17. Leo （Last Year） #2
They found their rhythm, bodies pressed together, her washing and him rinsing, placing each plate and cup on the rack beside them to dry when he finished.
Isaak’s voice crooned in the background.
Leo’s hands kept moving, but he lost himself in the feel of her heartbeat and her warm curves hugged against him.
Then Lynne dropped a glass before he could grab it from her.
Both of them plunged hands into the sudsy water after it, searching blindly.
Then their fingers touched, entwined and released, skin gliding across skin.
He couldn’t tell who reached for whom first. But she stopped washing, and both of them stilled.
He caressed her hand with more care than he’d held any of the dishes, and she caressed his back.
Lynne glanced down, exposing the tender spot at the back of her neck.
Leo remembered how, on that night years ago, he could touch this one spot, and it would make her melt.
He let go of the sprayer, and it clattered softly into place.
Neither of them seemed to notice or care.
He brushed bubbles off her forearm, traced down to her elbow, and felt her breath hitch.
Leo couldn’t take it anymore. He wrapped both his hands around her waist and pulled her into him, his breath against her neck. Goosebumps crept across her skin. She shuddered softly.
He recognized how easy it would be right now to cross the unspoken line they’d been drawing and redrawing. How much he wanted to. God, he wanted to cross it. But did Lynne? Had Cali and Ruby been wrong? Was this a second chance or just a dream he refused to let die?
He bent his head, the tip of his nose brushing against her ear, just as the jukebox clicked off. The backroom fell silent except for the sound of their ragged breath.
He pressed a kiss into that tender spot on her neck, and she arched toward him, a soft “Oh” escaping her mouth. Leo paused, unsure if she’d push him away again. But she didn’t. Her hands lifted from the water to meet his at her waist, water dripping down her fingertips.
He traced kisses down her neck as their bodies coiled together. “Do you remember this?” he asked between kisses. “Do you remember us?”
“How could I forget?” she murmured.
That undid him. One desperate thought broke through the haze. He’d do whatever she wanted next. However she wanted it. Take her right here on the dirty tiled floor if she needed him that much.
Then her dad called down. The spell snapped. “Lynny! Sweetheart! Could you bring the hydrocodone—the one in the blue bottle?”
She froze, and he froze. Leo didn’t want to let her go, but he freed his hands, and she shimmied out of the narrow room.
“I have to go,” she told him, a blush crawling up her neck where his lips had just been tracing. “I’m sorry, Leo.”
“It’s okay. I understand,” he said. Even though it wasn’t. Even though he didn’t. His brain was still trying to catch up, in disbelief the moment had broken so quickly. “Should I wait down here? Can I help with anything?”
She hesitated for a moment, considering. A glimmer of hope passed through Leo’s eyes. Then Dale called down again, more earnest this time. “Lynny! Honey, it hurts.”
Leo winced.
“Coming!” she called back. She sounded on the verge of tears. “Just a moment, Dad!” She turned to Leo. “No, go ahead on home. We’ll talk later. I have to take care of him.”
In hindsight, he should’ve known they wouldn’t talk later. The guilt, the shame of indulging in her own pleasure while her dad was in pain upstairs—it was written all over her face. But he’d wanted her words to be true so badly, he believed her when she said it.
On the short walk back to his apartment, alone, one thought played on repeat. It had almost happened. God, that word was going to kill him.
He felt her want it in the way her breath hitched, in how she sank deeper into his arms, how those goosebumps along her neck had betrayed her unspoken thoughts.
And what she’d said when he asked if she remembered that night together—How could she forget?
That wasn’t a mistake. That was her letting go for one fraction of a second.
He stopped and stood in the middle of the abandoned alley, halfway between his apartment and the bar. He wanted to run back. He wanted to knock on the bar door. He wanted to pretend her dad never called for her. But that was suicide.
He lifted his hands to his face and dragged them down his scruffy cheeks, watching his breath fog in the October air.
He was in love with her. Had been. Always would be. It seemed so clear now.
But he was also an idiot. Was he really about to sabotage everything they’d rebuilt? She didn’t need another weight on her shoulders. She was drowning already, and the last thing he wanted was to be the thing that pulled her under.
So he backed off, and he tried not to panic when she didn’t text or call him most of the next day. Instead he stopped by the bar on his way home from the station—casually, or at least he tried to make it look that way. Just to wave and check in.
Lynne saw him and waved back but disappeared into the kitchen, leaving him with Ruby instead. He knew her well enough to know what that meant. She wasn’t ready. She was avoiding him.
The realization hit him like cold water.
He texted her later that week, though, because he just couldn’t help himself. They hadn’t gone more than a few days without checking in on each other for an entire year. He feared losing that.
Hey, Lynne. Just wondered if Dale felt better. You two need anything?
She just texted back Thanks, Leo. Not yes. Not no. The silence between the lines was deafening.
He decided it was best to give her space.
He was only torturing himself. But she filled the space with her normal routine again—Instagram posts for bar events, coming to book club but not lingering afterward.
She’d wave if she saw him around town. But she didn’t go out of her way.
It wasn’t friendly like before. Even their breakfast ritual at Minka’s fell off the map.
He knew why she was doing this. But he couldn’t help but stop in at the bar one more time, on a slow weekday night closer to Thanksgiving, hoping to find her there. He found Ruby at the helm instead.
“Long time no see, kid.”
“Well, it’s not exactly by choice. How are you doing, Ruby? I just wanted to come and check on Lynne and her dad.”
Ruby’s expression went flat, and she let out a long, low whistle.
“It’s been rough around here, kid. Lynne’s working double shifts, not sleeping, not eating.
I keep telling her to take some time off.
Then Dale had a really bad night earlier this week, and they both ended up at the hospital.
Lynne finally crashed yesterday, and I haven’t heard from her since. ”
Leo’s chest tightened. They chatted a little longer, then he excused himself.
“You aren’t hungry?” she asked. “I could send you home with some wings.”
“Not anymore. I think I just lost my appetite.” He rested his head in his hands. “I just wish there was something we could do for them.”