If Tomorrow Never Comes

39. Baby I'm Yours

When they went down, the pancakes were cold.
But Alex didn't care, pouring a generous amount of maple syrup over one before stuffing it in his mouth, suddenly realising how hungry he was. Miles wandered over to the record player that he had insisted on placing in the living room, and rifled through the album sleeves in the box next to it.
"What do you want to hear?" he asked, looking over at Alex, who swallowed down his second pancake before smiling sheepishly and shrugging.
"Can't you play something?" he asked, very conscious of his red cheeks.
Miles just laughed at him, moving back to the table.
"I know what you're getting at," he smirked, combing Alex' messy hair with his fingers, getting stuck a few times in the knots.
"You want to distract me so you can eat all the pancakes, don't you?"
Alex snorted. "Noooooooo," he said with a mocking innocence. "No, how dare you think that? I just love to hear you sing... while I eat," he added giggling as he tried to steal another pancake from the rapidly decreasing pile. But Miles swatted his hand away and grabbed himself a pancake, quickly pouring the syrup on it and stuffing it in his mouth before Alex could steal it, almost choking on it when he couldn't contain his giggles at the sight of Alex' pout. Licking the syrup off his lips, Miles leaned over and pressed a sugary kiss on Alex' mouth.
"You'll get a kiss for every pancake you let me eat," Miles joked.
Before he knew it, he had the whole pile on his plate.

***

They had been practicing for Music when Alex' phone rang.
The shrill sound echoed through the house, interrupting the strum on their guitars and the words rolling of their tongues. With one glance at each other, the content atmosphere dissipated, making room for an almost touchable tension.
Alex swallowed, and locked eyes with Miles for what felt like an hour, an hour of silent apologies and pleas, stubborn insistence and guilty defeat.
He fumbled in his coat pocket, grabbing the phone and answering the call with a pained expression.
"Hey Alex, do you know when you'll be coming home? I thought we might catch a movie this afternoon," Alaina said.
Alex averted his eyes from Miles' piercing gaze, and saw Miles' hopeful expression turn into a grim scowl.
"I- I don't know yet," he stammered into the phone. "Three o'clock? Is that possible?"
He was defiantly looking at the other end of the room right now, where he couldn't see Miles' hurt face. But the truth was, he simply couldn't break up with Alaina over the phone. They had been dating for almost half a year, and she deserved a proper break-up, face-to-face and at a time where she would be able to deal with it best. Maybe after the film today.

Alaina sounded excited and so perfectly oblivious as she confirmed the 'date', that it almost broke Alex' heart. It had been a long time since he'd actually been in love with her- he even doubted if he'd ever been- but she had become a constant in his life, someone he could always go to if things went wrong. Of course, so was Miles. But with Miles, everything was so fresh and young, and Alex felt like he wouldn't be able to just spill his heart, out of fear that some of his thoughts might repulse Miles, and make him hate him.
And even though he was certain that would pass, he still felt reluctant to let go of Alaina. She was a friend too- a strange kind of friend, a friend who had never been anything but a lover too- but a friend nevertheless. And though he was more than willing to sacrifice that friendship for Miles' love, it still hurt. A little. It hurt because he knew it'd hurt her, and he felt guilty about leading her on for so long. He had been in love with Miles for ages, but he'd been too unsure of himself, and of Miles, to take that as a reason to break up with her.
Or maybe it was all just laziness. He lived with her, in every sense of the word, and breaking up would have been be such a hassle.
Anyway, he had let it go on for too long, and now it was going to be very hard to end it.
Very hard, but totally worth it.

***

Miles listened to the one-sided call with a growing desparation. It was obvious Alex wasn't going to break up with her. They were going on a date, for Christ sake!
How can he go out with her after everything that happened, yesterday, this morning? How can he forget me so soon?
He felt a dark knot, hard as a rock, forming in his stomach as the despair turned to annoyance turned to broken-hearted fury.
A fury he could barely contain when Alex ended the call and turned back to face him (the coward actually turned his back to me) looking tired and lost in his thoughts.
With a brisk movement, Miles stood up, earning an angry "ploink" from the guitar he'd lifted up from his lap and put down less carefully than ususal.
"Miles..." Alex started, his voice somewhere between pleading and tired acceptance, which made Miles even angrier.
"You can go now, Alex," he brought out stiffly, trying not to scream. Or cry. Or both.
"Come on, Mi, don't be like that. I can't just break up with her over the phone! We've been dating for-"
"Believe me, Alex, I know how long you've been dating. Now, can you please leave? I need to be alone a little." So I can let it out without scaring you away.