Page 67 of The Incredible Ordinary

“Next thing you’ll tell me you’re not angry.”

“I’m not,” Milán says. “It won’t get us anywhere. All I want right now is to understand what really happened and what made you do it.”

Rory clamps his mouth shut. The silence that follows stretches on and on, neither of them willing to give in until Milán eventually sighs.

“Go to bed,” he tells Rory. “When Aiden comes home, we’ll have a family meeting and agree on what the consequences should be.”

One last glare and off he goes.

Milán slumps in his chair, tilts his face up to the ceiling, and closes his eyes.

I push off the wall and take a seat at the table.

“On a scale of one to ten, how much of a disaster was it?” Milán asks, eyes still closed.

“I think you handled it rather well, actually.”

He turns his head and looks at me, disbelief clear in his expression. He gets up and rounds the kitchen island to the cabinets.

“I feel like I need a stiff drink.” He rummages around for a bit. “And there’s nothing here.” He goes to the fridge, pullsthe door opens, and has a look. “I guess we’ll eat our feelings instead. How do you feel about leftover pizza?”

I pretend to think about it for a bit. “Pro.”

He smiles for the first time in hours. “My kind of guy.”

It’s an off-handed comment. A lighthearted joke.

But the way those words stick in my brain gives them weight. They create a warm buzz in my chest. It’s a steady lightness that expands and unfurls and makes my skin hum.

I blink.

Talk about an overreaction.

I lean forward and try to shake the comment off.

It clings to me.

“There’s one slice of pepperoni left and half a vegetarian pizza because nobody besides Aiden eats that. You can have the pepperoni because you’re a guest.”

My lips twitch.

“I’m fine with vegetarian. It’s my go-to order for pizza.”

“So you like winter, rain, and cold vegetables on your pizza.” He shakes his head. “It’s a good thing you’re hot.”

He grins at me and heat simmers in my lower belly, spreading everywhere in a soft wave.

Milán leads me to the living room, and we take a seat on his dark gray sectional. The room is comfortable, and when Milán turns off the overhead lights and flicks on the lamp on one of the side tables, we’re bathed in a soft glow that almost feels like it’s encasing the two of us in our own bubble with how dark it is both outside and in the rest of the apartment.

We settle in, him in the middle with his feet perched on the coffee table and me in the corner.

A lot of our conversations have circled around difficult topics, but tonight, by some wordless agreement, we keep it light.

He tells me about all the places he’s traveled over the years, and I listen with rapt attention as he describes the feeling of playing in front of fifteen thousand people. Funny stories from his time on the road. How he once ripped his shorts in the middle of a game at the Australian Open. A high five that went rogue when he played doubles once and resulted in a bloody nose.

He’s reserved at first when he talks about tennis, but once he gets going, the stories flow.

It’s a whole different life from mine. An exotic existence.