55. Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-eight
Brynn
I change into a pair of running shorts and one of Leo's giant white tees the moment we get home from the game.
The car ride back was a shit show of awkwardness and simmering tension, though Alex seemed to be under the impression that Leo was simply experiencing mid-season nerves. Apparently, he's as blind to reality as my mother says he is.
I know better, though.
I could see it in the way Leo kept rubbing his face and shifting from butt cheek to butt cheek in the front seat of my brother's Range Rover. Since we were carpooling today, Alex had kept his Bugatti in the garage of the apartment complex, ostentatious fuckface that he is.
Leo didn't even crack a smile when I started ribbing Alex about how he is single-handedly destroying the planet by owning multiple vehicles, or even when Salem farted so loudly we thought the car had backfired. He just sat there, all solemn and silent, with guilt written over every line and blemish on his face.
My heart was hurting for him. I could tell how deep his pain was running, could read the regret and contriteness all over him like my favorite book. But then he'd been a giant dick, made a show of putting his phone on silent, and stuffing it into his pocket to cut the conversation short, and I didn't feel so empathetic anymore.
Needless to say, now we're both pissed off.
The lamplight in my room flickers as I lie back on my bed, scooping Gordon onto my chest and letting him pad away at my shirt contentedly. Across the hall, the sound of Leo moving around as he transfers Salem from the car seat to her bed drifts to me through the closed door.
My heart sinks. I didn't say goodnight to her.
Frankly, I blame her father for that. Because if he wasn't such an emotionally stunted, pigheaded asshole, then I wouldn't have escaped straight to my room the moment the front door was unlocked. I definitely wouldn't be lying here now with my forehead aching from frowning so much. I'd be right there beside him, settling the baby in her crib as if she were really my daughter.
I'll probably sneak in later to give her a kiss and whisper goodnight, but that isn't the point.
The point is that Leo had no business being so short with me when I was simply trying to be there for him. Yet, no matter how butthurt I feel that he snapped at me, I'm still worrying about him.
With a long sigh, I drop Gordon gently onto the bed, the linen pluming like smoke around him, then drag myself out of the room into the living area.
It's empty.
Leo is either still in Salem's room or has taken himself to bed alone, which he's allowed to do, of course. Just because we've started sleeping with each other doesn't mean that we have to sleep beside each other every night. He's his own man. He can sleep alone if he wants. I know that. Hell, maybe I want to sleep alone too.
Except, I don't.
As beautiful as my room is, with its soft light and gentle greens and linen sheets, I've grown accustomed to sleeping in Leo's room. Next to him. Or on top of him. Or wrapped in the warm safety of his arms with his cheek resting on my head, where the nightmares can't get to me and Indiana Jones never loses his lasso.
But I'm not four years old. I can sleep in my cold, empty bed in another room without him, no problem.
That's what I tell myself anyway as I stand in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows and watch the lights of Seattle blinking and blurring together. When the clouds swell and burst with rain, I track each teardrop down the glass as if they were my own, until the cold chill of an empty room has me wrapping my arms around myself and turning my back on the city.
Leo watches me from the arch of the hallway, leaning against the wall with a furrow to his brow. Embarrassing as it is, my heart tumbles at the sight of him. And just like that, knowing he’s close, I don't feel so cold anymore.
"Hi," I whisper.
He gives me a stiff bro-nod. "Hi."
"Is Salem asleep?"
"Yeah."
"You okay?"
"Yeah."
I snort. "You seem it."
He grimaces, walking into the kitchen and opening the fridge. I try to ignore the goosebumps prickling on my arms again, his frostiness biting into my skin like a cold wind.
"Have you eaten?" he asks without looking at me.
"Not yet. I was thinking we could get takeout. That really expensive Japanese place you like. Thought we could celebrate your win by burning our mouths with wasabi—if you were up for it, I mean." I'm rambling, but I can't stop myself. "We'd regret it tomorrow, I'm sure, but at least you have a rest day. So, really, what else is there to do but spend the day on the toilet?"
"Brynn?" He blinks at me, apparently having closed the fridge and turned in my direction while I was busy conducting my sermon. I nod. "I'm just gonna have a sandwich."
Wow.
Well, okay.
I watch him silently from the other side of the island as he sets about buttering bread and lathering each slice with deli meats, doing my damn best not to let my disappointment show on my face. Even when he offers to make me a sandwich, I don't answer with words, just a listless shake of my head.
I wanted to celebrate with him. I wanted him to know I was proud of him. I wanted him to acknowledge the significance of the kiss he'd blown me after he'd scored. I thought it had meant something, but I must have thought wrong.
"I'm gonna eat this in my room," he says, and God help me, but that's the final straw.
"So, we're back to this, then?" My voice comes out stronger than I feel. It even has an edge to it. Sharp like the blade Leo used to slice his sandwich in half.
He frowns. "Back to what?"
"The hot and cold bullshit. Blowing me kisses at your soccer game then acting like my existence is somehow an imposition to you, even though I'm here because you hired me to look after your daughter in your apartment that you told me to move into."
I know him well enough by now to know what the problem is, to understand that he's struggling with the guilt of what we've been doing behind his best friend's back. And I get it. I'm not an asshole. But it doesn't mean I give him permission to be one either. Feeling shitty isn't an excuse for shitty behavior.
He drags his hand down his face, releasing a turbulent sigh. "You're not an imposition, Brynn."
"Well, you're making me feel like one."
His expression collapses in the warm light of the wall sconces, so twisted with turmoil that I almost reach out to pull him into my arms. But I don't. Because as much as he might be hurting, it doesn't make it okay for him to hurt me too. "I don't know what you want me to say," he whispers.
"The truth?" I shake my head with a humorless laugh. "Maybe tell me how you're feeling instead of giving me the cold shoulder. Let me in instead of locking me out. Trust in me enough to help you with this like you've helped me with my nightmares."
I can see the regret on his face, the frustration etched into each line. "I don't know how to do that."
"Try."
His lips part. Lines crinkle around his eyes as he thinks so loudly I almost hear it. But no words come out. He sighs, shoulders deflating, and he shrugs like he's done all he can. "I can't."
"Yeah." I nod, slow and disappointed. "I get it."
He says nothing as I walk away, just watches me leave with that same regretful sheen to his eyes. But if he isn't even willing to try, if he'd rather stab me in the soul with his silence and aloofness, then I can't keep standing there waiting for something that isn't coming.
"I wore your number to the game today," I say sadly over my shoulder. "Thought you might want to know."
I don't cry. It would be stupid to cry, since nothing has actually happened apart from a shitty text message and Leo wanting to eat his sandwich in his bedroom on his own.
Except, it doesn't feel like nothing.
It wouldn't hurt this much if it was nothing.
It sears like rejection and burns like abandonment, which is melodramatic, I know, but I'm a child of the foster system, so rejection sensitivity is cemented into every cinder block that makes up my existence.
A tear falls loose and rolls mockingly down my cheek. God, I'm pathetic. I'm not even in a relationship with Leo, and I'm lying here crying like I'm heartbroken. No wonder Alex is so fucking protective of me. Look what happens when he isn't around to safeguard my heart.
I'm so wrapped up in my pitifulness that I don't hear the creaking of my bedroom door. I'm only alerted to Leo's presence when the bed dips behind me, and the instant warmth of his body heat wraps around me like a hug.
He says nothing, so I don't either.
I just hug a pillow to my chest and breathe in the masculine scent of the man behind me. Earthy and woodsy, smoky and a little sweet... Leo smells like fall.
"My mom died when I was ten," he says finally. His voice is deep and low, with an inflection to his words that is steeped in sadness. So, I don't reply. I just lie there and wait with caught breath for him to continue. "It was sudden. A heart attack. She had cardiovascular disease, but we didn't know that until after. Sudden death was her first symptom."
My heart breaks for that poor ten-year-old little boy. Silently, I reach around and pull his arm around my waist so that I'm able to take his hand. I hadn't realized he'd been carrying so much tension in his body until I feel it release around me, his breath shuddering over my shoulder.
"Dad checked out pretty much straight away. Barely spoke, started drinking. Not badly enough that he couldn't look after me, but enough that his words turned cruel, and he started punching holes in the wall. And I get it, he was grieving. But so was I, and I..." He trails off, swallowing. "I had to do it on my own."
Behind me, his chest rattles against my back. I stroke my thumb soothingly over his knuckles, fighting the urge to comfort him with words. But I know it isn't my time to speak yet. The floor is all his.
"I had to do most things on my own after that. He tried to be there for me, in his own way, I guess. He came to the class recitals and soccer games, but he'd sit there with a blank face and say nothing when it was time to go home. He was there, but he wasn't present, you know? A shell of himself, a body with a dying heart. So, yeah, he tried his best, but it wasn't what I needed, so I stopped inviting him to the games and recitals, pretended he was sick for parent-teacher conferences, because it was less painful for him to not be there at all, than to come and act as dead as my mother."
"Alex was the first person I've really let in since Mom died. To be honest, he just barged his way past my boundaries and didn't care whether I wanted him there or not."
I snort. "Yeah, that sounds like him."
His hand turns over beneath mine so he can intertwine his fingers with mine. "But the longer he burrowed himself into my life, the more I liked him being there. He was the first person I told about Salem, the one who was there for me the most when my life was thrown upside down without warning. He's the person who talked me off the ledge when I didn't think I could look after her, who dropped everything to get formula and diapers and pacifiers just to make life a little easier on me. He's my best friend, Brynn, and I'm..." He pauses, sucking in another shaky breath. "I'm scared."
"I know," I whisper. "I know you are."
"I don't want to lose him."
"You won't."
He sighs, and it's such a fucking sad sound that I almost start crying all over again. "But I might, and I knew that the moment I touched you, and I did it anyway."
"Do you want to stop doing this? With me, I mean?" My heart hammers against my chest as fear of his answer creeps in. But how could I continue sleeping with him when I know how much it's tearing him up inside? We're not in a relationship. We're not in love. And just because I might be developing feelings for him, that doesn't mean that he is for me. "Would it make you feel better if we just...stopped?"
For a minute, he's silent. And it's the longest minute of my whole damn life.
"No," he whispers finally. "No, I don't want to stop."
I deflate in relief, and I'm sure he can feel it in the decompression of my body against his, but I can't help it. I sink farther back into his embrace, the scent of autumn falling around me like rustling golden leaves.
"Thank you for telling me that," I say quietly into the dark.
His arms tighten momentarily, holding me closer for a moment before relaxing. "I guess I just wanted to explain that sharing my emotions doesn't come easily for me. I don't know how to do it, but for you..." He buries his face in my hair and presses a soft kiss to the back of my head. "For you, Brynn, I'll try."