Chapter 16 #3
She moved her hips against his, his smile spreading over her neck while she gently stroked his hair and shoulders, slowing down her pace to get the most out of him.
He leaned his head back and bucked his hips into her, holding onto the eye contact they typically avoided at that point. He watched her lips part as she lost control.
Neither of them had the presence of mind to hear Matty’s keys in the door.
But they sure as shit heard Logan yell, “What the fuck?”
Everything happened in a blur. Milo hauling her off of his lap and scrambling to find her dress, Sara trying to calm down a very drunk Logan whose string of angry opposition only grew louder.
Milo fumbled with his clothes while Hanna pulled on her dress, trying her best to avoid eye contact with everyone in the room while Matty turned away and Sara stared with wide eyes.
It was over.
It was goddamn over.
Whatever had shifted, whatever was changing, it was gone in an instant, the consequences raining over them.
Milo stood between her and Logan in an attempt to slow him down as he pushed past Sara and stormed toward Hanna, yelling. His eyes were wild and the smell of beer seeped across the room.
“Logan, calm down,” Milo said, but that just made things worse.
“Don’t fucking talk to me, Milo. Of all the—”
“Guys,” Matty groaned, rubbing his forehead.
Logan’s eyes burned a hole through her. “You swore there was nothing happening between you two, I asked you point-blank yesterday, and you fucking lied to me!”
He stood between all of them, slurring and waving his arms, but everyone pieced together what he’d said just fine.
She tried not to look at Sara, who was standing next to Matty with her hand over her mouth while Logan continued shouting.
“Logan, you’re drunk. Go home,” Hanna practically spat. She could not believe she was right back to Logan ruining everything good in her life once more. “Go back to Sloane!”
“I might be drunk, but at least I’m not a fucking liar!” He glared at her and then at Milo, who looked as bewildered as she felt. “And you. After everything we’ve come back from, you motherfucker!”
“I told you the truth at the time,” she insisted. “Okay?”
“Oh yeah? Is that what ‘just friends’ looks like to you?” He emphasized just friends with air quotes that felt like a slap in the face.
Logan stopped yelling long enough to look her in the eye, and she could see that it wasn’t just a drunken ex ranting. Logan thought she meant she was holding space for him.
“Logan, when we talked, I thought you were trying to smooth things over. I didn’t think—”
“You should have told me you were fucking him, Hanna.”
“Why the hell would I tell you that? Why do you think I owe you anything?” She was yelling then too, and it felt like they had an audience for what should have been a private conversation, but they were on a roll and she couldn’t stop herself.
“Who do you even think you are? You show up here completely unannounced, and pry like you’re entitled to anything about me.
I let you in, I even talk about my mother with you, I give you what you need, and you take that little tiny crack in the window as a door wide open.
Who I’m fucking has nothing to do with you! ”
“Nice,” Milo mumbled, clearly offended. She couldn’t fight a two-front war. Her head was spinning and she was just trying to stay upright.
Hanna drew a sharp breath. “I can’t fight both of you right now! We haven’t talked about what we’re doing, so why would I talk about it with anyone else?”
“So what, you guys have just been fucking this whole time and sneaking around?” Matty asked, his unshakable demeanor falling away.
Milo didn’t look at her. She tried to explain, “Yes! Yes. We’ve been hooking up, but...” she trailed off, not really sure what else to say.
That got Milo’s attention. “But what, Hanna? But it means nothing? But we’re just fucking friends?”
“No, that’s not what I’m saying. Jesus, can I get a second to think?”
Milo ignored her. “When did you see Logan?”
Three sets of eyes bounced back and forth between them, and Hanna seriously considered walking outside to the balcony and throwing herself off of it.
She stepped toward Milo instead. “He came by the cafe yesterday.”
Milo scoffed. “So, I kiss you goodbye, and five minutes later, you tell Logan nothing is happening?”
She opened her mouth to protest but she was sick of defending herself to an audience. She was sweating. Her bones hurt as they stretched around her lungs, hyperventilating.
She mumbled, “I didn’t know—I wasn’t sure what was happening. You don’t date, right?”
“We should go,” Sara said, sensing that they’d hit a wall. Logan was still muttering to himself. Matty yanked him by the arm and dragged him out of the apartment.
And for two seconds, it was the kind of quiet that consumed entire nights.
Hanna's head exploded with thoughts, everything rushing in at once. She fought for breath, the silence leaving room for all of the fears she'd had about losing someone else to materialize. She shook her head, unsure of what to say.
Milo slammed something around in the kitchen. The sound clattered against her skull, driving the thoughts further into her blood.
She thought she heard her name, but she was too far gone.
She darted up the stairs and ran toward the bathroom.
She needed to cool the fire within her, and when her panic attacks were at their worst, a cold shower could bring her back to her body.
She opened the tap to the shower, battling the zipper on the back of her dress.
“God,” she hissed. “Shit!”
Two hands pulled at the zipper, Milo’s tattoos gently pushing her dress over her hips. He snagged one of her clips from the bathroom counter and wrestled her hair off her shoulders as she struggled to get her breathing under control. He stayed while she stood under the cold water.
It hit her skin like needles.
But it helped.
It brought her back.
When her breathing finally slowed, she turned off the water. The silence was still grating, but tolerable. Milo leaned against the vanity, his eyes focused on the floor.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Fine,” she whispered.
“So, no.”
“No,” she answered.
“I’m too drunk for this conversation, Arizona. I’m going to put some coffee on.”
She exhaled, wrapping herself in the towel he held out to her.
“Okay. I’ll change and come downstairs.”
* * *
The smell of coffee flooded the apartment as she hovered at the base of the steps. Milo sat at the dining room table with two mugs in front of him.
“Hey,” she said, hesitant to sit down.
“Hey.” He laughed darkly, rubbing his temples.
“I’m so sorry, Milo—”
He held up his hand and the face of the clock tattoo stared at her, a declaration of truth she wasn't ready for.
Time's up.
"I've decided we're idiots," he announced.
“What?”
“I really care about you, Hanna. And I know you care about me. But we set boundaries around this for a reason, and it was unfair of me to push them.”
She tried to hold herself together. “Oh.”
“I knew what this was.”
“But—” But what? Things changed? Maybe they’d only changed for her.
He continued, “Logan is going home tomorrow. We have Vegas in a few weeks. I don’t want to push it further and then lose you as a friend, Hanna. I can’t—” There it was. The truth. It caught somewhere between his throat and his lips. “I can’t lose you, and I let shit get blurry. That’s on me.”
“Okay,” she sighed. “I hate that you’re right.”
His lips folded into a frown. “I was kind of hoping you’d tell me I wasn’t.”
She leaned back, running her hands through her hair. “I wish I could, Milo.”
He sipped his coffee. “I know.”
“So, what do we do now?”
Milo finished his coffee. She felt him sift through a thousand different thoughts before he spoke again.
“I’ll tell you what I want to do. I want to take you into that bedroom, and I want to finish what we started tonight. I didn’t know it was going to be the last time I heard you moan my name, and I didn’t get to appreciate it the way I should have.
Then tomorrow, we’re going to wake up—and probably fuck you one more time because I have zero self-control when it comes to you—and pack your shit, and walk you back across the hall, and try to forget what you taste like before I have to see you in that fucking dress again. How's that sound?
Hanna bit her lip. “Like a really bad idea.”
He sighed just as she stood from the table, walked directly to his room, and climbed into his bed. She was ready to let him claim any of the pieces left of her before morning—when their time really would be up.