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“What makes you say that?”
“You're impossible not to love,” he murmurs.
Warmth settles over me, blanketing my raw nerves. “Thank you, Leo.” I look out over the balcony at the twinkling lights below. You can see for miles from up here. We’re high enough to make me feel insignificant and small comparatively. It’s not a bad thing though. It’s somehow reassuring that no matter how big and messy everything seems right now, I’m just one small cog in the ecosystem.
Leo steps behind me, his arms coming up on either side of mine, bracketing me. His chest presses against my back lending me his strength.
“It's just, I don't know how to marry these two versions of my life. What I thought it was and what it actually is.”
His hands land on my shoulders, his thumb sliding underneath my hair to gently massage my neck in slow, sweeping movements with a light pressure.
“How do I go my whole life thinking this one man was my father—this great man, who I loved—and now realizing it was all a lie. Where does that leave me?”
“It wasn't a lie, though, Maddie. Your dad—the man who raised you—loved you. He spent time with you and taught you all those things. He’ll always be your dad—your family.”
My eyes well with tears in a fresh wave of grief.
“Those kinds of bonds, they don’t go away in death. And when you see your dad again, your souls will recognize each other on a spiritual level. Those relationships don’t cease to exist because you’re on two different planes right now.”
It’s like a vice around my heart, gripping tight, and the sticky black tar of anger and sadness squeezes out of it. Leo’s gentle words act like a salve, providing relief for my wounds.
“You really believe that?”
“With my family, I have to believe it. Whatever comes after we leave this life, I have to believe that we’re reunited with the family of our choosing. Those people back there? They’re not your family, Madison. Your cousin Lainey and your sister Mary—they’re your family.”
“And what about you?” I glance over my shoulder, my lips skimming his jaw. “Are you my family, Leonardo Rossi?”
His mouth curves against my cheek as he murmurs, “You’re buried so deep inside me, baby, I don’t think there’s any world that I wouldn’t follow you.”
“Kiss me.” It's a plea, a need throbbing underneath my skin.
He leaves a trail of soft kisses along my jaw, on the corners of my lips, brushing his lips against mine with a gentleness that brings a tear to my eyes.
This feels like a pivotal moment in my life.
Everything before today was the status quo of my life as I knew it. And it was based on lies and fabrications. But everything after today is up to me. It’s the freedom to make my own family. And that includes these men who have become important fixtures in my life.
I turn around in his arms, and he answers my silent request. He kisses me with a reverence I’ve never experienced before I met these men. My heart hitches inside my chest and skips a beat before it restarts, pumping blood throughout my body in a new cadence.
Kissing Leo is always electric, but what I need is the kind of kiss that’s going to shatter me, break me apart so my mind stops turning over the what-ifs.
“I'm tired of thinking, Leo.”
