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“That seems unlikely, princesita. Who’s going to call the cops? The concierge who’d rather just watch porn at his desk?”
“Is that what he was doing when we walked in?” Piper balked.
“Yep.” Leo nodded. “This hotel is surprisingly nice considering the staff they employ. You didn’t hear the moaning coming from his phone?”
“I just… hoped it was a movie.”
“It is technically a film of sorts. Not the field that I’d like to go into, though.” He’d meant the joke to fend off any sex-related thoughts, but it had the opposite effect. His brain was scarily fast with how it jumped to the idea of filming Piper naked. It honestly sounded like the most pleasant career ever.
“You’re just going to use the hot tub anyway?” Piper squeaked.
“Yep.”
Piper snatched a pair of flip-flops out of her bag and walked toward the door. “Okay, fine. I’m coming.” Now Leo was the one staring. She wasn’t supposed to join. He had been banking on her not joining. She opened the door and looked back at him with raised brows. “You coming?”
Puta madre.
Twenty-Three
LEO
“This is ridiculous. Just hop over.”
Leo shook his head as he watched Piper take a running start at the fence and stop, yet again, right before she should have easily lifted herself over it. If she didn’t commit soon, he would have to toss her over himself before he lost his damn mind.
“I can do this,” Piper psyched herself up.
“It’s four feet off the ground. I’m pretty sure a toddler could do it.” He gestured for her to get a move on. The street lamp right outside the pool area provided just enough light to see Piper’s golden hair and concentrated features. “You look like you just escaped your tower and can’t decide if you’re a bad girl for disobeying Mother Gothel. Hurry up, Rapunzel, I’m getting bored.”
She scoffed and rolled her eyes. “Does that make you Flynn Rider?”
“Fuck yes, it does,” Leo retorted. Flynn Rider was the best Disney prince, and he challenged anyone to disagree with him. Flynn’s character was a calculated one from directors who had encouraged a panel of thirty women on staff to tell them what physique and characteristics made a man attractive. While Leo didn’t have the desire to become an animator and couldn’t draw for shit like Emma could, he admired the tenacity and dedication of the job.
“I never pictured you as a Disney buff, but it makes sense that you like the morally gray prince. I assume Aladdin is your second favorite because he lied for half the movie?” Piper bounced on the balls of her feet and backed up to get a running start again. Leo huffed out a breath, both annoyed that she was correct in her assumption and that she still wasn’t taking his suggestion to lift herself up on the fence instead of sprinting toward it with all the grace of a newborn deer. The only time she took his suggestions was on stage even though he’d wager he was right ninety-nine percent of the time they sparred.
“Don’t talk shit about Aladdin unless you’re willing to fight to the death,” Leo warned. “And groundbreaking technology in the entertainment field has always interested me. Rapunzel’s hair was seventy feet long in Tangled, and it took software engineers six years to tweak the 3D animation program enough to make it move like real hair.” Piper cocked her head with curiosity. He shrugged. “Sam gets pissed off that I pause movies to explain pertinent information while we watch. So, basically, never watch The Polar Express with me unless you want a five-minute lecture on the first feature-length film made entirely from motion capture tech.”
“So, what you’re saying is that if software engineers can do that, I can jump over this fence and break the rules?” Piper said hopefully.
“I was just sharing movie facts, but, sure, whatever works for you. I’m about to get in the hot tub without you,” Leo taunted. The threat of FOMO always worked.
“Fine.” Piper ran at the fence with an adorable battle cry of “I can do this!” Her hands met the top metal rung, and she jumped to fling herself forward. Leo had positioned himself right on the other side, assuming something would go wrong, when one of her flip-flops caught in a column and she plummeted toward the concrete. He swooped in and clutched under her arms, propping her against his torso as he wordlessly untangled her shoe from the metal post. When her feet found the ground, their bodies were only inches apart. Her hands clutched his forearms, and her nails dug into his flesh. The idea of the same nails raking down his back popped into his head.
Leo shook off the thought. “I’m starting to think it was a bad idea to bring you.” Terrible idea. He dropped her arms and took a step back when he was sure she was balanced enough on her own. “You’re a klutz.” Now that he was freely looking at her body, checking for injuries, he noticed her legs were banged up with old bruises and scrapes. The wounds from her fall on her first day of rehearsal were still healing. She was a hot—emphasis on the hot—mess.
“I run into a lot of end tables,” Piper admitted, catching where his gaze had landed on a particularly nasty purple splotch on her thigh.
“Didn’t you use to play soccer?” He knew for a fact she did. “That usually requires coordination.”
“I did play, but I sucked,” she said. “One time, I broke my ankle tripping over a clod of grass on the soccer field.” Leo knew that, too. His sister, Mariana, was trying out for the varsity team at the time, and he had watched Piper’s whole debacle play out live from his spot on the bleachers. Piper had just called him a dick in Spanish class earlier that day, and his younger self wasn’t above muttering a “karma” under his breath when he watched it happen. “And I know what you’re thinking. I didn’t fall just now because of the running start. I would have fallen regardless.”
Leo looked up at the black sky and pinched the bridge of his nose. There was no point in arguing, no matter how badly he wanted to or how infuriatingly wrong she was. “Fine. Whatever.”
“Great. Now it’s time to soak the new bruise on my ankle.” Her tone was lighthearted, but when she stepped forward on the foot that had duked it out with the fence, her face pinched in pain.
“Chingado.” Leo jogged the two steps to get to Piper and wrapped his fingers around her wrist. The memory of her hands pinned above her head against the bookcase sliced through his thoughts like a hot knife in butter. He watched her eyes widen as he moved into her side and carefully lifted her arm to drape it over him so he could shoulder most of her weight. “I’ll help you get there, daredevil.”
“Thank you.”
