Page 62 of Learn Your Limits
For the first time since I started working there, I’ve got the night off tonight. The vacancy in my schedule leaves room for me to focus on coursework. I could spend the night getting ahead on required reading and maybe even a jumpstart on assignments and projects.
I don’t want to do any of that, though.
All I want to do is talk to Milo. We’ve been texting more throughout the day, but it still feels like there’s tension remaining between us. Tension I’m desperate to get rid of. There’s nothing keeping us from being together anymore.
Lying down on my bed with my sketchbook in hand, I pull in a deep breath and release it, trying to force my body to relax as I set the book down beside me and pull out my phone to text Milo.
Me:How was your day?
Me:Please tell me you’re not still working.
Butterflies flutter in my stomach a moment later when his name lights up my phone screen. His response came through so fast, it makes me wonder if he had his phone in his hand, waiting to hear from me.
Milo:No, I decided to be good and left my office at a decent time.
Milo:With it being your night off, nothing was keeping me on campus.
Our first conversation from months ago fills my mind at the mention of him being good and leaving his office at a decent time. Back then, he told me that his idea of “being bad” was taking papers home to grade. I hate the idea that he’s possibly had no choice but to take work home with him just to get everything done thanks to his late night visits to the coffee shop.
Me:And are you actually being good and relaxing? Or did you take work home with you?
Me:I almost wish I was working. I’m so fucking worn out, but if I was working, I’d get to see you.
Milo:I promise I haven’t touched a single assignment.
Milo:Who’s to say I wouldn’t visit your apartment for my nightly coffee? It’s a ritual at this point.
In all of the months we’ve been together, Milo has yet to come to the apartment. It was never safe for him to do so before. But now that we’re free to be together…
Me:You know, you’ve never actually been here.
Me:Maybe you should come over.
Me:Not tonight. But, soon. I could make us dinner.
Why I’m offering to make dinner when my cooking skills are almost nonexistent, I don’t know. But it can’t be too hard to look up a recipe and follow a tutorial online. There are entire social media accounts dedicated to cooking, surely one of them can help me figure something out. I don’t even know if he would want to come to the apartment. It’s a decent sized three bedroom place, but I share it with two other guys. We do our best to keep it picked up, but I can’t remember the last time any of us actuallycleaned.If he agrees to come over, that’s definitely going to have to change.
Milo:I would love that.
Milo:What would you make for dinner?
Because of course he has to ask. I’d like to think that even if I simply invited Milo over for pizza, he would still come. But he’s done so much for me and has cooked for me more times than I can count. I can’t let our first evening of being reunited be one that’s thrown together carelessly. I need to show him that I still want him, that I still love him. I need him to know I’m all in, if he’ll still have me.
Me:You’ll just have to let me surprise you.
Me:What about this weekend?
Milo:Name a time, and I’ll be there, Muñeco.
It’s still early compared to the late nights we’ve both been pulling lately, and I’m not ready to say goodnight just yet.
Me:What are you doing right now?
Laying my phone down on my bare chest, I close my eyes and picture Milo lounging on the couch in his living room, a glass of wine in hand and a book open on his lap. It’s one of my favorite looks of his. There’s something so peaceful about him when he’s completely relaxed and stripped down from “professor mode.”
The vibration of my phone has me picking it back up.
Milo:Enjoying a glass of wine on the couch.
