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Leland…
I brought the photo closer, so close I could hear my breath beat across it. How had I not noticed this before?
The light hair, the straight nose, the hard strike of his brows, the fine delicateness of his cheekbones that almost made him pretty… Leland resembled Theo.
I gazed down at Theo, processing why Leland had felt familiar to me from the second we met. Their personalities couldn’t have been further apart, though. Leland had a wry, wicked sense of humor, and while he didn’t have a Rolodex full of friends, I would still classify him as extroverted. Theo was shy, preferred books over music, frowns over smiles, and liked to go unnoticed, hence his aversion to cameras. But they shared the ability to make me feel comfortable, safe, and understood.
Relief coursed through me. That had to be it. Leland called to the surface feelings I hadn’t felt since I was fifteen, and I hadn’t recognized them for what they were. I’d been contorting myself into a pretzel trying to work out the acute reactions I’d been having toward him, not understanding where they were coming from and why they were coming on so fast. I’d been unknowingly living in a constant state of déjà vu, and it had been making me crazy, moodier than usual over the last few days.
He reminded me of Theo.That explained it.
Dropping the picture to the table, I stumbled to my feet, finally ready to get some sleep. I felt lighter than I had in days, regretful too. I hadn’t been the best person to be around.
I stopped in front of Leland’s door, pressing my ear to it when I thought I heard movement. I owed him an apology, but it would have to wait until morning.
Back in my room, I got undressed, checking the weather app before setting the phone on the nightstand and settling onto my stomach, arms tucked under my pillow.
Tomorrow’s forecast: sunny with clear skies. Leland’s favorite. I hated the heat, but I drifted off making plans, knowing tomorrow things would be different.
***
Leland entered the kitchen the next morning to me waving a dish towel under the blaring smoke detector. Breakfast was supposed to be a nice surprise, not a fire drill.
He sauntered in, eyes still heavy with sleep, wearing only a pair of boxer briefs. I waited for the inappropriate feelings to pour in, holding my breath for it, but there was nothing but fondness and sincere remorse for having woken him up that way.
“I thought we agreed you wouldn’t cook anymore,” he said, stretching his arms over his head.
“What’s wrong with my cooking? And when did we agree to that?”
His eyes widened, the last of his sleep gone. “Er, I guess I dreamt that,” he said while I rushed to turn off the smoking oven. I slid the pan of burnt biscuits onto the stove before slamming the oven door shut and coughing into the crease of my elbow.
The alarm abruptly stopped ringing, and I turned to see Leland hopping off the island with the smoke detector in his hand.
“What?” he asked, looking down at himself. I’d been staring too long at him.
“Nothing, it’s just…you’re lean, but not as lean as I initially thought you were.” Aside from the partial back view I’d gotten of him while he’d come with my name on his lips in the shower, I hadn’t seen him with barely any clothes on before. I’d been too distracted by my own presumed interest, and resulting paranoia, to take in much at the time.
I’d noticed his physique last night through his body-hugging jeans and t-shirt, but this was different. Now every sinewy muscle down to his ankles was on display. I checked in with myself and still felt nothing inappropriate going on.
He inspected his slim but defined arms. “Yeah, well, my body type is something else I can blame my mother for.” He leaned a hip against the counter, picking through the bacon for the one piece I miraculously hadn’t torched.Maybe Ishouldn’tbe cooking.
“Do you have any pictures of her?” I got the plates and silverware set up on the island as we talked.
“No, but there’re photos of her online from her modeling days.”
“Your mother was amodel?” I’d assumed she was a sociopathic, love-obsessed attempted murderer from the heartbreaking tidbits he’d shared. However, if he looked like her, then a model made sense.
“Yeah, before I came along and ‘ruined everything,’” he said around air quotes.
I glanced over at my phone, biting the inside of my cheek.
“Go ahead,” he said, taking a wooden spoon from the utensil jar on the way to the stove to dish up a helping of dry scrambled eggs. “Her name’s Willow Meadows.”
I gave in to my curiosity as he loaded our plates with overcooked waffles. “Wow,” I said, looking between Leland and the magazine spread I’d pulled up. She was young, maybe eighteen, and aside from his eye color, Leland was the spitting image of her. “She’s beautiful.” Her pin-straight blond hair fell to her lower back, her moss-green eyes bright and innocent, her limbs long and dainty.
“Where is she now?” I asked delicately. I hoped she was rotting in a prison cell somewhere.
“Your guess is as good as mine,” he answered, now sitting on the island, our food the only thing separating us. “It was touch and go for a while. I was banged up pretty badly. She was long gone by the time I came out of the coma. The official story was that I fell. I didn’t refute it.”
