Page 88 of Milo
He grins and gives up warming up in favour of joining me in leaning against the fence and watching my beloved. Because he is that. My beloved. I love every quirky, awkward, and sometimes wilful inch of him. I always will because he makes me laugh and feel more alive than I ever have, like a bottle of champagne that’s been shaken up and opened on New Year’s Eve. Full of happy possibilities and a wonderful golden reality.
Just being with him feels like home should always do. I never really knew that feeling before. I was at boarding school by the age of seven, and the only real family I had was the one I made with Silas and Gideon.
I’d been bemused when people told me that when love is real, it feels right. To me, sex with lots of different people felt right. Why would I give that up for what sounded incredibly boring? But I’ve found out that it isn’t. Sex with Lo gets better and better. We know each other’s bodies so well that anything goes. But I’ve found lying together afterward is just as sweet. Curling up around him, listening to him breathe and hearing that indrawn breath and slight catch as he talks in the dark and tells me his secrets makes me feel incredibly privileged and intensely happy.
Our lives together have slotted into each other so easily. Coming home to him, knowing he’ll be there when I get homeor he’ll bang through the door later, his eyes bright and alive and his touch warm and welcoming, makes me settle inside. I loved the Dower House from the minute Silas gave it to me. It felt right to me but also as if it was waiting. So we’d both settled down waiting without realising it was for a wild-haired dreamer to come in and make us a home.
Lo is my family now. He’s the only one for me, and I will protect him and us with everything in me so we can grow old together in our cottage in the woods.
As if sensing my thoughts, Silas nudges me. “Have you decided when you’re going to do it?”
“I trust you’re talking about my marriage proposal and not my sex life.”
He grimaces. “Definitely the former,” he says quickly.
“You sure?” I cock an eyebrow. “Now you’re a parent and all, maybe you’ve forgotten how it works.”
He raises an eyebrow in return. “Believe me, I don’t need reminding.”
I grin and then turn to look at Milo who’s laughing at something Oz says and completely oblivious to a city type in new green wellies and a Barbour coat who’s eyeing him up lasciviously. The man obviously senses my gaze because he looks back and blanches when he sees me shaking my head at him before hurriedly moving on.
Satisfied, I look at Silas to find him laughing. “What?”
He shakes his head, a smile still pulling at his lips. “You being all caveman. It still surprises me.”
“Why?” I ask fairly indignantly.
“Because you very charmingly never gave a shit,” he says patiently. “No matter what men and women did to make you jealous, you never moved a hair. Now, Milo manages it without even realising.”
“Well, don’t tell him,” I say hurriedly. “You know what he’s like about bossy men.”
He smiles. “Somehow I don’t think he minds your brand of bossy.”
“I hope not.”
It’s something I’ve tried very hard to work on with him and I think it’s largely been successful. I still have lapses where I’ll start to ride roughshod but usually, all it takes is one raise of his eyebrow and I rein it in.
“I hope I’m what he needs,” I say fervently, and Silas’s smile softens.
“You are because you’ve worked so bloody hard at it, Niall. He knows that he means everything to you, and out of all of us, you were always the one who heard what he wasn’t saying.”
I grin. “He’s a lot more vocal now.”
“Well, that’s being in love, isn’t it?” Silas says simply. “It gives us the courage to show our full self if someone else loves it, warts and all.”
I smile at this gentle man. My brother in all but name. Then I look back at the love of my life.
“I’ll know when the right time is,” I say, starting to stretch as the countdown begins. “Timing is everything. It’ll be epic and romantic as shit and the angels will fucking weep.”
“Oh dear,” he says faintly, but then the gates open and we’re off.
Milo
We stand by the side of the course and wave enthusiastically as the runners go past us, Cora screeching ‘Daddy’ as Silas jogs past with Niall.
I eye my boyfriend. His hair is in its usual elegant mess, the white-blond strands showing off the denim blue of his eyes that Ilove so much, especially with the lines that radiate from around them showing a lifetime of laughter. Because that’s what I see around Niall. Laughter. He’s easy-going and sarcastic and quick-witted, and I love him more every day.
Oz interrupts my thoughts by taking my empty cup and slinging it into the bin. “Next time we’ll bring brandy,” he says in a disgusted tone of voice.
