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“I wanted to.” Leo shrugged. “So I did.”
“I wish I could be like you. Just do what I want and not worry so much about it.”
Leo’s eyes softened. “You don’t want to be me. There are several things I want that I’m scared to go after. I like you the way you are, beautiful and perfectly flawed.”
Piper blinked, taken aback. “Perfectly flawed? That sounds like more of an insult.”
Leo propped himself up on his forearms, and his eyes traveled from her head down to her thighs before her legs disappeared over the edge of the bed. “Perfect isn’t real. You are. Everyone has flaws, and I think what people do with those flaws is what truly determines their character. I used to think you blatantly ignored all of yours, which is why your very existence pissed me off.” Piper rolled her eyes with a scoff, and Leo broke out into a grin. “But you don’t do that at all, do you? You’re constantly striving to be better. When you find one of your blind spots, you admit when you’re wrong, and you move forward. You don’t always get it right, but the fact that you constantly try is what makes you so beautiful. In a lot of ways, you’re better than me. I’m learning to accept defeat, but sometimes when I want something, I have a hard time letting go of it even when I know it’s not mine to have.”
“I don’t think you give yourself enough credit. There’s a balance between trying to be better and letting things go versus letting everything overshadow you. I have the balance all wrong.” Piper turned to lay on her back, staring at the ceiling. “I used to think that you ignored all your flaws, too, but you don’t. You not only admit when you’re wrong, but you take on the wrongs of other people, and you’re incredibly hard on yourself about them.”
“Sometimes I feel like I’m doing the right thing in the moment, and then afterward I see how wrong I was. Like with Emma. Some problems can’t be solved with sheer force.”
“Some problems can’t be solved by watering myself down for people.” Piper bit her lip.
“So we both suck.” Leo huffed out a small laugh. “Should we high five on it?”
She couldn’t help but smile back at him, and it gave her a small amount of pride that she was the one bringing out his personality again. Leo had seemed so small in the weeks that followed Isabel’s death, just going through the motions. The only times there had been a spark of his usual fire were on stage and any time he had to sit in their business class with Professor Hornbill. Leo couldn’t seem to contain the passion he felt about his work, even when he was sad, nor was he any good at holding back anger.
They hadn’t been together since that night in the orchestra pit, and Piper was terrified to touch him again after the emotions they had set loose the last time. It took her a while to calm the hurt her heart had dredged up, and the way she had done it was by helping Leo. She had barely spent any time at her apartment since that day in the orchestra pit. When Leo wanted to work outside of rehearsals, Piper would be there with Emma, letting him critique their acting and singing. When he wanted to do nothing at all, Piper would bring him ice cream and junk food, and she and Sam would sit with Leo on the couch, watching his favorite movies. She pretended she had never seen The Sixth Sense so Leo could be excited about the prospect of her watching it for the first time. She loved that he was the absolute worst person to watch movies with because he murmured lines along with the actors and paused every few minutes to share a tidbit about the filming of the scene. His obsession with plot twists ranged all the way from cult classics like Fight Club to the uncovering of Prince Hans’s true motivations in Frozen. Her first time ever watching Interstellar, Leo had adamantly told her when to focus, as if he really thought she would suss out the twist from the scenes that alluded to it before the big reveal. He had spent more time watching her reactions than watching the actual movie, and when she had audibly gasped at the black hole conundrum, she saw the spark of joy behind his eyes again.
And now, laying next to Leo on her bed, Piper wanted to bring back some of his spark.
“I think I’d rather do something else,” she said, sitting up.
Leo sat up too, his brow furrowed. “What’s that?”
She leaned forward and cupped the nape of his neck. “I’m going to kiss you because I want to.” She didn’t give him a chance to respond before her lips met Leo’s, soft and searching. He pressed one hand on the small of her back as the other curled under her thigh, pulling her in. It wasn’t the way they usually kissed, heated and desperate. This time her lips seemed to say this isn’t for fun anymore. She was kissing him because it felt like healing, not because of lust.
“I am knocking,” Walker’s voice declared from behind the door with three loud booms on the wood. Piper pulled away from Leo and righted her outfit as the doorknob twisted, and Walker walked in with his hand covering his eyes.
“Don’t be dramatic,” Piper sighed. Walker let his hand fall away from his eyes as Piper snuck a look at Leo, who seemed entirely too amused.
“You,” Walker pointed at Leo, and Piper scooted to the edge of the bed, ready to defend him, “should go downstairs. Your family’s here. And your tall friend with the blond hair won’t stop badgering me about my book. He’s freaking me out.”
Leo chuckled and got up from the bed. “Sam’s… enthusiastic.”
Piper got up with Leo, ready to follow him downstairs. “Are you up here hiding from him?” she asked her uncle.
“I don’t like attention,” Walker muttered.
“Probably shouldn’t tell you that I read it, too,” Leo said.
“Ugh, people reading the book that I wrote for people to read. Gross.” Walker made his way out into the hallway.
“I was not expecting that twist. I read the ending in my office, and I almost spilled my coffee all over myself,” Leo said. “And the sex scenes were definitely—”
“Do not finish that sentence,” Walker interrupted, his eyes flicking over to Piper. “I do not even kind of want to know what you specifically think of the smut in my book. Nope. No, thank you. Piper’s not even allowed to read it.”
“Walker, I’m not sixteen anymore.” Piper sighed. “You can’t accost my sexual partners in cars and threaten to tell everyone they have a small dick anymore.”
Walker and Leo both froze in the hallway. Eyes wide, Walker whipped his head toward her. “You know about that?”
“Of course I know about it. And I know that Leo was there.” Piper turned an accusatory look on Leo.
“I was an innocent bystander. And I’d appreciate it if you didn’t refer to Harden as one of your sexual partners ever again,” Leo grumbled.
Walker folded his arms over his chest and leaned against the wall. “We are in complete agreement on that.”
