Page 14 of This Time Around
I closed the distance between us until I was close enough to smell his intoxicating, masculine scent. “Ask me why Tucker has accepted that he has no future with me, Andy.”
“Why? So you can toy with me some more.”
“Take a chance. Say the words, Andy.”
Icould take the bait and see what happened or play it safe. Trying to figure things out with Milo wasn’t unlike managing a damn baseball game. Did I go for a base hit that could tie the game or swing for the fence and win it all? I’d mostly played it safe since my return, and it hadn’t gotten me very far. Maybe I did need to take a chance and swing for the fence.
“Why did Tucker accept that he doesn’t stand a chance with you?”
“Because I—”
“Hey, Andy, where you at?” a jovial voice asked from the hallway. Paul walked into the apartment and jerked to a stop when he saw me standing so close to Milo. Of course, I wasn’t wearing a shirt which gave the impression that he had disrupted something private. “Oh, sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt anything.”
I was so close to having Milo admit that his feelings for me were so much more than annoyance and anger. Fuck, I could smell his need rolling off him. Paul’s interruption had the same effect as throwing a bucket of ice-cold water on top of him.
“I was just leaving, Paul,” Milo said, turning to face him. “Unless you need me to stick around and approve repairs or anything.”
“Don’t let me hold you up,” Paul replied good-naturedly. “I’ll have Andy call you if it’s something major.”
“Fair enough,” Milo agreed. “I’ll talk to you later, Andy.”
I was going to let him leave without saying anything else, but I felt like something had shifted between us, like maybe I’d gained a little bit of ground with him. Not wanting to second-guess my actions all night long, I pulled my shirt on and told Paul that I’d be right back. I caught up to Milo just as he reached his car. I wrapped my fingers around his biceps to stop him from opening his door. Milo spun around, clutching his chest like the time I had startled him in the dark. He apparently hadn’t expected me to follow him.
“Because you…” I prompted him to finish what he was going to say before Paul showed up.
“Um, I don’t remember.”
I blew out a deep breath while I searched for my patience. It was tattered and torn but relatively intact. I backed Milo up against his car until there was no space between us. I saw the way his eyes widened in arousal, and his luscious lips parted just begging for a kiss. Milo placed his hands on my pecs but didn’t push me away. I felt like I was in the bottom of the ninth inning in a tied ball game, bases were loaded, I had two outs, and a full count against me. I just needed that perfect pitch to cross the plate so I could knock it out of the park. I considered Milo moistening his lips with the tip of his tongue the pitch I was looking for and swooped in, claiming his mouth with mine.
I captured his little whimper of pleasure in my mouth before I teased his lips further apart, exploring him with my tongue. God, his kisses gave me life. They always had, and I feared they always would. I said fear because there was a good chance that I’d spend the rest of my life alone if we couldn’t bridge the gap. I’d never found anyone who made me feel a fraction of what Milo did, and I started to think I never would.
It seemed like Milo was on the same page when he dug his fingers into my pectoral muscles and sucked my tongue into his mouth. I was quickly forgetting what I’d followed him down to his car for beyond kissing him until we both stopped acting stupid. I slid my hands beneath the hem of his light sweater and touched the soft skin covering his tight abs. It must’ve stunned us both into remembering where we were. I certainly recalled my purpose when I looked into his dazed, blue eyes after breaking our kiss.
“I didn’t follow you down here to kiss you,” I told him. “I wanted you to finish telling me why Tucker finally accepted that he doesn’t have a chance with you?” Milo opened his mouth to answer me, but I covered it with my finger. “No more games, Milo.” I removed my finger and held my breath.
“Because I don’t return his feelings,” Milo told me. “I didn’t in high school, and I don’t now. I tried then, and my life would be so much easier if I could love him now, but you can’t force something that isn’t there. Tuck acknowledged that and said he wanted me to be happy, even if it wasn’t with him.”
Okay, Tucker Garrison was a bigger man than me. I would’ve engaged the beg, borrow, and steal philosophy to make Milo mine again. “That’s mighty big of Tucker.”
“Well, he has a big—” My growl cut Milo off, and he slapped my shoulder playfully. “Heart!”
“I bet that’s what you were going to say.” I ran my thumb over his bottom lip a few times. It was still wet from my kisses, and I wanted to make it even wetter. “Have dinner with me. We can order pizza and um…talk.”
Milo snorted. “Talk.” He wanted to say yes, I saw it in his eyes. “Are you ready to answer my question from the other night, Slugger?”
My heart raced from hearing the familiar nickname rolling off his tongue, but fear prevented me from meeting his demand. “You’re not just willing to get to know the person I am now?” I tried for a teasing tone of voice but failed. I knew that I’d have to tell him someday, but I was hoping to entrench myself deep in his heart so he couldn’t easily reject me once I told him about those twelve years.
“The decision you made to basically abandon your family and the community that loved you is part of the man you are now. You’re not two different people, and even if you were, I’d need to understand one before I could trust the other.”
“What scabs do you plan to scrape off so that you can bleed for me too, Milo? Or am I the only one who has to purge their soul?” I growled in frustration. “Forget I asked. Have a nice night.” Our stalemate was still in force, and it didn’t look like it would change anytime soon.
I turned back around and focused on putting one foot in front of the other since I could feel Milo’s eyes on me. Tripping and falling on my face wouldn’t be cool when I was trying to make a dramatic exit. I’d learned a thing or two from him over the years. When I got back upstairs, Paul was packing up his tools.
“The thermostat just needed new batteries,” he said.
“Seriously?”
“Yeah, digital thermostats have some cool features, but they have some drawbacks too. A rule of thumb is to change the batteries every sixty days. You want to pass that along to Milo, or do you want me to?”