Chapter 11 #2
Miller’s mouth catches on something that’s not quite a smile.
Faint lines digging in around the corners of his eyes, darker than usual under an overcast morning sky.
His tattooed hand comes up, adjusting the top of the hat turned backwards on his head before he tugs absentmindedly at the waves peeking out around the nape of his neck.
The muscles on his arm contract when he rubs the back of his head, his other hand lifting a cardboard coffee tray, weighed down by two foil bags and perspiring iced coffees.
“Pretty girls have given me warmer welcomes in the morning.” He forces a grin.
“Oh,” I say again, blinking too much before I give a small shake of my head. “Sorry, I just thought you were—”
“Your shitty ex?”
I nod with a weak smile. “Seems like something he’d do. Show up and tell me about all the things I did wrong last night and all the ways I brought shame on the Paleontology Department.”
“I was there. Don’t remember you doing anything wrong.
And I don’t think you brought shame upon the dinosaurs.
” He pokes his tongue into his cheek, and a flush rises under the stubble dusting his jaw.
“They should, uh, give you a raise. I learned a lot about asteroids and things that happened sixty-six million years ago.”
Sniffing, I pull open the door in invitation. “Too bad you weren’t around a few months ago. I could have used you on the hiring committee.”
He frowns before taking a tentative step off the porch and back into my house. “What do you mean?”
“Oh, I just—” I chew on the inside of my cheek, waving a laissez-faire hand. “Lost out on a job. To my shitty ex, actually. It’s not a big deal.”
Miller nods slowly and in disbelief. But he clears his throat, holding up the tray again. “Thought you could use, uh, some—”
“Help?” I finish flatly.
“No.” He shakes his head. “Don’t think the likes of you would need my help with much of anything. But I thought you could use some food and something to drink that wasn’t, you know—”
“Champagne?” I finish again, kinder this time.
“Yeah.” He smiles, dimples popping and chasing away the pink on his cheeks. “That.”
Wrapping my arms around my stomach, I say softly, “Well, thank you. For this. And for that. You know . . . helping me last night. I’m really sorry. I don’t usually make a habit of embarrassing myself or the people I’m with, and I don’t—”
“You didn’t embarrass me,” he finishes this time, jaw tensing with a swallow. “And you didn’t embarrass yourself.”
“Then how come I feel embarrassed?” I ask quietly, the backs of my eyes starting to burn.
“Alcohol can do that to a person,” he says dryly, tipping his chin towards the tray again. “Here. Take it. I don’t know what you like. I just grabbed what I thought might . . . help the most.”
I smile, taking the iced coffee and one of the foil bags with a tentative hand. “Thank you. Do you have anywhere to be? We could . . . sit.”
He shakes his head. “No. Afternoon practice today. I’ve got nothing but time. Lead, uh . . . the way, I guess.”
His footsteps follow mine, past the kitchen and into the living room, and he drops into the chair across from the couch, leaving his own coffee and food on the table, limbs a bit more awkward than I’d think a professional athlete’s would be.
He sits, back ramrod straight, hands tense against the arms of the chair, and one of his legs bounces up and down.
I don’t think I’ve ever made anyone nervous.
But Miller looks at me, full lips parting with a measured swallow he tries to hide behind a tattooed hand, and I wonder if there’s a first time for everything.
I try to smile gently when I take a sip of coffee before my fingers fiddle with the foil on the edge of the bag.
“It’s a bagel. With cheese and stuff,” he blurts before his features pinch with a wince. “I grabbed it on the way here this morning.”
“Oh. Thank you. Is that why you . . . why do you look so—” I gesture to him with the bottom of the coffee cup. “Fresh?”
The corner of his mouth tips up. “I think I’m probably better at being hungover than you.”
“Wait.” I narrow my eyes. “How old are you?”
“Twenty-seven.”
“Oh my god.” I drag my fingers down the bridge of my nose. “You’re a child.” He arches a wry brow. I cringe an apology. “No offence.”
“None taken. Pretty sure I’m a man.” He angles his head when he says it, maybe from the weight attached to that last word before he shrugs. “Last time I checked, anyway.”
I straighten my shoulders, tipping my chin up to hide the colour on my cheeks. “Do you know how old I am?”
“Thirty-two.”
“Does that scare you?”
“No. Should it?”
I sniff. “Probably.”
Miller lifts his fingers off the arm of the chair. “Why?”
“I’m thirty-two, with two master’s degrees that didn’t really get me anything, a mountain of student debt I’ll probably never be able to climb, and aspirations for a doctoral degree I’ll probably never realize.
” My shoulders give a half-hearted lift and I glance down at the bagel, slowly peeling back the foil so I don’t have to look at him while I admit all my failures.
“And I share the same obsession as most eight-year-old boys, except you know, they grew out of it.”
“Those your words?” He taps a thumb against the chair. “Or are they Scott’s?”
“Whose are whose at this point?” I say through a wet laugh.
“You don’t deserve to feel the way he’s made you feel.” Miller scrubs his face before dropping his elbows to his knees.
“You don’t know me.” I start pulling apart the bagel for something to do with my hands.
He stares, assessing. “I don’t need to, to know that.”
My eyes find his, and embarrassment burns along my brow. Chewing on my bottom lip, my voice cracks when I say, “Contrary to popular belief, I’m not usually this messy.”
“I don’t mind a little mess,” he answers, full lips in a soft smile with the hint of lines sketching around his eyes. A muscle in his cheek ticks, and he palms his jaw, working over his next words. “Last night, you said—”
“A lot of things, I’m sure.” I snort. “None of which are to be believed in the light of day.”
A swallow works down his throat, and he runs a hand along the back of his neck. “That’s too bad. You said if I ever wanted to . . . turn my list of things I don’t do into, uh—”
“Things you try again,” I finish softly. I do remember that part of the night. Clearly.
Miller, suspended in the doorway to my bedroom. His hand on the frame, resignation written in the lines of this face that’s supposed to, if Scott and apparently the media are to be believed, belong to this irreverent playboy who doesn’t understand or care about much.
But he seems to me like he cares about too much. And that underneath it all, he might be horribly sad.
“Yeah,” he says thickly. “Too bad.”
“I think,” I start, leaning forward to abandon my coffee and bagel on the table so my elbows can find my thighs, turning us into two reflections staring back at one another. “That part could be believed in the daylight.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” I wrinkle my nose. “What’s a little list of six things between friends? Adult friends? We can work through it in no time.”
His hands wrap around the beak of his hat at the back of his head, pressing down on the curve.
“I don’t want you to get the wrong idea.
It’s not about . . . what my publicist said.
I’m not trying to, uh, use you to get a trade or to distract everyone.
I just . . . I don’t know. You made me feel like, maybe .
. . I, uh, sorry. You say you’re not this messy, I’m usually not this . . . bad with, or nervous around—”
I lift a brow. “Pretty girls?”
He grins, lopsided and sheepish. “Just one, I think.”
Heat climbs up my spine, and I wave a hand through the air, trying to brush it off. “Let people think whatever they want. It can’t be worse than what you’ve been dealing with from the press. And if it helps you get out of here, who cares what the great minds in paleontology think?”
His brows knit. “What about . . . Scott? Your boss?”
“Uhm.” I poke my tongue into my cheek, considering.
“I don’t think it really matters, actually.
” And I’m not sure it does. None of it would be real, so what about me could possibly leave Miller wanting?
“I don’t really have anything to reach for at the museum anymore.
What do they care if their collections manager gets photographed a time or two with a professional athlete, educational partnership or not?
We aren’t working together. At least, not in that sort of capacity. ”
“But you’ll work with me . . . on my list?” he asks, hope tipping his words up.
“Yes, I meant what I said. Champagne aside.”
“What about your list?”
A knot twists in my stomach. “I don’t really have a list.”
He cocks his head. “You have the start of one, at least. Ren’s Remains. What else did you call it? Ren’s Reasons—”
“Not to Be Ren.” I remember that, too.
“You want to change my list from things I don’t do anymore to things I try again . . . why can’t we change yours too?” He shrugs. “Make it Ren’s Reasons to Be Ren instead.”
“I don’t, uhm—” My head gives an involuntary, jerky shake.
Blinking too much, I offer a strained smile.
I can’t think of anything worse than writing down all the ways I wasn’t enough for someone, spelling out all the stolen pieces of me I loved once upon a time but grew to hate.
“Sorry. I’ll help you, of course. I’m happy to, but I don’t . . . I don’t think so.”
Miller exhales, words low. “Too bad.”
“Sorry,” I mutter again.
He shakes his head, each slow turn disappointed, but I don’t think it’s at me. “Please stop apologizing to me when you have nothing to be sorry for.”
“Old habit.” I sniff.
“Bad habit.” His wide hands splay across his thighs, and he pushes to stand. “I have to get to the stadium. But uh—” He points towards my iced coffee, melting and abandoned on my coffee table. “My number’s on the sleeve. Text me . . . whenever you’re free, and we can . . . get started.”
I peer down at the coffee, noticing an untidy scrawl underneath the name of the café. A laugh escapes before I can stop it from turning into a snort. I do my best not to slap a hand over my mouth, looking up at him instead. “Smooth.”
“What’s that saying? Old dog, new tricks?” he says through a lazy grin, starting towards the front door.
I stand, arms crossed protectively over my stomach when I trail after him. “I don’t think that saying really applies here.”
“Ah, well. I might have been . . . asleep before we met, but uh, Miller Colson-Burke sees a pretty girl and he can’t help himself, I guess.” His grin turns tired when he adjusts his hat again, his tattooed hand finding the door handle. “Or something.”
“Or something,” I repeat, head tipped as I consider the word asleep.
“Text me. I, uh, I’d really appreciate your help.” His thumb feathers against the brass handle before he pushes it open and steps back out onto my porch. “And . . . I don’t know . . . think about whether you want mine, too.”
I nod, offering nothing but a feeble wave in goodbye.
But when I’m alone in my house again, and I sit back down with my coffee and this bagel that really did help—I glance down at my feet, trying to imagine all the pieces of me that sit there, and I do think about it.
The too-muchness of Ren Jacobs. A girl who, once upon a time, loved laughter and loved silliness and loved irreverence before she became nothing at all.
I think about Miller Colson-Burke and his help all day.