gestured behind himself at the window, through which the bakery could be seen. “You know, where we work?”
“The bakery is fine.” She wrinkled her nose in confusion.
“The better question is if you’re okay. I was weirded out when you placed an order for delivery despite living literally across the street, but I figured there had to be a good reason for it.
But now you’re acting weird, too. Do I need to get you medical help?
Do you need an intervention? Blink twice if there’s someone in your apartment holding you hostage.
I’m not gonna save you, but I can at least notify the authorities. ”
Miles blinked more than twice. “I… didn’t order anything for delivery.”
“Yes, you did.” Astrid whipped out her cell phone and spun it around so the screen was facing him.
On it was an order placed through their mobile system with his first name and address.
It was for a dozen croissants. “It came through about forty-five minutes ago, prepaid with a huge tip and everything. If you don’t want them, I guess I can take them back to the shop and Miriam and I can snack on them or something, but they’re technically yours. ”
She put her phone away and held the box out to him.
Befuddled, Miles accepted it.
Had he been so consumed with his own anguish that he’d blacked out and ordered croissants without realizing it?
Or maybe it was Miriam. It was possible she’d figured out his secret and sent him the croissants as a message.
He’d told her about his pigeons, after all, and what better way was there to tell your employee-slash-potential-someday-business-partner that you knew he had a secret bun in the oven than by making reference to the birds nesting on his windowsill?
God, everything was happening so fast.
He’d thought he’d still had time to let everyone know before it got too obvious, but it looked like he’d messed that one up, too. Would Miriam be disappointed in him for hiding it from her, or were these croissants happy and congratulatory?
All the uncertainty was giving him a headache.
He never should have gotten out of bed.
“Okay,” Astrid said with a shrug. “I’m going back to work now. I’ll see you later.”
“Wait.” Miles took a deep breath, knowing he would regret it. “Are you sure Miriam didn’t send these? Like, you didn’t see her doing anything ominous in her office or… acting weird, or anything? Because unless something really strange happened, I’m sure I didn’t order these.”
“You’re right,” said a voice from farther down the hallway. “My bad. I did.”
Miles’s eyes widened.
The voice belonged to Jun.
Grip on the box of croissants tightening, Miles popped his head out through the door to witness Jun—actual, physical Jun and not some sad hallucination—emerge from the stairwell as though by magic.
Hands tucked casually in the pockets of his jeans, he met Miles’s gaze and smiled, and Miles very nearly crushed his box of croissants.
Jun was beautiful.
Not just because he was handsome, but because the joy radiating from him was so simple and pure that it seemed to make him glow. One look at Miles was all it took. One look and the melancholy, defeated Jun Miles had watched secretly on stream since they’d parted ways was gone.
Even though Miles had fucked it all up.
Even though Jun had every right to be angry.
He was here, and he was smiling, and the look in his eyes said the impossible—that he had forgiven him.
Had chosen unconditional love when it would have been so much easier to choose hate.
“Oh my god,” Miles uttered under his breath, fat tears streaming down his cheeks. “Oh my god.”
“I’m… obviously in the middle of something I shouldn’t be right now,” Astrid said, looking from Miles to Jun, then back at Miles. She took a large step to the side. “I’m just gonna… head back to the bakery. You guys enjoy those croissants, all right?”
Miles nodded, unable to bring himself to speak, and Astrid promptly disappeared, leaving him alone with the man he wanted more than anything, but whom he thought he’d never see again.
The man who was now walking down the hallway on his way to Miles’s apartment.
No—not the apartment.
On his way to Miles.
“I debated for so long over whether I should come here,” Jun said upon his approach.
The light from the cracked window at the end of the hall streamed in and dappled his shoulders, illuminating him from behind.
“I didn’t want to be the guy who showed up uninvited, so confident he could do no wrong that he couldn’t take silence for a ‘no.’ But someone on the internet told me I might have misread the signs—that maybe the reason you didn’t text or call wasn’t because you don’t like me, but because you think I deserve better. ”
He arrived at the door, standing within arm’s distance.
When Miles didn’t back away or slam the door, he reached out and cupped Miles’s cheek, swiping a thumb tenderly across it to wipe away his tears.
“Let me decide what I deserve, Kilometers,” he whispered, voice strained by the weight of the emotion in his words. “Let me see what we can be when we’re together. Will you let me make things right?”
Miles squeezed his eyes shut, pushing out his unshed tears. His hands shook so badly, the croissants skittered around in their box.
For so long he’d been silent, sure that he was doing Jun a favor by staying out of his life.
But that hadn’t ever been true, had it?
Jun didn’t want anyone else. Might never want anyone else.
And Miles…
Miles couldn’t keep pretending that he didn’t want Jun, either.
That these feelings—this heartache that had plagued him since Jun had left him all alone—weren’t the first stirrings of love.
His throat felt raw and his face numb, but he would be silent no more.
He opened his eyes, looked Jun in the face, and hoarsely replied, “Okay.”
Happiness burst across Jun’s face like the sun coming out from behind a storm cloud. Slowly, giving Miles plenty of time to stop him if he wanted, he lifted Miles’s chin and brought their lips together in a kiss that spoke of everything he was feeling inside.
Excitement.
Elation.
Fear.
Hope.
And love.
So much love.
Miles trembled not because he feared it, but because he felt it, too.
Their story was only beginning, and like all stories, there would be bumps along the way, but with their hearts so well aligned, he already knew that in the end, everything would be all right.
“Last time I was here,” Jun murmured as the kiss concluded, their noses still brushing, “I had to bail before we could do breakfast, even though I wanted nothing more in the world than to stay. So how about we start by fixing my mistake?” He pulled back and gestured to the box clutched in Miles’s trembling hands.
“You and me. Breakfast in bed. No interruptions. I prerecorded three fake live streams that are set to go live according to my usual schedule so no one—not even my asshole manager—will know I’m here. What do you say?”
For what felt like the first time in months, Miles laughed. “I think that sounds like a great idea.”