Chapter 14 #2
“Tippi?” His voice is soft, alarmed. He shifts his weight just enough not to crush me, then pulls back to look at my face.
His own is flushed, wrecked, still catching his breath.
“Oh - oh. Are you - did I - did I hurt you? Did I do something wrong? Oh god, I’m so sorry, we can stop, I mean we have stopped, but I can -”
“No,” I gasp, trying to swipe at my cheeks and utterly failing because my hands are still half-trapped between us. “Shit. I’m fine. I’m… Everything’s fine.”
He freezes, eyes wide, clearly not buying a word of it. “You’re crying.”
I snort, which just makes a horrible hiccuping noise. “Hadn’t noticed.”
His lips twitch helplessly, even as worry crumples his brow. “Is it… too much sensory input? Do you feel overwhelmed? What do you need… quiet? Weighted blanket? Tea?”
The fact that his first response to me crying mid-sex is to offer me a weighted blanket makes me want to sob harder and also marry him on the spot, which is yet another reason to get a fucking grip.
“I…” I take a shuddering breath, force a laugh that sounds brittle even to my own ears. “Wow. OK. That was intense. I think my hormones just decided to throw in a cameo. Happens sometimes. I must be getting close to my period or something. Just ignore me.”
He doesn’t.
“Is it… a bad intense?” he asks carefully. “Do we need to… rethink anything? Or…”
“It’s not you,” I blurt, hating how clichéd it sounds. “I promise.”
His expression softens, but his eyes stay searching. “That’s… nice to hear. But if it’s not me, that still means it’s something.”
The pressure building under my breastbone spikes. I can’t do this. Not naked. Not with his come still inside the condom, not with his skin against mine and his soft eyes on my stupid traitorous tears. “I just need a minute,” I croak. “Bathroom.”
He immediately rolls to the side, careful not to crush me, disposing of the condom with fastidious efficiency before lying back. “Take all the minutes you need,” he says quietly.
I scramble out of bed, suddenly all elbows and knees, and make a beeline for the en suite. Once the door is shut, I lean my forehead against the cool wood and exhale shakily.
Get it together, Mills.
I turn on the tap and splash cold water on my face. My reflection in the mirror looks wild-eyed and blotchy, mascara smudged, hair tangled. The image of me from a couple of hours ago, confident and laughing over dinner, feels like a different person.
“Since when,” I mutter to my puffy-eyed self, “do you cry because you imagined not having a man in your life?”
The woman in the mirror raises an unimpressed eyebrow, as if to say, Since you started actually letting one in, dumbass.
I grip the sink, breathing hard through my nose until the urge to sob subsides into a scratchy ache. I’m not about to do some big cathartic release in this bathroom while he’s ten feet away worrying himself sick. That would be cruel.
Once I’ve mostly stopped leaking, I pat my face dry with toilet paper and do what I do best: compartmentalize.
Hormones. That’s the story. It’s not even a lie, necessarily. I probably am somewhere in my cycle where I’d cry at nothing. I’ll lean on that. I’ll joke, deflect. And then I’ll go home, pour this all out into my journal, and figure out how the hell to keep my heart from staging this coup.
When I emerge, he’s propped up against the headboard, sheet hitched around his waist, watching the door like he’s not sure if I’ll come back. The sight makes my chest squeeze all over again.
“Hey,” I say, aiming for casual, still sounding a little rough.
“Hey,” he echoes. He studies my face. “Better?”
“Yeah.” I wave a hand. “Sorry. That was… I don’t normally burst into tears mid-orgasm. That’s a new one.”
“If it helps,” he says tentatively, “you still looked very beautiful while doing it.”
I bark out a laugh. “Always a charmer.”
He pats the bed next to him. “Come here? If you like.”
I hesitate for half a heartbeat. If I don’t move now, I think and feel simultaneously, I’m going to start crying again and then I’ll never stop.
I step back, forcing a grin. “That’s OK, I should go. Sadie will want help with the twins in the morning, and Rhi will never forgive me if I’m not there for breakfast pancakes.”
Surprise flits over his face, quickly masked. “Oh. Right. Of course. I didn’t mean to… keep you.”
“You didn’t,” I rush to reassure him, hating the way his shoulders hunch. “Tonight was …fucking fantastic. Honestly. I’m just…” I gesture vaguely at my face. “Emotional dumpster fire. You don’t need front row seats to that.”
He studies me again, frustration and concern warring in his eyes. “You know I’m quite fond of researching emotional dumpster fires,” he says softly.
I lean in and kiss him, quick and sweet, to stop him saying something that might crack me open completely.
“I know,” I whisper against his lips. “But tonight, let’s just call it hormones and leave it there, yeah?”
He doesn’t look convinced, but he nods. “If that’s what you want.”
“It is.” I slide off the bed, searching for my scattered clothes. “I’ll text you tomorrow, OK? You can tell me more about your weighted blanket fantasies.”
That gets a real smile. “I don’t think those are supposed to be sexual.”
“Everything’s sexual if you try hard enough.” I wink, hauling my shorts up. “See you later, Professor.”
He walks me to the door, because of course he does, pressing a soft kiss to my forehead before I go.
It almost undoes me again.
When I get back, Leo’s in sweatpants and a faded tee, hair damp from a shower, smelling faintly of citrus shower gel. The living room behind him glows with the flicker of the TV, some crime drama paused mid-autopsy.
“Hey, Tiplet,” he says with an easy grin. “You’re back late. Everything alri-”
I burst into tears.
Not a graceful single tear, either. Full-on, snotty, hiccuping sobs that punch out of me before I can even think about stopping them. My hands come up to cover my face like that’s going to help.
My brother’s expression goes from amused to alarmed in a heartbeat. “Whoah, whoah,” he murmurs, stepping forward and wrapping those big tattooed arms around me without hesitation. “Come here. What happened?”
I fold into him like I’m made of paper. He kicks the door shut with his foot and half-guides, half-carries me to the sofa, sitting us down so I can cry into his chest like I did as a distraught teenager.
One of his hands rubs slow circles between my shoulder blades, the other cradles the back of my head.
“Shh,” he says softly. “It’s alright. I’ve got you. Let it out.”
I do.
It comes in waves. First the big, wracking sobs that make my ribs hurt.
Then the smaller aftershocks, little tremors of breath.
Leo doesn’t rush me, doesn’t say anything stupid like “it’s not that bad” or “calm down”.
He just holds on, steady and solid and sure, like he did a thousand times before when we were younger and the world hurt.
Eventually, when the worst of it has passed and I’m in that humiliating snuffle phase, he eases back, handing me a box of tissues from the coffee table.
“Here,” he says gently. “Blow before you drown.”
I laugh wetly, doing as I’m told. “Sorry,” I croak. “Your shirt’s covered in mascara.”
“Adds character.” He scrubs at a black smear with his thumb. “Want to tell me what happened, or do you need to just sit and breathe for a minute more?”
I take a shuddering breath. “We… had sex,” I say, because if I start anywhere else I’ll get tangled.
His mouth twitches. “Well, fuck, I never would have guessed.” He hands me another tissue. “I assumed there was at least a tangential connection, given you left here with him and came back looking like you’ve been run over by a feelings truck.”
Despite everything, a broken laugh escapes me. “Feelings truck,” I repeat. “Accurate.”
“Was it bad sex?” he asks, frowning. “Because I will absolutely give him a disappointed brother-in-law lecture if he -”
“No!” I blurt. “God, no. It was… incredible. He was…” I close my eyes, remembering the way Jacob’s face looked right before he came, open and undone and completely mine. “He was perfect.”
“OK,” Leo says slowly. “So… good sex. That’s usually your favorite kind. So what’s the problem?”
I pick at a loose thread on a cushion, unable to meet his eyes. “I… cried.”
He raises an eyebrow. “In a ‘holy shit that was intense’ way, or in a ‘this is traumatizing me’ way?”
“The first one,” I mumble. “Emotional Chernobyl. Right there on his stupid perfect chest.”
Leo’s expression softens. “Oh, kiddo.”
“I don’t do that,” I say miserably. “You know I don’t. I’ve had sex in graveyards and planes and someone’s questionable basement dungeon, and I have never burst into tears because my stupid heart decided to get involved.”
He tilts his head. “Oh?”
I groan. “Somewhere between him holding my hand and making me come and me realizing I’m going to have to leave him in a few days, my brain decided to run a future montage and my tear ducts went, ‘Guess what, bitch, we’re invested.
’ I got upset just imagining not having him in my life, and then I was ugly crying.
Like, properly. Snot. Hiccups. The works.
Mid-afterglow. He probably thinks I’m deranged. ”
“What did you tell him?” Leo asks gently.
“That it was hormones,” I admit, cringing. “Period stuff. Which is… maybe partially true, but mostly bullshit. Then I hid in the bathroom, sobbed at my own reflection, and came home to cry on you instead of dealing with it like a grown-up.”
He huffs a laugh. “Ah yes, the Mills Method.”
“Shut up.”
He squeezes my shoulder. “Look at me.” His golden brown eyes, the same color as mine, are warm and steady, full of that big-brother mix of amusement and fierce protectiveness.
“You know you can fall in love, right?” he says quietly.
“On your own terms. It doesn’t have to look like anyone else’s version. ”