“What if everyone starts asking us questions when we go in together,” Miles asks. We’re outside of my apartment door but as I tried to open the door, he blocked it with his body. The muffled music coming from inside reverberates off the door as loud voices shout over it.
‘Do you really think we’re that important, Davis” I ask, raising an eyebrow. He shrugs. “Besides, it’s Kennedy’s Day, no one is going to care that we’re together.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t have stayed in the car for so long,” he looks back to the elevator and then to me. I don’t know why he’s acting so skittish, like we need to sneak around. I don’t hate it though. I liked the idea of us getting caught in the locker room or in the car.
“Don’t tell me you’re regretting it because just five minutes ago you said it was the best head of your life,” I whisper in his ear, standing on my tiptoes. He tenses beneath me and swallows hard as I open the door behind him.
As I expected, our apartment is full of drunk teenagers dressed in hilarious costumes. The balloon arch that took us all morning to fix has toppled over into a heap of popped balloons in the corner. People walk back and forth from the corridors to the living room where we tried to push back our furniture to make more room. I finally installed a lock on my bedroom door to avoid the odd partygoer landing in a drunken mess in my room. I’m trying my hardest to find it within myself to enjoy tonight and attempt to conquer my fear of parties. We decided to keep the party fairly small so our landlord doesn’t attack us and so we can actually fit people into the space.
Miles and I scan the area, trying to find a way to keep ourselves hidden until I’ve got into my costume. Yet Kennedy finds some way to stop us on our way to my room. When her eyes connect with mine across the corridor, she sprints up to us.
“Miles. Fancy seeing you here.’ Kennedy winks at him, dressed how she dresses every day in a blue denim dungarees and white tee. She said that she doesn’t need to dress up because she already knows she’ll be famous someday. Miles looks down to me and he blushes when his eyes connect with her wild ones.
“Happy birthday, Ken. I got you something,” he says, riffling through his pocket. He lets out a frustrated groan when he reaches into his wrong pocket and of course, a condom accidentally drops out.
“Oh, wow, Miles. For me? You shouldn’t have,” she teases as she picks it up from the ground. He snatches it back off her and shoves it back into his pocket, glaring at her.
“Ha-ha,” he retorts sarcastically before he pulls out her real gift. I watch from beside him as he rambles. “It’s a Canon gift voucher so you can get that endless film for your camera like you wished for. My sister is a filmmaker, so she got me a good deal. She added her number on the back if you ever want to-”
Before he can finish his sentence, she pulls him into a deep hug, nearly suffocating him. Kennedy has these kinds of hugs that even though you kind of want to pull away, she makes them so comforting that all you want to do is melt into her.
“Thank you. Thank you. That’s so thoughtful,” she exclaims. While Miles’ back is to me and her blushed face is turned to me, she points at him silently behind his back. Keep him, she mouths to me. I’m trying to, I mouth back.
“Okay, let him go,” I say out loud, pulling Miles off her. “I need to change into my costume.”
“I’m so excited,” Kennedy squeals. “Scarlett has refused to get ready until you have so she’s aggressively playing beer pong with Evan.”
“That’s not concerning at all… Anyway, you’re going to love it,” I beam, pulling on Miles’ arm down the corridor and into my bedroom.
Touching him feels like such second nature that I don’t think twice before kissing him again on the mouth before he backs up into my bed. We might have already made up for lost time in the car but when I’m around him, I can’t keep my hands off him. It feels like we’ve spent so much time apart yet at the same time, it feels like we’ve been together this whole time.
He sits down at the side of my bed as I slowly back away from him. It’s no use trying to fight the ridiculous grin that has spread across my face. After my championship win and having his mouth on my body again, I feel like I’ve reached a new high. A high that I’m not going to worry about falling down from.
“Did you not bring a costume?” I ask as I pull out my outfit from my closet. I lay it down next to him and he looks at it and then at me.
“No. I was half expecting you to scream at me and tell me to leave,” he says with a shrug, pushing himself further back on my bed so his legs swing forward. “Why didn’t you?”
“What do you mean?” I draw my face into a puzzled expression, pushing off my shorts to the ground and stepping out of them. I can tell his eyes are on me as I wander around my room for my last bits of my outfit in nothing but a thin top.
“How come you didn’t push me away again?”
If I hadn’t spent the last few months, thinking over that question, I would have been more caught off guard. After spending so much time with Austin telling me straight up how much I could have ruined something good, I’ve come to realise the underlying fears I’ve had about committing to a relationship. It turns out that my sister is a perfect relationship guru.
“I’m sick of pushing people away. I just want to exist, y’know? Fear and guilt have controlled my life for so long but having you in my life makes me really fucking happy and I don’t want to jeopardise that again,” I explain. My body feels lighter the second the words leave my mouth.
He just nods at me with a little smile, not knowing what to say. Secretly, I don’t want him to say anything. I just want him to understand.
‘Can I tell you something?’ he asks.
‘Of course,’ I reply. He sighs, throwing his head back dramatically, like always.
‘I didn’t want to do all the romance grovelling shit because I knew it wouldn’t help,’ he begins. ‘I know you, Wren. And as much as you love to read about that kind of stuff, sometimes, the reality is, space is better. Time is better. If I was constantly showing up, making a fool of myself just to get you to talk to me, it would have given you more of a reason to push me away. So, I’m not sorry that I didn’t grovel. Believe me, I was pining after you in secret. That’s always hotter, right?’
I shake my head at him, laughing. I’m glad he did that for me because he’s right. The only thing that can help people heal is time and the ability to find yourself on your own.
He’s something else. Something so completely different and I can’t enough of it.
‘You’re insane, Milsey,’ I whisper and he grins at me.
I start to pull my top over my head, turned away from him in my mirror but he creeps up behind me and finishes pulling it over me. He presses featherlight kisses onto my bare back where and I can see myself slowly dissolving into him.
I try and wiggle out of his grip when I realise he’s seeing more than he should. It’s not that dark in my room so he can definitely make out the faint scars and bruises on my back from hundreds of childhood accidents and training mistakes.
‘Do these hurt?’ his voice sounds strangled as he speaks into my skin.
‘No.’ I swallow. ‘Most of them are old.’
‘How come I didn’t notice them before?’
I don’t know when we got to the point where every touch from him feels like fire, but it did. Hot molten lava each time he so much as brushes past me. Now, it’s at full intensity as he kisses across my shoulderblades.
‘Because I didn’t let you,’ I reply.
‘You don’t have to hide from me, Wren,’ he says. This is why being with him feels like too much. Because he says things like that to me, healing my inner-child as I want to fall apart in his arms.
‘I’m not. I just hate how they look,’ I admit. I watch him in the mirror as his face is entirely concentrated on my back, his forefinger tracing a pattern across my skin. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Telling you how beautiful you are by drawing hearts on your back,’ he whispers seriously, continuing to do so.
‘Taylor really got to you, didn’t she?’ I joke but he doesn’t laugh. He turns me around and I don’t think I’ve ever seen him this serious before. He holds onto my shoulders, almost shaking them as he looks me directly in the eyes.
‘You do realise that your body is made for one thing, don’t you? It’s meant to keep you alive. That’s it. It’s not going to be perfect all the time,’ he tells me.
‘I know that. I just…I just don’t like how it looks. That’s all.’
He swallows, his eyes softening, almost frustrated. ‘I love how it looks. You look like a warrrior, Wren. Hardcore.’
Hardcore
That word.
Again.
The words get stuck in my throat. I would scream them if I was brave enough but I don’t. Instead, I kiss him on the cheek and I break away from him, but he keeps his hands on my bare stomach when I reach over to get my outfit.
“Who are you dressing up as?” he asks as I unpin my bra and start to step into the sparkly dress beneath me.
“I’m disappointed that you are asking me such a question,” I say dramatically. He shrugs at me with an adorably innocent expression. “I’m assuming you know who Taylor Swift is.”
I tease him on purpose because I know how he tries to hide his obsession with her. “Doesn’t ring a bell,” he replies sarcastically, and I flip him off.
“Anyway, the jumpsuit that she wore on her 1989 tour is one of her most iconic outfits to exist. It’s an inside joke. Kennedy will get it,” I explain, swaying the sparkly skirt in the mirror. I apply red lipstick to complete the look.
“I have no idea what any of that means but you look hot,” Miles says, wrapping his hands around my waist. “I’m dresses as the doting boyfriend, obviously.”
“Perfect. Your hot is really popping out now,” I reply, laughing. He pulls my back further into him, his chin resting on my shoulder. “Don’t you think we work better apart? You won the college cup, and I won the championships. Isn’t it weird that we did that without each other?”
I don’t know what made me continue speaking but it’s all that is on loop in my mind. I want to move on, and I want to let myself be happy with him but there’s large warning signs in my brain that are telling me that I was more productive when we were apart.
“But we didn’t do it without each other. Not really, anyway,” Miles murmurs into my skin.
“What do you mean?” He lifts his head up. His face softens and his eyes connect with mine.
“We worked on our training together to get us where we are. We never had the chance to see how it would work between us while we had our big competitions. I know you get stressed and so do I, but we never had the opportunity to stress out together,” he explains.
“That’s why I pushed you away,” I say quietly, my eyes tearing away from his for a second as I stare at his hands on my waist. “I’m still trying to learn how to let people in, even if it completely messes up my schedule.”
“Where would we be without that insane schedule of yours?” Miles retorts before spinning me around to face him. “C’mon the party is going to be over if you don’t hurry.”
*
By the time we’ve ventured out of my bedroom, the party was very much not over. I’ve seen more Kardashian’s in the last thirty minutes than I have seen binging the show with the girls. I texted Scarlett to get ready too, so we don’t have to leave Kennedy in anticipation any longer.
I’m still waiting for her to change so we’re hiding away from Ken in the kitchen while she tells someone a dramatic story across the room. Watching Kennedy talk without being able to hear what she’s saying, is one of my favourite things. She always speaks animatedly with her hands and makes every story she tells into a blockbuster.
“Can you just guess who I am?” Grey asks for the millionth time. Miles’ body comes even closer time as if we’re not already attached at the hip as we lean against the kitchen island. “I’m an actor.”
“Yeah, you’ve said that but it’s not making it any easier, dude,” Miles sighs with an eye roll. Greyson looks at Harry who is dressed as Harry Styles which was easy enough for him to do since they have similar styles. He’s wearing dark brown leather flared trousers and a sweater vest, and he painted his nails purple.
“I don’t know either,” Harry shrugs, trying his best at a British accent but he still sounds Australian. Grey comes over to me again, his tanned face close to me, his dark brown eyes staring into me. I can’t hide the smile that’s creeping up my face as Miles’ expression turns hard with jealousy just like it did at Sports Achievement Evening when I danced with Grey to piss him off.
“Wren, I know you know who I am,” Greyson says sternly. I try and hold in my laugh as I slowly bring my shoulders up and then dropping them.
“You look like how you look every day,” I say quietly, gesturing to his outfit. He shakes his head and inhales, taking a step back from me. Miles comes closer to me again, wrapping his arm tightly around my waist, as if we can’t be apart for longer than a few seconds.
“I’m Charles Melton, you dicks,” Grey sighs after taking a shot. We all stare in confusion and the realisation washes over us almost at the same time. “I wanted to do someone who was also Korean, y’know? I don’t watch enough TV to even know who else is out there that you’d recognise.”
“Well, at least now we know,” Harry says, patting him on the back as Grey sulks away into the living room.
“Anyone want to take a stab in the dark and guess who we are?” Michelle asks, leaning into Xavier who, for one of the first times, isn’t wearing sweats.
Instead, he’s wearing a black suit that matches Michelle’s long black gown. They are by far my favourite outfits that I’ve seen today. There’s something so elegant about them. I only just got to know Michelle before Miles and I broke up and I’m so ready to hang out with her again.
“Obviously, you’re Beyoncé and Jay Z,” I say. Michelle shoves her face into her hands, laughing and throwing her head back.
“It was very limited for black couples to find a celebrity that everyone would know,” Xavier explains. He raises his Solo cup. “Here’s to diversity.”
“Hear hear,” Miles says, raising his cup too and everyone agrees with light chuckles.
“You are both very drunk and very right, Xavier,” I say, and he clinks his cup to mine.
Without really known how, they break out into a conversation about the Hollywood industry and the controversy it upholds. Being friends with them, you never know which direction a conversation can take but that’s what makes them all so interesting. One minute we can be talking about a TikTok audio and the other we’ll be talking about oblivion.
“Oh my fucking God!”
I hear a scream that can only belong to one person.
The birthday girl.
Kennedy pushes through the crowd of people in the kitchen and when she reaches me, she holds me out to her at arm’s length. She takes a prolonged look at me up and down. Miles backs away from me, giving Ken the room to look at me properly.
“Her 1989 tour outfit?! How?” Her words come out in a breathless hurry. I raise my eyebrows at Miles as if it to say I told you so. He sticks his tongue at me and smiles wide.
“I have my ways,” I say coyly with a shrug. Her mouth hangs open as she inspects my outfit again. She takes her time to feel over the sequins.
“We were meant to show her together!” Scarlett screams as she runs around the corner in her costume. Kennedy repeats her same over dramatic reaction over Scarlett’s outfit.
We tried to each go for an outfit that not only reflects Kennedy’s taste and personality but two of the things that have cemented the bond we have. Jennifer’s Body was our favourite movie growing up and we were all obsessed with Megan Fox as Jennifer. It was the kind of movie we shouldn’t have watched so young, but it became a comfort movie for us. We also grew up in love with Taylor Swift and every single song she’s released in her discography. Believe me, since Taylor’s Version of ‘Red’ came out, we’ve listened to it nonstop. It just made sense. We just make sense.
I’m not surprised when more of our friends turn up and gush over our outfits for most of the night. It was a hassle for us both to get such good replicas of the real outfits but it’s definitely worth it. Scarlett, Kennedy, and I huddled in my car to get away from the noise so we could FaceTime Gigi who was dressed in her Kristen Stewart themed outfit. Because she has one of the greatest minds, I’ve ever interacted with, she pulled parts of all of Kristen’s famous roles into one outfit. After enough socialising with Sophia as Haley Kiyoko, Miles and I lock ourselves back into my room to have a break before my social battery completely runs out.
“I missed you, Milesy. Like, a crazy amount,” I murmur as we lay on our backs on my bed after getting to know each other’s bodies again. My body aches from the competition but from the insane positions Miles just put my body in, I feel like I could melt like butter in his hands. He rolls over and presses a kiss onto my bare shoulder.
“You said that already,” he whispers into me.
“I know. I just really mean it, and this is probably the only time you’re going to hear me say it again,” I say, playing off the aching in my chest as a laugh. “I’m not used to saying all this sappy shit out loud.”
“I’ve missed you too.”
