Chapter 8 Leander #2
Phoenix doesn’t hesitate. He heads behind the counter, like he belongs there, and starts fiddling with the machine. The baristas look both relieved and embarrassed.
“Thanks, Phoenix,” says the pierced goth girl.
“Seriously?” I mutter under my breath, watching him twist knobs and explain something about pressure valves like he’s done it a hundred times.
Marcy laughs. “He basically grew up here. Don’t let him fool you, he knows more about this machine than I do.”
I stand there, awkward, while Phoenix helps until the steamer hisses back to life. The customers clap lightly, someone calls him a hero, and he flashes that grin that usually makes me want to roll my eyes. But here, it’s softer. Genuine.
When he finally comes back to me, he hands me a menu. “What do you want?”
I shrug. “Coffee’s fine.”
He arches a brow. “That’s vague as hell.”
I sigh. “Black. No sugar.”
“Figures,” he mutters, but he orders it anyway, along with something absurdly complicated for himself. Caramel, foam, extra cinnamon—stuff I’d never picture him drinking.
We sit by the window, the sunlight hitting his damp hair, making it gleam. For a few minutes, it’s quiet except for the murmur of customers and the clink of mugs. I sip my coffee. Bitter. Hot. Perfect.
“How’s your bean water?” Phoenix quips, licking some foam from the side of his cup.
“Amazing, actually.”
He smiles in a way that I don’t think he realizes. “Mm, good.”
“You’re different here,” I finally say.
Phoenix tilts his head. “Different how?”
“Less…” I pause, searching for the word. “Scary, thrill seeker.”
He smirks. “Give me a few hours.”
I don’t smile. “That’s the thing. You live like every night might be the last. Gambling, drinking, flirting with whoever gives you a look. Why?”
His expression shifts. Not much, but enough. The smirk falters. His hand curls around his mug, fingers drumming once against the ceramic before going still.
“Why do you care?” he asks, voice lower.
“Because I...” I stutter. Why do I care? He’s just some fling, some addiction I can’t shake. “Maybe I just want to get to know you. And because I’m worried you’re going to burn yourself out if you keep going like this.”
“Worried, huh? What, you have a crush on me or something, rookie?”
“Forget it, Locke.”
For a long moment, he doesn’t answer. Just stares at the steam rising from his drink. When he finally speaks, it’s quieter than I expect.
“You want the real answer?”
“Yes,” I say, before I can stop myself.
He leans back, exhales like he’s debating whether it’s worth it. His eyes flick to mine, sharp, searching. And then he looks away, toward the wall lined with photos of community events, like maybe it’s easier to talk to them than me.
“My parents didn’t want me,” he says flatly. “Went out partying instead of feeding their kid at home. Neglect. That’s what the report said, anyway. I was ten when the state stepped in. Got dumped into the system.”
I blink. The words hit harder than I expected.
“My first foster family couldn’t handle me. Too many… outbursts.” His jaw tightens. “Rage issues, they called it. My second foster family tried to actually do something about it, though. Put me in hockey. Thought maybe if I hit people on the ice, I wouldn’t hit walls at home.”
He says it like a joke, but there’s no humor in it.
“Did it help?” I ask carefully.
Phoenix shrugs. “I got good at hockey. That’s what mattered. My foster dad didn’t care—kept me around because I could score goals. But my foster mom…” He stops, swallows.
“She cared. Actually gave a damn if I ate, if I slept, if I didn’t kill myself from the inside out.”
There’s a crack in his voice when he says it, and it makes my chest ache.
“What happened to her?”
He doesn’t answer right away. Just takes a long sip of his drink, like maybe it’ll wash the words down. Finally, he says, “Car accident. I was seventeen.”
The silence that follows is heavy. I want to reach across the table, but I don’t. He wouldn’t want pity.
Instead, I say softly, “I’m sorry.”
Phoenix shrugs again, but this time it’s hollow. “Shit happens.”
I study him. The cagey way he deflects, the way he hides behind shrugs and smirks. But I can see it now, the cracks in the armor. The reason for the thrill-seeking, the constant need for control. If he stops moving, he has to feel it.
“That’s why you party the way you do?” I say quietly. “It’s not about fun. It’s about not sitting still long enough to remember.”
His eyes snap to mine. For a second, I think he’s going to bite back, but instead he just shakes his head and mutters, “You ask too many damn questions.”
I should stop. I should let it drop. But I can’t.
“Phoenix,” I say, steady, “you don’t have to tell me everything. But don’t pretend you’re fine when you’re not. Not with me.”
The words hang there. For once, he doesn’t smirk, doesn’t joke, doesn’t deflect. He just looks at me like he’s trying to figure out what the hell I am. And for the first time, I think he might actually let me in.
The bell over the café door jingles as we step outside, the crisp air meeting us like a reset button. Phoenix has a paper bag in one hand—two sandwiches, because he didn’t give me a choice about eating later—and his keys jangling in the other.
“You want me to drop you off?” he asks, voice casual, though there’s something beneath it, sharp and waiting. His eyes flick sideways to me, unreadable but intent. “Or you wanna come back to mine for the day?”
The question shouldn’t make my chest tighten the way it does. I should go home. My brother would expect me to rest, to heal like a responsible adult. But the thought of being alone with my thoughts, with the echo of Phoenix’s voice spilling secrets over coffee, feels unbearable.
“I’ll stay,” I hear myself say.
Phoenix’s grin flashes, quick and satisfied. “Good. Kinda figured you would.”
The walk back to his house is short, but his presence stretches it out.
He matches my pace, not rushing me even though my knee twinges with every step.
It’s nothing dramatic, just a dull ache, but Phoenix watches me like he’s memorizing each falter.
By the time we reach his porch, I’m half-expecting him to scoop me up and carry me inside.
Instead, he opens the door, gestures me in, and says, “Couch. Now.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me.” He takes my hand before I can protest. “You were on that knee too much yesterday, and don’t think I didn’t notice you limping when you went for your coffee refill.”
I scoff. “You sound like my brother.”
“Your brother wasn’t the one cleaning up your bloodied kneepad last week.” He points toward the living room. “Sit, rookie. Elevate.”
It’s ridiculous, but I go. The couch is soft, worn in, with a throw blanket tossed carelessly across the back.
Phoenix crouches, grabs a pillow, and shoves it under my leg until my knee is propped up like I’m some fragile thing.
His focus is sharp, mouth set in a line, like he’s on the ice mid-game.
“You’re ridiculous,” I mutter.
“Maybe.” His gaze flicks up, pinning me. “But I don’t like seeing you hurt. So I need you to heal fast.”
The words stick in my throat. I look away because meeting his eyes feels like falling.
Phoenix settles beside me, close enough that his thigh brushes mine. He leans back, stretches his arm along the couch behind me, casual as hell, but his presence is suffocating in the best and worst way.
A few seconds pass in silence, the low hum of the fridge the only sound. And then I feel it: his lips on my neck.
It’s not a kiss so much as a graze, a brush of heat against the hickey he left there last night.
He lingers, breath warm on my skin, like he’s reminding himself he put it there.
“Phoenix—” I start, but his mouth presses again, firmer this time, making a thrum of pain burst across my skin.
“You don’t know what this does to me,” he murmurs, voice rough against my skin. “Seeing my mark on you.”
I swallow hard, gripping the edge of the couch. My body betrays me, heat flooding under his mouth, shame tangled up with want.
He doesn’t push, though. Just kisses the same spot again, softer, almost reverent, before leaning back like nothing happened. His hand drops onto the back of the couch, brushing my shoulder every so often, a constant reminder of him.
The TV clicks on. Some movie starts, loud and colorful, but I barely register it. My focus is entirely on the way Phoenix shifts closer, the way his arm ghosts around me without fully settling, the way he keeps dropping those absentminded kisses on my neck as if he can’t stop himself.
The sandwiches get eaten halfway through the film, Phoenix stealing bites from mine with a smirk until I swat at him. He laughs, and the sound is dangerous—it sinks under my skin, makes me forget I should be wary of him.
I turn my head slightly, watching him from the corner of my eye. He’s pretending to focus on the screen, but his thumb is tracing idle patterns against my shoulder, his lips still ghosting my neck whenever he leans too close.
He’s obsessed. I can feel it in the way he touches me, in the way he won’t stop checking my knee, in the way he looks at me like I’m already his.
Time moves strangely all afternoon. One movie bleeds into another, the sky outside darkening. Phoenix gets up once to grab more water, then comes back and drapes a blanket across both our laps without comment. The quiet between us isn’t awkward—it’s charged, heavy with everything we aren’t saying.
At one point, his hand ends up on my knee. Not the injured one, the other. Just resting there, solid and warm. His thumb makes lazy circles through the fabric of my sweats. My chest tightens with every pass.
I should tell him to stop. I should put space between us.
But all I can think about is how it felt last night when his hands weren’t careful, when he pushed and pulled and broke me open—and then how it felt after, when he touched me like I was something fragile.
Both things live in him. Both things terrify me.
When I shift slightly, his hand slides away. My skin burns in the absence of it.
He puts his head in my lap at some point, the exhaustion of the hangover pulling him into sleep. Phoenix sprawls, taking up too much space, but every time I think of moving away, I don’t. His warmth is addictive, his weight pressed against me, grounding in a way I don’t want to admit.
Phoenix stirs, mumbling something in his sleep. His cheek presses deeper into my thigh, his breath puffing against me. I glance down, and the sight nearly undoes me: this man who burns too hot on the ice, who smirks like the world belongs to him, looking so unguarded, so…soft.
I brush a piece of his hair back before I even think about it, and my hand lingers. My chest aches with the weight of it—how different he is when it’s just us.
When the credits roll on the movie, I shift slightly, but he makes a sound, low and almost needy, like he doesn’t want me to move. My pulse spikes. He has no idea what that does to me.
Eventually he blinks awake, stretching, the edge of a smile tugging at his mouth when he realizes he’s been sleeping on me. “Comfortable,” he says, voice rough with sleep. “You’re better than a pillow.”
I roll my eyes. “You drooled on me.”
He grins lazily, looking at me from my lap. “Worth it.”
I roll my eyes again, not saying anything further. I feel settled for once. I feel almost safe here with him. Because this—this closeness, this quiet day—it feels like something I could drown in. Once I let myself sink, I don’t think I’ll ever want to come up for air.
“You’ve been quiet,” he says, sitting up.
“I’m always quiet.”
“Different kind of quiet.” His eyes search mine, sharp and insistent. “Thinking too much kind of quiet.”
“I always think too much,” I counter, but my voice wavers.
He leans closer, so close I can see the flecks of lighter brown in his irises. “Then tell me what you’re thinking right now.”
The air between us feels thin, stretched too tight. My heart pounds. I can’t tell him the truth—that every second in his orbit makes me sink deeper, that I’m terrified of how much I want him. So I do what I always do. I deflect.
“I’m thinking you’re a pain in the ass,” I mutter.
He grins, quick and bright, but his eyes don’t let me off the hook. “Yeah. But I’m your pain in the ass.”
The words knock the breath from me. He says them like a joke, but they land heavy in my chest.
Mine. Like he belongs to me as much as I belong to him.
I look away, staring at the muted glow of the TV screen. If I let myself meet his gaze, I’ll drown.
Phoenix shifts, reaching for the remote, and the sudden lack of tension almost hurts. The room goes dark when he clicks the TV off. For a moment, it’s just the sound of our breathing, the world outside hushed.
Then he stands, stretching again, and looks down at me. His silhouette is sharp against the dim light from the kitchen. “It’s late,” he says, softer now. “You want me to drive you home?”
The question hangs in the air like a trap. A lifeline. A choice.
My chest tightens, torn between the relief of escape and the ache of wanting to stay right here.
Because leaving feels impossible.
And staying feels worse.