Chapter 20
CHAPTER TWENTY
MILES
Slamming the laptop shut, he leaned back in the window seat. He loved the back living room with the perfect view of the ocean. There was a small path that led from the pool to the beach, and while he hadn’t gone out there on his own, he was tempted now.
He’d always lived close to the coast, but it was rare when he got to indulge in leisure days where he could sit by the ocean and not worry about what he was sacrificing to do it.
Where he could feel the waves lapping at his feet, and the breeze on his face, and the sun warming his shoulders, and not care about responsibility.
Stretching his legs, he stood up and decided that’s what he wanted now.
Emmett was in his office working, but he was going to ask him to come anyway.
The door was cracked open when he got there and he peered inside, his heart doing a little flip at the sight of Emmett in his button-up and thick-framed reading glasses.
It took a beat for the older man to look up at him, and though he looked stressed, his mouth curved into a tiny smile. It wasn’t his usual grin though, which made Miles’s gut twist. ‘What’s up?’ It was a sign Miles had started to recognize.
“I was thinking about going down to the water for a walk. Do you want to come?”
“No,” Emmett said, his gaze flickering back to his computer.
Miles waited a beat for him to say something else. A maybe later, or a, we can go in a few. But there was nothing.
“If you’re sure,” he chanced.
Emmett didn’t look up at him again. “I’m sure.”
And that was it. The silence was entirely dismissive.
Swallowing against a thick throat, Miles turned away in horror when he felt his eyes get hot.
He had no business getting upset. Emmett was clearly busy, and he was the one interrupting.
He had no right to expect Emmett to cater to him all the time.
Fuck.
Was he really becoming such a spoiled brat after only a few weeks of attention?
Hurrying through the house, he debated about staying in, but he would drive himself up the wall if he did that. His thoughts were already spiraling, and he knew he wasn’t going to keep himself calm if he went back to the couch.
Grabbing his shoes, he headed out the back door, to the little gate, and headed up the path.
By the time he got to the water, his heart felt like it was going to pound out of his chest. The sand was hot, but the pain was slightly grounding as he kicked off his shoes and headed toward where the waves were hitting the shore.
They were so small he couldn’t make out the sound of them over the wind, but the sight of them was soothing. He found a wet patch to sit on and dug his toes in before pulling his phone out of his pocket. He was tempted to send Emmett an apology text, but he knew that was just him seeking attention.
He thought about bothering Cosimo, but the man was at work dealing with tiny babies and their hearts. He had no business interrupting him either.
He settled for Juno instead.
Miles: Do you ever feel like no matter how hard you try, you’re going to screw up everything good in your life?
Juno didn’t answer by text. Instead, his icon popped up with a FaceTime. Miles thought about ignoring it, but he answered instead, and the moment Juno’s face appeared, Miles burst into tears.
“Oh, honey,” Juno murmured softly. “What happened?”
“Nothing. I just…fuck, I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Every time I have something good, it’s like I sabotage it.”
“Are things not going well with the hot guys?”
Miles almost laughed. He’d given his friend a very brief rundown of what had been going on and where he was living.
Now he was starting to wonder if maybe he should have let his friend bully him into leaving, because if it all fell apart now, he was going to be completely and totally crushed.
He sniffed and passed a hand down his face to clear up some of the tear tracks. “I thought they were. Um…it was, you know. Okay for a bit.”
Juno wasn’t looking directly at him. It was like he was distracted by something at the top of the screen. Miles had been suspicious about him when they were together for Oliver’s wedding. Something about his eyes. But he ignored it again. For now.
“And then what?”
Letting out a trembling sigh, Miles shrugged. “Then I went in there to ask if he wanted to take a walk on the beach and he said no.”
Juno was dead silent, then he slapped his hand over his mouth to cover a laugh. “Babe! Are you serious?”
Miles rolled his eyes and buried his face in his arm. “Yes! I know it sounds ridiculous, but it was the way he said it. He wasn’t like his usual self. He just said no.”
“Honey. Can you look up at me, please, so I can make sure you’re getting all this?”
Miles lifted his eyes to the screen. “Go ahead. Tell me I’m a dipshit, pathetic loser who?—”
“Nope. None of that.” Juno pressed his chin into his hand and tilted his head to the side.
“I think you probably have rejection sensitivity disorder. My therapist and I talked about that a couple years ago because I took being rejected really, really hard. Like even customers who refused a sample, it felt like a personal attack. It’s common with kids like us, you know? ”
Miles hadn’t heard of it, but his ability to afford therapy had been restricted to the counselors on campus, and they weren’t exactly trained for kids with system trauma. It made sense. “So I’m making a big deal out of nothing?”
“No, you’re having big feelings about something, and you can fix it by talking to him. You know I get it, right?”
Miles nodded and took a calming breath as he read the captions on the screen. “Yeah. I know. You and Oliver are basically my lifeline with shit like this.”
“Did you call him?”
Miles grimaced. “I didn’t want to interrupt his happy home. I don’t need to rain on his post-honeymoon parade.”
Juno’s mouth twitched into something like a smile. “I get that. I have some shit I need to talk to you both about, but I’m on a road trip with Piper right now, so maybe we can get together when I’m back.”
“I really miss you,” Miles said, sniffing again. “I hope I have good news for you when you get back. I just…god. I feel so ridiculous saying this, but I want to be happy, and I thought maybe I could be.”
“If you don’t panic,” Juno told him carefully, “and self-sabotage the way assholes like you, me, and Oliver do, you will be.”
The words were harsh but honest. Miles couldn’t deny it. More than once he’d quietly wondered to himself if he was choosing someone like Selene because he’d spent years believing he wasn’t worthy of a family, and why change that pattern now?
“I don’t know how to let them love me,” he whispered. He didn’t know if they did, or would, or could. But the idea of it was there.
“Breathe, honey,” Juno said very quietly. “Breathe, and believe you’re worthy.”
“I love you,” Miles said. “I miss you.”
“I miss you too, babe. But I have to go. There’s ah…something you need to do. Talk soon.”
The screen went black and Miles frowned, entirely confused until a warm body settled on the sand beside him. He was too afraid to look over, but when Emmett nudged him, he was unable to help a tiny, happy grin.
“…understand me okay out here?” Emmett asked.
Miles nodded. “Yeah. I can.” Mostly. It was good enough for the moment, anyway.
“You could have told me you were feeling insecure, sweetness. You know that, right?”
The truth was, he didn’t know that. He wanted to believe it—he wanted to feel safe.
But he would probably be petrified of being a burden for a long, long time.
He couldn’t help that. Miles was falling hard and fast, and there was that fear now that if he was too much, he’d lose all this, and he wasn’t sure he’d recover from it.
“Can we go back inside?” Emmett asked. When Miles nodded, he stood up and offered his hand. Miles took it, then felt a sort of calm take over when Emmett didn’t let him go the whole walk back toward the house.
They rinsed sand from their feet in the pool, then Emmett led him to a massive, round sunbed with the shade up. It was covered in squashy pillows and thick cushions, and Miles felt a little bit like he was in a nest.
Emmett was a ballast beside him, strong and tender and ever-present. He didn’t speak right away. He just played with Miles’s hands—touching his fingertips, then tracing lines over his palm.
Miles wasn’t sure what he was supposed to say. It was clear Emmett had overheard some of his conversation. He just didn’t know how much.
“I realize I fucked up,” Emmett finally said.
Miles jolted. “Wait, what? You didn’t?—”
“I’m your Daddy. I’ve played the role from time to time in bed or in clubs with strangers who didn’t really mean all that much to me. I know I’ve wanted it for a long time, but I didn’t realize what it meant—not entirely—until you came along.”
Is this where Emmett realized it wasn’t what he wanted at all? He held his breath.
“I’ve been in this marriage for a long time. What I have with Cosimo—it’s routine. It’s simple only because it’s been our way of living for over twenty years. I forgot how hard it was at the beginning. I forgot how much I had to learn and grow with him until I got it right all the time.”
Licking his lips, Miles lifted his gaze from Emmett’s lips to his eyes. “I’m sensitive to being rejected or dismissed. It’s probably something clinical. I never did get enough therapy. I aged out of the system, and I’ve been on shitty student insurance ever since. I’m still working through a lot.”
Emmett looked sad. “I know.”
Miles appreciated that while he knew Emmett wished he could have done something for him, he didn’t voice it because that wasn’t realistic.
Emmett hadn’t been in his life before now, and if he’d come along earlier—before Miles was ready to leave Selene—he might be nothing more than his girlfriend’s dad.
And that thought threatened to gut him.
“I don’t want it to be like this forever,” Miles finished.
Emmett’s face softened into a small grin, and he touched the edge of Miles’s jaw.
“Oh, my sweet thing. It won’t be like this forever.
We’ll find our way. And I’m looking forward to the day you feel safe to tell me that you need something more from me.
Or that I fucked up. Because I did,” he added when Miles sucked in a breath to argue.
“And I will. That’s just being a person. ”
Miles had to agree with that. He understood the human condition. He’d dedicated his entire life to studying the patterns of people—the rise and fall of not just empires, but families and social groups and pieces of society. He couldn’t expect different from himself.
Or from the two men he was falling for.
“I need time with you and Cosimo tonight,” he finally said. “I need to feel wanted. I need to feel like this is all, you know, solid.”
“I can do that. We can do that,” Emmett said. He leaned in and took Miles by the chin, kissing him thoroughly. “Anything you want.”
“Thank you, Daddy,” Miles murmured.
Emmett closed his eyes, looking like he was basking in the honorific. “Thank you, my sweet, sweet thing. With you here, my life feels…” He hesitated.
He didn’t say complete.
He didn’t say whole.
He said, “Worth every painful second it took to get here with you.”