Chapter 11 #2
Leon also knows how bad my sleep pattern is, so I have no doubt he will let me sleep until noon while we are away and insist I make a dent in my to-be-read list while eating my body weight in food.
Holding onto the wrapped gift, I place the envelope on the bed. “What’s inside?” I can barely contain myself and begin carefully untying the giant white bow around the box, then remove the soft lilac-colored wrapping paper with white polka dots.
“Open it and see,” he replies, pointing to it as he leans back in the armchair.
I discard the ripped wrapping paper on the bed and pull the lid of the plain black box from the base, the suction tight as if it doesn’t want to come apart. When it finally slides off with a hiss, I gasp as a shiny new stethoscope comes into view.
Nestled in molded black foam with double lumen purple tubing, it’s the exact stethoscope I told him I wanted months ago, but never got around to buying.
“It’s beautiful, Leon.” I scoop my new toy out of the box.
“It has some fancy tunable tech which can detect low and high frequencies or something.” He clears his throat, running his hands down his thighs.
These things cost a fortune.
“It’s engraved.” He points to it just as I’m about to place the soft seal ear tips into my ears.
I pause mid-task and pick up the high-polished rainbow chest piece to inspect it and read the personalized message aloud. “Listen to your heart.” I swoon inside at the little love heart added at the end.
That’s what I did on Saturday. I listened to my heart.
“It’s perfect.” It’s a truly special gift. Thoughtful.
“No one will steal that one now. It’s yours.”
I’m always complaining to him about losing them because they all look the same. Not this one, though, as it’s purple and stands out like an exotic bird among a flock of pigeons because the chest piece is iridescent too.
“Thank you.” Clutching my shiny new stethoscope, I rush to him, forcing him to stand up, and I fling myself around him as soon as he’s on his feet. “Thank you for everything, Leon.” I snuggle into the crook of his neck, inhaling his familiar scent.
“I didn’t do anything.” He squeezes me in return.
“You never judge or comment on my poor choices in life.” Or my choice in men. “You’re always there for me.”
“You’re always there for me too. That’s what friends are for. I’ll always be here for you.”
“Don’t let your future wife hear you say that,” I reply quickly, wishing I could take it back.
“Why?” he asks, leaning out of our hug before he places a hand gently on my cheek. His touch is welcomed by me and feels different from before. Loving.
It’s no longer a simple brush of a hand; it’s a caress, and it’s intentional.
My gaze drops to his mouth. When he licks his plump bottom lip, it makes me want to nibble on it a little and taste him in the same way I did in my early twenties.
That’s all the proof I need to realize that stepping away from Huck’s orbit has once again reignited my obsession with Leon.
Here we go again.
I might have been able to run away from marrying Huck, but the one thing I can never run away from is the truth… I gave my heart to someone else long before I ever agreed to get engaged to Huck.
I have been hiding my feelings for another man.
This is terrible.
Because he’s not just any man.
He’s Leon.
My Leon.
My rock, the man I admire, and the person I call every morning and every night, and anytime I can find during my busy days.
I swallow hard, my chest heavy with the weight of that truth and the hidden feelings I’ve been harboring for my best friend, who doesn’t even know I like him the way I do.
I don’t think he sees me that way, which hurts, so why I still feel this way remains a mystery to me.
It doesn’t make any sense; I’m not even sure I fully understand my feelings. But when everything was falling apart on Saturday, he was the only person I wanted to run to.
“Why should I not let my future wife hear you say that?” he asks again, breaking me out of my wandering thoughts.
“Because your future wife might get jealous of what we have,” I reply as anxiety climbs up my spine.
I already dislike her, this unknown future wife, sparking that nausea I really don’t want to feel.
What if she doesn’t like me? Then I’ll have to eat alone in the cafeteria at work, and who will be waiting for me in the parking lot after a terrible day?
She won’t let Leon care for me the same way, and vice versa.
She won’t let me cook for him on my days off or let me attend jewelry auctions with him, trying to find the rarest Patek Philippe watch.
Whoever she is will put an end to our road trips and days hiking in the mountains, too.
She’ll get jealous, tell him he isn’t allowed to have a girl as a friend, and then I’ll lose him. I just know it.
His next question is calm and gentle. “What do we have, Erika?”
“A friendship that feels… sometimes…” like we are more than friends, especially by the way he’s brushing his thumb across my cheek, “like it’s more?” I finish. It’s a question, not a statement.
Through a narrowed gaze, he keeps it steady and controlled, yet something flickers in his eyes that looks like an emotion I can’t read. “We are more than just friends, beautiful.”
“Are we?”
The next thing I know, he’s moved his mouth to my ear, resting his cheek next to mine.
He lowers his voice. “We…” he starts, then stops, like the tiny word that sums us up weighs too much.
The small space between us warms, charged, and that weird static energy rises again between us.
“…We are so much more, and yet we keep tiptoeing around something neither of us are brave enough to call it.”
My breath catches. “What happens if we give us a title?” I ask curiously.
He exhales slowly, his voice now dangerously low. “Then it would be real. And real things demand more attention, beg for more than flirty banter, midnight conversations, prolonged glances, and meeting for lunch every week. It would be much, much more. It would be everything.”
He slips out of my arms, and we stand looking at each other. My throat feels like it’s stuffed with cotton balls at his confirmation that something has changed between us. It’s been happening since Saturday. I knew I wasn’t imagining it.
He gives me a moment to absorb his words before his fingers brush a strand of hair behind my ear, softly grazing my skin and leaving a warm trail of heat that spreads to other places. Specifically, between my thighs.
“But you’re not giving us a name,” I murmur. Neither am I.
He hums low, like the truth is about to come out of hiding from underneath his tongue. “Maybe I like the tension.”
I swallow hard. “That sounds torturous.”
“No,” he says, his voice steady, making adrenaline thump loudly and rush through my body. “It feels a lot like foreplay.”
And there it is. More confirmation that I haven’t been imagining his advances.
He steps back, just enough to leave me standing in the heat he left behind. And yet, there’s no kiss. No move from either of us. Just words that could be the start of something unraveling.
“Is that what you want? More?” I ask on a whisper.
“You have no idea what I want, beautiful. Sleep tight.” With a final wink, he turns on his heel and walks out the door, leaving me standing in a haze of confusion as my pulse pounds through my veins.
What does he want? One night? A friends with benefits arrangement? More? What exactly? I have so many questions.
I place the earbuds of my stethoscope into my ears, then place the chest piece over my heart.
Instantly, my heartbeat whooshes abnormally in my ears, confirming what I already knew.
“Why does it feel like I’m having a heart attack?
” I mutter to myself before lying down on the bed and pointing my feet upward, resting them against the headboard to regulate my pounding heart.
Did that seriously just happen? Did I hear him correctly, or am I really losing it?
Feeling giddy, a wide smile stretches my lips.
Our friendship might not just be a friendship anymore; on Saturday, the lines started to blur, and I don’t know what changed.
Whatever it is, it’s gaining momentum, and there doesn’t seem to be any way to stop it or ignore it anymore.