Page 116 of Chasing You

“You’re doing great, May,” Miles says.

“I can’t get this fucking thing to stick,” she says, pushing on the wall.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Rafael’s voice booms through the space. May’s eyes go wide as she looks towards us for help. “Why are you two standing here letting a pregnant woman stand on a chair right in front of you?”

He doesn’t wait for an answer; he just strides over to May, picking her up and carrying her like a baby over to the couch.

“It’s fine, baby,” she says.

His frown is menacing. “I’ll decide what is fine. What if you fell?”

“I wouldn’t have fallen, Rafael. I’m pregnant, not incapable.”

His face is seriousness embodied. “You could’ve gotten vertigo or something.”

“I’ve never had vertigo in my life!” She throws her hands up.

“Yeah, you’ve never craved strawberries with a heart-stopping amount of salt on them either, but here we are.”

I just turn around in Miles’s arms, looking away before I get dragged into that conversation. But Miles’s eyes aren’t on me, or Rafael and May, they’re looking around the room, taking everything in.

It dawns on me then that he’s never stepped foot in this house before. “So this is where you grew up?”

I feel a kind of fluttering in my tummy, like I’m a teenagerbringing my crush over for the first time. Not that any of them walked through the front door, they climbed up the lattice and through my window. “This is it.”

He steps out of my arms, slowly wandering over to the side table that is littered with picture frames.

One is of the three of us in front of the Tower of Pisa when I was thirteen. My curls were frizzy from the wind, and my mouth was full of braces, but I was so happy.

There’s ones of us and Caio out the front of Hotel Dolce when he first bought it, before he turned it into the destination that it is today. There’s even one of Isla and Caio from their wedding day. But Miles picks up the black and white photo of Ma holding me as a baby, my dark hair fluffy, even back then.

I just watch him quietly, the hollering from outside feeling distant as I watch him look over my memories.

“If you want to see the good stuff,” Pa appears from the kitchen, a dish towel tossed over his shoulder, and a small smile on his face. “It’s upstairs in her room, along with her boy band posters, and motorbike dream boards.”

“Didn’t anyone tell you you’re supposed to keep some things under wraps?” I say to him. “How is a girl supposed to keep any element of mystery when her dad spills her secrets?” He just grins before sliding back into the kitchen.

Miles just looks at me, his gaze expectant and his eyebrows raised. I just groan, rolling my eyes before leading him up the stairs.

His hand finds mine as I walk up the carpeted steps, my stomach flipping as I reach the door.Why am I nervous?It feels like something he should've seen years ago.

He knows so much about me, yet he’s never seen my room. I know it's my childhood bedroom, but it feels like an important part of me. I spent so many years in this room, looking to the boys on my roof to solve all of my teenage problems.

I know that it’s exactly how I left it when I first moved out,and even then, I hadn’t touched anything in years. I’m a creature of comfort after all.

I take a deep breath before twisting the doorknob, opening the door, and letting Miles walk in ahead of me.

“Oh, so he wasn’t kidding.” He laughs as he looks up at the posters of Big Time Rush and the Jonas Brothers on the slanted roof.

“I was in love, okay?” I say as I close the door behind me, blocking out the ruckus from downstairs.

Miles turns around, grinning at me before he walks over to my dressing table, picking up random tubes of makeup and looking at the Polaroids that are stuck to my mirror of Leo and me dressed up as Morticia and Gomez Adams for Halloween the year before I moved away.

“I like it in here,” he says, flopping down on top of my dark brown linen comforter.

“Yeah?” I lay down next to him, my eyes catching on the slight dent in the roof from where I used to throw a rubber ball when I was bored.

“Yeah, it feels like I’m walking around inside your brain.”

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