Page 65 of The Best Parts of Him
“They are fun,” Miles said. “I’m going to skip it though. I’m not in the mood for it.”
“Which is precisely why you should come. Besides, I already signed you up for it.”
Miles’ short laugh had a genuine thread of amusement. “Of course you did. So. Question. Does the offer to stay with you still stand?”
“Does the—” Ryland gaped at him. “Yes. Of course.”
Miles let out a breath that ballooned his cheeks. “Okay, good, because I still don’t have a bed, and I can’t sleep on an air mattress anymore. It’s killing my lower back.”
“I thought your bed arrived a few weeks ago?”
“It did. But it was the wrong one, so I sent the delivery guys back with it and told them to come back with the one I actually ordered. Except the company is telling me that was the one I ordered even though I have the email confirmation showing otherwise, and—” He hung his head back and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I don’t want to cave and accept the bed I didn’t order—it’s the principle of the thing, you understand? But I don’t have the energy to argue with them, and I can’t keep sleeping on the air mat?—”
“Miles.” Ryland interrupted his ramble and squeezed his elbow. “Come over tonight. Right now. We’ll get the rest of your stuff tomorrow.”
“I’ve got the essentials in my truck.” Miles’ smile was more of a lopsided grimace. “I planned ahead, hoping you wouldn’t mind.”
“Dumbass,” Ryland muttered affectionately, bumping their shoulders. “As if you even have to ask. I prepared the guest room for you weeks ago, hoping you’d take me up on my offer eventually.”
“You did? That’s . . . ” Miles glanced away, his throat bobbing as he swallowed. “That’s more comforting than you know. Thank you.”
“Anytime.”
Miles rose. “I’m going to hit the showers. Then I can follow you home.”
Ryland showered too, and they were on the road within twenty minutes since no one was signed up for show-and-tell tonight—one of only a few gaps in the show-and-tell schedule.
His single-story ranch-style home with the finished basement in Upper Arlington was modest compared to the houses of many of his teammates. He’d fallen in love with it immediately, no matter that Des had tried to convince him that what he really wanted was the ten thousand-square-foot, seven-bedroom, six-bathroom monstrosity that had been selling for two and a half million.
Ryland’s house had character with its white siding, blue front door, and the flowerbed out front. He’d modernized the kitchen and put hardwood down on the main floor. It was open-concept, airy, let in tons of natural light, and with its three bedrooms, he had plenty of space when family and friends came to visit.
And it reminded him of his childhood home in Maplewood. Not the aesthetics, necessarily, but the feel of it. It felt like a home, whereas the 2.5-million-dollar mansion had reeked of bland, boring, and basic.
He parked in the garage, Miles in the driveway behind him, and met his teammate on the front stoop.
“You’ve got a package.”
Ryland glanced up from his phone, where he’d been disarming his house alarm. “I do?”
“Did you order something?”
“Not that I can recall.” Ryland unlocked the door. “Who’s it from?”
Miles angled it closer to the porch light and wiggled his eyebrows. “Kyle Dabbs.”
Tripping his way into the house, Ryland rounded on him. “What? For real?”
“Kyle Dabbs,” Miles repeated, his blue eyes dancing. He stepped into the house after Ryland. “Maybe you forgot something at his place?”
“He’d just hang on to it until next time.”
“Maybe whatever this is is payback for the twenty loaves of apple bread,” Miles said.
Ryland couldn’t help but laugh at the memory of Dabbs calling while Ryland had been in the car with Miles.
“Twenty loaves, Ry?” Dabbs had said, his voice made gruffer by the car’s speakers. “There’s no way I can eat all of these before they go bad.”
Miles’s jaw had dropped. “Twenty? Jesus, Ry.”
