Page 71 of Tender
“If you decide to keep me,” Miles said.
“Oh.We’re keeping you.”Emmett’s voice sounded from somewhere behind Miles, and then warm hands fell on his shoulders, and there was a kiss pressed to the shell of his ear.“If you want us.”
Miles didn’t know what to say.The easy answer was that he did.The complicated answer was that he was afraid to take them at their word because he had a long history of being discarded after a while.
Emmett sat and stole Cosimo’s coffee, grimacing after he took a sip.“Tar pit sludge.”
“Just the way I like it.”They grinned, then kissed, and Miles’s stomach swooped at how easy they fell into each other’s orbit.How much he wanted that, and how much he was afraid he’d never get there.
They had decades after all, of knowing each other before they knew he existed.
Emmett sighed, grabbing a pastry, and he took a delicate bite before leaning back in his chair.“Precious, it’s obvious you have questions.But we have answers. Why don’t we just put it all on the table now.”
Miles wanted that.And he didn’t.Part of him wanted to draw this out and bask in the weeks they’d had together because reality was too much for him to handle. But he also knew they were right. He couldn’t keep existing in this limbo. He needed something solid.
“Are you going to go back to how it had been with Selene?” He hated bringing her up, but he needed to know. She would always be around—she was their daughter. But he also didn’t want to be part of a system that continued to enable her. He would break his own heart if it meant getting away from that.
Emmett sighed and then glanced at Cosimo before saying, “When we were leaving the audiologist, that was her calling.”
Miles froze. “I—oh. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“The day had been so good, I didn’t want to ruin it,” Emmett admitted. “And I’m sorry for keeping that from you.”
Miles swallowed heavily. “What did she want?”
“To ask if you were living here,” Cosimo answered for him. “She called me too. She’s furious that we’re not only sticking to our guns about her finances, but that you moved in. She told me if we didn’t ask you to leave, she was never going to speak to us again.”
Miles bit his lip and looked over at Emmett. He was clearly hurting. “You’re losing your daughter.”
“Not entirely, but yeah. We might be in some ways,” Cosimo said softly.
Miles bowed his head.“Because of me. Because you saw her hurt me, and you wanted to make that better.”
Emmett’s shoulders sagged.“No, precious thing.You were the last straw, maybe.But Mo and I would have been absolutely and utterly enamored of you no matter where we’d met you.Wanting you is separate from Selene, and cutting her off is too. She made this bed, and she has to lie in it. We will always love her and hope that someday she’s able to look at herself and realize she needs to change. But we can’t force that, and we are not giving in to her emotional blackmail because she wants everyone to be miserable when she’s not getting her way.”
Miles looked between Emmett and Cosimo. “Would it have happened this way if it wasn’t for me?”
“I don’t know if it would have happened exactly this way,” Emmett admitted. “It might have taken us longer to see how badly we were enabling her. But we would have seen it. We eventually would have made this choice.”
Something settled in Miles’s chest.He hadn’t realized how badly he’d needed to hear that.And how badly he’d needed to hear it spoken honestly. He took a breath. “I don’t want her to suffer, though. Like…she’s not going to be out on the streets, is she?”
“She has a trust.She’s not going to be destitute, but she is going to have to move out of that apartment,” Cosimo said gruffly.
“And,” Emmett said, a little more kindly than his husband spoke, “she’s going to have to get a job at some point.But it’s not something we want you to concern yourself with. Let us handle her.”
Miles picked at his cuticle until Emmett reached over and took his hand.He soothed the sting with a kiss.
“No more of this,” Emmett chastised quietly.
“Yes, Daddy.”The words felt more natural now, but Miles knew it would take a while for them to get used to it.He didn’t mind the way it made Emmett perk up and flush, though.“I’m never going to ask you not to be her parents.But I might ask that while I’m around, I don’t have to hear about her much, and?—”
“Sweetheart,” Emmett interrupted, squeezing Miles’s hand, “you won’t have to see her again.I have a feeling her contact with us is going to dry up once she realizes we’re not giving in.”
“And once she realizes that Miles living here is more than just us helping him out,” Cosimo said in a low voice.
Emmett rubbed at his face.“We can deal with that when it comes. This between us all isn’t about her. This is about fallingfor you, Miles. And we have.”He let Miles go, but he turned his body to face him better.
Miles wanted to say it—wanted to tell them he was in love with them both. But the words wouldn’t come. Still, they wanted him. They wanted to keep him. “So we’re okay then, right? All of us?”
