Chapter 22
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Eli
We’re there in ten, like I told Leo we would be.
“I’m so sorry, Leo,” Emily says as soon as we arrive and she sees him in her chair covering reception.
“Oh, pumpkin, no worries,” he assures her, seeing that she feels genuinely bad, and gives her an affectionate cuddle. “Eli led you astray with his shenanigans, that’s all. But you’re still my angel.” He winks at me. “Thinking about how complicated I can make my lunch order.”
“Do your worst,” I say, grinning defiantly. His eyebrow raises, but I can see he’s just happy to see me happy. And that means a lot to me.
“I’m paying my way,” Emily pipes up as she gently nudges Leo off her chair.
“Nope, this one is on me,” I insist.
Leo shakes his head and points at me. “It’s his fault, so he’s fixing it. I’ve been waiting for this day for years.”
"Hey, it takes two to tango. It’s just as much my fault as it is his. And we'll be able to get it done much quicker if we split the list," she argues.
"But then I miss out on your company. Nah." I shake my head.
Her eyes narrow at me playfully, and I can’t help but smile. “We’ll see.”
“Uh oh, the lovebirds’ first fight,” Leo laughs, “I’m outta here. Just don’t smash up the place.” He wanders through to the corridor, and I see him pause by Sadie’s open door.
I lean across and crook my finger at my girl so I can reach her for a kiss. I can feel her starting to smile as I brush her lips with mine. I love you,” she mouths at me.
There’s something my mother always used to say in Samoan to my father: O se va’ai lava e malie ai le loto.
A rough translation, as I understood it, would be simply looking at you makes my heart happy.
I get it now, Mom, I think. I’m glad she had that with my father, and I wish she could meet this woman who’s made my life right again.
I love you, too, I mouth back, and pull myself away, heading to my studio to set up for my first client of the morning.
The peace doesn’t last.
I’m stealing a few moments with Emily on reception after my first appointment - a Spiderman symbol on a regular client’s arm - when the shouting begins.
It’s Sadie and Leo.
Em and I frown at each other, unable to make out the actual words they’re shouting at each other behind the now closed door of her studio. But they both sound seriously pissed.
And then her door bursts open just as Leo yells, “He’s an ASSHOLE!” Both of them storm into the corridor. It’s been a while since they had a fight, but they do happen now and again. Inevitable, really, with their fiery personalities and Leo's unrequited feelings pouring gasoline on the bonfire.
But this sounds like the worst one yet.
I tense my jaw. What is it this time? Em looks worried.
“Don’t you dare call him that,” Sadie snarls, clenching her fists at her sides.
Leo rakes his hands through his hair in clear frustration. “What...would you...call it, then?!” He sounds incredulous, and livid beyond anything I think I’ve ever heard from him.
“I call it something I should never have mentioned to you,” she retorts.
She’s almost breathless with anger, very unlike the easygoing Sadie I know.
She’s never been shy about calling it like she sees it, but I’ve never seen her so raw before.
“You think I don’t know you don’t like him?
Yeah, dingus, I see the eye rolls. I hear the pointed comments.
You’ve never given him a fair chance, like some weird inverse snobbery…
Like he doesn’t have shit tons of tattoos like us, and doesn’t listen to your kind of music, so you think he’s not worth bothering with.
You just decided you didn’t like him and that was that.
And now you’re laying into him way more than he deserves, and it sucks! It’s beneath you.”
“More than he…” He sounds stunned, and stares at her for a long moment before pulling his shirt off.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Sadie growls, rolling her eyes and crossing her arms. But Leo cuts her off.
“Here,” he says, pointing to his lower abdomen on the left, where there’s a tattoo of a scene from a Moomins cartoon from the nineties.
“And here,” he points to the Japanese style maroon peony on his left arm, one of Sadie’s best in my opinion.
“And here,” he says, turning around to point at the intricate mandala tattoo with the head of a walrus she inked onto his shoulder blade.
“Here,” he points to the fleur de lys mandala she drew delicately on his neck as a tribute to New Orleans, “here,” he points at the skeleton from some British cartoon she did on his hip, “and now here, when it’s only half finished because you’re pissed at me,” he ends, pointing to his right wrist, but I can’t see what the new tattoo is.
She glares at him, but her anger is dimming and being replaced by something else. Something colder.
“I would never, ever have any of these removed, for any reason, because you did them. And I’m just a friend of yours.
” He huffs with anger. Em tenses up and starts biting one of her nails.
“What the hell is his excuse?! He says he loves you, and he’s.
..he’s…fucking destroying your tattoo on him?
He’s lasering that glorious artwork off?
For what? There is nothing that can justify that, and you’re still with him?
You're still thinking of saying yes if he ever gets off his arse and proposes? You still think he cares even one tiny shit’s worth about you? !”
Sadie is silent for a moment as he finishes ranting, shaking her head. “That’s…”
“That’s what? Fair? The truth? Something you just don’t want to admit to yourself?!” Leo interrupts her angrily.
When she speaks again, her voice is dripping with ice. “That is rich. You’re a fine one to talk about giving a shit about anybody.”
“What the fuck did you just say to me?” Leo spits, his eyes flashing with fury.
“You heard me.” She takes a step forward, and their eyes are in a death lock together as they square off.
Neither of them blinks. Neither of them would ever be violent, but rage is sizzling in the air around them.
This has been a long time coming. “Peter has his faults, but he doesn’t sleep with half of Foxton and then never call them again.
He wouldn’t pull that kind of selfish, lame-arse fuckboy shit with anyone because he understands basic courtesy and thinking about other people’s needs and feelings.
The other day I covered Emily’s lunch break, and your last one night stand called in hoping to see you.
Asked me if you’d mentioned her, and what could I say?
! I had no idea who she was, and that was obvious.
And it was really, really sad to see this poor woman’s eyes when she realized she was just one of many, and you’d been perfectly able to call her and just hadn’t.
It was depressing to watch.” She sneers at him with contempt.
“You take what you want from these women, and never consider how it makes them feel when you drop them like a hot rock after you got yours. So yeah, actually, jackass, giving a shit about other people is not something you’re qualified to comment on.
I will not be buying a ticket to your TED talk.
Back the fuck off, you fucking hypocrite. ”
Em inches a little closer to me, and I can feel she’s trembling ever so slightly. When I look down at her, she’s staring at the ground, but she’s gone pale. They’re triggering her.
That does it.
“Knock it off,” I bark at them. “You,” I point at Leo, “back in your room, and you,” I jerk my head at Sadie, “back to yours, and deal with this shit later. This is not the time or the place.”
Sadie scowls at Leo one last time before turning and flipping her door closed. They all have soft close mechanisms to accommodate Dean’s PTSD, so it’s not quite as dramatic as she was probably hoping, but the message is loud and clear.
I’ve never seen anyone put their shirt on angrily before, but Leo manages it, glaring at me as I look back at him evenly, and then at her slowly closing door. “He’s still an ungrateful philistine, and a prat, and you fucking know it,” he shouts at her door before he, too, stalks back to his room.
Dean sticks his head out of his door, rolling his eyes. WTF?
Wish I knew, I sign back, keen for them not to hear me talking about them. The last thing I want to do is start them up again. Had to do something. The yelling was upsetting Em.
He nods. You did right. Is she OK? Emily, I mean.
Just going to check now. He nods again, and I return to the reception area.
Her color looks a little better, and the trembling seems to have stopped. “Are you OK?” I ask her, walking up to her and pulling her gently into my arms, checking for signs of a panic attack. I’m relieved to see there are none.
“Yeah,” she replies. “Sorry about that, I just...me and yelling...you know, it’s not a good mix.” She sighs, resting her forehead against my chest. “I need to get over it.”
I just quietly hold her, gently rubbing her back until I feel her relax. “You will. In your own time. Until then, I’ve got you,” I murmur.
She snuggles in. “Thank you.” She says it so quietly I almost miss it.
“It’s OK.”
She leans back and looks up at me wryly. “For real, though,” she muses, “I don’t think people argue like that without a spark, and it takes two. She might not admit it even to herself. She might not even realize. But that was too much of a humdinger for all those feels to be one sided.”
I raise an eyebrow. “You think?”
She nods. “It’s definitely not just him.”
Emily
In the aftermath of the Sadie and Leo row, everyone mostly keeps to themselves to avoid the tense atmosphere, so the epic lunch forfeit just didn’t happen.
Postponed, I guess. The air in the parlour is tight and strained for the first time since I’ve been here, and I really don’t like it. It makes me fidgety and uncomfortable.
But I don’t freak out. If this had happened a few weeks ago, I’d have been a mess by now. I’m proud of the progress, of the way I’ve built and expanded my inner resources.
In fairness, being the girlfriend of the most gorgeous, sexy, and considerate man on the planet, who just that morning told you he loves you for the first time, and is treating you to your favourite Subway meal deal, makes it hard to feel down for too long.
We both have a twelve inch sandwich because we skipped breakfast, grinning at each other in the queue as we remember why.
The wicked light in his eyes when he looks at me throughout our break is the kind that make a person squirm and giggle like a schoolgirl.
I touch his hair, and he leans into me unselfconsciously.
Several times, he takes my hand and kisses my knuckles.
He welcomes any affection I want to lavish on him, like he's been longing for it, and it makes me glow.
And there’s a definite promise in his expression, and I just know, even though neither of us say it out loud, that there’s no way either of us are spending the night alone.
His place or my place; either way, tonight, it’s on.