Milo #3
“We are pretty close,” I admitted, knowing that was about as safe as it got. “I’m glad I met him. Though I didn’t think so at first.”
“Why?”
“Eh, had...well, I guess the nice way of putting it is ‘behavioral problems’ when we first met.”
“What kind?”
“The kind that involved a lot of screaming, fighting, and biting. God, I hated the biting.”
“He seems so...mild.”
“He is now ,” I said with a laugh. “But he seemed sent from Hell when I first met him. You couldn’t get him to be calm about anything.
I don’t know how Mom and Marcus dealt with it, but Mom is Mom, and she was determined to get through to him.
I guess I can’t blame her because it worked.
Looking back, it makes sense why he was like that.
He and his mom had been in a bad accident a couple of years before I met him.
He says he doesn’t remember it, but some part of him remembered it back then.
Now I’m older, I don’t see a little demon who wanted to be mean, I see a little kid who was scared out of his mind and reacting the only way he could. He just needed?—”
“A family?”
“Yeah, I guess that’s right. Took him the longest to warm up to Mom, though.”
“Because of his mom?”
“That’s my guess. But you’d have a hard time finding someone who loves her as much as he does.
I remember one time, some kid I was arguing with in high school asked if Mom even had to give birth to me, or if I just slipped out after all the kids she had.
I guess he didn’t know she didn’t have Arlo and Dom, but that didn’t matter at the time because I was just pissed.
I didn’t even think to look for Eli, who came out of nowhere and beat the shit out of that kid.
I was so shocked, I didn’t think to stop him until the beating was half done.
He was lucky he only got a few days off, but I think the principal was too confused that Eli had done it.
He just... suspended him with the promise that he wouldn’t do something like that again. ”
If someone knew my little secret, they might think the first time I was attracted to him was when I’d walked in on him coming out of the shower, which was understandable, but they’d be wrong.
It had been that day, and that thought was as amusing as it was concerning.
I mean, hell, he had lost his temper, snapped at someone, launched himself across the table, and taken the kid down before he knew what was happening.
The fight, if you wanted to call it that, had lasted less than a minute.
Eli had blackened his eyes, busted his lip, and it was a damn miracle he hadn’t broken anything on the kid.
Yet when he’d looked up as I’d shouted his name, I remembered how my breath caught in my throat, and I could only stare at him.
His fist was bruised with a smear of blood, his chest heaved in a heavy, barely controlled pant, and his expression was fury and fight.
But it had been his eyes, ablaze with indignant rage, daring anyone to interfere.
..and then he’d seen me. His expression and gaze had softened, and he released the kid.
It had been terrifying seeing how much anger was inside him and how dangerous it was.
Terrifying...and exhilarating, the sight touched something inside me that had been sleeping peacefully until then.
I still didn’t have a name for it, other than knowing it was primal, some part of me that was in everyone, the part that remembered being an animal and wouldn’t let us forget it, no matter how much society and technology evolved.
I’d felt like a caveman who had just watched someone drag home a kill for me and throw it at my feet.
But the change in him when he realized I was trying to calm him had sealed the deal.
All that dangerous fury, that lethal rage, had cracked, then broken, and turned to dust when he saw it was me.
I had witnessed the animal inside him, and not only had it attracted me, but it had retracted its claws without thought when I came close.
Later, I realized Eli could be dangerous if he wanted to be, but for me? For me, he would never be dangerous.
Marshall chuckled. “Well, it sounds like he found the family he needed so badly then. Good to know he can put up a fight too.”
“Are you kidding?” I asked with a laugh.
“Mom was furious . She couldn’t believe he started a fight over words that didn’t matter, and words aimed at her too.
She gave him this whole speech about how she was touched that he’d defended her honor, but her honor or feelings wouldn’t be hurt by some teenage idiot who wasn’t one of her own kids.
She probably would have grounded his ass for the rest of the school year, but I think Marcus had something to do with Eli only getting a couple weeks of housekeeping duty. ”
“Your mom made you do housekeeping as a punishment?”
“Oh yeah. When you were on punishment housekeeping duty, you got the worst rooms to clean,” I said with a smirk. “Weird how that worked out, huh?”
“I’m sure it was a coincidence,” Marshall said with a snort. “But it sounds like Marcus wasn’t quite as upset about it.”
“He wasn’t like...jumping for joy, but he wasn’t as mad, that’s for sure,” I said with a shrug. “I think part of him was happy Eli was willing to defend Mom. Maybe it’s a guy thing, or maybe he was reminded how much Eli didn’t like Mom early on, and it was a reminder that things had changed.”
“Could be both, or it could be...well, it was probably good to know that his son was willing to fight for something he believed in. Plenty of people act like they’re willing to fight, but when the time comes, they find out they don’t have claws or fangs.
Everyone learned that Eli has both that day, but he doesn’t use them. ”
“He sure did that day.”
“Well, sure, but since then?”
“Nah, he’s been a good boy.”
“I bet there’s been plenty of times he wanted to use them, though. But chose not to. Someone capable of violence gets to choose if they’re a good person or not.”
“What do you mean?”
“Try to bust up a car with your bare hands, and you’ll find out real fast that it’s not easy.
But if you have a bat? You can bust that thing up good.
More people than you think are the ones with bare fists, but people like Eli are the ones with a bat.
But the first type of person can’t choose not to bust up the car, because they don’t have what’s needed.
People like Eli do, though, but choose not to.
Maybe because they don’t want to be that person, or maybe because they know the damage and hurt that can cause and don’t want to add that sort of thing to the world. ”
“Ohhhh, I see,” I said, the idea delighting me as it trickled through my brain with all its implications. “It’s easy to call yourself a good person when you can’t do real harm.”
“Exactly. And I think highly of people like Eli, who know they have violence in them but keep it under control. They choose every day, or at least every time something pisses them off, not to add that kind of pain and violence to the world. And there might come a day when he and maybe you are glad he has that kind of potential.”
The idea was interesting, and I couldn’t help but lean forward. “Sounds like you know something about that.”
“I might,” he said with a smile. “And maybe I could tell you a thing or two if you want.”
“Oh God, do I ever.”
“Got anything planned for the day?”
“Not really,” I said with a shrug. Embarrassment kept me from admitting I had cleared my entire day and most of tomorrow.
I didn’t know how our meeting was going to go.
Having time meant I could mentally recover if it was bad, and if it went well, I would have plenty of time to spend with him. “Got something in mind?”
“How about a refill and a couple of extra things?” he asked, eyeing my glass.
Oh. He wanted to have actual drinks with me then. Alright, I was good with that. “Sure.”
“Let me think,” he said, frowning as he looked over my face. “Alright, I think I know.”
“Know what?”
“You’ll see, and I’ll get my answer.”
And with that mysterious statement, he slid from the booth, taking our glasses to the bar.
I was still a little confused, but I decided he was right.
I’d find out eventually. It meant I probably had a few minutes while he waited for the bartender, and I picked up my phone.
I knew it was probably a good idea to call Raf first with the news; he was my boyfriend after all.
Yet my first instinct was to call Eli, who I knew would be patiently waiting to hear from me with an update.
Of course, I was less likely to catch shit from Eli if I took my time telling him, he was used to how distracted I could get, how caught up I could be with things, that I forgot about the rest of the world.
Raf, though...well, sometimes he didn’t really get it, and as busy as he was, he didn’t get distracted like I did; he was just plain busy.
Could I be blamed if it was Eli, who I’d known since we were in single digits, that I turned to when something big was happening in my life?
Well, your partner was supposed to be the person you called when big things happened too.
Taking a breath, I opened my phone and decided that whoever had texted me back was the one I would call first. If they’d both texted, I would go with whoever’s name was first. And if that person didn’t answer, I’d call the other.
Both had texted me back, but Raf's name was first. I tried not to feel too disappointed, especially because it brought up a well of guilt that I wasn’t excited to message my boyfriend.
The only way to deal with the guilt was to push aside the disappointment and open the message.
I meant to hit the phone button at the top and stopped when I realized he’d sent a picture.
It was another nude, and I felt my heart race.