Page 106 of The Rehoboth Retreat
And yet here I was, lying in my bed, trying to convince myself that some pre-emptive self-sacrifice was better than just…trying. Because yeah, I’ve got baggage. Not like a little duffle bag of quirky issues, either. We’re talking five-piece matched luggage, wheels busted, handle cracked, TSA sticker that reads DO NOT OPEN—TOO MUCH DRAMA.
I’m the guy you date if you want Instagram followers and unresolved trauma. Not someone like Miles. He deserves Sunday brunch with someone who irons their napkins, not someone who once got banned from a yacht party for cannonballing into the prosecco tub.
Maybe Iammeant to be single. Maybe love—real love—is something other people get. People with less baggage. People who don’t come with a warning label.
I groaned, rolled onto my side, and curled into the comforter like a human burrito of regret. The scent of lemongrass fabric spray clung to the pillows, probably something Miles recommended in one of his aesthetic-as-hell YouTube videos. Of course, I had it. The man could tell me to organize my sock drawer by lunar cycle and I’d do it.
I buried my face into the pillow and let out a frustrated growl. The kind that’s half existential crisis, half horny confusion.
Was it better to have kissed Miles and walked away than never to have kissed him at all?
No. Fuck that. That kiss was everything.
But damn, it hurt to leave him there—standing in the moonlight, looking like something you’d frame and place on a shelf in a home you’d never want to leave.
I closed my eyes. Breathed in.
Maybe he’d hate me for it.Maybe that was better.
I let my thoughts swirl into that liminal space between sleep and self-loathing, the fan still circling above me like a vulture waiting for me to give up entirely.
And then—
BAM, BAM, BAM.
The knock was loud. Abrupt. Like whoever it was, they didn’t believe in doorbells, boundaries, or the sanctity of an emotional spiral.
I jolted up, sheets tangling around my legs like a ghost trying to hold me back. For a second, I thought I imagined it. Then—
BAM, BAM, BAM.
Nope. Very real.
I sat there, chest pounding, trying to make sense of it. It was late. So late it had circled back around to early. Who the hell would be knocking on my front door at—what—Two in the morning?
Another knock.
This one is slower. Like whoever it was had lost their nerve.
I swung my legs over the edge of the bed, my heart still racing. Bare feet against hardwood. My body still buzzing from that beach. From that kiss. Fromhim.
Who the hell…?
I pulled on a hoodie without thinking. No pants. Just boxer briefs and the hoodie, like the disaster gay I was.
And I started down the hall.
Toward the stairs.
Toward the door.
Toward whatever the fuck this was.
I reached the bottom of the stairs with my heartbeat doing this jittery EDM remix in my chest. There was something about unexpected visitors at ungodly hours that always felt either thrilling or terrifying—like you were about to be kissed or murdered.
Same difference, sometimes.
The foyer was still and dim, bathed in that late-night gray where everything looks ghostly and quiet—like the world’s on pause, but your nerves aren’t. The glass at the front door was fogged just enough that I couldn’t make out the figure standing there. Just the vague shape of someone… slim. Slight.
