*Contains sexually explicit content.
Visit Colleen Hoover’s website HERE.
This is NOT a book review and contains ALL the spoilers. Read the spoiler-free book review HERE.
Disclaimer: I have read this book of my own volition. Any and all opinions and interpretations contained herein are my own.
The Spoiler Report is a recounting of the major events of the novel mixed with my own interpretation of the meaning and symbolism of events, emotions, and actions. Reading this report is NOT a substitute for reading the actual novel and should not be taken as such. Not every single detail, feeling, and event is divulged within. It is essentially a lengthy outline of the story. Many details and all dialogue have not been included. This report is for those who appreciate knowing what happens or feels they may miss things when reading, or just want to have a detailed overview of a book before, or during, reading.
****THIS REPORT CONTAINS SPOILERS****
Tate, 23, has spent the day driving 500 miles to move in with her older brother, Corbin. Corbin is a commercial pilot that lives in a high rise in the middle of downtown San Francisco full of other pilots. Exhausted from her drive, Tate arrives at her brother’s, who is out of town working, to find a drunk guy leaning against his door.
Calling Corbin for advice, they stay on the phone until she digs the key out of her purse and gets into the apartment. Despite the drunk guy claiming he needs to get into the apartment, grabbing Tate’s ankle, and Tate proceeding to slam his hand in the door as she shuts it behind her, she gets into the apartment. Panicked, she leaves all her belongings in the hallway with the drunk guy.
Corbin offers to call his across-the-hall neighbor, and friend, Miles, to help his sister. Any guesses where his neighbor is? Right! He’s the drunk guy who assaulted her ankle. Corbin convinces Tate to help him into the apartment. Literally dragging Miles into the apartment and helping him to the couch in the living room, Miles breaks down. Sobbing and apologizing to Rachel. Tate notices a four-inch scar along the right side of his jaw. Not really comparable to the dime-sized birthmark on her neck, but the comparison is noted.
Six years ago, Miles is a high school senior, and all-around stand-up student. He is awarded the privilege of showing a new student to her class – Rachel. Rachel whom the clouds part to shine and highlight the divine intervention that has physically manifested as this girl. The girl that Miles is now devoted to at first sight.
It takes three days for him to ask her out on a date.
Present day Miles is standing in Tate’s doorway angry and wondering what happened to his hand – the one she slammed in the door trying to get away from him and into the apartment. While Tate wants to be mad, her body and part of her brain have their attention piqued. Their first-meeting showdown is interrupted by Corbin coming home.
Tate and Miles decide to start over, after they have washed yesterday off, as he helps her and Corbin bring up her things she left in the car. Quickly recognizing that her body is on the verge of spawning some kind of feelings for Miles, Tate adamantly tells those parts of her to shrivel and die.
At the end of the week, Miles’ dad is having his girlfriend over for dinner. It’s a chance to introduce his son to his girlfriend. Miles’ mother died less than a year ago and Miles is doesn’t think it’s right that his father has found someone so quickly.
Lisa arrives with her daughter, who of course is none other than Rachel. To deepen the wound, he realizes his father had met Lisa before his mother died, it also becomes quite clear that Rachel and him are on the path to becoming step-siblings. His soul-deep devotion he already pledged toward Rachel seems all for naught.
Two weeks into her stay in San Francisco, Tate has established a good rhythm between getting her MBA and working as a nurse. Coming home one night expecting to have the apartment to herself with her brother gone for work again. Ready for some quiet time to study. Instead, three guys are there. Miles, of course; Ian, a childhood friend of Miles; and Dillon, a sleezy married flirt. They’re there to watch sports. Miles insists that Tate studies at his apartment until the game is over.
Miles’ apartment is sterile and has no sense of personalization. Kinda like him. It’s a wonder her body reacts just like Miles’ brain when he met Rachel. So far it’s just her body reacting, Tate hopes her brain doesn’t follow suit. But she does quickly take a liking to his protective tendencies and small mannerisms in which he allows his personality to show.
As Miles leaves to go to work, Tate mentions ‘Rachel’. A name he uttered and apologized to in his drunken stupor.
Dinner with his dad, Lisa, and Rachel is devastatingly awkward and depressing. By the way she is acting, Rachel feels the same way Miles does. As the two of them clean up after dinner, Rachel tells Miles that her mom and his dad have been dating for a year making it clear that she doesn’t know about Miles’ mom. That his dad has been a widow less than a year. He kisses her and any hopes of not falling for her are lost.
Corbin, Tate, and Miles head to San Diego for Thanksgiving. It’s a small celebration with Corbin’s and Tate’s parents at their childhood home. Miles is quickly becoming to Tate what Rachel was to Miles. Only more slowly and she is resisting what her heart and body are telling her because Miles is so closed off. She chooses to interpret that as disinterest. The more we learn about Tate and six-years-ago Miles, their inner thoughts are mirror images only separated by time and age. Other than Tate’s observations, present day Miles seems as nothing more than a shell of a man.
Rachel and Miles keep their date they originally agreed to before they knew what their parents were to each other. Miles heads to Rachel’s apartment when her mom is out on a date with his dad. Rachel tells him that she overheard her mother talking on the phone – they are moving in with Miles and his dad in two weeks. They both know this will not go well if they follow their feelings for each other. But neither can help themselves. Rachel plans to go to college in Michigan in seven months. Miles plans to stay local before going to flight school with his friend Ian. They have seven months to be together in secret.
Miles cuts his hand while helping Corbin and his father hang Christmas lights before Thanksgiving dinner. Tate, being a nurse, is forced to administer emergency stitches in the bathroom amidst palpable, awkward tension that possibly is only felt by her. She still can’t get any kind of read on stoic Miles. Interpreting every breath – literally. His uninjured hand on her knee. The way it might be incidental. Tate internally drives herself crazy not wanting to believe he feels even a small percent of what she feels toward him.
Without any preamble other than a caressing touch, Miles kisses Tate. Her mind switches to Defcon 3. The kiss is soul changing. Unable to tell if this is a moment of bliss or death. As the kiss heats up, Miles retreats. Quickly hiding behind his walls and tells her that he should have never let that happen again.
At Thanksgiving dinner, it comes out that Corbin thought Miles was gay because he once told him he hadn’t been with a woman in three years. Corbin took that as Miles coming out. That brings Miles to tears of laughter until the table does some sex math. Miles hasn’t been with a woman in six years. All mirth is quickly sucked from the table.
Tate and Miles don’t talk for the remainder of the night. At least until the rest of the house is asleep. Tossing and turning in bed, Tate sees a pair of feet stop outside her door and walk away. Convinced it’s Miles, because that’s who’s on her mind. She finds him in the kitchen where they stand awkwardly until Tate breaks the ice by asking him about not having a girlfriend or sex for six years. Miles says he feels it is for the better giving the two up when most people can’t have one without the other. With sex come emotions. And with emotions comes a relationship. In so many words, it’s love that Miles can’t handle. Tate is the first person he has kissed in six years.
The magnitude of that kiss’ meaning begins to melt something inside Tate. Miles is in a similar boat, so she thinks – he doesn’t want to like her either but is clearly attracted to her. That he doesn’t want to be vulnerable. Wants her body without the other stuff. So, they decide since neither has room in their lives for a relationship and they aren’t really friends to begin with, casual sex is the answer. What could possibly go wrong?
While kissing quite passionately, sealing their pact, Tate’s dad walks into the kitchen and tells his daughter, casually, to go to bed.
Walking her to her door, Miles takes the time to set some ground rules for their new arrangement to ensure Tate doesn’t allow herself to have any disillusions going forward.
1. Do not ask about his past.
2. Don’t expect a future.
Neither rule feels great in Tate’s gut.
Rachel and her mom move in with Miles and his dad. Miles no longer likes his dad very much thinking that he cheated on his wife. And now he is pushing all the memories of her out by inviting another woman into the house.
But there’s Rachel and their secret relationship. Rachel quickly sets some ground rules as Miles helps her move into his room that he has relinquished to her.
1. No making out while their parents are home – too risky.
2. No sex – ever. Sex would just make it more difficult for them to end things at the end of high school. Though neither of them are virgins.
The car ride home from Thanksgiving was emotionally palpable. Tate does not know how to act around Miles without tipping off her brother. As if she ever really knew how to act around Miles. A bathroom stop proves that Miles is struggling internally just as much as Tate. The more she spends time with him, rule number two is looking like it might cause some trouble for her.
Rachel and Miles have lived under the same roof for a month. Their parents are going away for a weekend getaway. The two teenagers play house and love it. But Miles wants to break the ‘no sex’ rule so much it hurts his body. While taking a shower one night, Rachel comes into the bathroom. Miles invites her to join him. Turning the lights off, she joins him. They confess their love to each other, the kind of love that inspires the world’s most beautiful poems and works of art. The kind of love that fuels wars. And neither of them want their relationship to end. Rule number two is obliterated.
The night they return from the Thanksgiving trip, Tate goes over to Miles’ apartment after Corbin goes to bed. Miles only has a few hours before he leaves for nine days of work. They both have the best sex they have ever had or would ever have again.
But, immediately after, Miles cooly dismisses her, telling her to lock the door as she leaves. A complete contradiction to how he treated her while they were intimate. Before she walks back into her apartment, she hears Corbin talking on the phone and knows she can’t just waltz in. Tate spends the next 30 minutes in the lobby talking with Cap, an older man that supervises elevator use. He can tell how Tate and Miles feel about each other as well as any other person with his life experience.
When Miles returns home, he asks Tate to come over to help him measure for curtains wanting to add some personality to his sterile apartment after four years. He asks if Tate would like to come with him to pick out the curtains and maybe a rug. You know, things that couples do.
Walking the few blocks to a nearby store, Tate observes a homeless man sitting on the sidewalk. Huddled against the cold. Corbin usually gives her a hard time because she always helps those less fortunate whenever she sees them. This time, she left her purse behind not knowing this would turn into an impromptu outing.
Miles only takes a few minutes to shop once he gets approval from Tate. While the cashier is arranging his purchase in the back, Miles pulls Tate behind a dressing screen to kiss her. Immediately confessing, with some obvious difficulty, that he likes kissing her. Clearly struggling to reconcile the feelings he’s having, which we can only guess are on par with those for Rachel. On the walk back to their apartment building, Miles stops to give the homeless man a blanket he bought at the store.
Instead of inviting Tate in, he dismisses her again. Stating he didn’t want to see her until his apartment is decorated. Texting her later to come and see his place after his purchases have been delivered and setup – for the most part. The rug is oddly placed; not under any furniture as it should be. Miles wants them to christen it. Another small example of him wanting his apartment to have small touches of Tate all around him.
Miles and Rachel ditch school with the hopes of getting grounded so they can spend more time at home alone together. They head to the beach. Miles confesses that after his mother died he stopped believing in God. But when he met Rachel he began to believe again. God was the only explanation for having someone like her in his life. Rachel tells him that her period is late.
Tate meets Corbin, Miles, and Ian after work at a restaurant. They are celebrating Miles’ promotion to captain. Of course, he is humble. He also can’t help from showing small, intimate, gestures or two toward Tate when no one is looking. Tate finds out that Miles has known Ian since the fifth grade and both met her brother at flight school. Corbin tries to dig into the reason behind Miles’ supposed vagina embargo. Ian, who clearly knows the reason, interrupts the awkwardness and changes the subject. Using code that only Tate could decipher, Miles admits that he can think of nothing better than going home after dinner and spending some naked time with her. It’s all he’s been thinking about when he was gone working.
Corbin and Ian head to a bar as Miles and Tate head back to the apartment building to ‘sleep’ in their respective beds. Walking back to the hospital where Tate’s car is parked, they get caught in a storm and have an impromptu make out session in the rain. Getting into her car, dripping wet, they immediately realize making it to the apartment is never going to happen. Car sex. Which turns out to be a competition that unleashes even more passion and the realization (if only to the reader) how in sync they are with each other.
They barely make it back to Miles’ apartment before they are at it again. After she gets Miles to admit that he doesn’t make eye contact while they are having sex because that adds a level of vulnerability he is not comfortable with given the parameters of their arrangement. That it can skew things too much. But when they’re not being intimate, his eyes hardly ever leave hers.
Not wanting to go back to her apartment, Tate visits Cap. He tells her his own tragic love story. It makes her wonder if she is setting herself up for the ultimate heartbreak. Waiting for things to develop into something more.
Rachel is pregnant and devastated. Miles spent his time at school planning their future. When he gets home he shows her that they can do this together. Presenting her with all the possible paths they could take with a baby in the picture, Rachel calms. The life they can have as a family forming in her head as it has for Miles. They now have hope.
Game night again. Dillon gets booted after making an unwanted pass at Tate. Miles the Protector comes to her rescue and his inner alpha needs to stake his claim. Miles tells her to ask if she can study at his apartment where everyone can witness. Escorting her to his apartment, Miles kisses Tate as if she is his reason for being and then dismisses her as if she has served her purpose in that moment. And now the moment, and the need for her, is over. Until the next moment at least.
The next moment comes when game night is over. Miles quickly takes Tate to his bedroom to manually appreciate her. When he’s done, Tate tries to convince him that she should stay. Miles is worried about his friendship with Corbin. He doesn’t want his dealings with Tate to affect his relationship with her brother negatively.
When Tate hears Corbin in the shower as she returns home, she is back at Miles’ and pinned against the door in record time. Bent over the kitchen table, Tate finds that her and Miles are at a crossroad. One that bears a weight Tate is unawares. In their passionate haste, Miles began without a condom. Tate informs him that she in on the pill not knowing the war that must be raging inside Miles’ head.
We, as readers, sure as hell don’t know the full weight of this decision yet. But, we can guess.
After some heavy hesitation, Miles foregoes the condom and even finishes inside her. They are both quiet after. And both remain that way as Miles removes himself from her, gets dressed, and shuts himself in his bedroom. Tate is destroyed.
Rachel and Miles are playing house again as their parents are out of town. Miles is convinced that this is not the trip where his father will propose to Rachel’s mother. Certain that his father would have talked to him beforehand. Rachel is not so confident. Either way, they both agree that they have to tell their parents about the baby. Rachel is three months along and starting to show. They graduate high school in two months. They begin to discuss baby names.
Tate hasn’t heard from Miles since he left her naked laying over the kitchen table several days ago. She comes home to find a note taped on her door. Miles will be there at seven if she wants to run an errand with him. At seven on the dot, he’s there. They don’t really speak until Miles apologizes in the elevator. In his eyes, again, she sees so much more than he is saying. And each time she sees that look, whatever he is suppressing is that much closer to the surface.
He holds her hand all the way to the car and all the way to their destination – the airport to watch the planes taking off and landing. Miles took Tate there to end things with her. She has broken the only two rules he set. She asks for an explanation of any sort and clearly expects a future of some kind. Tate is upset because it is apparent that he cares about her beyond the sex.
He tells her the same thing he told Rachel. The longer that they continue on, the harder it will be to end. The more Tate will get hurt. She gives him a simple ultimatum: admit he likes her more than just for sex or take her home. He pulls out of the parking lot. Showing he has learned a lesson, incorrectly, from his time with Rachel.
Tate breaks down with Cap when they return. Cap, being an experienced man, isn’t surprised but doesn’t rub it in her face.
When Rachel and Miles’ parents return, they sit together to have a family meeting. Miles’ dad tells the kids that during their trip he proposed to Lisa and then the spontaneously got married. Rachel begins to cry. The parents think she is upset over the marriage. Miles tells them that Rachel is pregnant. His dad is furious over whomever did that to her – the coward. Miles confesses that it was him. His father is boiling with rage and tells Miles to get out of the house. Rachel clings to Miles who tells her he will be at Ian’s and that he loves her. That is when his dad punches him in the face before physically shoving him out the front door. After a moment to collect himself, Miles goes back into the house, tells Lisa that he loves Rachel and will take care of her and their baby. Telling his father how long their relationship has been going on. Before his father can hit him again or Miles strikes back, he goes to Rachel in her bedroom. They embrace and Rachel tells Miles that she loves him.
Three weeks later, Tate, sad and missing Miles since she hasn’t seen him since the airport parking lot breakup. Until the most inopportune moment to worsen their situation, that is. The only two friends Tate has made, Tarryn and Chad, are coming over to study. Only this time Tarryn got called into work and couldn’t make it. So it’s just Chad that Miles sees entering the apartment as he’s leaving his.
After Chad leaves, Miles comes over and asks about what happened the last three hours that Chad was there. He’s part alpha and part panic. When Tate confirms that nothing but studying happened between her and Chad, he breaks down as much as Miles can. He pleads for Tate to make him leave and go home. Tell him that she wants nothing to do with him. A small part of her knows she stands to get hurt a bit more and she wants to tell him exactly that. The rest of her, however, the bigger part, still can’t get enough of the man.
It doesn’t take much for them to frantically make their way to her bedroom. This time, he maintains eye contact. Sex between them has never been just sex. It has been a way for them to say everything they can’t or won’t say to each other. Tate is drowning as much as he is and neither can understand why.
As Miles goes to retrieve Tate’s shirt from the kitchen, he pauses in the bedroom doorway. Corbin is there and has clearly heard everything that happened in her bedroom. As soon as he finds out that Miles has no plans to fall in love with Tate -ever- Miles is kicked out of yet another house for having sex with a woman.
Corbin is vibrating with rage and wants to hear nothing from his sister. After grabbing her shirt from the kitchen. Tate goes across the hall to Miles’. He apologizes for telling Corbin he will never love her. But he didn’t want to lie to either one of them. He also lets her know he will never love anyone again. It’s not that he can’t, he won’t. Tate comes up with her own rule, despite all the red flags billowing in the wind of warning. Her first rule: don’t give hope of the future. Despite a handful of small things he has done or said that do just that, she reassures him he hasn’t. And as long as they don’t do anything to make their situation complicated, it will work. Even though Tate knows that no matter what she does she will be the one to get crushed.
Miles and Rachel graduate high school. Both their parents are in a cloud of their own emotions to be too involved in their children’s life at the moment. Miles submitted an application for family housing through his college and got approved. Him and Rachel can now move out – to both their relief.
Corbin hasn’t accepted Tate and Miles, but he has adapted and lives with whatever they are doing. So does Tate. She tries to tune everything out and focus on the mass amount of sex they have. To throw a wrench in her blissful oblivion, Miles lets a small comment slip which allows Tate to get a glimpse of what Miles would have been like before he became the man he is now. Confused and wanting Miles to give her something – anything. Tate dresses and leaves his apartment.
Corbin is home when she walks in and they hash things out over the whole Miles situation. At least until Miles comes over to make sure everything is alright – he heard loud voices. Miles and Corbin mend their relationship as only guys can. So Tate leaves to give them some space. She runs into Cap, who, as always, gives her some of the wisdom he has gathered throughout his long life; some people just lose their spirit somewhere along the way.
Rachel has the baby – a boy.
Tate gets a call from her mom, panicked. A plane from Corbin’s airline has gone down and she can’t find out if it was one of her son’s. Unable to get ahold of Corbin, Tate does the next best thing and calls Miles. Without hesitation he comes over. Since Miles doesn’t have cable so he hasn’t heard the news of the plane crash. Seeing the news, Miles makes a call and discovers that Corbin and Ian are both alright; it was neither of their flights.
Tate breaks down so Miles calls her mom to tell her that her son is fine. That is when Tate gets a text from Corbin letting her know that he has seen the news and that he was not on that flight. Corbin also lets her know that Miles was not on that flight either.
Tate and Miles talk and laugh easily, all tension between them is absent. It makes her sad, angry, and happy all at once. She sees how it could be between them. And it gives her a glimpse of what she will never have with Miles. And that glimpse is enough for her to know that it is exactly what she wants with Miles.
Exhausted from the day and her emotional night, Miles takes her to her bed where they fall asleep next to each other. Something that has never happened. Usually, after they are intimate, Miles dresses and either leaves or dismisses Tate. Every time they are together, whether or not he is aware, Miles gives Tate a piece of who he is. Rather who he was. But in his eyes she can see he is worried about each action, every word. And it is starting to lead her to have some hope.
Miles receives a call on his cell. Answering, when he was clearly asleep. Tate pretends to remain asleep as she listens to him dress and leave.
At the hospital, after his son gets his circumcision, Miles’ father tells him he is proud of him. He also feels that this is the time to tell Miles about what really went on with Lisa and his wife. Miles sits with him and listens.
Miles invites Tate for a swim on the rooftop pool she had no idea existed. He is acting very couple-ish. That hits Tate hard and clearly makes Miles feel guilty. He asks if she thinks they should stop. Despite knowing they should, Tate says no. Worse, Miles confesses if he was capable of loving someone, it would be her.
Miles listens to his father tell him about the relationship he had with his mother. They had been separated for about a year by the time he met Lisa. But he was still there every moment for his mother when she got sick. That was what really mattered.
Tate found an apartment a few blocks away to move to but has not told Miles. He has been away working. When he comes home, he goes over to Corbin’s apartment to find him cooking dinner. After taking a moment to respect the fact that despite their mended relationship, Corbin is still adapting, Miles does something he has never done in front of an audience before. He kisses Tate.
She tries hard not to analyze it for more than what it is or should be. A man that has been away for work and comes home and wants to get some action. But Tate sees that his suitcase is outside his front door. Miles hadn’t been to his apartment yet, he went straight to Tate. Miles does not like that Tate points out that that means he missed her.
And that is the straw that begins to bend the steel of her delusional resolve. Thinking all along that all it would take was time. Go slow enough and Miles will eventually be able to open himself up to her. But it’s not him that has a problem with their relationship. It has been Tate the whole time – and she breaks. Again. Pushing his boundaries about the past and about his actions and words toward her.
Her outburst breaks the veil Miles has placed over his own eyes. He finally sees his actions and words toward Tate for what they are. Sees the cracks that have allowed his deeper emotions out. And he breaks as deeply as he did the first day they met in the hall.
Miles is convinced that his son is the fixer of families by the way that his dad and Lisa love him. On the way home from the hospital, with Miles driving, they get into an accident and go over a bridge. Rachel and the car seat are stuck. Miles is able to free Rachel but not their son. Miles has ruined it all.
Tate soothes a shattered Miles. She lets him push her to the floor in his apartment and enters her. She lets him do whatever he needs to erase the devastation he is going through. As he’s inside her, he calls Tate Rachel. And that is the end of it, Tate is done. Because of whatever happened with Rachel, there is no room left for Tate. Rachel has completely claimed Miles’ past, dominates his present, and has ruined his future. Miles still has room to hate how he has made Tate feel and what he called her. He pauses. Hardened to her situation, Tate tells him to just finish. It’s the first time they have purely fucked. When they are done, Tate leaves for good.
At home and alone after the accident, Rachel tells Miles that she wants him. He is unsure that it is wise that soon after giving birth. That soon after the accident. It is the last time they have sex. Rachel has written Miles a goodbye letter. Her and her mother are going back to Phoenix. It is too much for the both of them. Miles decides that the most beautiful parts of love are not worth the ugly. So he gives it all up. Love of any kind no matter its beauty, is never worth the ugly price.
Tate is moving into her own apartment. She hasn’t heard from Miles since that last night together. Whether driven by desperation or stupidity, she knocks on his door to tell him goodbye. Miles is stone. There is nothing there in his expressionless face. Tate didn’t think she was capable of breaking more than she had until he tells her goodbye.
And here we finally get to see inside present-day Miles’ head since the past has finally caught up to the present. Everything we, the readers, and Tate thought to be true analyzing those moments of leaked emotions conveyed through his eyes, words, and actions. Tate is the second coming of Rachel. The second most beautiful period in his life. And he can’t.
Too obsessed with keeping hold of the pain. Pain is familiar and predictable. Giving him false security. Ian, being his external voice of reason, calls him out. Before the conversation can go anywhere, Corbin is at the door. He punches Miles and leaves. Ian continues to throw logic and perspective at Miles. The catalysts to his breakthrough-mending moment.
Miles goes down to talk to Cap. Revealing that Miles has known him his whole life and has spent the last few months venting to him about Tate. And Cap has listened without comment until now. He tells Miles that if he is to find any relief he has to make sure the only other person in the world that feels, or felt, the way he does is alright.
Experiencing Miles’ visit to with Rachel through her perspective, we see that she has found her ‘Tate’. Rachel was just quicker on the uptake. Realizing living with that kind of pain would have been never ending if she hadn’t let some of it go and leaned on someone else.
After showing her new baby girl to Miles, everything comes out. Rachel went through the exact same things Miles is going through, near verbatim. But he now sees what his life could be.
Tate is still as hurt as when she left her heart bleeding on Miles’ apartment floor. As she comes home one night, Miles is asleep leaning against her front door. After waiting six hours for her, she lets him in. When he comes out of the bathroom, Tate notices that he is different.
Miles tells her that he has missed her. Everything inside her comes to a halt. He continues to tell her all about his past. Everything in a nutshell. About the death of his son. He wants to tell her about Rachel. Instead, he beings at the beginning. The small things. Like where he was born, any siblings, likes and dislikes. All the things she would have learned had their relationship progressed naturally. Up until the day they met in the hallway when Miles was blind drunk – his son’s sixth birthday.
Tate and Miles have been dating for six months when he surprises her with a trip. Miles is taking Cap up for his very first plane ride and wants Tate along. But he really just wants her to see the sunrise. After sending Cap home with a driver, Miles presents Tate with a key, he wants her to move in with him. Then he gives her a ring, wanting her to break rule number two with him. He wants nothing more than a future with her as husband and wife.
Two years into their marriage and Miles has never cried tears of joy. Just as Rachel had feared in her life, Miles is scared that he has lost something he can never regain in himself. Especially as Tate is giving birth to their daughter. It isn’t until he sees her and sees his son. All except the eyes, she has her mother’s eyes. Miles cries. All the beauty, he realizes, is completely worth experiencing all the ugly.
