Page 32 of Miles

“Yeah,” he croaked out, then cleared his throat.

He hadn’t told anyone about Miles. He hadn’t… dared to. He’d known from the start that it would crash and burn. How could it not?

He wasn’t worthy of someone’s affection, of their love. He just wasn’t.

“Why?” Jane asked.

He could barely open his mouth, his tongue feeling like sandpaper as he spoke.

“It’s too much. I wasn’t looking for anything like this. I just wanted to have fun. Miles was fun.”

“Until it was more than fun, huh?”

“It’s… too soon. Too…everything.”

He didn’t know how to put it into words. His feelings were complicated, and he’d always been fucked in that way. The shit he’d been through as a kid? It still woke him up some nights. He’d stopped screaming a few years ago, but he stillgot that heart-pounding, breathless feeling as he shot upright in bed.

He’d been told most of his life that he was worthless and unworthy of any kind of affection. He knew it was a lie, but that lie had burrowed deep inside him, and it had no intention of leaving any time soon. He knew what real love looked like, but he couldn’t help thinking he didn’t deserve it. He sure as fuck didn’t deserve Miles. No matter how much he…caredabout Miles. No matter how much he wanted more with Miles.

Miles deserved so much better than to be stuck with someone like him.

“Maybe it just wasn’t the right time for you?” Jane suggested, her smile soft, but uncertainty clung to her words.

Kaz shrugged just to appease her.

He wasn’t sure there’d ever be a right time. Not after what just happened between them. Miles thought he was a cheater. An asshole. Well, he wasn’t a cheater, but hewasan asshole. He always had been, especially to Miles.

There was no way Miles would ever talk to him again. Any explanation he could give would come off as an excuse or a lie to Miles. He knew Miles well enough to be certain of that.

“Happy birthday to me,” he mumbled, a small smile finding his lips when Jane slapped his shoulder and started berating him in the way only a younger sister could.

He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and rested his cheek against the top of her head, tuning out her words. Maybe, one day, it would be Miles in his arms again.

He wasn’t counting on it.