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“I thought you said we were going to the restaurant?” I ask as Miles turns toward the suburbs.
We’re going to finish our date—the one Graham’s friends interrupted last time.
He smiles across at me. He’s wearing a dark green shirt, tight enough to show the body that will never stop igniting hunger in me. His hair is neatly combed, and his face is clean-shaven. Though he’s smiling, there’s something else in his expression, a dark quality I can’t quite identify. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he’s nervous, but we have no reason to be anymore.
“A little detour won’t hurt,” he says.
“You’re being very secretive.”
“Can’t a step-uncle surprise his niece once in a while?”
I laugh. That’s just one of the fantastic things that have happened since we got Mom’s blessing. We’re able to joke about the whole uncle-niece thing. It’s a way to disarm it, turn it from something big and imposing to a harmless byproduct of our love. Ourrelationship, I mentally correct.
“Fair enough, but isn’t a step-niece allowed to be curious?”
He reaches over and grazes my leg with his hand. I’m familiar with the fleeting, tingling contact. He touches me, pulling away quickly to stop himself from getting carried away. It’s just how we are in public, knowing that the heat will take over if we touch each other for too long. At home, all it takes is one of us to glide our hand in just the right way, and then we’re completely lost to each other, consumedbyeach other.
“So, how’s work?” I ask.
He seems relieved about the subject change, telling me about an apartment complex he’s currently working on.
“The city wants to cut corners,” he says, “but there will be hell to pay if they try that crap with me. There’s no reason low-income housing has to be something the residents are ashamed of.”
“You’re such a good person.”
He smirks. “Well, thanks.”
“No, I mean it. Why didn’t you tell me about your charity work before?”
He shrugs. “My old man taught us never to brag. I guess it stuck.”
“Are we going to Mom and Noah’s?” I ask as we drive down the same road which leads to their house.Theirhouse. I stopped thinking of it as mine the second I moved into the apartment with Miles.
“Not exactly,” he says.
We drive in the opposite direction from their house, down the long road leading to the four- and five-bedroom homes.
“Tess and I used to ride our bikes here as kids,” I tell him. “We’d invent stories about the people living in these houses, the amazing lives they must’ve had. Once, Tess wanted to sneak into one to see what it was like.”
“Did you?” he asks.
“No, I convinced her it was a bad idea. I told her that, one day, we could afford a place like this for ourselves.”
“You can afford anything you want now,” he says. “What’s mine is yours.”
“I still want to make my own way,” I tell him.
“You will, but with my support, you’ll never have to worry about derailing your dreams. You’ll have the freedom you deserve to follow your passion.”
“This isthehouse,” I say when he pulls up outside the largest in the area. “The one we were going to sneak into!”
It sits behind a redbrick wall, and a large metal gate closed across the entrance, with two ornate gargoyles seated on either side as though watching over the property.
“No sneaking required here.”
Miles drives right up to the gate, reaches out, and types a few numbers into the keypad.
