Chapter 12 #2
Lea pressed closer to me, that sweet scent of his curling around me. I finally looked up at him, and when I did, he moved his hand and took my earlobe between his thumb and forefinger. The spark of pleasure that ran down my spine made me suck in a sharp breath. “I didn’t—I don’t—”
He moved his hand from my ear to my jaw, cupping it gently. “Breathe,” he instructed, brushing his thumb across my jaw.
I held his gaze and took a deep breath, the placid warmth in those cobalt eyes coiling around my being. My exhale was shaky, and when he raised his brows and said, “Good. One more,” I inhaled again.
Lea ran the back of his fingers down my cheek, then pulled his hand away.
I just barely stopped myself from reaching for it.
“You okay?” he asked.
I nodded.
“Good. Now tell me what happened.”
I still couldn’t bring myself to keep eye contact while I said it, so I looked down at the floor. “She thinks I’m…she thinks we’re…she thinks w-we’re—we’re dating,” I said hoarsely.
I was burning up. Everywhere. Humiliation was written in every red blotch on my body as I stared down at my feet.
Lea said, “Fuck,” so quietly I almost mistook it for an exhale. He sank down onto the edge of the bed, his mouth pulled down in a frown.
He was upset with me. I’d messed up, I should’ve stopped her as soon as I realized what was happening, I should’ve—
A strangled sound erupted from the back of my throat, and I paced to the window. My hands trembled, so I gripped the bottom of my shirt to try and hide it. “I’m so sorry, Lea, I—it—”
The bed creaked, and then two strong arms wrapped around me from behind. His warmth, his scent, his entire being enveloped me so completely that I closed my eyes and sank into him.
“You don’t ever have to be afraid with me, love,” he murmured, and when he rested his cheek on my head, I thought maybe I’d died and this was my heaven—being entirely wrapped up in Lea. “I will never, ever get mad at you or yell at you, okay? And this is my fault. You should be upset with me.”
Upset with Lea? Never.
“I had no idea she would just drop in like this, or jump to that conclusion, and I am so damn sorry you had to deal with it alone.” He stepped back, then put gentle pressure on my shoulders, urging me to turn around.
He looked and sounded apologetic when he said, “My family thinks I’m dating someone because I told them that I was dating someone. I guess she just assumed you were that someone.”
Wait, did he actually have a partner? “Are you?”
“What—no, I’m not dating anybody. It was a lie.
” He blew out a breath, then pinched the bridge of his nose as he admitted, “I lied because I’m a coward.
I didn’t want to deal with them interfering in my life anymore.
They live on the other side of the country and I never—ever—thought they would come visit.
Well, not unannounced like this. But I should’ve known, Judy can be annoyingly unpredictable.
” He raked a hand through his hair, staring at a spot on the floor, then cut his eyes up to mine.
“I’m sorry she—no, I—put you through this. Can you forgive me?”
I was so overwhelmed that I was barely following the conversation. “Forgive you? But—I mean, there’s nothing to forgive. You didn’t—” Do a single thing wrong. “You didn’t know she was coming, or else you would’ve told them the truth. Right?”
Lea opened his mouth like he was going to say something, then pressed his lips together and averted his gaze.
“Like I said, I’m a coward. I just didn’t want to deal with their nosiness.
” His cheeks were flushed a delicate pink, and I was so distracted by how pretty he looked that I didn’t say anything for a long moment. “I still don’t.”
“What was the lie?” He’d already said, but I wanted to know exactly what he’d been telling his family.
Because I was about to propose the craziest thing.
He rubbed his hands down his face and groaned.
“Essentially that I’m in a serious relationship and deeply in love.
And that we live together. And do everything together.
I got sick of them always bugging me about it, so one day I kind of lost it and told them I’d found somebody and he was the one, yada yada. ”
“Okay,” I said slowly. “So what would happen if you told the truth?”
That pink tinge just beneath his sharp cheekbones deepened. I felt like I was seeing a side of Lea that hardly anyone got to see; a vulnerable, uncertain side that he covered with layers and layers of confidence and a happy-go-lucky veneer that was thinner than he thought.
“If I tell her, she’ll tell everyone else in the family, and then they’ll all come down here and give me some kind of intervention about my love life.
They’re so damn nosy, which is half the reason I wanted to live on the opposite side of the country and I just…
they’ll dredge up the past and I can’t…”
He hung his head in his hands, utterly defeated.
This situation should have been supremely ridiculous. His sibling showing up out of the blue and mistaking me for her brother’s boyfriend. Me going along with it because I was so afraid of making even tiny ripples let alone waves with anyone.
But nothing about the sadness radiating from Lea was ridiculous to me.
It tugged at my heartstrings. Did he have anyone he could talk to about these things?
Did he talk to my brother or Riley or Monroe about this?
Something told me that while he was extremely easy to read ninety-nine percent of the time, he didn’t ever let this one percent show to anyone.
He seemed to want to avoid the painful past more than anything, to the point of telling his family a lie and dragging it out for god knew how long. I understood that all too well.
Maybe not the lying, but the desperate desire to bury the past and all the feelings that came with it.
I felt like I was outside of my own body when I said, “We could pretend. Until she leaves.”
His head whipped up, his stunned gaze razor-sharp on mine.
“It’s only a w-week, right?” I wasn’t sure what had gotten into me, except—yes. Yes, I was. I had spent the past two months crushing on Lea, wanting him on every level, and my selfishness had surged to the surface and eagerly grabbed this opportunity to be closer to him.
For a week, I could pretend that Lea was all mine—and I was his. I could pretend I was living the life I’d always dreamed of.
I was breathless just thinking about it.
“Beau…” He licked his lips and stood up, slowly moving closer. “As much as that would solve my problems temporarily, I don’t want to put you in any kind of position where you’re not comfortable. I won’t do that.” He paused, glanced away, and said, “I feel like I make you uncomfortable enough that—”
“No! No, you don’t, you really don’t make me uncomfortable at all. I promise.”
He stared at me for what felt like years, his mouth a flat line, then said, “Okay. I believe you. But I don’t want you to do this if you’re not actually okay with it. Remember what you promised me? I want you to feel like you can be honest with me. Because you can. You know that, right?”
My stomach lurched. “I’m being honest. It’s fine. I promise, Lea.”
“Okay. Well…” He reached out and brushed a finger lightly across my cheekbone, sending sparks dancing where he touched me.
“You have no idea how much I appreciate this. And I doubt we’ll have to spend a lot of time with her, since we’re both working.
That’s what she gets for just showing up like this, uninvited.
Fuck, I love her, but she can be a lot.” He turned away from me, eyeing up my things in the corner, then his desk.
He started moving everything off his desk, putting it on the floor under the window.
“What are you doing?”
He glanced back at me. “Making room for your computer and ten thousand monitors. You need a place to work.”
“Oh.” It hit me then, that I was going to be stuck in this room with Lea for the next week.
My eyes flew to the bed, taking in the light cream quilt, the mismatched pillows—blue, green, pink, yellow—and then I looked at the floor space.
With both of our things crammed in here, there wasn’t enough room for one of us to sleep on the floor.
“Ta-da,” Lea said, drawing my attention back to him. The desk had been cleared, and Lea was smiling at me. My heart thumped in my chest, and I gave him a shaky smile in return.
I wasn’t going to survive this week.