Page 9 of Tender
Plenty of people were born, lived, and died somewhere in the middle.
And Miles had never had grand expectations of his life.
“…shirt…before…black one.”
He furrowed his brow and tapped on his processor, but it didn’t help.
“Seriously?” Selene demanded, getting in his face so he could see her lips.She was on edge, and she had been all morning.They’d been together for so long now, and she had finally agreed to let him meet her dads.“You can’t get that fixed?”
He wasn’t about to tell her for the hundredth time that he didn’t have access to the kind of money she did and getting a new processor was more expensive than he could consider.He’d make do until he got a job—a real job—and could afford to get a new pair.
Of course, to her, that kind of money was nothing.
To him, it was a life savings.
“I don’t know what to tell you. They’re old and my insurance won’t cover them.”
“It’s so annoying,” she whined. “Can’t you just…I don’t know…borrow the money from someone?”
From whom, exactly? Borrow it from her dads before he even got the chance to meet them? They’d laugh him right out of the restaurant and tell her that Miles would never be good enough for their little princess.
He was never going to be rich, and what was worse in her eyes, he never wanted to be. So maybe, in that case, the hypothetical judgment of these men he’d never met was right. According to what made someone good enough in their family—in their income bracket—he would never measure up.
Selene stared at him for a long moment, then marched over to their shared closet and began to look through his things.She eventually came out with a silky button up shirt with a very faint black embroidery.It was the nicest thing he owned... because she’d bought it for him.
“You can’t show up to Rouge looking like a poor-ass teacher,” she said, speaking toward his good side.
He pinched the bridge of his nose as he took the shirt from her.“Iama poor teacher.”
At her flat look, he turned away to put it on.The only reason he hadn’t chosen it was because he didn’t want to give her dads a false sense of who he was.He wanted them to know that, in a lot of ways, she was out of his league.
That he was lucky she’d chosen him, even if he didn’t feel lucky most days.
He didn’t know much about them—they were constantly busy and tended to show their love by paying for whatever Selene wanted.He knew that one of them—Cosimo—was a surgeon, and the other—Emmett—was a physicist who worked in a lab run by NASA.He’d seen photos of them though, and they were absolutely gorgeous. They were the kind of men he’d dreamed about when he was young and in the middle of his bisexual awakening.
Not that he’d ever tell Selene that.She was weird enough about her dads without him saying he thought they were obscenely hot. He only hoped he could control himself and not, you know, stare and drool when he met them at the restaurant.
After a moment of letting her fuss with his hair, Miles ducked away from her and batted her hands down.“I’m good.”
“I know.I just…”She gave him a critical up and down, then clicked her tongue in disappointment. “I don’t want them to judge me. You’re not like most of the guys they’ve seen me with.”
That was the least surprising thing she’d ever told him.
And he doubted there was any chance her dads weren’t as superficial as she was.He knew how she’d grown up. Silver spoon, Mercedes for her first car, never wanting for anything except maybe attention—but he’d known kids like her and thatwas always how they’d grown up. But she didn’t burst forth from the ground a spoiled rich brat.
No, she’d been created that way, and he could only imagine what her dads were going to say when they finally laid eyes on him. She could dress him up in the most expensive clothes she’d ever purchased, and he’d still look like himself. There was no escaping who he was.
And more importantly, he didn’t want to escape who he was. He’d worked his ass off to love himself, and even if he couldn’t do it every day, he did it most days. And that meant something.
She might have been with him in spite of his circumstances, and she might have made that clear all the time, but he wasn’t going to try changing just to make her happy.He wanted them to like him, but he didn’t want to twist himself up until he didn’t recognize his own face.
It reminded him too much of being a kid, being paraded in front of family after family and found lacking no matter what he did or how he behaved.
Once she’d given him a grudging nod of approval, Miles grabbed his nicest pair ofConverse, then touched the watch on his wrist to ensure it was still there.
It was the only thing he owned that was worth anything.It had been his grandfather’s, and besides a few old polaroids, it was the only thing he had left of his family.There were a few foggy memories, but most of those were of stern-faced CPS agents taking him by the wrist and telling him there was no point in crying.
He wore it for good luck, as much as Selene hated it because he wouldn’t have it cleaned.But he was wearing long sleeves, so he tucked it under his cuff, then grabbed his phone and keys.His processor cut in and out again, and in the end, he ripped it off and left it on the nightstand.
