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Brushing off something Leo’s body had thought up in the heat of the moment would have been easy enough. He could see himself falling victim to a chemical reaction to Piper and believing it was love. But, even in the euphoria, his body hadn’t been the one telling him he had fallen—it had been his heart. After his thirst had been quenched, he still felt every bit as in love with Piper as he did during.
“I want to know,” Leo murmured.
“Hm?” Piper had her eyes closed next to him as he smiled and pulled her in closer to his chest. The lack of sleep was probably getting to her, and he could feel it deep in his bones, too, as the warmth of her body and the smell of lemon flooded his senses.
“You said I was overconfident in some areas, and I want to know where,” he explained. She had called him out for numerous things over the years, and even if she had been wrong on some accounts, she hadn’t been when it came to Emma or how his management tactics could use some TLC. The only way to improve and to find out how to be someone she could love was to ask her.
“Your music taste.” Piper yawned.
Leo snickered. “That’s it? You don’t like my movie scores?”
“I don’t.” Piper prodded his ribs, and he wiggled slightly away from her. “We need to get you into some female rage music.”
“Female rage music,” he recited.
“Exactly.” Piper scooted closer to him like she was seeking warmth, so he wrapped his arm around her back and set his chin on top of her head.
“Anything else, mi vida?” Leo had just enough self-control not to jump out of his skin when he used the nickname, but Piper just sighed, oblivious, as her warm breath whispered over his chest.
“On a more serious note, I think with you, it’s overconfidence in what you think is right. It’s not even that you’re wrong, but the way you go about it is wrong,” Piper said. Leo opened his mouth to argue, but she continued, “I think you believe everything is black and white, and you lack nuance. You’re right when you tell me that I bend to people’s will, but you won’t bend to anyone’s will, and I think that’s equally bad.”
“So we both suck?” Leo asked. “Maybe it’s time for a compromise.”
“Compromise,” Piper considered. “I need some of your self-assurance, and you need my…”
“Awareness?” he offered. “You’re more aware of other people’s needs than your own.”
“And you know how to deliver on yours and other people’s needs.”
He couldn’t help the playful smile that crossed his face. “I like delivering on your needs, specifically.” Piper shoved his chest and cackled. “But can I ask a question?”
“You just did.”
“Piper,” Leo said sternly.
“Okay, fine. Ask away.”
“You seem to know other people well. You noticed Hornbill, and there’s no way that you didn’t notice that all your ex-boyfriends were assholes.”
“That’s not a question.” Piper pulled her head back to look up at him, and Leo could see it in the depth of her eyes that she did know. That she had purposely entangled herself with these people.
“Why?” he asked.
Piper moved to sit up, pulling the covers up to her chest as Leo followed beside her. “This is going to sound ridiculous to you.”
“Try me.”
“You know how you said you’re always calculating in your head how much you can spend or how to make things work financially?” He nodded. “Well, I calculate the amount of myself I can give to someone before I end up loving them. And then I calculate how much I love someone by how much it would hurt to lose them.”
“And…” Leo paused to work it out in his head. “When you don’t love them, you don’t have to worry about losing them?” he guessed. Piper gave him a somber nod. “But what’s the point of dating if not to find love?”
“Companionship.” Piper lifted one shoulder. “Sex, if it’s good? I don’t know. It sucks to be on your own with no one to want you, but I also don’t want to be in love with someone.”
Leo’s heart clenched. “Because you’re scared?”
“I’m beyond being scared, Leo.” Piper’s voice was serious, and he felt stalled in time, waiting for a punchline that would never come. She was never going to love him back because she didn’t want to love at all. “I never recovered from my parents’ death, and I know I won’t recover from when or if anyone else in my family dies before I do. And even Thea, who I promised myself I wouldn’t get close to, just… got in anyway, and now I’m stuck here. I don’t know how to stop loving people when they’re gone. I don’t know where to put that love when there’s no person to pour it into anymore, so I don’t go there to begin with, especially with guys. I see the way people look at each other when they’re in love. I see the way it alters their lives. It’s different from family and even friendship because it’s the deepest and most vulnerable kind. The kind that will be the hardest to lose. If you think I’m a shell of a person now, Leo, I would be dust in the wind if I lost someone like that.”
“That sounds…” Leo swallowed. It didn’t sound like any way to live, but he could understand it. Losing Piper now would feel like an insurmountable thing to get over.
