Chapter 29
chapter twenty-nine
LEO
I sit at Marisol’s kitchen bench, a generous mug of coffee warming my palms as I cradle it.
I slept the best I have in weeks with Marisol tucked into my side last night.
Or this morning. I’m actually not sure what time she came into my room, nor did I check it after she came under my touch and then fell asleep in my arms. But exhaustion and I are running a race, and I’m losing.
The night terrors wash away all my energy, even if I sleep well after them.
My mind is so tired of repeating that night over and over again.
My therapist told me it was PTSD, and we worked through a lot of that before I left town, but it never seems to fully leave me. It comes back around to catch me each night I spend in this place.
The door squeaks as Marisol emerges from the bedroom, her pink pajamas a little wonky, and her glasses pressed against her forehead as she rubs her eyes.
I had to remind myself multiple times this morning that last night with her wasn’t a dream.
I really did put my hand down those pink pajama pants and hold her as she came on my hand.
She really did say fuck the consequences—well, actually, she said we’d deal with the consequences in the morning. It’s the morning.
I don’t know what to say or how to act. I’ve always felt comfortable with Marisol, never had to think too much before I spoke to her, but now, my mind is so caught up with thinking that I can’t form a single word.
“Morning,” she says, her voice groggy as she moves to make a coffee for herself.
“Morning,” I respond, as if this is a normal thing that we do, as if all is well in the world, as if we’ve stepped into that alternate universe where this is all an easy dream. She shatters that illusion fairly quickly.
“We need to talk.”
Oh, fuck. I brace myself for the blow, for her voice to be filled with regret, her eyes apologetic. I prepare myself to stay cool, unbothered, as she says last night was a mistake, but when she sits down next to me, that’s not what she says.
“Last night,” she starts.
“Yeah?”
She bites the inside of her lip. “What is that scar from, Leo?” I blink in shock, my mind recalculating my response after that surprise, and I struggle to swallow as she looks at me, not tearing her eyes from mine, so I look away instead.
Last night, I didn’t think. I didn’t think about the fact that I was shirtless when she found me, the sheets down at my ankles. My scar was the last thing on my mind when I woke up.
“Those bad memories you talked about, and the scar…are they related?” I fight the urge to shut down, to change the topic, because I’m not sure I could now. I’m not sure Marisol would let me.
“Yeah,” is all I can bring myself to say.
She spins on her stool to face me, and she abandons her coffee in favor of fiddling with her jewelry. “Last night, you…” She looks down, spinning one ring around her finger. “It seemed like you were trying to get away from something or someone…trying to get somewhere else.”
I close my eyes as she speaks, the memories flooding in as she reminds me of the very thing I’ve been trying so hard to forget.
“I’m sorry.” She stops herself. “It’s none of my business, Leo. I just—I want you to know that if you ever want to talk about it, I’m here for you, okay?”
I finally meet her gaze once more, and when I do, I see pain. Like seeing me hurting leaves her hurting, and I don’t ever want to hurt her. I did enough of that last night.
I push her braid over her shoulder. Her neck is free of any bruising, and relief rushes in. She wraps her hand around my wrist as she tips her head. “I’m fine, Leo.”
“It shouldn’t even be a question.” I shake my head. “I’ve never experienced that before, but I usually wake myself up from it. I’ve never had someone around to really…witness it.”
“I didn’t mean to intrude,” she says, but she cuts herself off with a shake of her head. “No, I mean, that’s a blatant lie. I entirely meant to intrude. When I heard you yell, I…”
I imagine her waking to the sounds of my screams, and I hate that I worried her. “I’m sorry for scaring you.”
She bites on her bottom lip. “Don’t be sorry, Leo. I’m sorry for invading your privacy. I’m sorry that I can’t help.”
“You help,” I say, sliding my palm over her cheek, and she melts into it. “You help, covergirl.” Nothing could ever compare to the overwhelming sense of safety I get when I see her first, when her voice soothes me, and when her touch grounds me. There’s nothing like it.
“You don’t have to tell me what happened,” she says. “But I want you to know that you can…if you ever want to.”
I can feel my heart racing as I move to speak. No one knows this, but I want her to know. I want her to understand.
“It’s from a bullet wound.” I force the words out without looking at her.
I hear her take a deep breath, but she doesn’t speak.
“It happened when I was working a job here in the city. It was the first time I’ve ever truly felt like I might die.
It was the first time I’d ever really failed, too.
” I find it hard to swallow as I finally look up, meeting Marisol’s concerned gaze.
“The doctors told me there are bullet fragments still floating around in there. My condition was too unstable to try to dig them out.” My hand instinctively moves to my abdomen.
“I’d bled too much at the scene, and the trauma to my body was…
” I trail off, rubbing a hand over my brow as I look down again.
Just talking about it makes the wound ache, makes me remember what it felt like to be in the hospital.
When I was there, the only person who came to visit was Emilio.
No friends, no family, no special someone.
Because I had let go of all of those connections, neglected everyone in favor of giving my all to this job, the job that landed me in the hospital after near death, with no one to wish me well but my fucking employee.
That was the first moment that I wondered if it was all worth it.
“The nightmares.” Marisol finally speaks. “Are they…”
“Of that night?” I finish her sentence. She nods.
“Yeah,” I breathe. “It happens all over again. Sometimes it’s almost in slow motion, like my mind is showing me the small moments where I went wrong.
Other times, it’s too fast, and I can’t catch up.
The other night…” She was there. She was the person I was supposed to be protecting.
She was the person I failed. She was the person I crawled on my forearms to get to once I was shot, my blood spilling on the dirt beneath me.
She was the one he drove off with, leaving me screaming into the darkness.
I shake my head, not wanting to say any of that out loud.
“I haven’t had the nightmares in a while,” I say. “It wasn’t until I came back here that they started again.”
“That’s why you left,” she says, understanding dawning on her. I nod in response. Her eyes flutter shut. “I’m so sorry for bringing you back here.”
I shake my head. “It’s okay, Marisol.”
“No.” She screws up her face in a frown. “No, it’s not. I—”
I grab her hands in mine. “Being here means being next to you. It just also means a lack of sleep.” I shrug.
She tips her head, and I know she can see through the wall of humor I hold up as a shield.
I’ll be here with her every day that she asks me to be, even if it means reliving that night, but my mind needs rest. I need rest before I can carry on.
“I need a break,” I say. “From this place. You’re right, the bad memories are why I left.
But I went back to Ruby Cove because that’s the place I knew I could heal, where I knew I had people.
I couldn’t do it here. I feel at ease there.
All I feel here is…” I’m not sure how to put the exact feeling into words.
“Then let’s go,” Marisol says, standing up.
My brows pull together. “Go where?”
“To Ruby Cove. I owe my brother a visit anyway, and you deserve a little peace.”
My hand finds her waist, and I pull her into me. “You bring me peace.”
She smiles as her hand falls into my hair, but then she shakes her head.
“No, I don’t, Leo. I bring you worry. I bring you a desperate feeling that you need to protect me.
I bring you right back to that place where you were hurt.
” My grip tightens around her waist without meaning to, because this sounds like the kind of speech a leader makes before a battle they know they’ve already lost. “I wish I brought you peace, but I think I bring you chaos.”