Page 56 of Topped

If only he’d let me in.

He swallowed, visibly straining to straighten his face, to pretend everything was fine.

And then he burst into tears.

Chapter Twenty

Rupert

I was bloody sick of crying!

The stinging eyes, the snotty nose, not to mention the wobbling lip and little hiccups. And while I knew it was my poor, overwhelmed nervous system’s response to stress, it was annoying, disgusting, and getting on my last nerve.

Could it not have picked a better reaction? Or not had one at all?

My fingers had found the back of Milo’s fleece, clutching the old pink and teal fabric like it was the last line of defence in the universe. My walls were broken, shattered on the ground around my feet, and I had nothing left to give. Or hide.

There was a small part of me that wanted to lash out, to keep pushing Milo until his stubbornness had worn away and he left. Then I’d have more proof that I destroyed everything good around me. That I was undeserving of anything remotely like love.

But I was too exhausted to keep fighting him.

For the first time, someone had seen flashes of the worst parts of me and instead of running, had cradled me in his hands like I was precious and sweet. Milo saw my fears, my temper, my irrational worries, and my pain, and embraced them. Because he knew what it was like to be too much.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” I whispered, burying my face into his shoulder so he couldn’t see me as I repeated the words on a loop like a stuck record.

“Hey, it’s okay,” he said, wrapping his arms around me and squeezing so tightly it made something in my spine pop awkwardly. “Oh shit, sorry. Was that your back?”

“Yes, it’s fine though. Felt nice, actually.” I probably needed to go and see an osteopath at some point, or maybe get a sports massage, but it had gone on my long list of things to sort, which meant I likely wouldn’t get around to it until next year.

“Okay, good. The last thing I’d want is to fuck up your back,” Milo said, and I chuckled because he sounded so serious about it. Maybe that was the point—a simple distraction to draw me out of my head.

“It can match the rest of me then.”

“You’re not fucked up, sweetheart. You’re tired, you’re overstimulated, you’re hungry, and you’re scared of rejection—none of those are fuckups and they’re all fixable.”

“Are they?”

“Yeah, of course.” He kissed the side of my head. “Some of them might take a bit more time than others, but that’s fine. We’re not on a deadline.”

“Thank you,” I said, straightening myself up and wiping my face awkwardly with the cuffs of my jumper before digging in my pocket for a glasses cloth. The lenses were smeared from my tears, and whatever else had built-up on them throughout the day.

“For what?” Milo asked as I began to clean my glasses, using a nearby streetlight to see whether I’d made them better or worse.

“For all of this. For putting up with me when I…” I gestured vaguely with my hands. A sense of deep embarrassment was creeping in around the edges of my consciousness, prickling my skin and making my heart rate kick up like I was being hunted by hungry velociraptors.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “Seriously, it’s fine. We all have shit days and you’re under a lot of stress. Plus, you’re in a new relationship and you’re worried I’m going to suddenly wake up one morning, decide you’re a terrible, horrible person and disappear on you. Which, I’m not, by the way. Remember all the mean, petty, spiteful shit we did to each other over the summer? That didn’t put me off, did it? I still wanna shag you, and I think you’re cute as fuck. Nothing’s going to change that.”

“I suppose,” I said slowly, sliding my glasses back onto my face. “I guess… I got so fixated on the fact you might think I’m too much, and the fact we hadn’t really talked about the summer, I never considered that maybe you’d already seen the worst parts of me and didn’t care.”

“I mean, honestly? Sometimes it’s kinda hot when you’re petty, bossy, and snarky.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah.” Milo smiled sheepishly, shoving his hands in his fleece pocket and fidgeting on the spot. “You don’t have to hide that part of yourself around me. If it’s too much, we can talk about it, but sometimes it’s hot when we’re all…”

I stared at him, the cogs in my brain whirring. “Are you seriously telling me that you found pissing me off all summer a turn-on?”

“No! Not all of it! I thought you were a petty, prissy bastard, but I still kinda liked it. You intrigued me.”