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“Good night, Miles.”
11
Autumn
I’m finishing up my hair when I hear the doorbell ring. It’s a rare occasion, but it’s usually a delivery guy ditching a package at my door. I’m racking my brain to try and remember if I ordered anything, but I come up blank. I’ve been really good about saving my money lately.
I run the straightener through the last section quickly before investigating. When you live alone as a woman, you don’t open your door without investigating.
My heart rate instantly spikes when I look through the peephole.
“What are you doing here?” I ask as I open the door.
It’s not the most polite of greetings, but he doesn’t seem to mind.
There’s a shopping bag in Miles’ hand, and he holds it out to me.
“You said you weren’t feeling great earlier so I grabbed you a couple things.”
His face turns a little pinker than usual and I gape. Miles Cress is standing in front of me with a gift, andblushingabout it.
I mentioned that I had some cramps earlier, but I didn’t explain any further. I suppose he did live with a woman for years, it would be concerning if he didn’t know what period symptoms were.
I must be in shock because I don’t grab the bag, not for an awkwardly long amount of time.
Hewent to the store for me.
“Autumn?” he says to snap me out of it.
I clear my throat and hope he doesn’t notice how close I am to crying. I hate that I never have control over the water works.
“That’s so nice, thank you. I–” I pause because there aren’t any words that feel good enough. “You really shouldn’t have.”
He's looking at the bag like he's not sure why he did it either, but then he slightly shakes his head.
"It's no big deal. I wanted to."
I could melt on the floor right here, right now.
I could also get used to him being the kind of friend I can count on for cuddling and impromptu deliveries.
Moving to let him inside my apartment, I finally take the bag. It contains Midol, some bright pink vitamins, and a couple of my favorite snacks. The tears build up for a second, but he doesn’t notice them right away.
“I don’t know if you’ve heard of them, but Kara would swear by those vitamins. She said they—” He looks at my eyes then, sees the moisture gathering, and steps towards me with his arms open. I fall right into his embrace and more tears fall.
I’m grateful that fate decided our complicated history wouldn’t stop us from being friends.
Even though hugging him like this with my face pressed against his sweater? The way his cologne transports me back to sleeping in his arms? It’s temporarily fogging up my rationalthinking, and I wonder what it’d be like to have more than a friendship.
I pull away, not wanting to reward my thoughts.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
I clear my throat again, because I know it’ll crack if I don't.
“Physically? Yeah. Mentally? I’m pretty upset that I have to go fix my makeup now.”
He laughs at that. “Well, don’t let me keep you. I just wanted to drop that off.”
