Out of Character by Annabeth Albert

Chapter Thirteen

Jasper

One moment I was cold and excited and ogling a rare Odyssey card, and the next I was kissing Milo. And still excited and not cold at all, and hell, was that a priceless card I was holding? Thank God for decorative display cases because I would have crushed unsleeved cardboard.

Because.

Kissing.

Milo.

Right that second, his lips glancing across mine in a sweet, almost hesitant kiss. Anyone less strung out on adrenaline would have had the good sense to pull away. But all I seemed capable of doing was sighing and leaning in closer, all that delicious energy from winning surging inside me. My little noise must have seemed like encouragement to Milo because he repeated the gesture, lips lingering, less sweetness and more hunger.

That hunger blocked all my usual bad-idea sensors and replaced my inner warning system with an elevated awareness of Milo’s every atom. The softness of his lips. The faint brush of his stubble. His rapid breathing. His big hand connecting with my shoulder. But not to push me away. No, he hauled me even closer, my thigh getting up close and personal with the console. And not even the possibility of bruising was enough to slow me down.

I. Was. Kissing. Milo.

At fourteen, I’d dreamed of this nightly, a tightly held secret yearning, never uttered aloud to a single soul. And I’d had a million daring ideas for how to plant one on him, all of which faded come morning, stark reality keeping me quiet. He’d been my best friend, and that had been enough right up until he wasn’t. Never once had I considered that he might kiss me.

Further, he wasn’t anything like Dream Milo. Dream Milo was smooth. Practiced. In charge. Effortlessly talented at kissing. This Milo was…tentative. A little awkward, which was usually my forte. However, I’d kissed enough actual people since those dreams of Milo to know where noses went and how to manage the art of both kissing and breathing at the same time.

Mixing light, fluttery kisses with harder presses, Milo seemed to be still figuring out everything from the right amount of pressure to the position of his face. And his fumbling should have been a turnoff, should have made me laugh at the least. Because Milo Lionetti being bad at kissing? No one would believe me.

And yet there I was, still kissing him back, actively enjoying the process of stumbling our way from eager-but-bad to better to starving-for-more to brilliant bursts of pleasure radiating with each pass of our lips. And somewhere in the middle of my neurons having a fireworks show, Milo gasped again. Him forgetting to breathe was one the sexiest things I’d ever seen, and I couldn’t resist taking advantage of his parted lips to deepen the kiss. Our tongues met, making a fresh round of sparks explode behind my eyes, and—

Honk.Somewhere deeper in the parking garage a car honked and we flew apart. I looked around, but our windows were all foggy and I couldn’t see anything.

“What the heck?” Milo looked like a beautiful wreck, bright-eyed, lips swollen, cheeks flushed. But his hotness transformed into horror, pink cheeks going pale and tone shifting from husky to indignant.

“You. Kissed. Me.” No way was I letting him pin this on me. Sure, I’d kissed back, rather enthusiastically, but he’d made that first move.

“I know. I shouldn’t have done that.” Groaning, Milo rested his head on the steering wheel. “God. We have to get out of here.”

I could already tell it was going to be a long, cold drive back home. “You can’t leave me on the side of the road.”

“What?” Milo blinked at me as he started up the car. “Why would I do that?”

“Uh, maybe because you’re freaking out?”

“Well, yeah. Obviously.” His gaze kept shifting around, like he was afraid to look directly at me for more than a second.

“Obviously. Look, I’m sorry if your little experiment didn’t go like you planned, but you don’t get to blame me.”

“It wasn’t an experiment.” Making a face, Milo gestured at the still foggy windshield. “Come. On. Stupid heater. The one thing that I don’t like about this car.”

“The hell it wasn’t an experiment.” Now I was mad. And I didn’t get mad very often, but I’d had about an eight-year running start on this head of steam. “Look at you right now, desperate to get away from the fact that you kissed me. And I could tell it wasn’t something you do on the regular. You haven’t kissed a guy before, have you?”

“You could tell?” Milo made a horrified noise that would have been adorable under other circumstances. “It was bad?”

No, actually it was stupendous, gloriously good. But I wasn’t admitting that. “The fact that you don’t know whether it was good or bad is more proof that this was some sort of walk on the wild side—”

“Stop saying that.” Milo punctuated his demand by finally putting the car in gear and heading to the exit.

“Oh. I’m sorry. You just happened to collide mouths with the guy you couldn’t stand until a few days ago. Yep. Totally normal everyday occurrence. Dude bros do that all the time, right?”

“Would you stop?” Milo braked harder than necessary at the bottom of the parking-garage ramp.

“Watch it.” I almost lost my grip on the card display case. Turning, I gently transferred it to the back before something could happen to it—like me losing all patience and launching it at Milo’s head. Which would be ill-advised and totally unlike me, but I wasn’t exactly feeling the most composed right then. Better not risk it.

Milo glared at me as soon as I settled back into my seat. “I never said I couldn’t stand you. You’re the one who hates me—with good reason.”

“Oh? You did a really good impression of it for years.” I still wasn’t over high school. Earlier in the day, I’d thought some of my hurt was mellowing, but now the kiss had brought everything I’d tried to ignore right back to the surface.

“I know. I fucked up. Both back then and again right now. I gave you a bad kiss you didn’t want in the middle of a parking garage where anyone could have seen us.” Milo made the turn out of the parking garage to head for the interstate. His tone was as mournful as his eyes. “I get why you’re so angry at me. I do. But you’ve also got it all wrong.”

I was willing to admit that I was being a little bit of a jerk, jumping to conclusions based on a mutual past I’d rather forget. And almost all of my jerky behavior had to do with how damn good that kiss had actually been and how quick Milo had been to regret it. “Educate me.”

“I probably deserve the dude-bro crack, but I’m not…experimenting. Or straight.” Milo’s voice was far softer now. “Trust me. I’ve spent years wishing…”

“Oh?” Planets shifted, realigned, fundamental truths of my universe rearranging themselves within that one syllable.

“I’m not brave like you, okay? I mean, that was probably clear in the whole terrible-at-kissing thing. But that doesn’t mean I’m confused.”

“It wasn’t that terrible of a kiss,” I allowed, some of my anger giving way to massive befuddlement. Hurt was there, too, but I was trying to ignore that ache behind my sternum for the moment. “But seriously? You’ve never kissed…anyone?”

“A couple of pecks with dates I got talked into. I have…something of a rep.” Milo quirked his lips as we hit another red light, his braking more controlled now. “Like as the nicest guy among my friend group—”

“Not a high bar,” I grumbled.

“Granted. But I ended up hanging out with several girls who didn’t want to go there for a variety of reasons. And then I got the rep for being a great just-friends date for formals and stuff. My buddies would tease me about spending life in the friend zone with these unattainable crushes. But that was easier than admitting the truth.”

“Which is?” I wasn’t trying to be mean and make him say the words. I was genuinely curious as to how he might put it.

“I…like…guys.” Each word seemed pried loose from Milo’s soul. I had a strong feeling he hadn’t said this aloud before. But he could have. He could have told me.

And that hurt I was trying not to feel bloomed fresh and raw in my chest, tinging my voice. “But…you knew about me. You were one of the first people I came out to. Did you know back then?”

“Sort of. I wasn’t, like, positive.” Milo was clearly hedging, and his gaze was firmly fixed on the on-ramp to the highway. “Everyone kept saying how some guys were late bloomers, and I kept thinking my attraction to girls simply hadn’t arrived yet.”

“Sexuality isn’t something you order up on demand like the latest movie.”

“I get that. Thanks.” Milo accelerated and completed merging before he continued, voice somewhere between exasperated and apologetic. “Not all of us have it together as much as you did back then. Or even now. And anyway, yeah. I kinda knew…something.”

“You could have told me! We could have gone to the school club together.” A vision of an alternate past danced in my brain, one where I could have kept my best friend, had him right there with me.

“No, we couldn’t have.”

Poof.My daydream evaporated under the weight of what had actually happened, who Milo really was.

“Of course not. You had the soccer team and—”

“The team being all over anyone who was…different was part of it. Not gonna lie. I was scared shitless simply from their teasing about you, and most of that had to do with how smart you were. I couldn’t stand the idea of them rejecting me next.”

“So, your fear of being bullied turned you into a bully?”

“I didn’t say I was proud of it, okay?” Milo’s voice was strained, and his skin was mottled, a weird mix of too pale and flushed. If we were ten again, I’d swear he was on the verge of tears. “But it wasn’t only the team and fear of being teased.”

“Oh?”

“It was my dad. All right?” Milo’s tone was defensive, but his words poked me like a spear nonetheless.

“I should have known.” And maybe I had, the way he’d always been so nervous around his dad and the way he’d been so crushed that his parents had heard I was gay.

“That night…after you and I argued, and I was a dumbass and let you walk away, I kind of mentioned at dinner that we’d fought. Not about what. But that we weren’t friends anymore. And Dad… He got this hard look. Like mean. And he said, ‘Good.’ And I knew right then that I couldn’t be gay.”

“But you were.”

“Yeah. And you were my best friend. But he was my dad.”

“I get it. I mean, you could have told me. But I see why you thought you couldn’t.” I didn’t like it, but I did see how messed-up fourteen-year-old Milo could make that calculation. After all, we were riding in a monument to Milo’s complicated relationship with his dad. He’d loved Milo. And he’d also been toxic as hell. Both things could be true, but I wasn’t sure whether Milo had fully arrived at that conclusion yet. “And you never told? Anyone?”

“Not really. Kissing newbie, remember?”

I wasn’t likely to ever forget being Milo Lionetti’s first real kiss, but I nodded. “I’m not an expert, but I hear plenty of closeted guys get it on, especially with each other. But I’m guessing you don’t make a habit of hookups.”

“I don’t. I mean…I guess I could have. There have been moments…chances here and there. But…it never felt right. Felt wrong.”

“Because it’s a sin in your mind?” I was so not up for a morality debate.

“No. Like, maybe at one time, but not now. But it’s more because of what you said. I was a bully to avoid getting bullied myself. I never joined in with the cracks in the locker room, but silence is no excuse. I knew what I was doing, staying with that crowd, watching them hassle the honor-roll crowd. I was a coward, and I’d chosen what felt like the easiest path. Figured my dad was less likely to find out if I stuck to the jock crowd, but it seemed like I’d be the worst kind of hypocrite to be messing around on the down low.”

Milo having a weird sort of conscience was somehow fitting. I still didn’t like what he’d done, but knowing he’d been so hard on himself did somewhat soften my tone. “That doesn’t stop a lot of people.”

“Maybe not. But I was already a shitty enough human, you know?”

“Maybe you had reason to be shitty,” I allowed. “I mean, sure, you didn’t have to let your friends be assholes, but I kind of see why you couldn’t come out. You couldn’t risk being thrown out of the house. I’m not going to pretend that I know what I would have done in your shoes. I had it easy.”

Unlike Milo, there really hadn’t been any drama. Long before I got up the courage to tell Milo freshman year and to go to the high school club, my mom had guessed. My parents had a huge social circle and extended family. I’d known several same-sex couples growing up, and telling her the truth had been ridiculously easy compared to what some kids faced.

“Thanks.” Milo nodded sharply. “And I wouldn’t say you had it easy. You were so brave. You had all that teasing in school for being a nerd, and the people who could have stood up for you didn’t.”

“I had friends.” Not him, but I’d had plenty of others, both in high school and college. I’d never been truly alone, and it was starting to feel like maybe despite having the crowd of Neanderthals, Milo had been more alone than me.

“I’m glad.” Milo’s tone was pained, and I wasn’t sure whether it was from the conversation or the snow flurries hitting the highway with more regularity now. Crap. We were supposed to be on the cusp of spring, but Mother Nature hadn’t received the message yet. “I’m not trying to excuse what I did. And I’m still here, taking the least complicated path. Still with the shitty friend choices.”

“I can’t argue with that. You could always try something radical. Get new friends.”

“Working on it.” The look he shot me was so vulnerable that a tremble raced through me that had nothing to do with the weather outside and everything to do with Milo and the way he was steadily working his way past my mountain of grievances against him.

“You know, Kellan and the rest of our group didn’t hate your presence at our gig.” I wasn’t quite ready to offer up myself as a friend, but maybe if he saw that he had some options, he might further distance himself from his old crowd. “Just saying that you might not have to look far.”

“Playing Neptune isn’t the same as a cheap place to crash, but I get what you’re saying. Thanks.”

“And now your dad is gone.” I didn’t like pointing out the obvious, but it needed saying.

“Yeah, he is. And that’s part of what I get all…tangled up in. Like, I didn’t want him to die. At all. But…yeah. Anyway. He’s gone, and I’m pretty sure Mom knows.”

I made a startled noise. That, I hadn’t been expecting. Milo’s mom was a meek but nice woman who probably should have left his dad decades ago. My mom had said she seemed to be thriving now, on her own with a recent promotion at the college in the registrar’s office. Still, though, I had no clue how she’d take this news from Milo. “She knows?”

“Uh… I had to stay with her after my accident. And remember how I’m bad at search engines—”

“Wow.” I choked on some spit. “Your mom found your porn browser history? Rough.”

“Pretty much. I thought I’d cleared it, but then one day there was a sticky note from her on the monitor with instructions on how to actually erase the history. And she added a little line about loving me no matter what and being there if I need to talk.”

“That’s cool. But you haven’t taken her up on that?”

“I’m…not good at hard talk.”

“No kidding.” My own mom would have hounded me until I gave in and talked. But Milo’s family had never been as big on conversations, particularly embarrassing ones. Outside, the flurries were picking up, creating a fine white powder—still not sticking, but worrisome.

“I’m working up to talking. It’s not her I’m worried about as much as Bruno.”

“Ah. You think he might react worse to that news than the fact that you lost his ultra-rare cards?”

“Maybe. He could be like Mom and surprise me. Or he could be another Dad. And, dude…I can’t even tell you how much he’s done for me. I fucked up. Big time. And he was there for me.”

Milo could have maybe thought that through before he gambled Bruno’s cards, but I also didn’t want to kick him while he was already so down on himself.

“I get it. You’re nervous. Coming out is a big deal no matter how old you are. And it’s hard enough even when you have a good support system.” The words tasted bland, like I was a one-person welcoming committee for our campus LGBTQ+ organization and reading off a pamphlet. But maybe it worked on Milo because he exhaled hard.

“You’re right. And yours should have been better. Should have included your best friend. I’m sorry.”

As far as apologies went, this was far better than the weak-ass one he’d tried to hand me via text. “I’m not going to say I forgive you because…it’s still a lot. But I understand better now. Thanks for that.”

“I don’t expect you to forgive me. Which is why I shouldn’t have kissed you. That was why I freaked. Mainly.”

“So…to recap, you freaked because you thought I didn’t want it?” I replayed his reaction again in my head, seeing it in a far better light now.

“You’re the one who said it was bad!”

“I already said it wasn’t terrible. It was…good.” I tried to balance how much praise the guy needed to hear against my own losing efforts to protect my emotions.

“It was? Maybe—whoa.” Milo sounded hopeful right up until the car wobbled. Not a full-out skid, but suddenly getting home in one piece needed to take priority over wondering whether Milo had been about to ask for a repeat. And if he had asked, what would I have said? Monitoring the road conditions seemed like a far better use of my time than trying to sort out the avalanche Milo’s revelations had caused in my brain.