by Emma Scott
“Oh shit,” I breathed. “Oh no. God…what can we do?”
“He’s gone until tomorrow, but I’m going to have to stay home most nights from now on.”
“To protect her.”
He nodded.
“God, Miller, please be careful.”
“I will. If he tries anything, I’ll have his ass arrested since Mom won’t. But I’ll be in LA for two days and she’ll be alone.”
“You’ll come back with a record contract and kick his ass out for good.”
“That’s the plan, impossible as it seems.” Miller’s eyes widened. “Oh, shit. June 4th is your birthday.”
“Last I checked,” I said, grinning. “And it’s Prom too, as a matter of fact. Which reminds me, I know I promised River, but that doesn’t mean we can’t all go in a group…”
Miller was shaking his head against the pillow. “That’s the weekend of that meeting. Damn, I don’t want to miss your birthday.”
“Neither do I, for multiple reasons,” I said with what I hoped was a seductive smile. “But you have an excuse. The best excuse. Overkill, really. Most guys would’ve come up with something less outlandish than a record deal with Gold Line Records.”
“I don’t have a deal. Not yet. I don’t know what’s going to come of this, if anything, but I’m going to take care of Mom. And you.”
“You don’t need to—”
He silenced me with a soft kiss and then rested his head heavily on the pillow. “I will. Don’t argue with me, Vi,” he mumbled with a smile, his eyes falling shut. “Too tired.”
“Sleep, then.” I stroked his cheek, tracing the outline of his full lips, down to his chin and along his jaw.
Beautiful. My beautiful, kind, brave Miller.
I kissed him softly, and my eyes started to drift shut too, while a small twinge of unease hatched in my stomach. A little seed of uncertainty. Everything I’d said to Miller about his future was true. This was his big break; I could feel it.
But that meant our paths were about to diverge drastically, and I wondered where they would take us.
Someone had set off a car alarm. Or maybe I’d changed my phone’s alarm from birdsong to a high, tinny beep…
Then through the haze of sleep, I recognized the sound. I bolted up to sitting, brushing the hair out of my eyes. Miller’s watch was flashing the number 195 in red.
“Miller,” I said, jostling him. “Wake up.”
He came awake slowly, sluggishly, and gripped his forehead with a grimace of pain as he sat up. “What…? Oh, shit.”
I shot out of bed and rummaged in his backpack. “You’re high. It’s dawn phenomena, right? I read about this. Did you eat a bunch of carbs last night?”
“Pasta,” he said and started to climb out of bed. “I need water.”
Gently, I pushed him back. “I got it.” I hurried to bring him a glass of water from the bathroom sink. He downed it in three long gulps while I rushed to his med kit to find the fast-acting insulin.
I murmured to myself as I tore open the bag, recalling what I’d studied since Miller’s first hospitalization four years ago. “One unit of insulin per every fifteen milligrams over one-fifty…” I did the math in my head. “Three units.”
I clicked his injection pen to distribute three units of insulin and climbed back on the bed. Miller lay heavily against the bedframe, watching me as I pushed up his sleeve to expose his arm. “You’re amazing, Vi.”
I’m scared shitless.
For months, Miller and I’d been estranged, and I hadn’t been around for his highs or lows. I’d forgotten how scary they could be, and the night he nearly died came racing back, sitting at the forefront of my thoughts.
I injected the insulin then sat with his wrist in my grasp, watching the numbers come down.
“What’s your fasting level?”
“Between 80 and 120,” he said, eyes closed, head tilted up and resting against the headboard.
I bit my lip. “They’re coming down.”
He reached 110 and leveled off and I slumped against the bedframe too.
“Sorry, Vi,” he said after a minute. “I hate doing that to you.”
“You’re not doing anything to me.”
“Scaring you.”
I smiled. “How scared I am is directly proportionate to how much I care about you.” I kissed his shoulder and left my lips against his skin. “Has it been hard?”
“It’s always been hard. But no worse than usual.” He opened his eyes and looked to me. “I missed that. You. Mom’s got her own stuff to deal with, and needles made Amber queasy. I missed being around someone who gave a shit.”
Tears threatened, but I willed them back. “I give a shit. I never stopped. Even when we weren’t speaking much or…at all. I never stopped caring.”
“I know,” he said, his gaze roaming my face, tracing me with his eyes. “Neither did I. I just had a fucking horrible way of showing it.”
He pulled me in to kiss him, but before our lips touched, our eyes met. In that instance—the length of a heartbeat—a lifetime passed between us. An understanding that he and I were inevitable. Fated. The boy with diabetes and the girl who was going to be a doctor. The girl with the romantic heart and the boy who wrote love songs.
Our lips came together in a deep kiss that was both heated but gentle, dire but reverent. The sweetness of the juice on our tongues mingled with Miller’s own sweetness. For all of his prickly, grouchy and mistrusting ways, he had the purest soul I’d ever known. And his innate goodness was the sexiest thing about him.
Well, that and his face, his body, his voice, his talent…
My giggle broke our kiss.
“Something funny?” Miller said, his hands slipping around my waist.
“No, actually,” I said, my pulse thumping as I climbed onto his lap, straddling him. “I’m very serious about how I feel about you.”
Miller’s smile faded as he took in my heavy breasts, barely covered by a thin scrap of cotton and held up by two spaghetti straps. “Jesus, Vi.”
“Touch me, Miller.”
I leaned over, affording him a full view. Beneath me, his erection was hard and heavy in his jeans. I rocked my hips over him as his hands came up under the shirt. Both hands kneaded my breast, thumbs circling the nipples.
“Can I…?” he asked, his voice gruff.
“Take it off,” I said, my pulse thundering in my ears in anticipation, to have Miller’s eyes on my naked flesh for the first time. His hands slid up the sides of my torso, feeling the curves of my waist, and then up, hooking on the tank top as they went. He peeled it off and tossed it away.
“Holy fuck,” he whispered, his glance rising to meet mine. “You are so beautiful.”
Before I could reply, he moved in, and I gasped when his mouth took one nipple, sending licks of fire down my spine between my legs. One touch, and then he retreated.
“Shit, wait. Your parents?”
“I put a lock on my door after the last time they busted in.”
“You’re a goddamn genius,” Miller muttered and then his mouth descended again.
His tongue was soft and hot and wet, circling my nipple, while his thumb did the same to the other breast. He sucked and pulled, his teeth grazed as I ground against him, breathless at the electric currents that surged through me. I arched my back, pressing myself deeper into his touch. His hands slid to my hips, grinding me on him while his mouth worked me over.
“Need to feel you,” I managed.
My hands found the hem of his T-shirt. I lifted it up and off of him, breaking our contact for a moment, then I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled him in close. Warm skin against warm skin, chest to chest, heart to heart.
So perfect…
Miller kissed my throat, my chin, and then my mouth. My hands roamed his chest and down to his abdomen. I broke away only because I needed to look at him too, naked for me for the first time. His body was so beautiful, smooth over hard muscle. The
CGM imbedded in his lower right abdomen was beautiful too. It was keeping him alive.
The realness of the moment—both of us naked from the waist up and me on his lap—struck me, my every sense suddenly tuned up and awake. Every touch, every breath every moment shone in bright clarity, stealing my air and lighting up my nerves. My hands trembled as I unbuttoned his jeans, wanting more but unsure of where more would take us.
Miller caught my hand in his. “You okay?”
“Yes, sure. Just…excited. Or nervous, maybe.” I swallowed hard. “I want this. I want you.”
His eyes searched mine intently. “I want you too, Vi. But I want you the right way.”
I nodded, our gaze never breaking as he rolled me onto my back and settled himself over me. He kissed me long and slow, our skin melding together, his hands cradling my face as if I were precious. Everything soft and warm between us but the stiff denim of his jeans. I winced as the button jabbed me.
He slipped out of the jeans, leaving him in his boxers.
“Just this,” he whispered, moving over me again, the length of his body aligned with mine. “Okay?”
I nodded again, and warmth flooded me at his consideration, how attuned he was to us, creating harmony between our desire and what I was ready for. I slipped my arms around him, sealing him to me. His erection pressed between my legs, a few scraps of cloth between us. And that felt perfect. Right.
Miller kissed me long and slow, concentrating on my face, my mouth, his hands in my hair, while our lower bodies began to move, seeking more connection. I spread my legs wider, letting him settle deeper against me. His hips lifted and came down in soft, slow grinds. A little moan escaped me at the sensations building where his hardness nestled my softness. My hips lifted in answer, again and again.
“You okay?” he asked, his breath hot against my lips.
“Yes. It’s perfect. So perfect…”
Pleasant, needy tension hummed along our bodies, growing more and more potent with each rise and fall. My panties were damp. A spot of wetness darkened his underwear. Our kiss broke in breathy gasps for air; we moved as if he were inside me. Harder. Faster. My hands slid down the curve of his lower back, pressing him into me. A heavy ache of pleasure was building in me, a peak I sought to climb higher and higher. Miller propped himself on his elbows, his hips driving against mine, the clothing between us a maddening obstacle and the perfect friction.
“Vi…?” he breathed.
“I’m going to…” I clutched at him, every part of me tensed and tight, ready to break open.
“Come,” Miller managed, his voice tight, his hips relentless. “Come, Vi.”
I let out a little cry that I smothered in his neck, biting his warm, salty skin as my first real orgasm swept along every nerve-ending, stronger and more powerful than anything I’d imagined. Or that I produced on my own. The shockwave rushed through me, leaving me weak and boneless.
Miller’s hips ground a few more times, coaxing the last of my orgasm while driving toward his. With a strangled grunt, he abruptly tore off me and grabbed for a tissue from the box on my nightstand. He sat at the edge of the bed, and I watched the muscles in his back slide and move under his skin as his release shuddered through him. A small sound erupted from his chest, and my only wish was that he’d still be on top of me so that I could feel, see, and hear him come.
Another time, I thought as pure contentment washed over me. And it will be perfect.
Miller cleaned himself up and then stretched out beside me again with a tired laugh. “Good?”
“Good? I had an out-of-body experience.”
“I think that’s what’s supposed to happen.”
“It was,” I said, smiling softly and brushing a lock of hair off his brow. “It was exactly what was supposed to happen.”
And he knew it.
He kissed me softly. “I gotta go. You gotta go. We’ll be late for school. I don’t actually give a shit, but you have a stellar citizenship record to maintain.”
“I don’t want you to go.” I curled up into the sheets. “I’m having my first orgasm afterglow. I want to sleep for days. With you.”
He grinned. “Me too. But I got to get home to eat and take my insulin, or I’ll have an entirely different kind of out-of-body experience.”
“Jesus, Miller, don’t say that.”
“Sorry, bad joke. I’ve been hanging out with Ronan and Holden for too long.” He got up and drew his jeans on, then leaned over the bed to kiss me again, slow and deep. “You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me, Vi.”
And then he left the same way he came in, through the window.
I watched him go, then flopped back against my pillow. A laugh burst out of me that morphed into a full body shiver. Miller’s touch lingered over every part of me, especially the juncture between my legs where I could still feel the low ebb of the wave that had crashed over me.
But it was my heart that was singing the loudest.
You’re the best thing that ever happened to me.
So said Miller Stratton in the same twenty-four hours that a record exec from a major label wanted to meet with him. Then he’d slipped out of my room like a prince in a fairytale.
I couldn’t stop smiling until reality creeped cold fingers into my sleepy warmth. This princess was going to the ball with someone else, while her prince rode off into a Los Angeles sunset.
And if all went as it should, he wouldn’t come back.
At school that day, I made it to lunch break without seeing Shiloh. I wasn’t feeling hungry, so I wandered the campus alone, my popularity stock clearly having taken a nosedive since #HomecomingFail. Caitlin and Julia only ever waved at me from afar these days, both looking cowardly and sheepish, as if the matter of being my friend or not was out of their hands. No doubt Evelyn’s handiwork.
Miller had texted, saying he was cutting school to stay home with his mom in case Chet came back drunk and belligerent. I was on my own.
I sent Shiloh a text. Where are you?
The reply came a few minutes later as I followed the path down toward the gym.
Home. Bibi isn’t feeling well.
My heart clenched. Shiloh’s grandma was pushing eighty and mostly confined to a wheelchair. Is she ok?
I think so. Going to stay home to make sure. A pause, then another text. I heard Miller’s news!! Followed by the “mind blown” emoji.
I’m so proud of him. I’d wandered down to the bleachers, perhaps drawn by my hormones after this morning. And OMG we need some girl talk, STAT.
I was about to hit send on that text when the phone nearly fell out of my hand. Holden Parish emerged from the make-out spot, and River Whitmore followed after.
They both wore dark, almost angry expressions and looked as if they’d been fighting but had called a reluctant truce. Holden smoothed the lapels of his coat and ran a hand through his mussed silvery hair. River jerked the collar of his letterman jacket into place and tucked in his shirt.
They immediately started for separate directions, but their nervous, darting glances landed on me at the same time.
Holden turned his steps in my direction, tipped an imaginary hat to me. “Lady Violet,” he said as he passed. He wore a tight smile on his lips that were red and chafed. He smelled of River’s cologne.
I stared then swiveled my head to River. He stood stock still staring at me, in a coiled, tensed fight-or-flight stance. Then his shoulders dropped, and he put his hands in his pockets as he strode over to me.
“Hi,” I said.
“Hey,” he replied, his glance flying everywhere and then finally meeting mine. “So listen. What you saw—”
“Is none of my business.”
He jerked back in shock. His eyes softened and that same heartbreaking vulnerability I’d seen the other day was back. Then suspicious anger hardened his glance.
“You and I going to Prom together. Aren’t you pissed? Or the least bit curious?” His eyes widened as a horrifying t
hought occurred to him. “Did you know already? He’s friends with Miller.”
“I had no idea,” I said. “No one does. But if it’s a secret, coming here is a terrible way of keeping it.”
The fight went out of him, and his shoulders slumped. There was a bench nearby, and River dropped onto it. His gaze looked for where Holden had gone. “Tell me about it. But I can’t fucking stop…” He rested his forearms on his thighs and hung his head. “You won’t tell anyone, will you? It’ll fucking wreck me.”
“I don’t think that’s true,” I said, sitting beside him. “But I won’t say a word.”
“Not true?” he scoffed.
“It wouldn’t wreck you here at school. We’re in one of the most progressive corners of one of the most progressive states in the country.”
“Forget here,” River said. “Name one openly gay NFL player.” He seemed to realize what he’d said, and his face paled. “I mean, I’m not…gay. I’m not. I’m…fuck, I don’t know what I am.”
“Is this why you want me to go to the Prom with you? To keep up appearances for your dad’s sake?”
He nodded miserably.
“Do you think he’d be upset if he knew?” After spending months with Nancy Whitmore, I couldn’t imagine she’d be anything but completely supportive of her son—or marry someone who wouldn’t be.
Hell, she probably knew before River did.
“I don’t know,” River said. “But I do know that the answer to my NFL trivia challenge is zero. There are zero pro football players who are out. One guy got drafted and lasted all of one season. And for my dad, anything that might keep me from going all the way to the Super Bowl is a massive negative.”
I didn’t have any good advice for River, so I just sat with him, let him lean his huge frame against me for a few moments of quiet.
Finally, he spoke in a low tone. “I’ll understand if you don’t want to go to Prom with me.”
“Forget me for a second. Do you want to go with him?”
“Not going to happen.”
“Is he okay with that? Are you?”
River scowled. “He’s an asshole and I’m a Brokeback Mountain cliché because I can’t stay away. But shit, Vi, you should go with your boyfriend. He says you and Miller are official. Why stick with me?”
