9. Milo

NINE

MILO

I packed the boxes carefully so as not to damage them and piled them up in my arms. As I did it, I realized that I needed to find a better way to deliver goods to local businesses. That, assuming I would have more large orders from local businesses, which was not guaranteed. éclair had a complete monopoly in this town, and they offered better prices. It was a simple fact of life and Economy 101. They were a big company with a robust infrastructure. Not only that but as soon as my shop opened, éclair offered discounts to all their existing customers and even bigger discounts to whoever signed contracts with them now.

While my shop functioned just above the red line of death with the daily customer flow, I wasn’t going to survive without a few big clients. Quite a few, actually. Or another loan from my parents.

Out of the question , I told myself. They would wait forever for me to repay what they had already invested in me, but I wasn’t going to let them reach into their retirement savings to bail me out if I failed. Enough was enough.

So I carried the boxes across the street to the White Elephant, pushed the door with my butt, and entered the pub with the stack of chocolates piled all the way to my head.

Kody lit up when he saw me. It felt like it had been ages since we’d last spent any time together, although it had only been a week since we’d spoken. Christian’s crash landing into my life knocked me out of my orbit, and I didn’t even know what to say about this morning’s events. It was like the asteroid that had killed the dinosaurs. My heart sank. I had done a brilliant job of pretending it hadn’t happened; I’d made the white elephants for Kody, packed them, hummed some festive tunes that came to me, and locked up all my thoughts of Christian in an unbreakable mental box. Yet he kept trying to break out of it.

“Gosh, let me help you with that,” Kody said, rushing over and taking half of the stack from me. The weight lifted, and I inhaled a little deeper. “I could have sent someone to pick them up.”

“It was on my way,” I said, following Kody to the back of the pub. “I was heading out for a walk to clear my head.”

“I bet,” Kody said.

My brow wrinkled in surprise. Did he know something? “Why?” I asked in a low voice.

Kody cocked his head to one side and shook it innocently. “You’re beat.”

I was.

We left the boxes in the inventory and walked back to the bar. Kody offered me a seat at the corner and waved for two nonalcoholic cocktails with winter flavors of orange and cinnamon and dried apples as I settled myself on a bar stool, my back facing the window. Somewhere behind me, my shop was locked up and dark.

“Thanks for bringing those,” Kody said. “Can’t wait for people to see them.”

I smiled. “I’m happy to do it.” A thought floated through my mind elusively. If I asked him, he would agree. I could prepare the sweets for his wedding, too. But it felt too close to begging, and I couldn’t get myself to say it.

Something must have crossed my face because Kody frowned. “Are you alright, Milo? You don’t seem…” He trailed off, which was good because my vision blurred, and I couldn’t focus on him. “Crap,” Kody huffed. “Not good?”

I realized that the blur came from welling tears, and I blinked furiously to banish them before they spilled. Holding my breath, I looked away and tried to swallow the growing knot in my throat. “It’s just…I remembered that you’re getting married.” He shifted uncomfortably. “I’m happy for you.”

In a low tone, Kody said, “Right. But you don’t look too happy.”

I forced a smile to soothe him, although it failed the mission. Christian had smashed the box open and leaped out of it. He was fully and shamelessly on my mind, and I couldn’t hold it back any longer. “I am happy for you, but it reminds me just how badly I chose…”

“Chose what?” Kody asked.

I wiped my eyes angrily and took a sip of the cocktail. As if designed to make my heart cry, it catapulted me back to cold winter mornings when Christian and I were boys, eating breakfast after a sleepover at his place in that incredible sleigh-shaped bed, and I pretended I wasn’t in love with him.

“Who to fall in love with,” I whispered aloud. Aside from admitting an ancient crush to Christian, this was the first time I said the words to anyone. The real words. The no-pretend words of “ I am in love with him .” I didn’t use the past tense to omit the fact that my heart had only ever beat in the rhythm of Christian’s name.

Kody gaped. “Milo, nobody chooses who to fall in love with.”

I bit my lower lip hard while he spoke, then looked into his eyes. “Don’t we?” I shrugged. “Because I think I was very intentional about not falling for anyone else.”

Memories of dates flashed before my eyes. There hadn’t been many, but those guys who had managed to scale the battlements I had put up around myself and stole a night with me had been disappointed. What was hidden away was not meant for them, and it hadn’t been worth the fight. Those guys had been perfectly fine, but I had never even considered something more. I had pushed them all away because they weren’t him.

“It’s Christian, isn’t it?” Kody asked with deep compassion in his warm voice.

I nodded, then laughed a little bitterly. “He kissed me.”

Kody’s eyebrows shot up. “What?”

“I told him,” I said slowly, shaking my head. “Silly. I told him he was my first crush, and he kissed me.”

“But…why are you crying?” Kody asked.

My shoulders lifted high up, and I wondered where to even start.

“If you’re in love with him,” Kody reasoned carefully, “and he kissed you, it couldn’t have gone all that wrong.”

But it had. It had gone wrong all the way. Some silly notion had pushed Christian to do that. Maybe he thought he owed me one for never calling. Maybe he thought a kiss would make me happy and be just enough. But when it happened, he must have realized that I had been right all along. “Christian could never love me back.” It was as simple as that.

My words sparked bewilderment on Kody’s face. “What happened then?”

“He left,” I said shortly and let the silence linger between us for a short while. “He so much as said he should. And I don’t think he’ll be around. Not after he lets his overthinking mind go over it a thousand times.”

I didn’t say that Christian had already ghosted me once. I didn’t say that when Christan Underwood lifted the walls, not even the bravest and most relentless people could get through. Whatever frightened him then would surely be there still, and I decided I couldn’t bear any more sympathy for one evening.

“Alright. But I have one question,” Kody said. “Isn’t that Christian standing in front of your shop?”

And when I turned around, my heart thundered in my chest. It was. A tall, beautiful figure wearing the same black coat and dark pants stood in the pool of orange light under a streetlamp right in front of my shop. He hugged himself against the cold wind that made the lower hem of his coat flap. He stood straight and waited.

“Kody, I need to go,” I said. “Thanks for the drink and, well, for listening.”

“My pleasure,” he said. Then, as I got up, he added in a much more enthusiastic voice, “Don’t let him go, Milo.”

I wasn’t entirely sure I would follow Kody’s advice. Not if Christian was here to say goodbye once and for all.

But as I headed for the door, my heart hardened despite my hope to remain open. It hardened so that the disappointment wouldn’t cut as sharply.