Finding Cinderella Maybe Someday

partition for the rest of the day.
I’m summoning every last bit of willpower I can find in
order to keep myself from wrapping my arms and legs
around him. I’m trying to find the patience he somehow
shows, but it’s hard when his fingers and hands and lips can
pull these kinds of physical reactions out of me.
The door to the back room opens, and the click of the
saleswoman’s heels can be heard against the floor. He stops
kissing me, and my heart cries out. Luckily, the cry can only
be felt, not heard.
Rather than pulling away to walk back to the counter, he
brings both his hands to my face and holds me still while he
looks at me in silence for several seconds. His thumbs brush
lightly across my jaw, and he releases a soft breath. His
brows furrow, and his eyes close. He presses his forehead to
mine, still holding on to my face, and I can feel his internal
struggle.
“Tate.”
He says my name so quietly I can feel his regret in the
words he hasn’t even spoken yet. “I like . . .” He opens his
eyes and looks at me. “I like kissing you, Tate.”
I don’t know why that sentence seemed hard for him to
say, but his voice trailed off toward the end as though he
was attempting to stop himself from finishing his words.
As soon as the sentence leaves his mouth, he releases me
and quickly steps around the partition as if he’s trying to
escape from his own confession.
I like kissing you, Tate.
Despite the regret I think he feels for saying them, I’m
pretty sure I’ll be silently repeating those words for the rest
of the day.
I spend a good ten minutes mindlessly browsing, running
his compliment through my head over and over while I wait
for him to finish his transaction. He’s handing over his credit
card when I reach the counter.

---

“We’ll have these delivered within the hour,” the
saleswoman says. She hands him back his credit card and
begins to take the bags off the counter to place them
behind her. He takes one of the bags from her when she
begins to lift it. “I’ll take this one,” he says.
He turns and faces me. “Ready?”
We make our way outside, and it somehow feels as if it
dropped twenty degrees since we were last out here. That
may just be because he made things seem a lot warmer
inside
.
We reach the corner, and I begin to head back in the
direction of the apartment complex, but I notice he’s
stopped walking. I turn around, and he’s pulling something
out of the bag he’s holding. He tears away a tag, and a
blanket unfolds.
No, he didn’t.
He holds the blanket out to the old man still there bundled
up on the sidewalk. The man looks up at him and takes the
blanket. Neither of them says a word.
Miles walks to a nearby trash can and tosses the empty
bag into it, then heads back toward me while staring down
at the ground. He doesn’t even make eye contact with me
when we both begin walking in the direction of the
apartment complex.
I want to tell him thank you, but I don’t. If I tell him thank
you, it would seem like I assume he did that for me.
I know he didn’t do it for me.
He did it for the man who was cold.
• • •
Miles asked me to go home as soon as we returned. He said
he didn’t want me to see his apartment until he had
everything decorated, which was good, because I had a lot
of homework to catch up on anyway. I didn’t really have

---

time carved out of my schedule to hang up curtains, so I
appreciated that he didn’t expect my help.
He seemed a little bit excited about hanging up new
curtains. As excited as Miles can seem, anyway.
It’s been several hours now. I have to be at work in less
than three hours, and as soon as I begin to wonder if he’s
even going to ask me to come back over, I receive a text
from him.