Chapter 16 #2
She nodded and soaked in the view.
He was right, they could still enjoy their night. Everything could wait until Sunday.
* * *
The Uber back was filled with the kind of tension that only existed when she’d already figured out the ending of a movie, but not quite how they get there.
It wasn’t the will-they-won’t-they, Ross-and-Rachel shit. It was when, not if, and the way Milo crawled his hand up her dress, the answer was sooner rather than later.
His finger traced paths on her upper thigh, dancing dangerously close to the point of no return.
Once he crossed that line, it was on, and he knew it.
So he stayed just to the side of it, teasing and touching, giving her the dirtiest fucking look he could as she debated whether or not to give the driver a free show.
He dropped them off just a few blocks from the loft and Milo pulled her into a loud bar, buzzing with the Friday night crowd.
They headed to the long countertop at the back of the room, watching the bartender take care of a few others before Milo ordered for them—two bourbons—but she couldn’t focus on what he was saying. He pressed her into the bar from behind, his body enveloping hers.
While they waited, he took one hand and dipped it around her hip, reaching for her inner thigh.
She pushed into him, arching her back in what she hoped was a subtle enough way that no one around them raised an eyebrow, but she could tell it made him reevaluate how far he wanted to push it with an audience.
“Take me home,” she pleaded. She loved the way he teased, but she needed more. He shook his head and put a little distance between them, taking a deep breath.
“One more drink,” he said, handing her whatever he’d ordered. She slammed it back, which was no small feat. It was a rough motherfucker.
Milo burst into laughter. “Okay, okay, loud and clear.”
He sipped his whiskey intensely, and way too slowly. She ran her hands along his stomach, flicking the stupid buttons on his stupid shirt. She wanted them gone.
“Hanna, as much as I love this enthusiasm, I’m having a really great night with you. I promise the moment we’re back in the apartment, I’m going to do every depraved thing you want, but right now I’d love to just enjoy this.”
She sensed that he almost said "before it's over," but it died on his tongue.
She took in a sharp breath and sighed loudly. “Okay, fine. You want Date Night Hanna? You get Date Night Hanna. Buy me another drink and I’ll behave,” she promised.
* * *
She humored Milo for another hour, answering his questions about her favorite movies, books, and songs—everything he could possibly want to know, he asked.
And she had questions too.
She wanted to know his nieces and nephews’ names, the first girl who’d ever hurt him, and which tattoo had been the most painful.
“You know,” he said, his words running together. “Tattoos are strikingly similar to grief.”
She swirled her glass, one finger tracing the black line of the clock on his forearm.
“Painful?” Hanna asked.
He nodded, his head tilting. “Well yeah, that.” He leaned forward, pressing a kiss into her hair.
“But the ink, once it’s injected, your body panics, right?
And it sends all these little cells that attack foreign substances, macrophages, to the site to help fight off infection and get it the fuck out of there.
They ingest all the ink, but they can’t break it down, so it just stays there, frozen, trapped in your skin.
It fades over time, sure, but it never goes away—it just becomes part of you.
Millions of little black moments, caught in these well-intended cells that can never get rid of them, but… from far enough away, it’s art.”
Hanna swallowed, her fingers stuck on the edge of the clock, unable to move as she considered it—the beauty in being trapped. The poetry of ingestion.
She dipped her head, pressing her lips to the edge of the black lines, hoping one day hers might be art too. Her eyes fell on the final drops of liquid in her glass and she wondered if maybe losses like theirs were not so different from whiskey, either.
Undrinkable on day one—but smoother as the years dragged on. Milo was proof she could build a tolerance, wasn’t he?
She tapped the glass rim, wondering what notes her mother would carry—the soft vanillas still living in a nearly empty perfume bottle she couldn’t bring herself to throw out, a strange blend of unlabeled spices that never had a name but Lisa used it in everything just to cover her bases.
For not the first time, Hanna’s mind landed on a question she’d avoided since they met.
If she did manage to give up her vice, would they have anything left between them?
* * *
Eventually, he decided he’d collected enough data on her. He pulled her from the bar, swinging their hands between them as they walked home.
“So,” he said, rounding the corner onto Brannan. “You’re moving back to Matty’s on Sunday, but I thought that since you’ll wake up at my place that morning, you’re still technically in the time box until midnight...”
“Okay,” she stared at him, already trying to figure out how she’d tell Olivia about the time box without sounding fucking stupid.
Milo looked incredibly nervous. “What are your thoughts on joining me for dinner Sunday night?”
“At your mom’s?”
“Yeah,” he mumbled. The confident Milo she’d been with all this time was completely gone. He pulled at her fingers, cracking the knuckles.
“I think I’d like that,” she answered, a little confused about what he was asking. “Do you introduce your mom to all your friends with benefits?”
She stopped in front of the building and dropped his hand, prepared to run, perhaps. Anxiety pooled in her stomach—she’d managed to avoid it for so long, but the dread built by the second.
“No.” He shook his head, searching her eyes. “I don’t.”
“Okay,” she said softly, smiling as he held the door open to the apartment lobby. He trailed behind her to the elevator, his hand on the small of her back as they got in and hit the fourth floor.
Before the doors even closed, he was on her, one hand in her hair, the other up her dress. He pushed his tongue into her mouth, wasting no time making good on the promise he’d made back at the bar.
It was different from the last time he’d had her pinned against an elevator wall, something more than just sparks between them.
In the hallway, she pressed herself against his back while he tried to get the door unlocked, running her hands over his chest from behind.
She kissed his shoulders through his shirt, taking every piece of him she could.
The door gave way and he walked forward, throwing keys, wallets, purses, and shoes down in little piles on the way to the living room.
She barely let him get his pants off before she ripped at his shirt, buttons be damned. She pulled at her dress, but he stopped her, his voice low—a far-off storm—but coming for her all the same.
“Leave it on for a bit. We’re not rushing this.”
Milo pushed against her in his underwear, his skin warm under her hands as he kissed her slowly, controlled. It was not the desperate, messy kissing they’d gotten used to. This was intentional, much more like at the bar.
It was how he would have kissed her if it was a real date and he was dropping her at her doorstep, instead of standing there half-naked.
Part of her was terrified. Part of her wanted to lean into that reality for as long as she could, unwilling to give up the dream. She reached for his face, stroking a thumb along the line of his stubble.
Every inch of her connected to somewhere on his body, and he slowly walked them toward the couch, where he laid her down, settling on top of her.
His hands moved from her back to her legs—caressing the soft skin of her calves as they wrapped around him—and back up again, finding a spot just under her breasts to rest while he moved from kissing to sucking on the skin next to her ear.
“Tell me what you want,” he whispered between kisses. “I’ll do anything for you.”
She’d promised herself she would thoroughly enjoy him while she could, and she had been keeping a few ideas in her back pocket. She cycled through places they hadn’t gotten to in the apartment, but she was too distracted by his touch to concentrate.
He worked one hand under her dress, slipping a finger inside of her before she could focus on coming up with an answer, enjoying the wave of pleasure that radiated from between her hips into her chest. She let out a moan when he added a second finger, picking up his pace.
Hanna ran her hands over his back, tracing the cluster of tattoos that flowed along the top of his shoulder. She reached one hand to his jaw and pulled his face to hers, staring him in the eye. She felt him between her thighs, just under his hand, and she rotated her hips to create more friction.
His fingers quickened and he ground against her. Her breath came in spurts, her eyes rolling back.
“That’s right, Arizona, come for me,” Milo whispered against her neck, and she was gone.
She tightened around his fingers and cried out, her back arching off the couch, pushing him even further into her. He kissed her chest, her neck, her jaw, letting her ride the wave until she came back down.
“We don’t need this anymore,” he whispered, tugging at her dress and stripping off his boxers. He sat back against the couch, pulling her over him.
She yanked the dress off over her head, letting it hit the floor as he traced a line from her ear to her tattooed arms with his fingertip, his eyes searing into her skin. She wanted to stay in that moment forever.
She sank onto him, his voice catching in his throat as he whispered, “You feel so good, baby.” She froze once more—there was no ignoring it that time.
But… what if?
She could be his baby.
That would be fine, wouldn’t it?
That would be more than fine.
God, why did it have to be more complicated than that?