69. Milo
SIXTY-NINE
MILO
“Everything live is gone,” Holden says.
The grocery bags are sweating on the kitchen island, but nobody is unpacking them. Sage and Holden came through the door ten minutes ago, called everyone downstairs and dropped the kind of news that makes milk and frozen waffles feel offensively normal.
Eli and Micah stand shoulder to shoulder across from me. Knox is attending via video from the auto shop. Sage stays close enough that her hip presses against mine.
“Fenrir tripped a failsafe when he started pulling data from the recovered devices,” Holden continues. “They bricked themselves. Encryption keys wiped. Local profiles deleted. Every live route into the Kennel disappeared.”
“The static mirrors we got?” I ask.
“Still intact. But they can’t give us what the live access could.”
I grip the edge of the island. “The identities.”
“Not all fifteen.”
“And SMAN69?”
Holden’s jaw tightens. “We can’t confirm whether Stephen was one of the men at the warehouse.”
Fourteen men. I killed fourteen men. We burned the place to the ground and handed Fenrir every device we recovered. Stephen could be ash in Dean’s cremator. He could be watching us through a window right now. We have no way to know which.
“Jesus Christ,” Eli mutters.
“It gets worse,” Holden says. “There’s an active arson and missing-person investigation.
The bulletin came out while we were loading Sage’s things into the truck.
Multiple agencies. Multiple teams. And I can’t bury it without pointing straight at myself.
I’ll monitor it, though. Knox is already handling the tread impression. ”
“Should be done soon,” Knox says from Holden’s cell. “Guy I know will make sure the old set’s gone and nothing points to us.”
“Should we warn Amy?” Sage asks. “Are they going to question her about Tyler?”
“Most likely,” Holden says. “They’ll question anyone connected to him.”
Eli pulls out his phone. “Amy doesn’t have access to the encrypted channel. I’ll message Dean so he can let her know.”
“Okay. What do we do next?” Sage asks.
“Nothing,” Holden says. “Odin’s order stands. We’re benched. No targets. No Kennel. No freelancing. We have to sit tight and give his team time to clean this up.”
My nails press into my palms, biting into my skin. I fucking hate being benched. Hate not being inside the op and knowing what’s coming—like being stuck on the loading screen of my own life while everybody else gets to keep playing.
“There are still twenty-four local accounts out there,” I say.
“That’s Fenrir’s pre-wipe count of the locals, minus the ones we put in the retort.
Twenty-four guys who logged into a rape auction like it was fantasy football, and our grand strategy is to sit here doing cross-stitch until Odin wraps up his business trip? ”
“Milo—” Holden starts.
“I could build a listening post. Fully passive. No logins, no touching the Kennel, no tripping another Kennel failsafe. Just scrapers on public stuff—missing persons feeds, arrest records, the damp little corners of the internet where guys like that can’t help bragging.
If SMAN69 so much as hiccups online, we’d know before he finishes the hiccup. ”
“No.”
“You didn’t even let me get to the good part. I could use a whiteboard. You know I love diagrams.”
“Fenrir owns the Kennel investigation right now,” Holden says. “You spin up anything that even sniffs in that direction, he’ll take it as you going off script again. You’re locked out for a reason. Poke the bear and the lockout becomes permanent.”
“He’s right,” Eli says. “You don’t get to freelance this one.”
I look to Micah, because Micah is my emotional support human and he always finds the compromise. Micah winces apologetically. “Holden’s not wrong. But neither are you. You need something to do with your hands that isn’t a homicide.”
I fold my arms across my chest and pout. There isn’t even a live route left for me to touch.
I want to tear something apart. A server. A wall. My own skull, just to see if the part that thought fourteen bodies would fix this can be removed with pliers.
Sage covers my hand with hers.
“We can wait together,” she says.
I hate waiting. But I love her. Compromise is hard.
“Fine,” I say. “I won’t do anything.”
“You’ll wait for Odin?” Holden asks, and I nod, holding up my hand like I’m making an oath.
“Promise on my love of group sex.”
Knox signs off with a nod that somehow contains an entire paragraph of emotional support, and Holden’s phone goes dark.
Eli squeezes Micah’s shoulder and the two of them drift toward the stairs—probably to go be disgustingly in love some more, which, good for them, truly, the walls are thin and my heart is full.
And then it’s just the three of us and approximately nine bags of groceries sweating onto the counter.
“Okay,” I say, clapping once, because if I don’t narrate this I’ll vibrate out of my skin. “Welcome to Unpacking With Milo, the show where we put food away while processing the collapse of everything. I’m your host. I have not slept normally in two weeks.”
“You’ve been sleeping almost eight hours every night,” Sage points out.
“Exactly, kitten. Most of my day is getting wasted.”
Holden stares at me. “Frozen stuff first,” he says, already reaching for a bag, because of course he unpacks groceries the way he runs ops—priority triage, cold-chain integrity, no waffle left behind.
Sage bumps my hip with hers. “You take pantry. I’ll do fridge.”
Holden unpacks like it’s a competitive sport.
I’m putting things where they go and calling it done, but Sage is deliberately putting things in the wrong places just to watch the vein in Holden’s temple pulse.
She’s put the cereal with the canned goods and the dish soap next to the pasta, and Holden is rearranging everything behind her with the tight-jawed focus of a man whose love language is alphabetical order.
“The cheese goes on the top shelf,” Holden grinds out.
“I put it on the second shelf.”
“The top shelf is for dairy.”
“The second shelf is also for dairy if you believe in it hard enough.”
He takes the cheese off the second shelf and puts it on the top shelf. She waits until he turns around and puts it back. He notices. She grins. He closes his eyes and counts to three.
I love them. I love every stupid, mundane, domestic moment of this ridiculous household. But right now, standing at the kitchen island putting the correct pasta shapes into the correct container, I’m feeling something I don’t usually feel.
Left out.
Don’t worry. I’m not about to spiral-into-the-bathtub again.
I just have this quiet, dull ache in my gut because while I was trying to figure myself out, I inadvertently kicked open the door to the greatest love confession of all time, got a front-row seat to the aftermath, made toast and delivered electrolytes, and then sat alone on a couch watching people argue about shiplap while my two best friends discovered they were soulmates in the room above my head.
Watching Eli crack open for Micah was like watching a safe door swing wide after years of everyone trying the wrong combination.
But the part of me that asked the question in the first place—the part that wondered what Micah’s mouth would feel like—is still sitting here, unanswered and a little deflated, like a balloon someone blew up and then forgot to tie.
“You’re quiet,” Sage says.
She’s leaning against the counter, an apple in her hand, watching me with those eyes that miss nothing.
She looks good—hair down, Holden’s flannel over a tank top, bare feet on the tile.
She also looks like she’s been having sex for the last several hours, which tracks because Holden has a bite mark on his collarbone that his shirt isn’t quite covering.
“I’m not quiet,” I say. “I’m contemplative.”
“Milo Hart does not contemplate. Milo Hart announces, theorizes, and occasionally monologues.”
“I’m trying new methods of coping.”
“You’re brooding.” She takes a bite of the apple and chews. “You want to talk about it? Are you sad you can’t use your server room?”
“No. It’s not that. I’m fine. Nothing’s wrong.”
“Your mouth says nothing’s wrong, but your face says someone canceled your birthday.”
Holden stands against the fridge, methodically working his way through a bag of baby carrots with the attention of someone watching a mildly interesting documentary they didn’t choose.
“Okay, fine,” I say. “I’m not brooding. I’m .
. .” I press the lid onto the pasta container.
“I’m really happy for Eli and Micah. Like, genuinely, heart-swelling, tear-in-my-eye happy.
What happened today was beautiful and overdue and I’m proud to have been the accidental architect of their emotional breakthrough. ”
“An accidental architect?” Holden asks, which makes me realize that neither of them were here for the whole would-you-be-jealous-if-Micah-sucked-my-dick event, and I need to explain.
“Okay,” I say, holding up both hands. “Context is everything, and without context I sound insane. More insane. Whatever. We were in the living room. I was drinking depression tea. Eli was grading worksheets and Micah was pretending to read when he was actually just busy being tragically beautiful in silence. And I, as a brave and curious man committed to honesty, asked Eli his opinion on a certain curiosity I’ve been having. ”
Sage lowers the apple slowly. “Oh no.”
Holden crunches a carrot. “Go on.”
“I asked if he’d be jealous if Micah sucked my dick.”
Sage chokes on her apple. Holden stops chewing.
I point at them. “See? This is why people keep secrets.”
“You sound insane with context too,” Sage says once she stops coughing.
“Rude. Accurate, but rude.” I reach for another bag and pull out a packet of dino pasta.
I blink, looking up at Holden. He holds his carrot between his teeth and pulls a container from the cupboard, sliding it across the counter to me.
It’s labeled PREHISTORIC—DO NOT MIX. My bitter heart warms just a little.
Holden snaps the carrot in his teeth, inspecting half of it between his fingers. “And his answer was?”
I point at him like he’s finally asking the right questions. “Thank you, detective. That’s what matters here. Not my courage or vulnerability. Not the fact that I was bravely exploring the outer reaches of my sexuality with honesty and grace.”
“Milo.”
“He said he wouldn’t be jealous,” I say, and even to my own ears my voice sounds flatter than I intend. I pour the dinos into the container. “Which, as it turns out, was false advertising.”
Sage’s expression shifts. Less amusement now. More focus. “Because he was jealous.”
“Oh, catastrophically.” I press the lid onto the now filled pasta container. “He had Micah kiss me as a field test, lasted approximately twelve seconds, and then dragged him upstairs by the front of his shirt like a tragically repressed husband who just discovered the concept of desire.”
Holden’s jaw ticks. Then, unexpectedly, one corner of his mouth lifts. “That does sound like Eli.”
“It was deeply romantic and a little terrifying. Very on brand.” I put the container in the pantry and immediately take it back out because I’m unsure whether I should put it next to the penne, the spaghetti, or the fusilli. This confusion about pasta placement feels metaphorically relevant.
I’m nothing but a dino-shaped pasta in a spaghetti and penne world.
Sage watches me with narrowed eyes. “You’re sulking because your hypothetical blow job became a relationship development for other people?”
“I’m not sulking.” I pause. “I’m experiencing a minor emotional aftershock.”
“Because you didn’t get the blow job,” Holden says. “That’s fair.”
I point at him. “Again, thank you. You see me.”
Sage snorts. “Jesus Christ.”
“My penis had expectations today, Sage. It was promised an adventure. Instead, it got a participation trophy and a front-row seat to someone else’s grand romance—which I know is a net positive for the household but a net negative for my wang.”
Sage presses her lips together. She’s trying not to laugh. “So you’re jealous.”
“I’m not jealous. I’m . . . dickappointed.”
“That’s not a word.”
“It is now. I’m coining it. Dickappointed. The state of being emotionally fulfilled but sexually overlooked. Trademark pending.”
Holden crunches another carrot.
“The thing is,” I continue, because once I start talking about my feelings, I physically cannot stop.
It’s a design flaw. “I know I wanted Micah. That kiss was good. Embarrassingly good. The kind of good that deserves a follow-up study involving fewer clothes. What I don’t know is whether I’m attracted to Micah specifically, whether he opened a door that includes other men, or whether I need to stick a label on any of it yet.
I just know I wanted more, and Eli carried him upstairs before I got to find out how much more. ”
“Then maybe that’s all you need to know today,” Sage says gently. “You wanted him. You liked kissing him. You can let the rest unfold without turning it into a personality test you have to finish before dinner.”
I look at the pasta and don’t say anything for a second.
“Yeah,” I say. “Maybe I can.”
“You know what I think?” Sage hops up onto the counter, legs swinging.
“I think you spent a week being held together by other people, and now that you’re upright again, part of you is wondering if anyone would hold you when you don’t need it.
When it’s not a crisis. When it’s just—because they want to. ”
A lump fills my throat. I swallow it down. “When did you get so smart?”
“I’ve always been smart. You were all too busy being loud and trying to fuck me to notice.”
“Fair.”
Holden crunches the last of his carrot. The sound is very loud in the quiet kitchen. Then he says, without any particular inflection, “I’ll suck your dick for you.”