Chapter Twelve
Eden
Milo was a phenomenal cook. I ate two servings of rice pilaf and made him give me the recipe, but it was dessert that tipped me over the edge.
The man had made us chocolate chip cookies. From scratch.
We brought the container of cookies over to the couch, agreed on a superhero movie we’d both already seen, and somehow ended up overstuffed and stretched out along the length of the sofa. Milo’s head was on the armrest, mine on his chest, with my body tucked between him and the back cushions.
Sometime before the hero triumphed in his final battle against the villain, I fell asleep. The sun was shining when I reluctantly peeled my eyes open, only to see that Milo had extricated himself from under me and was in the midst of tucking a blanket around my shoulders.
“Hey,” he said softly. “I was going to leave you a note. I need to go over and open the shop, but you’re welcome to stay here as long as you want. You looked so sweet, I didn’t want to wake you.”
I rubbed my eyes, then realized he was wearing glasses with thick black frames. “Oh my god. I didn’t think you could get any hotter, now this?”
Milo laughed. “I didn’t put my contacts in yet. Shockingly, I might have overslept a bit, thanks to an excellent couch companion. You’re an expert snuggler, you know.”
“Hmm. I should go.” I burrowed under the blanket while my brain slowly fired up, not quite getting the memo that my body should be moving off the couch instead of sinking into it.
“Seriously, stay as long as you like. There’s coffee, cookies. Cereal, uh, maybe some PopTarts.”
“Coffee?” The endearment warmed me even more than the blanket, but coffee was my morning lifeblood.
Milo’s beard twitched as he grinned. “Yes, coffee. C’mon, I’ve got enough time to have a cup with you before I go.”
My clothes were rumpled and my hair almost certainly a disaster, but his gaze was warm as it traveled over me, top to toe. With his hand wrapped around mine, he led me toward the kitchen, laughing softly when I slumped onto a stool.
“Not a morning person, huh?”
“I’m a morning person when I wake up at home in my bed with my programmable coffee pot ready to roll,” I corrected. “I can’t even remember the last time I fell asleep during a movie, nevermind on a couch. How are you so spry this morning?”
“Mostly because I had a beautiful woman draped over me all night, but the fact that I’ve been up long enough to shower and drink my first cup of coffee helps.”
“Am I going to make you late?”
Milo poured me a mug of coffee, slid a sugar bowl and two different creamer options toward me, and grinned. “If you did, it’d still be worth it, but no. I’ve got another fifteen minutes before we hit critical mass.”
We sat there together, sipping coffee and eating cookies, settling into the kind of easy conversation that I’d come to associate with Milo.
In fact, everything felt easier when I was around him, more natural, like I’d spent my life in the wrong climate and finally found the environment where I could thrive.
It was unsettling, even if it was also a relief.
By the time Milo needed to leave for work, my muddied thoughts had cleared enough to drive home and figure out what exactly I was going to do with my day off. At the door of my car, Milo kissed me, light and sweet.
“Carter comes to the store after school on Mondays, but I’m alone until then. If you’re around the shop, I mean, and want to visit.”
“I just might take you up on that. Thank you again for dinner. And breakfast.”
“It was my pleasure, Eden,” he murmured.
With that, Milo grinned, planted one last swift kiss on my lips, and stepped back so I could get behind the wheel. I gave a stupid little wave before backing out of his driveway, then it hit me that we’d spent another night together.
Asleep. On his freaking couch.
Milo’s parking spot was open when I pulled up in front of the stores, so I decided I’d take him up on the obvious offer, especially to protect my four new tires.
I couldn’t quite see into Dueling Dragons from there, but I was more nervous about walking in to visit Milo that afternoon than I had been about approaching him at the bar during Comic Con.
It was silly and ridiculous and I couldn’t stop replaying the scene from that morning, waking up to Milo gazing down at me.
Here I’d been worried about it being impossible to recreate the magic between us, and he just kept gifting me with more magical moments.
So instead of going next door like a grownup, I puttered around Garden of Delights, restocking the racks that had been depleted over the weekend, cleaning smudges from the mirrors in the two dressing rooms, updating spreadsheets, and doodling window display ideas for the future.
Finally, when I had nothing left to do, I locked up and made the short trek to Milo’s store.
His face lit when I walked in, though he teased, “I was afraid maybe you weren’t going to show up.”
“Am I that transparent?” I asked.
I didn’t have it in me to tease back, but Milo must have sensed that, because his expression turned serious. Leaving his seat behind the counter, he came around to take both my hands in his.
“I’m sorry, Eden. I didn’t mean anything by it.”
“Does it bother you that I’m not the same woman who propositioned you in that bar?”
Milo’s head jerked back in surprise, but he didn’t release my hands. “What are you talking about?”
“I just…I was bold that night. Decisive. That’s not who I am.”
“Eden,” he admonished gently, “that’s exactly who you are. You struck out on your own, opened a kickass store, made plans that will help people live their lives to the fullest. If that’s not bold and decisive, I don’t know what is.”
I blinked at him. “I never thought of it that way.”
“It’s so innate, so integral to who you are, I’m not surprised you didn’t see it. Not only are you the exact same woman who walked up to me in the bar, every moment I spend with you shows me more and more of what’s beneath the surface. And I like what I’m finding, Eden. A whole hell of a lot.”
“Oh,” I replied, catching my lip in my teeth.
“Oh,” Milo repeated with a grin. “I don’t know if you’ve caught on, but that was my first surprise hookup too. I guess it’s not really a one-night stand if we’re dating now.”
“Are we dating?”
His grin widened. “I mean, we’ve had dinner twice, went out for drinks once, you slept over at my house last night, and my cat is obsessed with you.”
A giggle bubbled up in my throat and escaped before I could lock it down. “Right. Dating, then. I guess if we hadn’t been dating, those cookies would have forced the issue.”
Milo burst out laughing just as his nephew tore open the door and careened to a stop beside us. The kid grinned up at me as he shoved a pile of mail into Milo’s chest. Though Milo let go of my hands to grab the stack of envelopes and catalogs, he slipped one arm around my waist.
“Hi,” Carter said. “Are you Uncle Milo’s girlfriend now?”
Even though we’d just cleared up the dating issue, I hesitated long enough for Milo to answer for us both.
“Yup. Got homework to do?”
Carter ignored the question to ask me, “Are you gonna hang out with us for a bit?”
“Am I going to distract you from your homework?” I countered.
“Nah, I did some of it on the bus already. I only have a page of math problems left to do. I heard you beat Uncle Milo at Mortal Kombat. Even Dad can’t beat him most of the time.”
I allowed myself a moment to feel smug, then nodded. “Sure, I’ll hang out for a while, if it’s okay with your uncle.”
Milo grinned, squeezed my hip, and murmured, “Absolutely. Come on, as the guest of honor, you get the un-wobbly stool.”
Once we were all situated behind the counter, Milo started sorting through the mail.
This row of storefronts shared a big, rusty mailbox outside of Dueling Dragons’ front door, and Carter explained that it was his job to bring it in on the days he came after school.
After Milo sorted it, Carter would deliver it to the shop on the other side, which did custom framing for photos and artwork.
“If you’re closed on Mondays, what should I do with your mail?” Carter asked, frowning. “Maybe you should come over to visit us so you can pick it up.”
The kid’s gray eyes were wide and innocent, rimmed with thick black lashes. I wondered if he was playing me, but he looked hopeful rather than devious.
Just when I opened my mouth to agree, Milo muttered, “What the hell?”
I turned to see what he was looking at. Two piles of mail were stacked on the counter, one for Milo and one for the framing place, with just a local coupon circular beside them for me. In Milo’s hand, though, was a crumpled white envelope addressed to “Peddler of Evil.”
“Oh, shit,” I whispered, then my gaze shot to Carter. “I mean, shoot.”
“You can swear in front of me, it’s okay.”
“I think that’s one for my pile,” I joked weakly.
Milo frowned at the envelope, then at me. “What? Why would you think that?”
“The phrasing. That’s the kind of stuff my parents and the people from their church used to say. Milo, it’s no big deal. I knew the shop might draw some negative attention, especially in a small town.”
“Your shop has been open for three days, Eden. Getting hate mail three days in seems like a big deal to me. Look, I’m going to open it,” he said quietly.
I sighed. “Be my guest.”
Part of me wanted to see what was inside, but the other part wanted to throw it straight into the trash. Just because I knew people might hate what I was doing didn’t make it easier to realize it was going to hit home so quickly.
The envelope contained a preachy orange flier calling for repentance, offering redemption in the eyes of God for turning away from Satan.
There was no identifying information on it, though, not even the name of a church or organization.
That struck me as odd, having seen my share of that kind of thing before.
Usually they hoped to gain congregants seeking a second chance.
In fact, now that I thought about it, that little tract left on my windshield hadn’t had the name of a church on it, either.
Milo crumpled it into a ball and threw it in the garbage can under the counter. His lips were tight, hands clenched into fists even after the flier was out of sight.
“I’m sorry,” I said quietly.
Both of them swiveled to look at me in surprise.
“What are you sorry for?” Milo asked.
Carter set his small hand on my arm and said, “Haters gonna hate. You just gotta shrug it off and keep your head up.”
For a second, I just stared at the boy, my lips parted in shock. He held onto his solemn expression for a long moment, then he finally cracked a tiny grin and Milo slung one arm around each of our necks.
“Thank you, oh wise one,” he intoned, “but more importantly, who do you guys think would win in a battle between Superman and One-Punch Man?”
I couldn’t help it—I started laughing, turning my face into Milo’s shoulder. With the two of them telling jokes and chatting about all things superhero, I forgot all about the hate mail and let myself simply enjoy the afternoon.