37
Miles takes one look at me shivering on his doorstep and wordlessly ushers me inside, bolting the door behind him. “What happened?”
I shake my head, not able to speak. I can barely remember how I got here. The subway mostly, but a lot of walking in the freezing temperature. And somehow, between watching the subway doors close on my father and Agent Sharp, and getting to Miles’s apartment, I lost my jacket. Lost my will to look for it, too.
“I just— My dad—” I try to pull myself together, but hot tears roll down my face before I can stop them. “It’s done. I did it. Got the evidence. And then I tried to warn him, but Agent Sharp got there before I could…”
Miles’s face is full of a million questions. But he seems to set them aside when a sob escapes despite all my efforts to hold it in. And even though we hadn’t left things on the best terms last time, Miles doesn’t hesitate for a second. He wraps me up in his arms, holding me tight, his hand running over my hair. I bury my face in his shirt and keep crying. I can’t remember the last time I broke down like this. Definitely never in front of Miles. But I think deep down I need his approval. I need it to be okay that I feel like this, even if it’s about my dad.
“Are you hurt?” he whispers against my ear after a few minutes. “Did anyone follow you here?”
I lift my head and look right into a pair of concerned, kind blue eyes. Kind and loyal, I admit to myself, though painfully. How can I fault him for his bravery, his relentless determination? “No to both.”
“Good.” He leans forward and rests his lips against my forehead. “What exactly happened?”
I close my eyes and briefly explain about my dad and the judge in South Carolina and the evidence I’d already handed over. When I finish, I open my eyes to see his reaction, and I don’t even need to ask if he knew about the judge. He didn’t.
“I did this, Miles. I’m the one who got him to confess to bribing the city council guy. I did this.” The tears overflow again, my chest tightening with each breath.
“Shhh, it’s okay.” Miles wraps strong arms around me again, both hands rubbing up and down my back. “Relax. Breathe.”
“I just wanted to help my mom,” I whisper. “And he had a plan all along and I—”
The words are lost in the back of my throat, but neither of us needs them anyway: He gets it. Miles just stands there holding me, saying nothing but comforting words until I’m calm again.
“You’re freezing, Ellie.” He tilts my chin up; his thumb brushes over my bottom lip. “Your lips are blue. How did your clothes get so wet?”
“Slush,” I say, a shiver running up my spine. “Dirty New York City slush. I stepped in a puddle, and then I slipped and fell and there was a truck—” I glance down, looking myself over for the first time. “God, I’m a disaster.”
“You’re beautiful.” He tries to run a finger over my hair but ends up tangled in it. “But you do have icicles in your hair.”
“Dirty icicles. And I can’t feel my feet.”
Miles releases his hold on me and takes my hand. “Let’s fix this. Before you end up with pneumonia.”
I’m so cold and exhausted and confused that I don’t protest when he leads me into the small bathroom. I lean my back against the wall, unable to fully support myself while Miles turns on the shower. Despite his previously admitting to being driven crazy by a fully clothed version of me, Miles is all business while his fingers work their way through the buttons on my shirt. His own T-shirt is now soaked from my leaning against him, and in this small bathroom, there’s hardly enough room for him to back away and prevent the freezing material from brushing my now-bare skin. He immediately reaches for the hem of his shirt and then, after glancing at me, hesitates for a beat as if forgetting his all-business mentality. But seconds later, he tosses the soaking, dirty shirt into a laundry basket right outside the bathroom door.
His gym shorts sit low on his hips, causing the St. Felicity’s mark to peek out above the waistband. He catches me staring at it, and the concern on his face turns to guilt. I close my eyes again, not wanting to think about any of that. Wishing that I hadn’t stormed out of here last time, wasting days. Days I could have spent with Miles, not pushing him away. Soon I’m freed of my own soaking-wet shirt, and only for a moment do I feel a hint of embarrassment and nerves watching a shirtless Miles dutifully locate the button and zipper on my pleated skirt. The rest of my life is so overwhelming that Miles seeing me in my underwear, not even for the first time, holds little concern.
“Lift your foot up,” he says gently while bending down, his fingers wrapped around my right calf. I obey, and he tugs off my boots and wet socks one at a time. He stands upright again and opens the shower door, testing the water temperature. “It’ll probably sting. A lot.”
I nod but make no move to get in. Miles grows more worried by the second. “Ellie, you really need to—”
“Give me a minute, okay?” I glance warily at the water. Odds are it will let me down. Maybe turn to ice the second I step under it. “How long does the hot water usually last in this place?”
Miles answers by giving me a gentle shove from behind until I’m standing under the shower, the stall too tiny to escape the stream of water. The hot water hits me—and yeah, it does sting—and I jolt to life. I look down at my body and then back at Miles through the still opened shower door. “I have my underwear on.”
He shakes his head, looking embarrassed or guilty, I’m not sure which. “They were already wet.”
I glance down at my chest, a hint of nerves creeping up now. “This bra is cold-wash only.”
Miles’s mouth forms a half smile. “Want me to turn the water cold?”
“No!” I step farther under the stream. The hot water beats against my back and runs down to my feet, thawing them. “I’m never going near cold water again. I don’t care if my bra is ruined.” I close my eyes, tilt my head upward, allowing hot water to hit my face and wash the dirty slush from my hair. “Do you have any shampoo? Soap?”
He had been about to leave the bathroom but stops to retrieve a plastic shower basket from under the sink along with a couple of towels. A few minutes later, I emerge from the bathroom, a towel secured around me, another I’m using to dry my hair. Miles, still shirtless and barefoot, hits a button on the coffeepot, causing it to whir and hiss.
“I’m making coffee in case you want—” He’s turned around now, staring at me. He clears his throat in a way that makes my face warm. “Are you— I mean do you— How was the shower? Hot enough?”
My hands pause in their efforts to blot my hair dry. “I can feel my feet again.”
“That’s definitely good.” He stares a beat longer, causing more heat to flood my face, then he jumps into action, crossing the room to dig in a bag near my feet. “You need something to wear, don’t you? And after you’re dressed, if you want, I can go back into Manhattan with you. I need to figure out what’s going on anyway.”
Panic and guilt hit me all over again. For a moment, with Miles staring at me in a towel, I’d forgotten all of that. When he stands with neatly folded clothes in his arms, the words spill out: “I don’t want to go. Not yet.”
The all-business, helping-a-friend version of Miles seems to vanish when his eyes meet mine again. He sets the clothes on the bed, takes a step closer to me until only inches separate us. His hands move to my face, holding it gently. “Tell me it’s okay to kiss you because—”
My heart takes off in a sprint. “It’s okay,” I say without thinking. But then when I do think about it, when I ask myself why I turned him down before and just as quickly invited him back…it becomes clear that last time we were together, self-preservation won. Today, loyalty wins. And a strong desire to not waste any moments with Miles. Because he does have things to do, and those will likely involve leaving me. But today he’s here and I’m here.
“It’s okay,” I repeat.
Miles’s mouth meets mine, his hands drawing me closer. One kiss turns into many, and soon I can’t think about anything but the single towel and pair of gym shorts that separates us from being completely naked.
And I stop thinking about my dad and anything and everything but this boy who is, in this moment, perfect in every way. I know that the truth will resurface, the challenges that sit between us won’t resolve themselves today or likely even tomorrow, but part of me can’t help but think that we’ve given so much of our selves to these big things and maybe we need this. Time alone to think about nothing else but us. Otherwise we might lose the good parts of ourselves in the jobs we’re doing, the mistakes we make—some of them intentional—we might lose hope in the human heart and all its potential.
After both of us are breathless, our hearts racing, Miles releases me, peels back the thick comforter on the bed, allowing me to climb in first. The sheets are cold, and a shiver immediately runs up my spine. Then Miles slides in beside me, peels away the wet towel, and brings his warm skin in contact with mine.
He kisses me again, his hands gliding perfectly up and down my back, then his mouth makes its way from my lips to my neck, shoulder, collarbone—everywhere. When his lips press against my forearm, I wince, and Miles pulls back to take a look. His index finger gently trails over a spot that has turned black and blue. “You said you slipped and fell?”
“Yeah, in the road. In the middle of traffic.” My heart picks up all over again, hearing those tires screech, barely stopping in time. “It could have been a lot worse.”
Miles closes his eyes briefly, as if picturing what “a lot worse” might look like. Then he plants a much more gentle kiss against the bruise, travels the length of my forearm to my wrist and then my palm, which has scrapes I hadn’t even noticed until now. When his lips return to mine, our kisses turn from slow and careful to more urgent, more intense. My fingers drift south, beneath the covers, and wiggle his gym shorts and boxer briefs down below his hips. He quickly kicks them off the rest of the way.
Unlike my previous experiences being naked with someone, the tension, the feelings, seem to bubble from the inside out. Miles presses his fingers behind my knee, wrapping my leg around him, and I’m floored by how effortless this seems for him, so much that I blurt out, “Aren’t you supposed to be the inexperienced one? Shouldn’t you be nervous or something?”
He laughs, his lips vibrating against my skin, then he lifts his head and our eyes meet. He holds a trembling hand out for me to see. “Nope, not nervous at all.”
I’m not sure which is more endearing—the fact that he’s nervous or the fact that he so willingly admitted this. Both factors make me want him even more, like right now, because I’m not letting myself think about later or tomorrow or any similar words. After I ask him to, Miles produces the condoms I suggested he buy a while back. His fingers shake so much opening the package that I gently pry it from his hands and do it for him. Not that I don’t have butterflies in my stomach, ones with gigantic wings flapping rapidly. But I guess one of the realities about sex is that there really is more pressure for him, being a virgin, than for me. Despite my reassurance that there’s no need to feel any pressure, it still sits there between us until eventually we’re joined together and nothing else seems important.
Miles’s lips rest near my ear, whispering beautiful words, asking me if I’m okay at least half a dozen times. And all I can think is, if we didn’t have these obstacles between us, this dead friend who had very big goals and high expectations, I could love this boy. I know I could because my heart already hurts thinking about leaving him again.
A while later, I’m lying perfectly still, perfectly perfect in Miles’s arms, enjoying the feel of his fingers moving through my now-dry hair, his warm body pressed up against mine. I close my eyes and wish for everything outside to pause. Just for a day or two.
“Do you need to get back soon?” he asks.
“Not yet.” I tighten my arm around his midsection.
“Ellie?” The way he says my name stirs warmth and emotion inside me. “I’m sorry about your dad.”
“Really?” I mumble. “He is still a criminal. He did do the things he was arrested for.”
Miles is quiet for a long time, probably replaying all the lectures on criminal versus noncriminal he’s given me over the past several months. But eventually he says, “I guess it’s not as simple as that, is it?”
“Who are you and what have you done with Miles the Great?” I scoot up high enough to plant a kiss on his neck. “But thank you for not saying he deserved to be caught.”
“It wasn’t fair that you had to make a choice without all the information.” His fingers roam the length of my back. “If I’m being honest, that’s the part that bothers me the most.”
A lump forms in my throat. He’s right. That really wasn’t fair. But maybe I didn’t have enough faith in my family, in my father.
“You’re okay?” Miles asks for the tenth time, a hint of nerves still in his voice. “I mean, everything was okay?”
I laugh. I can’t help it. I lean on one elbow and look him over. “What’s with the constant questions? Do you want a performance evaluation or something?”
“Constructive feedback can be very useful,” he says, and then he lifts his head and steals a kiss. “It seemed fast…maybe too fast?”
“I don’t know, it’s not like I had a stopwatch running.” I smile at him. “You know that’s a problem that can be rectified.”
Catching my hint, his eyebrows lift and then he pushes himself upright before leaning over me again. “Practice makes perfect, right?”
…
Late afternoon sunlight streams into the small Brooklyn apartment when I peel my eyes open after having dozed off. I feel around for Miles and find an empty space beside me, already turning cold. I hear movement in the room and roll over in time to see him tossing items into the large duffel on the floor.
He smiles when he sees me awake. “Hey.”
“Hey.” I sit up and reach for the clothes he picked out for me earlier.
Miles steps into the bathroom and emerges with my underwear and bra. “They’re dry now.”
I dress beneath the covers and when I toss them back, Miles sits at the end of the bed, pulls thick socks over my feet, and shows me the fan he turned on pointed at my wet boots. Hopefully those will be dry, too. Then he hands me a thick fleece jacket that zips halfway. I tug it over my head and inhale the scent of Miles.
My head emerges in time to see him adding two books from beneath the bed into the bag. A thought nearly as terrifying as my father being hauled off to prison hits me. “You’re leaving,” I say.
“So are you,” he counters, but there’s concern in his eyes again. “Four more days, right?”
“You wouldn’t pack a bag four days early. You’re leaving now,” I argue. “The FBI has my dad; that means you’re done here. Where are you going? Back to school?”
He stares at me, then looks down at his hands, saying nothing.
“Right.” I choke out the word. “You can’t tell me.”
Miles slides in front of me, resting a hand on my arm. “If I can, I will. Swear to God.”
I open my mouth to tell him that I get it—it hurts like crazy but I get it. His phone rings, and soon he’s on his feet, answering it. I sit there hugging my knees, listening to this one-sided forty-five-second conversation. When he hangs up, the sympathy returns to his face. “I have to go out for just a little while. But I wanna talk about this, okay? Justice says she’ll cover for you, everything is fine, so can you stay here? Please?”
My heart melts again, and I feel myself nod, earning a sigh of relief from Miles as he tosses on his jacket and reaches for the door. “I’ll be right back, okay? I’ll bring food. Something really good.”
For about five minutes everything is fine. I sit there on Miles’s bed, waiting for him. But then a sense of dread rolls over me. Miles is focused. He’s driven and doing something so very scary and important. And I’m a master manipulator who loves shaking his focus. What if I change his mind? Or what if I don’t? How much damage have I already done today?
I squeeze my eyes shut, willing that thought away. Being with Miles wasn’t a con; it was realer than anything I’ve ever done. And it still might be goodbye.
I climb out of the bed, put on my boots, and write Miles a quick note, letting him know that I had to get back to the Holden group.
And he needs to get back to his mission.