23. Chapter Twenty-three

My mother kissed my cheek. "Thanks for comin' over to help. Unfortunately, it's been nonstop busy the last two weeks."

I squeezed her around her shoulders. "Make sure you're taking breaks, Mama. And ask me for help before you're run so ragged."

She waved me off and bustled around her desk to collapse into her chair. Her sigh was heavy with exhaustion. If I'd gone downstairs to check on my dad, he would've sounded the same. Landry and Tom worked here full-time too, but my parents were the worst martyrs, claiming they should do all the overtime since my sister's family was young.

They had a point and should have hired outside help, but they were too stubborn to admit it. They'd rather work until they collapsed and drove their children out of their minds with worry.

"Tomorrow's Reed's last day of school, isn't it?" I asked.

"Yes, it is. Finally. Seems like the school year really dragged on."

"Should we take him out to dinner? Or do you want to celebrate at home?"

My mother stared at me with a blank expression. "I…hadn't thought of it. We should celebrate him makin' it through his freshman year, shouldn't we?" She flipped open her notebook, her pen poised between her fingers. "I'll make a list of what we need for a little party. Oh, it'll have to be after seven. We have a late viewing tomorrow. But that's okay, we can tell Reed we're being European—"

"Mama," I laid my hand over hers, "you can do that, or I'll take him out. He's mentioned an arcade he wants to go to. It's filled with vintage games. I can see if he wants to do that."

Her eyes fluttered closed. "That would be wonderful, my love. You take such great care of all of us—especially Reed. I'll make his favorite dinner this weekend when it's not rushed."

"Sunday please?" If I knew my brother, he'd want barbecue, and I didn't want to miss that. "I have a thing with Miles on Saturday."

Her brow arched. "Miles? I haven't heard you mention him in a while."

"Yeah. We've both been busy with work lately." I folded my arms over my stomach, which hadn't stopped aching since I'd realized Miles had pulled away from me.

Two weeks of twisting organs was a lot to bear, but here I was, still alive and kicking.

Kicking myself, mainly. Wondering what I'd done wrong, where I'd misstepped. We'd become friends. I hadn't imagined that. The other stuff…the kissing, touching, we could have put that away if he'd wanted to. After our conversation in the car on the way home, I'd assumed as much. Disappointing, but probably wise. By no means did I consider Miles might've no longer wanted anything from me.

It stung.

Badly.

Almost knocked me off my feet. I expected the worst from most people, but not him. Never Miles.

The things keeping me afloat? Booking four more Grazing jobs for late summer and early fall with several more inquiries on top of those, cursing men with Bea, Miles continuing to text with Reed even after he went radio silent with me, family dinners, and spite.

Spite was a powerful thing. It kept me from returning to my bed to rot and working hard on my marketing for Grazing.

"I heard Reed laughin' the other day," Mama said quietly as she shuffled papers.

"You did?" Reed's laughter was such a rarity these days, it was like a special occasion when he did. "What was so funny?"

"He had the door cracked. I shouldn't have eavesdropped, but I was so shocked his door wasn't sealed shut, I couldn't help myself and stood outside it." Her mouth curved, and her eyes shone. "He was on a video call with Miles, playing his music for him. They were makin' fun of some DJ. No one I've ever heard of. My beautiful boy was grinning ear to ear, and he looked so much like Quinny, I had to walk away."

My heart lodged in my throat. Quinny. We didn't talk about her a lot. Not when we had one more Dunham kid to get past the hurdles she hadn't been able to surmount. She would have been twenty now, and probably reminding us she was Quinn, not Quinny anymore, but she was forever frozen at sixteen.

"They always looked so much alike," I squeezed out.

She nodded. "Lately, he's been sad like she was."

"I know. I see it too. I've been keeping a close eye on him." I pressed my lips together, waiting out the stinging in my nose. "He won't be the same."

Mama dabbed under her eyes with a tissue. "He came out of his room and told me he wants to go to this summer class for making music on the computer. I think Miles found it for him, but he didn't tell me."

"Did you sign him up?"

She laughed. "Before he even finished explaining what it was. Anything's better than him being holed up in his room."

I couldn't quite gather my thoughts about Miles staying involved with Reed when he'd ditched me like a bad habit.

"I'll thank Miles when I see him."

When I sat down at my desk, I decided to send Miles an email. Things needed to be said before we were headed to an event where we had to pretend to be a happy couple. As we stood now, if he tried to put his arm around me, I'd bite it off.

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Miles,

It has become apparent, from your two-week withdrawal from my life, you are putting in place boundaries after everything that happened in Breckenridge. While it is understandable and completely fine with me to cut off our physical interactions, I'm not okay with the sudden end of our friendship.

If you no longer wanted to have any sort of relationship with me outside of our professional agreement, I wished you'd have respected me enough to say that instead of ghosting me. I never would have treated you this way, especially after all we've shared.

This is all I have to say on the matter. When we see each other on Saturday, we can go back to professional acquaintances.

Not So Truly Yours,

Daisy

Miles arrived to pick me up right on time. After my unanswered email, I'd half expected him to cancel, but I was ready to go when he knocked on my door just in case. This time, I stepped onto the landing and locked the door, not allowing him in.

"You're ready," he remarked.

"Yep. Let's go."

I had my heels in my hand so I could go down the steps without breaking my neck. At the bottom, I bent to slip on my platform pumps and buckled the strap that looped my ankle.

Straightening, I smoothed my dress and sucked in a breath. I wasn't confident in how this night would go, but I knew for certain I looked good. Black was my power color, and though this was a daytime event, I'd made it work. The lacy skirt was flowy and hit mid-calf. The bodice fit like a glove, hiking up what little boobs I had. My arms were bare, but I'd draped a charcoal gray shawl around my shoulders, providing just enough warmth.

"Nice shoes," Miles remarked. "Pretty dress."

"Thanks."

I tried for breezy and unaffected, but I hadn't mastered those emotions yet. My "thank you" had come out as more of an admonishment. His compliments weren't wanted—not when he was so capable of withholding them and himself.

Miles tried to help me into his car, but I was already feeling bite-y. I jerked my hand away and helped myself. He huffed, but didn't argue, and carefully closed the door once I was in.

A moment later, he climbed in on the other side and pressed the button to start the engine. When we didn't move after a minute, I turned to look at him, finding his eyes already locked on me.

"I saw your email late last night. My assistant had placed it in a folder I never check." Chuffing, he shook his head. "Not that it matters since I'd already spent two weeks putting you out of my mind by ignoring you."

I stayed silent. He'd established boundaries, and so had I. After two weeks of being set aside by him, I'd decided I wouldn't pretend to be okay with crappy treatment just to keep the peace. I'd done that with Andy far too many times. I wouldn't be starting any new relationships—friendships or otherwise—that required me to bite my tongue or bend over backward.

Miles continued. "I'm sorry for being a shitty friend, Daisy-daze. To be honest, I'm surprised you see…or saw me as one."

"Why would that surprise you?"

He exhaled, heavy and ragged. "It doesn't matter. What matters is I thought I was doing us both a favor by pulling back, but I did it in a hurtful, burn-it-all-down way that wasn't necessary."

I blinked at him. "Look, I just recovered from a broken heart. I'm not looking to do that all over again anytime soon. I told you we were on the same page. I guess I was wrong, though. I thought you meant what the things that happened in the kitchen and hot tub meant—not the rest of it. You didn't break my heart, but you definitely kicked me in the gut."

His head fell forward, eyes fluttering shut. "I hear you. I went about it wrong, but I didn't think you'd care. Honest to god, I didn't. I thought I'd show up today and we'd get back on the right track."

I flicked him on the arm, sending him shooting back against his door with wide eyes. I held up my fingers in flicking position as a threat.

"Two older siblings. I can flick you straight through your window if you don't get off that self-pity horse right now. You can't carry around the ‘my older brother rejected me as a kid so I expect everyone to reject me' yoke for the rest of your life."

His brow dropped. "You don't get it, Daisy."

"Don't I? Didn't I just get dropped before I could drop you? You liked hanging with me so much, you decided to ditch me."

"You're thinking highly of yourself."

"I don't think highly of myself at all. I do know you like me. The same way I like you—well, before you turned out to be the jackhole I'd originally expected you to be."

"Guess we're two messed up humans living a self-fulfilling prophecy, aren't we? I expect to be rejected, you expect people to screw you over, and here we are."

I went to flick him again, but he caught my hand, holding it in his. "Shut up, Miles. I'm not messed up. I gave you a chance when my instincts told me not to, and you kicked me in the freaking gut." I narrowed my eyes at him. "If you were going to do that, why'd you bother to keep talking to my brother? Are you going to ditch him too? If you do, I'll eviscerate you. He can't handle that."

"I'm not going to ditch him," he said softly. "I promise you I won't."

Without another word, he got out of the car and circled the front, his eyes on me. Next thing I knew, he yanked my door open and leaned in, his face a breath away.

"I don't deserve it, but I want another chance to know you." He brushed his nose back and forth along mine. "I'm sorry I stopped talking to you. I was protecting myself…and I thought I was protecting you. If I'd believed for a second I was hurting you, I would have been here, asking how to make it right. That's the opposite of my intention."

I leaned against the headrest to gain a tiny bit of distance. "How have you been the past two weeks?"

"Feeling stupid. Working a lot to stop feeling anything. Talking to your brother on the off-chance I might hear something about you. In other words, not great."

"Did you drink?"

"No. Hate that you have to ask."

"Proud that you didn't."

He rolled his forehead on mine, then pulled me out of my seat and hugged me like he'd been waiting to do so for weeks. It took me longer to curl my arms around him, but I told myself this was it. I'd forgive him this once, but we were not at the start of a pattern. This was one-and-done.

"Put me down. We'll be late."

He picked his head up from my shoulder, a half-grin pulling at his mouth. "Enough feelings for one night?"

I rolled my eyes. "More than enough. Come on, I have to get in business mode."

He sat me back in my seat, but not before delivering a kiss to the top of my head. "Missed you, Cupcake."

I grumbled, and he waited, staying in my door and space before I relented. "Fine. I missed you too. Can we go now?"

I heard him cackling even after he closed my door, but I didn't mind the sound. If Miles was laughing, things couldn't be so bad.

Right now, they were pretty damn okay.