AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Leon’s eyes flick to my face for just a fraction of a second, but it’s enough to stop my heart. He’s hidden a lot over the past year that I’ve known him, but he can’t hide the naked, overwhelming emotion within them. It flitters there—brutal as a storm—before he turns back to Kitty. The undisguised emotion is enough to tell me that he doesn’t mean what he’s saying.
I think Kitty knows the same thing. “Do you remember when I was five, and I peed my pants on the playground? We were there after school because we didn’t want to go home. You stayed out there with me even though you were ten and way beyond playgrounds. You hung out with me because it was better than being at home and because I wanted you to. I didn’t want to leave, even though I had to pee. I didn’t even want to go and find a bathroom anywhere, so I peed my pants. And then I had to walk home in peed-in pants, which were cold and horrible and disgusting. Why do you think I did that?”
Leon’s jaw ticks, and he won’t look in my direction. “Because you were a child.”
“No. It was because I was a stubborn asshole. Do you think, brother dearest, that we might have that in common sometimes?” Kitty angles a glance at me, and when she thinks Leon can’t see her, she winks at me. “Don’t be a jerk because something good happened to you and you’re scared, so you’d rather mess it up than take a chance. God knows you deserve something good in your life. It would sweeten you up, and you could use a mega-dose of sugar. You’re as bitter as the bottom end of an unripe lemon, and that’s on a good day.”
“Kitty…” Leon grinds out in warning.
She just shakes her head at him. “Don’t Kitty me. I’m right, and you know it. Our childhood was shit. And yours was worse. Way, way worse. But that’s over now, and even though we’re both probably fucked up from it for life, you don’t have to punish yourself. It wasn’t your fault. Nothing that happened was your fault. Not once. Not ever. This is a chance for something good. If Darby says she cares about you, whether she knows what that means or not, I’d be thanking my lucky stars instead of trying to stamp it out. Because that doesn’t make you a self-sacrificing saint. It just makes you a butt face. You’ve never let anyone in, barely even me, but you need to start. You need to, or life is just going to keep being this big black hole that sucks all the joy from you.”
“You don’t know what you’re—”
“I don’t know what I’m talking about?” Kitty scoffs. “Please. Just no. Don’t even go there. Turn around and look at Darby. You hurt her feelings. She held it together for you all of last night, and you’re surly about all of it, feeling all exposed and naked, and you think that makes it okay to be a jerk because you’re not supposed to be that way, but there isn’t any fixing it. You’re just going to have to face it. All of it. It’s going to suck, but we’re here. Don’t try and push away the few people you have in your corner. I’m not going to leave you alone. Not ever. But Darby’s here out of the goodness of her heart. I could really use a friend in this, so just freaking be nice. I’m not going to tell you again.”
Kitty’s eyes are a blazing fire, and I’m standing here like I stepped in eight hundred pounds of really sticky chewed-up bubble gum and can’t move my feet. Then, Kitty continues, “I’m going to take a shower now. When I get out, I expect you’ll have apologized and made breakfast and that you’re more agreeable. I have to go back to Seattle right away. I called in to work this morning, but I can’t take the afternoon off. If I leave you alone, it’s under the condition that I’m going to get a positive report.”
“You don’t scare me,” Leon growls. “And I don’t report to you.”
Oddly enough, his tone makes me feel better already.
Kitty closes the distance between them, and even though Leon is giving off some serious—don’t you dare touch me—vibes, she wraps her hands around his neck, stands on her tiptoes, and kisses his cheek. She rubs her hand against the stubble there. “Did you forget to pack a razor?”
“I didn’t feel like shaving,” he grunts. “I’m supposed to be on holiday.”
“Right. Well, a beard suits the cabin, I guess.” Kitty frowns up at him. “Everything changed last night. Your life as you knew it was blown to shit, and this is a fresh start. It’s going to be a good one. A happier one. You’re going to get used to that, and one day, it will feel like the good thing it is.”
“You’re very bossy.” Leon’s arms tighten around his sister’s shoulders anyway, and he hugs her back.
She doesn’t walk on eggshells with him, which is a far cry from the woman who wasn’t sure if she should go in and see him last night. Maybe she’s always like this when he’s feeling better. Maybe she knows that something has changed in him since the last time she saw him and now.
“Someone needs to be. Now, are you going to behave, or do I have to supervise this apology?”
“Go and have a shower. Brat.”
Kitty grins a charming grin at her brother, then winks at me again and waves over her shoulder. “If you’re making eggs, Leon,” she calls when she’s nearly around the corner. “You know how I like them. Scrambled and not the dry kind that is like egg death either.” She mutters something after that doesn’t sound like it is in English, and I’m shocked when Leon responds in kind with something that is most definitely not English.
I have no idea what language it was. Not French. Gaelic?
Maybe everything looks better in the light of day. Which, shit, speaking of, I should shut all the blinds. It’s not time for sunrise yet, but in half an hour, there’s going to be light streaming through here.
Kitty is gone, and it’s just me and Leon in the kitchen. I’m standing here with a coffee pot in my hands and biting down on my lip to keep it from quivering. I don’t know what to say. I’m not easy or confident like Kitty. I thought I was, but I was robbed of that when Leon basically mocked the fact that I opened myself up and told him how I felt.
He doesn’t know how to love or accept tenderness and kindness.
His eyes are liquid pools, but his jaw is set in a hard line. I can see that muscle jumping, and on his forehead and into his temples, there are muscles echoing the movement. “My life has been a shitstorm,” he grinds out like it’s hurting him. “You know that now.” His voice frays out, but he won’t lower his eyes. They hold mine captive, the lovely blue-gray, an otherworldly color. “Everything Kitty said was true.”
I finally find enough of my voice to choke something out. “The parts about you being a stubborn asshole?”
He nods. “Especially that. I’d like to say I’m a work in progress, but you know the truth.”
“Everyone is a work in progress. Always. Forever.”
“I think that’s very naïve, but it is sweet.”
“You’re doing it now. Trying to shut me out.”
Leon huffs, but his shoulders fall an inch. He’s less defensive and more like how I saw him on the beach. I will never, for the rest of my life, forget the sight of those silver tracks streaking down his ashen cheeks in what was left of the moonlight. “It’s not an excuse, but it’s literally the only way I know how to be.”
