Page 28 of Tender
And that was that.
Miles found himself enjoying a beer on the deck with Emmett a few hours later. It wasn’t how he expected to spend his afternoon, but it felt good to just let himself be. He’d been holing up in that little room for too long, watching out the window, creeping around the pool, eating cold dinners that Emmett would leave for him.
It was ridiculous, and yet, Miles had needed it.
He needed to scream and ugly cry into pillows. He needed to neglect his research and work and spend the day rotting in bed, staring at the ceiling with his processors off, enjoying the silence for the first time in so, so long.
He might have gone on longer, but then Cosimo had showed up and called him out.
He couldn’t hide forever, and now he was glad he hadn’t been stubborn.
“You okay?” Emmett moved his hands as he spoke, and it took Miles a second to realize he was signing.
“Yeah.” Should he sign back? Should he try harder? “Sorry.” He rubbed his fist in a circle over his chest.
“You’re fine,” Emmett said and signed again. “I just wanted to check in. You seem a little far off. I?—”
“Can you stop.” The words erupted before Miles could stop himself, but watching Emmett’s hands move while also trying to focus on his voice was wholly distracting.
Emmett froze, then asked, “Stop what?”
Miles pointed at his hands. “That. I…it’s…I told you I don’t know ASL. I wasn’t pretending. And it feels so awful that I’m this,” he gestured at his right ear, “but I don’t know what you’re signing!”
Emmett’s hands immediately dropped to his lap, and his cheeks went a little pink. “Oh honey, I’m so sorry.”
Miles felt warm all over at being called honey. It was…unexpected. “No, god. I shouldn’t have yelled at you. I just?—”
Emmett ducked his head to catch Miles’s attention. “Hey, no. I’m the one who owes you an apology. I wasn’t trying to make you feel bad. You said you wanted to learn, so I thought a little immersion with sim-com might help.”
Miles felt his ears heat. He didn’t know half these words. He was almost afraid he was miss-hearing them correctly. “Sim…com?”
Emmett smiled a little. “It’s signed English used with speech. It’s not ASL at all, but I thought…never mind. It wassonot my place.”
Miles deflated and felt like a complete asshole. He never did this. He never had outbursts like that. He was well trained to be mild-mannered, and no matter how he felt, he was good at keeping it all in.
So why was he cracking now?
“You’ve been so nice, and I’ve been this weird, reclusive asshole?—”
“Miles.”
His jaw snapped shut, and Emmett gave him a look he couldn’t read, but it made him feel funny in his gut. “You’re not an asshole. You’re not weird. Or reclusive, as far as I can tell. You’re hurting.”
Miles closed his eyes in a long, slow blink before speaking again. “Yeah. I think it’s mostly shame, though. Like, I know I’m textbook abandonment issues. I was a system kid who aged out instead of getting adopted. I don’t have a family out there waiting for me to find them. So whenshewanted me, I kind of…accepted everything that came with that. And logically, I knew Icould find someone better. I had a boyfriend my senior year of high school who was really good to me and?—”
“Boyfriend,” Emmett repeated.
Miles blinked in surprise. He didn’t realize they didn’t know that about him. “Oh. Yeah. I’m bi, I guess. I don’t…I never really thought about it. I like who I like.”
“Sorry,” Emmett said, his voice slightly hoarse. “Go on.”
Miles blew out a puff of air. “Anyway, like I said, it’s mostly shame knowing I should have been treated better and accepted being walked on and used and cheated on.”
“You knew about Jake?”
Miles swallowed heavily and shrugged. “I suspected. She went away a lot. I felt more like a roommate or a house sitter than a boyfriend. I thought maybe things could get better after I graduated and had more stability, but during that lunch, I knew I couldn’t ignore it anymore.”
Emmett looked like he was struggling, and when he spoke, it was so low that Miles had to read the question off his lips. “Did she ever hurt you?”
