“Miller…”
“I’m going for a walk. I just need a second to cool off.” He turned and walked away.
God, I really hated when people walked away from me. I leaned down, picked up a wad of snow, and threw it at his back. “No.”
He slowly turned back around. “No?”
“No.” I threw another snowball at him, this one hitting his chest.
“You’re being very immature right now.”
Me? “And you’re being a dick.”
He lowered his eyebrows.
“I’m sorry I had sex with Matt. But he’s the only other person that I’ve been with. And you don’t get to walk away from this conversation.”
He walked back over to me. “I’m not walking away. I’m trying to calm down because you won’t tell me about all the holes in your story.”
“I was trying to figure things out.”
“What happened in New York? Why did you go to California?”
Why was he choosing right this second to talk about this again? I looked away from him. “I didn’t have sex with Matt, if that’s what you’re worried about. He was too busy having sex with someone else.” I felt tears welling in my eyes. I quickly blinked them away. The last thing I needed was to cry over that boy one more time. “I saw what I needed to see and I left. It’s freezing out here. Let’s go inside.”
“You didn’t talk to him?” He caught my hand to stop me.
“No.” I pulled my hand out of his grip and ran up the front steps. Yes, I knew I was the one walking away right now. And fine, I was being immature. But I didn’t want to cry about this in front of Miller. I let myself inside.
Miller closed the door behind me. “Why didn’t you talk to him?”
“He was busy screwing someone new in his pool. It didn’t look like he was in the mood for visitors. And it certainly didn’t look like he was missing me.” Damn it, I was going to cry. Stupid Matthew Caldwell always made me cry. I blinked faster.
“I’m sorry.” Miller grabbed both sides of my face, wiping his thumbs beneath my tear-stained eyes.
“No you’re not.”
“Yes I am. I just want you to be happy. I respected your choice back then. And I did my best to respect it while we were at the beach too. I even told you to have hope because Matt thought you were dead.”
“I know.” I knew that. I didn’t even know why we were fighting right now. None of that mattered. “I would have come right to you, but I went to California because I was hurting. It wasn’t fair to ask you to wait anymore. But I just needed time.”
“Okay. I get that. I just thought…it was driving me crazy not knowing what happened with Matt.”
“Nothing. Absolutely nothing. And I’m here now because I can look you right in the eye and tell you that I love you. I’m choosing you. I’m in love with you…”
He silenced me with a kiss. Not one of his normal sweet morning kisses. Or his ravenous kisses. He was kissing me like he was still angry with me. And as much as I loved when he kissed me, I just wanted to fix this.
“I hate when you’re mad at me,” I said between kisses.
“I’m not mad at you.” He pulled back and ran his hand down his face.
“You seem mad.”
“I’m not.” He turned away from me.
“Miller, please just talk to me. I told you what happened. Now you know. But you still seem upset.”
“Because it should have been me. You should have chosen me. I should have been your first time. I should have been all your firsts. I never would have played with your heart. I never would have hurt you.”
I swallowed hard. “I know.” I did know that. I’d loved Matt. Or at least, I thought I had at the time. But the more time I spent away from him, the less I knew if my feelings for him had been real. How could they have been when his feelings for me had been so fleeting? Each day that passed made me realize it more and more. “I made the wrong choice back in New York. But I’m here now.”
I wrapped my hands behind Miller’s neck. “And you can’t be my first. But you can be my last.”
Instead of kissing me passionately, he placed a gentle kiss on my forehead. “I’m not walking away from this conversation. But I need to grab some wood for the fire. It’s freezing in here.”
“Okay.”
I bit my lip as he headed back outside. I knew he said he wasn’t walking away from the conversation. But he was literally walking out of the house. The front door closed and I looked down at the bag in my hand. I put the condoms down on the kitchen counter. God, Matt was even ruining my life from hundreds of miles away.
Today was supposed to be perfect. And I’d messed everything up. Of course Miller needed to know what happened with Matt before our relationship went any further. There were holes in my story. He deserved to know all of it.
I sat down on the couch in front of the fireplace with no fire. So…I’d tell him everything.
***
“I know you wanted to see the Pacific Ocean. Was it everything you hoped it would be?” Miller ran his hand up and down my back, making patterns with his fingers.
He’d sat patiently with me the whole time I was talking. Just listening. He really was the best listener.
“No. I hated it.”
“Because you didn’t have any money? If this is about the money in that account…”
“It’s not.” I’d told him about working two jobs and barely having enough money to pay rent. But that wasn’t why I hated it. I wasn’t scared of hard work. “I hated every second of it because you weren’t there. I was at a beach but it wasn’t our beach. It smelled wrong. And I missed waking up to you every morning.”
“Hmm.”
“Hmm? Did you miss me too?” I looked up at him.
“Yes. I kept myself busy working. But no matter what I did, you’d always pop up in my mind. Like I couldn’t get rid of you.”
I laughed. “Were you trying to get rid of me?”
“No. But I was worried you wouldn’t come back to me.”
I swallowed hard. I think in my heart I knew I always would come back to him. I just wanted to be in one piece before I showed up on his doorstep. “I was always going to come back. Although, I was worried I’d be too late.”
“I wasn’t going anywhere.”
Matt had. I pushed the thought away.
Miller cleared his throat. “I know you said you’re okay. But you still cry when you talk about him.”
“Because I hate him.”
Miller laughed. “Maybe. Maybe not. Either way, I think maybe just because you were ready to have sex with Matt, doesn’t necessarily mean you’re ready to have sex with me.”
I looked up at him. “Is this about the size of Little Dicky that goes oddly against his name?”
He laughed. “No. I’ll make sure you’re properly warmed up for me. I just meant…I don’t mind taking things slowly with you.”
“It’s a little too late for that, don’t you think?”
“We could put the brakes on things.”
“No thanks.”