Chapter 26
chapter twenty-six
MARISOL
I peer out the blinds for the third time in the last hour and see the exact same thing I’ve seen each time.
Leo’s Impala, parked up on the street outside my house, with him sitting in the driver’s seat, staring out the front windshield. He hasn’t moved once.
I roll my eyes as I drop the blinds. When we arrived home from the markets last night, Leo dropped that he thought it was about time I moved back to my place. It hit me like a gut punch, and then he closed his bedroom door.
I don’t know why it surprised me so much. Staying with Leo was only ever meant to be a temporary thing, but I was getting used to being around him all the time. The quiet emptiness of being back in my own house isn’t a comfort like it used to be.
When I first bought this house, it was like heaven—my own little reprieve from the outside world.
In this house, I could be Marisol the human, the girl, and as soon as my feet hit that pavement outside, I was Marisol the model again.
So I’ve spent as much time as possible in the quiet serenity of this place over the years. But now, all I want to do is get out.
I make two coffees, one in a mug for myself, and one in a takeaway mug.
I open the front door with my elbow and cross the street, looking both ways.
When I reach the passenger side of Leo’s car, I put my mug on the roof as I open the door, picking it up again and sliding into the low seat.
I hold the takeaway coffee mug in front of his chest, and Leo waits a moment before taking it.
“What are you doing out here?”
I scoff. “This smells amazing, Marisol,” I say, overly cheery. “Thank you so much for thinking of me and making me a world-class coffee while I’m stalking your house at seven in the morning.”
“It’s not stalking,” he says. “And I was going to say thank you.” He rolls his head against the headrest until he’s looking at me.
I take a sip of my own drink. “Yeah, well, you could’ve started with that.”
A tired smile pulls at his lips before he takes a sip of his coffee, and the only time I’ve seen him look so exhausted is when he woke up from that nightmare. “How long have you been sitting here?” I ask, but he doesn’t respond. “Leo.”
“Not long,” he says, looking back out the window.
I scoff. “You’ve been here all night, haven’t you?”
“Not all night.” His face contorts into a frown as if that’s the most absurd thing I could suggest. “But I woke up early, and I couldn’t fall back asleep, so I thought I may as well do something useful with my time.”
Woke up early. He says it like he woke up at dawn, but I have a feeling it was a few hours before then.
“And the best thing you could do with your time was perform a stakeout outside my house like some TV cop?” I ask. “Where are the donuts?” He tsks, but I carry on. “What? Do you think some guy in black and white stripes is going to jump out of the bushes?”
“Anything could happen, Marisol,” he snaps, and I go quiet. “Laugh it off all you like, but it wasn’t that long ago that you were drugged. And if it wasn’t me you had called when you did, who knows what could’ve happened.”
My mouth falls open, and a laugh falls out, but it’s not humorous.
“You think I don’t know that, Leo? You think I need a man to tell me how dangerous that was?
And how lucky I am that that night ended the way it did?
” He shakes his head. “Because I don’t. But that wasn’t my fault, and neither is any of this! ” I gesture all around us.
I’ve spent hours since that night trying to remember what happened. Trying to piece it all together. But I can’t. It doesn’t matter how hard I try, I can’t remember anything. Not leaving Sabrina, not how I got outside, or what happened out there. I don’t even remember calling Leo.
I’m not an idiot. I’m careful when I go out. But I’ve also spent all this time trying to remind myself that what happened wasn’t my fault.
“I never said it was,” he grits out. “But if you think I’m just going to sit back and watch whatever might happen next, then you don’t know me at all. Because I’ll be damned if anything happens to you while I’m around.”
The car goes silent. The only thing I can hear is my heart drumming in my chest. While he’s around.
“And what happens when you’re not around anymore, Leo?
When my knight in shining armor clocks off?
” He shakes his head again, his jaw flexing as he grinds his teeth, and I know I’ve struck a nerve.
But how else am I meant to think? He’s here now because I asked him to do this dance with me, but what happens when the dance is over, and the curtains are drawn?
Where does my protector go? Where does my comfort go?
Where do all of these feelings go? Shoved in a box labeled as performance pieces under my bed?
“What was the point in sending me home if you were just going to follow?” I ask. If he wanted to look after me, then why didn’t we stay in his apartment?
“Because, Marisol, I couldn’t—” He slams his mouth shut, and I want to slap his cheek to force it open once more.
“You couldn’t what?”
He turns to face me. “I couldn’t stop pretending.” I can’t even hear my heart now. “At some point, I have to protect myself, too.”
My mind is spinning with all the possible meanings those words could have. My lungs contract as I wait for him to say something else, anything else. But he just says, “Thanks for the coffee.”