Not that I ever stood a chance with Miles in the first place—because he’s five years older than me—and because he obviously only sees me as a little girl. The one he calls Button.
It looks like my birthday wish will never be granted.
26
Sutton
Except for thehot make out session in the Uber, in which an urge and need so visceral and strong took over me I practically mauled Miles, he has been the perfect gentleman tonight.
But that backseat episode played on repeat in my head throughout our date. And how hard he was for me had my panties wet the entire dinner.
Miles took me to a sushi restaurant—which he’d asked me earlier if I liked, and I said it was my favorite—where we gorged on roll after roll of the most delicious goodness I’d ever tasted. As a poor college student, I rarely get to eat the good stuff. I normally stop by my local bodega where Sam, the grocer, carries a cheap line of pre-made rolls in his refrigerated section. But tonight’s feast was five-star phenomenal.
Then we strolled hand-in-hand through the park, beneath a canopy of streetlights and stars and a softly lit backdrop, music spilling over us from musicians and buskers along the path. At one point, we stop by a guitarist, Miles pulling out a fifty-dollar-bill from his wallet, asking him to play my favorite song.
I scrunch my nose in question. “How do you know my favorite song?”
Miles smiles, giving me a knowing cocky grin. “I hear you singing it at the top of your lungs through the walls.”
My mouth drops open in alarm. If he could hear me singing, what else could he hear?
The guitarist plays the opening chords for “Treat You Better” by Shawn Mendes as Miles brings our clasped hands up to his chest, pulling me in close as we sway together to the slower version of the pop song.
If the night hadn’t already been fantastic and the most memorable date of my life, the swoony moves that Miles has in him cap it off perfectly.
As we dance together in the late summer evening, the sounds of the New York nightlife a distant buzz around us, my head and heart melt, as I remember my birthday wish from long before.
“Can I tell you something?” I ask him timidly, avoiding his gaze by keeping the side of my face smashed up against the rhythm of this heart.
“Of course. Hit me.”
My heart pounds out of my chest. “On my thirteenth birthday, I wished for this.”
His feet slow to the barest of movement, and he leans back to look down into my eyes. The midnight blue of his gaze is filled with genuine curiosity, along with a trace of humor.
“You wished for a dance in Central Park to a Shawn Mendes tune?”
I give him a look of annoyance. “No. I mean, I wished for you. For you to like me. To see me as someone other than the little Button you always saw me as. I wanted to be one of those girls you kissed back then.”
His expression turns serious, and we stop moving altogether, even though the musician still plays the song.
“Sutton, that’s adorable you thought of me like that. But I’m glad you weren’t one of those girls.” He lifts his hands, cupping my jaw in his warm palms. “Sadly, they meant nothing to me and most didn’t last longer than a week. I wasn’t a good guy back then.”
He snorts with self-deprecating humor. “I don’t know if I’ve changed all that much, but I know that if we’d been closer in age, and we had hooked up then, I probably wouldn’t have treated you any better. I was a kid on a mission that didn’t include loving or being loved.”
His thumb brushes over my cheek, barely a whisper. I crane my neck to look into his eyes.
“In truth, Button, I’m glad this thing between us is happening now and not then. I’m ready to treat you right. The way you deserve. Because now I’m able to see how special you really are.”
My knees go weak as he crashes his lips to mine, my hands threading through his hair, tugging him and begging him with my kisses to be closer.
The music stops at some point during our kiss, and the busker clears his throat.
“Do you want to hear another?” he asks, looking up from under the brim of his hat, a smirk etched across his mouth.
Miles looks to him and then back at me, his own sly grin sending shivers skittering down my back.
“Nah, man. I think we’ll call it a night.”
