Just give me a reason✔️ ~ Mileven drama and smut~

Chapter 1

El paced the length of the apartment, feeling stupid and ridiculous.

To be fair, anyone who had been wearing a slutty french maid costume for almost three hours while waiting for their significant other to get home from work would feel stupid too. She had called Mike's work—the IT department at some tech company—and his beeper several times after the first two hours, and the silence was making her worried and pissing her off.

He was late. Again.

If it was just occasionally, or if he called to let her know, she wouldn't mind so much. But this had been going on for months and even her job down the street at the coffee shop couldn't distract her from the fact that she felt... lonely. He always came home tired, shoving down dinner (if she made any) and then falling onto the couch and turning on the TV before passing out. Some nights she just left him there, crawling into their bed by herself and trying to understand what was happening.

He hadn't touched her in weeks... maybe even months, always saying he was tired or busy, which he honestly was. But he wasn't even trying anymore and she didn't know why.

So she had done something desperate and stupid, thinking that it might actually work. He'd always like when she'd worn something sexy, so she'd gone to the nearest trashy sex shop and bought the stupid costume, hoping that maybe it would be enough to break him from his monotone routine. To make him look at her.

But he wasn't even here to see, probably fixing some higher-up's computer because if there was one thing Mike was bad at, it was saying no to more work. Because he loved his job, he loved fixing fried circuits and reprogramming fucked up hard drives and whatever the fuck else he mentioned when they occasionally talked.

At first she'd thought maybe he was just having a mood or needed some space. Those magazines she read in waiting rooms always mentioned that. Sometimes your man just needs to figure some things, give him some space. So she had, taking more evening shifts and coming home to their humble apartment after he'd already fallen asleep. He would get up early before she would wake up and for a while she only saw him once or twice a day.

But nothing had worked and now she was sitting on the beat-up couch, feeling like everything was falling apart.

Knock knock

She ran to the door, not really thinking about the fact that Mike wouldn't knock, he would just unlock the door and come in silently as usual. But she was too desperate to think or care, throwing open the door with a wide smile that quickly fell off her face. It was one of her neighbors—Jake? Josh?—and his eyes immediately went down to her outfit, pausing before going back to meet her eyes.

"Oh," she blinked at him. "Hello."

"Hi... Jane, right? You live here with Mike?" He licked his lips. "I'm your neighbor, from apartment 24. James," he supplied helpfully.

"Right, hi, um..." she closed the door a bit, trying to hide behind it . "Did you need something?"

"Sort of. Me and my roommate, we wanted to get to know our neighbors since we moved in like a month ago. We're throwing a little get together this Saturday night. Free booze." He was smiling, glancing down at the short skirt that barely covered her thighs. "If, uh, you wanted to come, we'd love to get to know you."

There was a weight in his words and she shuffled her high heel covered feet, suddenly unsure of what to say. Mike wouldn't want to go, and the way James was looking at her made her definitely not want to go by herself. Before she could open her mouth to politely refuse, there was the sound of footsteps and keys jangling and Mike appeared around the corner.

His eyes widened at the sight of the open door, and his girlfriend talking to that stupidly attractive guy who lived a few doors down. And she was wearing fucking lingerie.