Is he grinning? Shit. Time to make my exit before this gets any worse.
I take the dresses upstairs, where I can’t resist admiring them one more time while pretending nothing weird is going on in the kitchen. Neither dress is really my style, but after wearing the same boring outfit currently sitting in a damp heap by the door for the last several days, I’m willing to expand my personal horizons. The first one is red and white with a built-in bustier and a low scoop neck that does amazing things for my boobs. The second is a bit more modest, but its embroidered violet flowers look great with my eyes, and it’s sure to gain Camille’s immediate approval.
With nothing else to do, I strip off my sweater and pad down the stairs in my t-shirt and jeans to check out this wine Milo mentioned. The deck looks brand new since I last saw it, with a rich walnut stain and a small matching table tucked between two deck chairs. It’s the perfect setting to watch the ocean as well as the people strolling on the beach, so I do just that while I sip a glass of pinot grigio and try not to think too hard about how I got here.
It’s less than twenty minutes until I hear the sliding glass door open and shut, and Milo takes a seat in the chair next to mine. He opts for beer, popping the top on his bottle but otherwise preserving the quiet sanctity of my beach-deck paradise. We sit in a surprisingly comfortable silence until an alarm sounds on his phone and he retreats inside again. I haven’t a clue what he’s thinking or why he’s gone to the trouble of cooking dinner, but I’m sure all will be revealed in time. I’m honestly not sure I want to know the answers in case they present me with something I’m not ready to face—like getting kicked out of his house or Milo going soft on me and confessing some dark secret I’ll never be able to unhear.
When he announces dinner is ready, it’s with not a small amount of trepidation that my wine glass and I make our way to the kitchen.
“I should put a better table and chairs on the deck for eating.” Milo hands me a bowl and throws his chin to a large pot on the stove. “Chicken and dumplings. I hope I didn’t screw it up.”
I can’t help but smile at that and spoon a healthy portion into my bowl before settling at the table. There’s a green salad already there, and from the delicious scents wafting up from my bowl, it’s clear Milo went all out.
“Thanks. This looks great. I didn’t know you could cook.”
“Me neither.” He shrugs and sits across from me with his own bowl. We eat in silence, and partway through the meal, he rises from his chair to retrieve the wine bottle from the deck and refill my glass. What has gotten into him? It isn’t until I’m scraping the bottom of my bowl that he leans forward and clears his throat.
“So, uh, can we just go back to normal?”
I pause with my spoon stuck in my mouth and level my gaze at him. His eyes drop to my mouth as I remove the spoon, and I’m pretty sure I lick my bottom lip before common sense takes hold again. It’s like he’s had a personality transplant and I got here late for the briefing but just in time for the reboot.
“Normal as in bickering and tormenting one another? Or normal as in doing our best to ignore each other’s existence?” I set the spoon back in the bowl.
He has the good grace to chuckle at that before responding, “I was thinking more along the lines of being friends.”
“Friends.” I try the word out on my tongue, and I don’t hate it. I’ve now gathered this whole scene is his attempt at an apology, and it’s a pretty darn good one.
His eyes stay on my face. “There was a time when we called each other friends.”
He’s not wrong. But I don’t think either one of us was ever fooled that it was that simple—then or now.
“Okay,” I respond after a long pause. “Let’s take this out to the deck, friend. And don’t forget the wine.”
Chapter Twenty-One
JILL
Twelve Years Ago
“I still can’t believe it.” I drop the flipper for the third time, and Milo frowns at me.
“You’ve said that at least a dozen times already. Now get your fins on before we both die of heatstroke.” Once again, he sounds like maybe he regrets agreeing to teach me how to SCUBA dive.
But I can’t help it. The casting director pulled me aside this morning and told me they might have a recurring spot for me when they restart shooting for the upcoming season. I have absolutely no details, but I’ve already pinched myself a dozen or more times, and I’m still waiting to wake up from what must be a dream. And, as if that isn’t amazing enough on its own, the PA who asked me out was moved to another show, so I don’t even have to figure out how to bail on our date! I might have been a little smug when I told Milo that part, but the guy deserved it for going all apeshit on me when he found out about it in the first place.
“I mean, I know it would be complicated, but opportunities like this don’t happen all the time.”
“And I’m happy for you. Now give me your foot.” His impatience casts some doubt on his sincerity.
I sit on a rock and extend my leg out toward Milo. He’s in a t-shirt and long board shorts again, with about an inch worth of sunscreen slathered on his closed cuts, as usual. I haven’t seen the awful wound on his thigh since the other day when he rushed out of my parents’ bathroom, and I hope to never see it again.
When he ran out, I wanted to call out after him and tell him to stop, but I couldn’t. First it was the shock at seeing for myself how badly he’d been hurt, but then he was so agitated when he saw me gawking at it that I felt guilty and ashamed that I’d even allowed my eyes to go there—like I violated his privacy in the worst of ways.
I figured he was angry, but after two days of not hearing from him, I decided he’d had enough time to stew and called him to test the waters. He sounded surprised to hear from me for some reason, but I pushed on through, and by the end of the call, it felt like things were back to normal. So, I vowed to myself to never bring it up again, and so far I’ve kept that promise. It doesn’t mean I don’t think about it though.
Milo is the only young person I know who’s come so close to dying, and I have to imagine it changes a person. It makes me wonder what he was like before the accident.
With the flippers—sorry, fins—secure, I push to standing.
“I feel like a penguin in these things.”
Milo shoots me a grin and picks up a black vest he calls a BC. “You look like a penguin in those things.”
“Hey!”
He holds the vest out for me to slip on. “A very stylish penguin. Is that better?”
“I suppose so. Okay, now what?”
Milo helps me put on the rest of the equipment and guides me to the edge of the rocks where he hops in the water and peers back up at me. We’re not on the beach, but in a small rock-lined cove of sorts where the water is only a few feet deep. Milo said it would be a good place for me to practice with the diving equipment since the water here is shallow and still.
“I wish we could do this together,” I tell him as I scooch my bikini-clad butt closer to the edge.
“We are doing this together. Always dive with a buddy.” He points a bossy finger at me, making my eyes roll behind my mask.