TheDuchessB: Always like that. One time when I was 8, we went to see the circus in Morocco, and they encouraged me to join it. They would’ve been overjoyed if I’d run away from home and joined the circus. Because that’s their definition of living. But living with them already WAS a circus.

I know I’m playing with fire talking about my own life, but I’ve kept details vague enough, I think, that I can get away with it. Also, before we sign off, I can always pretend I was joking or something.

Because who would have parents like that?

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 17

MILES

GreatSc0t: I get it. My parents’ love story is so epic. And mostly that’s a really nice thing except . . . sometimes it’s a lot to live up to. How could my own romances ever compete?

No way in hell should I have written that. Because of course it doesn’t describe Jude’s life, but my own. I don’t even know the deal with Jude’s parents. Maybe they divorced in some sort of epic Highlands land grab and one of them ended up getting a Scottish castle in the settlement. This is something that would be easy for Bree to fact-check the moment she and Jude get a little closer.

But I can’t help it. I guess I know my time with Bree is winding down and there’s a part of me that needs to let her know how much I understand exactly what she’s saying. And maybe there’s a part of me that wants her to understand me—Miles me—even if just for the briefest of moments.

TheDuchessB: Maybe we could find a way . . . ;-)

There’s a small pang, knowing it can’t possibly be true, not for me and Bree anyway. But I can help orchestrate something like that for Jude and Bree. That’s enough, right? Of course it is. That’s what I’ve been telling myself all along.

TheDuchessB: So are we still on for tomorrow?

GreatSc0t: Definitely. Can’t wait.

TheDuchessB: See you then.

It’s a relief that she ends the conversation, because the startling truth is I’m not sure I would have been able to.

It’s also ironic that we spent most of the conversation talking about beds because the foam mattress I ordered last week finally arrived today. Filling my new apartment up with furniture has been more problematic than I anticipated. I had my couch and pinball table delivered from my storage unit, but Jordan kept the bed and everything else that we’d bought after I had—stupidly, as it now turned out—sold all the rest of my own stuff when we’d moved in together. Not that I wanted the bed we’d shared, but three months of sleeping on a couch was reminding me that I—and my joints—weren’t exactly eighteen anymore.