Page 2 of Tender
“I’d rather marry my girlfriend,” he finally said, not answering her new question.
“And the lie detector test determined,” Nancy said, doing her best Maury impression, “dot-dot-dot…thatwas a lie.”
He flushed but said nothing. It was a lie. He’d eat four beetles before marrying Selene. Well, maybe three. By the fourth he’d probably consider ring shopping, though he couldn’t afford what Selene was obviously going to demand.
And that was also part of the problem: he wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to afford to buy her all the things she wanted.
He was getting ready to finish his Ph.D., but he wasn’t going to be rich. He was going to be a high school teacher at best, a college professor if there was some miracle and Oliver could pull some strings for him.
That’s how it would be for Miles. His entire life after being stuck in the system had been living off the charity of others, and it had created a sort of desperate need to take care of himself without help. Letting Selene convince him to move in with her and sell his car because using her things was easier had made sense in the beginning.
Now he realized that if she decided she was done with him, he’d have nothing. A suitcase full of clothes and a couple of funky mugs he’d gotten from students as end-of-year gifts were all he had to his name.
That and a few hundred bucks in his account—which was soon to be less because he was absolutely getting Oliver a goddamn present for leaving the wedding early and bringing Selene along to make everyone uncomfortable.
“You’re really no fun today,” Nancy said, elbowing him.
He turned to look at her. “I’m not trying to be a downer. Last weekend was just a shit show, and I don’t know if I can keep going like this.”
“So don’t. Move out.”
“Yeah, so that costs money, which I don’t have. Student teaching doesn’t pick back up until the second summer term,and I can’t move back onto campus until the fall.” Assuming they had space for him, which they probably didn’t. Grad student housing was always hard to come by, and more than anything, he regretted giving up his shitty little apartment with mold between the shower tiles and the kitchen sink that only drained every other Thursday.
It had been horrible, but it had been so much better than this.
Nancy sighed. “You know I’d offer you my couch, but?—”
But she was leaving. For good. Which was fine. She deserved it. She’d worked her ass off for this opportunity, and he knew she wanted to permanently move since she’d spent all of her childhood summers on the West Coast with her grandparents.
He wanted that for her almost as much as he wanted peace for himself.
“It’s fine. Really. I just need to hang on for a few more months, and then things will get better.” But he’d been telling himself some version of that story for years. It wasn’t always Selene keeping him in a chokehold, but she was a symptom of the same problem he couldn’t get rid of.
His one goal after aging out of the system was to be able to take care of himself—and he had. For a little while. But then things got expensive. Rent went up, his scholarship payments went down. He managed to get his entire school fully funded, and he could afford the grad school housing on campus because his grants covered it.
But Selene had convinced him to move in with her because her place was nicer. There were no bugs or moldy spots on the ceiling, and he wasn’t being fogged out by his neighbor’s nightly bong hits which went straight into his vent.
If he saved money on living with her, maybe he could make a little nest egg. He could buy a new pair of processors because hisCIs were so old they were damn-near fossils. He was pretty sure he saw a version of them in the hearing aid museum.
And God, it would be nice to hear properly for a change instead of the static, lop-sided mess he had going on now.
He’d also hoped to use his downtime over the summer to start an ASL class. They had them on campus, and he didn’t mind the near-frantic pace of summer sessions. He signed up the year before, but then Selene had started disappearing with the car, and by the fourth missed class, he was dropped.
And that was that. He didn’t bother trying again, because although he had no proof, it almost felt like she was doing it on purpose. And he also had no proof she wasn’t doing it to make his life more difficult.
It was odd considering she wasalsoa deaf CI user and was fluent in ASL. While she wasn’t the worst girlfriend a man might have, he still struggled to believe she wasn’t getting in his way just to fuck with him.
“Look,” Nancy said, interrupting his thought spiral as she pointed at the far wall, “didn’t you say Oliver liked glittery shit?”
He did. Oliver liked glitter and florals and soft, lacy things. He always had. He’d hidden it for years because he hadn’t wanted one more thing to single him out, but once he was free of the foster system, he’d fully embraced who he was.
And Miles both loved and envied him for that.
His gaze followed Nancy’s finger, and he found himself smiling. Along the wall were delicate pieces of jewelry. They looked hand-made and they were probably expensive, but they screamed Oliver. Miles brushed past his friend and immediately found a set of ear cuffs that would contrast perfectly with his platinum hair.
He touched the rose gold set. The metal lacing was delicately done, and it had tiny butterfly charms. It was subtle yet obviousin the way Oliver liked to be. Miles turned the cuffs over and his breath caught in his chest.
It was half of what he had in his account.
