Miles (BoyxBoy)

Chapter 8

After the kiss in my old bedroom, we walked back into the kitchen like nothing had just happened. My mom and sister were almost done cooking, so we walked into the living room to sit on the couch where the parade was still on. I made sure to sit away from him a bit so nothing seemed too suspicious, not that my family could even see us since they were still in the kitchen. I glance over at Julian to look at his outfit since I hadn't really noticed it until now. He was wearing a dark blue plaid sweater with a red button-up shirt underneath with the collar showing. He had on tight-fitting khaki pants along with plaid socks since he had taken off his shoes at the door to be polite.

I noticed that he also had a stud in his nose and I was confused because the other night, there was nothing there but a hole where a piercing use to be. "Did you have your nose pierced when I saw you that night?"

He looked over at me and nodded. "Oh, yeah, I got it pierced when I was 20, but I usually wear a clear stud that you can barely see whenever I'm working. I just forgot to change it the other night."

I nod my head, looking back at the TV as I desperately try to forget about what had happened just a few minutes ago. I mean, I obviously wasn't going to be forgetting about it anytime soon, but hopefully Julian would just move on and not mention it again. Maybe we could just continue to be friends, just friends. My mom comes in to tell us that food's ready, so we stand up and go into the dining room that's connected to the kitchen. We sit at the table, grabbing food for our plates before diving in.

"So, Julian, tell me about this non-profit, if you don't mind," my mom asks as she takes a bite of the mashed potatoes that Ivy had made pretty perfectly if you ask me.

"Well, it's called Home Our Community and in a few states, we have funded group homes for kids who were abandoned by their parents because of their sexuality or gender. Those kids are also in the foster care system, so we're technically fostering them, so they have the option to be adopted. In each house, we have about four adults running things and I check in on each of my houses every few weeks to make sure everything is running smoothly."

"How do you make money for it?" My mom asks.

"Fundraising, mostly. We have a fundraising webpage that shows some of our kids' stories to influence them to want to donate. Every time we open up a new house, we have a walk through with my best clients to also persuade them to donate. We have fundraising auctions from time-to-time, which brings us the most money. But we have a lot of ways to get money and I put in a lot of my money since I have quite a bit and nothing to really do with it."

"Do you travel a lot?" Ivy asks, taking a sip of her water.

"Every month, there's usually about a week that I get all my traveling done, but other than that, I'm here. I love traveling, but once you go to the same places every so often, it gets kinda boring," he tells her and she nods.

"What about your assistant, Jonah? Does he not have a family? He dropped you off today, but shouldn't he have been with his family?" I ask.

"He has a family," he tells me and I can hear the slight bitterness in his voice. "he just offered to drop me off since he didn't have to be there until later in the day."

"Well, we usually play games after dinner, so you are more than welcome to stay because four people is always better than three," my mother says, definitely trying to change the conversation since she heard the same emotions in his voice that I did. I feel my head start to pound when she says that because I didn't know how much longer I could be around Julian when these thoughts were lingering over me.

"I'll be back," I whisper, getting up from the table and walking out of the kitchen to the front door. I step outside where the cold air hits me along with the small raindrops that were sprinkling out of the sky. I sit on the steps of the house, letting the water hit me as I bury my face in my hands. What the hell am I supposed to do? Was I supposed to go with my gut and be with him or do I go with my mind telling me that it wasn't worth it? I wish there was just an obvious answer because I was the most indecisive person ever and there was no one that I could ask about this because I didn't know if I even wanted to tell anybody.