17. Leo
CHAPTER 17
Leo
“You shouldn’t be doing this,” Myles states as he paces back and forth in his kitchen.
“Yeah, well, I don’t have any other choice.” My eyes follow his frantic movements.
I take a sip of my drink, swallow the amber liquid, and welcome the way it scorches its way down my throat.
“I mean, you kind of do.” He stops at the end of the island, pivoting on his feet to face me. “Just tell Chloe you aren’t interested in Camille… Veronica…” His brows pull together because he doesn’t know what to call her.
“I can’t. I have a plan, Myles.” I set the glass on the counter and fold my arms over my chest.
“Yes, the revenge that you still haven’t told me what you plan on doing.”
“And I don’t plan on it.” He looks annoyed, but I shrug my shoulders at his disappointment. “All you have to do is pretend she is Camille, and please, for the love of God, do not slip up and call her Veronica in front of Chloe.”
“I won’t,” he reassures me. “You know that if you tell me the plan, I can help you.”
I push off the counter, walking to where he found a spot to stand still. I flash him half a smile, patting him on the shoulder. “Sorry, man. I don’t need your help.”
Myles groans but finally accepts that he won’t be needed. In this plan, it’s just me and Veronica.
Chloe breaks the silence by strolling into the room, her heels clicking on the hardwood, announcing her arrival. Myles and I glance at her to see she is checking her purse to ensure she has everything she needs.
Huffing out an annoyed breath, Chloe walks to the pantry, grabs two granola bars, and shoves them into her purse.
I let out a small laugh as Myles says, “Chlo. We are going to eat.”
Her eyes quickly find him, and they narrow. “This little girl makes me feel nauseous if I don’t eat. So, yes, I understand we are going to have dinner, but I am not risking throwing up in the car because I do not have snacks.”
“If you feel sick, we don’t have to go,” I offer.
“What a great idea!” Myles's voice booms with enthusiasm. “You can change into some pajamas and crawl into bed! We can even watch that one show you’ve been begging me to watch with you.”
“Absolutely not!” She zips her purse closed rather violently. “I’m constantly feeling sick. That isn’t going to stop me from living my life. But I am taking you up on that offer another time, Myles.”
I nod in understanding while Myles sighs in defeat beside me. A knock sounds from the door, all of our heads whipping in its direction.
We all know who it is because she is who we are waiting on. Chloe yells for her to come in, and soon after, we hear the door open and shut.
Her heels click down the hall, and my breath stops when she rounds the corner into the kitchen.
I am not used to seeing Veronica in everyday clothing. I was accustomed to her grey sweats and plain shirts. The navy blue dress she is wearing right now takes me by surprise.
It clings to her body and accentuates the curves she has gained from being out in the real world. The fabric stretches over her breasts, her nipples showing through from the lack of a bra.
I raise my eyes up to that knowing grin working on her face. My stare diverts from hers, and I inspect her slightly curled hair. The blonde is becoming less prominent as the brown takes over.
Her appearance will always surprise me. Seeing her again, it takes me a second to realize who she is because the beautiful curls are gone, and those brown doe eyes I’ve stared into multiple times have disappeared behind the contacts.
I wonder if she will get her hair done again to add the blonde back in. That thought alone also makes me curious about where she got the money to make all these changes. There is no way she has access to her bank accounts.
“Are we rea—” Chloe begins to ask before she abruptly stops. Her hand flies to her mouth, where the tips of her fingers press against her lips.
Suddenly, my sister rushes out of the room to find the guest bathroom. Myles follows right behind her, worried, like the loving fiancé and soon-to-be dad that he is.
My eyes remain on the door where they departed, not wanting to acknowledge Veronica’s presence.
“Are you ignoring me because you are afraid to check me out again?” Her voice is soft but taunting. I blink, inhaling a deep breath while keeping my eyes straight ahead.
Slowly, the sound of her shoes tapping against the floor gets louder as she moves towards me. I stare over her head as she positions herself in front of me.
When her hands meet my chest, I finally drop my eyes to her. Veronica looks up at me through her lashes, a playful smirk tugging at her lips.
“You don’t have to hide that you were checking me out.” Her hands trail up my body, fingers lightly brushing against my neck. The skin beneath her touch ignites a fire, and I can’t tell if the sensation is good or bad. “I wore this color just for you.”
I tighten my jaw, teeth crashing together roughly at her confession. My eyes cast down to the dress before glancing back at her face. My head tilts to the side, but my mouth doesn’t open to respond.
“You looked so hot in that navy blue jumpsuit,” Veronica tugs at the collar of my shirt, pulling me closer to her. “It made you look like a badass. Do you know how many times I’ve touched myself with the image of you wearing that? So many nights of imagining you having your way with me in that jumpsuit.” A curious smirk flashes on her mouth. “Did you think of me when you touched yourself while you were locked away?”
I remove my hands from my side, gripping each of her wrists in a rough hold. “I was too busy thinking about other things that getting myself off to the thought of you never even crossed my mind.”
There wasn’t a time that I was truly alone while in prison because it was a rare occasion for an inmate to be left alone.
Between meals and free time in the courtyard, men surrounded you, even when you were in your cell or the shower. The only time you could be alone was probably if you were sent to solitary confinement.
“What could have possibly been more important than picturing me naked?” Her words bring me out of my head, and for only a brief second, the image of her lying naked beneath me flashes through my mind.
Shaking the thought away, I stare down at the woman I was once in love with, and a mix of emotions stirs inside me.
“Thinking about how much I hate you.” The words fly like venom from my mouth, and they make her wince.
Veronica composes herself and then promises, “You’ll learn to love me again, Leo.”
I won’t, but that doesn’t stop the hole that I have hidden deep down inside me to fill with worry, hoping I would slip into the void and fall again.
No. It’s not gonna happen. She fucking stabbed you and left you for dead.
I drop her hands from my grasp and step backward just in time for Chloe and Myles to reemerge from the bathroom. “Okay, I’m good.”
“Chloe, we really don’t have to go out tonight,” I try again.
“Nope! I’m feeling much better. I’m going to grab one more snack, and then we can leave.”
Chloe drove to the restaurant. She says that sitting anywhere other than behind the wheel will worsen her morning sickness. Myles, of course, sat up front, leaving Veronica and me together in the back.
I kept my eyes forward through the front window or looking out of my window to avoid making eye contact with the woman sitting next to me, but I could still feel when Veronica’s attention was on me.
Those now-green eyes burned into the side of my face, and when she attempted to place her hand on my thigh, her touch seared through my slacks, and I swear it was like her skin was touching mine directly.
Subtly, I shoved her hand off of me, to which she let out a soft grunt and kept to herself for the rest of the drive.
We arrived at some fancy restaurant downtown about ten minutes ago. All of us were looking over the menu, Chloe snacking on her granola bar as she figured out what she wanted to eat for dinner.
I smile as I watch her slowly chew a piece of granola, her face scrunched up as if the decision for a meal was too hard to make.
I guess right now, she is always hungry, but sometimes the food doesn’t sound appetizing. Low music is playing overhead, so I can hear the soft hum of indecision leaving her.
Once the waiter comes to take our order, we are left with each other’s company. I don’t want to be the first to strike up a conversation, and thankfully, I don’t have to because Chloe speaks up.
“I know I mentioned doing something fun, not that dinner isn’t fun,” she adds the last part to ensure we understand that we will still have a good time while eating. “But I thought we could go bowling after! Leo, remember when Mom and Dad would take us bowling every Thursday nights?”
I plant a slight smile on my face at the memory. “Thursdays were when they had a live band, and children bowled for half price.”
“Yup!” Chloe looks away from me to speak to Veronica. “My parents loved live music. Their date nights would consist of going to restaurants where a band would play. It didn’t matter if it was a fancy restaurant or a dive bar. They just enjoyed the music and each other’s company.”
“That sounds like a fun date night,” Veronica tells Chloe with a smile.
“Thursdays were an official date night even though we tagged along,” I say before sipping my whiskey. “They would bowl with us for a little while until they went to the stage where the band was set up and danced with each other.”
I remember Chloe and I bowling on Thursday night. We still had to have the gutter rails up because she was young and would cry if her ball went into the forbidden ditch, which my dad used to call the gutters.
At that point, I was old enough not to need the barriers, so I made it into a game to roll the ball without hitting the rails. Every single throw went straight down the lane and never touched the guards.
After the ball hit the pins, I turned around to walk back to the seats when I saw my parents slowly dancing, even though the song was upbeat. The little heart in my chest swelled with so much happiness seeing them with those bright smiles on their faces. From a young age, I knew how much my parents loved each other.
They weren’t afraid to express their feelings in front of us, which only made me understand the type of love I deserved when I was older.
Chloe had bowled and came to stand beside me, watching our parents dance. I glanced down at my little sister, a wide grin spread on her face when she said, “Mommy and Daddy are just like a princess and prince dancing at a royal ball.”
She was in her princess phase then, but she was right. Our parents seemed to have been plucked right out of a fairytale to live their lives on Earth. Their love was magical.
I blink out of the memory, feeling my eyes have grown wet. When I look at Chloe, whose eyes are also lined with tears to match mine, she offers a small smile that I reciprocate.
Glancing to my right, Veronica is watching me intently. I clear my throat, ripping my gaze away from her.
“Mom’s birthday passed by already, but we planned on visiting her and having a birthday celebration,” Chloe announces as her plate of food is placed in front of her. “Whenever I don’t feel like I’m going to empty everything in my stomach, that is.”
“That sounds like a great idea,” I tell her, Myles nodding in agreement.
“Camille, you could come if you’d like,” Chloe offers.
When Veronica says, “I’d love that,” I blurt out a stern “No.”
Chloe looks at me with furrowed brows.
“The celebration should be family only.” I turn to Veronica and fake an apologetic expression. “I understand you’ve known my sister for a few months, but I barely know you.”
It’s already bad that she is around my family. I don’t want her anywhere near my mother’s grave.
“That is understandable.” Veronica nods.
“Well, what better way to get to know someone than over dinner?” Chloe adds.
Veronica wears a tight smile, which might come off as a nervous expression to my sister, but I know better. She doesn’t want to spend this dinner talking about herself, and she doesn’t want to be the center of attention, but that is too bad. I’d love to hear the lies she has come up with.
“Very true,” I respond to Chloe before turning to Veronica. “Tell me all about yourself, Camille.”
Veronica stares at me momentarily, eyes burning with a playful fire. The part of her that was worried a moment ago has disappeared, and what has surfaced in its place is a determined Veronica.
“Ask me anything.” That beautiful smile that only I ever got when we were together beams across her face.
“Where did you grow up?”
“A little town in Colorado,” she answers without hesitation.
“What was the town’s name?” I ask another question right after she responds to my previous one.
Hesitation causes her to pause briefly. “Silverton.”
“Silverton,” I hum. “Sounds like it would be a cute little town.”
“It is.” She nods, a soft expression painting her face as if she were remembering the town she’s never been to. “I worked at a boutique in the middle of town. We sold books, clothing, candles. Anything you could think of.”
I chew on the inside of my cheek as she speaks, biting back an amused grin. She assumes she has taken over the conversation by giving me information I didn’t ask for. Thinking that since she gave me all of this, I won’t bother asking any more questions about it.
Veronica may think that she will take the reins and hijack the conversation to go her way so she won’t accidentally slip up.
That’s not going to happen.
“That sounds so cute!” Chloe says from her seat.
“It really is! All of the clothes were handmade by—” Veronica begins to explain to my sister, but I cut her off.
“What was the boutique’s name?”
Her smile falters a little, and her eyes turn a shade darker because of how pushy I’m being. She glances down at the table; the only things on the white cloth are our food and drink menus. I watch as she reads the menu, and then I peer down to where she is reading.
All of this happens in seconds, and then Veronica tells me the boutique's name, “Miss Molly’s Boutique.”
My stare holds on to the drink menu, reading the Molly Moscow Mule, and I laugh internally. Her using the name Molly was clever enough. Molly is a common name, and Chloe wouldn’t think of questioning it.
“Was Molly the owner?” Chloe questions, thoroughly intrigued by the conversation now.
I glance at Myles and smirk at him as he rolls his eyes at all the nonsense she is spilling out of her mouth before returning my attention back to Veronica.
She swallows a sip of her drink and nods. “Yeah. She was the owner, but the store had been around for so long that she grew old and sadly passed away. The shop was passed down to her granddaughter. I worked with Molly for about a month, but we grew close then. Losing her was like losing a part of my family.”
Lies fall from her lips like a waterfall. And my sister is believing every word.
“How sad.” I pretend to pout, placing my hand on top of hers to show comfort. Her hand twitches beneath mine, the kind gesture throwing her off guard. “And your family? Your parents, what were they like?”
She rolls her jaw, inhaling a deep breath. “It was just my mother and I. I never met my father.”
“So, no siblings?”
“Nope.” She shakes her head. “No siblings.”
I let go of her hand, and she stares at the absence of my touch. “Why did you leave then? If it was only you and your mother, wouldn't you want to stay with her?”
The wheels turn in her mind as she figures out how to respond. Finally, she says, “As I got older, she started seeing someone. She was genuinely happy and in love for the first time in forever. She knew I wanted to travel the world and not stay trapped in that small town for the rest of my life. She gave me her blessing to leave.”
Trapped . The word stuck out like a sore thumb.
“You aren’t ever really trapped in the places you live. You can leave whenever you want. You just have to overcome that initial hill of nervousness and fear.”
“Spoken like a true doctor.” She grins and leans closer to me, lowering her voice. “You, of all people, know what it’s like to be trapped in a place you can’t escape from.”
“But you escaped. I didn’t. I stayed until I was allowed to leave.” My jaw twitches in anger.
“And I was never going to get out without… help.” A wicked grin pulls at her lips. I sit back in my seat and look at Myles and my sister.
They are having a conversation of their own, probably wanting to give Veronica and me space to get to know each other, but I’m done with my questions for now.
Everyone else engages in small talk, Chloe and Veronica talking about some book they are reading. Myles is like me and stays quiet while eating, shooting daggers at the woman across from him.
Once we are done, I pay for my and Veronica’s meals since it’s a gentlemanly thing to do, and I have to make a show of it for my sister.
“Alright!” Chloe beams while she stands up. “Let’s go bowling!”