Chapter Twenty #2
We eat noodles. I watch the fire flicker, the bowl, poised, ready for my ankle’s luxury bubble bath and I let the fallen leaves of my thoughts settle.
Do I trust him? And is it even possible, really, truly, that we can do it?
Move past the fallout – the interviews. The laughter.
The assuming the worst of each other because of our own open wounds.
Forgetting it. That’s what Milo suggested, wasn’t it?
Pretending it never happened. And maybe I can try. Even if it’s just for a night.
After a while, Milo gets up. ‘All noodled out. But I’ll get to the ankle bath.’
‘For ramen, that was good,’ I smile. ‘Do you still cook a lot?’
‘More since I moved and got a bigger kitchen. It’s awesome.’
I look up at him. ‘Really? Do you still have your bear? With the hat?’
He smiles over at me, slowly, in the dark. ‘You remembered,’ he says.
‘Of course I remember the bear. I remember . . . everything.’
A breeze rattles the old windows.
Milo turns back to the bowl. For a while I watch him as he boils water and reads instructions on a boxed filter, my eyes heavy, Finally, he swipes soap across his palms in the bowl, and walks softly, slowly across the floor towards me, with it in his hands.
‘Your bath, Cap,’ he says, gently.
He crouches, places it down in front of me on the floor, and slowly gets on his knees.
Steam rises from it, wisping like a snuffed candle, and his eyes flick to mine.
So much everything in those eyes. Full of the whole world and too many thoughts.
Thoughts I used to want to hold in my hands, organise for him, diffuse, read, like books . . .
He smiles as if he can hear my mind chattering; a tiny warm fraction, but then it falls.
‘I’m almost too scared to look,’ I say softly.
‘But you can hardly see me in this light.’
I laugh, reluctant at first, but then all at once.
‘You know I meant my ankle,’ I say. ‘Dad joke.’
Milo smiles, then looks down at my foot. ‘Want me to take a look?’
I nod. Not because I need him to. Not because I’m incapable, myself, of lifting my own foot.
Because I want him to. Because I want Milo to touch me.
I want the gentleness of Milo Ford’s soft hands on my skin; I, for the first time in my life, want someone to take care of me.
It makes no sense. We make no sense. I’m still mad at him.
I’m disappointed in him. But – I want nothing but him . . .
He slowly folds the hem of my trouser leg, so my ankle is exposed. His hand sweeps around my calf, fingertips grazing my skin. Goosebumps prickle. Hairs on the back of my neck stand up. He grasps my ankle, like you would a wrist. ‘This OK?’ he asks, lifting gently.
And it does ache, but I say yes, anyway. And with two gentle, strong hands, he lowers it slowly into the warm water. At first it stings. A lot. But then it fades, and my eyes flutter with how wonderful it feels.
‘Looks a little better,’ he whispers, removing one hand, in a trickle of water droplets, but leaving his other hand at the skin, gently, where it’s bruised, in the water with me. I nod, suddenly unable to speak.
‘Thank you,’ I say.
He looks up at me and swallows in the dark, candlelight glinting in his eyes. ‘Always.’
And then, without a thought, the words tumble from my mouth. ‘You never texted me back,’ I say. ‘The morning after your wrap party. You texted that night once, when you got home from the dinner, but no more. Until the next afternoon.’
We’ve covered so much, but never that. And it’s always bothered me.
The period of digital darkness before the leak happened.
He’d texted to say he couldn’t stop thinking about me, and then – nothing.
Not until the following afternoon. Not until he was about to take off, for the UK.
The leak was added to the forum that morning, reported on by Verified Insider’s Instagram that afternoon.
Milo looks to the ground and takes a long, deep breath.
‘I always felt like shit about that, Allie,’ he says.
‘But we all had dinner, I went back to my apartment late, texted when I got home to your phone, at like, 1 a.m. or something, then a group of us went to our writer’s apartment.
We stayed up late. Just chatting. Someone had a guitar.
It was so long ago, I don’t even . . . but, anyway, I fell asleep there. ’
I nod. That night was something I came back to a lot, as proof he was always responsible. Just like Sue Lewis, the publicist, the interviews, the memes. My unanswered texts glaring proof I was far from his mind, my messages already making their way out of there, into the air, like thrown confetti.
‘I dropped by,’ he says, gently.
‘Dropped by?’
He nods. ‘After you blocked me. On my way to the airport. I don’t know, I was worried. But you weren’t home. Sian was.’
I stare at him. ‘W-where was I? She – Sian never said.’
‘The university. She told me you were having a meeting about Bermuda. A sudden injection of cash, or whatever.’
Ah. The donation. I remember clearly, that meeting. I hadn’t eaten, nor slept. I sat opposite my awkward supervisor, equal parts overjoyed by the donation and embarrassed she had clearly read all the viral material and disapproved.
‘Milo, I would never—’
‘I know.’ He looks up at me and smiles. Just like all the puzzle pieces I jammed together, that was one Milo had forced to fit, too.
That I had leaked them for money. ‘I sometimes think if you’d shown up, everything would’ve been different.
We’d have talked. I’d have been able to really look at you. ’
I nod, tearfully. He’s right. He’s probably completely right.
‘I’m glad, though,’ he says. ‘Because I got to see June House. Couldn’t quite see the gnome, Sian didn’t let me in. But I saw the pink door. I saw your window you’d show me the sun through. The tree you said your mother loved . . .’
Something warm and true blossoms inside of me. Because those fragments of my life – he remembers them. The pink door. My home. My window. Mum’s tree . . .
Without thinking, my hand gravitates towards him. That smile. Those eyes. ‘Is it all the truth?’ I ask, swallowing tears. ‘Everything you said? Because I need to know. I need to hear you say it.’ I touch the side of his beautiful face.
He looks surprised at first, eyes unblinking; almost like he thinks I’ve made a mistake. Then I see his Adam’s apple bob in his neck. There’s a long, thick pause.
‘It’s the truth,’ he says.
I keep my hand there, our eyes on each other’s, and slowly, he leans forward and lightly, like a brush of feathers, puts his warm lips to my knee and kisses.
I reach my hand around, run it through his soft hair.
Electricity races up my legs, my thighs, my stomach, my groin. Every inch of my skin clenches with goosebumps.
Then he pulls his soft lips away slowly, hand drifting down my calf, and I drop my hand, bring it back to my lap.
For a moment, we stare at each other. Eyes shining. Chests slowly rising and falling. Fire roaring. I feel it all. Everything for him builds and pushes its way through me. All I want is to touch him; to press into him.
‘For the record, I remember everything too,’ he says. ‘I tried to forget, but . . . I remember everything. I remember every single moment of you.’
And looking at him, right now, I lean into pretending – side-stepping into that alternate world where nothing ever tore us apart. I let the world envelop me.
‘Kiss me,’ I whisper.
His eyes linger on mine, widening a little with surprise. Then he swallows, breathes heavily. ‘You want me to kiss you?’
I can’t speak, so I nod.
And then Milo moves towards me, takes my face in his hand, sweeps it down my cheek, runs a thumb along my bottom lip, parting my mouth. He leans closer, brushes his lips across mine.
‘I want to hear you say it again, Allie,’ he whispers.
‘Kiss me,’ I say against his mouth, all breath, barely any sound.
And he does. He hesitates at my mouth, gently pushes the hair away from my face, then kisses me.