Page 63 of Milo
I don’t want anyone putting their hands on him.
Niall
The nightclub in Verbier is packed. Men and women twist and writhe on the dancefloor as icy-white lights flash around them. I stare at the club we’ve found ourselves in tonight. They’ve opted for an ice theme, which seems kind of redundant to me. If I’d wanted to sit in the snow I’d have done so outside where I wouldn’t have had to pay these extortionate drinks prices.
I look around the table we were lucky enough to snag at the people in my party. I’m not convinced of the wisdom of any of this. When Silas had informed me that I had a week off, the first thought that had popped into my head was me and Milo by a swimming pool wearing very little.
Somehow it’s not quite worked out that way because instead, we’re in sub-zero temperatures with my best friend and formerlover, another fuck buddy along with her drunken friend, and her shrew of a sister and henpecked husband.
My phone chimes from the table in front of me and, lifting it up, I smile when I see Silas’s name. It’s like he reads my mind half the time.
Silas: I have to say that when Oz and I suggested a mini-break for you and Milo we weren’t anticipating you taking two of your fuck buddies with you. It’s like the plot of a porn film I watched once
Me: Not quite. Jacinta has invited her sister along too
Silas: Daisy? Lol! I’m laughing so hard at the moment
Me: I hope you don’t strain anything
Silas: Seriously, she brought Daisy on your romantic getaway?
Me: Do you remember her?
Silas: Vividly. That woman is the biggest know-it-all I’ve ever met and more sanctimonious than Katie Hopkins. She spent a weekend here once and told Henry he should stop sleeping around and pray more
I laugh, and Gideon looks at me queryingly. I shake my head at him and sit back, looking down the table at Milo. He’s taken the holiday and present company in his quiet stride when to anyone else this would have had more disaster written over it than getting a ticket on the Titanic.
I’ve loved every second of the time I’ve spent with him here, but it’s still not the best way I can think of to spend my time with him. That’s in bed together after sex when we lie sweaty and covered with come but too satisfied to move.
My cock stirs, and I inhale and try to think of something unpleasant so I don’t sit with a hard-on that I can’t exactly do anything about. I look down the table and spot the something unpleasant. Daisy. She’s sitting and having an irate conversation with her sister, which I have to say is about as common an occurrence as me needing a piss in the morning.
When put together with Jacinta, it’s very obvious that they’re sisters as they look so alike with their blonde hair and big blue eyes. But they couldn’t be more different.
While Jacinta is wild and free and doesn’t give a shit about anything much, Daisy is buttoned up and repressed and gives entirely too many shits about everything, particularly other people’s business. She seems to have cast herself as the Virgin Mary on this trip and Jacinta as a scarlet woman, and the two of them bicker more than the members of the Tory Party over Brexit.
Daisy’s husband, Adam, seems resigned and so under the thumb that he must be underground by now, and Sam is no better. A beautiful man, he’s pissed most of the day and night. I look down at him where he’s sleeping peacefully with his head on my shoulder and shrug him off irritably. He subsides gracefully down until he’s asleep facedown on the table. When I look up Milo is grinning at me, his white teeth gleaming in the cold light of the club.
Dressed in ripped black jeans and a plain black t-shirt and with tattered old black suede Vans on his feet, he should look out of place in such a trendy club. But with the lights from the club playing on the rich brown of his long, wavy hair, he looks gorgeous and a world away from the pale, thin man I’d found afew years ago. I wonder whether there will ever be a time when I don’t think about that.
I hope so because it’s peculiarly painful, not just because of what he went through but also because of the fact that he’d been in love with the wanker. Something about Thomas had called to Milo, and I hate that for reasons I’m trying not to think about. In another way, those events gave him to me and I treasure that more and more each day, as I do him.
The more time I’m with him the more I see him, to the extent that I now wonder how I ever came to miss him. It’s as though for years he’s worn camouflage and faded back into the woodwork so no one saw him, but now his real colours are emerging and they’re so bright. He’s utterly beautiful and people are starting to notice the wide shoulders and long legs, now that he’s not stooping anymore. They see the pretty brown eyes and the full mouth, now that he lifts his face up and meets the world a little more head-on. I wonder if anyone realises how funny he is and how fiercely bright and big his brain is.
I shift position, feeling awkward as I stare at him, as though everyone in the club can tell how far he’s gotten under my skin and how close I came to losing him the other day when he thought I’d slept with Gideon. The thought still makes me go cold, a faint vestige of the panic that had swept through me when I’d chased after him into the woods. I’ve never felt that before. Lovers come and then they go. Literally. For me to chase one is unheard of, but the relief I’d felt when he came back inside with me tells me that it was the right thing to do.
I become aware that his smile has slipped slightly and he’s examining my face intently. I offer him a half smile before realising that Jacinta and Daisy have come to a sort of stuttered stop in their argument, which is probably a bit like the occasion in World War One when Britain and Germany left off fighting and killing each other for Christmas Day and played a game offootball instead. Although looking at Jacinta’s face, I wouldn’t dare give her a football at the moment for fear she’d insert it somewhere in Daisy’s person.
She glares out over the dancefloor, ignoring Daisy. Thwarted, Daisy looks around and finds the perfect person in Milo who’s sitting next to her but, unfortunately for him, not paying close enough attention to the danger threatening. I smile evilly as she nudges him and he jerks back to very unpleasant reality.
She says something to him that’s too low for me to catch, but the lecturing note is clear in her voice, and I see Milo sigh and smile at her. He’s too kind to be rude, which means I’m going to have to rescue him. I don’t want to think how happy that makes me. However, I don’t get the chance because at that moment Jacinta stands up and, grabbing his hand, she pulls him after her onto the dancefloor while Daisy stares after them with her mouth open.
“You’ll catch flies,” I shout to her over the music. “Maybe a whole colony, given the way your mouth is constantly open and telling people your opinions.”
“I beg your pardon.”
“I said how time flies.”
She glares at me and Gideon laughs. “She’s as fucking unbearable as ever. Whose bright idea was it to bring her?”
