After Friday night I tried to keep my distance and only walked home with Miles three times over the following week and we went to dinner once but that wasn't planned. It kinda just happened so it definitely wasn't a date.
Twelve days later was the fifth day of August and Miriam as promised, invited us all for a movie night to her apartment on the other side of LA.
When I arrived Miriam was making popcorn.
"Why are you alone?" Miriam asked me.
"Who was I supposed to bring? My sugar daddy?"
"If you had one!" She said. "I meant your boyfriend."
"He's not my boyfriend, yet."
"Why the hell not?" Sadie suddenly appeared.
"I... What do you want me to say, Sadie? He hasn't asked me out. He doesn't like me like that."
"You should ask him," Dahlia said.
"And what? Risk what we have?" I asked them.
"Risk? Are you kidding me?" Sadie grabbed my shoulders. "He so obviously likes you."
"No, he doesn't." I tried to get out of Sadie's grip but she wasn't letting me go.
"If you don't ask him out tonight," Sadie threatened. "I will."
"Go ahead," I countered. "He seems more into you anyway."
"You are officially the dumbest bitc ..." Sadie's train of insults came to a halt at the sound of Miriam's doorbell.
She let me go. "Go open the door."
"Why would I? It's not even my house!"
"I'm fucking busy," Miriam shouted.
I didn't want to, but as it was I had to open the door.
It was Miles standing at the door as if he was in a photoshoot, once again making me self-conscious about my simple sundress.
He was carrying a fruit basket. I reached to take it off his hands but he moved it away and when I followed it, I found myself in his embrace, warm, comfortable, and even more captivating than his usual greeting hug.
"Get a room, you guys," Miriam shouted from across the hall.
I felt my face warming. I put some distance between us.
"Hi," I said. My cheeks hurt from how hard I was struggling to stop smiling like an idiot.
"Hey," he said and when I looked up, he was smiling, too. Could it be that he liked me the way I liked him?
"May I take the basket?"
"Sure."
I put the basket on a coffee table in front of a huge sofa we were supposed to sit on and watch the movie Miriam had chosen for the night.
Miriam was a true minimalist. Hence there weren't enough seats for all of us.
Kiara and Lenny arrived later than everyone. You'd think they'd be the ones sitting on the floor but somehow I ended up with a pillow in front of Miles, who was sitting on the edge of the sofa.
When Lenny sat on Kiara's lap, Sadie, who was sitting next to Miles, whispered something to Miles and they both giggled.
And she calls me blind! Huh.
A lifetime later the movie wasn't even halfway through, I was running out of comfortable positions and the protagonist was riding in a train to her hometown.
I turned around to evaluate how acceptable would it be to just lean back in between Miles's legs, I found him looking back at me.
"Comfortable?" he mouthed. He put his legs together leaving them closer for me to rest on.
