Alive // bxb

Chapter 23

Liam's POV:

The soft hums coming from his lips were all I could hear as I sat next to him, helping my mate water the nearly-grown carrots. A wide-brimmed sunhat sat on Milo's head, protecting his dark locks from the sun's light, but I couldn't help but but slightly upset because this meant I couldn't study every detail of his face again instead of actually helping out.

The melody he was humming was familiar and strangely comforting, but distant at the same time. Like the last cries of a lullaby, a decades old song, sung from a mother to her dying child to soothe them in their last minutes.

...Now that I thought about it, maybe it wasn't so comforting after all.

Abruptly, the soft notes halted and the sunhat tipped up to reveal Milo's curious expression. "What are you thinking about?" he asked.

"You," I replied honestly.

My word took a few seconds to register in my mate's mind, but it was obvious when it did; a red blush spread across his face and he looked down to keep me from staring. His tactics didn't really work; I placed my fingers under his chin and tipped it up. His dark eyes widened when I caught them before, just a moment later, capturing his lips with mine in a soft kiss.

"Don't say things like that," Milo said in a small voice when we pulled away, our breaths mingling in the air.

I hummed. "Why not?"
"It's not good for my heart."

I blinked, then laughed. "We'll have to build up your heart's resistance to such things, then."

"Or you could just not?"

A quick eye roll was all the response I gave, and he seemed to understand what it meant because he frowned at me.

I sighed and leaned in again to peck his cheek. "I love you," I crooned, "I love you, I love you, I love you."

"Stop it," he mumbled, but his arms had laced around my back in a sort of loose hug so I knew he didn't really mean it, if his entirely red face wasn't enough to go off of. "I told you, my heart is weak to you."

"Aww," I smiled, poking his chest where his heart was. "It's sweet to know I could cause you a heart attack at any point."

He muttered something under his breath as he pulled himself away from me. I didn't catch exactly what it was, but it sounded sort of like, "can't believe I'm moving in with this idiot." I rolled my eyes at that.

"What's that arch lead into?" I wondered aloud, pointing to a wooden archway attached to the back of the house I'd never noticed before, leading into what looked like a fenced-in garden area.

"My mom's old flower garden," Milo replied with a sigh, looking at it with sad eyes. "I tried to revive it but, um, I'm not very good with flowers."

"Could I try?" I asked before I could rethink it and mentally slap myself. It was his mother's old garden, how disrespectful did I have to be to assume he would be fine with me just walking in and messing with things. "I just mean that my mom has a garden, too, and I've gardened before with her... ignore I said anything."

Milo was smiling brightly. He leaned over to press a finger to my lips, effectively shutting me up. "You could try to revive the garden if you wanted," he smiled, "I mean, you don't have to, but I don't think Mamá would be upset about it or anything. And, uh, starting tomorrow, this will be your house too. So I think you should do it if you want to."

He was looking at me for my response, not seeming to remember that his finger was still pressed to my lips (not that I necessarily minded, but it made replying a hell of a lot harder) so I raised my eyebrows and used my own finger to point to his.