Page 20 of Unexpectedly Wanted
It was the third night of sleeping in Milo’s bed. Next to him, you know. With miles between us, but also an awareness that was very stressful.
I couldn’t go through another sleepless night. And I couldn’t watch him struggle with the same thing. He clearly couldn’t handle it as well as I could. The level of snapping and grumpiness coming from him had skyrocketed the last two days. Normally, I could handle most of his irritation toward me, but today seemed to break me. Not in a good way, either.
Ever since lunch in the conference room, Milo had been blatantly hiding from me. Ignoring me. Pretending like I didn’t really exist when I was standing right beside him. And when he did talk to me, it was with this tone that said he wished I didn’t exist. I could most definitely say that I wasn’t a fan of what was going on. We’d had this moment— or, at least, I thought it had been a moment— and then he ran away. I knew Austin hadn’t meant to bust in and interrupt whatever had been going on between Milo and me, but I kind of hated him a little for the unexpected intrusion. If his reaction to how close Milo and I were hadn’t been so comical, I might have started to pull a Milo with him and full-on let him know how much he’d ruined… whatever that was.
I wanted to know what it was. I was desperate to know what was going on in Milo’s head when he realized we were so close we were nearly kissing. I wondered what the fuck he would think if I had been thinking of kissing him in that moment.
Because I couldn’t even deny the fact that I’d glanced down at his cute, little mouth a few times and wished to know how soft his lips would feel brushing against mine. Or how he might react to a kiss from me— you know, the one that he hated so much.
Last night, he’d pretended to be asleep by the time I got done with my shower. And this morning, he’d been out of the house before I could make it downstairs.
So, yeah, he was avoiding me. I wanted to break this wall between us, but I wasn’t sure how. I didn’t think he’d let me, despite the little moment we’d had in the conference room.
I tried to stay on one side of the bed, nearly hugging the edge. I was well aware that my shortened limb and marred flesh were a huge turn-off for some people. I’d been around people who couldn’t even look at me because of it. Like simply the thought of it made them sick.
It wasn’t like I’d asked for this. I hadn’t wanted my rescue mission to fail. I hadn’t wanted the helicopter I was piloting to go down. I hadn’t wanted to find myself trapped, my leg pinned and crushed in the crash. And I sure as hell hadn’t wanted my buddy to have to hack off my leg in an attempt to save me from a burning death. But I’d worked very hard to adapt to my new life, my new limb, so that I could be as close to what I was like before. That had mostly been for myself. Here I was, comfortable and confident in myself now. It was a part of me, just like anything else. I wasn’t going to let it slow me down, and I wasn’t going to give in to the thoughts of how I wasn’t the same as I once had been.
It had been a struggle for a while, I couldn’t lie about that. I didn’t wake up in the hospital all positive and ready to learn how to walk again. I’d had twenty-four years with two full legs, and then suddenly, everything was different. There were days I didn’t feel whole. Days I didn’t want to think about it. Even days when I swore I could still feel the parts of me that were missing. It hadn’t been an easy battle, but I’d fought it. I’d given it all I could once I realized that there was no sense in dwelling on what I no longer had. And I’d won. At least, I thought I had, and most days, that was all that mattered.
Five years later and some days I was still fighting that battle. Maybe it wasn’t quite on the grand scale it had been, but there were days where I struggled. But I promised myself I’d always get out of bed.
So, most of the time, I didn’t care what people thought. I didn’t let their cringe faces or shifty gazes get to me.
Milo was different, though.
I knew he knew about it, even if it hadn’t really been talked about. Not that Milo and I had done a whole lot of that friendly conversation thing before this whole situation. But it was in his face now. Since the first moment I dropped my pants and removed my prosthesis so I could go to bed, he’d had this hesitation around me. I got the sense that he wasn’t sure what to do with me when I wasn’t wearing it. However, it felt more like he was concerned rather than he thought me incapable. And for some reason, I found it sweet. After the initial shock wore off, he hadn’t looked at me as though I disgusted him. I took that as a win, I guess.
“Are you going to sleep tonight?” I asked in a joking tone as he slipped between the covers.
My back rested against the headboard, and I had been attempting to read a book while he was showering.
He glared at me over the top of his glasses before roughly pulling them off. The glare pinned me in place for a few more seconds. I tried not to laugh as he released me and reached for the case to put his glasses away for the night. Then, with overly jerky movements, he flopped on his side, giving me his back.
I chuckled again.
See what I mean? There was just no dealing with him when he was this far down the grumpy slide.
“I like things a certain way,” he said, still giving me his back. His words were semi-muffled by the pillow. “I’m having a hard time… adjusting to everything.”
“By everything, you mean me in your bed?”
He let out an annoyed breath as he flopped over onto his back and looked up at me.
“Everything.My parents being in my house. You in my space. Trying to be nice to me. Playing pretend. Sleeping with a body next to me, and without…”
He closed his eyes as his head rocked side to side.
“Without what?” I asked, genuinely wanting to know. And praying he wasn’t talking about me… or parts of me. Yeah, as confident as I was, I couldn’t deny that was where my mind sometimes automatically went.
“Without my weighted blanket,” he finally said. Since I hadn’t seen that coming, I was briefly stunned. “A guy like you probably thinks it’s stupid to need something like that, and you’re more than likely laughing at me in your head, but it’s a comfort thing. And sometimes I need comfort. A lot of it, okay. I’m not like you. I’m not… I’m just not. It calms me and I can’t sleep without that weight pressing down on me, helping me to feel surrounded and grounded at the same time.”
His eyes were unlike I’d ever seen them before. He was vulnerable. Telling me this wasn’t something that had been hard for him, since he usually spoke his mind and admitted things easily that most people wouldn’t even think about saying out loud. It was hard not to admire him for that. To like him for that, even if sometimes the things he had to say were a bit cutting. No, his vulnerability wasn’t about saying it, it was about my reaction to it.
I shifted to get off the bed, unsure of how I was going to drag the blanket from its place in the closet to the bed on crutches, but he stopped me with a firm grasp around my wrist.
“Don’t,” he said, head shaking. “Mother’s sixth sense. She’ll know.”
“So?” I shot back. Like, fuck her and what she thought about it. If my Mi needed his weighted blanket, he was going to have it.
