Fourteen
MILES HAD BEEN posting all day. With the start of Wimbledon fast approaching, he seemed to have taken the day off to enjoy London’s high life.
A week ago, he’d spent his Saturday wandering around Hyde Park with a pair of nobodies, but now he was back being Miles Callahan.
After a single photo of the grass courts at the All England Club, his social feed had become a torrent of fancy venues, boats on the Thames, and snaps where Miles had stretched out one long arm to fit both himself and Emily Rose Johnson into selfies.
According to the gossip sites—which I absolutely had not scoured—she was a well-known American influencer, although what she seemed to be best known for was being Miles Callahan’s on-again, off-again date, or girlfriend, or box warmer, depending on the opinion of the author.
She was a pretty blonde, perfectly made up, with nothing to distinguish her from dozens of others in the same mould, like she’d just stepped off the blonde influencer production line – a mean thought, I knew, but I wasn’t in the mood for being charitable.
Especially not when she was clinging possessively to Miles’s arm.
Later, when Miles had posted a snap of them both at some party or other, I’d discovered her social feed too – a veritable treasure trove of suffering.
Pictures of them holding hands in front of a sponsorship board, of him with his arm around her waist, of her head resting on his shoulder, and pressing her lips to his cheek.
In every photo, he looked gorgeous. Freshly shaven, yet with his hair left to do its tortured poet thing, he was the perfect balance between tailored and wild.
The stylist had even dressed him in perfectly-pressed slacks, while leaving the top few buttons of his shirt undone – a shirt against which Emily Rose Johnson kept possessively laying her hand.
Too well could I imagine how soft it felt.
“Mat?” Katie snatched the phone from my hand, and taking one glance at the screen, rolled her eyes. “Really?”
“I know, it’s stupid,” I said, pressing my hands over my face. “I play on Monday and I really should be focussing on that.”
She sighed and started scrolling slowly. “You know what surprised me most the other day?” she said, eyes on the passing pictures of Miles. “When you called him a convenient fuck who understood tennis? How much you didn’t sound like you.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean . . .” Another sigh. “Look, I know you’ve picked up random guys in the past and there’s nothing wrong with casual fucks, you’re just usually more honest. I don’t care if you lie to me, that’s fine.
Just don’t lie to yourself.” She dropped my phone onto the couch beside me.
From the screen, Miles and Emily Rose Johnson stared back.
“You might feel better if you admit how you feel.”
With a pained groan, I squeezed my eyes shut like that would block out her words.
“What do you want me to say? That I let this get out of hand? That I fucked up? Caught a few feelings? Sure. I caught enough that I wanted this to keep going, but we seem to be done so it’s time for me to get over it.
After wallowing in a bit of self-pity first,” I added, gesturing to my phone.
Katie leaned on the back of the couch, frowning. “What happened?”
My turn to sigh. “We went out. He kissed me. Some girls saw us and posted about it so his sister had to do damage control. Then he freaked out and started keeping five metres between us at all times.”
“Ohhh,” she dragged the syllable out in distaste. “Like when Laura found out I was a lesbian and was suddenly too busy for practice sessions.”
“Exactly! So I got mad about it, but fuck, it’s not like I didn’t know this was the deal from the beginning. He’d have gotten over it in a day or two, instead I got shitty like my past was somehow his responsibility. He just wanted to be a casual fuck and I made it messy.”
She held an admonishing finger in front of my face.
“Okay, hold on, we’re going to skip the lecture about how we don’t have to put up with shit just because we’re queer, and jump right to what the fuck are you talking about?
Casual fucks don’t spend every moment they can with you.
Casual fucks don’t try to fix your career.
Casual fucks don’t buy you flowers.” She jabbed an accusing finger at the vase sitting beside the TV, more of its lilies having opened since he’d brought them, spilling their scent into the room.
“Except they do when they’re Miles Callahan,” I said with a wry laugh. “You’ve met him. That’s just who he is.”
“Looking at you like you’re his whole world is just who he is?”
Her words tightened around the stupid hope in my chest like a knot of barbed wire, puncturing my lungs, yet it was no lie when I said, “Yeah, it is. He doesn’t do anything by halves and that includes paying attention to the people he’s spending time with.”
“Mat—”
“Look,” I said, getting to my feet, hands raised like a shield.
“He’s a careful, methodical planner of everything, right?
If he wanted this to be more than it is, he would already have done something about it instead of disappearing as soon as things gothard.
So, now I have to deal with it being my fault it ended, and that hurts, so .
. .” Forcing a shrug, I headed for my door.
“I’m going to bed because I really don’t want to keep talking about it. ”
She let me go with a sad little goodnight, and it wasn’t until I was climbing into bed that I realised I’d left my phone on the couch.
For the best, really. I needed to stop torturing myself, needed to sleep and start focussing on tennis or Marco Bicchieri would wipe the fucking court with me come Monday and my tournament would be over.
I JERKED AWAKE to the sound of something hitting my bedroom door. Another muffled thump followed, then the handle rattled and it swung open with a faint creak.
“Mat?”
“What the fuck?” I sat up, blinking at the single point of bright light shining in the dark – the flashlight of a phone, silhouetting one side of a tall figure. “Miles?”
There was a clatter and a thud as he tripped over something, catching himself against the tiny wardrobe with a slurred curse. Thinking of all the hazards on the floor, I lunged up off the bed. “Careful! You’re gonna hurt yourself.”
“Oh god, I’m sorry.” Miles reached out, all but diving into me, and I fell back onto the bed barely keeping him from crushing my legs.
“I’m so fucking sorry, Mat, I was such a dick,” he said, hardly seeming to notice he’d become a pile of tangled limbs on top of me.
He was slurring his words, he stank of alcohol and other people’s perfume, and it was no satisfaction to discover his shirt felt as soft as it had looked, but I was stupidly glad to see him.
“How much did you drink?” I asked, reaching for the bedside lamp.
As its light flared, Miles flinched, squinting up like a nocturnal animal insulted by the sudden appearance of sunlight. “Dunno. Were you sleeping? Looks like you were.” He pressed a finger unsteadily to the tip of my nose like I was a cat in need of booping. “Cute.”
“Yes, it’s the middle of the night, so of course I was sleeping. You should be too. Sleeping this off.”
He paid no heed to this, instead sliding down the bed, arse in the air as he gripped my boxers and yanked them down.
“Hey!”
Miles dropped his face into my crotch with a little sigh, his hair tickling my stomach. “Mmm, I missed you.”
“Are you talking to my dick?”
“Maybe.”
“Oh my god. That’s it, come on.” I wrestled my boxers back up and slipped off the bed. “You need water and sleep.”
“No.” He grabbed my wrist to pull me back, and as I dropped onto the mattress, he climbed into my lap all tousled hair and half unbuttoned silk shirt. “I need you to fuck me,” he said, grinding against me. “It’s all I’ve been thinking about all night.”
He was already hard against my stomach and, for a moment, I let myself imagine fucking him like this – a wanton creature soaked in unfamiliar scents. But only for a moment.
“Well, you’re going to have to wait,” I said, and rocked forward to press to my feet, lifting him with me. He was too heavy to hold for long, but it got him upright and off the bed where he stood swaying slightly and staring at me.
“You can lift me? That was hot, Princess.”
“I think that makes you the princess.” I slid my arm around his waist and kicked one of my bags out of the way. “Come on, Cinderella. Let’s get you some water.”
Miles let me lead him to the kitchen, where I propped him against the bench and flicked on the rangehood light.
Leaning there, he watched me pour a cup of water, only to ignore it and hook an arm around my waist. “I need you,” he said, pulling me close and lowering his lips to suck on the side of my neck.
“Hey!” I pushed his head away. “No marks that will be visible on the tennis court.”
“But I want everyone to know you’re mine.”
My heart skipped a beat and responses tangled on my tongue – everything from ‘do you want me to be yours?’ to ‘how can you just show up out of the blue and say that like it’s nothing?’.
Too drunk to notice he’d thrown me into a fresh crisis, he leaned back against the bench and gave me a sultry look through his lashes. “Please fuck me,” he said, fumbling to undo the rest of his shirt buttons. “I’m desperate, Matteo, I need you. And I know you like it when I beg.”
His shirt fell open, and between his words and the sight of that tempting trail of hair leading from navel to waistband, I groaned.
“Yes, I do, but I don’t fuck drunk men, okay?
If you’re off your face, you’re off limits, so drink this.
” I thrust the water into his hand. “And we’ll get you into bed – your own bed. ”
“Why are you so perfect, Matteo?” he asked with a thwarted little sigh.
“You know very well I’m not. Drink that.”