Page 64 of Hard to Take

“How’s the phone working?” he asks.

“I’m sticking with the bright blue one. If you tell me how to return the others, I’ll do it this week.”

Miles shakes his head. “No way.”

“What do you mean? You didn’t keep the receipts?”

He shrugs, sheepish. “You can’t take them back. The gold one reminds me of your eyes. And the red one goes with those sparkly shoes you wore to the Halloween party.”

My chest expands until it feels like I’ve swallowed a helium balloon. “Fine. Well, the blue one is lucky. Elise reached out to wish me happy holidays on my social story I put up from the box.”

“You think you’ve still got a shot?”

“Or she was just being polite and felt bad about how things ended.” I shrug.

“I can’t help feeling a little responsible. Me groping you in the hot tub lost you the gig.”

I slant him a look. “In a weird way, I’m glad it didn’t work out. Helping Nova with her business has been more fun than worrying about my own brand. It takes the pressure off her, and I get to put my skills to use and spend time with the people I care about.”

Our coffees arrive and we put in the rest of our order.

My hands wrap around the mug. I take a sip, aware of Miles watching.

“Does it beat mine?” he asks, lips curving.

I frown, pretending to debate. He nudges me under the table with his foot.

“Jury’s still out,” I decide.

He groans.

Except it doesn’t beat his. Not even close.

There are no layers to the flavor. There’s no heart drawn on it with steamed milk, like the most recent one he made me.

Which wouldn’t be disturbing except that I’m starting to wonder if it’s not only about the coffee.

What if Miles Garrett beats everyone else where I’m concerned?

At everything?

I can’t resist asking, “So what is this? Some do-over of the last time you took me for breakfast?”

“I wanted to do it again, now that I get to look at you and touch you. Now that I get to give a shit.”

As much as his words make my heart skip, there’s a bigger question I’ve been debating asking. “Why did you give a shit?”

Miles turns it over. “You’ve always had this inner strength I admired. I wanted to protect you. When Jay said that he told you the truth about Kevin… he didn’t tell you all of it, because he didn’t know. The truth is I cared way too fucking much about you. I hated that he put you at risk and made you hurt. I wanted to hurt him twice as bad.”

“You knew Kevin was cheating on me,” I blurt.

Miles holds my gaze for a long time before he nods.

“The drug stuff on top of that, the fact that he used you, took things to another level.”

I shake my head. “I must have seemed so naive.”

“No. He was just unworthy.”

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