People Watching

The next morning, Milo texts to ask if Julia is up for company. Prue anxiously joins her parents for breakfast, finding her mother calm but distant. She asks if her mother wants to paint with a friend, and Tom is glad to hear Prue calling Milo a friend. Julia teases gently, and the morning feels nearly like things did before she got sick.

After breakfast, Prue texts Milo to tell him to come over. When she hears nothing after half an hour, she panics, sure that she’s offended him or that he changed his mind and didn’t tell her. Before she can text to call everything off, Milo says he’s on his way over.

Milo meets Prue and Julia in the studio. Prue realizes that he’s actually nervous, and she offers to stay since it’s his first day and he’s never been around someone with Alzheimer’s. Today, Julia recognizes him and is glad to see him after so many years. Milo is grateful to spend time with her, and as the two start painting, Prue realizes that it will be hard to have Milo around because of her attraction to him.

After an hour at the studio, Milo is equally entranced by Prue and Julia’s painting. When he offers to stay longer and takes out his phone to let Nik know, he finds several missed calls from his siblings. Sef’s water broke, and there was blood mixed with the fluid. Nadia is alone, trying to get the kids ready for school, and needs help.

In a panic, Milo gets ready to go, fumbling for the car keys he didn’t bring. Prue offers to drive him while her father watches her mother. Gratefully, Milo accepts. He is floored by Prue’s calmness as they arrive at Nik’s house, go inside, and deal with the chaos of the kids running around.

Nadia doesn’t deal with new people well. She’s curt and bossy with Prue, but Prue doesn’t seem to mind. Instead, she helps calm one of the kids, who’s hiding in a tent. Milo watches, fearful with the realization that he’s feeling things for her that he’s never felt for anyone. He decides that he needs distance from Prue because his plan is to leave town when Nik doesn’t need him anymore, and he doesn’t want to form any connections in Baysville.

On her 25th birthday, Prue slips away from the party that her father insisted on throwing to sit on the dock overlooking the lake. She remembers sitting there with her mother on previous birthdays. Milo sends a text with a picture of him and Sef’s baby. Prue answers, flirting a little, but she can’t regret it because it’s her birthday, and she misses her mother.

When Milo asks what she’s doing, she confesses that she’s avoiding her birthday party and drinking alone. Milo texts that he’ll come over, and Prue spends the next several minutes questioning whether it’s a good idea. Despite how annoying he can be, Prue admires the way Milo knows himself, and she wonders if her own confidence would grow if she spent enough time with him.

Milo arrives with flowers and beer from the brewery. Milo admits that Sef made him bring the flowers, which Aleks actually gave to Sef to celebrate the baby so that he wouldn’t show up empty handed. Prue asks about Milo’s tattoo of “dare” across his knuckles, and he admits that it was the result of a Truth or Dare game he played with strangers in California. Prue suggests that they play Truth or Dare because she’s never played. After hesitating, Milo agrees.

Prue goes first, and Milo picks “truth.” She asks how many people he’s had sex with, and after a lot of hesitation, Milo admits that he’s lost count but that it’s probably around 200. Prue is shocked but not disgusted, and for some reason, Milo cares a lot about the distinction. In return, he asks how many people she’s slept with and is equal parts shocked and turned on when she says zero.

Prue tells Milo to dare her next, and Milo pulls away, thinking it was a mistake for him to come. Prue kisses him and asks if he can teach her about sex. Milo argues that they’re supposed to be just friends, and Prue says they are—just “friends who make each other feel good” (138).

Despite Prue’s inexperience, Milo is shocked when she knows exactly how to touch him, nearly making him orgasm. He pulls away, saying that they need to start tomorrow so that he can get his control back. Prue agrees, and they resume Truth or Dare, avoiding sex-related questions.

The next day, Prue runs the store while nursing a hangover. It’s a slow day, and people she doesn’t recognize stop in. Prue enjoys people watching and making up stories for the strangers, and she remembers when she and her father used to write their observations in a notebook they kept under the counter.

Later in the day, Nik stops in for groceries and thanks Prue for helping when Sef went into labor. He invites her over for dinner, saying that he and Sef want “to meet the woman who’s got [his] little brother all twisted up in knots” (149).

Prue hasn’t heard from Milo all day, and she’s worried that he’s going to ditch her after last night. When she tells Nik, he immediately calls Milo and puts him on speaker to ask if Prue can come to dinner. Milo is confused and says she can. Nik also says that Sef found several drawings of Prue on Milo’s bed before hanging up. Prue agrees to come to dinner, and Nik leaves.

Soon after, Milo rushes into the store. Though Nik just did, Milo invites Prue to dinner and then to talk afterward about the agreement they made the previous night. Excited and anxious, Prue says yes.

At dinner that night, Milo is entranced by watching Prue hold the baby. He’s also aroused by her outfit—a pleated mini skirt, tights, and a low-cut, V-neck sweater. After dinner, the two go back to her house, pausing for Prue to admire Bertha and the bumper stickers plastered all over the car.

Prue brings him to her bedroom above the studio, a cozy, nest-like room with a four-poster bed and pages of quotes lining the walls. She made a list of things she wants to do with Milo because she was nervous, but Milo assures her that humans are built to enjoy sex and that they just have to communicate for things to go well. Prue is unsure but trusts him. Milo takes off Prue’s clothes to explore her skin with his hands and tongue. Prue enjoys the sensations even as they leave her lightheaded. She asks Milo to take his clothes off, too, so that she isn’t the only one naked.

After Milo strips down, he continues to pleasure Prue with his mouth on her breasts and then between her legs. The sensations are like nothing Prue’s ever experienced, and when she orgasms, it feels like a fireworks explosion. When she comes back to herself, she notices a tattoo on Milo’s hip—words from a poem she wrote years ago. Milo admits that he saw the framed poem on her mother’s desk at school and got the tattoo.

When Prue starts to freak out, he admits that one of the paintings in her mother’s studio is his. Knowing that makes their connection feel more manageable somehow for Prue. They start to kiss again and spend hours just touching each other. When Prue tries to give Milo an orgasm, he stops her. He says that they can do that another night because there’s plenty of time, but Prue wonders if that’s true, reflecting, “[T]he more seconds that pass in Milo’s presence the more aware I become that he seems to be a transient, unkeepable thing” (184).