Chapter 10 – Claire
TEN
CLAIRE
Miles walks in the front door with no shirt and a pair of short running shorts that definitely shouldn’t be as hot as they are, a thin sheen of sweat all over his body, and a grimace on his face.
Despite the grumpy look, for the millionth time since I’ve moved here, I’m blown away by how fucking hot he is. Okay, so I always knew Miles was hot, but living with him further cements the concrete proof that I absolutely dated the wrong Miller brother, and that alone seems like a giant shame.
He storms into the kitchen where I’m eating breakfast and avoids my gaze as he takes out a headphone and moves to the fridge for water. After he pours himself a glass, he stands and watches me eat cereal out of a salad bowl. The box of sugary cereal is before me as I read the back, my eyes winning the maze for the third time in an effort not to be a creep and trace the lines of his abs.
“Morning,” I finally say with a smile before taking another big bite of the colorful stuff. He gives me a glare, and it’s clear to me he’s not having a great morning. I can’t blame him, considering it’s barely light out, and he just did physical exercise on purpose.
Could never be me.
“Don’t you have work?” he asks, judgment in the words.
“Such manners,” I say with a laugh he is obviously not entertained by. “No, I don’t work until later today. Noon to five.”
He rolls his eyes at me. God, he’s really in a shit mood. I wonder what happened.
“Must be nice, only working for five hours.” He means it as a barb, but I shrug it off. Miles thinks I’m some flighty little girl who flits around on a whim, and that’s fine: he’s not the first to see me that way, and he won’t be the last.
At least, that’s what I tell myself because, despite it all, I want Miles to like me.
I always have.
“My hours are shortened until the season starts after Memorial Day. Right now, I’m just learning the ropes before all the kids start next weekend,” I explain, even though I don’t feel like I owe it to him.
He continues to glare as he downs his water, and he must find my answer satisfactory since he shifts to a new subject.
“What are you eating?”
“Fruit Loops, obviously,” I say, lifting the box. “Want some?”
“No,” he says with a cringe, as if I’m eating rocks instead of food, and he’s alarmed I’d push my agenda on him. “You’re eating that for breakfast?”
I look at my non-existent watch, then nod. “Well, it’s not dinner time.”
“It’s pure sugar,” he says, and I shrug. “Maybe you should really try eating an adult breakfast.”
“Maybe you should try having some fun occasionally.”
The deadpan look he gives me could melt the paint off a car.
“What, like dancing on bars and nearly breaking your neck?”
I roll my eyes, though I do love the banter.
“If that’s what it takes,” I say with a shrug. “I’m just saying you need to loosen up. You’re going to die of boredom before you hit forty.”
He looks me up and down in a way that makes me shiver before responding.
“I think that’s a chance I’m willing to take.”
Taking the last bite of my breakfast, I chew, leaning back and crossing my arms on my chest. “You haven’t even finished a single task on the list I made for you,” I say, tipping my chin toward the fridge where the bright yellow paper is still pinned to the fridge door.
“Sorry to disappoint. We can’t all just float from job to job, doing whatever we want, whenever we want. Some of us have responsibilities and bills,” he says.
I roll my eyes, standing and closing up the box of cereal and putting it away on the shelf before I turn to him. But when I do, I temporarily halt at what I see there: seriousness and genuine irritation.
“You give me shit for being so serious and boring, but maybe it just seems that way because you don’t know how to be an adult.”
He doesn’t mean it in an eat less junk way. He means it in a you’re childish, grow up way. My stomach flips a bit at the refrain I’ve heard more times than I can count. His eyes track me as I stiffen, and my face tightens just a bit before I throw on my signature smile, brushing it off.
“Why would I grow up when I can be happy?” I move to my bowl to busy myself, dumping the leftover milk in the sink and rinsing it out.
“I don’t know, so you can have a place of your own to stay, so you don't have to job hop? So you don’t have to beg your ex’s brother to give you a safe place to stay?”
It’s a sore spot of mine that he hit dead on, the reminder that even at my big age, I don’t know what I want to do with my life. June is a teacher; she knew she wanted to be that since I first met her. Nate is a contractor, and Jules owns a dance studio. Both of my sisters have big-girl jobs of their own.
And I’m…I’m just the girl having fun.
I don’t regret the choices I’ve made in life. I’m happy with almost every choice I’ve made and the way each one has shaped me. But I do regret how the way I live makes others see me and how it makes them judge me against some societal norm. I’m supposed to be climbing the corporate ladder and finding a man to settle down with, not taking a seasonal job down the shore and hoping that somewhere along the line, I find some job I like and would be willing to work forever.
It’s how everyone sees me, even if my friends and family love me enough not to hold it against me. I’m the girl with no direction, the one who doesn’t know what she wants to do with her life, who can’t hold down a job because she gets bored too quickly. The one who makes spur-of-the-moment decisions and who “followed her heart” to go live with her boyfriend across the country, only to come back barely a month later in tears.
I've been okay with it, but suddenly, with Miles looking at me like that, I wish I were different. I wish I were more responsible and knew what I wanted, or at least I could fake it believably.
With Miles looking at me like that, I feel momentarily ashamed before anger follows in on its heels because who is he to make me feel that way?
Still, suddenly, my sugary breakfast sits heavy in my stomach as I put the bowl and spoon into the dishwasher, adamantly avoiding Miles’s glare as long as I can before I close the appliance and stand straight. In his defense, there’s remorse on his face, but I don’t care.
I thought Miles and I were getting somewhere after bringing him lunch yesterday, finding some even footing, but clearly, just like every other time in my life, I deluded myself until I believed in a reality that didn’t exist.
“You know, everyone makes choices in life. I chose to make sure that whatever I do with my life, be it a job, a person, or a place, I’ll be happy to be there forever. I haven’t found something that makes me feel that way, and I’m okay with that. I’m okay with everyone thinking I’m just some mercurial girl who will never grow up because I won’t settle down if it means that when I’m fifty, I won’t look around and realize I’m fucking miserable. Can you say the same?”
He stares at me for a moment before I walk past him to leave the room.
When I’m out of the kitchen, I turn around again, needing to say more. That’s when I finally look at him and see his face is stark with understanding, like I hit a sore spot. I don’t feel any guilt, though.
“You hustle so hard to keep up with whatever status you’ve assigned yourself in your mind, and it’s commendable, really. But what does it really matter if you aren’t happy? I might not have it all figured out, but at the end of the day, I’m happy.”
I stand there for a long beat waiting for him to say something, but he doesn’t. Instead, I stand there long enough for my alarm to go off on my phone, reminding me to get out the door for work.
As I turn, he finally starts. “Claire?—”
I shake my head, reaching down to grab the bag I packed this morning. “I gotta get going. To work, the place where I’m going to just be a giant child and save lives. Later, Miles.”
And even though I think I hear him say my name again before he mumbles a curse under his breath, I don’t look back. Instead, I slip out the door, desperate to get away from him and his suffocating judgment.