Finding Cinderella Maybe Someday

MILES
Six years earlier
We quietly walk to an empty waiting area. My father sits
first, and I reluctantly sit across from him.
I wait for his confession, but he doesn’t know I don’t need it.
I know about his relationship with Lisa.
I know how long it’s been going on.
“Your mother and I . . .” He’s looking at the floor.
He can’t even make eye contact with me.
“We decided to separate when you were sixteen. However,
with as much as I traveled, it made financial sense for us to
wait until you graduated before filing for divorce, so that’s
what we decided to do.”
Sixteen?
She got sick when I was sixteen.
“We had been split up for almost a year when I met Lisa.”
He’s looking at me now. He’s being honest.
“When she found out she was sick, it was the right thing to
do, Miles. She was your mother, and I wasn’t going to leave
her when she needed me the most.”

---

My chest hurts.
“I know you’ve put two and two together,” he says. “I know
you’ve done the math. I know you’ve been hating me,
thinking I was having an affair while she was sick, and I
hated allowing you to think that.”
“Then why did you?” I ask him. “Why did you let me think
that?”
He looks at the floor again. “I don’t know,” he says. “I
thought maybe there was a chance that you didn’t realize
I’d been dating Lisa for longer than I let on, so I thought
bringing it up would do more harm than good. I didn’t like
the thought of you knowing my marriage with your mother
had failed. I didn’t want you to think she died unhappy.”
“She didn’t,” I reassure him. “You were there for her, Dad.
We both were.”
He appreciates that I say this, because he knows it’s true.
My mother was happy with her life.
Happy with me.
It makes me wonder if she’d be disappointed now, seeing
how things have turned out.
“She would be proud of you, Miles,” he says to me. “With
how you’ve handled yourself.”
I hug him.
I needed to hear that more than I knew.

---

chapter thirty-one
TATE
I’m trying to listen to Corbin go on about his conversation
with Mom, but all I can think about is the fact that Miles is
due home any minute now. It’s been ten days since he’s
been home, and that’s the longest we’ve gone without
seeing each other since the weeks we spent not speaking.
“Have you told Miles yet?” Corbin asks.
“Told him what?”
Corbin faces me. “That you’re moving out.” He points at
the potholder on the counter next to me.
I toss him the potholder and shake my head. “I haven’t
talked to him since last week. I’ll probably tell him tonight.”
Honestly, I’ve wanted to tell him I found my own
apartment all week, but that would involve either calling or
texting him, two things we don’t do. The only times we text
each other are when we’re both home. I think we do this
because it helps us maintain our boundaries.
It’s not like the move is a big deal anyway. I’m only
moving a few blocks away. I found an apartment that’s
closer to both work and school. It’s definitely no downtown
high-rise, but I love it.

---

I do wonder, though, how it will affect things between
Miles and me. I think that’s one of the reasons I haven’t
mentioned that I was even looking for my own place.
There’s a fear in the back of my mind that not being right
across the hall from him will become too inconvenient, and
he’ll just call off whatever is going on between us.
Corbin and I both look up as soon as the apartment door
opens and there’s a quick knock on it. I glance at Corbin,
and he rolls his eyes.
He’s still adapting.
Miles walks into the kitchen, and I see the smile that
wants to spread across his face when he sees me, but he
keeps it in check when he sees Corbin.
“What are you cooking?” Miles asks him. He leans against
the wall and folds his arms across his chest, but his eyes are
scrolling up my legs. They pause when he sees I’m wearing
a skirt, and then he smiles in my direction. Luckily, Corbin is
still facing the stove.
“Dinner,” Corbin says with a clipped voice.
He takes a while to adapt.
Miles looks at me again and stares for a few silent
seconds. “Hey, Tate,” he says.
I grin. “Hey.”
“How were midterms?” His eyes are everywhere on me
but my face.
“Good,” I say.
He mouths, 
You look pretty.
I smile and wish more than anything that Corbin wasn’t
standing here right now, because it’s taking all I have not to
throw my arms around Miles and kiss the hell out of him.
Corbin knows why Miles is here. Miles and I just try to
respect the fact that Corbin still doesn’t like what’s going on
between us, so we keep it behind closed doors.
Miles is chewing on the inside of his cheek, fidgeting with
his shirtsleeve, watching me. It’s quiet in the kitchen, and

---

Corbin still hasn’t turned around to acknowledge him. Miles
looks like he’s about to burst at the seams.
“Fuck it,” he says, gliding across the kitchen toward me.
He takes my face in his hands and kisses me, hard, in front
of Corbin.
He’s kissing me.
In front of Corbin.
Don’t analyze this, Tate.
He’s pulling my hands, dragging me out of the kitchen. As
far as I know, Corbin is still facing the stove, trying his best
to ignore us.
Still adapting.
We get to the living room, and Miles separates his mouth
from mine. “I haven’t been able to think about anything else
today,” he says. “At all.”
“Me, neither.”
He pulls me by the hand toward the front door. I follow. He
opens it, walks to his apartment, and pulls his keys out of
his pocket. His luggage is still outside in the hallway.
“Why is your luggage out here?”
Miles pushes open his apartment door. “I haven’t been
home yet,” he says. He turns around and grabs his things
from the hallway, then holds the door open for me.
“You came to my apartment first?”
He nods, then tosses his duffel bag onto the couch and
pushes his suitcase against the wall. “Yep,” he says. He
grabs my hand and pulls me to him. “I told you, Tate.
Haven’t thought about anything else.” He smiles and lowers
his head to kiss me.
I laugh. “Aw, you missed me,” I say teasingly.
He pulls back. You would think I’d just told him I loved him
with the way his body tenses up.
“Relax,” I say. “You’re allowed to miss me, Miles. It doesn’t
break your rules.”
He backs up a few steps. “You thirsty?” he asks, changing
the subject like he always does. He turns and heads toward

---

the kitchen, but everything about him just changed. His
demeanor, his smile, his excitement over finally seeing me
after ten days.
I stand in the living room and watch it all crumble.
I’m hit by a reality check, but it feels more like a meteor.
This man can’t even admit that he misses me.
I’ve been holding out hope that if I take it slowly enough
with him, he’ll eventually break through whatever it is that’s
holding him back. The entire past few months, I’ve been
under the assumption that maybe he just can’t handle the
way things have developed between us and he needs time,
but it’s clear now. It’s not him.
It’s 
me.
I’m
the one who can’t handle this thing between us.
“You okay?” Miles says from the kitchen. He walks out
from behind the obstructed view of the cabinets so he can
see me. He waits for me to answer him, but I can’t.
“Did you miss me, Miles?”
And up comes the armor again, shielding him. He looks
away and walks back into the kitchen. “We don’t say things
like that, Tate,” he says. The hardness is back in his voice.
Is he serious?
“We don’t?” I take a few steps toward the kitchen. “Miles.
It’s a common phrase. It doesn’t mean commitment. It
doesn’t even mean love. Friends say it to friends.”
He leans against the bar in the kitchen and calmly looks
up at me. “But we were never friends. And I don’t want to
break your one and only rule by giving you false hope, so
I’m not saying it.”
I can’t explain what happens to me, because I don’t know.
But it’s as if every single thing he’s ever said and done
that’s hurt me impales me all at once. I want to scream at
him. I want to hate him. I want to know what the hell
happened that made him capable of saying things that can
hurt me more than any other words have ever come close to
doing.

---

I’m tired of treading water.
I’m tired of pretending it’s not killing me to want to know
everything about him.
I’m tired of pretending he’s not everywhere. Everything.
My 
only
thing.
“What did she do to you?” I whisper.
“Don’t,” he says. The word is a warning. A threat.
I’m so tired of seeing the pain in his eyes and not knowing
the reason for it. I’m tired of not knowing what words are
off-limits with him.
“Tell me.”
He looks away from me. “Go home, Tate.” He turns around
and grips the edge of the counter, dropping his head
between his shoulders.
“Fuck you.” I turn and exit the kitchen. When I reach the
living room, I hear him coming after me, so I speed up. I
make it to the front door and open it, but his palm meets
the door above my head, and he slams it shut.
I squeeze my eyes tightly, bracing for whatever words are
about to completely slay me, because I know they will.
His face is right next to my ear, and his chest is pressed
against my back. “That’s what we’ve been doing, Tate.
Fucking.
I’ve made that clear from day one.”
I laugh, because I don’t know what else to do. I turn
around and look up at him. He doesn’t back away, and he’s
so much more intimidating in this moment than I’ve ever
seen him be before.
“You think you’ve made that clear?” I ask him. “You are so
full of shit, Miles.”
He still doesn’t move, but his jaw tenses. “How have I not
been clear? Two rules. Can’t get any simpler than that.”
I laugh incredulously, then get everything off my chest at
once. “There’s a huge difference between fucking someone
and making love to them. You haven’t 
fucked
me in more
than a month. Every time you’re inside me, you’re making
love to me. I can see it in the way you look at me. You miss

---

me when we aren’t together. You think about me all the
time. You can’t even wait ten seconds to walk in your own
front door before coming to see me. So don’t you dare try to
tell me you’ve been clear from day one, because you are
the murkiest goddamn man I’ve ever met.”
I breathe.
I breathe for the first time in what feels like a month.
He can do what he wants with all that. I’m done trying.
He blows out a steady, controlled breath while he backs
several steps away from me. He winces and turns around as
if he doesn’t want me to read the emotions that are
obviously present somewhere deep within him. His hands
grip the back of his neck tightly, and he remains in this
position for a solid minute without moving. He begins to
blow out steady breath after steady breath, as if he’s doing
everything in his power to pull himself together and not cry.
My heart begins to ache when I realize what’s happening.
He’s breaking.
“Oh, God,” he whispers. His voice is completely pain-
ridden. “What am I doing to you, Tate?”
He walks to the wall and falls against it, then slides to the
floor. His knees come up, and he rests his elbows on them,
covering his face with his hands to stop his emotions. His
shoulders begin to shake, but he’s not making a sound.
He’s crying.
Miles Archer is crying.
It’s the same heart-wrenching cry that came from him the
night I met him.
This grown man, this wall of intimidation, this solid veil of
armor, he’s completely crumbling right in front of my eyes.
“Miles?” I whisper. My voice is weak compared with his
massive silence. I walk to him and lower myself to my knees
in front of him. I wrap my arm around his shoulders and
lower my head to his.
I don’t ask him what’s wrong again, because now I’m
terrified to know.

---

chapter thirty-two