46. Milo
FORTY-SIX
MILO
She leads me around the side of the diner and into the alley, and I follow her like a man walking to his own sentencing.
The alley is narrow, shaded. Dumpsters line one side, and the diner’s back door is propped open with a milk crate on the other.
Not exactly the setting I’d have chosen for the most important conversation of my life, but Sage didn’t ask for my input on the venue.
She hasn’t asked for my input on anything, which is probably the point.
She turns to face me. “Is there anything else you want to disclose? Are you planning to embed a chip in me? Maybe hack my phone?”
I look at the ground. “No, but all of those are great ideas.”
“Milo!”
Fuck.
“Sorry. Okay,” I say, holding my hands up in surrender. “Here it is. No jokes.”
“No jokes.”
“The cameras.” I shove my hands in my pockets because I don’t know what to do with them. “I put them in last week, when I fixed the lock. I told myself it was about security—about keeping you safe when none of us could be there. And that was part of it. That was genuinely part of it.”
“But?”
“But the other part . . .” I look at the ground.
At my shoes. At the crack in the concrete where a weed is pushing through, because even weeds are braver than me right now.
“The other part is that I wanted to look at you. Like, all the time. And instead of asking, I gave myself access I had no right to take.”
“So you watched me.” She doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t sigh or look away or play it for drama. She just stands there, her face blank in a way that would make most people squirm, but it makes me want to confess everything. Even more than I already have.
“Not, like, in the creepy way,” I add, then realize that’s exactly what a creep would say.
“God. Never mind. It was in the creepy way. I was obsessed, I am obsessed, and I told myself it was protection because I wanted to know you were safe when I couldn’t be there.
” I lick my lips, which taste like regret.
“I should have asked. I should have told you. I shouldn’t have done any of it before I had your permission. ”
Her arms loosen, just slightly, and I force myself to meet her eyes.
“I’m so sorry, kitten. For the cameras. For watching.
I violated your privacy. Yours most of all, because it’s your home and your trust. But Amy lives there too, and Micah was there, and Holden, and anyone who walked through that door got caught in something I set up without permission.
I didn’t understand how wrong that was until four men who also love you told me to my face. ”
She’s quiet for a long time. The alley hums with distant traffic and the muffled clang of dishes from the kitchen. A seagull screams overhead, which feels appropriate.
“You want to know what pisses me off the most?” she says finally.
“Tell me.”
“It’s not only the cameras. I mean, the cameras are bad.
They’re really bad, Milo. I understand why you did it, and I believe you when you say it came from wanting to protect me.
But the cameras are the thing you did. The part that hurts is that you decided I didn’t get a vote.
” She uncrosses her arms. “What pisses me off is that you didn’t ask.
I don’t mind being watched—not always. I kind of like knowing one of you is there, if I’m honest. But you all keep making decisions about my safety without me, and this time you did it in my home.
My mom. Brock. The system. Everyone decides what happens to Sage without asking Sage. I can’t have that from you too.”
The words hit like a blade between the ribs. Not because they’re cruel—because they’re true.
“You’re right,” I say. “I’m sorry.”
“I know you are.” She looks at me, and her expression isn’t angry anymore. It’s something more complicated. Tired, maybe. Sad. The face of someone who keeps having to teach people how to love her and is exhausted by the curriculum. “I need you to promise me something.”
“Anything.”
“Don’t make decisions about my life without me. Ever. If you think I need cameras, ask me. If you think I’m in danger, tell me. If you think I need protecting, protect me with me, not behind my back. I am not a thing to be managed. I’m a person. Treat me like one.”
“I will. I promise. I’ll be radically team Sage from now on.”
“Thank you. And if you break that promise, Milo, I won’t be angry. I’ll just be done. And that’s worse.”
“I know it is.”
The words land so hard my lungs forget what they’re for. Not angry. Done. I can survive anger. I can flirt with rage. I don’t know what to do with the kind of silence that means I lost her because I taught her not to trust me.
We stand there. The silence isn’t hostile. It’s the kind that follows surgery, when the wound is open and clean, and you’re both just waiting to see if it’ll heal.
“For what it’s worth,” I say quietly. “Everything I feel for you is real. I know I hide behind the chaos and the comedy and the—” I wave my hand vaguely.
“The whole Milo thing. But underneath all of that, I need you to know that I see you. You’re special to me and I will do anything to make sure you’re safe and protected—anything.
I want to make you happy, spend time with you.
And I’m sorry I made you feel like you were just another feed on a screen. ”
She blinks. Looks away. And when she looks back, her eyes are bright and open in a way that makes my chest feel like it’s caving in.
“Come here,” she says.
I step forward. She reaches out and grabs the front of my shirt. And not gently, either. She grabs and pulls me into a hug that almost knocks the air out of me. Her face presses into my chest and her arms wrap around my waist, and she holds on like she’s making a decision with her whole body.
I hold her back. Chin on the top of her head. Eyes closed. Breathing her in. My heart hammers so hard it’s probably tapping against her cheek. I love that for her. Love this for me.
“Milo?”
“Mm.”
“The wreath was really funny.”
I laugh. It comes out shaky and wet, and I realize with horrifying clarity that I’m about three seconds from crying in an alley behind a diner, and if that happens, I will never recover. “The florist really did give me a discount. I think she felt sorry for me.”
She laughs too, muffled against my chest, and tips her head back to look at me. Her chin is resting on my sternum. She searches my face with something that isn’t forgiveness. Softer than anger, sharper than mercy. More than I deserve, probably.
“Milo,” she whispers.
“Yes, kitten.”
I don’t move. Every reckless part of me wants to, but I just promised not to take, not to presume, not to turn wanting into access.
So I wait.
She rises on her toes, her hand sliding from my chest to the back of my neck, and pulls me down herself—closing the gap that’s been shrinking since the night I watched her turn a knife into a declaration of war.
The kiss is soft. Just for a second. A question.
Then she answers it.
Her mouth opens under mine and her fingers twist into my hair and she tugs, and the soft thing detonates into something urgent and electric.
I press her back against the brick wall without thinking—instinct, need, the animal part of my brain that’s been screaming at me since the night under the jetty—and she goes willingly, her back hitting the rough surface with a thud.
I glance at the back door of the diner, still propped open just a few yards away, kitchen clatter spilling out like a warning we both ignore.
“Fuck, kitten,” I groan against her lips, my hands already roaming—sliding up her sides, under her dress, feeling the heat of her skin through the thin fabric. She tastes like coffee and relief. Like the world hasn’t ended after all.
She breaks the kiss first, turning her head just a little to breathe. Her fingers are still in my hair, gripping hard. “We should . . . not do this here,” she says, but she doesn’t sound convinced, and she doesn’t let go, and her hips roll forward so the last word dies in a gasp.
“Want to go somewhere less public?” I murmur in her ear, voice dropping low so it’s just for her.
She meets my eyes with a small shake of her head. “No. Here.”
I go still for one brutal second, making myself hear the whole answer, not just the part that makes my blood light up.
“Here means here?” I ask. “You want this, in this alley, with me?”
“Yes, Milo.”
Then I’m on her. I lock both hands around her waist and hike her up, pinning her between me and the wall so her feet dangle, toes scrabbling for purchase on the uneven pavement.
She makes a small, desperate sound into my mouth, biting down on my lower lip, and I see white for a second.
I want to tell her how much I want her, how much I need this, but every part of my brain that touches language is currently rebooting.
I make a noise instead—wordless and animal—and shove my thigh between hers.
Her dress hikes up so easily, it feels like fate.
I palm the backs of her thighs, lifting her so she’s straddling my knee, and she grinds there once, twice, breath hitching.
The alley is narrow and shadowed, but anyone walking by the end would see her spread for me, back arched and hands clinging tight to my shoulders.
I want her to tell me exactly what she wants, and the way she grips me says she already is.
There’s a wild, reckless edge to her now, the same one that once put a knife in a man’s liver and didn’t stop until the light faded from his eyes. It’s the part of her I love most. I want to bottle it, snort it, mainline it straight into my veins.
“Say it,” I rasp, mouth on her neck, the taste of her skin sending a shockwave down my arms. “Tell me you want me to fuck you right here. Right where anyone could see.”
“Yes—fuck, Milo, hurry—” Her voice breaks as I free myself from my jeans and shove her panties to the side.
“You want it bare, kitten? I’m clear.”
“Yes. I’m safe. Birth control. Fuck me. Now.”