Chapter 4 Leo #2
“You really don’t, then?” Stone asked. “I’ve never seen you with anyone, but I always figured you were just, like, discreet.” He chuckled. “I bet you’d kill the game on dating apps. You could lean into the whole magical hammer thing.”
Oh, that’s right. Stone is still Stone.
I pushed the mute button on Miranda’s side of the call. “You didn’t…tell him about me?” I questioned, avoiding moving my lips so Stone couldn’t make out the words.
“Of course not,” she answered the same way.
Pushing my fingers against my forehead, I breathed out. “Sorry. That was stupid. I shouldn’t have asked.”
I unmuted the computer. “My bad, Stone. Technical issues.” Scooting a few inches away from Miranda, I said, “The reason I don’t date is complicated… And private.”
He raised his palms. “Hey, no worries, dude. Your hammer is your business.”
Miranda covered her giggle with a cough.
Muffled shouts sounded from behind Stone. “Dang. Gotta get back on set.” He stood. “Thanks again, Leo. Babes, we’ll talk soon.”
“Talk soon,” Miranda replied to the already-black screen. Facing me, she asked, “Seriously, who do you need to tell?”
“Right now? Just my parents. And as soon as your sisters, James, and Will get back, them too.”
Miranda rose from the bed and stretched her arms above her head. The move displayed a ribbon of toned stomach and pushed her breasts against her thin tee. A twinge of electricity zipped down my spine at the sight of her pebbled nipples. I forced myself to ignore it.
“You can call your parents while I take a shower. I smell like an armpit.” She sniffed her shoulder.
“You do not smell like an armpit. I’m the one who’s been sweating at a jobsite all morning. I’ll call my folks and then shower when you’re done.”
“Hopefully they aren’t pissed at us.”
“I doubt they’ll be upset.”
Miranda grabbed a towel from the linen closet before hesitating outside the hall bathroom. “Leo?”
“Yeah?”
“It’s oddly okay, isn’t it? This thing we’ve set in motion. Once we’ve told everybody in our lives, all we have to do is date. It seems too easy.”
“Miranda, you of all people know it’s not going to be that easy for me. I can stand next to you, take you out, hold your hand, and even put my lips on yours if you think it’s necessary. But I don’t know how to make it look real. Being with someone.”
Anchoring the towel over her shoulder, she approached and looped her arms around my neck. As my hands raised instinctively to grab her hips, she lifted on her tiptoes to kiss me on the cheek. “I’ll help you, Bear.”
I felt it again. The twinge. It raced through me, hiding and dipping and diving between the usual nothingness. I’d held Miranda in my arms like this dozens of times. But now, as she stepped away and sauntered into the bathroom, it was there. Not just a twinge. A lingering awareness.
Not so long ago, that feeling had been a revelation.
Now it taunted me.
Yesterday, Miranda worried things might be awkward between us because of leftover tension from our fight. She didn’t know it, but she was only half right.
23 MONTHS AGO - DECEMBER
Miranda and I didn’t stop talking the entire way back to Seattle. She hooked a playlist up to my truck, but we’d barely made it out of Coleman Creek before we turned the volume down to hear each other talk.
Getting to know her had been the highlight of my holiday, which was saying something, considering my brother James had just made it official with the love of his life.
But no one could blame me for falling under Miranda’s spell.
By the time she told me her three all-time favorite TV shows, Game of Thrones, Mad Men, and Stranger Things—of which I’d seen all and included Mad Men in my top three—I realized how long it had been since I’d felt so relaxed and open with anyone.
I kept my acquaintances and work relationships surface-level. A quick coffee. The occasional movie or ball game. Things were just easier that way. An effective strategy for avoiding questions.
Being with Miranda reminded me that sometimes it was worth the discomfort of getting past the surface to forge a closer connection with someone. I’d missed having that in my life since James moved to Coleman Creek.
Unfortunately, a tight bond wasn’t likely to happen with Miranda either, considering she was twenty-five and lived in California. But the thought of playacting at it with her for a few days lit a spark inside me.
Truthfully, it didn’t feel like playacting at all.
More importantly, by the time I turned my truck onto I-90, I had solved the question of the nickname.
“Panda?” she said incredulously, making a face. “Four days to think about it, and that’s what you come up with?”
“What? It rhymes,” I declared, as though that settled the matter. “Plus, it’s generic enough to be meaningless.”
“Other than the rhyming?”
“Other than that. Obviously.”
“It makes zero sense.”
“Miranda-Panda, or just Panda to keep it simple. Because you’re cuddly and sweet, but you are also rare and exotic and precious.”
She stuck a finger in her mouth and made a gagging noise.
“It’s decided,” I said, grinning at the windshield.
She puffed up her cheeks. “Alright, then. How about I return the favor?”
“A nickname?”
“Uh-huh.”
“My very own nickname? From my very own Panda. I’m honored.”
Miranda’s lips twitched as she rolled her eyes. “Thor is a god, right? Larger than life? Kind of like you?”
“You think I’m godlike? Wow. Thanks.”
She flicked my arm. “Just large. With much more of a mouth on you than I thought when we first met, clearly.”
“It takes me a minute, but I’m warmed up now.”
“I gathered,” she replied, her tone so low and rich it drew my eyes to her briefly as she continued. “You need a nickname appropriate for your general”—her hand waved at me in a circle—“largeness. But you also have to atone for Panda.”
A huff worked its way from my throat. “I’m listening.”
She paused dramatically. “From this moment forthwith, I dub you ‘Bear,’ or when we are in formal settings, ‘Leo-Bear.’”
“Leo-Bear?”
“Yep. Turnabout is fair play. If I’m a bear, then you are too. And not a cool one, either. Just a plain old boring one. You don’t get to be a Kodiak or a polar or a grizzly.”
“Generic ‘Bear’ is not the insult you think it is. I can live with it.”
“We’ll see.” She smiled and crossed her arms.
“Panda?”
“Yes, Bear?”
I smiled. “Just checking.”
I carried Miranda’s suitcase into the guest room, pointing out where I kept the extra towels in case she wanted to shower. But she said she was tired after the long drive, so we both retreated to our beds almost immediately.
It wasn’t until I woke up in the morning and heard Miranda moving around that it struck me how unusual this situation was.
Not bad, just unfamiliar. I’d never had a woman stay over during the six years I’d lived in this apartment.
James had crashed in the guest room plenty of times, but having Miranda in my space felt different.
As I pulled on joggers and a sweatshirt, the sound of water running in the hallway bathroom startled me. When was the last time I even turned on that shower?
From our time in Coleman Creek, I knew Miranda was a coffee drinker, and I’d seen her eat all kinds of breakfast foods. I had six near-expired eggs in the fridge. Before whisking them up to scramble, I put four slices of sourdough in the toaster.
I was scrolling through options on the TV when the water turned off. A moment later, Miranda appeared in the hallway wrapped in a towel, directly in my line of sight.
Our gazes caught and held. I took in her long hair, which she’d brushed away from her face.
Wet tendrils strayed across the apples of her pink-flushed cheeks.
I registered the curve of her shoulder, as perfect as a painting.
Just like the rest of her. The towel hitting at mid-thigh emphasized the sculpted muscles of her long legs.
The slender fingers of her hand trembled slightly where she held the knotted towel between her breasts.
I knew it was impolite to stare, that I should cast my eyes away so she could retreat. But I couldn’t. I felt compelled to study the striking woman before me, drawn to her in a way I couldn’t articulate.
As our silent conversation stretched into seconds, she bit her lip, peering at me from beneath her lashes. A visible swallow worked its way down her throat. Looking at her eyes again, I saw her pupils widen. In her expression, a question lingered. Hopefully, she didn’t think…?
Shit! What the fuck was I doing? Staring at her like a creep.
I smiled in a way I wanted to seem friendly without being dismissive as I turned back to the TV.
“Hope you’re hungry,” I said. “I’m making breakfast.”
“Oh, yeah, sure.” Her voice stuttered. There was confusion there, but no detectable anger or embarrassment. I heard her damp footsteps as she entered the guest bedroom, then the snick of the door shutting.
I exhaled.
When Miranda emerged five minutes later dressed in jeans and a snowflake sweater, she appeared unperturbed.
She sat at the high bar attached to my kitchen counter.
I handed her a plate and a cup of coffee, pointing at the creamer in case she wanted to doctor it.
Instead of seating myself on the other barstool, I stood across from her and leaned over my plate on the counter.
I piled my eggs onto my toast, sandwich-style, before glancing over to see Miranda had done the same thing.
“There's a tomato on its last legs,” I said. “Want me to slice it up for these?”
“Yes, please.”
We ate our egg-and-tomato sandwiches in easy silence while the news played on the muted TV. This piece of a relationship—this quiet, not-laced-with-expectations companionship—was the piece I sometimes thought I could do. The piece I sort of wanted.
“You’re working today?” she asked.