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Starlet: Everything okay?
Milo: Yeah. Tom just burst in. Kind of ruined the moment, huh?
Starlet: Haha. Only a little. It’s fine. I should be sleeping, anyway.
Damn.
Milo: Talk tomorrow?
Starlet: Of course. Good night.
I sighed and covered my face with a pillow to shout out all my frustrations.
Good night, Teach.
CHAPTER 21
Milo
“Who were you having phone sex with on Saturday?” Tom asked right away on Monday morning as we walked to our lockers.
I gave him a harsh, stern glare. “I thought we were never talking about that again.”
“Yeah, but if we were going to talk about it again… Who was on the other line?”
“I’m not doing this,” I told him as I approached my locker. I opened it and gathered my books as Tom leaned against the locker beside me.
“Is it one of the twins?” he questioned. “Or Claire? I heard she had the hots for you. Then again, who doesn’t have the hots for Milo Corti? The man, the myth, the legend.”
“It’s not the twins or Claire,” I grumbled.
“So it is someone. Who? Is it a junior? You dog, I bet it’s a junior.”
“It’s nobody,” I said, shutting my locker.
He pushed himself from the locker and slammed his hands to his chest. “It’s not my mom, is it? ’Cause if you’re screwing my mom, Mi-Mi, we might have some friendship issues.”
I let a small laugh slip out and shook my head. “You have too much energy for a Monday morning.”
“Not as much energy as you had Saturday night. By the way… Do you eat a lot of protein or something? Spinach? What’s your workout routine? Because that was quite the—”
I shot my stare at Tom. “T?”
“Yes?”
“We aren’t talking about the size of my dick at seven in the morning on a Monday.”
He tossed his hands up in surrender. “Okay. Fair, fair. I’ll ask you about it on a Thursday afternoon if that’s better for you. I tend to like to talk about my dick closer to the weekend, too.”
“Or we could never talk about it. Ever.”
“Yeah, or never. That’s cool. All I’m saying is I understand why the girls always talk about you. If I had what you had, I’d be a manwhore, too.”
“I’m not a manwhore anymore.”
Tom got a goofy smile on his face. “Because of her?”
I rolled my eyes and walked off to the principal’s office to see Weston for our morning meeting. I didn’t reply to Tom, but I knew the answer.
Yes, Tom.
It was because of her.
I sat across from Weston’s desk, slumped in a much comfier chair than before. The space looked renewed, with new furniture and sparkling hardwood floors. There was even an air freshener spitting out a scent every thirty seconds, taking away from Weston’s protein smells.
Not so bad, Unc.
“How are you doing today, Milo?” he asked me as he removed his glasses. He leaned back in his chair and smiled brightly.
“I’ve been worse.”
“That’s true. I’ve checked in with all your teachers. It seems you’re passing all your classes, which is remarkable. Having Ms. Evans as your tutor seems to work in your favor.”
“She’s good at what she does.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Did you just compliment a person? I haven’t heard you do that in a long time.”
“What can I say? I’m a nice guy,” I dryly replied. I was tired. I stayed up way too late studying for the damn math exam I had later that day.
Weston smiled Mom’s smile, and I felt it in my chest. Lately, I have been doing okay. I didn’t think about death as much as I thought about the living, and a part of me felt guilty about that. I wouldn’t say I was recovering from Mom’s tragedy, but the grief grew quieter. Was that what grief was supposed to do? Or was it supposed to stay at the forefront of my mind to remind me how much I loved the person who’d left?
Shit.
I was thinking about death again.
“She’d be proud of you,” Weston stated. I guessed he was thinking about the dead, too.
I shrugged, not certain what to say.
“How’s your dad?” he asked me. “I stopped by with my spare key and stocked up your fridge the other day. He wasn’t home.”
And there I was, thinking my father had finally made it to the grocery store. How sweet and naive of me.
“How is he?” Weston repeated.
That was a weighted question. I knew if I told him the truth, Weston would worry. I knew Weston would know I was lying if I told him a lie—a lose-lose situation. So I went with the truth.
“He’s worse than me,” I confessed. “And I don’t think he’s getting any better.”
Weston rubbed the back of his neck. “Healing doesn’t have a timeline.”
“So what? He might stay like this forever?”
“I hope not. I truly hope not. But maybe he just needs something that might shake him out of his depression.”
