Alive // bxb

Chapter 7

Liam's POV:

After the informal meeting, Mom insisted we all go to the park. I wasn't too crazy about the idea, especially since Milo looked supremely uncomfortable and Adriel looked like he wanted to ditch all of us and leave. Except maybe Milo, I doubted he'd leave the brunet here with us.

Seriously, Mom, why the park?

Sage was the first to talk, which I wasn't surprised by. "So how is everyone?" he asked in a forced-sounding cheerful voice.

"Fine," Adriel responded flatly.

Milo nodded with a tilt of his head. "I'm okay."

"Good, I guess."

"What do you want to do? I mean, we could go to the park, but I don't really know what we'd do..."

"We could just walk around the town? Stop in some stores or something, maybe say hi to Julie since she's working today," I offered. "It would probably be nicer than hanging out with toddlers."

"Sounds good," Sage nodded.

"Is that okay?" I asked, directing my question to the two quieter ones. They nodded.

"Where to first?"

I turned around and gestured to the first shop I saw. "Here."

Upon entering the small store, I realized that it was a grocery store. Of course. It looked nice, though, with vegetables arranged in baskets and barrels tipped to their sides. At least it wasn't an ugly grocery store.

"Is this where Daniel sells my vegetables to?" I heard Milo ask quietly behind me, his voice barely a whisper to Adriel. The brunet nodded once. That was interesting; while I knew Milo had a vegetable garden, I had never thought that he- or his legal guardian- might sell the vegetables, though of course it seemed silly now that Milo and the Scotts ate all of them. Still, I wasn't going to mention anything- not to let them know I'd been listening to their conversation.

Apparently Sage didn't have the same subtlety I did, and said, "You sell your vegetables? Cool!"

Milo flinched at this, and Adriel visibly hardened his exterior. Sage wilted slightly.

"Daniel does," Milo said quietly, looking around. "I don't really do anything but grow them."

"That's still cool," Sage insisted. "I can't even keep a plant alive, I can't imagine how hard it must be to keep an entire garden fit for eating."

"Aren't you named after a plant?" I asked, amused.

Sage turned pink. "For your information, I was named after my grandmother." Adriel and I laughed, and Milo smiled. Sage scowled. "She was a cool lady, okay."

"I don't doubt it," I smiled, looking away and scanning the shelves since I had never been able to bring myself to leave a shop without purchasing something. It just felt like I was cheating the workers out of money, since I had chosen to enter the shop, after all. Finally I spotted a box of packages of dried sunflower seeds- something I was 60% sure Milo hadn't grown- picked up four, and walked over to the counter.

"That'll be seven-ninety-six," the worker said, printing the receipt as I forked over the money. "Thank you for your business, sir."

"Great," I said, turning away from the counter. "Let's keep walking."

-

We went to Daniel and Adriel's house for lunch, which Adriel insisted on, probably because it was one place that Milo felt comfortable in and Milo had, for the majority of our time spent together that morning, looked somewhere between supremely uncomfortable and extremely close to a breaking point. I couldn't blame him. I had wondered what I could do to make it better for him, but since I knew barely anything about him and Adriel seemed to think the best idea was to be silent, I followed in his footsteps, even though it made me feel awful for not even trying. The worst part was, I had no clue where to even start.