Page 58 of Tender
Cosimo leaned in even closer and stroked his fingertips over the inside of Miles’s wrist. “Good. I’m not insulted. And I want to hear you say yes. I’ll give you til the end of the day before I call your Daddy and tell him he has to make you say yes to me.”
Miles sucked in a sharp breath.
Cosimo went in for the kill. “And for what it’s worth, my answer is also yes. I want to fuck you too.”
He didn’t lay it on thick, as much as he wanted to. He could tell Miles was still a little uncertain about what they were supposed to mean to each other. And since he hadn’t committed to the relationship, Cosimo was going to be careful with it.
He didn’t want to break his own heart, and he would rather die than see Emmett have his crushed. It was still early enough that if Miles decided to leave, there would still be time to heal. But any longer, and Cosimo didn’t think Emmett would recover.
And to tell the truth, he wasn’t sure he would either.
It was odd to think that a single lunch with their spoiled child would lead them here, but it had.
“Do you like boats?” he asked when he came out into the living room. Miles was staring down at his phone and startled when Cosimo spoke.
“Like…as a concept, or…”
“Riding on them.” They had a small pontoon boat docked at the bay near the inlet. It was a really calm day, the Atlantic more like a lake than an ocean, and it seemed like the perfect way to spend the afternoon.
Miles’s cheeks pinked. “Uh…I’ve never been on a boat.”
Right. Shit. He should have figured as much, but he also hadn’t wanted to assume. “Would you like to have a ride on mine?”
“That sounds like a euphemism,” Miles said as he pushed himself to stand.
Cosimo found himself grinning for the second time that morning. “It isn’t, but maybe it can be later, if you feel like it. Now, come on. I feel like having a day on the water.” He hesitated, then offered his hand and felt something unknot in his chest when Miles took it.
He kept hold of him until they got to the car, then once they were on the road, he reached for him again. The conversation was quiet, though Miles had an obvious bad habit of babbling when he was nervous, but Cosimo just let him talk.
He learned more about ancient history in that forty-minute drive to the bay than he had in all of his schooling years, and he knew how to read between the lines. He understood that Miles was tearing off pieces of himself to share with Cosimo.
And he was hoarding them close to his chest.
Pulling into the parking lot, he scanned his card, then made his way to his reserved spot. He could see their little pontoon in a sea of yachts and sailboats. It looked a little ridiculous, but he’d tried to maintain something bigger in the past and failed.
It wasn’t often he got the chance to even get out on the water. He hated going alone, and it always seemed like when he had the time off, Emmett was getting called away for something. But now he wasn’t alone.
Yet one more way that Miles seemed to just…fit.
“Oh my god, which one is yours?” Miles was standing outside of the car, looking around with wide eyes. His gaze caught on a pirate ship replica. “Tell me it’s not that one. I don’t think I can get on that one.”
Cosimo chuckled and carefully wrapped his arm around Miles’s waist, tugging him close. It felt strangely good to be with him like this. It was so different than Emmett, and that helped settle the nerves in his bones. “It’s that little one right there.”
It was, of course, the top of the line, sporty looking and blue with wrap-around benches and a sunbed on the bow. He’d spent a fortune on it and had no regrets, even if they didn’t get out on the water very often.
“Semi-successful,” Miles read from the side. He frowned. “Is that the name?”
Cosimo chuckled. “Yeah. It was a petty fuck you to the one brother I don’t speak to.” When Miles frowned, he said, “He was pissed off that I made something of myself. He didn’t bother working after high school, lived with my parents until he was twenty-six, got several of his girlfriends pregnant, so he avoided working any kind of job that paid money so they couldn’t take him to the cleaners for child support.”
“Jeeze,” Miles murmured.
Cosimo rolled his eyes. There was a reason he and Dario hadn’t spoken in almost twenty years. “I don’t think he even met half his kids, either. We got into a huge fight one day, and he told me that I was acting high and mighty just because I was a semi-successful surgeon. Emmett thought it would be hilarious to use that name for the boat. It was our first real luxury purchase after my student loans were paid off.”
Miles was quiet for a beat, then looked up at him. “Petty is sexy.”
“Is it?” He lifted a brow.
Miles’s ears pinked. “On you it is.”
