Begin Again(27)

“You could threaten Milo with his mortal life, and I’m pretty sure you couldn’t get him into Barb’s on a Friday n—” Shay’s jaw drops. I follow her gaze, whipping around to see Milo walking gingerly into the establishment, dodging a drunk co-ed with a pint of beer sloshing in his hand. I yank up my arm to wave him over just as Shay mutters, “Well I’ll be damned.”

I turn back to her, smug. “See? He’s got your back.”

Shay raises her eyebrows. “I sincerely doubt he is doing this for me.”

Before I can protest, the mic at the front lets out a sharp whine and the trivia host steps up to get us all started. Milo sits down so gracelessly that half his limbs brush mine, unwrapping his scarf and yanking off his hat to reveal red, wind-whipped cheeks.

“Did you teleport?” I ask.

“I was with my brothers in the Bagelopolis lot.”

I suspect by the way he says this more to his coat than any of us that there’s more to the story, but just then trivia night kicks off in earnest. I’m about to confess that I’m borderline useless at trivia when the host announces, of all things, that the first category is vampires in pop culture.

“Shit,” says Shay, burying her head in her hands. “I haven’t read Twilight in at least five years.”

“I . . . have a box of Count Chocula left over from Halloween,” Val offers.

I pull up my sleeves. Connor and I marathoned our way through True Blood, The Vampire Diaries, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, not to mention watched every film adaptation of vampire novels from Dracula to Interview with a Vampire.

“You better hold on tight, spider monkeys,” I say under my breath.

Thanks to my alarming vampiric knowledge we dominate the first round, which then leads into another round, this one on geography. Milo runs a resigned hand through his curls before telling us that his sister Jeanie started her career as a high school geography teacher, then casually crushing everyone in the bar around us down to the capital city of Cyprus.

“Cheers,” says Milo, holding up his Coke to my hot chocolate, “to the masterminds of team Bad & Bookish.”

I knock my glass with his, returning his satisfied half smile with a grin of my own. Luckily the two of us peak right then and there, before our smugness can become our downfall. We are utterly useless for the rounds on obscure dog breeds (Shay’s wheelhouse), celebrities’ real names (Val’s specialty), and Broadway musicals (both Val and Shay nearly knock their own arms out of their sockets raising our whiteboard up with their answers).

In the end we win by a landslide. We’re such a force to be reckoned with that we decide to reconvene next week and let Shay’s book club friends off the hook, calling ourselves the “All-Knighters” (inspired in part by Milo’s utter disregard for sleep). I’m so relieved to have a built-in team for the month of this ribbon hunt that I’m almost dizzy, and Shay and Val are so overjoyed by the gift card that they entirely forget about the food at our table. Someone hands us two to-go boxes, which Milo starts shoving leftovers into for breakfast tomorrow morning.

In the meantime I go up to the host’s makeshift podium and show her my white ribbon and collect a blue one, along with the participating players in the teams that came in second and third. I wander back to the table in a daze with it pinched between my fingers, waiting to feel something other than relief, or the thought that immediately chases it—one down, so many more to go.

“Hey,” says Val, grabbing my arm. “You guys wanna go to karaoke?”

“A bunch of other teams are going to the place down the street,” says Shay, her eyes shining from the high of the bookstore gift card.

I shake my head apologetically. “If I try to sing I will put every dog in a mile radius in pain.”

Milo is already halfway to the door. “I don’t acknowledge the word ‘karaoke’ as a noun or a verb. But godspeed.”

It takes me a minute to put my coat back on and secure our portion of the leftovers in my bag, so I’m not expecting to see Milo waiting outside the restaurant, leaning against the exterior of the building with his hands shoved in his jacket pockets. I catch sight of him before he sees me, seeing a rare moment of his face at rest—the thoughtful set of his brow, the keenness of his eyes, the slight weariness underneath them. It makes my chest warm in this familiar way, like when you spot a face you don’t just recognize, but have started to know well.

“Are you meeting your brothers?” I ask him.

Milo shifts himself off and falls into step with me, and I realize he was waiting so we could walk back together. I press down a smile, knowing he’ll say something to rebuff it if he sees.

“Eh, I think they’ve seen enough of me this evening,” says Milo.

I notice his eyes flit over to the Bagelopolis sign, unlit for the night now that it’s closed. We both hear a clang from the back that can only be someone taking out the garbage, and Milo picks up his pace enough that I have to go into overdrive on my short-person legs to keep up.

“What are they up to?” I ask.

“Oh, nothing new. Just another bimonthly attempt to get me and Harley to bury the hatchet.”

It’s as close as I’ve gotten to an invitation to butt into this situation, but I’m not sure whether I should take it. It’s not just me worrying about overstepping. Milo actually seems willing to talk about it. But judging from the look on his face, I’m not sure if he should.