Brick exchanged a look with Vince. Cord blinked, and Stone grinned. Leo ignored them. He chose to tip his head back and stare at the ceiling fan, trying to count the paddles as they spun around, making him dizzy as shit but he didn’t care. He said all that mattered.
“And?”
Of course it would be Stone who prompted for more. Mother hen of the group. Always trying to fix everyone.
Thank God.
They were lucky to have him.Hewas lucky to have him. But right now, Leo didn’t want fixing.
“AndI don’t want to hurt her,” he said with a clenched jaw.
“So you didn’t fuck things up with her then?” Brick asked.
Leo transferred his gaze from the ceiling fan to the guy and found him now kicked back on the couch that lined the wall opposite of Warlock’s post.
“What my brother means is, did you walk out on Kaydee or not?” Stone asked, his wording no less painful to hear.
He lifted a shoulder. “Jury’s still out. We were kind of in the middle of it when I got your summoning.”
Vince and Stone both muttered curses. Brick sat up.
But Cord? He just stared at him. And stared. “You’re running. Scared.”
Growling, he turned to face the guy. “Let me the fuck out.”
“Not yet,” Cord said, eyebrow raised in silent question as if to ask whether Leo really wanted to take him on.
Maybe. He’d either get out or dead. Either way, this damn interrogation would end.
“Okay, so you love Kaydee,” Stone said, regaining his attention. “And don’t want to hurt her. What else? Come on, Leo. I know there are a few more ands and a but in there, too. Might as well spill it. Cord’s not moving until you do.”
Shit. He met Stone’s gaze. “And I don’t want to pull her into my vortex of disappointment. I let everyone down, I’ll eventually let her down, too. Maybe evendragher down.”
Brick grumbled. “Bullshit.”
“You don’t know that,” Vince said.
“Vince is right.” Cord cocked his head. “No one’s perfect.”
“Kaydee’s damn close,” he said without thinking.
Stone leaned next to him against the desk. “You need to fix it with her. She’s good for you.”
“The past few weeks, you’ve been happy,” Vince said. “Truly happy. You’ve laughed and smiled, and Emma said she even heard you whistle. Shecried. You brought tears to my fiancée’s eyes. Happy tears.”
He didn’t know how to respond to that, so he didn’t. Just stood there, locked in a room by his old Ranger unit, who waited for him to come to some sort of a realization. Of what? He had no fucking clue.
So he thought about Kaydee and how he felt when he was with her. Like a superhero. Like he could accomplish anything. Like a normal, upstanding man. She made him feel happy and good. Good to be alive. With her he wasn’t the guy with a bad past, or unreliable, or unlovable. He’d always thought she made him feel those things because she hadn’t known about his past. But she had…
With her, he was capable, accepted, needed…loved. He sucked in a breath on that one.
“Ah…think he’s getting it,” Brick said.
Leo ignored him on the outside, but on the inside, he agreed with the goof. Hewasgetting it. Finally. “I’m an asshole. A scared one.”
“Welcome to the club.” Stone chuckled.
Kaydee had known about his moments of weakness, his mistakes, his trials and tribulations…and loved him anyway. She’d never said the words, but he’d seen them in her adoring gaze, felt them in her tender touch. She still saw something good in him. The good he wanted the world to see, instead of the mistakes of his past. She got it. She got him. Always had.
