What It Takes by Jude Sierra Read Free Book Online Page B

kissed him back before he pulled away. What was that about?
    S o but seriously, Andrew finally types, we should talk about this.
    He’s met with silence, which is torture.
    At least to agree to never speak of it again, if that’s what’s best.
    Still nothing.
    Please promise we’re okay, or that we can be?
    Andrew’s stomach tightens as the silence plays out. He pulls his covers over his head, lays the silent phone on the pillow next to his head. The little cocoon he’s made is sweltering and suffocating. When the phone finally chimes, he flips the covers off and gasps in cold air.
    Sorry, Dad got up, room checked. I had to pretend to be asleep.
    Everything okay? Andrew asks.
    Yeah, he thought I was up. I should be careful though.
    Andrew tries to formulate another text, fishing for an out or an okay. Milo texts again before he can.
    Listen. We’re still best friends, nothing will change that.
    Oh thank god. His relief is huge, exhaled in one gust, leaving him limp. Go to sleep, don’t get in trouble. I’ll see you tomorrow?
    Absolutely. Wanna meet at the fort after breakfast? Ten?
    Andrew sighs. Milo it’s Saturday, that’s torture.
    You’ll survive. Plus Ted wants to have that movie/game marathon later, so we should hang out before that.
    Oh crap, I forgot, Andrew texts. He’s getting sleepy. Now that he has Milo’s assurance that everything will be fine, all the adrenaline has seeped away, leaving him a wrung out mess. All right, ten it is. Bring food, I’ll bring drinks.
    Aye aye cap’n.
    °
    Phone still in hand, Milo wakes up at six from a deep, dreamless sleep, he’d fallen into like a stone. He surfaces grateful for the calm, forgetful dark of such rest.
    Milo untwists his shirt from his torso, kicks off his too hot covers, then plugs his phone in. When the text screen pops up with the history of their texts from the night before, he groans. What’s he going to do? What is he going to say? He needs to find a way to assure Andrew—who is probably freaking the fuck out—while finding a way to navigate this situation. He doesn’t want to think of it as letting him down gently, but the truth is that’s what it amounts to. Assuming Andrew wants—well, he shouldn’t assume that. He can’t assume anything, other than that it happened and it seems neither of them saw it coming.
    “Milo, you’d better be up,” his father’s voice comes through the door, making Milo jolt. He looks at the clock: six-thirty. Fuck, he’s running late.
    “I am; I’m almost ready,” he calls. His swim bag is already packed, so all he has to do is throw on the loose basketball shorts and a gray T-shirt he set out the night before.
    His mother has breakfast out for them, complete with fresh-squeezed orange juice. She’ll have been up for a while now, because his father expects the usual picture-perfect breakfast. The juice is what kills Milo. He’s tried telling her he doesn’t care where it comes from, that he’d rather she have some minutes to herself.
    “I don’t mind, honey,” she always assures him. “I like taking care of my men.”
    Milo hates being put in the same category as his father and hopes she knows that he’s a different person, that he’ll never be the man his father is. But he understands—in this house, only one energy, one presence, one person orders their lives. She might as well be blind to Milo most days. He understands the nature of survival, the single-minded faith and grit it takes to keep moving each day. Compassion for her grows from the knowledge that there’s an end date for his sentence, whereas hers bears no such promise.
    College. Two years and he’ll be off and away, and she never will, not as long as she won’t leave his father. And Shelby Graham will never leave. His father has trained her so well to think she can’t survive without him. She’s said it gently and indirectly so often: “I have no skills but taking care of my boys. It’s where I do my best.” The words