A few weeks. Since the conversation on the kitchen floor. At least I knew roughly when that was, even if I wouldn’t know the exact date that we got together. It was nice to hear that, in his mind, that was the day our relationship shifted to something official. Or maybe he was just saying that to fill in the blanks Jonesy and Liam would surely point out.
Liam and Jonesy asked a few more questions about our relationship, but they seemed calm about it. They settled on the couch, and once Rowan finished prepping the dish he was working on, we all sat together, watched a movie, and ate Chinese food. I was going to miss Rowan when he was in Missoula, but at least I would have a good night before he left.
15
Notes
Okay, I have to tell someone about this, and I feel like you would all appreciate it. Remember how I said insurance money had finally gotten approved? It came in, and I decided to go look at a replacement car. You would NOT believe who was there. So, I’ll tell you. Liam Lowe. The REAL Liam Lowe. He was looking for a new car, and I was looking for a new car. I got to chat with him for a few minutes, and guys, he’s way hotter in real life. I was dying on the inside, but I kept my cool. I did.
I also went home and wrote a fun little fic about him fucking Jonesy in a new car, but that’s neither here nor there. You’re not here for that anyway. You’re here for Rowan and Milo. So yeah, without further delay: more of their shenanigans!
Rowan
Our game against the Missoula Hawks did not go well.
It started on the plane to Missouri. It was quiet without Milo bouncing around, chatting to everyone while the plane was in the sky and buckling into the seat closest to him when theFasten Seatbeltlight came on. The energy was wrong without him. His absence was only felt by me in the hotel, maybe by Jonesy and Liam. They showed up at my door to drag me out to dinner with them the night before the game. Milo would have been amused at the way they peppered me with questions throughout dinner:
“Are you and Milo serious?”
“What are your intentions with Milo?”
“You know you can tell Coach Cal about you two, right? Then you don’t have to sneak into his hotel room at night.”
“Is it love?”
I didn’t have a lot of the answers they were looking for, besides the fact that I liked Milo, and we would eventually tell Coach Cal about the two of us. Hopefully not untilafterTroy negotiated me into a longer-term deal with the team.
Milo’s absence was really felt in the locker room. It was too quiet, too passive. I’d played eleven games with the Scorpions, plus the one preseason game, and they all had one thing in common: Milo spent the entire time in the locker room attempting to hype everyone up. He went around talking andsinging the fight song, loudly and off-key. He targeted people that looked nervous and gave them little pep talks. He bounced around like a kid hyped up on too many pixie stix. Without him there, the team lacked the normal pregame energy.
When we funneled out of the tunnel and onto the field, there was less pep in our step.
Even Liam’s pregame pep talk seemed to lack some of its usual vim and vigor without Milo there. I’d never noticed how much energy he gave to the team until it was missing.
We put up a good fight against the Missoula Hawks, but it wasn’t enough. We took another loss, and afterward, I went back to my hotel room. For the first time ever, I wished the ALF hadn’t changed its travel policy. I wished we still flew back after games the way we once did, because then I wouldn’t have to wallow in my room about the loss alone. I wouldn’t have to deal with the smug text from Milo about how this loss further proved his theory, either.
When we got home the next day, I dropped my suitcase off at my condo and went straight back to Milo’s, letting myself in with the spare key he’d given me.
When I walked in, I saw the scooter by the couch. I did not see Milo. If Milo’s scooter was by the couch, he should have been on the couch. He wasn’t supposed to be putting any pressure on his knee, and he knew this. I’d gone over all the doctor’s instructions when we’d gotten home the night he got injured, and I’d made sure he understood them. We’d gone over them several times, and he knew that putting weight on his knee could make the injury worse.
“Milo?” I called out, spinning around in a circle like I’d find him lurking behind the couch or on one of the bar stools. He was not. “Milo? Are you—Where are you?”
A ball of panic began to form in my chest. Where was he? Had he fallen? Had he gotten hurt? Surely if he’d gotten hurt and he had to go back into the hospital, someone would have called me—Milo or Ethel or even Ray. I’d made sure Ray had my phone number before I left, just in case.
The panic began to spread. My heart started to race in my chest, but it was silenced moments later when Milo hobbled out of the bedroom. He wasn’t on his crutches. He clearly wasn’t using his scooter. No, he was attempting to walk even though the doctors had told him not to do that. I rushed across the living room and hooked my arm around his waist. I guided him to the couch and slowly lowered him down onto it.
He pulled me down with him and curled up against my chest. All the frustration that had started to form when I saw him attempting to walk from the bedroom faded as I wrapped my arms around him.
A week later, that frustration had returned, and it had slowly started to grow.
It turned out that Milo was a terrible patient. The first week had given me a false sense of security. He’d mostly stayed in bed or on the couch. He used his knee scooter to get around the condo. With the exception of going to practice that first day, he stayed where he was supposed to.
The second week? Not so much.
I’d caught him up without his scooter several times when I came back from practice. When I’d come back from the last practice of the week, he wasn’t in the condo at all. His scooter was, but he wasn’t. He’d managed to make his way over to Ethel’s, and I found her fussing at him for not bringing his scooter or his crutches. He claimed his knee was doing better, but he was still hobbling around.
Keeping him in one place and getting him to use the scooter was like trying to herd cats.
Milo was in rare form the night before our game against the Wichita Tigers.
