Ugly Love(27)
Author: Colleen Hoover

Corbin gets the door open and walks inside, toward his bedroom. I stand in the doorway, facing Miles.

He’s looking straight at me. Invading me. “It’s on the agenda now,” he says with a smile.

I’m an agenda now. I don’t want to be an agenda. I want to be a plan. A map. I want to be on a map to his future.

But that breaks rule number two.

Miles backs into his apartment after opening his door, and he nods his head in the direction of his bedroom.

“After he goes to sleep?” he whispers.

Fine, Miles. You can stop begging. I’ll be your agenda.

I nod before closing the door.

I shower and shave and brush my teeth and sing and put on just enough makeup to make it look like I didn’t put on any makeup at all. And fix my hair to make it look like I didn’t fix my hair at all. And put back on the same clothes I had on earlier so it doesn’t look like I changed clothes at all. But really, I changed my bra and my underwear, because they didn’t match before but now they do. And then I freak the hell out because Miles will see my bra and underwear tonight.

And possibly touch them.

If it’s part of his agenda, he might even be the one to remove them.

My phone receives a text, and the sound startles me, because a text isn’t on the agenda at eleven o’clock at night. The text is from an unrecognized number. All it says is:

Is he in his room yet?

Me: How do you have my number?

Miles: I stole it from Corbin’s phone while we were driving.

There’s a weird voice in my head, singing, “Na-na-na-na boo-boo. He stole my number.”

I’m such a child.

Me: No, he’s watching TV.

Miles: Good. I have to run an errand. I’ll be back in twenty minutes. Leaving the apartment unlocked in case he goes to bed before then.

Who runs errands at eleven o’clock at night?

Me: See ya.

I stare at my last text to him and cringe. It sounds way too casual. I’m giving him the impression that I do this all the time. He probably thinks all my days go something like this:

Random guy: Tate, you want to have sex?

Me: Sure. Let me finish up with these two guys, and I’ll be right over. By the way, I don’t have any rules, so anything goes.

Random guy: Awesome.

Fifteen minutes pass, and the television finally switches off. As soon as the door to Corbin’s bedroom closes, mine opens. I’m across the living room and slipping out the front door and then bumping into Miles, who is standing in the hallway.

“Good timing,” he says.

He’s holding a bag. He moves it to his other hand so it’s not as visible to me.

“After you, Tate,” he says, pushing open his door.

No, Miles. I follow. That’s how it is with us. You’re solid, I’m liquid. You part the waters, I’m your wake.

“You thirsty?” He walks toward his kitchen, but I’m not sure if I can follow him this time. I don’t know how to do this, and I’m scared he’ll notice that I’ve never had a rule number one or two before. If the past and the future are off limits, that only leaves the present, and I have no idea what to do in the present.

I walk to the kitchen in the present. “What do you have?” I ask him.

The bag is on the counter now, and he sees me eyeing it, so he pushes it aside, out of my view.

“Tell me what you want, and I’ll see if I have it,” he says.

“Orange juice.”

He grins, then reaches toward the bag. He pulls out a container of orange juice, and the simple fact that he even thought about it is testament to his generosity. It’s also testament that it doesn’t take much to make me melt. I should tell him my one rule has just become Stop doing things that make me want to break your rules.

I take the orange juice from him with a smile. “What else is in the bag?”

He shrugs. “Stuff.”

He watches me open the juice. He watches me take a drink of the juice. He watches me put the lid back on the juice. He watches me set the juice on his kitchen counter, but he doesn’t watch me closely enough to notice how fast I can lunge for the bag.

I grab it right before his arms wrap around my waist.

He’s laughing. “Put it back, Tate.”

I open it and look inside.

Condoms.

I laugh and toss it back onto the counter. When I turn around, his arms don’t leave me. “I really want to say something inappropriate or embarrassing, but I can’t think of anything. Just pretend I did and laugh anyway.”

He doesn’t laugh, but his arms are still around me. “You’re so weird,” he says.

“I don’t care.”

He smiles. “This whole thing is weird.”

He’s telling me how weird this is, but it feels pretty damn good to me. I’m not sure if weird feels good or bad to him. “Is weird good or bad?”

“Both,” he says. “Neither.”

“You’re weird,” I tell him.

He grins. “I don’t care.”

He moves his hands up my back, to my shoulders, and slowly down my arms until his hands are touching mine.

That reminds me.

I pull his hand between us. “How’s your hand?”

“Fine,” he says.

“I should probably check it out tomorrow,” I say.

“I won’t be here tomorrow. I leave in a few hours.”

Two thoughts cross my mind. One, I’m very disappointed he’s leaving tonight. Two, Why am I here if he’s leaving tonight?

“Shouldn’t you be asleep?”

He shakes his head. “I can’t sleep now.”

“You didn’t even try,” I say. “You can’t fly a plane on no sleep, Miles.”

“The first flight is short. Besides, I’m copilot. I’ll sleep on the plane.”

Sleep isn’t on his agenda. Tate is.

Tate overrules sleep on his agenda.

I wonder what else Tate overrules?

“So,” I whisper as I drop his hand. I pause, because I don’t have anything to follow the So. Nothing. Not even a la-ti-do.

It’s quiet.

It’s getting awkward.