He shrugs. “I have two of those but I also need some cheap ones for heavy notes.” He reads my blank expression. “First drafts, I always work on by hand. I tend to be very rough.”
Are we still talking about work?
I gulp.
Reid Walker… rough. He looks like a gentleman until his dark eyes do that smouldering black thing. He’s smooth lines, easy on the bad language, and driving me around when I’m at a loss. When I picture him in bed, it’s…
No, Mila. You don’t imagine him in bed.
Although, it’s no different to imagining the Hemsworths in bed. Yes, both of them. Except that I know Reid, so it’s not at all the same.
“You should get them all,” I say, waving my hand over the shelf of pens.
He picks up three.
Is it okay for me to ask if I can watch him make notes?
“Are you ready to go, Mila?”
“Uh-huh.” I nod for effect because I’m a total idiot.
Reid walks to the counter, and I follow, trying to shake off very inappropriate images in my head. I really need to get my lecture over with so I can go out and drink a big glass of wine.
“Wait, what are you doing?” I ask as he puts my notebook with his stuff on the counter.
“I’ve got it.”
“Reid, no.”
He ignores me and taps his pin number into the machine. Ugh. I wish I’d looked at his pin, memorised it, and used it to buy him a sex doll.
The lady bags our stuff up and hands it over to him.
“Reid, come on. You don’t have to pay. I didn’t expect that.”
“I know,” he replies, walking out of the shop.
I jog to catch up and find him heading towards a coffee shop.
“Jesus, you can move it when you want to. Let me pay you back.”
He side-eyes me. “No.”
“It’s nice of you, but—”
“Mila, it’s a notebook.”
“But you’ve already driven me around all day long.”
He stops outside the coffee shop. It smells so good in there. “I’m not keeping score. Do you want coffee?”
I raise my eyebrows. “Do you want coffee?”
“Are you asking in general, or are you trying to pay me back by buying me a drink?”
“You’re difficult.” I walk past him and push the door open. “I’m getting a latte. What do you want?”
“Mila?”
I don’t give him time to argue with me.
“Two lattes, please,” I tell the barista. “Reid, can you grab a table?” Poor guy looks like he’s several steps behind. “Look, there’s one in the corner.”
He blinks. “Mila.”
“Please don’t make this difficult. It’s the least I can do.”
“I don’t want you to spend your money on me.”
I hold my phone near the reader and smile at him, hearing the little ping of the sale. Too late, buddy.
“I’ll bring them over in a minute,” the barista says.
“Thanks,” I reply.
Giving Reid another quick smile, I head to the table I asked him to grab. He sits down and leans back in the chair. I don’t know if he can read minds, but it sure looks like he’s trying.
“If it’s a staring competition you want, I’m all over that. Just need a quick recap of the rules before we start. Is this first to blink or first to look away?”
His lips curl at the sides. “I’m just trying to figure you out.”
“Please do share your findings. Ugh, I sounded like my high school science teacher then.”
Our lattes are placed on the table. Reid mutters a quick thanks, his eyes never leaving mine.
I still have no idea what game we’re playing, but I’d be lying if I said it didn’t excite me.
Six
Mila
Reid dropped me off at uni and went home when I promised to have someone else pick me up. Liam was able to get off work in time to get me. He fixed my car and my parents offered to pick it up on their way home from dinner with friends.
Carrying my new notebook, I get into his car.
“Hey, babe,” he says, rubbing his dirty forehead.
I hold my hand up. “You need to shower before that mouth comes anywhere near me. You smell of oil.”
He laughs and pulls out onto the road. “I thought you didn’t care whether I was clean or dirty.”
“Well, I’m clean.”
“You bought another one,” he says, eyeing the notebook on my lap. It still has the sales sticker on the front. Reid spent fifteen pounds on it.
“I like stationery.”
I should tell him about today. Guilt clutches at my throat. He would want to know that Reid gave me a lift to uni as well as to the garage this morning. If it were the other way around, I would want to know.
Liam bobs his head in time with the radio.
I’ve always been attracted to him. He’s blonde-haired and blue-eyed, often covered in muck from his job, but he scrubs up well.
It’s not that I don’t love him, because I do. It’s that we’re settling.
“Are you happy?” I ask him suddenly.
He frowns in response. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“I don’t know.”
“It sounds like you aren’t.”
“I’m just trying to figure things out.”
“What things?”
“My life. The future. Don’t you think about that stuff?”
“You think about it too much. Go with the flow, Mila. Things will work out.”
I wring my hands. “But what if they don’t? Liam, I don’t want to float through life. I want to do something, go places, be someone. I have dreams and ambition. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life just working and eating out.”
I want to be consumed with love.
I’m begging him to throw me in his cave and hold me hostage. Obviously, not forever, that’s kidnap. But you know what I mean. I want passion.
Liam is passionate about cars.
“You can do whatever you want,” he says.
“I’m now sure that I want to be published, and I want to…” I want to have a relationship like my parents and friends have.
“To what?”
“Be successful,” I say instead of the truth. Though, I do want success.
“You will be. Your stories are great, and you’re acing your assignments.”
He doesn’t know if my writing is any good because he’s never even asked to read anything. He’s supportive, don’t get me wrong, but he has no interest in what I want to do. Not that I’d let him read. Should I want to be an author if I don’t want anyone to read my work?
“Thanks.” What else is there to say? “Where are we going to eat?”
“Luciano’s?”
“We always go there. How about that new Thai place?”
“Do you even like Thai?”
“I’ll let you know later.”
Laughing, he nods. “Okay but be prepared for a stop at McDonald's after.”
“Fine by me.”
He hasn’t asked how I got to uni, and I hadn’t mentioned the bus to him, so I feel less guilty about keeping Reid quiet. It’s not like I slept with the guy. He was my ride.
Liam takes us to his apartment. He moved out of his parents’ home a year ago, into a rather small apartment close to work. It’s lovely inside. I helped make it look homely.
He goes to have a quick shower, and I sit on his sofa, straightening up the cushions he hates as I go.
“All good?” Liam asks when he comes back into the room. I bite my lip. “Mila,” he scolds playfully. “Get your head out of the gutter?”
I shake my head and whip my top off in one swift movement.
“Oh, really? I thought you were hungry?” he asks.
“I can wait another hour.”
“An hour? Christ, Mila, I’m starving.”
My shoulders slump. “For real, Liam?”
“I�
��ll make sure your world is rocked later.”
“We could order in and have sex all night.”
As I say the words, I want to cower and hide inside myself. How humiliating, having to practically beg your boyfriend to have sex with you. At least when we’re physical, I know where we are—I’m sure that he’s with me at that moment. There is no questioning our future.
It just happens that he doesn’t want to be physical as much as I need him to be.
“I’m not a machine,” he teases as he walks away to get his shoes.
My heart sinks. Where the hell is your self-respect?
I try to swallow the sense of impending doom.
In a new relationship, would he want it more, or do we just have different sex drives?
I would love to know if he misses those days. We both thought everything was perfect back then. We were dumb teens who spent most of our time naked, convinced we’d be together forever.
If we’re not careful, we might just do that.
Shit.
Shit.
Liam comes back and stops dead in his tracks. “What is it? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“No, nothing,” I reply. “No Caspers.”
He tilts his head to the side. “Are you sure?”
“Liam,” I whisper.
He groans. “No, Mila. I know that tone. I know what you’re doing, and I’m not ready.”
Oh God.
My throat swells with guilt. I’m ready and he’s not. But it wouldn’t be fair to continue with him because of that. He deserves better than a pity relationship. I do, too.
“It has to happen now. I want so many great things for you. I want you to fall so hopelessly in love and be ecstatically happy every day.”
“No one is ecstatically happy every day.”
“Maybe not all day every day. I want that for myself, too.” I whisper the last part because telling him that I’m no longer in love with him is one of the hardest things I have ever done.
“Right.” He dips his head. “I thought we would move in together. You know, eventually.”
“We probably would have, but that wouldn’t fix things. We’ve been broken for a long time, Liam, and neither one of us has been strong enough to stay away.”
He lifts his head, and his eyes fill with doubt. “And you are now? How do you know this isn’t like every other break up?”
“Because it isn’t. Because this time we’re going to make a promise to each other.”
“What promise? It doesn’t sound like I’m going to want to make it.”
“Look me in the eye and tell me you’re still in love with me.”
“I still love you,” he says with ease.
My eyes fill with tears. “No, are you in love with me?”
His jaw twitches and his chest expands when he takes a long breath. He doesn’t want to lie to me, but he also doesn’t want to admit that his love for me has changed.
It’s what I’ve known for a while. I asked for it, but my heart still stings.
The pain in his eyes takes my breath away. It almost makes me change my mind. I don’t want to hurt him.
“I’m scared, too. It’s always been us, right? We can’t stay us just because that’s what we’re used to, though. I’ll always care for you, but we both need to move on.”
“Is this about the neighbour?”
My heart misses a beat. “Reid? No. Why would you ask that?”
“You were with him.”
“He did me a favour when my car broke. Nothing has happened with him. I need you to know that. I would never cheat.”
I may not have done anything physical with Reid, but I am attracted to him. That shouldn’t happen.
Liam runs his hands over his head. “Christ, Mila.”
“I know. It’s been amazing growing up with you, Liam. You taught me how to be vulnerable with someone.”
“My favourite thing I taught you is how to give blow jobs.”
Laughing together, I nod. “And your next girlfriend will love all the practice you’ve had with your tongue.”
We both stop laughing at the same time.
“It’s weird to joke about that, right?” I ask.
“Yeah, it is a bit.”
I feel no burn of jealousy running through my veins at the thought of him with someone else. A year ago, I would have felt pretty stabby.
I press my lips together and reach for him. He takes my hand and holds it tightly. I wait for some sort of reaction to touching him, but nothing comes.
“What do I do without you?” he asks.
“You’re going to do whatever the fuck you want.”
He still hasn’t admitted that I’m right, though he’s not fighting. I still want to hear him say it. This won’t work if he calls me next week. We can’t contact each other. We’ll fall back into old habits too easily.
“This sounds like you’re cutting all ties. You want me to promise to never call you again?” he asks, as if he can hear my thoughts.
“No, I want us both to promise that we’ll give it time. I would like to know how you’re getting on in the future. You mean a lot to me.”
“A year,” he says.
“Sorry?”
“No contact for a year. Then, I’ll message you.”
Okay, I didn’t think we were going to mark it on a calendar, but if that’s what he wants, I’ll go along with it. It feels like the least I can do considering the breakup was initiated by me.
“One year from now,” I say, nodding.
“I thought we might do something after dinner,” he says. “I had no idea…”
“Bowling would have been fun.”
His frown is adorable. “Bowling.”
“Yeah. It was our first date.”
“Ah, I remember. You kept getting it in the gutter, threw one overhand in frustration, and you somehow got a strike.” He smirks. “We were asked to leave. I couldn’t breathe for laughing, and that’s when I knew you were the one for me.”
“We could do that again someday.”
“Maybe not that.”
See, I’m still the girl who would throw an overhand bowling ball and get kicked out, but he’s no longer the boy who would laugh at it.
“That game is overrated,” I tell him. “Anyway… I should go.”
He nods.
“Are you okay, Liam?”
“Yes and no.”
“Same here.”
“We’ll be all right,” he says.
I expected more questions – more protest.
He was ready for this, too, even if he hadn’t accepted it until now.
“Be happy, Mila. I love you.”
“Love you,” I whisper with tear-filled eyes as I grab my bag and leave his apartment.
The door clicks shut behind me, and then we’re done. That’s it. Over.
I stare ahead as I walk out of his building to hail a taxi. I blow out a long breath and wave over a black cab at the taxi rank down the road from Liam’s apartment.
“Where to?” the driver asks as I get into the back.
I give him Indie’s address and lean back in the seat.
Liam is out of my life. For now, anyway. For at least a year. Maybe longer. Let’s face it, how many people actually become friends after the end, even with the best of intentions?
He didn’t try to make me ‘see sense’ because we both know that I’m finally making sense. Ending things leaves a bittersweet tear on my heart, but it’s time to start over.
I thought there would be more tears.
He looked as relieved as I feel before I left. We’re free to do our own thing without the other holding us back. It’s liberating, yet mildly terrifying at the same time.
The cab turns down Indie’s road.
Have I done the right thing?
Yes, I have. I’ll miss him but, in the end, we were more like casual friends who sometimes had sex.
Now we both get a clean break.
I shake
off the breakup enough to clear my thoughts as we pull into Indie’s long drive.
“Thank you,” I say, paying and tipping the driver.
“Have a good night,” he mutters as I get out.
I walk in a daze to Indie’s front door.
This day was always going to come. Now it’s here though, it feels surreal. I can’t help but feel a slight panic in my heart, kind of like when you misplace your phone. My safety net is gone, and it’s time for me to move forwards without it.
Seven
Mila
“You okay?” Indie asks as she answers the door.
I jolt, not noticing her come out of the house. Wren is behind her, frowning as if it’s physically hurting to still not know why I need an emergency meeting.
I take a ragged breath and walk over to them. “I’ve finally done it, guys. I’ve broken up with Liam for the last time. No more going back.”
Indie’s dark eyebrows rise. “Wow. Okay. What, just now? Are you okay?”
Wren pulls me into the house, walking us through to the living room. Indie follows, laughing. She has more patience than Wren, and way more than me.
“Are you okay?” Indie asks again when we sit down.
“Erm, I’m doing all right. I’m… good and bad. Time fixes that, right? That’s what everyone says.”
Wren pours the prosecco. “You’re going to be fine. Are you sure this is the last time?”
“Totally. We can’t keep doing what we were doing, breaking up and making up when nothing was changing. He didn’t put up a fight, which tells me he knew it was done, too.”
“What’s the plan now?” Indie asks.
“I’m going to focus on uni and getting some work experience. No distractions.”
Wren hands Indie and me a glass each. “What kind of distractions are you talking about?”
“All of them.”
“You’re done with Reid?” she asks.
“What? No, I’m not done with him. I was never undone with him. We’ve only spent a few hours together. I think I need a break from everything with a penis.”
“Odd that you would ditch the neighbour just because he has a penis.”
“I’m not ditching him! We’re not actually hanging out.”
Indie raises her free hand. “Okay, you two. Wren was just asking because we’ve all noticed the tension between you and Reid when we’ve been out. And Wren said she felt it again when he helped with your car.”
Read My Mind Page 4
