Chapter 32 #2
I let out a shaky breath, seeing Isla, Caio, and Sabrina standing behind him. I meet his eyes again, and I feel like this is déjà vu. “He hurt me,” I whisper, even though I don’t know. “Did he hurt me?” My hands are shaking now.
Leo’s eyes darken and soften simultaneously. “Oh, sweetheart.” He puts a hand on my thigh and squeezes, and it’s like that movement grounds me. Pulls me out of my head for a moment.
Then a bright flash leaves me with my eyes screwed shut once more, and I register the loss of Leo’s touch.
When I open my eyes, I see him push a man into the wall of the shop across the way. I only catch some of what he says. “…recognize you. Yeah. You…Sirena.” My heart picks up its pace once again. Sabrina moves to sit beside me, holding my hand in hers.
“Who do you work for?” Leo pushes on the man’s neck with his forearm. He grins in response. “Who the fuck do you work for?!” Leo yells.
“What are you going to do?” The man smirks, even as he chokes out the words. “Kill me?”
“You wanna find out?” Leo bristles, leaning further into him. Caio moves toward him, saying something in his ear that I don’t hear, let alone register. I close my eyes again. Leo never answered my question.
I try to calm myself down, try to slow my heart rate as I sit here, that fear ever so slowly transforming into something quieter.
“Here.” I open my eyes and see Sabrina holding a bottle of water open in front of me.
She tips it to my lips, and I take a small sip, relishing in the cool water sliding down my throat.
Everything feels too hot. I take another sip, and Leo walks back over to us.
I look behind him, and the man is gone. So are Isla and Caio.
My breath doesn’t slow as he sits in front of me, giving Sabrina a look I can’t decipher before he turns his attention back on me.
I hear a vague jingle, and a group of people file out of Marina’s, a few of them giving us a passing glance. But Leo doesn’t take his eyes from mine. “Can you tell me five things you can see?”
“What?” My mind is still a whirl of fog, my heart still pumping in my chest.
“Trust me,” he says with a smile, and I struggle to kick my mind into gear. To process his request.
“Your eyes,” I say, and I swear they brighten.
“This bruise on your cheek.” I frown as I say it. Leo nods.
“Your Lakers shirt.” Somewhere in the back of my mind, I realize I’m only naming things about him, but I don’t have enough control to change that. He’s all I see.
“Your stubble?” A small laugh slips from his lips as he looks down.
“Your dark hair.”
“Good,” he says. “Now, what can you touch? Four things you can feel.”
I gulp down a swallow, my mouth feeling dry. “Sabrina’s hand,” I say. She’s still holding mine. She squeezes it, and I find the strength to squeeze hers in return.
“The ground beneath me?”
“That’s good.” Leo nods.
I try to think of what else I can feel, but it’s only a surge of anxiety in my stomach, and the small reprieve falls away, worry filling my lungs. I shake my head. “I don’t know.”
“It’s okay,” Leo says. “You’re okay.” I want to believe him. “Let’s try something else. What can you hear?”
I close my eyes. All I can hear is my heart beating in my chest. Sabrina squeezes my hand again, and I squeeze back. I try to hear past my heartbeat, try to block it out.
“I can sort of hear the music from inside. I can hear your voice.”
“One more,” he says, and there’s a certain softness to his voice.
I imagine myself casting my hearing wide, expanding the bubble I’m in, and when I do, I can hear the thing that always reminds me of my childhood. “I can hear the ocean. The waves.”
“Can you smell anything?”
I keep my eyes closed as I inhale a deep breath, the steadiest one I’ve drawn in yet. “Your cologne and, like…sweat.”
Sabrina laughs from beside me, and I open my eyes to see Leo smiling at me. “I was sparring with Miles.”
If I wasn’t in my current state, I might laugh, because my guess was spot on. I raise my brows in response.
Sabrina’s hand slips from mine. “I’m going to pay the tab so we can get out of here.”
“Okay.” Leo nods in response. I hear that jingle, and then we are alone.
It’s the first time we’ve been so close in days, and it took me having a panic attack for us to get here.
“Who was that guy?” I ask.
Leo’s jaw feathers as he shakes his head. “I recognized him from that night in Sorrento. I think he was at your house after the show, too.”
“He’s following me?”
“How he knew where you would be tonight is my concern. Someone is feeding him information.” His eyes flit around like he’s formulating a theory in his mind.
“Leo,” I say, my mind clearing with every minute we spend here. “What do you know about that night?”
He looks away. That’s all I need to see the truth.
“Did he hurt me, Leo?” My lower lip wobbles.
He closes his eyes for a moment before looking back at me. “He kissed you.” A tear slides down my cheek. “I don’t know if he was planning to do more. He left with a group of people who came out of the club—his friends presumably.”
I attempt to swallow down the emotion bubbling in my throat. I need to stay calm right now.
Leo pushes my hair back from my face. “But he’s never going to come near you again. I’ll make sure of it.”
That wording…
“Wait.” I pull his hands away from my face. “You know who this person is?” His lips part, and the confidence in his gaze falls. “What exactly were you planning on doing with this information, Leo?”
He looks away. “There are options. I—”
I scoff, my heart racing in my chest once again, but this time it’s not with fear. It’s with anger. “And were you ever going to tell me about this?”
“Yes, Marisol.”
“When?” I feel my eyes widen. “When you had already publicly ruined his reputation? Or got one of your guys to beat him up? When?”
“I don’t know, okay? I—”
“No, Leo. It’s not okay at all. That wasn’t your decision to make; it was mine. And you took that from me.” My voice is shaky.
“No decision has been made, covergirl.”
“Well, that makes it all better, doesn’t it?” That bell above the door rings as Sabrina steps out of the bar, and she must sense the tension because she doesn’t move toward us.
“You should’ve told me, Leo.” I push back against the wall as I haul myself up. He reaches for me, but I push him back. Sabrina rushes toward me, linking her arm through mine.
“Marisol.” I walk away from him, and I don’t miss the irony that an hour ago, all I wanted was him. “I was only trying to protect you.”
I stop, forcing Sabrina to stop too. “I never asked you to do that.”
He scoffs, and I turn to face him. “That’s exactly what you asked when you called that night. That’s who I am. God, I’ve tried to fight it, but you brought me back into that world, you said it yourself. What was I supposed to do?”
I fight tears as my nostrils flare. I did say it, because I knew being with me wasn’t good for him. We’ve managed to prove that again and again. This is just another example.
I’ve never seen him look so helpless.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have called then.”