Page 36 of Milo
He shakes his head. “Nothing. I’m going to get ready. Get up and get dressed when Cora’s finished.”
He moves out of the room and I stare after him. “Did he just offer to teach me how to have sex?” My brow furrows. “I’m not sure whether that’s embarrassing or hot.” I consider it for a second but I’m too hungover to make sense of it, so I shrug. “A bit of both.”
An hour later we’re ready to go. Or Niall and Cora are ready to go. I, however, am hungover to the eyeballs and feel like a cast member ofThe Night of the Living Dead.
“Was that a groan?” Niall asks with an amused note in his voice.
I look sideways at him. He’s sitting comfortably back in his seat, one hand on the wheel and the other resting on his thigh. I stare at the long fingers and neat nails and the veins on the back of his hands. I imagine them on my body and heat rushes through me. He clears his throat and I jump, glad that I’m wearing sunglasses and not just because the daylight will fry my retinas.
“It might have been,” I say faintly. “I’m sure you don’t need Cora and me for this.”
“You’re my cheerleaders.”
“I think you need to revaluate your social life if one tiny baby and a hungover man are your cheerleading squad.”
“I already did that. Now, I’m implementing changes.”
“What does that even mean?” I look askance at him, but he doesn’t say anything more.
My phone beeps and I look down and smile.
“What?” he asks. “Who is it?” His voice goes darker. “Is it Simeon?”
“No, it’s Oz. They’re on the way back now.”
“Already?” Is it my imagination or does he sound slightly disappointed? Or is it me projecting my feelings onto him because I’m not ready for our little sojourn to be over? With Cora gone there will be no reason for me to stay at Niall’s house anymore. I’ll have to move back to the main house and my attic suite.
My mouth turns down. I won’t be able to sit with him, eating and talking. I won’t smell his aftershave in the air and hear his voice in the other room, knowing I’ll see him in a second. I’ll goback to nodding at him over dinner and watching as he leaves for the evening to meet whichever man or woman is waiting for him.
The sound of the indicator rouses me from my thoughts and I look up as he pulls into the McDonalds drive through. He orders a coffee and a sausage and egg McMuffin and I look curiously at him as we wait. “Won’t you feel sick if you run after eating that?”
“It’s not for me,” he says, smiling at the woman who hands him his food. “It’s for you.”
I look down at the bag that he hands me and then back up at him. “I can’t eat this. I’ll be sick.”
“No, you won’t,” he says bracingly. “Bit of grease is just what you need and then a strong coffee. You’ll feel fine afterwards.”
I’m not convinced, but I have to grudgingly admit that by the time we pull up to the field where the run is happening that I feel something close to human again. I climb out of the car and look around as Niall unclips Cora from her car seat. It’s a cold day, but the air is crisp and the sun is shining although it’s watery and thin. A wind gusts and dances around me and leaves flutter down from the trees in a flurry of reds and golds. All around us people are getting out of cars chattering and stretching, and there’s a palpable air of excitement.
I look up and take the baby sling that Niall offers me. Fixing it, I take Cora and settle her in. She peeps over the top, her eyes bright and curious, looking at everything. I stroke her soft cheek and adjust her bobble hat so it’s covering her ears. Then with one hand under her rump to support her, I look at Niall.
He’s dressed in another pair of those gorgeous form-fitting black running tights and a black running shirt under a long-sleeved orange t-shirt advertising the run. The material clings to the bulging muscles on his arms and he glows with the last vestiges of his tan from summer. He spends so long outdoors that his colour never really goes, although he insists it’s windburn most of the time. His white-blond hair shines palelyin the watery sunlight and although he brushed it down firmly before we left, strands are already drifting around his face like the gold that Rumpelstiltskin wanted spun.
He’s stretching his legs and doing runner things that I have no idea about, because the only time I’d run anywhere was if a lion was chasing me and I’d still hope the lion had a defibrillator after I’d gone a few steps. However, I don’t have to know what he’s doing to appreciate it, and I lean against the car, glad for my sunglasses and hoping they cover up my covert observation of his long, lean body.
“You okay?” he asks, a smile playing around his full lips. “You look a little flushed, and is that a bit of drool?”
Okay, they didn’t cover it up and it obviously wasn’t covert.
I flush harder. “I’m fine,” I say in a hopefully nonchalant manner. “Just waiting to feel human. And don’t be so big headed,” I chide. “People dribble for many reasons.”
“Babies and old people, mainly.”
“And for good food.”
“Hmm. So, what food am I?”
Steak,I think. “Soggy toast,” I say.
