Twenty-One #3
“Not a crisis! I just realised you didn’t actually invite me to stay. So, um, I can—”
“Oh my god.” He gripped my wrist and pulled me into the house. “Get inside.”
Having dragged me in, Miles closed the door and locked it, sliding a bolt that suggested he had no intention of kicking me out.
“You,” he said, rounding on me in the dimly-lit hall.
“Are an idiot.” He kissed me hard, crushing me back against the wall, and I let out a pitiful little groan into his mouth.
The mere days since I’d last seen him felt like a lifetime and I slid an arm around his waist, never wanting to let him go.
“A delightful, gorgeous idiot,” he added against my lips when he paused for air.
“Of course I was inviting you to stay. You think I was going to let you leave once you got here?”
“I don’t know, maybe you like your own space, or worried you’d get sick of me if—”
“Shut up.”
He kissed me again, pressing a knee between my legs like he wanted to fuck right then and there, only to abruptly step back as though he needed space between us to keep from touching me.
“I’m a terrible host,” he said, adjusting himself in his shorts.
“Not even letting you get beyond the door first.” Before I could say I’d hardly minded, he grabbed my bag. “Here, let me show you around.”
Slinging my bag over his shoulder, he led the way across the tiled entry hall, past a pair of unlit rooms leading off either side. “Formal lounge spaces,” he said, gesturing dismissively. “I only use them for journalists and meetings and stuff, so I don’t have to invite strangers into my house.”
“Oh, so I should stay here?” I asked. “You did call me stranger.”
“I also called you an idiot and was close to fucking you in my front hall, so . . .”
He walked on, past a water feature into a large, open living space that might have been lifted directly from a boring home magazine but for the things that were unmistakably, wholly Miles.
It had white walls and pale wood floors, high ceilings and perfectly matched furniture, but where other people had art, Miles had shelves and shelves of plants.
There were vases of flowers too, and the cleanliness didn’t make me think of a showroom so much as that perfectly tidy cupboard of an apartment he’d rented in London.
“Wow,” I said. “How do you keep them all alive when you travel so much?”
“Most have self-watering pots and the house is humidity controlled, but I also have a housekeeper who comes in every few days to check on them. She calls herself my glorified plant-sitter since there’s not much else to do. Why are you smiling?”
“Because this is you!” I said, grinning as I took it all in. “This is the most you thing I have ever seen. Miles Callahan, plant-loving neat freak. Never in a million years would I have expected that a few months ago.”
Miles’s cheeks reddened and he leaned against the back of one couch, shoulders hunching a little. “I suppose it is very me,” he said, and for a moment looked as though he would say more only to swallow it and pull me in for a soft kiss.
I kissed him back, but there for the first time I could feel the question he hadn’t asked, remaining on his lips.
“I do like it,” I said, pulling away enough to answer it. “I think it’s beautiful.”
Lips still close, he looked into my eyes in that calm, sure way he had. Yet because I was looking for it now, I caught the flicker of darkness, of doubt, there and gone.
“Maybe we should save the rest of the tour until tomorrow,” he said, sliding his hands down to my arse. “I’ve been waiting for you to come fuck me in my own bed.”
It was an almost irresistible offer, but I had finally realised I was never going to get more than the tiniest sign that he wasn’t all right. Miles hid his cracks with his perfectly tidy rooms and his easy smile and the physical needs of his body, and I could either let him, or I could help.
“Before we do that,” I said, pulling back. “Are you okay? Because after what happened in Cincinnati, you shouldn’t be okay. And don’t say you’ll be fine after a good fuck or whatever, because while it’s taken me far too long, I’m finally getting wise to you.”
He huffed a laugh and rubbed his jaw. “Are you? That’s upsetting.”
“I bet it is, since you get such joy from spotting my crises a million miles away.”
A smile flickered on his lips, yet instead of answering he just settled into one of his long stares like he was waiting for me to do the talking.
“I ran into your mother again the other day,” I said, because even if I had to drag him all the way, we were going to fucking talk about it. “She was looking for you.”
Miles snorted. “Don’t worry, she called.”
“It wasn’t her I was worried about.”
Leaving my bag sitting on the floor, he went into the large kitchen with its glossy white cupboards and black stone benchtops. Glass bottles clinked as he pulled open the fridge and took out two beers – Budweiser, I noted with a smothered smile.
“I was feeling nostalgic,” he said, handing one over. “For our first date.”
“Is that what that was?” I asked, enjoying those words much more than the prospect of unexciting beer.