Page 83 of Wrong For Me

Rose

I’m definitely feeling the effect of the alcohol I’ve consumed tonight. Or maybe it’s the atmosphere. It’s easy to feel warm and content when you’re tucked away on a comfy couch in a cozy bar, a crackling fire four feet away, the low hum of voices blanketing the room, breathtaking views of moon-bathed mountains through every window.

Or maybe that buzzy, excited feeling swirling through me has more to do with my current company.

I don’t have any idea what to make of Leo Malone. He’s certainly not acting like the Leo I’ve gotten used to at school. It’s almost like I’ve traveled back in time to that night at the lake, when we snuck away with our pizza and then sat under the dark sky and talked. He seems…lighter tonight, somehow. Lighter and a hell of a lot friendlier. He isn’t glaring at me or making snide comments. He actually seems to enjoy talking to me. And the way he keeps looking at me has fire simmering under my skin.

“So, is that what you want to go into?” he asks, voice the same sexy rasp I remember whispering in my ear that night in Lake Tahoe.

Since that voice immediately inundates me with a hundred dirty memories from our time together, it takes me a minute to realize that he’s asking me a question. “I’m sorry, what?” I manage to squeak.

Leo smirks and reaches over to take my wine glass. I hold out a hand to stop him. “Hey! That’s mine!”

“I know. But you’re apparently getting so drunk you can no longer follow a conversation, so maybe it’s time we cut you off.”

I protectively cup my hands around the glass. “Don’t you touch my wine. I can follow a conversation. I just got…distracted for a minute.” I straighten. Maybe if my posture is better I’ll seem more sober. “What were you asking?”

“I wondered if that was the field you wanted to go in after you graduate. Criminal profiling.” I must look blank because he continues. “Since you’re so obsessed with true crime and all that.”

“Oh. No.” I take another sip of my wine. “I’m pretty sure I’ll go into clinical work. Therapy. The shot of discomfort I get when I think about this displaces some of that warm buzzy feeling.

“I assume you have it all figured out, huh?”

He shifts, the movement drawing all my attention to his shoulders. His broad, strong shoulders encased in smooth black wool. God, he looks good in that suit.

“I want to go into research.” I peer at his face, somehow getting the impression that he wants to discuss this even less than I do.

My phone dings in my purse and Leo gestures to it. “Feel free to get that.”

I expect to see an update to the cousin’s group thread—Nix had a date tonight which of course means everyone has been mercilessly teasing him for the past three hours.

Instead I find a text from my Aunt Paige, and immediately snort with laughter.

“Feel like sharing?” Leo asks. I thrust the phone in his direction so he can see the screen. “World’s Largest Sticker Ball?”

I laugh, taking the phone back. “She’s been doing this since before I left. Sending me ideas for all the fun things she thinks I should do in the area.”

“A giant ball of stickers is fun?”

“You kind of have to know my Aunt Paige.” I shoot off a quick message, thanking her but reminding her that the conference doesn’t actually leave that much time for exploring and besides, I’m coming home tomorrow. When I finish, Leo is watching me with raised eyebrows, waiting for me to explain.

But how in the hell do I explain Paige?

“My aunt’s mission in life is to make sure everyone around her is having fun. But her brand of fun can be a little…quirky sometimes.”

“The World’s Largest Sticker Ball is definitely quirky.”

I snort. “That’s not even the half of it. Whenever we were out on tour, she had notebooks filled with stuff like this, places we just had to visit. You ever been to the teapot museum?”

“That’s a thing?”

“Oh, it sure is. And it’s not even the craziest place she dragged us to.”

“Your dad and your uncles were okay with that? It doesn’t really seem like the kind of thing rocks stars would do on tour.”

I roll my eyes. “Oh, they bitched about it. Especially my Uncle Cash.” I snort with laughter, remembering his expression the day Paige had informed us all that she’d bought tickets for the teapot museum. “But they all went along with it anyhow. I think they secretly had fun.”

I’m grinning widely now, and it occurs to me that I’m willingly talking to someone about my family. And, even stranger, it doesn’t even feel uncomfortable. It feels…nice. To share a little bit of my life with Leo Malone.