Now it was only the two of us, me still standing like a wooden post next to him. I wanted to relax into him and slide my arm around his waist like Chloe had. It was the kind of thing I should be able to do as friends. Instead, I made an excuse to step away.
“Is this hickory?” I asked, walking toward the stage like I wanted to investigate it.
“Yeah. Same as the floor.” He sounded almost confused by the question, which made sense since I’d helped him pick the hardwood.
“Right. Good call. Well, I should get going.”
“See you after work?”
“Sure.” I tossed it over my shoulder as I headed for the kitchen exit.
“Ellie?” Miles called when I was halfway through the door. I paused and glanced back at him. “Good to see you this morning too.”
I nodded, trying to figure out why his words had made me blush as I exited the kitchen and walked out to my car. People said that all the time. Clients. Tenants. But somehow, coming from Miles, it had felt intimate.
Instead of driving into work, I headed out on Franklin to the I-10. I wanted to drive Pontchartrain Bridge. My parents had moved to Mandeville a few years ago, the city at the other end of the bridge, but that wasn’t why I wanted to drive it. The lake was massive and driving the twenty-three miles across it felt like driving over the ocean. I needed the wide-open space to clear my head.
For almost a month now, I’d avoided playing Miles’s music. I’d stayed away from his social media, and when thoughts of him drifted into my mind multiple times a day, I shoved them out. I’d kept my visits after work short and focused on the club.
But those had been my downfall.
I looked out over the water stretching as far as the eye could see on either side of the causeway, my wheels humming quietly over the concrete.
I craved seeing him every afternoon the way I craved my coffee in the mornings. Worse, even. I felt like an addict who thought she had it under control, promising myself the tiniest hit, promising myself it would be the last one, then going back the next day. I told myself it wasn’t a real problem because I always made myself leave within twenty minutes. But the truth was, I couldn’t get through a weekday without popping in to see him, and Miles was always there, the work crew gone, like he was waiting for me.
He’d told me once that it was the only time he could be in the space while it was quiet to think about future plans or even his to-do list for the next day. But a part of me believed he was hanging out, waiting for me, no matter how much I tried to talk myself out of it.
“Is this a crush?” I asked out loud. The waves didn’t answer. Neither did the road.
“Siri, what is the difference between love and a crush?” Because what I felt for Miles had the same intensity it had when I was fourteen. But wasn’t twenty-six too old for a crush?
“A crush is about perfection. Love is about imperfections,” Siri explained in her mellow voice. “Would you like more information?”
“Yes, please.”
“Here is an entry from Ask the Love Genius. A crush is based on attraction and does not require a relationship. Love is deep affection for another person based on knowing them. Attraction is often part of this affection. Would you like more information?”
“No, thank you, Siri.”
I ran the answer through my mind. A deep affection based on knowing them.
In high school, I’d made up a whole version of Miles, of what I thought he would be like. I imagined interactions between us, what he would say, how he would look at me. I watched every interview I could find with him. I’d been so sure that once we met, he’d see how perfect we were for each other and our love story together could begin.
But I hadn’t known him. Not even a little.
I couldn’t have imagined my current reality, where we saw each other almost daily, for twenty carefully rationed minutes. I couldn’t have imagined that we would talk that whole time, joking about light fixtures and arguing about flooring.
I could have easily imagined the many times I stood quietly in the doorway watching him for a few seconds before announcing that I’d arrived. Sometimes he was on his phone, sometimes working