Page 50 of Unexpectedly Wanted
Hey, the spotlight was off of me and I was all for it.
“I usually like gym bros. This guy is not. But he was… so confident in that shirt that showed his stomach that I…” He shook his head. “I don’t know. It was probably a fluke thing.” He snapped his mouth shut and gave another shake of his head. “Gonna pull over for gas at the next exit.”
And that was that.
The car fell silent, and we all seemed to be lost in thought.
18
Milo
Fuck.
I could not sleep.
Deep down, I knew why.
It revolved around having weight on me and that feeling of comfort while I was horizontal.
Yes. That was it.
Which, since I was still refusing to use my weighted blanket, meant that I was sleeping horribly because Remy wasn’t here.
How was that for irony?
I could have broken down and pulled the blanket out. The one that was now back in the closet. Just like I could have pretended the pillow on the other side of the bed didn’t have a head-sized dent in it. I could also pretend thatnothaving Remy here was fine with me.
Sighing, I rolled out of bed.
If I wasn’t going to sleep, then I could at least go down to the kitchen and quietly find something to eat. I hadn’t had anything all day.
I tiptoed down the stairs, and navigated my way through the house.
Surprisingly, the light was on over the stove.
And my father was standing in front of the electric kettle, looking as if he were waiting to snatch the thing off the base as soon as it was done heating. The electric kettle that was not mine, which only reminded me of Remy, and how he was here but hewasn’there. There was this sinking feeling in my gut. I’d had that happen quite a few times since I’d come home from work.
“What are you doing up?” I asked him in a harsh whisper.
His head turned, and he blinked at me, making me wonder if he’d been lost in thought.
“A lot has happened over the last couple of days,” he said. The kettle began to emit a loud beep, and he rushed to push the button on the handle to stop the obnoxious noise. “Do you drink tea?” he asked.
“No,” I told him.
“I feel like that’s something I should know,” he said with a laugh that was anything but humorous. “There are a lot of things Ishouldknow about you, yet I don’t have the first clue.”
I wasn’t sure what to say here, so I said nothing. I was at the point where I didn’t really care if he knew me or not. Which, some would say, was a sad thing to think about your own father. But it was the truth. I realized long before now that I didn’t need him in my life. Nor my mother. And I certainly didn’t need their approval for anything. Would it have been nice? Sure. Anyone who said that it wouldn’t be nice would have been lying. But my life was complete with or without their thoughts and feelings.
He poured the hot water into the mug he had sitting off to the side. Then he slowly unwrapped a tea bag and began to dunk it in the water over and over again.
“Is there a reason you can’t sleep?” he asked me.
“Sure,” I told him, focus on what he was doing to the tea bag. “I mean, isn’t it the same for you?”
He laughed softly.
“Stress, I suppose,” he told me. “Worry. The realization that the world is crashing around me and feeling like I’m not strong enough to hold it up or fix it.”
