“Unless your boyfriend minds,” he said much louder and firmer, nearly a shout.
“My boyfriend?” I didn’t have a boyfriend. Why would he think I have a boyfriend?
Not looking at me, he returned to the sideboard and picked up the wineglasses, placing them on the table. “Yes. You know, your date.”
My date . . .? I didn’t have a date tonight. I’d decided to stop all that nonsense, but Milo knew nothing about that since we hadn’t talked in months. “I don’t have a date.”
He claimed his seat at the head of the table, accepting the wrapped taco I held without meeting my eyes. “I’m talking about the guy you were dating after I got back from Nepal.”
“Oh! Peter?” I grimaced. That was so long ago. “Blah. No. He's not my boyfriend.”
“Oh?” He peered at me while unwrapping his dinner.
“No. No, we just went on the one date and then he wouldn’t leave me alone.” Going through the motions, I took the chair next to his and unwrapped my taco, even though I had no plans to eat it. “I actually had to get campus police involved. It was an unpleasant experience.”
Milo grew very still, and his stillness had me glancing at him.
“Just the one date?”
"Yes.”
His eyes moved over me, his eyebrows pulling together. “And then he stalked you?”
“No. Not stalk. Not really.” I leaned back in my seat and crossed my arms, thinking back over my last few months. “More like, he kept coming to my office even after I told him I was no longer interested, wanting to chat and saying we should be friends. When I made it clear I didn’t want to be friends, he kept doing it anyway. And then it got awkward when he followed me as I met a different date and then watched me the whole night from his table across the restaurant.”
“Wait. Wait a minute.” Milo held up a hand and scrunched his face, making me think I'd confused him. “He stalked you?”
I grimaced. “No. More like hovered, unwelcome, in a creepy fashion.”
“Stalked.”
Waving away the word, I sighed. “Whatever. Anyway, that’s done. He’s stopped and all other dating is at an end.”
“Other dating?”
“Yes.” I chuckled. “It’s been an interesting few months, and there have been a lot of dates, all bad. Some horrifying.”
“What do you mean a lot of dates?”
“Jackie helped me set up an online dating profile and I went on a lot of dates.” I picked up my wineglass and watched him stare at me over the rim as I took a sip. That odd, unpleasant feeling in my stomach unfurled and then swirled, making the wine taste sour. “I don't really want to talk about it, and it's irrelevant now anyway.”
“What do you mean irrelevant? Why is it irrelevant?” Milo moved to the edge of his seat, having no problem making eye contact now. In fact, he seemed engrossed. “Did you . . . find someone?”
“No. Not at all. And that's why it's irrelevant.” I set the wineglass on the table. “I've decided you have the right philosophy on these matters.”
He squinted, his eyes moving back and forth like he was rummaging through his brain, searching for his philosophy.
“I no longer believe in relationships,” I filled in, giving my shoulders a little shrug.
Everything about him went still again, eerily still, and he looked at me. He just simply looked.
I glanced at him, then away, then at him again. I reached for and took another sip of my wine. I set the glass on the table, nudging it farther away from me with my fingers. His look turned into another stare as he sat on the edge of his seat, his eyes narrowed, his lips parted as though words were gathering on the tip of his tongue.
He held so still and stared at me for so long, I felt prompted to ask again, "Are you sure you're okay?"
He sighed, closing his eyes as though exhausted, and his breathing seemed to grow labored. “Actually, no. I'm not okay. I'm not okay.” He leaned back in the chair and covered his face with both hands. It took me a minute to realize that his shoulders were shaking, and another few seconds to determine if he was laughing or crying.
“Are . . . are you laughing?”
“Oh yes.” He nodded, his hands still covering his face. “I am laughing.”
I felt my eyebrows pull together. “Did I do something funny?”
His hands slid away, he gathered a slow, deep breath, lifted his eyes to mine, and glared. I flinched. He looked mad. Really mad. His jaw ticked and his usually smiling lips were curved in an unhappy frown.
“Alice,” he said.
Now I held very still. “Milo.”
“I love you.”
I studied him, pressing my lips together as I considered what he might mean by this statement. “You love me,” I repeated, turning the words over and over, another coded message.
Usually, in ye times of old, I wouldn't have done this with Milo. He was the one person I'd never had to do this with. But tonight he was acting strange, and he wasn’t okay but kept insisting he was, and I felt like secret messages were everywhere.
He nodded, still looking positively irate.
“I . . . love you . . . too,” I said. We'd never said this to each other before. Some friends did, but it was a first for us. And it wasn't a lie to say I loved him. I did.
My response only seemed to infuriate him further, and he grit his teeth. “No, Alice.”
“Yes, Milo.” Abruptly, I became aware that I was nodding and likely had been for a while. So I put a stop to that.
Milo continued to glare, blinking rapidly, as if I'd blown dust in his eyes or he was absorbing some bad news. At least that's what I thought the look on his face meant.
“As a friend?” he ground out, making the word friend sound like it really meant toxic waste which only served to further baffle me.
“What’s wrong with being friends?” I felt my head begin to move in a nod and quickly put a stop to it.
He flinched, seemed to struggle around a swallow for a moment, and leaned forward again, placing his forearm and hand on the table, his fingers just two inches from my wineglass, which he stared at, and said, “What if I told you that’s not what I want?”
He doesn’t want to be my friend? Was that what this was all about? Was that why he’d ghosted me? I was going to cry. I could feel it.
Don’t cry.
Before I could sort myself out, he asked, “What if I told you I'm in love with you?"
I recoiled at the blunt force of his hypothetical question, and my frown was immediate. Something in the vicinity of my chest ached—my heart—and my ears rang. We regarded each other, and the ache in my heart became a hurt, a wound. Now I was the one breathing hard.
“What the hell is going on?” I demanded.
“Alice—”
“Are you making fun of me?”
He shook his head, some of the anger dissolving, leaving his features pained. “I'm in love with you, Alice.”
I recoiled again, closing my eyes because I couldn't look at him right now and make my body move. “Very funny, Milo,” I mumbled, standing and blindly walking to the vicinity of the door. “Forget it. Forget I came over. You can keep the tacos.”