16. Leo
Chapter sixteen
Leo
Holy shit balls. I had sex with Cherise.
My heart jackhammered against my ribs as I blinked up at the ceiling, the soft morning light creeping through the edges of the blackout curtains.
I had sex with Cherise fucking Monet!
And not just sex… she let me put it in her ass!
I’m gonna die. Yep. Derrick’s gonna kill me. He’s going to rip my head off and use it as a decorative centerpiece at one of those expensive houses he shows.
You know what?
Totally freaking worth it.
I turned my head slowly, careful not to move too fast as if I’d shatter the illusion and I’d wake up alone from this dream. But nope. There she was. Naked. Gloriously, naked. Lying on her stomach, face buried against her pillow, one bare leg tangled over the sheets.
I blinked.
Then... blinked again.
I had to be sure I wasn’t hallucinating.
Her hair was wild from sleep, her lips slightly parted, one arm flung across my chest.
I just stared at her.
At the curve of her back, the slow rise and fall of her breathing, the way her skin glowed in the morning light.
She was beautiful.
Terrifying.
But absolutely beautiful.
“Stop being fucking weird, Leo. I can feel you staring at me,” she mumbled without even opening her eyes.
I jumped as if I’d been caught watching porn in public. “I—I wasn’t staring.”
She cracked one eye open, laughing. “You breathe loud when you lie.”
I smiled, sitting up to grab a bottle of water from the nightstand. “So… that happened.”
She sat up, stretching. “It definitely did.”
We were quiet for a beat.
“So… you’ve leveled up your sex game. What now? Do we pretend it never happened?” she asked, face unreadable.
Welp. There it was. I knew where this was going.
She probably regretted everything that happened last night and needed a way out.
I gave her the answer I figured she wanted.
“I mean,” I started, “we should probably pretend it never happened. For a hundred reasons starting with the fact that your ex...my brother… would quite literally punch me in the face if he ever found out about this.”
She laughed. “Valid. I’d like to avoid the whole face pummeled in by Derrick thing.”
“Right. So maybe it was just… fun. We were drunk on nostalgia and mimosas from the boat. A one-time thing. Just two adults needing to, you know… get that out of our systems.”
Cherise looked away, and for a second, she looked… disappointed.
“Yeah,” she said softly. “Won’t happen again.”
Wait, was I shooting myself in the foot? I wanted to save my dignity and beat her to the punch of letting me down easy… but did Cherise want to continue whatever this was… with me?
Did she enjoy what happened last night? I mean, it seemed like she did.
My lips parted, desperate to know how she felt. About this insane situation. About... me.
A knock interrupted me, followed by someone calling out, “Room service!”
You know what, it didn’t even matter. This was not going anywhere.
This can’t go anywhere even if I wanted it to.
Might as well stop now before we were in too deep.
I mean, technically, we were already in deep.
Boy, was I in her deep… No! Stop it, Leo.
Not thinking about that. It was over. I need to shove those feelings back down to the pit of my heart, where they needed to stay this time.
Cherise threw on a robe, and I tugged on my pajama pants before opening the door.
The server rolled in the tray with way too many silver domes. I tipped him and shut the door.
“I ordered extra bacon. You’re welcome,” she said, lifting the lid dramatically.
“You really do know me,” I said, grabbing a slice along with a plate loaded with pancakes, and a cup of orange juice, and flopped back onto the bed.
She chewed a bite of French toast and eyed me. “Can I ask you something?”
“Shoot.”
“Why plumbing?”
My brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, you were always hella smart in high school. Thought you’d be some scientist or something. I just… didn’t picture you with a wrench.”
I took a sip of orange juice and nodded.
“Yeah, I get that a lot. Truth is, my dad is a plumber. He actually owns the plumbing company I work for. He taught me everything I know. Derrick never had any interest in it. He was too busy being the golden boy, playing sports, and keeping the majority of my parents’ attention.”
Cherise raised a brow but stayed quiet.
“Plumbing was the one thing that was mine,” I said softly.
“Just me and my dad. He actually paid attention to me when I did it. Asked questions. Gave advice. Showed interest. The first time he ever told me he was proud of me was when I fixed a damn leak under the sink by myself.” I gave a dry laugh. “Sad, right?”
Cherise shook her head. Eyes gentle now. “No, not sad. Honest.” She tucked a curl behind her ear. “Plumbing brought you and your dad closer. There’s nothing sad about that. What is sad is feeling like you had to earn your parents’ approval even if it meant doing something you weren’t in love with.”
Her words struck deep.
“You're right. I’m guilty, plumbing wasn’t some dream I had as a kid. Honestly, I hated it when I first started, but I stuck with it. Turns out, I’m really damn good with my hands.”
Her cheeks flushed as her gaze dropped to my hands. “Yeah,” she said slowly. “I can vouch for that.”
My dick twitched. There it was again. The tension. Dangerous and so fucking tempting.
But we’d made a decision, right?
…Right?
“If you could be anything without having to think about what your parents thought, what would you be?”
I paused mid-chew.
“… Damn,” I muttered, setting down my fork. “You don’t hold back, huh?”
She smirked with syrup on her cheek and mischief in her eyes. “Nope. Spill, Campbell.”
“I guess… I always wanted to work in IT. Something with computers. I used to build whole systems in high school just for fun. I even got my degree in computer science, actually.”
Cherise’s brows shot up. “Wait, what? You’re telling me you're secretly a computer wiz and you’ve been hiding it this whole time?” she said, sarcasm lacing her voice.
I chuckled. “Yeah, but my parents...”
“Leo,” she interrupted, brushing a crumb off my chest. “You light up when you talk about computers. That spark. That is what you’re supposed to be doing, not unclogging shit out of toilets.
Don’t bury that just because it didn’t come with applause.
You’d be amazing at it. Besides, I heard IT makes bank.
You wouldn’t have to ever sweat about things like Moose needing surgery. ”
“You do know I do more than unclog shit out of toilets, right?”
“That is beside the point, Leo, and you know it.”
I stared down at my plate. A computer job? Now? After all these years? It sounded… crazy. Unrealistic. I hadn’t touched a line of code in forever. I’d probably need a refresher course just to remember how to build a basic app, let alone impress some hiring manager.
And what would I even tell my dad? “Hey, remember the thing we bonded over for years? The one trade that made me feel like I belonged, like I earned your respect? Yeah… turns out I kind of hate it.”
Yeah. That would go over real smooth.
But God, the money. If I were making IT money… Moose would’ve had his surgery the same week he got diagnosed. No stress. No scrambling. No praying a vet tech would take payments.
Hell, maybe I wouldn’t still be living paycheck to paycheck in a cramped apartment smelling like old pipe glue.
My eyes locked back onto Cherise’s. She saw something in me. Something I’d hidden in years of obligation.
“Just say you’ll think about it,” she added, breaking into my inner spiral.
Think about it?
I’d been doing everything but thinking about it for years. Plumbing was the only thing that made me feel useful. The only thing that made me feel loved.
I swallowed hard, pretending it was just the pancake going down wrong.
The truth? I hadn’t felt proud of what I did in a long time. I was just tired. Tired of being the afterthought. Tired of lying to myself that I enjoyed crawling under sinks and pretending every client wasn’t just a paycheck to me.
Cherise didn’t know it, but she’d just cracked something open in me that I wasn’t sure I could close again.
I used to dream of code. Of algorithms and sleek systems and building something from scratch that wasn’t rusted or leaking. But my dreams took a backseat. Especially when the only person who ever looked at me like I was more than a shadow was proud of me because of a pipe wrench.
Would Dad still be proud if I walked away?
My eyes landed back on Cherise. Sticky syrup still on her cheek, smiling as if she hadn’t just tilted my entire world off its axis. She believed in me as if it was the most natural thing to do. Like it was easy. Somehow that made it feel…possible.
“Yeah,” I said, voice a little rough as I wiped the syrup off her cheek with a napkin. “I’ll think about it.”