Leo
H azel chooses a simple bouquet of white daisies from the florist, then a small box of toffee-nut cookies from the bakery next door. After those two modest gifts, she point blank refuses to accept another thing from me, and insists on heading to the rooftop to help set up tonight’s party.
Whatever. I don’t care.
There never were any errands. I had no plans except spoiling her all day. Nothing else matters except keeping my assistant within arm’s reach, and changing her mind about quitting—and sure, I’d rather do that while buying her a diamond necklace or hand-feeding her chocolate dipped strawberries, but we can lug around sun loungers on my building’s rooftop if Hazel prefers.
After an hour of fussing with the furniture, she props her hands on her hips, breathing hard. Long flyaway hairs have frizzed out of her blonde ponytail, and her skin is dewy with sweat where it’s not covered by her purple dress. All around us, sun loungers have been dragged into clusters of two or three, safely away from the swimming pool’s edge.
Static crackles across the rooftop as the band sets up their sound system over on the pop-up stage. It’s a hot, sticky day, and we’re on top of a skyscraper, held up to the sun’s fiercest rays. Is Hazel drinking enough water? Does she need sunscreen?
“Should we fence it off somehow?”
Dabbing her wrist against her forehead, Hazel squints at the pool, with its sparkling turquoise water lapping the tiles. It would be so good to slip into that cool water right now. To soothe my heated skin, and feel the anguished pounding of my heart vibrate the water, and burn off this turmoil with fifty hard laps, barely coming up for air. Especially if Hazel came in with me.
Imagine it. That blonde ponytail trailing across the surface; those slippery wet legs twining around my waist…
“What if someone falls in?” she says.
“That’s called natural selection.”
“!”
For god’s sake. “Would you fence off a fountain?” I point out. “Or a lakeside?”
“Well, no. But—”
“There are no children invited tonight. No high risk guests. And let’s say you roped the pool off—a rope wouldn’t stop anyone falling in, would it?”
“I guess…”
She’s still stewing, her big eyes fraught. That worried pinch between her eyebrows won’t go away. My thumb itches to smooth it, then trace the length of her pert nose. Since when am I so desperate to touch her?
“I could hire a lifeguard,” I hear myself offer. “Someone to blend in and hang around the sun loungers. There’s still time.”
Hazel beams up at me like I’m her hero. And fuck, this is the gift that finally warms her up to me? Not the flowers or the cookies. This is the trick to punching down the wall she’s built between us?
A rent-by-the-hour lifeguard. This woman makes no sense.
“It’s done.”
My footsteps echo against the rooftop tiles, and I tug my phone out of my pocket, weirdly shaken by that whole interaction. By that smile.
Because what if I’m going about this all wrong? What if there’s something else Hazel wants from me that I’m not giving? Planting myself in a patch of shade, I close my eyes and let the breeze wash over my cheeks. My frozen heart is still numb inside me, the ice creeping through my chest.
One painful beat rattles my ribs. Two. Three.
Then I snap back into action and start typing on my phone, finding a last minute lifeguard. There’s still time to figure Hazel out. Still time to fix this.
There has to be.
* * *
“What do you want from me, exactly?”
The question makes Hazel jump where she’s loading up a refrigerator behind one of the pop-up bars. Crates of beer and wine bottles rest on the bar top, and Hazel lines their labels up neatly as she fills the chilled shelves. “What do you mean?” she asks, ducking her head. Her ponytail swishes over one shoulder.
Isn’t it obvious? So far, guess work has gotten me nowhere. That means I need to go on the attack. After all, I didn’t build a thriving business by being timid.
The sky all around us is stained pink, and the puffs of cloud are lit golden by the sunset. We’ve been working at this for hours already, stopping only for a rushed late lunch of deli sandwiches. The guests will arrive soon, and I’ll grit my teeth and smile through the whole night, and then Hazel can finally forget about this nonsense and focus on what is important: staying with me.
“You need to tell me how I can stop you from quitting.”
“I already have quit,” Hazel points out, lining up another beer bottle with a soft clink. “It’s done.” And she doesn’t need to set up these bars, doesn’t need to help with every single task, but my assistant actually likes being helpful. She told me once that it soothes her nerves.
Do her nerves need soothing right now?
Well, they can join the damn club.
“There must be something.” Rounding the bar to start loading a second refrigerator, I steal measuring glances at Hazel as she works. She seems fine. A little flushed, maybe, but then we’ve been in the sun all afternoon, and I’m keeping an eye on that. Already made her sip her way through two big water bottles. Already made her apply sunscreen as I stood over her, glowering whenever she missed a spot. “You liked the lifeguard thing.”
Hazel hums, lifting a Pinot Grigio from the crate and scanning the label. “You’ve got me there, boss. I do like it when people don’t drown.”
She’s missing the point.
“You liked that more than the flowers, I mean. And you didn’t want a raise.”
I already tried that approach—plus more paid vacation, a fancier desk chair, and a membership at the fancy wellness spa three blocks from the office. All afternoon, I’ve been calling offers across the rooftop. Nothing. Not even a nibble.
My girl-scout of an assistant cannot be tempted.
Soon to be ex- assistant.
Shit.
My frozen chest feels like it might cave in, but I wrestle the panic back down. That won’t help. Nothing will help until I’ve solved this problem.
“It’s a simple enough request.” My tone is too harsh, my words too clipped, and I should handle this better but I can’t. Not when she’s threatening to suck all the meaning from my life. “Just tell me what you want from me, damn it.”
Because if Hazel’s not behind that desk, what’s the point of going to the office at all? If I’m not working to give her the best possible salary and package, what’s the point of Grapevine? What’s the point of me ?
If Hazel is not near, will my heart even fucking beat?
“There’s nothing I want from you,” Hazel says, mechanically filling the refrigerator shelves, but the back of my neck prickles. Something about the measured tone of her voice gives her away: she’s lying! The beautiful wretch.
“Anything,” I say, squaring up to her in the narrow bar space. “Anything at all. Name it and it’s yours.”
Hazel’s lips press together in a thin line. And she keeps working, keeps lining up booze bottles like it’s the most important task on earth, but I catch her elbow the next time she straightens up and hold her in place.
“Tell me.”
String lights wink from the temporary roof above us. This whole rooftop has been transformed into a sea of twinkling lights, and they sparkle in my assistant’s honey-brown eyes.
She juts her chin. “No. I mean—I can’t. There’s nothing.”
“Tell me,” I say again, squeezing her arm softly. Her bare skin is warm and soft beneath my palm, and the way my body reacts to the contact, you’d think I’d stripped Hazel bare and spread her beneath me.
My gut clenches.
My pulse throbs in my throat.
My temperature climbs and my throat bobs, swallowing nothing.
Want her. Need her.
“I don’t… I mean, there’s not…”
My assistant trails off, her chest rising and falling beneath that purple dress. We’re closer, somehow. Gravitating nearer. My hand is on her bare arm, and her flyaway hairs dance on the breeze, and those soulful eyes flick down to my mouth and stay there.
Slam. Slam. Slam.
If my heart beats any harder, it’ll punch clean through my rib cage.
Hazel is still looking at my mouth.
Is that—does she want—?
“What if I kissed you?” My voice is hoarse, but I make the offer. Need to know. “What then? Would you stay?”
All the other sounds of the rooftop—the clatter and calls of the catering staff, the slosh of the pool, the flap of gazebos in the breeze—it all fades away to nothing.
Hazel’s gaze shoots up to mine. Her pupils are blown.
And my common sense screams in the back of my head, begging me to think this through, but I smother that voice with an imaginary pillow. Not now, damn it.
Body thrumming, I close the distance between us. Her dress brushes against my shirt, and Hazel lets out a soft whimper.
This can’t be real.
But when I bend my head, going slow, she doesn’t back away. No: Hazel pushes onto her toes and flings both arms around my neck, like she’s been longing for this for years. Like it’s been exhausting her tiny frame, trying to hold all this passion back.
Her mouth finds mine. Our lips brush, and our breath mingles in the twilight, and it’s like a punch in the gut.
Need curls through me, buckling my knees and stealing my air. Don’t care if swarms of hired staff can see us here; don’t care if they gossip. Don’t care about anything except the maddening woman in my arms.
Cupping the sides of Hazel’s throat, I slant our heads and kiss her again, harder. Harder. Long and deep and desperate, tongues sliding, teeth nipping, and I’ve never felt anything like this before in my whole lonely life.
She’s just so fucking sweet. Warm and perfect, like a mug of hot cocoa, with her needy whimpers and her clinging arms and the way she arches against me, silently begging for more. It’s so much more than I bargained for and so much less than I need, and I’ve lost track of the sky above and the ground below. Lost track of everything except Hazel’s lips on mine.
What was the plan here, again? How will this work?
“ Mmph .” She gives as good as she gets, kissing me eagerly. As though I’m a man she could truly desire; as if this is shaking her world apart too. But that can’t be right, because of all people, Hazel knows what I’m truly like.
The moods. The surliness.
The way I’m incapable of love. After all, my parents hated each other and me. I never learned the right way to do any of this nonsense.
And sure, I want Hazel. That’s been clear from the moment I met her four years ago, when the sun rose in my gloomy universe. And yes, my body craves hers in a way that I’ve never wanted anyone else, but it’s deeper than that—like she settles my soul, or something.
But that’s impossible.
And this is only one kiss—to make her stay.
One kiss.
God.
Tearing my mouth away feels wrong. Wrong . It’s all wrong to take my hands away and step back; all wrong to feel cool dusk air wash over my front. Everything about this is wrong, and nothing is right in the world unless our hands are on each other.
“We should get ready for the party,” I mutter.
A few minutes alone will give me a chance to scrape up my last surviving brain cells.
“S-sure. Okay.” Cheeks pink, Hazel wobbles out of the pop-up bar. She doesn’t look back at me.