Page 88 of Wrong For Me

“So you don’t tell your family things you think will hurt them.” I meet his eyes, read the intensity there. “Even when those things hurtyou.”

I shrug. “It beats the alternative.”

“Does it, though?” he asks, voice soft. “I don’t think they would want you to lie, Rose.”

“Maybe not. But it is what it is.” I promised myself back then that I would never be responsible for putting that look in my mother’s eyes ever again. And I’m not about to change my mind.

“Rose—”

“Can we talk about something else?”

He holds my gaze for a long moment, his green eyes warmer and kinder than I’ve ever seen. “We can talk about whatever you want, Rose.”

So, we do. The talk list lies forgotten on the table, but our conversation doesn’t wane. I tell him about my cousins, about Will and Alex and Everly. About my brother River. How my family have always been the only people I could trust, my only true friends.

In return, he talks about Bodhi. About how he never made friends as a kid, with all the moving around and his mother’s paranoia. About how hard it is for him to trust people. And how Bodhi didn’t seem to give a shit, from day one. “He just…stuck,” Leo says, shaking his head like he’s still a little surprised by it. “No matter how much I pushed him away or how much of a jerk I was. He decided we were friends, and that was that.”

As we talk, we move closer together on the sofa, our legs pressed firmly against each other, his body heat even more comforting than the crackling fire. I feel warm and content, like I never want to move from this spot. Sitting with him. Drinking wine. Talking. Watching the way the crisp white cotton of his shirt stretches across his muscles when he moves.

He’s telling me about the summer he and Bodhi got jobs working on a tour boat in Maine when I look up and realize that our faces have grown even closer than our bodies. His cheeks are a little reddened, either from the wine or the heat of the fire. It makes him look younger, somehow. Boyish. Less harsh than usual. His eyes are bright, expression easy. Nothing imposing or stand-offish about him.

And his lips are only inches away. Lips that I can remember kissing in vivid detail. Lips that I had, at one point, pulled between my teeth and—

“Rose.”

I realize that he’s stopped talking in the middle of his story and he’s staring at me. His eyes narrow, gaze darting down to my lips than back up to my eyes. He looks so intense, so focused, that a little shiver goes through me.

“I want to kiss you,” I whisper, and a groan rumbles from the back of his throat.

“I’ve wanted to kiss you pretty much every minute since you walked into Hernandez’s office the first day of school.”

My eyes go wide. “Seriously? But you were…you seemed so unhappy to see me there.”

The corner of his mouth tilts up. “Because I knew you were going to drive me insane the entire semester.”

“Leo…”

I don’t have to say anything else. His mouth comes down on mine, stealing my breath, sending my pulse into overdrive. Those soft lips feel every bit as good as they did that night in Lake Tahoe and I immediately want more. More of his kisses, more of his body. More of the easy comfort I’ve enjoyed sitting here with him. More of the intensity I feel when we touch. That I’ve always felt when he was near—even when I thought I hated him.

He finally pulls back so we can catch our breath, but he doesn’t go far. Instead he cups my cheeks in his palm, bringing his forehead down to rest against mine.

“You take away all my control, Rose,” he whispers.

“Who needs control when we can kiss like that?”

He laughs softly, warm breath dancing across my face. Then he sobers, lifting his head to stare into my eyes. “I want to go upstairs with you.”

Please, yes.I swallow. “I want that too.”

His eyes flash. “Then why the fuck are we still sitting here?”

I laugh, breathless, and reach for my clutch so I can grab some bills to leave for a tip. My phone is inside, the screen lighting up when my fingers brush against it, showing a message alert. Sometime while we were talking, my Aunt Paige wrote me back. A surge of giddy excitement goes through me.

“Final question for our Talk List,” I tell Leo, holding up the phone. “Describe your best night ever.”

Our eyes meet and I can see the flash of desire in his. And I know, I just know, that he’s thinking the same thing as me. The night in Lake Tahoe. The night we spent together. Flirting at the concert, sneaking away with our pizza. Talking. Kissing. Making love. The connection I felt, so strong and so fast that it scared me. That was my best night ever.

But then something in his expression shifts, tightens. It’s like watching a screen come down, like he’s erecting walls around his heart as I watch. “I’m sorry, Rose.”