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“You took the words from my mouth. I was going to suggest that.” Wrapping his arm around my shoulders, he plastered me to his side and guided me outside.
The beginning of the ride was somewhat quiet. Miles fiddled with the radio until he found a song he liked then drummed to the beat on his steering wheel.
“I saw him follow you into the hallway.” Miles glanced over at me. “My first instinct was to drag him out, but I thought you might want to talk to him. Did he say something? Did he upset you?”
“He’s seeing someone.” I spread my hands on my thighs. I couldn’t really pinpoint how I felt. Not great, but not like I wanted to hole up in my bed and endure another month of grief bacon.
“You are too.”
I huffed. “Yeah. Guess I am. I wonder if his girlfriend’s fake too.”
“Doubt it.” He reached across to toy with my fingertips. “No one’s got as good of ideas as I do.”
That made me snicker. “That is definitely true.”
Before I knew it, Miles had pulled into the drive-thru of a local burger joint. He didn’t ask me what I wanted. He just ordered most of the menu then pulled into a parking spot to wait for our food.
“I don’t personally know the guy, but I can say with confidence he’s a dick.”
Tucking one foot under my leg, I turned in my seat to face him. “Why so confident?”
He snarled with disgust. “He dumped you then had the audacity to corner you at an event. He should’ve—”
“Why do you assume he dumped me?”
The momentum of Miles’ rant came to an abrupt halt, knocking him back against his seat. “Are you saying you broke up with him? Did he cheat?”
“Yes. And no, he didn’t cheat.”
He flicked his fingers in the direction of my face. “Then what’s this about? You broke up with him but look like a sad little kitten. If you miss him that badly, you should be with him.”
A girl holding three paper bags of food and a drink tray knocked on Miles’ window. He rolled it down and grabbed the food, passing it to me. I dug into the fries in the first bag before he even tipped her. Then he passed me a strawberry shake without asking and set the other drinks on the console between us.
Like we’d done this a hundred times, we worked to spread all the food out on our laps and the dashboard. His car smelled like a greasy fast-food joint—the exact antithesis to the rarified air of the gallery. It relaxed me. I slurped my shake and munched on a chicken tender while Miles started in on a cheeseburger.
“We were together for seven years, since college. When we were young, dumb, and madly in love, we talked about marriage and kids. All our future plans were with each other. He was it for me. So, at first, I didn’t notice when he’d started to avoid future talk. He’d always say ‘soon’ or tell me he loved me, but never ‘when.’ That he was the one who got to make that decision never struck me as fair. It should have been an open discussion, but he’d closed it.”
Miles was silent and still, watching me with an intensity I wasn’t used to from him. No, he was listening to me, shutting everything else out around us.
“Two months ago, we were coming home from a friend’s wedding, and I made a remark about what ours would be like. He hummed.” I took a slurp of my milkshake to get his hum out of my head. “That hum made me snap. I asked him, point blank, if he ever intended to marry me, and he was finally honest.”
“He didn’t want to marry you?” he asked gently.
I shook my head. “He said he wasn’t sure if he wanted to be married at all. Ever.”
His exhale was jagged. “You left?”
“The next day. He didn’t think we needed to break up over this, but I couldn’t stay. All I could hear was that hum and remember all the times he’d given me a non-answer. He’d known for years he didn’t want to marry me, just like he knew I wanted a family like the one I grew up in. I thought I’d have it with him while he knew for a fact it wasn’t going to happen.”
Miles took my hand in his and gave my knuckles a soft kiss. “I’m sorry, Cupcake. I knew that guy was a dick, but for your sake, I’m sorry to be so right.”
“Thanks, but he’s not a dick in general, we just wanted different things.” I let my head loll on the rest. “You don’t think I’m crazy for leaving a perfectly nice relationship for that?”
He chuffed. “I’d think you were crazy staying in something perfectly nice. Why would you settle for nice when you could have mind-blowing?”
“I don’t know. It was my only relationship. Ever. Seven years is a long time to spend with someone and just walk away.”
“He hummed at the thing you wanted most.” Miles scoffed, incredulous. “He’s a dick. You’ll see that when you find someone who won’t make you wait. He’ll leap into action when you give even a hint of wanting to be locked down. That’s the kind of guy you should be with—who recognizes what he has.”
