The Perfect Storm 3

Chapter 209

The songs for this chapter are Urgent by foreigner and Pretty young girl by bad boy blues, enjoy! 

Everything feels so calm and collected, so relaxed and I feel like we've been at this dinner table for at least three hours. 

The rain has stopped pouring as hard as it did earlier but it's still there and the sound is so familiar and relaxing.

"Time for cake," Miles says and I give him a smile. 

I've finished everything on my plate and the smell of cake has been tempting me for the three hours that we've been here.

"I'll make the frosting," I say and jump up but then realize that I have no idea what I'm doing, I usually know how to make frosting but for some reason, my mind has been so clouded and foggy, and all of the bag things I don't want. 

I don't feel like myself, not completely. I take a breath and then start to scribble down a list that makes sense to mix together into a bowl. Butter. 

I open the fridge and grab a stick of butter but all of a sudden, I feel Miles behind me, he's not holding me or touching me, but just having him so close makes me feel like he is. 

I feel him so strongly and then, he slowly takes the butter from my hand and I can't help but close my eyes and let my head feel back. 

This has been the only good feeling I've experienced in what feels like two eternities. He places the butter in a clean white plastic bowl and then moves to the side of me and gives me a small smile without looking at me, but he can tell that my eyes can't leave his face. 

It's like my eyes are permanently fixed on looking for him and when I do see him, to stare at him helplessly. 

He places a cup of cocoa powder into the bowl and a few other things I don't care to watch. I'd much rather watch the way his hands and eyes are so concentrated on the bowl. 

His sleeves are still lifted up so that any chocolate stains don't hit his long sleeve shirt. He takes another bowl but this time it's small and he whisks two eggs with half a cup of white sugar and half a cup of brown. Miles whisks for what feels like a good ten minutes until the eggs look creamy.

"What—" I start to ask.

"It'll make the frosting taste like something other than butter." He explains and I nod with a smile, excited about the things I'm discovering about him at this moment. 

I've never known that Miles has a side like this, I guessed that he knew his way around the kitchen that night at the cabin, but I didn't know that Valentina was completely useless to him. It's embarrassing that I'm surprised at Miles's knowledge of food, laundry, speed driving, and love but I can't help but be shocked by the things about him. 

It feels like there's so much to uncover about him and I've only been scratching the surface, thinking that that was all of him, but it wasn't nearly all of Miles. 

I'm fascinated by him and I can't help but try to memorize the frosting in hopes of being able to make this all myself when Miles won't be around to help me because no matter how good this feels now, it has gone wrong too many times. 

He sprinkles salt into the mixture, and then he adds the eggs, whisking everything even harder and I can't help but notice the veins that are now so apparent on his arms. 

Oh god, I'm going to be in this mess all over again and I can't handle anything more; any more of our on and off the relationship. 

The cake is cooling on the kitchen table and after whisking the mixture of frosting, Miles placed the mixture on the kitchen table too before bumping into the radio on the window and I burst into laughter and in a few seconds so does he, he moves from the window but the radio falls with him but he barely manages to catch it, inches away from the floor.

"Damn this shit is really clingy," Miles says and I can't help more laughter escaping my lips.

"It's sticky as fuck too." Miles laughs, trying to place the radio back onto the small space in the small window sill. 

The last time I remember using the radio was over ten years ago when my mother and I used to cook together in order to forget my father but since then, somehow, for some reason, we haven't touched the radio. 

I'm slightly embarrassed that it hasn't been cleaned in god knows how long even though every year my mother went through the house with deep cleaning but then she got sick. 

I don't even remember a time she wasn't even a little sick. 

He slowly turns on the radio, trying to make any sound come from it and to his surprise, it does 'I know cause I know how to treat you right, that's why you call me in the middle of the night, you say it's urgent . . . so urgent—" Miles stops the radio on the lyric that describes us so well and then he raises a brow with a smile, "so it's all eighties." He states in a low tone, not judging or mocking but stating a fact to himself as if repeating whatever he's thinking in his head. 

He tunes the radio to another song and we hear soft music playing and then the lyrics, 'I know . . . life is different to you . . . first love can be frightening that's true . . ."

"This one will have to do." He smiles at me and I can't help but smile too, I feel my cheeks slightly warm up but it feels good, it feels so good to forget. 

He gives me another smile and I feel like all we can do is smile but then suddenly while staring at each other and standing there in the empty kitchen, with the radio playing and the cake and frosting waiting in the kitchen, he grabs my hand and pulls me closer to himself as we continue to listen to the oddly satisfying tone and the lyrics that match so well with, 'pretty young girl of my mind, how I wish you to be mine . . . girl you're no child anymore . . .' Miles's hand moves to my hips and he holds me tightly while we both flash smiles to one another. 

He takes my hand in his again and spins me into a circle before catching me back and this time we look into each other's eyes so much deeper than before to the lyrics, 'you're my girl and you're sixteen.' 

It's good to dance to a love story that isn't ours. 

Miles moves with me and I feel as though I'm gliding with him on the kitchen floor, I feel like everything else around is slowly getting blurred out, the kitchen doesn't exist in my mind anymore and I feel so free; so free with him. 

We move around the floor separately, our hands dangling childishly in the air as we spin ourselves and do all kinds of moves that probably don't have a name. 

I move far away from him and let my hair dangle everywhere it wants to, letting it move around and in my face, but I don't care, it feels so good to let myself breathe like this and to be so carefree for once even if it will only last ten minutes. 

The song plays loudly as we both move and let go of everything. Miles's hand extends to mine and catches it so perfectly and softly in his, he spins me around slowly and then he approaches me and our faces go so close and then all of a sudden he pulls back, his hand still holding mine, 'but first of all, I want to be your man . . . oh . . . oh . . . oh' one of his hands rests on my lower back and then sways with me slowly, his other hand holding mine higher in the air while I grab onto his shoulder, holding myself tightly to him as we sway around the floor, I feel so light and so carefree as if all the heavy burden has left me and I can finally move for the first time in so long, I can finally move the way I want to and do the things I want to. 

The hand he's holding in the air he pulls higher and spins me in one circle and then another, it's so fast that I barely keep my balance but thankfully Miles's arms not only have the reflex of a cat but the strength of all the good combined in the world, his single arm caught my back, holding me so softly as he looks down at me with a small smile playing at his lips and the lyrics that describe us a little too well fading into the distance and unblurring all of the things around us, 'can't hide my feelings no more.'