Chapter Nineteen Prue
Nineteen
Prue
Every morning for the past five days, Milo has been over to paint with my mom.
On the first morning, I tidied my room, keeping a watchful eye over them from the loft.
On the second morning, I was in and out of the A-frame, doing laundry in the main house and changing Mom’s bedding.
On the third morning, I washed dishes and mopped the floors in the kitchen.
Then, on the fourth day, I rode my bike over to John Dough to pick up our usual Sunday-morning donuts, with one extra.
Together, Mom, Dad, Milo, and I celebrated Mom finishing her first painting in over two years.
And earlier today, the fifth morning in a row Milo was over, I came to the realization that there was nothing left to do.
Sure, there are always dishes needing to be washed—but the countertops were clear.
And, yes, there’s always laundry to be done—but we’ve all got enough clean clothes folded and put away to last us the week.
And sure, maybe, I could have gone through the front hall closet, which I’ve been meaning to sort for the better part of a year, but I didn’t have to. I let it wait.
I, Prudence Welch, relished that brief, rare moment in which I had nothing to do.
So, I lay in bed, listening to my mother laugh at another one of Milo’s ridiculous stories from his travels. And what a beautiful feeling it was, to bathe in the sunlight coming in through my loft’s skylight, and let their laughter and conversation wash over me.
Milo’s been coming over in the evenings too. He promises me each night, when I clam up and ask to stop, that we’re in no rush. He whispers it, over and over again, into the skin of my neck, shoulder, hips, thighs.
No rush, Killer.
I’m wrestling with the possibility that I am, quite possibly, a selfish lover. I haven’t even touched Milo below the belt yet, other than some over-the-pants action. But he continuously swears to me that he doesn’t mind.
At first, I didn’t believe him—not fully. But then he shows me time and time again with his hands, and lips, and tongue, and teeth, and moans, and grunts, and groans that he, too, is enjoying himself.
After, when our lips are tender and swollen and our cheeks are red and warm and our bodies are perfectly intertwined, we talk. He tells me about his adventures, the highs and the lows and what places he thinks I’d love to visit.
Sometimes, when he’s not careful, Milo talks as if he’ll take me with him someday. As if there is any future outside of this town, or beyond this strange blip in time, for us.
Sometimes, when I’m not careful, I wonder if it’s not a mistake at all. If he’s really picturing a future for us. But I quickly dismiss those fantasies. That is, until he falls asleep or leaves for his own bed. Then, in the quiet, still, dark, I allow my imagination to take over.
I picture him two years from now coming back to town to visit his brother.
He, for some reason, is on the back of a motorcycle when he arrives.
He texts me cute dress, Killer and I look up from my phone to see him outside my window, smiling at me in that crooked way he does.
Between breathless kisses, pinned against the wall, he asks me if I have a boyfriend.
I tell him no. Then, all of our clothes come off.
Afterward, I go with him to have dinner with his family.
They nag him about finally settling down and wink at me as they do it.
They know, just as I do, that he and I have something different and meaningful, even if it’s not normal in the traditional sense.
We all have an unspoken agreement that one day he’ll probably stop sowing his wild oats and choose to stay.
Then, I burst my own bubble—wondering who he’s been with in between, or how my mom is doing in two years’ time or some other crushing reality. It’s painful every time.
“Excuse me,” Milo says with a laugh, “are you listening at all?”
I blink back to focus, rolling over to see Milo sitting against my headboard, half-naked and smiling down at me. “Hmm? What?”
He licks his teeth, grinning. “Where did you go in there?” He pokes my forehead.
“Ow!” I giggle, swatting him away as he moves down the bed to lie on his side, propping himself up on his elbow as he falls next to me with a bounce.
“You bored of me already, Killer?”
“No.” I intertwine my fingers with his, his hand hovering in the air between us. I love his hand in mine. How perfectly we fit together. How we naturally begin tugging each other to and fro.
“Well then, what was I saying?”
“Okay, fine, I zoned out,” I confess, wincing playfully. “But you do have a tendency to go on and on…” I tease.
Milo shakes his head. “Oh, you’re in trouble now.” He grabs my hips, faster than I can stop him, and pulls me flat onto the mattress as I fight him off, giggling.
He moves to lie on top of me with nothing but a thin cotton sheet separating our bare chests.
“Have I already lost my charm?” He begins peppering my chin with kisses like a chicken pecking at its feed.
I grab hold of his hair and tug him away.
“Have you grown weary of me so quickly?” he asks in a silly, dramatic voice.
“I’m sorry!” I say, giggling as he brushes his mustache against the ticklish spot on my throat.
I attempt to kick him but my feet are stuck under the sheet and unable to break free.
I scream under him, bucking my hips as I push my hands against his shoulders and squirm while he continues to pester me.
Eventually, he collapses on top of me, letting most of his weight fall onto me. I groan underneath him, pretending to gasp for air. In reality, it’s quite nice—the pressure of him and the closeness.
I like how not-strange things are between us.
The beauty of how comfortable we are being the most weird, goofy, messy, sad, nostalgic, naked, lustful, hungry versions of ourselves together isn’t lost on me.
I actually wish it was lost on me a little because I’ve started to worry I won’t find this sort of closeness again.
Then I remind myself that Milo’s most likely experienced this before, dozens of times. That this, probably, isn’t unique to us. And that brings on a whole different type of worry I don’t want to name.
“Seriously,” Milo mumbles, his lips squished against my collarbone. “What were you thinking about?”
“You,” I answer truthfully.
He lifts off of me, just enough to have his face above mine. “Oh?” His lips pout. “Want to share?”
“Oh, honey, I wouldn’t want to hurt your feelings,” I tease.
“Jerk,” he says, burrowing his face into my neck and biting softly.
I mime putting a pin in the corkboard behind his back, as I do anytime these pesky feelings remain undiscussed. It’s getting very, very full.
A minute or so later, we’re kissing again, practically fucking through the sheet as Milo twists and presses himself against my needy center, grunting as he does.
We share breaths, gasping as the other inhales, blowing out through pursed lips as it gets to be too much.
I tell him no when he asks to touch me. I tell him no when he asks to go down on me.
But the word yes keeps slipping out in between.
It’s not that I don’t want him to do those things, because I do.
It’s just…I want to be riled up. I want to be so wildly gone for him that I gather the courage to try something new. To check another item off my list.
“Prue, please, ” he begs against the pulse point on my neck. “I can feel how soaked you are through the sheet and my boxers, Killer. This is fucking torture, beautiful. Please let me—”
“I want to use my mouth on you,” I tell him, so quiet that I’m not sure he’s heard. That is, until he freezes above me. “I want you to use my mouth.”
He groans next to my ear then swallows tightly.
I catch my breath, looking up at the ceiling over his rigid, tense shoulder. “Mi, I thought…I thought you’d want—”
“I want,” he cuts me off. “Fuck, Prue, do I want. ”
“Then what’s wrong?”
He moves to his knees between my legs, offering his hands to help me sit up beside him. I let him pull me, folding my legs to sit crisscrossed in front of his lap. “Did I do something—”
Milo’s jagged laugh, accompanied by his reddened cheeks, cuts me off. “No, no. I just needed a second to cool off. I almost…lost it. From your words alone. That is how much I want it.”
“So, it’ll be easy, then?” I tease, smiling coyly. The fire behind his eyes casts a deadly heat over my lips, making me lick them to cool off.
“I’ll always be easy for you.” His chest rises, the tattoos along his collarbone and pecs flexing. “How do you want me, Prue?”
“Sitting on the edge of the bed.”
He moves without hesitation, planting two feet on the floor. I crawl over the bed and stand between his parted knees.
I look down to his lap and the outline of his erection through his black boxers. I bite my lip, feeling the heady, desperate urge to make him feel good that he told me would come, when I was ready. He was so right. It’s so obvious now. I didn’t know I’d want it this much. “Boxers off, please.”
He smiles wickedly up at me, lifting his hips to slip his underwear off.
When they’re down, he kicks them toward my bedside table before leaning back to rest on his palms against the mattress.
“You feel it now, don’t you?” he asks, voice verging on I-told-you-so.
“That need to give that we talked about?”
I lower to my knees in front of him, my hands skating across his thighs as I do. I press my thumb into the tattoo on his hip. My words on him. I tremble with need, reading over the words forever inked on his skin.
“Yeah, you do,” he answers for me. “Fuck, Killer, you look so perfect on your knees.” Milo reaches down, curling one finger under my chin. “You’re going to be so good, Prue. I know it. I can feel it in my fucking spine. Tell me that you want to do this.”