Chapter 21 #3
“No,” Leo says. “You have the address where I’m staying, yes?”
The man nods, then looks at Teddy, who gives him a half shrug, and he turns and leaves without another word.
The mood’s still heavy even after he’s gone, and Teddy lets out a sigh. “I fucking hate that guy.”
Leo sags against me. “Really? God, I thought it was just me.”
“Nope,” Teddy says, dropping his tablet into his bag. “He’s a douche. He filed a complaint against Camilo last year after he saw him on a date, but the complaint was thrown out, and he was written up for being a bigot.”
“Good,” Leo snarls. I stroke a hand up his back, and he lets out the smallest hum. “So…is that it?”
Teddy nods. “Yeah. I’ll order a crew to come and board up what they can. There’s a bunch of storms on the way, and I don’t want to make anything worse.”
Leo shrugs. “Everything’s pretty much ruined anyway.”
He’s not wrong. Mold has crept into every corner. Even the bedding has big green patches all over it. It’s the reality of what happens after something like this, and I hate that for him.
“I’ll drop by the station soon,” Leo says when Teddy comes in for a hug.
“You don’t need to do that. I can send you everything,” Teddy tells him.
Leo rolls his eyes. “To hang out with you.”
“Oh!” Teddy’s cheeks flush, and he glances away. “Sorry. I’m not used to people wanting to come see me.”
“Ted,” I say.
He looks at me. “Besides you guys, but we work together.”
I’ll do better at being his friend later. Right now, I’m consumed with work and Leo, and I don’t have a lot of room for anything else. But Leo pulls Teddy into another hug and says something against his ear that I miss.
Teddy clearly picks it up, though, because he nods and signs something between them that I can’t see. Leo responds with a nod, and then he steps back as Teddy shoots me a last wave and lets himself out through the hole in the wall.
Leo watches him go, then turns to face me. “He’s always so sad.”
“Yeah. His relationship fell apart after he went deaf. That’s going to do a number on his self-esteem.”
“I kind of get that,” Leo says quietly.
I frown. “What do you mean?”
His arms flop at his sides, and then he walks over to an unburnt shelf covered in sooty photo frames.
“Liam and I had friends, and I was sort of close with his family. His brother and sister-in-law came to see me in the hospital after the Incident, but I still couldn’t speak.
I was using the ACC device one of my physical therapists dug up for me.
It was old-school—kind of sounded like Stephen Hawking. ”
I smile despite the weight of this story. “I bet it helped.”
“Yeah, but…” He trails off, then reaches over and plucks a photo off one of the shelves.
I glance over his shoulder at the man in it.
He’s very good-looking—tan, bare chest, wearing palm-tree-print swimming trunks, and he’s holding a frozen drink.
The ocean is behind him, and I can just make out Leo in the reflection of his sunglasses.
“Is that him?”
“Yeah,” he tells me. “Sometimes I look back at these photos, and it’s like acid stuck in my throat.
He was pretending he still loved me for so long.
And it was never more obvious that everyone around me knew before I did than when people came to see me in the hospital.
They were there out of obligation. I knew from the look on his brother’s face that he wasn’t ever coming back after that visit. I never heard from him again.”
“That is so fucked-up,” I whisper.
Leo sets the photo down and turns to face me. “It was probably better that way. The longer I learned to cope with his death, the more I realized he never really liked me at all. Hell, when we first met, he insisted that I go by my middle name because we couldn’t be a couple called Leo and Liam.”
I stare at him. “I…what? What’s your middle name?”
He flushes. “Fredrick. He called me Freddie. I don’t know why it bothered him so much. I’ve always liked my name. I mean…it’s mine, you know? It’s who I am.”
I pull him close and tip his chin up. “It is. And I love your name.”
I love you, I want to say. But it’s not the right time. Not yet.
He smiles, then pushes into a kiss, and I quickly duck down because I don’t want him to hurt his feet. His arms go around me, and he slips his tongue into my mouth like he’s trying to taste all of me before pulling back.
“Take me home.”
“So you can fuck me?” I tease.
He doesn’t laugh. He sets a hand to the center of my chest, where I’m sure he can feel how rapidly my heart is beating. “I’m going to make it so good for you, North. So fucking good.”
My swallow gets stuck in my throat, and all I can do is nod. He kisses me for that too, then eases back.
Our hands find each other, and we both turn, only to freeze at the sight of a man standing in the opening of the wall. Every good feeling drains out of me as I meet Easton’s furious eyes.
“Well. If it isn’t my favorite pair of fucking liars.” His voice is shaking with barely restrained rage. “You both have a lot of explaining to do.”