WICKED BOY (Chapter Eight) (Patreon)

(A/N:  Hey guys!  DON'T KILL ME FOR WRITING IN THIS AGAIN SO FAST.  I swear I'm working on other stories too.

Sorry to tell you that we will revisit Milan's heartbreak for the umpteenth time.  It's not meant to bore anyone!  It's the center of his character, as he tends to blur his emotional shortcomings that are due to his abusive father with his romantic shortcomings.  What really brings him grief is the initial neglect from his father, but his insecurities manifest most strongly in his romantic relationships and his very long and severely-one-sided friendship with Lucas.  

Also, to explain the end of the chapter and why Milan even ends up asking Isaac to leave him at a Rest Stop in a bad part of a worse town -- 

Milan shows hints of having a need for adrenaline inducing activities (and a dominant male leading the way) whenever he's particularly stressed or trying to run from something (this is thanks to his rigid, methodical and neglectful upbringing.)  This is where his (not so great or healthy) relationship with Lucas stemmed.  This is ALSO what will make his relationship with (the very great, but extremely dominant and adrenaline-inducing) Ez so fun.  Stay tuned for the next chapter if you wanna see my first REAL bad boy.  Also stay tuned for a drunk Milan doing very stupid things.

Also, don't be surprised if I update again soon because FINALLY it's time for Ez and Milan to meet and greet and I am excited.)

--

Someone had looked at me the way that Ez did, but only once.  It didn't last long.

—

Once, after Lucas, I'd dated someone seriously — and twice, he'd worn my sweater.  He washed it, handled it with care, and wore it the day he dumped me.

"I've always thought it was lucky," he told me, "... and I think, today, I finally realized it isn't."

Of course, the baby blue of it had made him look softer, hugged against his smooth skin, fit him more snugly than it had fit me — because he was just more everything than I.   Broader, calmer, and he was ultimately, more mature.  He'd stood in my doorway and frowned, long and deep because he wasn't an idiot.

Wasn't like me.

"I thought I could just... Have you this way — to ease whatever loneliness I had, maybe chase away your anxieties — but I'm tired of not knowing where I stand.  I just wanted to know what you want from me.  That would've been fair."  He had been blunt, closed his eyes for a moment before he continued, like it was hard to look at me, "I think it's also fair — that I've found someone else.  I think it's fair that they've warmed my bed for several of the nights that you refused even to kiss me.  I think it's fair to let you know that this is over."

My eyes stayed trained on the baby blue stitching that curled over his shoulder, even when I gave a weary nod to his confession.  I had very few fragments of my heart to give to Clark but felt them tremble with betrayal. 

But I didn't blame him.

My sweater had become his, the second time we met.  My heart never did.  Maybe, for someone else, it would've been love, but I let it slip.

—

Two years ago

Clark Azarola was the son of one of my dad's investors, sauntered in behind him on a Wednesday brunch while on vacation, aloof and uncharming.

He barely picked his eyes from the glass table; strong arms shrugged across it as we waited for our food. I was uncomfortable already, for our parents were in complete dedication to their silent stand-off with the laminated menus, my mom already harassing the waitress for a mimosa.

He stayed silent through it all, watched the rain against the window, eyes tracking each droplet that slid off of its edge.  His mother spoke in Spanish whisperings to his father, who remained with his perpetual smirk — eyes chasing breakfast options.

There was something sad about Clark, something distant.  His shoulders were broad and sunken like they were tired of carrying a weight.  I wanted to tuck my hand behind his ironed collar and loosen its top button, let him breathe, make him smile. 

Something about him felt like watching a mirror. More definite, darker, but a mirror. His eyes slid to me once, calculating and steady, and then back to the rain.

We waited for their colleagues in relative silence, our fathers exchanging statistics about nothing I knew of, mom throwing an odd compliment in over Clark's mother's heavy necklace.

— and then, the country club showed up, old, bald, white men with trimmed mustaches and tired eyes.

It was strange to watch Clark's forlorn demeanor shift entirely when his father's friends settled into their seats.  His back straightened, made him look more imposing — his teeth cutting with a sharp smile, hand out to dominate each of theirs in a firm shake.

I could see the smug look of his father, menu atop his crossed legs, his steady scrutiny of me and my apparent fragility  — and the satisfaction of Clark's mother, who twisted her pearl earrings as she watched him speak.

I felt panicked and unsure of when to introduce myself, my dad barely sparing an introduction, one of his disappointed glares sending my heart fluttering anxiously from my peripherals.

"Ah, and this is my new friend, Milan Minett," Clark had said, lead each of the financial vultures straight into my shaky grip, fingers feeling frail beneath theirs. "who I was lucky enough to finally meet today even though he's utterly exhausted from his plane ride."

"You can call me Milo." I smiled at them as they nodded. I sent him a quick look of quiet thanks, watched as something seemed to spark in his dark eyes. I wondered how he even remembered my name.

"How was Manhattan, sir?" He went on to the man next to him, but his gaze lingered a second too long on me, a swipe from my short tousled hair to the bottom of my sweater.

I flushed, new to any sort of attention, looked forward again with earnest, like I was just as interested to hear all about the stuffy middle-aged men who would talk disparagingly about their families, and highly of their work and play. Clark had perfected his false grin, had perfected when to cut in with a warm laugh.

I felt a weight lift from my chest and wondered if he had redirected their attention on purpose — even subconsciously, and had myself pinching my cheek in punishment for such a strange thought.

Clark glanced back at me every so often as we talked, waiting for opportunities to add me into the conversation, and I took them as they came.  I sent him more looks of thanks, smiled at him more brightly, and by the end, my father looked pleased.

"Thank you, for —" I had begun, quietly, when we were close enough to exchange words privately.  But Clark slank back into himself as the waitress cleared our table, shoved his hands into his pockets when it was just the four of us left, didn't seem too privy on acknowledging my gratitude.

"What an impressive son you have,"  My father had grinned, slapped a palm onto the dark-haired man's shoulder,   "Going to be a fine and steady set of footprints following your after parents." 

I didn't watch his parents at all, just watched him falsely preen under the compliment and furrowed my brows. He didn't say goodbye.

—

Mom was tipsy by noon, and in bed by three, so I had joined her in the hotel room. She had always been the type to fuel her social skills with a shot too many, and it crept up on her in the form of exhaustion. I fell asleep with her, watching old sitcoms with a pile of stolen airport peanuts between us.

The exhaustion from traveling must have set in, and I slept too much during the afternoon it had seemed, so when I woke at midnight to an empty room, I couldn't sleep again.

I tried the café down the stairs for some coffee to make it till our morning conference call, stood in front of the neon Bub's Midnight Call, and had been surprised to see Clark when I turned from the register.  So surprised, and so close to him that I'd managed to spill coffee down his shirt, fresh and hot, a hiss traveling from his mouth as he stepped backward quickly.

"Ah, no, I didn't mean to do that," I had scrambled, pushed a pile of napkins against his chest at the same time as he tried to pull the tightly buttoned dress shirt from his damp skin, "I really didn't. I just woke up, and I was just thinking about coffee, should have put a lid on it —" I set my empty cup down, had pulled my sweater off my raggedy Lunch Club t-shirt hidden underneath before I thought better of it, glasses slipping from my face and hitting the ground with the removal,   "Jesus." I mumbled, distraught, and hot faced.

"Here." I handed him the downy blue sweater without thinking, before I had ever even looked at his face, before I could read his irritation, before he responded to the coffee spill at all.

Why?

I picked my glasses from the floor with shaking hands, pushed them up onto my nose.  As I stood, our eyes locked.  He took the sweater numbly, quietly, eyes red-rimmed from above me. My brows furrowed again, and his did too.

"I'm Clark."  He didn't send me one of his sharp smiles, just offered to buy my coffee, and came back from the café restroom wearing my sweater.

—

I don't leave Huxley. 

I drink my coffee in the diner without disturbance, night after night, and listen to Daphne gossip on her breaks.  She always smells the same, like cigarettes and spearmint, and her lips are always a new color.  I usually leave my phone off when she speaks with me— and take a key to the same room without any intention of stopping, or of going home.

Ez doesn't revisit the diner, so whatever nervous energy his stare had caused, subsides...

And regardless, despite Daphne's warning —

He couldn't possibly eat me up. 

I've already been chewed up, spit out, many more times than I would've liked to have been — and Clark was a convenient memory to spring forth and remind me of that.

It was simple. 

Sometimes, people give someone a look.  A hungry look.  Then, eventually, sometimes — those same people date.  Then, that initial hunger subsides, and the hungry grow tired of their snack.

Those snacks are usually people like me: aren't enough, or too much, or aren't as great as they seem to be.  Those snacks meet someone like — like Clark, who found someone tastier while we were still together.  Whatever.  Ouch, sure, but... Whatever.

I'm too drunk for analogies.

It didn't bother me much, because fickle Clark's blue sweater didn't fill my dreams, that night, or any night, and especially not now.  Just like fickle men like Ez wouldn't — couldn't.

Lucas did.  Lucas, apparently, still does.  No matter that it had been years since I'd dreamt of Lucas and his bright, offset smile...

Because, in a small, humid room at The Rest Stop, on my seventh night — I wake from a drunken dream of his eyes with a hard blink and a sinking feeling in my gut.

It's the first time I've dreamt of him in so long, that it has my stomach curled into tight knots.  It's more than just a simple fluttering of butterflies. Between that and the remnants of alcohol, it's almost sickening, and I shift my head into my palms, curl against the comforter. I can barely see without my glasses — and want to stay that way for just a bit more.

Instead, I'm jolted into full awareness by the honking of a car horn.  There are jeers from outside, loud laughing — a motorcycle engine turning over and revving to life. 

This happens every night.  I shouldn't be surprised.  Ez doesn't show up at the diner, no, but he does frequent the parking lot in front of the hotel rooms with his buddies — The Goules.

Great.  Just great.

My heart is never going to mend, I think, and I can't even fucking sleep it off miles from where it was broken. 

Why am I even still here?

Thanks to the ache in the bottom of my belly and the wild nerves in my throat — I realize that I'm back at the first step. I'm revisiting heartbreak; I'm revisiting every moment I thought I had swept away.

Oh, that's why.

There's still a buzz of Daphne's cheap alcohol in my system.  Tears are warm and dip into the creases of my fingers. A car horn blasts, again, three times in succession. 

I reach for my phone, the light of it flickering dully under the breach of neon rays from the peek of the motel window's curtain. Everything is pale yellow, red, a contrast against the blue backlight of my screen. Engine lights flicker on and off, bright and stringent, then gone again.  My eyes are sore—my head throbs.  I feel like I haven't slept at all.

And my phone is dying. 

3:48 am

There are seven missed calls from Isaac, three texts from Isaac, and one voicemail of my mother's drunken laughter. 

There's nothing from my dad.

And I'm sleeping in Daphne's brother's clothes, of all things.  I push my fist against my pillow, rolling onto my side and pulling the blanket over my face.

"Fuck off, man!  Pass it, pass it!"

"Wooo!"

I drank too much last night — just like the past six nights, alone, curled on the bathroom's linoleum. My head throbs from lack of sleep, from sadness and the aftereffects of alcohol.  And all the idiot men shouting outside.  I pull myself up, hands shaking from the thought of just telling them to shut up.

I squint.

There's nothing in my life that feels bright.  Maybe — maybe that's why I'm considering something — doing something so reckless.

What are you doing, Milan?

I press my nose into my curled knees — heaving out a head-fuddling sigh.  It's been over a week since my run-in with Lucas at the McLaughlin Co.  A week since Isaac dropped me off at The Rest Stop.

I tell myself it's okay — because my heart is still sore, hasn't mended quite right, and I've finally faced that it probably never will.  My dad would've never loved me quite right.  Neither would've Clark.  And Lucas would have always been a thrum in the back of my mind, the daydream, the first love that never came to fruition. But he would've been just that.  But he hates me.

Now it's so much worse.

I just want to fucking sleep.

There's another hoot.

Another call of,

"Ez' pass me another, you fuckin' prick!"

I pull myself, shakily, from my sheets.

—

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[End A/N:  Basically, if this chapter had a title, it would be 'Please Do Not Underestimate Hot Goules, Drunk Milan.']