Chapter 17
Seventeen
It was becoming a concerning habit: Elio was up at a “decent” hour and was about to make his life infinitely more complicated and uncomfortable.
He paced on the rooftop of the Starlight Institute, his phone in hand and Matteo’s face and number on the screen.
There would be no going back once he told Matteo and the other two would be activated.
All three of his brothers would begin to conspire but Elio planned to manipulate their innate skills and tendencies to help Milo settle things once and for all with the Mean Guys.
He had come up with the perfect plan that would allow Milo to showcase his brilliance and coolness under pressure and prove once and for all that the Mean Guys were useless nepo babies and posers.
Unfortunately, the plan would require some personal sacrifice on Elio’s part so he pressed the send button and girded his loins when Matteo answered.
“Na?”
“Moagn… How are you?” Elio cringed, not wanting to sound too obvious. His brothers—Matteo in particular—would pounce if they saw an opportunity for leverage. The last time resulted in Elio dressing like a baby blue Teletubby for the family Easter party and photos.
“I’m fine. You?” Matteo asked suspiciously.
“Fine! I’m fine and work is…fine,” Elio added flatly, his lip curling as he considered the building beneath his feet.
Why the fuck was he there at 9 AM? “I loathe Starlight and would burn this place to the ground but I like the progress Milo and I are making,” he said and snorted.
“He has not been a letdown and working with him is much better than I expected.”
“Entschuldigung?” Matteo laughed. “Did I hear you correctly: you’re happy about something?”
“I was, until I called you,” Elio sighed but Matteo was being Matteo.
This was also probably a right of passage for suffering younger brothers so Elio resigned himself.
“I have accepted that Milo makes me happy so I’m staying at Starlight for the time being,” he admitted.
The line was silent for several moments so Elio checked to see if the call had been dropped. “Hello?”
“I’m here, I just couldn’t feel my face for a moment and I think I might have heard angels singing.”
“Shut up.”
“No! This is wonderful news, Eli! This proves you’re human and you’re not a psychopath.”
“Was that ever really a question?” Elio said wearily but Matteo hummed.
“For the longest time! Theo had this theory that our real brother had been replaced by an alien and that you were here to spy on us.”
Elio glared at the phone before returning it to his ear. “Was he drunk?”
“No, I think he was seventeen or eighteen at the time but the idea kind of stuck.”
“Now you know I’m not an alien. Glad we can put that behind us,” Elio said and Matteo snickered.
“And keeping you in therapy has paid off.”
“I don’t mind therapy,” Elio said. “I study science and mathematics, not the human brain or behaviors and emotions, so it’s helpful to talk to someone who understands why things bother me.”
“There are so many things…” Matteo said, then cleared his throat. “How are you managing, though? Are you still worried that caring about Milo will make you less of a scientist?”
Elio laughed wryly. “Oh, I’m still worried. So far, this experiment is proceeding just as I predicted. I’m worthless and Milo is carrying all the weight but he hasn’t noticed or he doesn’t seem to mind.”
“I’m sure it’s not that bad,” Matteo said in an attempt to placate Elio. “It’s normal to be distracted and obsessed when you’re falling for someone but you’ll be back to being difficult and miserable in no time.”
“Promise?”
“I promise. You might even find that you’re a better scientist once you get the hang of being Milo’s boyfriend.”
“A better scientist?” Elio asked, both dubious and intrigued.
He had suspected that they could do great things together but in what ways could Elio grow and learn from having a romantic relationship with someone like Milo?
“I do have moments where I panic because I feel like I’m slipping,” he confessed hesitantly.
“But I’m putting my faith in the advice of my brothers and everyone else who’s felt the need to share their opinions on the matter. ”
“That’s good to hear. You might be a genius when it comes to astrophysics and the universe but the rest of us common nitwits have been falling in and out of love for most of our adult lives,” Matteo said with a hiss.
“Not me, of course. I was wary and thought I was too smart to fall in love but then I met Truman. It wasn’t nearly as messy or uncomfortable as I thought it would be and I know you can survive the fall too. ”
“When you put it like that…”
Matteo laughed. “When have you ever been afraid of falling? How many times have you broken or sprained or shredded some part of your body?” he asked, making Elio shrug.
“I’m better at practicing physics with my markers and in an office than I am at practicing it outside in the real world. When I make a mistake on a dry erase board, I can erase it and start over. When I make a mistake with my skateboard or while I’m climbing, I break a limb or get road rash.”
“You haven’t needed stitches or a sling since you moved to Manhattan,” Matteo noted but Elio snorted.
“I can barely skate here unless I’m at a park. I carry my board more than I use it and they’re more strict about climbing the buildings and bridges in the city. You have to get a permit or people call the police,” Elio said with an eye roll.
“Isn’t it ridiculous?” Matteo said dramatically. “Why would anyone object to a tattooed menace scaling their residence or office building or watching him go splat! on the pavement on their way to work?”
“In scientific terms, we call it ‘evolution’ when something makes a critical mistake and goes splat!”
“I call it a funeral and I’ve worried less about it since you’ve been here. I’m glad you’re sticking it out at Starlight and giving yourself a chance with Milo. I’ll always be your biggest fan but there’s so much more to life than work.”
“Right,” Elio replied, thinking about the dry erase boards at Muriel’s.
He’d been so wrapped up in his infatuation with Milo, the bullying and drama at the institute, and his fear of slipping as an academic and a scientist that Elio barely thought about time and his secret mission to find their parents.
“I’m having faith and trusting that this is just a phase,” he ground out.
“That’s the spirit! Is there anything I can do to help?”
“Yes, since you asked,” Elio said with a calculating grin.
He had sustained some abuse but Elio was certain Matteo would be on board once he was caught up and heard the plan.
“There’s a particularly nasty clique at work, Milo calls them the Mean Guys.
They’ve been allowed to run the institute and make Milo’s life hell.
I want to put a stop to it and put them in their place. ”
“Hold on! Who the hell would pick on Milo? He’s…adorable and brilliant. Why would anyone have a problem with him?” Matteo asked angrily.
“My thoughts exactly, Teo! But Starlight is a joke. It’s a daycare for entitled, overindulged, high IQ brats and it’s run by spineless administrators. The only one who knows what he’s doing is Milo but he was living in fear of the Mean Guys.”
“Where can I find these Mean Guys?” Matteo said in a lethal purr. “I just want to talk.”
“Trust me, I’ve thought about catching them in a dark alley but I think it would be better if Milo was the one to put them in their places.”
Matteo made a thoughtful sound. “You’re right… Is there a chance Milo could take any of them?”
“In a fight?” Elio laughed and shook his head. “Milo is a lot more fit than he looks or lets on, but he doesn’t have an aggressive or violent bone in his body. Unfortunately.”
“I didn’t think so. He doesn’t seem like he’s cutthroat or vindictive either.”
“Not even a little bit,” Elio confirmed but chuckled softly.
“I like that about him. He’s so good, Teo.
No matter how low they go or how much shite they heap on him, Milo never stoops to their level.
I would have cracked—I did within the first week—but Milo keeps his chin up and tries to keep smiling. ”
“Milo’s great but he shouldn’t have to do any of that. How are we going to fix this?” Matteo asked, ready to get to work.
Elio smirked, envisioning the Mean Guys’ downfall. It was all but guaranteed now that Matteo was on their side and he would be the key to getting Leo on board and Truman’s legal connections and resources would come in handy.
“Poldi isn’t going to like this and he’s going to be suspicious because he always is when a collider is involved…”
It took a great deal of explaining for Matteo to understand the intricacies of Elio’s plan.
And a lot of promises because of the collider.
But eventually, Matteo agreed that it was a clever idea and would give Milo a chance to shine and show the Mean Guys who was the real star at the Starlight Institute.
Like the erase boards back at the Olympia, Elio pushed his fears about his ability to work and his life’s work into the corner and focused on what he could solve in the present.
The odds of solving time and saving his parents were extremely slim, even with Milo’s help.
But Elio could change Milo’s life by proving he was better than the Mean Guys and helping him beat them.
And there was all that Elio had to gain if his brothers and Felicity were right.
He could spend the rest of his life working to resolve the problem of time and quantum mechanics and never succeed, but Elio would also miss out on a chance to find his soul mate if he chickened out now.
As much as Elio wanted his parents and worried that he was letting them down, his heart told him they’d be even more disappointed if he blew his shot at happiness with Milo.
His three annoying and ever meddling older brothers were proof of his parents’ love for him and each had made it clear that they approved of Milo.
Wholeheartedly. Elio could appreciate that his brothers knew him almost as well as he knew himself and that they were far more qualified in matters of romance.
So it was reassuring to know that they were optimistic about Elio’s odds of success and believed he’d be a good fit for Milo.
Elio just had to prove it to himself and convince Milo that he was a badass too.