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“I can handle her.” Leo shrugged.
“No handling anything.” Walker mean-mugged Leo.
“She’s upstairs in her room if you feel like knocking on death’s door.” Talia grinned. “Feel free to piss her off. She could use a bit of a fight.”
Leo looked up the stairs and gave a quick jerk of his head in confirmation before scaling the steps.
“And Leo?” Walker called out.
“Yeah?”
“Leave the door open, or Piper won’t need to kill you.”
“Fantastic,” Leo huffed under his breath as he reached the top step.
“First door on the right!” Talia shouted. Leo found the door easy enough and knocked gently on it.
“Come in!” Piper’s voice called out. When Leo pushed open the door, Piper sat up abruptly in her bed, blue eyes locked on him in surprise. “Leo? Shit, what time is it?”
“It’s five-thirty.” He wandered in and scanned his surroundings, attempting to act casual about the way he needed to fill in this gap in his brain, to know what her room had looked like in high school after she came home from a long day of getting on his nerves. It was simple and clean, but there were pieces of Piper that said this was her space. The whiteboard calendar sitting on her wooden desk was blank except for the week of Thanksgiving, filled with color-coded descriptions and times, like she had come home and immediately sat down to schedule her next few days. Dinner w/ Leo 6 PM was written on today’s date. “I’m early, and I figured I should make sure that you weren’t serious about leaving my gift on your neck.”
“It’s almost gone.” Piper rolled off the bed haphazardly, stumbling up to her feet. She gestured to her neck, and Leo stepped closer, lifting his hand. The urge to touch her sparked in his fingertips.
“Can I see?” he asked. He tried to make his voice sound teasing, but it came out breathy. “I think it’s best if my family doesn’t ask any questions.”
Piper rolled her eyes and brushed her hair to the side, exposing more of her neck to him, and he remembered why he had originally wanted to suck on it so badly. She had made a little gasping sound when he did it the first time, and he imagined he could have her making the same sound again. His thumb brushed over the spot he knew was there but was now barely visible.
“Good enough for your standards?” Piper whispered.
“I can’t see it.” If he was being honest, the fact that he couldn’t was disappointing. Some strange part of him wanted her body marked by what they did the other night forever, and maybe that was why his hand traveled to cup the back of her head. Piper’s breathing grew shallow as her eyes met his, and that electric feeling that had taken over the last time pooled at his spine.
“Piper, do you have a pen somewhere?” A tall blond man with large wire-rimmed glasses stepped into the room and immediately went to Piper’s desk without taking notice of Leo and Piper’s proximity. Leo dropped his hand away from Piper and took a large step back. Colin had been a year ahead of him in school, but Leo still recognized him.
“The good ones are in the drawer,” Piper said. Her previously shaky voice went right back to normal, as if the moment they’d just had never existed.
“Black ink?” Colin asked. “I’m taking notes on apartment listings.”
“Yeah, there should be some in there.”
“Colin, right?” Leo asked when Colin came out of the drawer victoriously with a black-inked pen. Leo stuck out his hand. “I’m Leo.”
“Oh, I know who you are.” Colin hesitated for a moment, then shook Leo’s hand. “You slept with Piper, and she used to complain about you all the time in high school.”
Leo choked on his spit. “Right to the point, I guess.”
“Colin,” Piper drew out her brother’s name in an embarrassed whine and pressed her fingers into her forehead.
It didn’t seem like Colin was put off by any of the reasons he stated for knowing who Leo was, so Leo continued. “I know who you are, too. My sisters-in-law don’t seem to like you very much. You seem all right to me, though. Did you use to date Scarlett Wallace?”
Colin’s face lost all its color, then flipped to worry. “Does Scarlett hate me? We didn’t date. We—she made that very clear.”
“I’m sure she doesn’t hate you, Col,” Piper soothed and then glared at Leo like he’d just purposely walked into a field of landmines.
“So, apartment hunting?” Leo’s segue into a new topic of conversation wasn’t great, but it would have to do. “Where are you moving?”
“Back to Archwood. The research facility I got into is in Merrick,” Colin explained.
“Plus, you love us and want to see us more,” Piper teased.
