My Favorite Souvenir(45)

He shook his head. “I think I need a few days before I go to New York. The buddy I’m going to see just got dumped. If I show up feeling the way I think I’m going to feel tomorrow when you get on that plane, I’m pretty sure the two of us will do nothing but get drunk and wallow. I’m probably going to hang here in Atlanta for a few days. I’ve never been, and it’ll give me some time to clear my head.”

“Okay. That sounds nice.”

“So what’s the first thing you’re going to do when you get home?” he asked.

“Well, I’ll probably dump my bags in the house and run next door to my neighbor’s, Mrs. Green. She has Abbott.”

“Abbott? You have a dog?”

I sipped my wine. “Nope.”

“Cat?”

I grinned. “Nope.”

“A kid you forgot to mention?”

I laughed. “Definitely not. Abbott is my pet rabbit.”

Milo’s eyebrows jumped. “You have a rabbit named Abbott.”

I laughed. “Yup. Abbott the rabbit. A blue Angora.”

“He’s blue?”

“Well, he’s not anything. Abbott is a girl. And she’s more like a gray, but the color is called blue.”

Milo looked amused. “Does your blue bunny with a boy’s name know he’s a gray girl, or is he just as confused as me?”

I smacked his abs. “She’s the cutest thing. Abbott has big floppy ears, and she’s really fat and round. Sometimes when she’s curled up in a ball and someone comes over, they get scared when she moves because she looks more like a stuffed animal. Did you ever watch old Star Trek reruns? She sort of looks like a tribble when she sleeps. Oh, and I walk her on a leash.”

“You walk a rabbit on a leash?”

“Yeah. She thinks she’s a dog.”

Milo shook his head. “Well, I can’t wait to meet her.”

I got excited at that thought, but then his smile fell.

“If I get to meet her, I mean.”

Again, it felt like the bottom dropped out of my belly. But I forced myself to ignore it so our last night didn’t turn depressing. “Do you have any pets?”

He nodded. “I have a cat. Had a black lab growing up, but I’ve never had a dog on my own. Someday, though.”

In many ways I felt like I knew Milo so well, yet I realized we didn’t know some very basic things about each other—like if we had pets. For some inexplicable reason, that bothered me. I didn’t want to leave and look back and start to second guess whether I’d ever known Milo at all. Suddenly I wanted to ask him a zillion questions.

“Did you go to public school or private growing up?” I began.

“Public. You?”

“Same.”

“What was the name of your first crush?”

Milo chuckled. “Julia. You do know your questions are jumping all over the place, right?”

“I know. I just—there are so many things I want to know about you before…”

Our eyes caught and our faces fell once again.

Milo drank his champagne. “Before we never see each other again?”

“No, that’s not what I meant at all. It’s just that I feel like I know you in a very deep way, yet I don’t know some surface things. I want to know everything I can.”

Milo lifted one leg up onto the couch and spread his arm over the back of it. “Alright. Shoot. What other questions do you have?”

“Let’s start from the beginning. How old were you when you met Julia, your first girlfriend?”

“I was nine. She was fifteen.”

My eyes bulged. “Your first girlfriend was six years older than you?”

“No. You asked my first crush. Her name was Julia, and she was my babysitter.”

“Oh.” I chuckled. “How old was your first girlfriend then?”

He thought about it. “Sixth grade. Lisa Carlisle. She was a redhead. Totally forgot about that. Guess I knew what I liked early.” He winked. “What about you?”

“Eighth grade. Eddie Paxton. He was a year older.”

“How long did it last?”

“A few months. He was my first kiss. His breath was horrible, so I dumped him.”

Milo lifted his hand to his mouth, blew out a few short breaths, and sniffed. He smiled. “All good. Still minty fresh from when I brushed.”

I tilted my head. “Does that mean you’re planning on kissing me?”

I’d said it kidding around, but the moment suddenly got serious. Milo looked into my eyes. “There’s absolutely nothing I’d like to do more. But I know that once I tasted you, I’d never be able to stop at a kiss, Maddie.”

Oh my.

He was essentially blowing me off, but my body got all tingly. It made my mind wander to dirtier questions.

“Do you have a favorite position?”

Milo’s eyes darkened. “You sure you want to go there?”

I swallowed and nodded.

“Alright. I usually like to be in control—against the wall or doggy style. But something tells me with you, my favorite position would be you riding me so I could watch your face every minute I’m inside of you.”

My mouth hung open. I imagined Milo sitting on the couch exactly where he was at this very moment, and me straddling him. Lord, I wanted that in the worst way.