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But I wasn’t quite ready to let go of that one frayed rope of control, holding fast to reason.
I quietly sprouted out of bed, doing my best not to jostle Swift, hoping I could sneak in yoga before Leo woke up so as not to have a repeat of yesterday morning. It had been beyond awkward to know he was watching me, but I also couldn’t bear the thought of bringing my mat out to the living room where Alaric or Christine might stumble upon me. I hadn’t seen either of them since before I left for work yesterday, and I wanted to keep it that way for as long as possible.
But as I reached my hand into the dark closet where my mat should have been rolled up and leaning against the wall, my fingers only grasped empty air. Frowning, I curved my body further into the closet, squinting in the dark for some semblance of the bright green color of what I was looking for—but nothing was there.
“What’re you doing?” Leo’s deep voice sounded from directly behind me, making me jump and trip over a forgotten cat wand with a feather and a little bell at the end. Thankfully I’d caught hold of the door jam just in time to avoid tripping over Swift and Dolly, who’d come running at the sound of what could only be morning playtime. “Shit,” Leo murmured, his hand wrapping warmly around my shoulder. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“You were literally sleeping a second ago,” I gasped through the adrenaline rush. “How did you manage to slither over here so quickly? You didn’t even make any noise.”
I looked behind me to find a goofy smile on Leo’s face, his thick-rimmed glasses resting smartly on his nose. The square of his jaw moved as he parted his lips to respond. “One of my many charms, I suppose.”
“Huh,” I said dumbly, now distracted by the pillow marks pressed into the skin of his cheek. “I uh—I was looking for my yoga mat, in case you were wondering. I wasn’t trying to like . . . pilfer through your clothes.”
His forefinger tapped twice against my collarbone before he took his hand back off of my shoulder, and I turned my body around to face him. “I wouldn’t mind if you did pilfer through my clothes—I enjoyed the sight of you in something of mine, come to think of it.”
My cheeks burned. “Again, I wasn’t looking through your things,” I defended, feeling oddly embarrassed about how it must have looked when Leo opened his eyes and found me hunched into the opening of his closet. “Did you happen to move my yoga mat? It was rolled up here—it’s like, a lime green color . . .”
“I did move it, actually,” he said casually. “It must have slipped my mind.” The curl of his smile was gone, his mouth now resting in an easy straight line, but there was an unmistakable shimmer in his eyes behind those coke-bottle lenses that had me scooching to the edge of my proverbial seat.
He was up to something.
Frowning, I pressed on. “Okay . . . where is it?”
Crossing one arm over his chest, he brought his other hand up to press a thick finger to his chin. “Hm.” His eyes rose to the ceiling. “I think I put it across the hall.”
I felt my brows pull in what I could only assume was a wicked scowl. It was way too early in the day for games like this. “Leo—” I started to argue, but he cut me off.
“Come on, let’s go look.” He didn’t even wait for me before he turned on bare heels and strode toward the bedroom door.
I let out a breath before I followed behind him, distantly aware that I was wearing an obnoxious bright pink pajama set with neon yellow bananas printed all over. If Christine happened to catch a glimpse of me now, she’d probably have an aneurysm from my un-ladylike display of comfort.
Luckily, the rest of the apartment was quiet—Leo’s parents were probably still tucked away on the other side of the penthouse. Leo pushed open the door across the hall, and I noticed a warm golden-pink light glowing from inside the room. As I stepped inside, the smell of jasmine and vanilla wafted around me, and I gasped as I took in the scene.
A closed piano had been pushed into the corner, and three different styles of guitars resting on stands stood in a single file next to it. The instruments had clearly been moved out of the way to make space for the meditative oasis that took up the rest of the room: my yoga mat was rolled out into the middle of the floor, ready to be used; an essential oil diffuser was perched on a beautiful wooden shelving unit that also housed various plants and a Himalayan salt lamp (the source of the golden-pink glow); and the rustle of waves crashing sounded from the far corner where a boxy speaker had been set up.
“I thought this might be more comfortable.” Leo’s husky morning voice trickled into my ear as I gaped at the room. “I know this isn’t home for you, but I thought?—”
“It’s beautiful,” I whispered, making a second sweep to note every little detail of this gift he’d given me. “How . . . where did you find the time to do this?” I asked. I was with him all night, and before he got to work he’d been entertaining his parents.
My eyes caught his as he answered, his expression hopeful and earnest. “I went downstairs to see Robert yesterday and explained—to the best of my ability—that I was hoping he and the building’s staff could help me set up this surprise for you. A runner went out and bought everything in the afternoon, and after my parents left on their own to go to dinner the housekeeping staff came in and set things up. Is it . . .” He took a breath. “Is it okay? I know your yoga practice is likely very personal . . . I just wanted to try to help to make things better.”
He was nervous.
“Leo.” I reached out to grab his hand, anchoring myself to him and this feeling of genuine gratitude. “This is the nicest thing anyone has . . . ever done for me.”
I could see the relief flood his face as a small smile broke through. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” I felt emotion sting my eyes, and I wondered if he truly understood the impact of this surprise. I was . . . blown away. I looked at him again . . . really looked at him. The indentations on his cheek were softening, but his hair stuck up at odd angles from sleep and he kept having to push his glasses up from sliding down the slope of his nose. His T-shirt was threadbare white cotton with a worn image of a bear chasing a hiker, the words SOMETIMES MOTIVATION FINDS YOU scrawled across the top. All of his usual finery and sharp corners were gone, and standing in front of me was a man who’d been dealt his own shitty cards in life. A man who was simply doing his best.
“Thank you.” I squeezed his hand, still clutched tightly in my own. And I decided this would serve as a shift between us—a real truce. Maybe even a real partnership.
“About our date,” he started, and rather than deflect from the warmth that spread through my chest by pulling my hand away, I leaned further into the moment, turning to face him head-on to give him all of my attention. “Do you have anything planned after work tonight?”
My eyes snagged on the brush of stubble on his jaw. I opened tonight, and since it was a Tuesday I’d likely be off by seven or eight. “Nothing,” I answered. It came out as a whisper.
He nodded, his gaze falling to my mouth. To my parted lips. “Okay. I need to spend a little time with my parents today—I don’t think I’ll be going into Larkspur. But let me pick you up after your shift? Let me take you somewhere?”
My tongue was a lead weight in my mouth as that damned swirl of desire rose again. It made me want to run, to give a dismal excuse about actually needing to close the bar or visit a friend or something that wouldn’t trap me with these feelings that I didn’t know how to control. But after the lengths Leo had gone through to make me feel comfortable, he deserved more effort from my side as well. “Okay.” I nodded, then watched his teeth flash in response. “Let’s do it.”
