Page 57 of Summer Holiday Lifeline

“Myles.”

“Yes?” He stopped, halfway to handing Steven his mug.

Steven sat up so he could reach it, but he let his hand linger over top of Myles’s. “That wasn’t a rhetorical question.”

“You just looked…” He ran a thumb over Steven’s knuckles. “Maybe I was projecting. You looked a bit like I felt there for a second.”

“And how’s that?”

“Uncomfortably nervous, if I’m honest.”

“I hope you would be honest with me.”

“You should know I’m an alcoholic,” Myles blurted, then stared, horrified, because where the fuck had that come from?

Steven blinked at him. “I’m sorry. What?”

“Shit.” Myles leaned back against the arm of the couch, the desire to run making his heart hurt with its frantic beating. “Sorry. That…” He flopped a hand in the air, then let it fall. “Not how I meant to share that little tidbit.”

“Drink your coffee,” Steven said, mild as anything. “And you said there were cookies?”

Myles handed him the container without comment. For a time, they ate cookies and sipped coffee while they watched the street below. No one said anything.

Finally, Steven nudged him with a toe. “I assume, when you say ‘alcoholic,’ you mean recovering.”

Myles nodded.

More silence.

“Well.” Steven tucked his toes under the shin Myles had pulled up in front of him. “I’m a not-exactly-recovering agoraphobe.”

“That’s different.”

“Only slightly.”

“Your issue doesn’t hurt anyone else.”

Steven leaned forward. “Doesn’t it? You think Steph doesn’t worry? You think I don’t know there will come a time when you’re as sick of these four walls as you are of the B and B? As you were of your place in Calgary? And when you go back there… what then? If we keep doing this, what happens when you go home and I can’t come visit? How long do you think we last then?”

He sighed and slumped back, resuming his previous staring out the window. “And don’t think I don’t realise how much pressure I just put on one little kiss.”

Myles set his mug on the floor by his foot so he could crawl across the couch to reach Steven, who lowered a knee to let him in close. When he cupped a hand around the back of Steven’s neck, he met with no resistance.

Steven gasped in a small breath and turned to face him, blue eyes wide. “What?”

For answer, Myles kissed him, a deep, lingering kiss that Steven opened for, sighed into, and whimpered when it was over.

“Two kisses now,” Myles whispered.

“So you don’t think this”—Steven waved a hand between them—“is a bad idea?”

“I think this is the first good idea I’ve had since I ran away from Calgary.” With a last peck, Myles settled back to his end of the couch.

“Why did you run?” Steven asked.

“Whoa. Lucky was right.”

“Lucky? About what?”