“Thanks,” I mumble and turn in my chair, blocking out Graham’s attempt to redeem himself with Leonard by saying how much he loves and misses him and so on.
Stu and Jack keep looking between me and the infuriatingly vague man next to me, surprise and disbelief on their faces. I’m not sure if they think something is going on between Leonard and me, but I don’t have the patience to feed their curiosity at the moment. Then again, I never have the patience for shit like that. If it were up to me, I’d take whatever happened between the F1 driver and me a secret. I haven’t shared it with Lulu, Mamma, or even Graham. I wouldn’t even know where to start since nothing actually happened between us. Except…
He dropped on one knee to take off my shoes and kissed me in ways that made my head dizzy.
He danced with me, pressing my body so close to his, my clit begged for mercy.
Most importantly, however, hekeepsholding me when I need someone to do so the most.
He brings me comfort and safety.
“What do you say, Chiara? Ready to meet my girlfriend?” Graham asks, and my head shoots up. Fuck, I completely missed the entire conversation.
“Of course,” I reply, hoping it’s the right thing to say.
Leonard gives me a confused look, but I decide to ignore the worry in his eyes. I hate how he sees right through me. For some reason, every change in my emotions, he detects. It’s almost as if he is a Chiara-emotion-reader, especially when it comes to sensing how upset I am at any given moment.
“Awesome. I will see you two next weekend. And the rest of my family, I love you all and miss you. Bye,” Graham says and hangs up a minute later, making sure everyone got to say their goodbye before he ended the call.
“Come for a walk with me,” Leonard says and gets up, grabbing Benz’s leash on his way to the front door. I hesitate for a few seconds because everyone at the table is staring at me, but I follow him out the door soon enough.
We stroll along the sidewalk in the neighborhood for a while, silence thickening the air around us. It’s not uncomfortable, it never is, but the unspoken words between us put me on edge nevertheless. Benz is sniffing the grass patches we walk by until she finds a spot to do her business. I’m already on my way to pick it up when Leonard places a hand on my collarbone to stop me and do it himself.
“Are you not excited to see Graham?” he asks on our way back to the house, and I turn my head toward him, tilting it back since he’s quite a bit taller than me. His brown eyes are already scanning my face.
“I am excited, I just have a lot on my mind,” I admit because keeping such little things from Leonard seems silly at this point in our relationship, whatever the hell it would qualify as.
“Are you upset because of how strange things have been between us?” he goes on, stopping me by placing a careful hand on my shoulder.
“You think they’ve been weird? I have no idea what you’re talking about. Do you mean the fact that we both want to fuck each other, but it isn’t a good idea, so we keep pushing one another away?” My words surprise both of us. He wasn’t expecting me to be so blunt, and I can’t believe I admitted I want him to fuck me. I’d very much like to be hit by a plane right now. A bus isn’t big enough for my embarrassment to be dulled.
“Chiara—” he starts, his expression soft as he reaches out to touch my cheek, but I catch his hand halfway to my face to stop him.
“Pretend I didn’t say that,” I blurt out and try to walk away, but he has my hand trapped in his and drags me against his chest.
“I’m sorry I’ve been weird. It isn’t because we had intimate moments, which we both know would have led to spectacular sex. It’s because you’re my brother’s best friend, my roommate, and my employee in a way. The situation we’re in is complicated enough as is, and I don’t want to make it worse,” he says, but his eyes are fixated on my lips, and I can tell he wants to kiss me. I can feel it. Instead, he backs away, breaking skin contact entirely.
“Plus, we don’t even like each other,” I say, earning myself a little smile from him.
“Yeah, I can’t stand being in the same room as you,” he replies, and I cross my arms in front of my chest, fighting back a grin.
“Agreed. Your very presence is mind-shatteringly irritating,” I say, and he takes a step forward again. I hold my breath when he scans my face with pure arrogance. Leonard knows I enjoy no one else’s company as much as his at the moment.
“And yet, I have a feeling the meteorite is getting closer to hitting the Earth,” he says, and I snort.The day I fall in love with you, a meteorite will strike the Earthis what I told him when he warned me not to fall for him.
“In your dreams, Champ,” I reply and start walking back to the house.
I will move the Earth to prevent the meteorite from ever hitting it. There is no way I’ll ever let myself catch feelings for Leonard fucking Tick. It’s not happening. We may have been getting along better these past few months, but we’re still Starling and Champ. We annoy the hell out of one another for no other reason than our clashing personalities. He’s stubborn, I’m stubborn. He irritates me, I irritate him. He’s bossy, I’m bossy. Two strong-headed people like us shouldn’t even be able to have a single pleasant conversation, which is why I’m a bit perplexed by the way we’ve been getting along. It seemed like an impossibility only recently, and to this day, whenever we share a laugh, it feels surreal.
“We have to go shopping again,” Leonard says as we step through the gate of his childhood home. I almost let out a groan in response.
“Why?” I ask, and he chuckles at my exasperation.
“Because there is an art event my friend invited us to when we get to Singapore on Wednesday. It’s a masquerade ball type of event, so you need a dress and a mask,” he says, and I raise both of my eyebrows.
“Fine, but only if you choose the dress.” The words leave me without my brain processing them, so Leonard shoots me a mischievous look.
“You trust me to do that?” he asks, shoving his hands into his pockets as Benz runs into the backyard to rejoin the family.
