Chapter 14
brEAKING FORM (LEO)
Igrab Meditations off the shelf, the same copy I’ve dragged through training camps and airports, and take the far end of the couch, opening to a well-worn page.
I read a paragraph. Then realize I haven’t absorbed a word. My mind keeps landing on her. The way she moves through my apartment like she’s always known where everything is.
Behind me, water runs. Plates clink. The domestic sounds of her in my space.
It should calm me.
It doesn’t.
I turn the page without meaning to. A few minutes later, the kitchen goes quiet.
Soft footsteps approach. Liz drops onto the couch.
“What are you reading?” Her voice is light, but her eyes aren’t.
She leans in to catch the title, close enough that jasmine and coconut catch in my throat.
I angle the cover toward her.
Her brows lift. “Of course you’re reading an ancient Roman guy explaining that feelings are stupid.”
“It’s not about feelings.”
“Mm.” She points at the book with a look that says, sure. “The only Roman I can name is Mark Antony, and that’s only because of Cleopatra.”
“Low bar,” I say.
“Hey. I’m tired.” She reaches for the remote. “Movie instead?”
I don’t move closer. I don’t offer her a blanket. I don’t make it easy. Comfort will turn into something else with her, something she’ll call a mistake tomorrow.
“Sure,” I manage, setting the book down.
Liz tucks her legs under her, careful and contained, leaving a deliberate space between us.
She starts scrolling, and it quickly becomes obvious what she’s doing.
Rom-coms vanish. Anything with a couple on the icon goes next. Anything soft, intimate, or emotional disappears with a sharp flick of her thumb.
“Marcus Aurelius has nothing on you,” I murmur, amused.
“What?”
My mouth curves. “Just pick, Flash.”
After a few more rejects, she lands on Spartacus.
I lift a brow. “For real?”
“It’s on theme,” she says, nodding at Meditations. “Romans. So I can meet a few more besides... Caesar.”
“You said you only knew Mark Antony.”
“Exactly.” She points the remote at me, eyes bright. “I’m expanding my horizons.”
“Alright. Spartacus.”
She hits play. The screen goes dark, then fills with blood and sand.
For the next twenty minutes, men try to kill each other with impressive dedication. Liz drifts to the other end of the couch and sinks down with a long exhale. She rolls onto her side, head on a throw pillow, eyes on the screen even while her body gives out.
“I’m wiped,” she mumbles.
“Tough day?”
“Yeah.” Her eyelids droop. “Had a guy come in with his hand half open. He kept apologizing to me, like he was inconveniencing me.”
I make a sound that isn’t quite a laugh. “You want to go to sleep?”
“Not yet. But don’t be mad if I pass out,” she says, voice thick.
“I won’t be.”
“Good.”
On screen, Spartacus takes a blade to the shoulder and keeps moving.
“That’s his deltoid,” she mutters, eyes narrowing. “He’s not lifting that sword for a while.”
I glance over. “And yet, look at him go.”
Her mouth twitches. “He is Spartacus, after all.”
She stretches her legs out along the couch, all ceremony forgotten in her exhaustion. Her feet end up pointed toward me.
I wait a beat, then reach out and lift them with careful, deliberate attention, settling her heels in my lap. Liz’s eyes meet mine before returning to the screen. She doesn’t pull back.
“This okay?” I ask, needing the verbal confirmation, needing to file this under “safe.”
“Mm.” She sinks deeper into the cushion. “This is nice.”
I start at her arches, thumbs working steady lines, the same pressure I use on my own feet after roadwork—practical, helpful.
Except my hands learn her immediately—the curve of her heel, the warm give of her arch, the way her toes curl when I find a tight spot.
The sound she lets out is small, more breath than voice. I fix my eyes on the screen like it’s a corner between rounds, keeping the pressure exactly the same, because the second I let it change, it becomes something else.
“Good?” My voice is even.
“Yeah,” she whispers, then softer, like she doesn’t want to admit it, “Don’t stop.”
I’ve fought men in front of crowds. This should be easier.
And yet.
On TV, a man takes a blade to the ribs and keeps fighting anyway.
“Okay. That’s a stretch.” She winces.
“It could happen.”
She turns her head toward me, curious. “Adrenaline?”
“Buys you a minute. Same way you can finish a race on a hamstring you shouldn’t be running on.”
Her mouth curves. “So the part where he keeps going is real, and the part where he’s invincible is not.”
“Bodies will run on adrenaline for a bit, then they collect the bill.” I keep my eyes on the screen.
She exhales a laugh. “So... athletes.”
“Same principle.”
She sinks deeper, and her calf shifts across my thighs—warm, solid, too much information under my hands.
The scene cuts. Home now, quieter, Spartacus with his wife.
Liz watches a few seconds, then tilts her head, amused. “Look at her. Glowing, not even a smudge. Meanwhile, he looks disgusting.”
“Maybe she has good genetics.”
She laughs, loose and warm, and the sound settles in my chest.
My thumbs move in slow circles. Her foot flexes. She sighs, and her knees ease wider across my lap.
Fuck. Me.
I lock down hard.
Then the show shifts. The music drops lower. The light on screen turns soft. The camera lingers.
As if I needed more problems.
Liz sees it coming too. Her foot tightens under my palms.
On screen, a stunning brunette fills the frame, then lets the cover slip from her shoulders.
I feel the tiny shifts in her legs, a restrained squirm, knees drawing in, then easing back, caught between retreating and staying.
The scene wastes no time. It’s not romantic or gentle, just bodies and need and power. My hands are still on her feet. My thumbs are still moving.
Every time she exhales, her skin hums under my palms. Every time the scene gives her something to react to, it registers in my lap.
Liz’s heel drags against my thigh. It’s a small, accidental friction. But my stomach tightens hard enough to hurt.
She clears her throat and glances at me, then catches me watching her mouth, her flush, the glaze in her eyes as her focus sharpens.
Her gaze snaps away.
“This is...” she starts, then stops. She tries again, lighter. “Unexpected.”
I grab the remote and hit pause. Silence drops into the room, broken only by her breathing. Her head turns toward the TV, then to me, caught between relief and panic.
“What are you doing?” she asks, too quickly.
“Checking in.”
Heat floods her cheeks, and she tries to pull her feet back.
My hands tighten. It’s not hard, not trapping her, just enough to still her.
“Don’t,” I say, quietly.
“Don’t what?”
Instead of answering, I decide to push a little. “Do you like what he’s doing to her?”
“It’s just a show.”
“They’re fucking.” I keep my voice even. “And it’s doing things to you.”
Her eyes widen.
“You’re imagining what it would feel like if I did it to you, aren’t you?”
The question drops between us, heavy and impolite.
Her lips part, then close. “Confident much?”
My mouth curves. But there’s nothing soft in it.
“You’ve been very good at pretending,” I say.
Her shoulders pull in. “Leo—”
Maybe I should stop here, shift the topic, make a joke and let the moment pass. There’s still room.
Her gaze holds mine, caught.
Instead I say it out loud—the thing that’s been sitting between us since Jessica declared we were a fake couple.
“I told myself you were temporary,” I say. “I knew I was lying before I finished the thought.”
Something moves through her face and goes still again.
Her pulse beats fast and stubbornly under my thumbs. The tension travels up her legs in tiny tremors she thinks she’s hiding.
I tip my chin toward the frozen frame on the TV. “And now you’re sitting on my couch trying to pretend this doesn’t affect you.”
Her breath catches. I watch her weigh it—the flush, the stillness, the way her body stopped cooperating with her a long time ago.
“Tell me the truth.” My eyes are locked on hers. “Do you want me to touch you like that?”
Shock hits her first, then a flush spreads, betraying her. A small sound slips out that she tries to swallow.
“That sounds like a yes.”
Her knees draw in, then ease out again, indecisive. My thumbs press into the tender spot under her arch. Not an escalation. Just the same touch, suddenly impossible to mistake for something else.
“You know where the line is,” she finally manages.
“That’s my problem.”
Her lips part, close.
“You feel it too,” I say, quiet and precise.
Her chin lifts, defensive. “Maybe I just—”
“You got burned,” I say.
Her eyes harden. “Yes.”
My hands don’t stop, maintaining the same pressure, the same pace. “I’m not asking you to trust me tonight.”
She doesn’t move.
“I’m telling you this isn’t nothing. And I’m done pretending it is.”
The words cost something. I feel it after—the specific weight of having said the true thing out loud for the first time without performance or cover.
She doesn’t answer.
My thumbs make the same slow circle they’ve been tracing for the last ten minutes, and I watch her try to stay composed under it. She’s doing well. Her face is neutral. Her breathing almost steady.
But her ankle has stopped pulling away.
That’s the tell.
She’s not retreating. She’s waiting.
I keep the pressure exactly where it is, not giving her anything to push against. Just hold the question open and let it sit between us until she decides what to do with it.
Her foot shifts in my lap. Half an inch. Maybe less.
She doesn’t look at me when it happens. Her gaze stays on the frozen screen like that’s the most interesting thing in the room. But her foot is warm against my thigh; it moved without her permission and we both know it.
I shift my thumb to the inside of her ankle. “Liz.”
She closes her eyes. Just for a second. Just long enough to give it away.
Her throat works through a swallow, her gaze moving to my hands, then climbing back up. Silence stretches, growing loud.
Then she yanks her feet back—fast, controlled—folding herself tight as if she can rewind the last minute. This time, I let her.
“Unpause,” she says, clipped.
I hold her gaze a beat longer than she likes.
Then I hit play.
The scene continues.
Liz stares straight ahead, perfect posture, perfect stillness, as if her body isn’t reacting.
My hands rest on my thighs now, empty.
Thirty seconds pass. Maybe a minute. Then she stands so abruptly the cushion springs back.
“I’m—” She clears her throat. “I’m going to bed. Thank you for dinner.”
No eye contact, no joke, no softness. She walks away fast, bare feet quiet on the floor, disappearing down the hall.
Her door clicks shut. The TV keeps playing.
I sit through one breath, then another. Finally, I mute it. I pick up Meditations again, thumb wedging into the spine the way I’ve done a hundred times.
I stare at the page. I don’t see a word.
My hand tightens.
The book hits the table hard enough that the lampshade trembles.
I sit back, palms flat on my thighs, breathing slow. Her door stays closed. Down the hall: silence. The sound of her not coming back.
I keep seeing her ankle go still.
I’ve gone twelve rounds with better odds than this.