Page 48 of Did It Have To Be Gnomes?!
Miles sent me that sweet smile I wanted so badly to taste, then he went to work, searching for the source of the evil magic. After staring at the sexy man for another beat, I dove right in—it was still difficult, but at least I could help now—working side by side with him and reveling in his presence.
The faster we got this done, the sooner I could get this sweet and handsome man alone.
Lyric caught my eye, sent me a wink and a knowing smile, then went back to ignoring us.
I wasn’t surprised how much shit they were giving me about my crush on Miles. When we were in high school, he was practically all I talked about to my best friend. I’d had the biggest crush on him, but I’d always been too scared to approach him—Miles had been intimidating back then with his all-black emo clothes and get-the-hell-away-from-me attitude. That crush had come flaring back to life with a vengeance the second I saw him for the first time in years, and it had only grown with every interaction.
Of course, Lyric knew all this and had been trying to get me to talk to the man for years. So they were excited for me… and getting way ahead of themself since I hadn’t even asked Miles out on a date yet.
All three of us pulled one thing after another off the shelves. We examined each thing, trying to feel the magic, before we placed it back on the shelf.
I lost track of how long we stood there, going through each and every thing—there was a lot of shit in that basement.
“How can they possibly have so much junk down here?” Lyric asked with a sigh.
Miles shrugged against me. “To be fair, my basement isn’t any better. Although, my basement is a hell of a lot smaller than this. But shit piles up after you’ve been there for a few years.”
“True enough. But that doesn’t make this any less annoying.”
“Agreed.”
“How long have you lived in that house?” I asked Miles after a bit.
He thought about it for a few seconds. “Uh, about nine years.”
My eyebrows shot up. I didn’t know a lot of people who’d been able to buy a house at the age of twenty-four, let alone a big four-bedroom one, and I was about ninety-nine percent sure he owned the home and wasn’t renting it. “Really?”
“Yeah. My parents passed away, and I guess they never got around to taking me out of their will after they, you know, disowned me or whatever. I had the money, so I decided to buy the house.”
My chest tightened. I didn’t know exactly what’d happened to him or why his parents would’ve disowned him—unless it was because he was gay—but all of that sounded horrible. For a moment, I didn’t know what to say, but I finally settled on, “I’m sorry about your parents.”
He waved me off. “Don’t be. They were kind of horrible people, and I hadn’t spoken to them in years before the accident.” I could tell he was trying to be nonchalant about it, but I could hear the hurt in his voice.
Without thinking too hard, I rested my head on his shoulder and gave his arm a tight squeeze, like I was hugging it. I would’ve liked to hold him in my arms, but I didn’t want to risk letting go of Lyric. To Miles, I whispered, “They were still your parents.”
He sighed, and after a few seconds, he rested his cheek against the top of my head, making me smile. “Yeah, they were… Thanks, Win.”
Hearing him use my nickname throughout the morning made me grin widely. It felt sort of intimate. Like he was a true friend and not simply someone I knew, if that made any sense.
“No problem, My-My.”
He snorted. “You aren’t allowed to call me that.”
“Psh,” Lyric said from my other side, holding on to my hand as they continued their search. “That’s reserved for me only.”
I rolled my eyes even though they weren’t looking at me, then I glanced up at Miles. He lifted his head off mine and sent me a tentative smile, looking like he was unsure whether I’d be upset that he dared to cuddle in a little when I was already cuddling him.
He definitely needed a confidence boost.
Since I didn’t want him caught up in his head or second-guessing my intentions, I leaned over and pressed my lips to his cheek. It was a soft kiss, barely a brush against his skin, but the move made him freeze and suck in a deep breath.
His shocked eyes turned to me, and I sent him a tiny smile. “Was… was that okay?”
He nodded almost frantically and cleared his throat. “Uh, very… very okay.”
I grinned at him, gave his arm another squeeze, then tugged him to another shelf, dragging Lyric along with us.
The three of us focused on the task at hand for a while, and I was starting to doubt we’d find this magic item thing on these shelves. It didn’t feel any closer than it had when we’d entered the basement, and I had no other ideas on how to find it.
