He exits the parking garage, and we drive in silence for several miles. I’m tired of the quiet and tired of the curiosity, so the first thing I say to him since he ruined me is, “Where are we going?”
It’s as if my voice makes the awkwardness completely disintegrate, because he exhales like he’s relieved to hear it.
“To the airport,” he says. “Not for work, though. I go there sometimes to watch the planes take off.”
He reaches across the console and takes my hand in his. It’s comforting and scary all at once. His hands are warm, and it makes me want him to hold my entire body in them, but it scares me how much I want that.
It’s completely quiet again until we reach the airport. There are restricted-access signs, but he passes them like he knows exactly where he’s going. We finally pull into a parking lot overlooking the runway.
Several jets are lined up, waiting to take off. He points to the left, and I look, just as one of the planes begins to accelerate. His car fills with the sound of the engines as it zooms past us. We both watch it make its ascent, until the landing gear disappears and the plane is swallowed up by the night.
“You come here a lot?” I ask him while I continue to stare out my window.
He laughs, so naturally, I turn to face him.
“That sounded like a pickup line,” he says, smiling.
His smile makes me smile. His eyes drop to my mouth, and my smile makes his smile disappear.
“Yeah, I do,” he says as he looks out his window again to watch the next jet prepare for takeoff.
I realize in this moment that things aren’t the same between us. Something huge changed, and I can’t tell if it’s good or bad. He brought me here because he wants to talk.
I just don’t know what he wants to talk about.
“Miles,” I say, wanting him to look at me again. He doesn’t.
“It’s not fun,” he says quietly. “This thing we’re doing.”
I don’t like that sentence. I want him to take it back, because it feels like it’s cutting me. But he’s right. “I know,” I say.
“If we don’t stop now, it’ll just get worse.”
I don’t verbally agree with him this time. I know he’s right, but I don’t want to stop. The thought of not being with him again makes my stomach feel hollow. “What did I do to upset you so much?”
He cuts his eyes to mine, and I hardly recognize them from the ice built up behind them. “That was all me, Tate,” he says firmly. “Don’t think for a second that my issues are because of anything you do or don’t do.”
I find a slight amount of relief from his answer but still have no idea what went wrong with him. We keep our eyes locked, waiting for the other to fill the silence again.
I have no idea what he’s suffered through in the past, but it must have been pretty damn difficult if he can’t move on after six years.
“You act like it’s such a bad thing for us to like each other.”
“Maybe it is,” he says.
I kind of want him to stop talking now, because everything he says is just causing me more pain and making me even more confused. “So you brought me here to call it off?”
He sighs heavily. “I just wanted it to be fun, but . . . I think you might have different expectations from mine. I don’t want to hurt you, and if we keep doing this . . . I will.” He looks out his window again.
I want to hit something, but instead, I run two frustrated hands down my face and fall back heavily against my seat. I’ve never met anyone who can say so little when they speak. He’s definitely perfected the art of evasiveness.
“You have to give me more than that, Miles. A simple explanation, maybe? What the hell happened to you?”
His jaw tightens as firmly as the grip he still has on his steering wheel. “I asked you to do two things for me. Don’t ask about my past, and never expect a future. You’re doing both.”
I nod. “Yes, Miles. You’re right. I am. Because I like you, and I know you like me, and when we’re together, it’s phenomenal, so that’s what normal people do. When they find someone they’re compatible with, they open up to them. They let them in. They want to be with them. They don’t fuck them against their kitchen table and then walk away and make them feel like complete shit.”
Nothing.
He gives me nothing.
No reaction whatsoever.
He faces forward and starts his car. “You were right,” he says. He puts the car in reverse and prepares to pull out of the parking lot. “It’s a good thing we weren’t friends first. Would have made this a lot harder.”
I turn away from him because I’m embarrassed at how angry his words are making me. I’m embarrassed it’s hurting me like it is, but everything with Miles hurts. It hurts because I know how good our good moments are, and I know how easily the bad moments would go away if he would just stop trying to fight this.
“Tate,” he says with remorse.
I want to rip his voice from his throat.
His hand meets my shoulder, and the car isn’t moving anymore. “Tate, I didn’t mean that.”
I push his hand away. “Don’t,” I say. “Either admit you want me for more than just sex, or take me home.”
He’s quiet. Maybe he’s contemplating my ultimatum.
Admit it, Miles. Admit it. Please.
The car begins moving again.
• • •
“What did you expect would happen?” Cap asks, handing me another tissue.
When Miles and I arrived back at the apartment complex, I couldn’t bear riding up that elevator with him, so I took a seat next to Cap and let him go up alone. Unlike the hard exterior I try to show Miles, I completely break down while spilling all the details to Cap, whether he cares to hear them or not.
I wipe my nose again and drop the tissue, adding it to the pile next to me on the floor. “I was being delusional,” I say. “I told myself I could handle it if he never wanted more. I guess I thought if I let him take his time, he’d eventually come around.”
Cap reaches around to a trash can at his side and places it between us so I have somewhere to toss my tissues. “If that boy can’t see what a good thing he could have with you, then he ain’t worth your time.”
I nod, agreeing with him. I do have a lot more important things to do with my time, but for some reason, I feel as if Miles can see what a good thing he has with me. I feel like he wishes he could make this work between us, but something bigger than him or me or us is holding him back. I just wish I knew what it was.
“Have I told you my favorite joke yet?” Cap asks.
I shake my head and grab another tissue from the box in his hands, relieved at the change in subject.
“Knock, knock,” he says.
I didn’t expect his favorite joke to be a knock-knock joke, but I play along. “Who’s there?”
“Interrupting cow,” he says.
“Interrupt—”
“MOO!” he yells loudly, cutting me off.
I stare at him.
Then I laugh.
I laugh harder than I’ve laughed in a long damn time.
chapter twenty-two
MILES