Page 71 of Miles Apart
Brandice is cool, a knockout with a tall, athletic build dipped in subtle curves. It’s not a bad idea to get something going since she lives in New York and I’m out of here in less than a month. My usual reflex would be to get up with whoever holds my interest, but I’m not moving like I did in the past.
Brandice
My shoot wraps at six. There’s a dinner spot next to my hotel we can try.
I’ve been following Emma’s lead since she made the rules. Going out with other people never came into play last week, but maybe she wants the flexibility to get down like we used to.
Emma shuts down the conversation when I ask again and reminds me we’re not together. I don’t know why the shit pisses me off, nor why I’m going back and forth like wearea couple. If she says she’s cool, I’ll take her at her word.
I’m game.
Chapter 32
Emma
This week can munch on my ass. Monday was wall-to-wall meetings that made coming home to dinner andGossip Girla breath I was eager to exhale. Everything was perfect until the text that shifted the air, thickening it until it was no longer breathable.
I made a mess of my arrangement with Miles. I was in my feelings, not because he said yes to Brandice, but because of how hard I pushed him. I’ve tried hard to dodge how effortless it is to fall into each other. There’s no safety net, which makes intimacy an act I’m avoiding at all costs, because the price is too high. I’ve had men hurt my feelings before, but no one I let close enough to break my heart.
Until him.
Two days blurred together. We barely texted Tuesday, when he was out with Zo’s staff all day, or Wednesday, when I took an unexpected day trip to San Francisco for work. Now it’s Thursday. The night Miles goes out with another woman.
He had no business glistening this morning in a sheen of sweat after his run. We caught each other in the kitchen. Himshirtless in compression leggings under basketball shorts with a beanie tipped to the side for no damn reason. Me cramping with a mess of curls plopped on my head and cotton pajamas that are comfortable but no match for the well-muscled body moving around my appliances with ease.
We sat at the marble island with a reusable water bottle and two coffee mugs between us. “I won’t be back until later,” he told me, his focus on the waves crashing in the distance. He wanted me to ask him not to go. To stay for me.
So I ripped the Band-Aid off by reverting back to my old self, where feelings lose their daggers because there are none.
Now, I have no dick, no contact, and am in the fight of my life with my period. Here I am, tucked underneath a heating pad with a bowl of ice cream and a horror movie while Miles is on his date with Brandice.
“Shit.” My hand flies to cradle my head thanks to the brain freeze I caused chewing through a bite.
Miles’s date started hours ago, at six. It’s past eight—not that I’m paying attention. Day is already turning to night in a streak of sherbet pastels across the sky.
Him out with Brandice is a good thing. He’s leaving in a few weeks, back to a reality that doesn’t include me. We’ll see each other in passing should our schedules overlap visiting Justice or Terrence. We’ll hold the memories of us as a blip in time when we surrendered to unspoken passion we gave language. Then we’ll move on, because that’s who we are.
“Time to go upstairs.” Lying on a sofa, pondering why opening myself up to Miles terrifies me more thanThe Conjuringis not how I’ll spend the rest of the night. It’s no secret how dates end, and I don’t need to replay all the possibilities in my mind of a model taking my man out for a spin.
My man.
“He is not,” I say to the home furnishings around me who are bearing witness to the demise of my common sense. Claiming Miles and talking to myself are grounds to call the therapist.
I lift my battered body from the couch, grab the remote, and scream at the figure on my balcony.
The glow from the television teases a wide torso and thick legs. The beach is private. No one should be on my deck. I have nothing to defend myself with outside of a spoon with remnants of rocky road ice cream on it and a heating pad.
Knuckles tap against the glass door. “It’s me, Em,” the baritone voice says.
I blow out a breath, grateful that I didn’t manifest a killer from the movies I’ve been flipping through all night. “Why are you on the balcony?”
“Having a conversation through a door for the hell of it.” He snickers. “I told you to let me install the one-way window film.” His grin deflates when I step closer. “You sick?”
I scoff.Typical. “If you must know, it’s my time of the month.” I smooth out the fluffy gray robe Justice got me for my birthday. My mother would have a heart attack if she saw me looking like a JCPenney catalog, but comfort beats expensive sleepwear tonight. I feel and look like shit.
Miles takes in my bare feet and face. My hair is a thick, curly pineapple on top of my head. Unsexy to the max. He should get in his car and go back to wherever Brandice is. She’s likely runway-ready and not engaged in hand-to-hand combat with a menstrual cycle.
“Will you open the door?” The rich timbre of his voice washes over me.
