Page 115 of The Rehoboth Retreat
Owen, to his credit, had the nerve to still be standing, dusting sand off his chinos like he hadn’t just been punched back to 1997.
Miles reached him in five strides.
And then punchedhimin the face.
It was clean. It was cathartic. It wasart.
Owen stumbled back against the deck railing, stunned. “Miles—!”
“Don’t you ever!” Miles snarled. “Evercall my mother that again, you pathetic piece of shit. Do you understand me?!”
Owen looked confused, then scared, then confused again. Probably short-circuited from hearing Miles swear with actual venom.
“Now get the hell out of here,” Miles continued, voice ice. “And don’t youdarecome back inside. Walk around to the front. Leave!”
“But—I came all this way to—”
“You came all this way,” Miles cut in. “Because you saw I was with Hudson Knight, and it made you jealous.”
I flinched a little at my full name. Usually, only court summonses and angry drag queens use it.
Miles kept going. “That doesn’t erase the fact that you cheated. It doesn’t erase the fact that I can stand here—right now—and say I no longer love you.”
Owen’s mouth opened and closed. A fish again. This time, flopping.
“Now, please leave.”
He stood there another second. Then spit on the sand beside him—gross—and stalked off without another word. Just… gone.
I turned to look at Miles.
He stood there on the deck, chest heaving, fists still clenched at his sides.
And I thought,Damn, I think I might love him.
And also,Remind me to never piss him off.
There’s a certain kind of silence that follows a punch. Not the wet, crunching kind that comes with breaking noses—though, yeah, that’s a vibe I’m familiar with—but the emotional silence. The kind where everything gets real damn quiet because someone just laid their heart out, and no one knows what to do with it. That was the silence that hovered between me and Miles after he socked Owen like a superhero defending his mom’s honor.
And then he turned and walked into the house.
No words. No dramatic glanceback. Just the back of his linen shirt fluttering like some beachside curtain in a sad French film.
Naturally, I chased after him, because I’m not thelet things cool off and wait for the universetype. I’m therun face-first into an emotional bonfire and hope I come out tannedtype.
“Miles,” I called, stepping through the deck door like I hadn’t just watched the man I adore channel his inner Rocky Balboa.
He didn’t stop. Didn’t even slow down.
I caught up to him near the hallway and reached for his wrist.
“Please…” he said, voice low and shaking like a cocktail I didn’t deserve. “You’ve caused enough damage. Now let me go, or another punch will be thrown, and I mean it.”
I froze.
Let’s be clear—I’ve been threatened before. Exes, producers, that one lesbian motorcycle gang in Fire Island. But this? This one hit somewhere lower. Somewhere tender.
I let go of his wrist.
