Page 73 of Summer Holiday Lifeline

“But he can’t avoid those people forever, can he? Once he’s back in school in the fall?”

“If he wants distance and time away from them, I’m happy to help him achieve that. Besides, Shelly wasn’t happy in that house, either. It affected all of us.”

“Did she tell you that?”

“No, not really.” Myles remembered her bombshell of thinking she’d be able to talk to her mother again and sighed. “I’m not so sure she completely understands it all yet.” He sat forward. “But do you know how may times I misplaced her in the mornings?”

“Wait, what? Misplaced?”

“I’d go to her room, and she wouldn’t be there. It’s terrifying. I never knew where I would find her. With Jet sometimes, or in her mother’s room, in her bed, or on the floor beside it. One time, in the bottom of her mom’s closet, because she said it smelled most like her in there. It took me almost an hour to find her that time. She was sound asleep, and I was terrified. Some nights, she even crawled into the dog bed with MJ. But she left her bed more often than not, and…” He sighed. “She once told me the house kept crying in her dreams.”

“That’s…”

“It was more disturbing before I knew what I know now, after being here.”

“So you don’t want to go back because you’re afraid of your house?” Though Steven sat back and watched Myles over the tent of his fingers, he didn’t seem to be judging, which was a relief.

“I don’t want to go back yet because here, Shelly sleeps. Every night, she lies down in that bed in the attic of that B and B and wakes up there, happy and rested.”

“That’s good.”

“And Jet has stopped checking his phone every five minutes. He told me this morning he wouldn’t be upset to not go back yet. He would rather not have to deal with the ‘friends’ he left behind. And he’s talking to Ozzy.”

“Your ex? About what?”

Myles shrugged. “He didn’t say exactly. But he doesn’t have to. If there was anything I had to really worry about, Ozzy would tell me. Or help Jet to tell me. I just know that if he’s talking to Ozzy, he’s not brooding over whatever he feels like he has to talk about, and I know I can trust Ozzy.”

“I don’t know if that should bother me more than it does. He is your ex, and the history you told me about is pretty intense.”

“Ozzy and I are never, ever getting back together. Even if he wasn’t so clearly devoted to his new guy, I’m not who I was when I was with him.”

“Maybe that’s all the more reason you and he would be better together now.”

Myles shook his head. “If anything, he and I are even less compatible.” He scooted forward so he could reach Steven, and took his hands. “Trust me, I could not let Ozzy be as… I couldn’t let him be with me the way I can let you… be.”

It was a terrible explanation, he knew. But he didn’t have the words, or rather, wasn’t quite ready to say the words out loud that would properly describe how he felt when Steven kissed him into a stupor.

“So you trust him with Jet’s mental health, but not with yours.”

“Not exactly. I mean, yes, I trust him to be professional and careful with Jet. He’s trained for that. But I don’t want—I can’t—be as free with him as I am with you.”

“Because I’m new? He already has such a big piece of your past. Of who you are.”

“Who I was. And who he was. I don’t think he’s the same anymore, either. Our past will obviously always be between us, but that’s part of the problem, isn’t it? It’ll come between us. It’ll take a long time to sort out.”

“And I’m new, so I’m safe?”

Myles laughed, a short, sharp bark. “Hardly.”

“What?” Steven pulled out of his grip.

“No, I mean…” Myles clapped a hand over Steven’s knee, willing him not to pull out of reach. “I mean that with Ozzy, as damaging as it was, I always knew what to expect. I knew how he could hurt me, so in a way, he couldn’t. Not in any way that mattered anymore. At least, not at the time. In that way, he was safe. With you, it is new. It’s an adventure, and one like I’ve never been on before. It’s so different from, well, anything. Maybe it turns out to be the worst thing I’ve ever done, but maybe it turns out to be the best.”

“I don’t want to be bad for you.”

“But like you said when you mentioned that you know I don’t live here, and you knew that going in, I know this could end up hurting, but I finally have some hope that it might not. And that’s not something I want to miss out on.”

Steven placed a hand over Myles’s, and it was the same as his searing, mind-melting kisses. Myles was helpless. “And here I thought you were just bringing me scones and coffee.”