Chapter 22
“Can I ask you something?”
Milo looks up from the book he’s reading while we’re in bed. “Of course.”
It’s taken me all evening to work up the nerve to bring this up. I’m admittedly nervous to do it, and honestly, if I had the luxury of moving forward in time, I’d just leave it for the night and come back to it another day. But I don’t. When we wake up, it’ll be yesterday, and it’ll be as if today never happened.
I need to ask Milo about Elena now.
“I heard something earlier at the pool party.”
“That’s not a question.” He smirks.
I let out an uneasy chuckle. “I’m working up to it.”
His gaze turns concerned. “What’s wrong?”
“I overheard you and Rafa arguing about your grandma calling me Elena by mistake.”
Milo’s expression sobers. An uneasy feeling hits me.
“Why did it sound like Rafa thought it was a bad thing that your grandma called me Elena?”
Milo sits up against the headboard. I scoot up to join him, and he grabs his hand in mine. The muscles in my torso tighten like a girdle. This feels like it’s gonna be bad.
“I just figured, given the way Elena and I got together, you’d be upset. You were upset when you first found out about it.”
“Right ...” Clearly we’ve worked through this in days I have yet to live through.
Milo lets out a heavy sigh, the look in his eyes hesitant as he gazes at me. “You’re still bothered by what happened.”
I’m quiet as I try to work out how to play this. I don’t know who Elena is or what happened between Milo and her, or why I was so upset to find out about their relationship. And I don’t know how to bring any of that up. In his timeline, we’ve already had this conversation; we’ve already worked through it since we’re together now.
“It’s not that ...,” I finally say. I try to say more, but I’ve got nothing else. I have no idea what to say right now.
Milo’s gaze falls to his lap, and he tugs a hand through his hair, like thinking about this, talking about this, still bothers him.
“I get it. I get why you’d still have an issue with what I did, even though it was years ago, when I was in uni. I’m still ashamed by it,” he says. He blinks, and his eyes are shy, like he’s embarrassed. “I’m not proud that Elena and I started hooking up when she was in another relationship.”
Oh. That’s why he’s so uncomfortable, and why his cousin was giving him such a hard time at the family pool party. Elena was Milo’s college girlfriend, and their relationship started as an affair.
I’m quiet once more as I reflect on the fact that Milo has been the other man in a past relationship. An unease settles in the pit of my gut, as sharp and unwelcome as a needle.
This is a hell of a pill to swallow. I hate knowing that Milo was capable of participating in cheating, even if it was years ago.
And I hate that it makes me think of Tristan.
Milo clears his throat and pauses, like he’s working up the nerve to say more. “It was a horrible mistake. I hate myself for doing it. I would never do it again.”
I’m quiet once more as I process everything he’s said. Clearly Milo’s sorry for what he did. And he’s openly talking about it now. He’s being honest with me; he’s not hiding or being deceitful. That doesn’t erase what he did. But his honesty in this moment counts for a lot in my book after what I went through with Tristan.
That sharpness in my gut eases the slightest bit. Milo’s not that guy anymore. And if that’s the only time Milo’s ever done something like that, which was years ago, then it’s not fair for me to hold it against him. He clearly seems to regret it.
I’d hate for someone to hold my mistakes from years ago against me now.
“I’ll admit, I’m not, um, I wasn’t thrilled at hearing you’d been the ‘other guy’ before,” I finally say. “But I understand, too, that it was a long time ago. I mean, you were in your twenties.”
“Barely twenty-one years old,” he says in a quiet voice.
“Not that it makes it okay, but I get it. You were young and made mistakes. We all do.”
There’s a pleading look in his eyes as he grips my hand in both of his.
“I know we talked about this before, but Elena and I were together for less than a year. We weren’t meant to be. I know that now.” He huffs out a breath, like this is still weighing heavily on him. “When I told Rafa how Elena and I got together, he was pretty disgusted with me.” He tugs a hand through his hair. “And when he found out about the two of us getting together, he wasn’t thrilled either.”
It all clicks in my head. “He assumed I was cheating with you?”
Milo nods. “Even though you and I didn’t cheat. Even though neither of us did anything wrong. I swore up and down to him that there was no overlap, that you and I started up when you and Tristan were completely done. But he didn’t believe me. He still doesn’t. He just assumed I was the guy on the side again because I was before.”
I take in the red hue painting Milo’s cheeks, the color of the shame he feels admitting this to me. I take in his downcast stare, how he looked me in the eye when he spoke all this, then immediately dropped his gaze, as if the guilt he feels still weighs him down. As if he’s carrying the weight of his cousin’s judgment.
“Hey,” I say. He looks up at me. “It’s okay.”
When I say it, I mean it. As unpleasant as this part of Milo’s history is, I believe him when he says he regrets it and that he hasn’t done it since. He’s been up front and honest with me. That’s all I’ve ever wanted out of a partner.
The corners of his mouth hook up the slightest bit, forming a sad smile.
“I don’t care what you did when you were a lovestruck twenty-one-year-old, Milo. Uh, anymore. You’re well into your thirties now. You said you’d never do that again. I believe you.”
He blinks like he’s stunned at what I’ve said. When he blinks again, there’s a trace of that guilt, that shame, still clouding his burnt-umber gaze.
He raises my hand to his lips and kisses me. “No way could I ever be good enough for you, Sleeping Beauty.”
We slide back into bed. Milo falls asleep quickly, but I’m awake for a while, feeling the slightest bit skittish after hearing Milo admit that he’s participated in cheating.
And then I think about how Tristan cheated; how Portia cheated; how Weston, Tristan’s dad, cheated. My head spins. The Chase family is something else.
I glance up at Milo, taking in his face’s sharp angles, which are prominent even in the darkness of his bedroom. A small pang of guilt hits. I silently remind myself that what he and Tristan did were two completely different things. Tristan cheated on me for years and went out of his way to hide it from me. Milo was the other man in a short relationship more than ten years ago, before he even knew me. That was the only time he ever did something like that. It’s not fair for me to lump him and Tristan together. They’re not the same, at all. And it’s not fair for me to focus on that one mistake when Milo’s only ever been honest and open with me.
I relax into Milo’s embrace and close my eyes. I make a silent promise that I won’t let the past affect our future.