Chapter 13
ELLA
ONE MONTH LATER
“You think Leo’s stopping by today?” Whitley asks as we unload a box of supplies for the café.
“I don’t know,” I murmur.
“Do you want him to stop by?”
I look at her, contemplating my answer. Whitley is my best friend, and she sometimes knows me better than I know myself.
With the smile that spreads on her face, I can tell she’s waiting for the answer she already recognizes.
“I honestly don’t know if I want him to, but if he doesn’t, I’ll probably be sad. ”
“He’s stopped by every day for the last month, El.
You have to at least admire his persistence,” she comments, turning to place bulk orders of plastic utensils on the back counter.
She’s not lying. He’s been here every day I work.
He walks in with a huge smile, peruses the shelves, nonchalantly asks me a few questions, then leaves.
Often he’ll tell me I look beautiful, or bring up a past memory.
He’s brought me flowers twice, telling me he saw them, and couldn’t pass them up.
He’s not once asked me out, or brought up the kiss.
Fucking asshole.
“He’s pissing me off,” I snap, suddenly acutely angry at him. “He’s doing this on purpose. He’s out-patiencing me. Who the hell does that? I said we couldn’t talk about the kiss, so he’s just staying in the outside part of my brain. I can’t forget about it because he won’t let me.”
“Pretty smart if you ask me,” Whitley says with a laugh. “He’s abiding by your wishes, but not letting you forget about the kiss. Remind me: how good was the kiss?”
My eyes close as I’m taken back to that night. “The best.”
Whitley snorts as my mind reminisces. I couldn’t sleep.
I have tons of nights where I struggle to fall asleep, but I knew exactly what the problem was that night.
I was in Leo’s house. How could I sleep, knowing he was mostly naked in his bed?
And when he was suddenly there, in the kitchen with me, all shirtless and manly, and I struggled to form coherent sentences.
I tried not to look at the various marks along his torso, undoubtedly from shrapnel, but I still thought he looked so insanely phenomenal.
I’d hugged him, had my legs wrapped around him, and I knew what was beneath his clothes.
Every rippling muscle, that delicious V below his hips, the perfect pecs.
But the kiss … our kisses had always been great.
But this kiss was out of this world. Beyond comprehension.
It took my breath away. Feeling his lips trail along my skin sent zings of pleasure throughout my body.
When the hiss of the kettle broke our kiss, I had a moment of clarity.
No matter how good, how right, it felt, anything with Leo wasn’t in the cards.
I’m barely keeping my head above water. I’m working or dealing with the kids. I don’t have time in my schedule, or my mind, to take on potentially dating someone. Even Leo. And what pisses me off is the fact that Leo realized it immediately, and he’s using it against me now. The jackass.
Instead of asking me questions, or texting me nonstop, the asshole is patiently inserting himself into my life by showing up during hours I can’t do anything but work.
“Does he ask you anything revolutionary? Your views on world politics or the state of our country?” Whitley asks.
“No,” I murmur. “Usually they’re just simple questions, and many confirm what he already knows. He asked if I still prefer chocolate ice cream over vanilla, and if I still enjoyed reading romance books.”
“Does he know about your chocolate habit?” Whitley asks with a laugh.
“Oh, I’m well-versed in the chocolate habit. I’m the one who started it,” comes from behind us, and I look over my shoulder to find Leo smiling at us. Wearing a thick jacket and jeans, with his hands tucked into his pockets, he looks disarmingly handsome.
“Oh? Is he the cause of the chocolate jar under the register?” Whitley asks.
I nod. “One hundred percent his fault.”
“What prompted it?” Whitley inquires.
Leo looks at me, one eyebrow cocked. God, he looks so undeniably sexy. “I believe it started with a chocolate cake.”
I giggle. “Oh my God, I forgot about that! It was chocolate cake!”
“I find it hard to believe that a cake is what changed El’s life forever,” Whitley says.
I nod. “It seriously did. It was the best cake I’ve ever had. This tiny little bakery in Golden had these individual cakes, and Leo took me there for a date in tenth grade.”
“How’d you get there? I thought you were the same age. Who drove?”
I look at Leo, and he shrugs, so I answer.
“Leo’s mom. She had to run an errand, so we tagged along.
I wasn’t really allowed to date yet, but since Leo’s mom was going, my parents allowed it.
I think it helped that it was with Leo. The Santo family has a reputation for being good people, so my parents naturally assumed Leo would treat me well. ”
“Which I did,” Leo interjects. “I didn’t even try to hold your hand. You grabbed mine on the car ride back to Eternity Springs.”
I laugh. “I did. I forgot I did that. Wasn’t I the one who instigated the first kiss as well?”
Leo nods, his smile growing. “You were. Put the moves on me.”
“What a little hussy!” Whitley teases. “I had no idea I was in the company of the town ho.”
“I’d had a crush on him for so long, I guess I couldn’t wait a moment longer,” I explain, feeling a blush heat my cheeks.
I know Leo didn’t intend for this conversation to go the way it has, seeing as how he walked into it innocently, but it’s definitely affecting me more than it should.
We were so young, without a care in the world.
Not knowing how we’d be twenty years later, with scars and trauma locked into our hearts.
“I’d had a crush on her for longer,” Leo boasts.
“How much longer?” Whitley asks.
Leo glances at me. “I first noticed you in eighth grade. When did you notice me?”
My mouth drops open. “Ninth grade.”
He smiles victoriously. “I win.”
I shake my head in confusion. “No. There’s no way. You couldn’t have seen me. I’d just moved here, and I barely knew anyone.”
He shrugs. “I saw you. It was probably your first day. I notice things, you know that. I’d sit in the cafeteria and watch people.
You walked in with a paper sack, so unsure of yourself.
You got pulled into a table with all the cheerleaders, and you smiled at something someone said.
The minute you smiled, I knew I was a goner. ”
I’m stunned. I had no idea. We’d never spoken about the first year I lived in Eternity Springs.
I’d hated it here, missing Silver Mist Falls so badly.
While Leo may have seen me sitting with a group of strangers, I certainly wasn’t participating in the conversation.
I barely made it through each day, desperate to get out of this part of my life.
Until Leo. When I finally saw him the following year, our eyes met, and I felt like I’d been zapped with electricity.
His dark brown eyes seemed to see directly into my soul, and when I finally approached him, I felt a warmth seep over me.
He gave me peace, and I craved it. While I wasn’t technically allowed to date him, as my parents had a strict rule of no dating before the age of sixteen, Leo had my heart well before that.
If I’m being honest, he still does.
“Why didn’t you come up to me?” I blurt out, suddenly angry.
“I hated that year. I hated middle school, and the fact that I’d been forced to move.
Those snotty cheerleaders were awful. If I’d met you then, it would have given me a sliver of hope.
I’d have liked life a little bit more, Leo. I wish you’d come up to me.”
His smile fades, but I see the understanding in his eyes.
“I wish I had. You know I’d have done it, just to take away your pain, Ladybug.
I thought you were out of my league, and if you hadn’t come up to me the following year, I don’t know if I’d ever have gotten the nerve. I still think you’re out of my league.”
I can’t respond. I’m tongue-tied. He’s a decorated war vet with all kinds of life experiences I couldn’t even dream about.
He comes from an amazing family, with tons of nieces and nephews, whereas I have one dead sibling and one live one that I barely speak to.
My parents are both dead, and the only “family” I have is my chosen one of Whitley.
I’m raising my niece and nephew and can barely make it out of Eternity Springs to eat at a new fast food restaurant. If anything, he’s way out of my league.
The bell chiming to signal a new customer walking into the bookstore makes me tear my gaze from Leo’s. “I have to go.”
I glide past Leo, catching a whiff of his cologne, which only makes me think of our kiss in his kitchen, with his bare chest pressed up against his old shirt that I refuse to throw away.
The shirt that hasn’t been washed since that night, because it still smells like him.
Later that day, Leo texts me.
Leo: Did I ever tell you about the time we were coming home from Afghanistan, and we had a layover in Dublin?
Me: I don’t think so.
Leo: We got into a drinking game with a couple of locals.
Me: Oh, I definitely didn’t hear about this. I’d have remembered that. How plastered were you?
Leo: Evidently, I lost the ability to move my right foot.
Me: Just your right one? So did you hobble around?
Leo: There’s a video somewhere of me sort of dragging my right leg behind me, and hanging on Sergeant Baker.
Me: Was Baker the one who used to send videos to his kids where he’d sung lullabies?
Leo: No, that was Stitchum. Baker had the two German shepherds that he considered to be his children.
Me: Oh, I remember him! Where he’d watch them on the camera that dispensed treats.
Leo: Yeah, until one of the shepherds actually ate the camera.
Me: Oh no! Did it survive?
Leo: The camera? No. The dog? Yes.
Me: Are Baker and Stitchum still active duty?