for, liar

Chapter 65

"I am so sorry. I hope that wasn't too awkward." Miles apologizes as we walk out to my car.

I wouldn't want to make him feel bad because I know he put all of his effort into making this a nice evening.

"It wasn't awkward. Your dad..." I begin.

"Has a giant stick up his ass? I know."

I laugh and shake my head. "No! Not at all. He's just...nothing like you." I admit.

"Thank God. I don't know what I'd do."

I smile and lean forward to peck his lips. "Dinner was incredible. Thank you so much."

He wraps his arms around me to pull me against him. It's starting to get chillier outside now but his warmth makes it all the better.

"Let me know when you get home safely, okay?"

I bury my head into his chest. "I live like not even twenty minutes away." I chuckle.

"Anything can happen in that time. Just let me know." He says, placing a kiss on the top of my head.

I pull away from his embrace and get in my car. He waits outside until I'm out of view and on my way home. I usually turn on music as soon as I get in the car, but my thoughts were overcrowding my headspace again so I rode back in complete silence.

Traffic wasn't too bad since everyone was probably in bed by now, just like I should be. I have to work early in the morning again making me contemplate why I do this shit in the first place.

I walk in to Maddy sitting on the couch working on a new recent painting of hers. I'm proud of her for focusing on something important to her even if it is just a distraction for now. I poke my head over her shoulder to see what she's doing.

She notices me staring and stops. "Can I help you?" She giggles..

I smile and walk around to sit next to her on the couch. "Just wanted to see what you were working on."

She takes her paintbrush and dips it into the cup of water on the side table.

"I saw this beautiful oak tree at the park the other day and I couldn't get it out of my head. I went down to take a picture of it and now I'm painting it." She explains.

I look at the picture she has displayed on her phone and mentally compare it to her painting. It looks exactly like the damn thing. I wonder if she knows how incredible she is being able to duplicate a picture just like that.

"That looks fucking amazing."

I don't tell her that enough.

She scrunches her nose and shrugs. She always brushes off anyone complimenting her work. She'll never believe in herself the way others do.

"How was the dinner?" She asks and looks at me.

I let out an exhausted sigh, remembering the events from tonight. It didn't go as horrible as I had expected, but still too awkward to say it went well.

"Weird. His dad is really intimidating and all of the questions he asked me were kind of personal. He seemed more into being nosy than actually learning about his son's girlfriend."

"Maybe he's just used to Miles having different girls around. How many girlfriends has he even had?"

We haven't talked much about our relationships in the past. Even when I brought it up on our first date, he explicitly told me that he feels it's an unnecessary topic to cover if we wanted to start over with something new. I agreed and that was that. Now I'm curious about the subject because of how his father acted tonight. Maybe I wasn't the problem at all and it does have something to do with Miles and his past.

"I have no idea. He doesn't talk about it."

She raises her eyebrows. "Isn't that information good to know before you start dating someone? In case he's a heartbreaker or killer or something?"

I laugh and roll my eyes. "He's not a killer, Mads. He's just reserved."

"Murderers usually are." She jokes.

I take the couch pillow from behind my back and whack her upside the head with it. She laughs and moves her canvas out of the way.

"I get that he's reserved but you guys have been dating for a good bit now. You should know more about the guy. Where does he even work?"

"He just works for one of those big ass factories right outside of town. I don't even know the name of it."

She giggles and shakes her head. "You don't even know the company your boyfriend works for? C'mon, Bree."

"He told me, I just forgot! Cut me some slack."

She shakes her head and keeps laughing to herself. "Absolutely shameful."

"Oh, whatever. You've slept with guys you don't even know the name of."

She laughs again, even harder this time than the last. "Bitch, your clapbacks hurt!" She yells.

I ruffle her hair and jump off the couch to flee before she's able to fight back. She gives up on whatever she was going to say or do and resumes her painting.

I'm finally able to get settled in bed for the night. I feel like I've been running around all day even though I've only been busy for the past few hours. Most of it was spent doing nothing with Miles; something I wish I could do everyday.

It's complete bullshit that I have this person I want to spend every single second with and we have to get up, go to work, make money to survive, and only see each other again when it's five hours until bedtime or if we get lucky enough to where our schedules correlate. It's worked out so far that our schedules don't completely suck and we're able to have a decent amount of free time together.

I don't know how it's going to work when we get real nine-to-five jobs. I've only spent the night at his place once or twice. I don't want to overstay my welcome but hopefully if it gets to that point, he'll let me stay with him more often. I just want to be able to wake up next to him every morning and not have to wonder when I'm going to be able to see him next. I hope he feels the same way I do. I think he does. He's never given me a reason to think he feels anything different.

I reach over to turn off my bedside lamp and get ready to sleep when my phone buzzes. I groan and swipe it off my nightstand to take a look at the notification.

"safe?"

I had completely forgotten to let Miles know I had gotten home safely.

"I'm so sorry! I'm home. I love you and thanks again for dinner <3"

He replies within seconds.

"Glad you enjoyed it. Sorry my dad is weird. Love you and goodnight"

I send back a quick goodnight text and turn over to lay on my side. I find myself staring at the painting Maddy had given me from the collection she did while I was at the beach. It was a painting of a girl dressed in blue, dancing around a room full of people you can't see the faces of though none of their heads were directed at the girl. The background is white and all of the people are dressed in black. The girl's dress stands out the most. It has the most color and detail out of the rest of the piece. It's like she was only focused on this blue dress and just happened to add the rest of it when she felt a crunch for time. She chose this one to give to me for some reason and I still haven't been able to figure out what the fuck it means. I've always been terrible at understanding art anyway.

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