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Droplets of water clung to the ends of the hair that I loved so much, in the eyelashes that fanned my favorite color blue. They rolled down his honeyed jaw and neck before nestling into the groove of his shoulder blade, and I was mesmerized. He was a majestic, golden thing of light—so pure and sweet that I wanted to bottle this feeling up forever, because sometimes I still felt terrified that it wouldn’t last.
It wasn’t long before I was shattering apart in Leo’s strong grip, and as I still rode the waves of pleasure that coursed through me, he stood to turn me around, taking me from behind in a single hard thrust. Leo and I fit together perfectly, and as he set the pace to chase after his own release, I felt the unmistakable workings of another for myself.
His mouth crushed against the top of my shoulder as we came together. “Fuck,” he rasped. “Fuck, Mara. This is just too good.”
“I know,” I breathed. And I did. I’d never shared chemistry like this with anyone. As much as I loved hooking up with Charlea before meeting Leo, the high was never like this. She must have seen how gone for him I was the next time she came to the bar to visit, because she’d given me a sincere smile before leaving that night, and I haven’t heard from her since.
It wasn’t until we were drying ourselves off after washing up in the shower that I had the nerve to ask. “Hey, how late do you need to be at work tonight?”
Leo looked at me curiously. “Not late. Why?”
I couldn’t explain why I was so anxious about the news I had to share with him. I’d been doing a lot of things behind Leo’s back lately, and though I had the best of intentions it still felt like dangerous territory. But I knew that if I told him what I was doing from the start he would have probably tried to stop me—we’d grown a lot in the last few months, but there were still fears that Leo clung to tightly. I did my best to seem normal as I shrugged. “I have something I want to show you, and I think I’ll be off early. Can I plan something for us tonight? I’ll make dinner.”
He grinned. “How about I make dinner, but you can still have the rest of your plan?”
I laughed. Though I tried, I was pretty terrible in the kitchen. “Deal.”
Leo and I carried our plates of roasted salmon and vegetables up to the roof along with a bottle of Rudy’s top-shelf champagne that I’d insisted we pick up on our way home from Larkspur. It felt necessary, considering this was a celebration.
At least I really really hoped it was.
He was doing his best to look calm, but I could tell Leo was just as anxious as I was for him to be on the inside of a big secret—we’d shared everything through the progression of our relationship, however tiny or trivial. When I finally went home to my parents and told them the truth about all that had happened to me, Leo was right there, holding my hand through it. My mother cried and my father had been so upset he spent nearly an hour out back working on the shed, hammering into planks of wood with a vengeance I’d never seen from him before. I hated how much I upset them, but Leo was steadfast in his support, even taking the opportunity to go out and assure my father that nothing like that would ever happen to me again.
When Leo continued to try (and fail) to give me the entire club, I resisted. I wanted him to be a part of it, wanted him to have legal ties to the place that brought us together again. So, per our contract, he signed over three-quarters of the company to me with a new contract that outlined how I’d pay him for it. And I was a fucking proud business owner.
We made it a point to work through all of those hurdles together, to support each other’s bravery and vulnerability as we faced each one. Tonight, though, I’d managed to set up a little stunt that he had no idea about.
I hadn’t been sure what, exactly, the outcome would be when I’d first set out to make it happen. I was just scrolling on my social media feed one night listening to Leo play the guitar and found a viral video of a girl singing a cover of a popular song from inside of her shower—bathrooms, apparently, were great for acoustics. What caught my interest was the sheer amount of people who supported her—the video had millions of views and over seven-hundred-thousand likes.
I remembered looking up from my phone screen to find Leo lost in the song he was playing, his tongue poking out of the corner of his mouth in concentration, and the idea hit me like a freight train. I’d garnered over fifty-thousand followers on my own page, and granted most of them followed me for the content I put out around bartending and Larkspur . . . but people who liked going out and listening to club music probably also appreciated other kinds of music, right?
Leo could play any genre, and though he leaned on playing classical music for a lot of his daily practice, my favorite thing in the world was hearing him play the music that he’d written himself. It was like his body became this fluid thing of beauty as he threw himself into the melodies. It was moody and full of angst, reminding me of some of my favorite indie bands with the way it pierced me like a bull’s-eye in the chest.
When Leo came to Denver over a year ago, he put a lot of pressure on himself to record his music and send it out to some of the big players in the music industry, hoping a label executive might like his sound enough to bring him on. Leo didn’t sing and had no real interest in releasing music under his own name, but he wanted the opportunity to work with artists as a credited songwriter.
Apparently, he never heard anything back. He knew the likelihood of anything monumental happening were slim, but he’d wanted music to be his escape route from his father and the family business so badly that he was near-desperate for something to come of it. When he was only met with silence, he’d been discouraged.
I’d helped him through it, but despite my best efforts, Leo didn’t believe he had what it took to be successful with the one thing he loved most about himself. And I didn’t like that. Not one bit.
So, I made a social media account for him that I didn’t tell him about, and I started secretly recording him while I watched him play. It took a couple of months, but in the last few weeks the videos had gained some serious traction. I also may have shared a lot of the videos from my own page to help push them in front of all of my followers, which definitely helped. But then the unthinkable happened.
A small music label from LA messaged Leo’s account, asking for a demo.
“So,” Leo said as we settled into a cushioned loveseat. His eyes caught mine and harnessed me right to him. “Are you ready to tell me what all of this is about?”
“Almost,” I said, pulling the blanket over our legs. “But first, champagne.” I pulled the bottle out of the bucket and popped it open before pouring the bubbly golden liquid into two glasses. I handed one to Leo and turned my body to face him—the truth of everything I’d done caught in my throat. “First, I want to say how much I love you, Leo. You’re the best man I’ve ever known, and all I want is for you to be as happy as you’ve made me.” It wasn’t the first time I told him I loved him—that memorable moment happened the morning of Thanksgiving, before I brought him to my parents’ house a second time. I’d woken up with the words burning on my tongue, and nearly tripped over my own feet in my pursuit to the kitchen to tell him.
Leo’s brows pinched. “I am happy, sweetheart.” He gripped my free hand in his. “You make me happier than I ever knew I could be.”
I smiled. “Yes, but love isn’t everything . . . You quit your father’s company and removed yourself from a terrible situation, and while I love running Larkspur with you, I know it isn’t your dream like it is mine. Your music, Leo—that’s your passion. That’s your endgame.”
I could almost feel the distance Leo put between himself and the words I spoke. And while I understood his hurt, I wasn’t going to let his fears keep him from his dreams. “Mara—” he started to say.
But I didn’t let him finish. “I believe in you, Leo. I believe in your music. And based on the response I got from thousands of other people, I think it’s about time you start believing it yourself.”
His eyes went sharp as he regarded me. “What?”
I nodded. “Thousands and thousands of people, Leo, who all love the music you’re writing. They love the way you sound. I’ve been sharing your music on social media, and?—”
