Chapter Thirty-Seven
After an exhausting day, I brought Milo home.
“I can’t believe you took the whole day off.”
“Yep,” he said, plopping onto the couch. “It’s been real light around the office.”
“That so?” I lifted Milo’s legs onto the couch and took off his dress shoes.
He rolled over onto his stomach, burying his face in a pillow. Milo could battle warlocks, fiends, demons, and even a devil without wavering, yet he was more exhausted from one day of teaching kids than any case he’d taken.
Granted, he didn’t do much teaching. He focused purely on eight hours of entertainment.
Total rookie move. He’d turned my classroom into a buffet of pizza and sugary snacks, which in turn energized each and every student beyond even the great Enchanter Evergreen’s capabilities.
He didn’t say it, but he couldn’t hide his fatigue after entertaining twelve kids for eight hours.
That was why I preferred breaking the kids down with exhaustive work to drain their endless supply of energy that’d also better them in the long run and keep me from passing out the second I walked through the door. A win-win situation, if I dare say.
I straddled Milo, sitting on his butt, and gently ran my hands up his spine. Massaging the tension out of his shoulders, I worked my way around the muscles of his back.
“ That’s nice. ” Milo turned his head, eyes closed but smiling. “ Feels so good. ”
“You know what else might feel good?” I leaned close, letting my breath tickle his ear.
“How can you possibly be thinking of sex?” He huffed, so worn out his thoughts didn’t even twist to images of foreplay. “ You’re insatiable. ”
I chuckled, relishing this moment where I tended to my tuckered-out boyfriend, who carried the weight of the world on his shoulders. It was nice taking a bit of that pressure away from him and also teasing him.
“ You know, I finally heard back about the Global Ranking’s Ceremony, ” he thought, too tired to even speak.
I made a mental note of inviting him to “teach” my classes more in the future, especially when he railroaded me with his minxy energy.
“Wait, the Global Ranking’s Ceremony?” I continued rubbing Milo’s back. “Gotta be honest, I completely blanked on that.”
“ You and me both, ” he thought. “ Now that all the demon drama is dealt with, Cerberus decided they wanted to host a few events over the summer before the induction ceremony this August. ”
I beamed, truly at ease and so fucking proud of Milo for earning a place among the highest-ranked enchanters in the country. “I suppose I can carve out a bit from my busy summer schedule to join my boyfriend at a few cocktail parties.”
Milo released a moaning sigh of satisfaction as I cracked loose the tension in his back. “You know, I actually got a whole week planned for a real vacation. It’s right around the corner if you, you know, maybe wanted to join.”
“Hmm. Traveling? I’ll have to check my schedule for that one.”
“It’ll be ten uninterrupted days of June. Mid-June.” Milo’s thoughts dimmed, but he resisted the lull of sleep, eager to continue the conversation about vacationing together.
“We’ll see.” I hated trips and all the traveling involved. Lots of teachers enjoyed the freedom to explore over the summer, whereas I preferred working on my house and quiet isolation. “Are you sure Chicago can survive ten whole days without the great Enchanter Evergreen?”
“Yep. Call it a hunch, but it looks like clear sailings.”
“We’ll see.” I rubbed the space between his shoulder blades, easing him into a comfortable nap.
Usually, ‘we’ll see’ was the friendliest ‘no’ I could muster, yet as Milo crashed, his thoughts blossomed to all the wondrous things he’d planned for these ten days off.
It appeared truly unbearable, allowing him to drag me from place to place and sightsee and explore.
..however, my breathing hitched. My stomach fluttered.
I really wanted to consider this experience and all it had to offer.
With Milo passed out, I carried him into the bedroom. Half through sheer physical strength and half through telekinetic assistance. He was far heavier than me, and there was absolutely no way I had the muscles to carry him independently.
I leisurely read while Milo slept away the day and night, figuring out the actual logistics of this vacation he’d planned.
He’d found the best places at the best times for the best rates, but I wanted to make sure he’d actually done his homework on some of them, especially since ‘right around the corner’ was quite literally next week.
This wasn’t mid-June but the last day of the first week, which barely afforded me a chance to decompress after the end of the school year.
I crossed off a few ideas, adding others and making this a ten-day experience we could both enjoy. After a few hours of research, I joined Milo in bed and went to sleep.
“ Ooooh, fascinating. Definitely goes in the maybe pile, ” his restless thoughts whispered as I shut out the rest of the world.
I huffed, scooting closer and hugging him tightly before delving into his mind. Walking through Milo’s inner core, I passed the wall of screens and the board of colors and went into his filing cabinet of endless visions, where he sat at a table reviewing stacks of papers.
“What?” He grinned.
“I thought you took the day off.”
“I did.”
“Then why are you sorting visions?”
“I briefly opened my eyes, and last I saw, the clock said 12:02, so pretty sure that means I did, in fact, take the day off.”
I sighed, half annoyed and half in love with his dedication to the world. “Do you need help?”
“Aren’t you supposed to be in summer mode with zero fucks to give?”
“I can give a few fucks.”
“I bet.” Milo winked, offering the seat beside him.
I grabbed a blank page, surprised to find fuzzy, jumbled letters. Guess our connection continued to improve, and bits of his visions became clearer. Well, visible, at the very least. I still couldn’t make sense of anything they said or represented.
“What does this say?”
“That’s the chimera’s influence,” Milo explained .
I dropped the page. “I didn’t…” My throat tightened.
“It’s annoying that his influence and potential is still out there.”
“I didn’t hold onto Finn.” I trembled, fighting back everything I wanted to say but not ready to bear the full weight of this discussion. “I promise.”
Though I wished I had, especially if the chimera’s influence was still out there somewhere.
“I trust you. I wasn’t going to question you.” Milo squeezed my hand, sending all the love he had and calming thoughts that kept me firmly in his mind. “These are just annoying residual fates, probably. Most likely, definitely high maybes.”
“A what?”
“Potential futures are infinite, and when one becomes unviable, impossible, I close off that potential reality. It’s hard, and sometimes a residual fate doesn’t take right away. That’s all this is. Damn demon influence making it hard to quell those bad paths.”
“How bad?”
“Just a little world destruction.”
I clenched my jaw.
“Chill.” He laughed. “I have at least one world-ending vision a month. Most are handled by other witches before the vision even fully settles. Hence, all these half-written visions I’m left sorting.”
“You’re very calm about the end of the world.”
“Well, it hasn’t happened so far, and I’m very confident in my small role to keep it that way.
Besides, there’s absolutely no demon presence in the city, the state, really.
We did everything correctly, removing all the chimera’s followers, banishing him entirely, so now I spend a few nights a week organizing leftover papers to make room for brighter, more concrete futures. ”
I remained with Milo the entire night, filing outdated visions and planning for happy ever afters. His mind buzzed with a million potentials for countless people I’d never met, gently guiding paths he hoped would make them as happy as he was with me.
I smiled, truly awed and in love with the best man in the world.