Page 13 of Loverboy

“Sure, what can I do for you?” I dragged my attention back to the woman on the other side of the counter, wiping out the inside of a highball glass for the tenth time.

“What do you like?” She hopped up onto the barstool directly in front of me and leaned in, elbows pressing into the sticky counter, her breath smelling like the entire liquor cabinet.

“Water,” I replied dryly, my mind split between the moment and where I needed to be.

Milo just had to let me take care of him.

“That’s boring!” She laughed obnoxiously, twirling a section of her blond hair around her index finger. “I don’t know what I want.”

“That makes two of us,” I said, earning another laugh despite my best effort to be a dick.

Worry pinched my chest, the platinum hair between her fingers reminding me of how Milo looked in that hospital bed, deathly pale and lacking the usual spark that made him him. My phone hadn’t lit up with any signs of life for at least twenty minutes. With his condition, that might as well have meant he was dead.

I needed to check on him.

“What about a Blue Hawaiian?” she continued, pulling out a compact mirror and reapplying bright red lipstick.

“I can do that.” I nodded and turned my back on her, letting muscle memory do the work. Ice. Rum. Curaçao. Juice. My hands moved with practiced ease, but my head was somewhere else entirely.

Milo’s suicide attempt dragged me back into the things I’d tried to bury.

When my childhood friend had first brought her boyfriend to my front door after his mother passed away, she’d begged me to convince my mom to take him in so he wouldn’t end up in the system. At fifteen, he’d been a broken, fragile little boy with no one to show him what real love looked like.

The guilt still plagued me for sitting idly by while that girl ruined him from the inside out. I didn’t know she had that kind of cruelty in her, and to this day, Milo was still convinced he’d brought it upon himself. The regret took up far too much space in my chest. Sometimes, I was sure I was suffocating in it.

I tried to tell myself that I’d only been thirteen at the time, yet that reminder felt like nothing more than a cop-out. I should have protected him, should have kept him safe. Instead, I’d watched everything unfold right under my nose because he loved her. Even now, I couldn’t say her name. Not out loud, not even in my head. She was a fracture line I refused to trace.

I hated her—but without her, I’d never have met Milo.

And he fucking needed me.

“You’ve got like… that sexy nerd thing going on,” the woman at the bar slurred as I set the glass down between us. “You know that?”

“Gay,” I said immediately.

“What?”

“I like men.” I wiped my hands on a rag and turned the tablet toward her. “How are you paying?”

“Oh.” She blinked. “Card.”

I watched her fumble with her wallet, my patience thinning with each second. She tapped her debit card and slid off the stool, disappearing into the crowd with her drink.

“I didn’t know you only liked men.” My coworker, Brandon, nudged me.

He was arguably the most tolerable person I had to work with. He was tall, awkward, and always had his hair tied up in a man-bun. Even though he was annoyingly nosy, he did get brownie points for keeping up with my scathing remarks.

“Actually, I don’t like anyone,” I corrected him, feeling my phone buzz in my pocket.

Fucking finally.

Milo: I’m scared to be alone.

It sounded ominous, but I knew what it meant. I caught myself smiling, my thumb absently stroking the screen. He was so close to admitting he needed me—he just needed a little provocation, and if I was good at anything, it was that.

“Is this your exception to not liking anyone?” Brandon grinned, eyebrow waggling.

“My brother,” I said, hastily typing a response before shoving my phone into my pocket.