28. Leo
Chapter twenty-eight
Leo
Rehearsal came and went. The dinner? Full of toast, plates clinking, laughter, and Grace pretending she wasn’t nervous.
I was enjoying myself, yeah…
But I was also counting down the minutes for it to be over.
For Cherise and I to just disappear.
To go back to our room.
To do absolutely nothing.
Together.
The last night we would spend side by side.
Damn, that felt heavy.
A pill I wasn’t ready to swallow.
Suddenly, I didn’t want to speed up time anymore.
I wanted to stay in this moment forever.
To never go back to how things used to be.
***
We made it back to our room, showered together, changed into comfortable clothes, and crawled into bed.
She tucked herself into my side, and I wrapped my arm around her.
A moment that just felt… right.
That felt like…home.
I grabbed the remote, pulled up Netflix, and flipped through the options.
“So, what we feeling tonight, horror, comedy, mushy chick flick?”
She squinted at the screen. “Damn, you’re flipping through them at the speed of light, how are you even reading the descriptions?”
“I don’t need to. I can tell everything I need to know by the cover.”
She huffed. “You ever heard of ‘don’t judge a book by its cover?’”
I exhaled dramatically and froze my thumb on the remote, giving her an exaggerated amount of time to read.
After a good two minutes had gone by, she glanced over at me, through hooded eyes, “Okay, now you’re trying to be funny. I just need a second to read it, not Hooked on Phonics. I’m not illiterate.”
I laughed. “So what do you think? Sound promising?”
She gave a thoughtful look, then shook her head. “Nope. Not sold. Keep going.”
I flipped through a few more options, careful not to go too fast… or too slow.
She squealed.
I paused immediately.
“Oh my God, I loved that movie! It was so good. The ending had me in tears.”
I glanced up at the screen. “That’s the one where the dog dies, isn’t it?”
She popped up and looked at me in utter shock.
“You’ve seen it? It’s a chick flick. Leo, you watch chick flicks?” She laughed.
I cleared my throat and dropped my voice a few octaves lower. “No… it was… um, Moose. He saw the dog and wanted to watch it. Really tore him up, too. He wasn’t the same for weeks.”
“Sure. Blame Moose when he’s not here to defend himself.”
“He’d absolutely take the fall for me,” I said. “He’s loyal like that.”
She shook her head, smiling, and settled back into my chest.
I continued to flip through options.
“Moose cried, huh?” she asked.
“Violently.”
“Like ugly cry?”
“Snot. Whimpering. Needed to be held.”
She tilted her head up to look at me. “And what were you doing during all of this?”
“Being a supportive friend.”
She squinted at me. “You cried.”
“I did not cry.”
“You cried.”
“I had allergies.”
“Indoors?”
“Very aggressive pollen season.”
She laughed and snatched the remote from my hand, sat up, and scooted closer to the TV as if that would somehow help her decide faster.
She read the description out loud. “A widowed father—”
“Nope.”
She glanced back at me with a glare, then kept reading. “—moves to a small town.”
“Absolutely not.”
“—and finds unexpected love—”
I groaned. “Let’s pick something else.” The last thing I needed was to watch a sappy love movie, secretly wishing it could be Cherise and me.
She continued to flip.
“Wait,” I said. “A comedy. Just what we need. No dead pets. No widowers. No emotional trauma.”
She read the description. “This actually sounds good.”
She hit play, then settled back into me, tucking her legs under the blanket and pressing her back into my chest, as I wrapped my arm back around her.
For a while, we just sat there watching the movie.
Only I wasn’t really watching the movie.
I was memorizing the way her hair tickled my chin. How her hand absentmindedly stroked my forearm. The occasional soft laugh that made my chest ache.
I wanted to bottle up this moment. Keep it. Frame it. Live in it.
“I’m glad it was you,” she said quietly, not turning to look at me.
“What?”
“That I dragged into this whole fake boyfriend mess. I’m glad it was you.”
My throat tightened. “Me, too.”
We went quiet again.
Then, because I didn’t know how else to say what I was feeling without blowing everything up, I joked, “If I had known pretending to be my brother came with this kind of benefit package, I would’ve done it sooner.”
She snorted. “You’re an idiot.”
“Your idiot, though,” I said, kissing her shoulder.
She turned her face just enough to look at me. “Only for one more day.”
The air shifted.
It was like the pause between lightning and thunder. You know something is coming, but all you can do is wait for the crash.
She looked away, but I saw it in her eyes.
She didn’t want this to end either.
“You paying attention to the movie?” she asked a few moments later.
“Nope,” I answered honestly.
“Me neither.” She hopped up and walked over to her bag. “Let’s play a game.”
“Never have I ever? Bet. I’m going to kick your ass this time,” I said, wiggling my fingers in the air.
She laughed and pulled out a deck of cards. “Uno.”
“Okay, we can play that, but fair warning, I am a beast at Uno.”
“We’ll see,” she said with a smirk, shuffling like a Vegas dealer. “Hope your ego can handle getting crushed by a girl in fuzzy socks.”
She dealt the cards.
First round, she laid down a draw four on me before I had a chance to evaluate my deck.
“Damn, coming out hard from the gate?”
“I play to win.”
I threw down a skip, then a reverse, then another skip. “Ohhh,” I teased. “Look who’s winning now.”
“Don’t celebrate now. Uno’s not over until someone is crying.”
“Is that a threat?”
She leaned forward, her eyes locked on mine. “Everything with me is a threat.”
I swallowed hard. “How many cards you got left?”
She held them to her chest dramatically. “Enough to destroy you.”
“You're bluffing.”
“Wanna bet?”
“On what?”
She thought for a second. “If I win, you have to do a dance for me… in your boxers.”
I paused. “That feels like a disaster waiting to happen.”
“Then don’t lose.”
I raised a brow. “Fine. But if I win, you have to let me give you a massage.”
Her eyes widened, then narrowed. “That’s your bet?”
“Yup.”
“You’re supposed to choose something that benefits you, not me.”
I leaned in. “Did you see how my body reacted to the last massage I gave you? Trust me… That does benefit me.”
She laughed, hesitated, then nodded slowly. “Deal.”
We bumped fists because it's not official until you fist bump.
Ten minutes and one savage draw-two chain later…
“UNO OUT!” she yelled, slapping the bed.
“No!”
“Yes!”
I dropped my last card in defeat and groaned. “I demand a rematch!”
“Nope.” She leaned back, victorious. “Pay up, loser.”
“Unfair. You cheat with your charm.”
She pointed toward the front of the room. “Boxers. Now.”
“I’ll have you know,” I said, standing up with exaggerated confidence as I removed my shirt and dropped my pants, “this dance is a family heirloom passed down from generations of awkward men.”
She burst out laughing as I half-heartedly grinded to a beat only I could hear.
“Okay, okay!” she said between gasps. “Stop, you’re going to make me pee myself.”
I froze mid-shimmy. “You always know how to ruin a man’s fantasy.”
She bit down on her lower lip, eyes shut tight, body practically shaking as she tried to stop the gaggle of laughs from slipping out.
She failed.
I ran and cannonballed onto the bed. Popping her up in the air like a human torpedo.
“Jesus, Leo!” she squealed, arms flailing.
She plopped back down, and we both lay there on our backs, laughing together.
When our laughter had settled, she rolled over on her side to look up at me with those gorgeous brown eyes. “I’m going to miss this.”
“Me, too.”
“Question,” she asked.
“Answer.”
“If you had feelings for me in high school, why didn’t you just tell me back then?”
I scoffed. “So you could laugh at me? Cherise, you know damn well I didn’t stand a chance with you back then.”
Her brows furrowed. “You don’t know that.”
I shot her a look. “So, you’re saying you would have dated a four-eyed nerd that got wedgied on a constant basis?”
She winced. “Yeah, you right.”
I threw a pillow at her and she laughed. “Hey, that doesn’t make it right. I wish I had seen what I see now back then.”
“What do you see now?”
Her face scrunched. “Not you fishing for compliments.”
I rolled my eyes. “Really, I want to know.”
She took a long exaggerated exhale.
I deadpanned. “Is it that hard for you?”
Closing her eyes, she held up a finger. “I’m finding it.”
I pounced on top of her and pinned her hands up above her head by her wrists, my face inches above hers, immediately causing her to giggle.
“Okay, okay!” She paused, then looked me dead in the eye. “I see a grown-ass man. A sexy grown-ass man that has finally grown into his big ass head.”
I nipped at her nose with my teeth.
“Okay!” She laughed. “I see a man who is kind. A total gentleman. Someone funny as hell, willing to put my happiness and comfort above his own without hesitation. Someone willing to do anything, no matter how embarrassing, just to put a smile on my face. Someone who softens the hardest parts of me. Even the parts I try to hide.”
I stilled. Let her words settle in the space between us. No one has described me like that before. At least not out loud.
I rolled off of her, back onto my back beside her, looking up at the ceiling. “If only you saw it sooner,” I muttered under my breath.
We sat in the silence for a moment, then she spoke. “Leo?”
“Yes,” I answered, still looking at the ceiling.
“Why did it take us so long to see each other again?” she asked.
“We were friends in high school—at least I thought we were. Then we grew up, and poof, you vanished. I mean, I dated Derrick for years. You’d think I would’ve bumped into you at some point.
Sure, he never brought me around to family stuff, but…
do you and Derrick not hang out at all?”
I paused. Let the silence stretch.
The easy answer?
“No, we don’t really hang out,” I said. “We only see each other when he needs something fixed around the house.”
The real answer?
I avoided him.
For years.
Especially when I knew he was with Cherise.
Because seeing him with Cherise—the only girl I ever truly loved—that would’ve wrecked me.
Disappearing hurt less than watching her love someone else. Especially when that someone else was my brother.
I finally glanced over at her.
She was frowning.
“That kind of sucks,” she said, and there was this soft ache in her voice. “He’s your only sibling.”
I didn’t know what to say to that.
“I don’t know what I would do without Chelsea,” she continued. “Even when she’s annoying or judgmental, she’s still my person. She knows me like… bone deep.”
I nodded slowly. “Yeah, I guess it does suck.”
She turned toward me and cupped my face in her hand.
“So, what really happens after this trip?”
I tensed. “What do you mean?”
“I mean…” She searched my face. “Do we go back to never seeing each other? Or go back to being just friends?”
Just friends.
That phrase was a knife to my heart.
I looked away first.
“I’m not going to be able to be just friends with you, Cherise.”
The words came out low and unpolished.
Her hand fell from my face.
“This might have to be our last night, I mean there's the wedding night, but we would probably just knock out after the wedding,” I said regretfully.
Cherise scoffed under her breath, but didn’t argue. That’s how I knew it hurt her, too.
This thing between us wasn’t fake anymore.
There was no pretending this weekend never happened.
Like it didn’t change anything.
It changed me.
It changed us.
I needed more than scraps. More than friends. I wasn’t built to stand by and watch her fall in love with someone else again.
I couldn’t survive that twice.
So, if I couldn’t have all of her…I’d have to let her go.
For good this time.
Neither of us spoke for a moment as the finality of what this night truly meant settled over us.
I stood up because sitting there felt suffocating.
“If this is really our last official night,” I said, walking toward the Bluetooth speaker, “then I want to make it count.”
She pushed herself up on her elbows. “Leo… what are you doing?”
“Just trust me.”
I scrolled through my phone, found the song that had all the words I wanted to say and couldn’t, and pressed play.
The smooth, slow burn of Chris Brown’s “Girl of My Dreams” poured through the villa, bass low and intimate.
I turned toward her slowly.
Mouthing the lyrics. “Would you mind if I take my time and admire you?”
Grinding a little too dramatically. Trying to ease the tension.
If this was really our last night together. I wanted it to be filled with happiness. Filled with laughter.
Filled with love.
She crossed her arms, but a smirk tugged at her lips. “You’re so dumb.”
“Yeah, but I got you smiling.” I flashed her a cheesy grin.
She covered her face with her hands.
I walked over and gently pulled her hands down.
“Please,” I said quietly. “Don’t hide from me.”
Her laugh faltered. Her eyes met mine. God, she was beautiful. Not just in the way her lips curved or how her hair spilled across the pillow like art, but in the way she looked at me like I was someone worth loving.
I climbed back on top of her and pressed my lips against hers. This kiss wasn’t about teasing or messing around. It was the kind that fixed every broken part of you.
Her fingers laced behind my neck, tugging me closer, her legs curled around me like she didn’t want to let go. And damn, I didn’t want her to.
My hands slid under the hem of her shirt, fingers grazing bare skin.
She lifted her arms, and I pulled the shirt over her head, tossing it aside. My eyes traced the lines of her body.
I kissed her again, deeper this time. Slower. Like the music playing in the background—I wanted to take my time.
Wanted to feel everything. Because this was it. Our last night.
I reached over and grabbed the silk ties I secretly bought earlier.
Cherise smirked. “Still trying to up your never have I ever cred?”
“I said I was going all out before the trip ended. I don’t make empty promises.”
I gently tied the silk ties around her wrists, lifting them above her head and securing them to the headboard.
“Let me take care of you,” I whispered in her ear.
She didn't say a word, just bit down on her lower lip and nodded.
I moved lower, leaving kisses along her neck, across her chest, down her stomach, each one making her breath catch, her hips shift beneath me.
“Leo,” she whispered, and it undid me.
“I’ve got you,” I said, voice thick. “Every second of tonight... I’ve got you.”
I slipped her shorts off, kissed the inside of her thigh, and settled between her legs—the only place I belonged.
We moved together—slow, then urgent. Like two people trying to outrun goodbye.
There was no pretending. No jokes. Just us.
Maybe it would break me tomorrow. But tonight, I was all hers. No holding back.