Chapter 16
Milo
Ipush the Tupperware of peanut butter chocolate chip cookies a little closer to the edge of my desk. Ava's favorite. If she asks, I'll tell her it's a coincidence, but we both know I'm a terrible liar.
It's a Thursday afternoon, a few days since the night at Byrne's.
The library is dead in that specific two-to-four p.m. way.
Just me, a grad student passed out in the reference section, and a woman in periodicals using our Wi-Fi to stream reality TV.
I've scanned the same three returns twice.
My phone is face-up next to the scanner, showing a text from Callum that came in an hour ago: Gerald's leaf is drooping, should I move him?
I haven't texted back yet. I'm saving all my emotional bandwidth for what's about to walk through the door.
Ava texted this morning. Three words: Library.
2pm. Cookies. I've drafted replies and sent none.
Ghosted my best friend while telling myself I was giving her space, when really I was just too scared to have the conversation.
So the silence was mine as much as hers, and that made it worse.
Those three words this morning made me cry into my cereal.
Callum held me and didn't say I told you so, even though he'd been saying she'd come back.
I wasn't sure. It hasn't been that long, but Ava and I have never gone this many days without actually talking.
Every morning I woke up and checked my phone and the distance between us felt heavier.
She breezes in at 2:17, double-fisting coffees.
She looks tired—more tired than I've seen her in a while—and she's wearing the expression of someone who's made up her mind to just rip the Band-Aid off.
She drops into the chair across from my desk—the same one she's claimed fifty times before, leaving a permanent dent in the cushion—and slides an oat milk latte toward me.
She doesn't ask how I take it. She's never had to.
"You stress-baked," she notes, eyeing the Tupperware.
"I didn't stress-bake."
"These are peanut butter chocolate chip. You only make these when you're freaking out." She pops the lid and grabs a cookie without asking. "You made these the night before your psych midterm and the day your parents' water heater blew. So what's the crisis?"
"Nothing. I just felt like baking."
"Milo."
"I'm not freaking out."
She takes a bite, and we settle into this weird, awkward dance.
We pretend it's a normal Thursday. She complains about her group project partner who doesn't understand MLA format.
I tell her about a guy who tried to check out a book using his gym card.
We both laugh, but it's too fast, too eager. We're circling the drain.
She finishes the cookie and brushes the crumbs off her fingers. The barcode scanner beeps entirely too loud as I run a book under it. I'm stalling. She knows I'm stalling. This is stupid. It's Ava. I've told this girl things I wouldn't even tell a therapist.
"I'm sorry—" I start, the automatic apology already slipping off my tongue before I even know what I'm apologizing for.
"Don't," she interrupts, her tone softening. She puts the half-eaten cookie down. "Don't start with sorry. I've heard you start with sorry a thousand times, and it always means you're about to make yourself smaller than you need to be. Just talk to me."
I snap my mouth shut. My jaw aches with the effort of holding back the rest of the apology. It's a reflex. It smooths things over. But she just called me out on it, and the accuracy stings.
Ava wraps both hands around her coffee cup, her expression shifting into something more open. "You want to know what's actually bothering me? It's not the relationship. I like Callum with you. I like you with Callum. He's been different since you happened to him, and it's a good different."
"Then what?"
"You told the group before you told me," she says flatly. Not angry, just stating a fact. "Jude knew before me. Jude. The man who can't keep a secret for longer than it takes to open a group chat knew about your fated-mate bond with my brother before I did."
"I know," I whisper, my stomach twisting. "These last few days without you—"
"Were awful for me too," she says, cutting me off.
Her voice cracks on too, just barely, and she covers it with a sip of coffee.
"I almost texted you a bunch. I had drafts.
One of them was just the word why in all caps.
" She sets the cup down. "But I needed to be mad without worrying about making you feel better about it.
You would've apologized, and I would've forgiven you too fast, and then I'd still be carrying it. "
I nod, because she's right. That's exactly what would have happened.
"And I could be mad about it forever," she continues. "Except I can't, because I'm a massive hypocrite."
I frown, my fingers pausing on the keyboard. "What?"
"I knew about the crush. Your crush on Callum. I've known for over a year."
The floor practically drops out from under me.
"You—what?"
"The first time Cal came to pick me up from campus.
Remember?" she asks, waving a hand vaguely.
"You were telling me about some guy trying to return a pizza box to the library, and his truck pulled up, and you just..
. stopped. Mid-word. Mouth hanging open.
I looked where you were looking, and it was just my brother getting out of his truck.
" She shrugs. "You're never still, Milo.
You're always fiddling with something. And you just froze. I put two and two together."
I stare at her, my mouth doing a stupid, trembling thing. The barcode scanner blinks uselessly on the desk.
"I never said anything because I didn't want to push," she explains, her voice dropping into something gentler.
"I figured if you wanted to tell me, you would.
I thought if I named it, it would make things weird, and you'd pull back, and I'd lose the version of you that bakes things and hangs out at my apartment.
I was trying to protect you. Turns out I was just letting you carry it alone. "
The library is dead quiet. The fluorescent lights buzz overhead, and the reality TV woman's phone plays something tinny three aisles over. My heart is hammering against my ribs.
"I should have—" I start, but I bite my tongue. The apology is right there. I want to say I'm sorry for making it weird, sorry for dumping this on her, sorry for existing. I want to shrink down and give her an easy out.
But I don't want to run it anymore. Not with Ava.
I put the scanner down and force my hands to stay flat on the desk.
"I didn't tell you because..." I swallow hard, trying to get the words out in the right order. "Because I was ashamed."
Ava doesn't interrupt. She just waits, giving me the space to be messy.
"Not of him. Of wanting him the whole time I was supposed to be your friend.
" I trace the edge of a hardcover on the returns cart.
"Every time I came to dinner and helped in the kitchen, I was also the guy losing his mind over your brother in the next room.
Telling you felt like admitting our whole friendship had this huge lie running underneath it. "
I pull my hand back from the cart, my voice dropping to a whisper. "I thought if you knew what I actually wanted, you'd see me differently. Not as your friend, but as the guy using your family dinners to stare at your brother. I wanted to be the good one. The easy one."
Ava looks at me, her expression completely stripped of its usual teasing edge.
"Milo," she says firmly. "You are the good one. You're also the one who wanted my brother. Those aren't two different people."
She picks up her cookie, takes a bite, and points the remaining half at me. "Also, I need you to know that he irons his T-shirts."
I blink, thrown by the sudden pivot. "He what?"
"His casual T-shirts. He irons them. Not dress shirts.
The ratty gray cotton ones he wears around the house.
He thinks wrinkled cotton is 'disrespectful.
'" She does air quotes around the word, her grin returning in full force.
"I walked in on him ironing a nine-dollar Target shirt, and he was completely focused. Like he was performing brain surgery."
A laugh bubbles up out of my chest. It's loud enough that the sleeping grad student shifts, but I can't help it. The image of big, serious Callum Hayes carefully pressing creases into cheap cotton with the intensity of a five-alarm fire is the most endearing fucking thing I've ever heard.
"He irons his T-shirts," I repeat, wiping a tear from the corner of my eye.
"Every single one. And he cried at a dog food commercial two Christmases ago and made me swear on our mother's life never to tell anyone." She leans forward. "I'm telling you because you're stuck with him now, and you need to know exactly what you signed up for."
"A T-shirt-ironing, dog-food-commercial-crying firefighter who talks to his plants."
"And you love him," she says, her eyes crinkling. "Which is the craziest part of this whole thing, because I've watched you go from 'I can't even look at him without blushing' to 'I'm his secret fated mate,' and neither of us ever said a damn word. We are both idiots."
"We're both idiots," I agree. My throat goes a little tight.
"Is he good to you?" she asks, the joke dropping away completely.
"Yeah," I say, my voice steady. "He really is."
She studies my face for a second, then nods. Her shoulders drop, like she was bracing for a hit that never came.
"Does he do the hovering thing?" she asks, the teasing lilt returning. "Where he stands way too close and checks if you've eaten while pretending he's not doing it?"
"Every single day."
"I knew it. He does that to everyone, but with you it's probably unbearable because he actually wants to fuck you, which means the hovering comes with an agenda." I flush hot, and she laughs. "Who cooks?"
"Both. He makes the garlic bread. I make everything else."
"Smart. His pasta is garbage. Has he made you water his plants yet?"
"I named one."
"You named—" She chokes on a laugh, setting her coffee down. "Which one?"
"The fern. Gerald."
Ava throws her head back and actually cackles, completely ignoring library etiquette. "Gerald. Oh my god, he's going to love that. He's going to tell Gerald everything." She shakes her head, grinning at me. "You two are perfect for each other, and it's disgusting."
"Good. If he ever steps out of line, I have a plan that involves ruining his recipe and crushing his self-esteem."
"I believe you." She stands up, grabs two more cookies from the Tupperware, and slings her bag over her shoulder.
"You're coming to Dad's birthday next month, by the way.
As Callum's date. Not as my friend who happens to be there.
As his mate. Mom's already planning the menu, and if you bring cookies, she'll like you more than she likes Cal.
Which isn't hard, because he was a nightmare teenager. "
"I'll bring cookies."
"You better." She leans down and wraps her arms around me, squeezing tight.
Tighter than usual. I squeeze back, and for a second neither of us lets go, and the five days of silence collapse into the space between my ribs.
When she pulls away, her eyes are a little bright, but she blinks it gone and points at my desk.
"Get back to work. Text my brother. He's been staring at his phone all day.
I know because he keeps liking my Instagram stories within thirty seconds of me posting them, which means he's just sitting around waiting for you. "
She struts out of the library, and the heavy glass door swings shut behind her.
I sit at my desk. The returns cart is still half-full. The grad student is still asleep. The Tupperware is lighter, my coffee is lukewarm, and the library looks exactly the same as it did an hour ago. But I feel like my skin actually fits right for the first time in weeks.
I pick up my phone. Callum's text is still glowing on the screen.
Gerald's leaf is drooping, should I move him?
I tap the reply box.
Ava came by. We're good. Also she told me you iron your T-shirts and I'm going to need you to explain yourself tonight.
No softening. No sorry to bother you tacked on the end. Just the truth, a little teasing, and the assumption that he actually wants to hear from me. Because he does.
I hit send, toss the phone onto the desk, and reach for the next book on the cart. The scanner beeps, loud and echoing in the quiet room, and I'm smiling at absolutely nothing.