Chapter 6

“I love you, Miles…I have for a long time. I just never had the nerve to tell you. I know how you feel about Maya now, but I just couldn’t hold this in anymore.” Phoenix said emotionally, everything pouring out as if a dam broke, “But, please, don’t think I’m expecting you to do anything about this…all I want is for you to be happy.”

Miles had a response prepared along the lines of, ‘I am happy for you, Wright.’, but then when Phoenix’s words actually sunk in, his eyes went wide and his mouth all but dropped open. He couldn’t say anything for a few moments, leaving Phoenix looking at him awkwardly, wondering if he said something to upset Miles, and he was entirely unprepared when Miles suddenly sprung into action, possessing his mouth without another word.

Miles didn’t know what came over him to suddenly kiss Phoenix this way when they hadn’t even hugged once, but he simply couldn’t control himself, now that he knew that Phoenix was his all along. Phoenix let out a small, shocked noise when he felt Miles’ lips suddenly on his, but he did not resist at all, the feelings brought on by the kiss coursing through him forcefully and rapidly.

They both kissed until they had to breathe, both of them gasping for air as they took the breather. During this time, both of them came back to their senses and realized what just happened.

“Wait a second, so you don’t like Maya?” Phoenix finally said, now looking at Miles in confusion.

“What are you talking about, Wright? Whatever gave you that idea?” Miles replied, now also confused, raising an eyebrow at Phoenix.

“I…well, I thought…you know, since you took her out to dinner…” Phoenix said hesitantly, now getting embarrassed since he was clearly wrong.

“That dinner was my way of thanking Maya for all of her help and support, nothing else.” Miles said simply, giving Phoenix an amused smirk.

Phoenix smiled back at Miles, happy to hear that he didn’t have to worry about losing Miles to someone else. Then Miles spoke again.

“Wright…what I was trying to say before you kept interrupting me was that Maya told me…you and Butz…” Miles said awkwardly, never finding it easy to talk about subjects such as these.

“Oh!” Phoenix said in surprise at first, but he rolled his eyes and said, “Maya just jumped to conclusions. She just thought that I said I liked Larry, and I thought it was funny, so I didn’t correct her. I didn’t think she’d go and tell everyone after that.”

Phoenix just shook his head in slight amusement, knowing that Maya would never change.

“So there is nothing between you and Butz?” Miles asked, feeling even more relieved.

“Nope!” Phoenix said, a grin forming on his face, just so happy that they finally cleared up all the misconceptions they had, now nothing between them at all.

At this point, it had finally stopped raining, but neither of them noticed the weather one bit, just glad to be in each other’s company.

“So…ummm…where does this leave us?” Phoenix finally asked, knowing that it would be best to have this discussion now, wanting to get all these emotional revelations out of the way, knowing he had been through enough in this one day to last him a long time.

“I think…I’d be willing to explore this relationship further…Phoenix.” Miles said, feeling very vulnerable, especially when he used Phoenix’s first name, deciding that he should get in the practice of calling him by his first name from now on.

The smile on Phoenix’s face turned just a bit mischievous as he drew closer to Miles, putting his arms around him to hug him tightly, and then he leaned his head close to Miles’ ear and whispered, “Me too…Miles…”

Phoenix’s whisper caused a pleasant shiver unlike anything Miles had ever felt before to run down his spine, and in response, Miles just smiled, returning Phoenix’s embrace. Eventually Miles pulled back, looking at Phoenix for a second, and unable to resist, he leaned in for another kiss. Just as their lips touched, Phoenix’s phone suddenly went off.

Phoenix pulled back from Miles reluctantly, letting out a little sigh, getting his phone out of his coat, and answering it, “Phoenix Wright, Ace Attorney.”

“Hey, Nick!”

Miles could easily hear it was Maya who called.

“What’s up, Maya?” Phoenix said, just dying to end this conversation and get back to what he was doing before the call.

“Well, I’ve been called back to Kurain, even if I was just there this weekend! They wanted me to help with some of the channeling training in the morning tomorrow at the school, so I should be back by the evening latest.” Maya said.

“Oh, that’s fine, you can come in as soon as you can.” Phoenix said quickly, making it obvious he was in a hurry.

“Okay, I guess I’ll see you later then! And have fun with Larry!” Maya said in her regular cheery tone.

“Umm…” Phoenix said in amusement, “Bye, Maya.”

“Bye!” she said, finally hanging up the phone.

Phoenix hung up his phone and then he turned to Miles and gave him a playful little smirk, saying, “Well, it looks like I’m going to be home all alone tonight…unless you’ll join me…”

Miles caught Phoenix’s drift and smiled back similarly, replying in a coy tone, “Perhaps I will.”

Phoenix and Miles were still asleep the next morning, long after the sun rose, being up quite late the night before. Miles started coming out of sleep first, usually one to get up early in the morning for work, but he already knew, this was one day of work he was willing to skip. When Miles finally opened his eyes, they settled on Phoenix’s peaceful sleeping face, and Miles just couldn’t resist giving him a soft kiss on the cheek and snuggling a little closer to him. In response, Phoenix let out a little sigh in his sleep and snuggled back a little, a small smile tugging on his lips.

Miles gave Phoenix one more kiss on the forehead, and then carefully extracted himself from the bed to not wake Phoenix up, quickly making his way to the bathroom, intending fully to return to the bed with Phoenix after.

Maya was happy that the training exercises that she was to help with ended up being much shorter than she was expecting, so she hurried back to Phoenix’s apartment early in the afternoon, really wanting to hear all the details of the time he spent with Larry.

Opening the door, she walked in saying, “Hey, Nick, I’m back early!”

At this time, Miles had the misfortune of walking out of the bathroom, clad only his boxers, and immediately he locked eyes with Maya.

“Mr.—I mean, Miles?!” Maya said, almost forgetting to call him Miles in her complete shock.

At this point, Miles flushed entirely red, having the unbelievable urge to run back into the bathroom and lock the door, but he knew that definitely would not solve the problem.

Trying to maintain at least some air of dignity, Miles replied softly with a small nod, “Maya.”

But he found it quite hard to feel very dignified while talking to someone in his underwear. Maya just kept staring at him, trying to take this situation in, and at the same time she seemed to be studying him, all of this making Miles severely uncomfortable.

With her eyes still wide at his appearance, she finally said, “What are you doing here? I mean…like…this…”

For once in his life, Miles found himself without some witty comeback or biting remark, just awkwardly mumbling, “I…ummm…well, you see…”

When Miles was caught by Maya in the hall, Phoenix had just noticed that he was alone in the bed, so he’d decided to find out where Miles had gone. He got out of bed and walked out into the hall, and the first thing he saw was Miles standing there. He was about to ask Miles why he was just standing there, when he noticed that Miles seemed to be looking at someone. He was shocked to find out this someone was none other than Maya Fey.

“Maya!” Phoenix said in surprise, blushing as badly as Miles was, stammering as he continued to speak, “How—I mean…why—when did you get here?”

Maya conveniently ignored all of Phoenix’s questions and just asked, “What’s going on here?!”

Miles blushed even deeper at the question, and Phoenix realized that things would be better for everyone if they could only get some clothes on.

“Maya, we’ll all talk after we get dressed, okay?” Phoenix said, shaking his head in complete embarrassment, grabbing Miles’ hand to pull him back into the bedroom since Miles seemed to be frozen to the spot.

Miles was just so in shock that his legs didn’t comply at first when Phoenix pulled him, so he ended up getting yanked into the room as Phoenix shut the door behind them. Maya inched closer to the door to listen to what they might be saying, since she was completely confused as to what was going on.

“You should have set her straight from the beginning, Phoenix. Now this situation looks even worse!” Miles grumbled as he got his pants and shirt on.

“I agree with you, but we still need to figure out how we’re going to explain this to her.” Phoenix said, also trying to get his clothes on as quickly as possible.

“We should just tell her the truth, that’s all we can do.” Miles said, putting a hand to his forehead, feeling like he’d never been in as embarrassing a situation as this in his entire life.

When Phoenix felt like they were appropriately clothed, he opened the door and to his surprise, Maya almost fell on him as she tried to eavesdrop on their conversation. When Phoenix gave her an admonishing look, she just let out an awkward laugh and stepped back from the door so that they could all take a seat in the living room.

Phoenix could tell that Maya was just bursting with questions, but he decided to speak before she succeeded in prying too much into their personal lives, “Maya, look, I told you, I never liked Larry that way.”

“But what about everything you were saying about the reason you became a lawyer and all that?” Maya said, an absolutely confused expression on her face.

Phoenix would have laughed at this expression if it wasn’t for the fact that Maya had just caught the both of them in their underwear.

Phoenix blushed a little and replied in a shy tone, “Maya, I was talking about Miles when we had that conversation, not Larry. When you thought it was Larry, I didn’t try too hard to convince you it wasn’t since I didn’t expect things to get so blown out of proportion.”

“Oh, Nick, and Miles told me he liked you when we went out to dinner too! If I’d known this sooner, I’d have told you too!” Maya said, giving Phoenix her typical angry face, seeming like she forgot Miles was sitting right there with them.

Now it was Miles’ turn to blush yet again, just staying silent to not attract attention to himself, but as soon as Maya said it, Phoenix looked at Miles in surprise.

“You told her…you liked me?” Phoenix said in surprise, a tiny smile just touching his lips as he spoke.

“When she mentioned something about you and Butz…it…slipped out.” Miles quickly admitted, not making eye contact with Phoenix, thoroughly embarrassed since Maya was witnessing this conversation.

“Ahh…” Phoenix replied softly, blushing a little more.

“So, this whole time, you liked Miles, not Larry?” Maya asked one more time, just clarifying any doubt left in her mind.

Phoenix turned back to Maya and said, the small smile still on his lips, “Yeah…I’ve never loved anyone else…”

Even if Miles was blushing to the roots at this point, he felt a little smile coming to his face as well, feeling incredibly touched by what Phoenix said.

Suddenly Maya’s expression changed to look happy and excited instead of confused, and she said, “Aww, that’s just so cute! Why didn’t you tell me about this earlier, Nick? I would have helped you guys get together way sooner!”

At this comment from Maya, both of them couldn’t help but turn their eyes on her with their eyebrows raised in disbelief.

“Ummm…I think you’ve really helped enough, Maya.” Phoenix said dryly, but he was clearly amused since things did turn out well in the end because of her.

There was a silence for a moment and before Maya could ask any nosy questions, Phoenix spoke again.

“Oh, by the way, you can have today off at the office…I wasn’t going to come in today anyway.” Phoenix said with a small smile, and when he saw Maya opening her mouth again, he continued to speak before she could, “And…I really would appreciate it if you could keep this thing between Miles and me mostly to yourself.”

Maya stopped speaking for a moment, her mouth dropping open, finally saying, “What?! Oh, come on, Nick!”

“I just don’t want us to be the next big story in the tabloids.” Phoenix said, shaking his head as he pictured Lotta Hart following the both of them around, trying to get the ‘best shots’ of them both.

Maya seemed to consider this carefully, and when she finally came to a conclusion, she said, “Alright, fine. As long as you promise to tell me how you guys got together. And don’t even think of leaving one detail out!”

“Maya, I can’t – ” Phoenix started to say in resistance, but when he saw the determined look in her eye, he knew that she would pry those details from him one way or another, so he figured there was no use in putting up a fight.

Letting out a sigh, he said, “Okay, fine.”

Miles happily stayed out of this conversation, this whole affair embarrassing enough as it was.

With this, Maya stood quickly from where she was sitting, now giving both of them a teasing smile as she said, “Well, I think I’ll just get going then, especially since I obviously interrupted something here.”

At this, both of them blushed entirely for the second time, and Phoenix weakly objected, “Maya, it wasn’t – ”

“Bye, Nick, bye, Miles!” Maya said with a big smile, exiting the apartment quickly, not even giving either of them a chance to reply.

When the door closed, they just both looked after her for a moment, unable to believe what had just happened, both them silently deciding that most of the encounter was better forgotten for the time being. Finally they looked back at each other. Giving Miles a warm smile, Phoenix slid closer to him on the couch they were both sitting on until their sides were touching.

Phoenix leaned forward until his head was quite close to Miles’ and he said quietly, “I’m actually really glad Maya said something, even if she wasn’t quite sure what was going on. Who knows how long it would have taken us to tell each other how we feel?”

Miles chuckled lightly and replied, “I know Maya had good intentions, but I hope she’ll stop jumping to conclusions from now on.”

Phoenix had to laugh at this and say, “Well, she wouldn’t be Maya if she didn’t…I don’t think she’d ever change.”

After Phoenix spoke, another short silence settled between them, but this time it was a companionable silence rather than an awkward one. Finally Phoenix moved his head until their foreheads were touching.

“Anyway…Maya was right…she did interrupt something.” Phoenix whispered with a little smirk on his face, raising a hand to gently run it through Miles’ hair.

“Well then…shall we continue?” Miles said in a tone that was decidedly seductive, unable to resist smirking himself, quickly closing the distance between their faces.