- MILES -
“I can’t do this.”
Eden’s in major panic mode.
“You can, and you will,” I challenged her.
“That’s easy for you to say,” she replied, pacing the length of her kitchen and back over and over.
“How is this any easier for me than it is for you, Eden?”
She stumbled on her reply, hopefully knowing how ridiculous she’s being. “Well... I mean, it just is.”
I rolled my eyes at her. If anyone should be worried, it’s me. Despite the boldness of greeting Eden so affectionately at brunch the other day, coming face-to-face with Wolfe for the first time since learning about Eden and I dating is a whole other ball game. I was almost completely certain that I was going to get a call immediately after leaving, presuming that Luna wouldn’t hesitate to fill him in the very second I turned to leave. Saying that, she was crying a lot, so perhaps she had some more pressing emotions to deal with before speaking with her soon-to-be husband because I haven't heard a peep from Wolfe at all.
“It will be fine,” I said, not believing it fully myself, but trying for her sake to pretend like I do. One or both of us needs to calm down or this really will be the disaster she’s working herself up to think it will be. I’m hoping to get through this dinner in one piece after all: the formal meeting of the girlfriends’ friends.
She shook her head at me. “I know you don’t believe that, Miles,” she said, not buying my fake confidence any more than I did. She knows me well by now. “I want them to love you.”
“They already do, Eden,” I said cockily, though knowing well enough that they do. “You do realise the only one that I’m less familiar with is River, and that’s simply by way of him being only a few months old. I’ve even met Mason a couple times, before I even started dating you.”
“They love you as Miles: their client and friend. They don’t know you as Miles: my boyfriend.”
“And what’s the difference exactly? Both versions are, in actuality, the very same person: me.”
Eden shook her head again. “That’s not true. Client and Friend Miles is different to Boyfriend Miles, who is a giant flirt, has his hands up my shirt or in my pants at all available opportunities, and talks dirtier than anyone I’ve known at inappropriate decibel levels. Do I need to remind you about how mortified I was when I met your parents for the first time as they walked in to find me still dripping in a bath towel in the kitchen after you coaxed me out of your bath by stripping and teasing me and remaining just out of reach while stroking your own dick right in front of me.”
“I was there, sweetheart,” I said, stepping towards her and enveloping her in my arms, trying to get her to stop moving and calm down. “I actually think I can still hear the specific tone and volume of the ear-piercing screech that came forth from your mouth. My poor parents still complain of permanent hearing loss.
"And besides, I don’t know why you were the one embarrassed. There I was, stark naked, erect cock out on full display when the door opened, you let go of it so quickly it bounced up and down like a bloody spring, screeched like a banshee and bolted into the bedroom, leaving me completely exposed in front of my parents.”
She tried to move away from me, feigning annoyance with me. I’ve effectively compartmentalised that trauma of getting caught in the act by my parents at the ripe old age of thirty-one, and my parents don’t complain about anything to do with Eden. In fact, they probably love her more than they do me already and still laugh about that first meeting whenever the opportunity presents itself.
“Eden, I love you,” I said, kissing her tenderly and feeling her turn to jelly in my arms. She can never stay mad at me for too long. “But you’re overthinking this.”
“I know I am, Miles. But this is a big deal to me.”
And it is. She explained it to me. She knows they never liked her previous couple boyfriends, and I know her family didn’t agree with her decision to call off her engagement to one of them. And as a result of all this, I know that her friends’ approval---primarily Wolfe’s---is all she wants.
“Do you trust me?” She rolled her eyes at me and I tightened my hold around her to avoid her slipping away. “Eden, do you trust me?”
“You know that I do, Miles,” she said, kissing the material covering my heart as she has since the first day we got together, and then looked back up at me.
“I promise, I won’t fuck this up, okay?” I reassured her, though it had minimal effect.
“I’m not worried about you. I’m worried about him,” she said, referring presumably to Wolfe. “He’s pig-headed and irrationally overprotective of me.”
“Oh, I know. Better than anyone, trust me. I’ve been on the receiving end of his constant apprehension whenever I’ve been around you or mentioned your name since I first saw your kooky ass laughing at me on the other side of the road,” I said, leaning down to kiss her collarbone, which usually relaxes her a treat, buttering her up for my next comment in the hopes I don’t get annihilated in return. “Between the two of you, I’m surrounded by stubborn asses in all directions.”
She did not look impressed.
“I was joking… kind of,” I teased, not quite prepared but absolutely expecting her twisting attack on my nipples in retaliation. “Ouch! Keep that up, babe, and you’ll turn me on.”
“I don’t doubt it. Everything turns you on!”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing that I want you,” I said, leaning in to kiss her softly. “And that you’re any better than I am.”
“It is a bad thing when you get me worked up before people come over,” she said, a cheeky gleam in her eyes that tells me she wouldn’t mind calling the evening off.
I kissed her again, my hands starting to explore her body, because I really can’t help myself when she looks at me like this. “Miles, they’re going to be here soon,” she protested lightheartedly before grabbing my neck and pulling me closer to her to deepen our kiss.
She moaned in my mouth about the same time a familiar voice cried, “What in the ever living fuck is going on here?!” from the doorway, Eden having sadly not locked it when we got back from the supermarket with the ingredients for tonight's dinner.
Busted. Eden and I are busted, and my hopes for a quiet, slow introduction to the idea of me dating his sister are unfortunately over considering my hand was up her shirt, my thumb and forefinger gently squeezing her nipple, and my lips definitely locked with hers at the precise moment we both heard Wolfe’s voice.
Fuck.
“Surprise?!” Luna piped in, following Wolfe inside and trying her best not to laugh.
“You didn’t tell him?!” Eden cried, pushing me away from her, pulling the lace of her bra back over her breast underneath her shirt and getting her dishevelled hair in order from when my hands were in and grabbing it not ten seconds prior. She’s returned to pre-make out anxiety levels, and with how Wolfe is looking at us now, I can’t say I blame her.
Luna. That bloody sneak. I knew there was something wrong with Wolfe not immediately calling me or rocking up to the gym or my house after Luna went home from brunch a couple days ago.
“Tell me what exactly?” Wolfe said, his tone firm and his eyes darting between us all so fast I would have felt a little whiplashed myself if I were him. “Why is Miles here, Luna, and why the hell was he not keeping his hands politely to himself, Eden?”
I feel like a teenager having been caught in my girlfriend's room by her parents all over again.
“My future husband, the perpetually hysterical overreactor,” Luna said, trying to lighten to mood as she walked past Wolfe and over to Eden and I, greeting us both with a kiss on the cheek. “Relax, will you, Wolfe? They’re both fully grown adults.”
Sadly, I doubt that reasoning is going to work on him today.
“You knew about this?!” Wolfe turned on her wanting answers, but she just threw her hands up in surrender, absolving herself of the responsibility of explaining things to him as she continued to walk past us and sit down on Eden’s couch, bouncing River up and down in his baby sling wrapped around her body. “Someone needs to explain to me what in the hell is going on.”
I looked at Eden, waiting for her direction about how we approach this. I wonder if we had actually had a conversation about anything other than her nerves to plan for how we might actually break it to Wolfe, whether this might have gone a lot more smoothly. She looked so fearful, which made me so sad for her because she’s usually so sure of everything she does.
“Go on, sweetheart. You can do this,” I said encouragingly, knowing that she need to be the one to do this, that she can, and ignoring Wolfe’s high pitched, derisive ‘Sweetheart?!’ when he heard me refer to Eden thusly.
She took a deep breath, reached for my hand, squeezing it tightly as it hung between us, and closed her eyes, as if that was going to make this any less awkward. “So, Miles and I are dating.”
“My friend, Miles, and you, my sister,” he said slowly and dramatically after a very long pause. “Dating?”
Luna sniggered as she pulled River from his carrier and encouraged Hades to come and sniff him, apparently determined to make them be friends. I wanted to do the same thing and laugh at Wolfe, but Eden’s anxious, sweaty palm in mine convinced me to save the mocking of Wolfe for another day when he’s less aggravated.
“Yes, Wolfe. We’re dating, and very happy about it,” she said, turning to face me for support. “Right, Miles?”
I laughed, which, in hindsight probably wasn’t the appropriate response given her wide eyes begging to make this situation better. “Right. Very happy about it.”
“It certainly looked that way when we walked in,” Luna muttered just loudly enough to earn a disgusted scoff from Wolfe in response, while I tried to tame my own laughter. “Miles, perhaps you and Wolfe might like to go have this out in the backyard like the calm and rational adults I know you both to be while I help Eden finish off dinner?” she added compassionately, knowing that some words of some kind need to be said between us if Wolfe is ever going to get past his trepidation about Eden and I being together.
I kissed Eden on the temple before leaving her to move in the direction of her back door, feeling Wolfe dragging his heels behind me to do the same and observing Luna miming pointedly and speaking silently with her partner to ‘not be a dick’ in my peripheral vision if my lip-reading abilities were anything to go by.
Hades followed us outside, and stood between my legs when I turned to face Wolfe, my arms crossed while I waited for Wolfe to finally speak, presuming he had a lot to say. He didn’t talk, however, and seemed mighty distracted with Hades sitting at attention with me and not him.
“I wanted to tell you,” I finally said, unable to take it any longer. He pierced me with a flat look of disbelief. “No, I’m serious. I really did. You’re one of my best mates, and I hate that I’ve kept this from you so long. Eden wanted to tell you herself, but she’s been a giant chicken about it all and I wanted to respect that this is what she wanted and not force her into anything she was uncomfortable with. And the timing of it all was complicated and messy with you guys having River and her abortion---”
“She told you about that?” Wolfe interrupted, his tone incredulous like he was genuinely surprised that Eden had disclosed her termination experience with me. She had told me that she had talked to Wolfe about it a couple weeks after it happened and we got together, because he knew something was up with her and wouldn’t let it go until she told him, he was so worried.
He was watching me carefully as I replied, sizing me up based on my answer. “Yeah. I ran into her in front of the hospital and walked her home after she visited you guys there the day afterwards. She was a mess, and I didn’t want her to be alone. We had coffee and she told me.”
He doesn’t need to know all the other naked details involved in that fateful day---the beginning of my lifetime with Eden if I have any say in the matter.
“She hasn’t even told Lune that…” he said seriously, his tone shifting slightly. I thought Eden, or even Wolfe since then, would have disclosed it to Luna by now. “She, um… She really trusts you.”
“I mean, I hope so?” I said, internally crossing my fingers to manifest it into existence if it’s not true already because I know in my heart that Eden is it for me, and it would prove problematic if she didn’t. I doubt she’d have left me out here alone, unsupervised with Wolfe to have ‘the talk’, if she didn’t trust me at least a little.
“How long?” he asked, presumably referring to Eden and I dating.
“Since that day at the hospital.”
“So, like, three months? You’ve both kept this secret for three months?”
“Listen, Wolfe. I’m not proud of it. But I am proud of Eden and what we’re building together, and I hope one day you will be too because I fucking love that woman more than I ever thought it possible to care for another person, and I’m a much better man for having shared in the love that she feels for all of you these past few months.” He remained silent, his hand stroking his beard as he mulled over everything I’d said. “Your faith and trust in her is all she wants, Wolfe.”
After what felt like a whole minute of silence, with me fighting myself not to fill the empty space with more words trying to convince him I’d do right by Eden, he finally spoke.
“You should have told me.”
“I know, mate. I do. But I was letting Eden drive this because that’s what she needed at the time. She had a lot going on, and I wasn’t about to force her to say anything and make things more difficult for her.” Wolfe nodded at me, I’m presuming in understanding of where I was coming from. “Be upset at me if you need to, Wolfe. But don’t be mad at Eden. She loves you about as fiercely as you do her, and she just didn’t want you to be disappointed her.”
“I’m not disappointed, Miles. I’m not actually any of that,” he said, brushing it off and shaking his head, his lip quivering just a fraction as his eyes turned glassy. “I, um… It's just I think I finally know and appreciate now how Dalen always felt about Luna and I getting together.” Completely thrown by his tears and not quite following, he elaborated. “Like him, I think I instinctively knew you and Edes would end up together eventually, and I guess I’m having just as hard a time letting go of her as he did Lune.”
He sniffed and wiped his eyes with his sleeve, and I’d be lying if I said watching him so emotional hadn’t made me fight back my own tears.
I stepped over Hades and met Wolfe with a crushing hug, rejoicing in him gripping me back with a ferocity that I believe encapsulated everything he wanted to say in support of Eden and I, but is still coming to terms with this very big and emotional revelation he’s having.
Opening my eyes as I looked over his shoulder, I saw Luna and Eden watching on curiously from inside. I smiled at my beautiful girlfriend and gave her a small thumbs up, and watched as she too devolved into tears and was comforted by Luna beside her.
“I love you, Miles. And I’m happy for you both,” he said, letting me go and gripping my shoulder affectionately. “But I don’t ever want to see or hear about you guys getting it on,” he added with a finality that made clear this was a line not to be crossed.
“Can’t make any promises on that one, I’m afraid. She’s a minx.”