I didn’t hear from Miles for three weeks, nor did I reach out to him. I thought about it a million times, but each time I picked up the phone, something told me not to do it. He’d probably just think I was trying to rope him into a relationship, pressure him to be someone he’s not. And since he wasn’t texting me, I figured he didn’t miss me like I missed him.
And I missed him so much. It shocked me how much—after all, I was used to short, intense bursts of his company and then nothing for long periods of time. But this time when we said goodbye, he took a piece of me with him, and I felt the loss like a sickness. I missed his eyes, his laugh, his voice, his terrible dirty jokes, and his obscene mouth. I missed the way he smelled, the way he breathed, the way he looked at me. I missed sexy things like the roll of his hips, the stroke of his tongue, the depth of his body inside mine. I missed silly things like the way he reached for his glasses when he woke up, the way he defended his plastic forks, the way he panted for cinnamon buns. Didn’t he miss them? Maybe he was really just a love the one you’re with kind of guy, and he was on to the next breakfast pastry.
Then he called me.
It was a Saturday night in mid-July, and Skylar and Jillian were over helping me paint the kitchen a soft gray color that reminded me of the t-shirt Miles had given me to sleep in. I’d left that t-shirt on his bed after giving it a little spritz of my perfume, just to torture him. Wonder if he washed it yet.
“Nat, your phone’s ringing.” Skylar glanced at me over her shoulder. She was standing on a ladder near the sink, and my phone was on the counter. “It’s Miles.”
“It is?” My heart immediately started beating faster, but I took a deep breath and kept concentrating on my brush strokes where I was cutting in around the base molding.
“Yes. Don’t you want to answer it?”
“Not really. I’ll call him later.” Not only did I not want to talk to him in front of my sisters, but I didn’t want to seem too available. Better to let him think I was busy on a Saturday night.
Jillian, who was taping off the wall behind the kitchen table, poked her head up. “So what happened with you guys, anyway? I’ve been so busy, I haven’t had a chance to ask you about the trip to Detroit.”
I shrugged and tried to play it cool. “It was fun.”
“How fun?” she wanted to know.
“Very fun,” Skylar put in. “She told me she was sore for days afterward.”
Jillian gasped. “Is that true? You slept with Miles?”
“Oh, they did more than sleep.” Skylar set her roller in the pan and came down the ladder. “Anyone want some wine? It’s about that time.”
“Me,” Jillian and I said together.
Skylar pulled a bottle of white out of my fridge and unscrewed the cap. “Tell Jilly about the closet.”
My face went hot as my phone pinged with a voicemail. What had he said?
“Closet?” Jillian went to the cupboard and pulled three wine glasses down. “What happened in the closet?”
“He tied her up!” Skylar squealed before I could even get a word out.
“Eeeeeep! Is that true?”
“True,” I admitted, painting over the same spot for the tenth time. The memory of being tied up and blindfolded in the closet rendered me breathless for a moment. Miles’s tongue running up my body, his hard cock lifting me up from behind, the way he’d come all over my ass…oh, God. I’d probably never experience anything that hot ever again. “And blindfolded me and talked dirty and did amazing things with his tongue.”
“Wow.” Jillian’s voice was wistful. “I’m impressed. And jealous.”
“Nat was due some hot sex.” Skylar handed me a glass where I was sitting on the floor, but I got up and joined them at the table. “It had been months or something since she’d been with Dan.”
Jillian blinked at me in surprise. “Seriously?”
“Yeah.” I took a sip of wine, but it tasted off to me. “Skylar, was this already open or something in my fridge? It doesn’t taste right to me.”
“Really?” She drank from her glass and then from mine. “Tastes fine to me.”
Jillian sipped hers. “It’s fine. Now let’s get back to the sex thing. Why hadn’t you been sleeping with Dan for that long?”
Frowning, I set my glass down. “Because things weren’t good with us, and they hadn’t been for a while. I was just too stubborn to admit it.” I told Jillian what I’d told Skylar about the breakup, what I’d learned about his cheating, how he’d apologized but I’d decided breaking it off was the right thing.
“Have you guys talked?” she asked.
“Yeah. It was hard,” I admitted. “We met for coffee last week and talked some things out. He was up for trying to make it work, but I think that’s more laziness than anything else. He’s not crazy in love with me, and I’m not with him. He went about it the wrong way, but he was right in seeing that we weren’t happy.”
“And Miles?” she pressed. “What about him?”
I shrugged, but my stomach clenched. “Miles just came around at the right time. He was there when I needed a friend, someone to talk to, someone to tell me I was doing the right thing—”
“Someone to fuck you in the closet,” Skylar finished, smiling from behind her wine.
“Exactly.” I toyed with the stem of my glass. “But really, it was too soon for me to start up with anyone.”