Jasper
HALFWAY TO THE bar, I changed my mind about covering the shift and texted my coworker that something had come up.
It didn’t sit right with me to leave Milo alone, even if it was only for a few hours.
Not with the way he was acting during and after dinner, and definitely not after the way our conversation in the car lot ended.
I took a moment to adjust to the darkness inside the apartment, leaning down to take off my shoes. I noticed right away the absence of Milo’s boots, and for a split second, I thought he hadn’t gone straight home.
There was a stillness in the air, the type that weighs heavily in your chest before the storm breaks. Something wasn’t right. The door closed behind me, a little harder than usual, and it only added to my mounting sense of foreboding.
That’s when I saw him there, kneeling on the carpet. Milo turned toward me, bathed in moonlight from the balcony window. My gaze raked over his slender frame, all the way down until it hit his boots, surrounded by broken glass.
“What happened?” I asked cautiously.
He rose slowly, eyes wide with the horror of someone caught committing a crime.
We both looked down at his clenched fist with the mutual realization that I’d quite literally caught him red-handed.
I didn’t think, I just moved, closing the distance between us to grab his wrist. He pulled back, the sound of glass crunching under his feet, but I wasn’t going to fucking let go.
“Give it to me,” I growled, trying to wrench open his hand.
“I-It’s not what it looks like,” he sobbed.
“What is it, then?” My voice cracked.
Blood slicked between our fingers, my heart rate skyrocketing with panic. He kept his fist clenched, the situation worsening by the second. Memories of the past blinded me—every time I’d been too scared to act, crushing my lungs.
“I told you to fucking give it to me!” I was shouting now.
“I didn’t mean to.”
“Then let it go!”
I cursed breathlessly, finally freeing the chunk of glass from his hand, my breath coming in sharp bursts.
I tossed it to the ground, a dull throb developing in my palm.
With the rush of adrenaline, I hadn’t stopped to think about the fact that it might cut me too.
All that mattered was that he didn’t slip away from me.
“You don’t love me,” Milo sputtered.
“What?” My blood ran hot. The accusation was a slap to the face. I had always done everything to prove exactly the opposite, to show him how much I loved him, how much I needed him.
I was furious, but there was nobody to take my anger out on, no use in being offended by the statement when the enemy was nothing tangible.
It was something I couldn’t fight, only smother with reassurance, because, unlike the partners that came in and out of Milo’s life, I loved him even when it hurt—especially when it hurt.
The pain only made me love him harder.
“You didn’t come home with me, you wouldn’t let me feed you, your stupid face looked miserable in our—”
“Milo,” I hissed, intertwining our blood-soaked fingers. The smell of copper filled my nose as I leaned in and pressed my lips to our knuckles.
He stepped into me, his head sinking into my chest. I wrapped my arms around him, hands splaying out over his back. My heart broke with every shudder that wracked his body.
“Are you ashamed of me?” His voice was muffled by the way I held him.
I could only imagine how exhausted he must have been, jumping from one conclusion to the next, convincing himself that it was true.
“No,” I murmured. “Why would you think that?”
“You lied.” He sniffled.
“About?”
“My blood.”
Understanding clicked into place. Milo had been in my room, looking through my things, and had found the vial.
It left me feeling exposed, like his seeing it meant he knew my darkest secret, that I was irrevocably in love with him and had always secretly wished he’d be as obsessed with me as I was with him.
The very secret that made me do terrible things on purpose, driving off girlfriends, wedging myself between him and people I thought might steal him away for good—pretending to protect him, when all I wanted was to keep him.
“Yeah, I did,” I admitted with caution, pulling back a fraction to look at him.
“So you’re ashamed of me. You need to hide it,” he accused.
It wasn’t the vial I was hiding.
“I’m not,” I rasped. “I don’t.”
Silence sucked up all of the air in the room.
“It’s not like you kept yours,” I said painfully.
He looked away. “I did.”
But what did keeping it mean to him?
How did he need me? How did he want me? When would it be my fucking turn?
All of my restraint had been to keep what we had from falling apart.
If he wasn’t ready to acknowledge that everything he needed was right here, I couldn’t be honest with him.
I wouldn’t be the one to ruin everything we’d built.
The quiet between us swelled, coming alive and pressing against my ribs. I could almost feel his breathing like it was my own, slow and uneven. Every beat of it dragged me closer to saying something that I wouldn’t be able to take back.
“You’re bleeding,” Milo observed tiredly.
“We both are.” I clenched my jaw, torn between tending to our wounds and forcing him to elaborate on what he said.
“I’m fine.” The shame was written all over his face.
“Sit,” I demanded.
“But you—”
I scowled. “I said sit.”
Milo moved on wobbly legs towards the couch, lowering himself onto it without another word, while I headed to the bathroom to retrieve the first aid kit from underneath the sink. I crouched down on the tiled floor, taking a look at my hand while I had the moment to myself.
The cut ran deep, crossing over the scar I already had—a reminder to keep my promise, that the blood we had shared was real. I wanted him deeper than my blood, buried inside my bone marrow, someplace where he’d always be safe—where he’d always be mine.
I set the kit on the bathroom counter and turned the tap to wash my hands, the water clouding pink before swirling away. With my nerves settling, the sting was sharper than the initial cut, but I stayed focused on the distant creaking of the couch cushions and little sniffles from the living room.
When I returned to Milo with the supplies in hand, he was hunched over, cupping his bloody hand in the other and staring deeply into it.
“Let me get a better look,” I said, dropping to my knees in front of him and setting the kit on the coffee table.
“It’s not that bad.” He stuck his hand out reluctantly.
“You’re so full of shit,” I muttered, touch far gentler than my words as I took his hand into mine and took the first real look at the damage.
I reached for a few packets of alcohol wipes, knowing one wouldn’t be enough.
The wound was deep and messy, the skin split wide open, revealing the textured layers beneath.
It could probably use a few stitches, but I didn’t want Milo to close up on me if I suggested going back to the hospital for a fourth time.
I tore one packet open and pressed the wipe against his palm harder than I needed to. He tried to jerk his hand back, but I held him steady. No more push and pull, not right now.
“Hold still.”
“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” He frowned.
“Maybe I am.” I tried for a cocky grin to bring some normalcy back to the situation, but it felt shaky and uncertain, my words falling flat.
We lapsed into a more comfortable silence while I took care of him like I always did, stacking a few small gauze pads over his wound and applying pressure to staunch the bleeding.
“Hold it,” I instructed, letting him take over while I fished for the bandage rolls in the plastic kit.
The air between us thinned as I began to wrap his hand, my knuckles grazing his wrist with each pass of the bandage, his pulse kicking against my fingertips.
I continued to hold him hostage even after I finished tying it off further up his arm, feeling the warmth of him beneath my palm and the little tremors he couldn’t seem to get a grip on.
“You’re still bleeding,” he pointed out.
I released him abruptly, stuffing my hand between my thighs with no concern for the mess the open wound would make of my jeans. “Doesn’t matter, I’ll take care of you first.”
“Well, stop that.” He smoothed his hand over his wrist where mine had been.
I looked up at him again, drawn to his mouth. The skin around his lips was blotchy with that tell-tale redness, his freckled cheeks tacky with dried tears. My world blurred around the edges, limited only to him and the space between us.
“I can’t,” I said hoarsely, the words falling from my mouth for the second time in a single night.
The shadow of my teenage failures suddenly seemed suffocating. The line I’d promised myself not to cross was drawn in chalk, and the forecast called for storms, the thundering in my heart threatening to wash it away and leave me devoid of caution.
Still on the ground, I pushed between his legs until his knees bracketed my hips. I ran my clean hand over his thigh, and he shifted, his hands hovering in the air like he didn’t know where to put them.
“Don’t do this.” I leaned in closer, hitting my forehead against his in a gentle scolding. “If you need to hurt, just come to me.”
Milo laughed nervously. “What, so you can hurt me instead?”
“Yes,” I said pointedly.
If that’s what it takes.
I dipped my head and brushed my nose over his shoulder, the smell of tobacco rolling off his shirt in waves. My lungs felt like they were on fire, the proximity reminding me of the way he ground himself against me before. My carefully maintained control was stretched so thin, so ready to snap.
My lips ghosted over the hollow of his throat, and his head fell back permissively. In the back of my mind, guilt made itself at home. Even though he was giving me access to him like this, it felt like I was taking advantage of him.
But at the end of the night, I was just a man. And I’d loved quietly for far too long.