When Hands Touch

32. you and i

CHAPTER THIRTY TWO

YOU AND I

—

"Jesus fucking Christ, Moore, I'm going to—"

Milo glanced into the rear-view mirror to look at the backseat, just to make sure that Xen hadn't murdered Jude yet. Thankfully, Jude looked like he was in one piece. Ish.

"Man, I swear, I'll beat you the fuck up if you keep using the fuckin' periods in your texts! I'm turning off auto caps," Jude retorted, shoving Xen's face away when he reached over to take his phone back. Poor Evangeline.

Xen rolled his eyes, nearly smacking into Evangeline as he pulled his hand back. "First of all, don't joke about shit like beating me the fuck up unless you want me to have a fucking mental breakdown or something, I don't like that shit. Second, just give me my fucking phone, oh my god. You're so annoying."

Eyes softening briefly, Jude nodded, but he didn't return Xen's phone. Oh my god. "Nah, shut up, I wanna spam it with selfies," he stated, flashing up a peace sign as he took a picture of himself.

Milo returned his gaze to the road ahead of him, sighing. He always preferred it when someone was in the passenger's seat next to him, but today, there were a bunch of backpacks stacked in the front seat because the group was supposedly coming over to his place to hang out for a while.

"Stop the car," Xen suddenly stated, causing Milo to glance over at him in alarm. "Yeah, you definitely need to stop the car."

Surprisingly enough, Jude was the one who spoke up, when he said, "Everythin' good?"

Xen just waved him off, making direct eye contact with Milo through the mirror. "Evangeline needs to come in between Jude and I, otherwise I'm going to end up pushing him out of the fucking vehicle," he explained, smiling when Milo let out a small snort and a giggle.

"No fucking thank you," Evangeline muttered, earphones secure in her ears. "Jude will find a way to piss you off anyway, Xen. Might as well let one of us sit comfortably."

Sighing, Milo shook his head, humming along to the basic ass track that was playing on the radio. "I'm not stopping, deal with it," he declared, huffing when the next song that came on had the exact same sound. What the fuck is pop music these days? Fucking trash.

Xen reached over again, groaning when Jude pushed his hand away. "Dude, my parents will literally kill—"

Then, he stopped, slowly pulling his hand back. There was complete silence for a second, before Xen said, "Oh. Forgot I don't live with them anymore. Do your worst, I don't care."

Oh.

That happened sometimes, Milo noticed. Xen would genuinely just... Forget that he didn't have to lock the bedroom door on the weekends, finish all the food on his plate if he wasn't hungry, hide the fact that he was taking his pills every morning.

The worst, however, was when Xen flinched every time someone moved too quickly, or made a movement that was unpredictable. It genuinely made Milo's chest ache when he saw it, especially when he was the reason for it. Because that meant that he scared Xen. And he didn't want to do that. He never wanted to do that.

"Now he won't want to, because it's not gonna piss you off," Evangeline pointed out, groaning when Jude took another picture anyway, from an extremely unflattering angle. "You're so annoying, I can't fucking believe we're still—"

"Fucking," Xen muttered, finishing the sentence for her. The pain was evident on his face, the pain of sitting in between Jude and Evangeline, but when Milo shot him a look from the rear-view mirror and gave him a tiny smile when they made eye contact, Xen smiled back, annoyance behind his eyes fading, only to be replaced by affection. If he looks at me like that, I might just crash this car.