Chapter 15
chapter fifteen
LEO
“Damn, Beckett,” Caio says as we walk through the large French doors that lead from Hotel Dolce’s lobby out onto the lawn. “Did no one tell you you’re not supposed to outdress the host?”
Miles scoffs, rolling his eyes as he smiles. “Thank Marina.” He gestures to where Marina walks with the other women ahead of us. “I had nothing to do with this.”
“Neither did I,” I say.
“Where do women find things like this?” Miles pulls at the lapels of his old-fashioned suit jacket.
“I have no idea,” I reply.
“What I want to know is how May convinced this guy to dress up with a flower on his face,” Caio says, pointing to Rafael.
Rafael simply groans, hanging his head back. “I’m a fucking fool in love, that’s what I am.” My ears lift as I smile to myself. He might play the grump extremely well, but all of us can see the way that May has softened him. I think somehow, he has softened her, too.
“Aren’t we all,” Caio says, but it’s more of a statement than a question. I feel my smile dip at the same time I feel Miles’s assessing gaze on me, and I try to pick my lips back up again.
When I first met Isla, I quickly learned how she can read people, how she disarms you in a way where you want to open up to her. Her brother has the same affinity.
“What?” I mutter as Rafael and Caio walk slightly ahead of us.
“What’s going on with you and Marisol?” he asks quietly.
I feel my breath quickening. “What do you mean?”
His eyes narrow. “Why did I not hear anything until I saw it in the papers?”
It’s a fair question. Miles and I found a sense of brotherhood in each other last year.
I was there to help him after his accident, and in return, he never left me in peace again.
He knows about most things going on in my life, so for him to read about Marisol and me in the papers would be a surprise.
“I don’t know, it kind of just…happened.” True.
His tongue wets his lips as he deliberates. “Marina is entirely invested in this whole thing,” he says. “She told me you’ve been obsessed with Marisol since you were all kids, so what made her decide to like you all of a sudden? Just like that?” He clicks his fingers.
“Okay, ouch,” I say.
“I don’t believe it.”
He may as well have punched me straight in the gut.
The beer I chugged earlier at the bar churns in my stomach because he’s right on the money, but he also poked at a wound that has always stayed hidden deep within my chest. The one that says I’ve never been good enough for someone like Marisol, not back then, and not now.
Miles is right. After all these years of knowing me, why would Marisol decide to fall in love with me now?
She’s too smart for that, and I’m too far gone to be the kind of guy she should choose.
But that’s why this works. Because for a moment, I can pretend that maybe I’m not damaged goods, that I’m more than just the funny side character in her life, that maybe I could be the kind of person she would choose, even if it’s just temporary.
Even if it’s just me willingly standing here knowing I’ll get hurt in the end, because none of those things will ever change.
But I’d rather pretend while I can that this could be my life, somewhere in an alternate world.
A world in which maybe the things that led me to be this person never happened, and I can be that person, her person.
“Honestly, I didn’t believe it either,” I say, channeling that person.
“But the universe, or god, or whatever—something brought us together that night, and I’m not going to fight it.
” Before Miles can respond, the girls turn around as we approach the start of the maze, and I’m grateful for it.
I don’t want to spend another minute trying to convince him why Marisol would choose me when I can’t even convince myself.
“Right. Teams of two,” Marina says. “Whichever couple is last to reach the center of the maze is on drinks for the rest of the night.”
“I hope you’re good at this,” I mutter to Marisol as I approach her side, my hand instinctively finding her waist. She inhales a sharp breath at my touch, and I pull my hand away, wondering if somewhere in the night, I’ve crossed some boundary I didn’t know about.
If maybe tonight has been too much for her.
I couldn’t help but pull her close to me on that dance floor. To anyone else, we would’ve looked like a couple dancing. But for me, asking her to dance was another excuse to be close to her. But maybe I took it too far.
She looks up at me, then down at my hand before meeting my gaze again, and it almost feels like there are a million things she wants to say in this moment.
But when I think she’s going to open her mouth to say something, Marina speaks first. “We have to stagger it so we don’t all go the same way. We’ll have to time it.”
“Alright, we’ll go first,” Isla says, starting a stopwatch on her phone before she and Caio disappear into the maze. Marina and Miles do the same, with May and Rafael following after them, leaving Marisol and me alone at the start.
“Did I do too much tonight?” I ask, not able to hold in my doubts now that we have a moment alone.
Marisol turns to face me. “No, not at all,” she says, shaking her head.
“Are you sure?” I don’t ever want to make her uncomfortable, whether we are playing house or not.
She steps into me. “Leo. I’d tell you, I promise.”
I bite down on my cheek as I nod, but she doesn’t seem to like that response. She holds her hand between our bodies, her pinky finger extended.
I smile, holding her gaze as I hook my little finger around hers. “We’re good,” she says. “Pinky promise.”
“Okay.” I nod again, more sure this time.
Marisol unwinds her finger from mine and begins walking backward, each step taking her further into the maze. “Are you coming?” She grins, and god, I can’t help the way I grin back at her. I take slow and steady steps toward her, and she keeps her eyes locked on mine as she continues backward.
“Don’t you dare start running,” I say as she picks up the pace.
“Why not?” she asks. “It is a race.”
I watch her, my heart rate increasing with every step she takes. The air out here feels charged, and the way Marisol is looking at me feels like a test. “Because then I’d have to chase you.”
Her eyes glitter in the moonlight as they drift down my body before flitting back to my eyes. “So chase me.”
She turns and disappears around the first corner. I curse as I take off, a wide grin on my face as I hurl myself around the same corner just to see her disappear once more. The hem of her dress between the leaves is the only sign of her. Aside from the small echo of laughter she leaves behind.
I can feel us getting closer and closer to the center of the maze as I follow her, skidding to turn down a hidden path as her giggle curls around the corner.
I pick up into a sprint as she finally comes into view in front of me, and as I’m about to reach for her, she screams, her hand flying to her chest as she laughs, and Marina and Miles appear in front of us.
“Have fun going the wrong way!” Marina yells as they fly past us.
Marisol and I share a quick glance, a decision, then she’s grabbing my hand, and we are running in the direction Miles and Marina came from. I don’t exactly trust their navigation skills. Miles just follows the flight path laid out for him after all.
We get faster and faster, winding our way through the maze and gripping each other’s hands so tightly, I think I’ll have cresent shaped dents from Marisol’s nails embedded into the back of my hand.
“We didn’t even start the timer!” she yells, and a laugh tumbles out of me. So much for winning the race.
We sprint down the straight path in front of us, turning left at the end and hitting a dead end. We turn back to go the other way, but we find another wall of greenery.
“Vaffanculo!” Marisol groans as she slams her hands against the hedge blocking our way.
I push out a laugh between my ragged breaths, running a hand through my hair before I sink down onto the ground, leaning back on the solid hedge as I catch my breath. “Fuck.” I laugh again. “I haven’t run like that since…” Since that night.
“Since when?” Marisol frowns, falling beside me, both of us giving up any chance of reaching the inner circle.
That was the last time I ran so fast, I forgot what the adrenaline rush feels like. Except that day, the adrenaline didn’t wear off. It hung around as I crawled, using pure upper body strength to drag myself through the—
“Since working at the firm?”
I blow out a breath, shaking off the memories, even when I know I’ll never be rid of them. My subconscious keeps reminding me of that night, as if I could ever forget. “Yeah,” I reply. “Since I worked at the firm.”
She accepts my vague answer, letting her legs stretch out in front of her.
“You know, when I first moved away after Nonna died, I used to run like that nearly every day. On the treadmill or around the streets in Sorrento. I swear, all I did was run when I was trying to break into the modeling world. I didn’t know then that this was when it would come in handy.
” She laughs, but all I can think about is the things she put herself through, the things she sacrificed to be who she is today. My mind can’t even scratch the surface.
“Do you still run now?”
She nods. “Only a couple of times a week, to stay fit.”
I scoff. “I don’t think you could ever get unfit, Marisol.”
“I don’t know,” she whispers, pulling her knees into her chest, and this moment suddenly feels precarious. Like if I say another word about it, I’ll be walking on shattered glass, hoping it doesn’t cut me.
“It must be hard,” I say, keeping my gaze on the wall of shrubbery opposite us.
She’s quiet beside me, and I wonder if I should’ve kept my mouth shut, but then she utters, “It is hard.”
I want to touch her, to look her in the eye and shake her and tell her that her heart is what makes her beautiful, not her body. But I don’t.
“Sometimes, I look at photos from back when we were at school and I…” She shakes her head slowly. “I don’t even recognize that girl, and then I see campaigns from this year, and I don’t—” Her voice wobbles. “I barely recognize her either.”
I swing around to face her, cradling her face in my hands, and my thumb instantly finds her cheek, making small movements.
“I do,” I say. “She’s right here.” Her eyes shimmer with moisture as she looks up at me.
“She shamelessly steals my sweats, and she still jumps up and down like a little kid when she’s excited, like she always has.
” She lets out a weak laugh. “She’s right here.
” I poke one of my fingers into her chest where her heart resides. “You’re right here.”
Marisol reaches up, her small hand coming to rest on top of mine as she takes a deep breath, and I could be wrong, but she looks relieved.
The sound of shoes flattening the grass comes up behind me. Marisol’s gaze jumps over my shoulder, and then she’s sliding out of my grasp. I turn around to see Miles and Marina puffing as they round the corner.
Marina is hunched over, her hands resting on her knees. Her eyes flit between the two of us, like she knows she walked in on something, but Miles just throws his hands up. “Well, how the fuck did we end up back here?”