I tap the reply box.
Ava came by. We're good. Also she told me you iron your T-shirts and I'm going to need you to explain yourself tonight.
No softening. Nosorry to bother youtacked on the end. Just the truth, a little teasing, and the assumption that he actually wants to hear from me. Because he does.
I hit send, toss the phone onto the desk, and reach for the next book on the cart. The scanner beeps, loud and echoing in the quiet room, and I'm smiling at absolutely nothing.
Milo
Ilet myself in with my key. The apartment smells like garlic, basil, and Callum. I drop my bag by the door where it always goes, kick off my shoes, and start talking before I'm even fully inside because I can't hold it in for another second.
"She knew," I announce, rounding the corner into the kitchen.
Callum is standing at the stove in a worn T-shirt and bare feet, stirring the pasta thing he makes when he doesn't want to think about dinner.
"Ava. She knew the whole time," I say, leaning against the counter. "About my crush. Sheknew, Callum. Since the first time you picked her up from campus—she said I froze mid-sentence and she just figured it out."
Callum turns. He gives me that steady, easy look. The one of a man standing in his kitchen, unhurried, just watching the person who walked through his door.
"She told you that?" he asks, handing me a piece of bread with butter on it because he can't help himself. He feeds everyone who enters his orbit.
"She told me that. And then she told me you iron your T-shirts, which I already suspected because I've seen the ironing board, but hearing your sister confirm it as a lifelong pathology was extremely validating."
"It's not a pathology. Wrinkles are—"
"Disrespectful. She told me that too."
He shakes his head, but the corner of his mouth ticks up in that not-quite-smile that means he's enjoying himself but refuses to give me the satisfaction of showing it. "What else did my sister share about me?"
"Dog food commercial. Two Christmases ago. Tears."
"She swore on our mother's life—"
"And she broke that oath with zero hesitation, which honestly, I respect." I take a bite of the bread. The kitchen is full of steam, the light hitting that golden, late-afternoon softness.
He asks about the rest of it, the real part where Ava said she knew and I admitted how ashamed I'd been, and he listens while he plates the pasta. Two bowls. I grab the forks without being asked because I know exactly where they are. This is my kitchen too, and that thought doesn't make me flinch anymore.
"She invited me to your dad's birthday," I say, forking pasta into my mouth as we sit across from each other at the small table by the window. "As your date. Not as her friend."
"Good."
"I'm bringing cookies."
"My mom will love you."
"Your mom will love my cookies. I'll earn the rest."
He looks at me across the table, his expression settling into something quiet and certain. He's been waiting for this. Not anxiously, not bracing himself for me to run, but patiently waiting for me to show up at his door and tell him the world didn't end.
"I should probably tell the guys I'm basically moved out," I say, the words slipping out as easily as mentioning the weather. "My toothbrush has been here for three weeks. My good sweater is in your closet. I think I have more food in your fridge than in theirs."
"Our fridge," Callum corrects quietly.
It takes a second to land. "Our fridge," I repeat. "Our kitchen. Our Gerald."
"Gerald was always ours."
"Gerald wasmine. I named him."