Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
Leon – Still in the Past: Four weeks later
I’m making lunch when a ding from my private elevator tells me someone’s visiting. Confused who it could be, as only a handful of people have the code to my penthouse, I crane my neck around the pillar between my kitchen and the entryway that’s blocking my view just as the doors slide open.
Erika.
Shit.
An entire month has passed since our disastrous kiss in the equipment room.
She’s texted me several times, but the fucking asshole that lives inside of me hasn’t replied. Not once.
After she called me a fuckboy, I haven’t actually slept with anyone. I don’t want to.
Is it to clean up my act?
Or to clean up my reputation?
It’s both.
But I’m also determined to prove Erika wrong.
Her comment threw me for a loop, and since then, my mind’s been spiraling. She hit a nerve, shocking me to my very core. It was too honest. Too brutal.
A truth I wasn’t ready for.
I guess it’s time to grow the fuck up and keep my dick in my pants.
If I’m being honest, her jealousy—that’s what I think it was—felt like a hot poker being jabbed through my heart.
She’s never fully admitted whether she likes me or not.
I figured she wouldn’t have kissed me if she didn’t, but I’m still clueless because not once has she ever made a move.
It’s me who made the first one, and the second, and she didn’t exactly put up a fight.
“Hi,” she greets me, gingerly entering my apartment and worrying her bottom lip.
Erika’s been here hundreds of times, but today feels different, like we’ve had a lover’s quarrel, minus the lover part, with neither of us knowing what to say or do next to fix our relationship.
Fuck. We’re not even together, so there was no breakup either.
This is so confusing.
“What are you doing here?” I ask much harsher than I mean to. Cool it, Leon.
She hesitates. “I haven’t seen you in a month, and you haven’t replied to my texts. I came to see if you were okay.”
“I’m fine.” I’m anything but fine. It’s hard to concentrate when she’s nearby.
Sometimes it’s even worse when she’s not around.
Every thought I have revolves around her.
She consumes my mind. What is she doing now?
Who is she talking to? Did she have a rough day?
Did she eat? Who did she lunch with? What did she learn today at the hospital?
Did anyone shove something up their ass today and say they fell on it?
That happens more often than you’d think.
She walks to the kitchen island and lays her purse on it. “You don’t sound fine.”
“I am.”
“You sound like you’re still mad at me.”
“I’m not.”
“You’ve been avoiding me?”
“I have not.”
“Don’t lie to me, Leon.”
I stretch out my arms and hold the edge of the marble work surface, tightening my grip, tilting my head to the side, and staring her down. “I’m not lying.”
As if bewildered by this shielded person I’ve become, she sighs. “I know you, and I know you are lying; that’s why I came to apologize. I don’t want us to fight.”
“We’re not a couple, so we’re not fighting,” I snap back bitterly.
“But we are friends, and I said things to you I can’t take back, but I can apologize for. I hate that I hurt your feelings. I shouldn’t have said what I did that day in the equipment room. I’m so sorry, Leon.”
The silence stretches between us as I remain quiet, unsure what to say because all I want to do is jump across this fucking kitchen island dividing us and tell her I’m in love with her.
I’ve never been in love with anyone before, but I know Erika is the only woman I could seriously see myself having a future with.
It’s such a fucking pity that she’s my best friend’s sister.
The endless torture of seeing her but never being able to be with her is slowly killing me. Hell would be a much nicer place to live, I’m sure of it.
But the fact is, even when I tell her I can’t stop thinking about her or that she lives rent-free in my head, she doesn’t listen, doesn’t believe me, or take me seriously. And she sure as hell doesn’t trust me because my past keeps screwing me over every time.
Eventually, I reply, “You were right about me. I am a fuckboy.” Hell, after she said that, I googled my own name, and the search results were not pretty.
Erika shakes her head, dismissing me. “It was wrong of me to tell you. That’s not what friends do to each other.”
I shoot her a penetrating look. “Are we still friends?” I wish we were more.
She looks puzzled by my question. “Of course we are.” Her eyes turn watery. “I miss you.”
She misses me.
Erika adds, “I hate that we haven’t spoken in weeks, Leon. I hate having lunch alone, and I hate that you’re not in my life.” Her tears choke her.
“I hate all of those things too.” I’ve felt lost and alone for four solid weeks. How can I stay mad at her? It’s not in me to hold a grudge.
I hurry around the kitchen island and scoop her into my arms. “Please don’t cry, baby.”
“I hate fighting with you.” Deep sobs make her body shudder against mine as I hold her close and she laces her arms around my waist. “I’ve barely slept.”
“How many hours have you worked this week?”
“Sixty-nine.” She sniffs.
“That’s a sexy number,” I joke, doing my best to lighten the mood.
Erika snorts and laughs at the same time. “You’re an idiot,” she says, looking up at me.
Those big, beautiful eyes of hers penetrate my soul. “You look tired, baby.”
“Tiredness makes me emotional.”
“So, you’re not crying because you missed me?” I ask, staring into her red-rimmed eyes with a smirk, and more cheer in my voice than there has been all month.
I’m so fucking happy she’s here.
“It’s a combination of tiredness and sadness. I did miss you, Leon.”
“I missed you, too.” So much.
We stay like this for minutes, enjoying being in each other’s orbit once more.
God, I’ve missed her. From her perfume to her funny stories from the hospital and lunches. I just miss her. All of her.
No longer crying, she unwraps herself from around me. “I almost forgot. I got you a present.” She reaches for her purse, the one I bought her for her last birthday; she takes it everywhere.
I like knowing she carries a piece of me around with her.
She wipes her blotchy cheeks, wiping away the remnants of her tears, before digging around in her purse and pulling out a dime-sized gold coin that’s protected inside a clear case.
“What’s this?” I ask as she places it in the palm of my hand.
“It’s to bring you good luck.” She points to the eagle sitting on top of a four-leaf clover.
“The eagle is to represent the Edmonton Eagles, and the clover is for luck. If you turn it over, it has your player number stamped in the middle of another four-leaf clover.” She flips it over for me and reads my number aloud, “Twenty-two. I thought you could put that inside your skate on game days.” She lifts her attention from the coin to me.
“This way, you’ll always have a piece of me with you. Even if we fall out.”
This is the most thoughtful gift anyone has ever bought me, and I never want to fall out with her again. It’s been the most painful four weeks of my life.
I lift my hand and cup her face, brushing my thumb across the soft skin of her reddened cheek. “That’s not going to happen again.”
“Okay.” She nods with a smile so bright it could stop my heart. “When you score your next goal, it’ll be because of me.”
“You mean the coin?”
“Well, I bought the coin, so technically, it will be because of me,” she says with a smile playing across her lips, and a glimmer of my Erika is back. God, how I have missed her.
“If I score the first goal of our next game, can I win another kiss?” I ask teasingly, knowing that I am pushing my luck.
She surprises me when she replies, “You don’t need to score a goal to win a kiss, Leon.”
“No?” Fuck, this is new, and it’s the first time she’s made a move.
Erika licks her lips while surveying mine, making them all shiny and tempting; the air thickens around us with tension and anticipation.
“Kiss me,” I whisper. I need to know she really wants me. For my own sanity.
She moves in close, her lips millimeters from mine, and just when I think we will take whatever is happening between us over the line again, my elevator dings, causing us both to jump away from each other, my heart leaping in my chest.
“Yo, yo, yo, what’s up, asshole?” Buster bellows, his booming voice unsubtle and echoing around my apartment, followed by my other two teammates, Brayden and Troy… then Ash.
Ash.
Fuck, that was close.
Erika’s eyes ping pong between her brother and me, as if thinking the same thing.
“Hey, you good?” Ash asks Erika, his tone worried. “Have you been crying?” He scowls as he looks at me, then back at Erika. “What did the fuckwit say to upset you?”
“Nothing,” Erika shrieks. “You’re a presumptuous asshole sometimes, do you know that? Leon is my best friend; he would never hurt me, Ash. I’m just tired.”
I hurt her feelings enough to make her cry, and that makes me a terrible friend.
I need to find a way to make it up to her.
Ash points to himself. “Leon is my best friend, not yours.”
“Oh, shut up.” Erika picks up her purse while I push my new, shiny good luck coin into my back pocket. I plan to put it in my skate for our next game and every game thereafter.
Brayden and Troy chuckle away like immature idiots in the background.
“How many hours have you worked this week?” Ash asks, ignoring Tweedledee and Tweedledum.
Erika makes an irritated sound from the back of her throat. “I’m leaving.”
“Get some sleep,” Ash shouts after her as she steps into the elevator, and I follow to see her off.
Erika pushes the handle of her purse onto her shoulder and runs her hands through her hair.
“He cares about you, Erika.” I keep my voice low.
“I know, but sometimes, he’s really annoying. I’m not a kid anymore.”
No, she’s a beautiful woman with a heart bigger than the moon and DNA that makes her untouchable. It’s slowly breaking my heart. “Ignore him.”
She looks around my frame, right at Ash. “He’s a bit hard to ignore; he’s the size of a…”
“Bear?” I use his nickname.
“Brute,” she counters, her shoulders dropping as if defeated. “He’s always going to be around,” she whispers conspiratorially, and I understand exactly what she means.
While Ash is around, there is no hope of us ever being a thing.
I throw a side glance over my shoulder before saying what I do next. “Maybe we’re just not meant to be, baby.”
The truth hurts, I know it does, and she looks like she’s about to burst into tears again. “I think you’re right.” She gulps loudly.
With my shoulder pressed against the door to keep it from closing, it breaks my heart when I whisper so softly that no one but Erika can hear, “We might never kiss again, but every goal I score will be for you. When I blow a kiss, it’ll be for you,” I assure her.
She swallows hard, biting back the tears.
Fuck, I might cry too.
“Get some sleep, baby.” I wink to hide how wretched I feel inside. “I’ll see you tomorrow at the game.”
The next night, with her lucky coin in my skate, I scored three goals, each one meant for her. When I blew a kiss into the air, I knew she was watching from the stands and that she knew they were for her. All my goals were always for her.
Then we went back to flirting, the banter, lunches together, movie nights, grocery shopping… all as friends.