Page 19 of Tender
Emmett’s voice was a little hoarse and very startled when he said, “Miles? Where are you? Please tell me you’re safe.”
CHAPTER FIVE
MILES
He was shivering,though he knew it had nothing to do with being cold.It was the edge of summer and the breeze was warm, but his adrenaline made Miles’s teeth chatter like he was in the Arctic.
Going home with Selene, he’d known he was going to learn things he didn’t want to learn.He knew that Selene was going to laugh in his face and use whatever she was doing to hurt him.She hadn’t disappointed.
When he brought up Jake, she’d just shrugged and said, “I need more than your limp dick to satisfy me.”
Miles should have blamed her for that.After all, the only reason he ever went soft was when she was being cruel to him.He’d started to suspect she was testing him when they had sex, seeing how badly she could make him suffer—make him hurt.Then, when he was close to falling apart, she’d hold him close and tell him that it wasn’t anything to worry about.
He should have known he wasn’t the only one in her bed.He was just the only fool who’d taken her seriously about living together.He was a glorified maid, chauffeur, and sex-doll.
She was unapologetic about it.
“You don’t care, do you?” he’d asked her as he packed his single suitcase with everything he owned.“Like, this genuinely means nothing to you, does it?”
“I don’t know why it should,” she said from her spot on the sofa.She had wine and was texting someone—likely Jake.“At some point you need to grow up and realize the only way you’re ever going to be happy is by focusing on yourself.”
It was odd advice coming from someone as privileged as her.But in that moment, it didn’t matter.Whatdidmatter was the fact that the only thing truly hurt was his pride.He’d let her run his life—he’d let her systematically take everything away until he had two-hundred dollars in his savings and a single suitcase.
He’d come back from a lot worse.Hell, he’d started with next to nothing, and he could do it again.
He just hadn’t expected it to all fall apart like this.
And he hadn’t expected to confront the fact that he was foolish enough to be in this situation.
Selene just gave him a little wave as he left, and he didn’t look back as the door shut.The ride down to the lobby was painful and humiliating, but not as bad as collapsing on the stoop of the building next door as he realized he had nowhere to go.He could afford a single night at some roadside motel, but not the Uber to get there.
He had a credit card with a little room on it for a meal or two, and then…well, he was fucked until he started working again.But even that wasn’t going to get him a place to live.It would be maybe enough to offer a friend rent for a couch, but nothing more extravagant than that.
He still had until November before he was finished with school.He could probably get housing for the next semester, but that left an entire summer with nowhere to go.
He pulled out his phone and drew up his contacts.For a moment, he hesitated with his thumb over Oliver’s name.But he couldn’t bring himself to do it.He didn’t want to rain his sadness over Oliver’s joyful parade.
Miles couldn’t do that to him.
He thought about Juno, but he was also dealing with something he wasn’t ready to talk about, and Miles wasn’t going to add his own relationship trauma to that. He loved his friends too much to be a burden.
His stomach twisted, but then he scrolled up and stared at the two new names there.
Emmett.
Cosimo.
Something in him snapped, and in the place of cowardice, came something else. Bravery, maybe? Or feeling so unhinged and so lost and so…just fucking confused that he didn’t know what to do? Whatever it was, his thumb hit Emmett’s name, and he put the call on speaker as it began to ring.
And he didn’t have to wait long to hear a voice he so desperately wanted to hear.
“Hello?” He saw the words scrolling across his captions app.
Silence hit him for a long beat before he remembered he had to answer.
“Um.Hi.Sorry…hello,” he said.
“Miles? Where are you? Tell me you’re okay.”
