“Please. I haven’t had any words for you in almost three years. Let me say this now because I don’t know when the panic is going to take over again, and when it does, I’ll never get to say it.”
She’s pleading with us, practically begging to pour her heart out right here in this damn parking structure, Leo’s eyes locked in on Pete’s sable ones hiding behind long silver dreads while she does.
Which is why Pete nods and folds his arms against his broad chest. He’ll give her this right now, but I know he’s not going to let her beat herself up for long.
“I promised myself that I was never going to put any of you through that much pain, that much hardship ever again. I promised myself that whatever we had for those ten years wasdone, that it had to be done. I’d never be in the same room, the same building as you four again.” Leo shakes her head as she breaks his stare and tries taking a hit from her barely lit smoke. “Because of me your lives were horribly changed forever. I was determined to shut down the part of me that longed for the music, longed for what we did together, and I successfully did for thirty-five months.”
My eyes flick to Norm as he raises his hand, his lips pressed tightly in a thin line, his greenish-blue eyes narrowed on Leo.
“Let me fucking finish,” she snaps, her body tensing when Norm flinches. “I know I don’t deserve to be listened to, but I won’t be able to live with myself if I can’t get through this. I owe you at least that, to hear me out before you make any decisions.” Leo takes a deep breath and avoids looking at any of us. “The day Justine stopped telling me about your phone calls, I was relieved. It was killing me not to have you around. I missed your stupid jokes, your political rants, your beautiful music. I missed literally everything about the four of you but when you stopped trying it was way easier to let you go. So, I did. I let you go, and I disappeared into myself. I wanted you to move on. Cliche or not, I wanted you guys to move on and forget about me, forget that night, and the last decade. I wanted you to keep doing what you had done before I came along and fucked everything up.”
My hand slides down to Leo’s back and I start rubbing the place between her shoulder blades. She’s always carried her tension there, and it used to practically have her purring in my lap when I’d do this.
Because I want Leo to remember that we’rehersafe space, too.
We always have been, even if that one night made us question it.
Leo tosses her cigarette on the ground and immediately lights another one, which makes probably a half pack since we got off the phone.
I’d put money on it.
“Then today, something in my brain snapped and for some fucked-up reason, my reaction was to call Lucky.”
I wince and stop rubbing her back because that fucking stung but then those dark eyes dart to mine, and I see her apology. I see her begging for me to understand the true meaning of those words and fuck, I actually do.
“I didn’t even think. I just picked up my phone and immediately dialed you. It just happened like it was normal, a programmed response to a shitty day the way it used to be.” She sighs as she scans my face, her stare never lingering over my scar the way everyone else’s does. If I was an idiot, I’d almost think she doesn’t see it. “But when I realized what I was doing, I thought of a million reasons why you wouldn’t, why youshouldn’tpick up the phone.”
Leo looks at me a little longer before she shifts her gaze, searching each of the boys the same way she did me. “And now you’re here. All four of you are here in the flesh, in the parking lot outside my loft, hugging me and crying with me like no time has passed at all, like nothing ever changed. Until this moment I was relieved you weren’t in my life anymore but I’m kidding myself to think I’m better without you… or that you’re better without me.” She smirks a little but none of us react, and her eyes immediately drop to the ground.
“I need you,” Leo whispers. “I need all of you. I can’t do this alone anymore. You had every right to tell me to go fuck myself when I called or when you showed up, but you didn’t. Standing here looking at you, seeing my missing pieces right in front of my face, man, I know I fucked this all up, but I’m asking for you to forgive me anyway. I don’t deserve it, and I’d understand ifyou chose not to do it but I’m selfish enough to ask, and stupid enough to hope that you do.”
I watch Leo light another smoke and push her gorgeous bright red hair out of her eyes before I turn and look at our boys.
Mark is staring at Leo with tears on his lower lids, the big bear barely keeping it together after that little speech. Norm is openly crying—albeit quietly—he’s always been the most sensitive of the five of us, and his feelings have never been easy to hide. And Pete, he’s still standing there with his arms crossed against his chest waiting for the other shoe to drop because getting his hopes up hurts him too damn much. And it’s exactly why he’s the first to speak up.
PETE
“We never stopped calling,” I grunt as Leo’s head snaps toward me.
Jesus Christ, this is fucking intense.
And way harder than I expected.
But as soon as Luck said it was our girl on the phone, I knew this was a turning point. One we’d been waiting for a long-ass time. A turning point the other guys were optimistic would happen.
One I’m still skeptical about.
It doesn’t matter that we’re standing in this fucking parking structure having a makeshift intervention, or that Leo is showing emotion after constant reports of her being one level up from a zombie. I know her and as soon as she finds an opening, our stubborn girl is gonna book it right back to her own personal hell.
And yeah, it’s why I look Leo right in the eye and make her uncomfortable as fuck with the contact.I want to see if she’sgoing to run.“We just stopped calling you, princess. We still called Justine every day, today included.”
“Pete’s right,” Norm chimes in while wiping snot from his face before he pulls his long blonde hair into a terrible ponytail. “We know you well enough to know that if we kept calling you, we’d only send you further and further into your pit.”
Leo stares at his face then looks up at Luck in question, and he nods with a slight smile. A look between them that warms my fucking heart to see once again, especially after spending the last three years trying my hardest to keep that man smiling at all.
Losing Leo was hard enough, I wasn’t going to lose Lucky, too.
And she needs to hear this. She needs to know how much we loved her through her pain and recovery, how much we still love her through whatever the hell this new chapter is, and how we’ve tried to still be there for her. Even while Leo was checked the fuck out.
