Leon's Way (4 page)

“Sis?” I smile into the phone. “Wait—no. Who’s this poser? My little sister never calls. She’s all busy in Silicon-Valley world with her high-tech job of a lifetime.”

Katsu giggles little-girl trills of delight. “Crap, I’m bad. But you could call too, Shishi!”

“So what’s new?” I ask. Katsu wouldn’t call without a reason. Don’t get me wrong—we are close. When you rely on each other against monster fathers as kids, you never drift apart. Back then, I fought for her, and she lied for me.

The last trickles of her laughter sober swiftly. “Well, I figured you hadn’t checked in with Dad,” she says.

“Of course I haven’t. Why would I?”

“Well, they called from Parkwood Hospital. Dad had a stroke, Leon.”

I can’t picture the man ill. It’s easier to recall the steeled tip of his work boot ramming into my soft, ten-year-old middle as I lied curled up on the floor until little Katsu’s shriek permeated the air.

I shrug. “What do you want me to do, Sis? Heal him?”

Unsurprised, my sister doesn’t miss a beat. The years haven’t changed who we are. She always laughed easily, and now, the giggle she emits is all Katsu. “Well, I’m coming home. Even if he’s a fucking loser—”

“Don’t swear,” I interrupt automatically.

“—he’s still our father, and we shouldn’t have any regrets if he ends up croaking or whatever,” she explains, ignoring me. “Which is why we want to do the right thing.”

“Bullshit. The only regret I’ll ever have is that I didn’t bolt sooner.”

She joins me in the second part of the mantra I’ve repeated too often and finishes it with, “Yeah, yeah. Anyway. Can I crash at your place? I’ve got a week.”

“Of course, baby sis.”

Today, Leon isn’t his cool, inscrutable self. Cameron is helping Christian set up for a reserved party on the rooftop, and I’m hanging ribbons and streamers for the National Hat Day celebration downstairs. Since I started at Smother, I’ve been in charge of event planning and decorations. I like it whenever my special-days creativity produces pleased grins on Leon’s face.

Cold sweat threatens my hairline because I haven’t gained control over my nausea yet. I guess it’s a ways to go for that. Five weeks and counting. How long does it take before it disappears? I don’t read about this. My strategy is to wait it out. Procrastinate. Shove my undigested secret under a rug.

I take another chug of Coke and pop a handful of peanuts in my mouth.

My attention is always on Leon, even when he’s not in my line of vision. At the moment he thinks he’s alone, but I’m close enough to catch him covering his eyes and hunching that ever-straight back a little.

His mouth…

Why are those cherry-plump lips quivering?

Leon is a private man, and I shouldn’t pry. Still, sometimes when you don’t think, you jump in. And I?

I can’t let him hurt alone.

I take the steps over to the tall table he sits at with his accounting. I don’t stop until my hand touches his cheek.

“Leon?” I ask, my heart slowing with worry.

He sucks in a breath at my touch, thick lashes dropping. Lightly, he bends into my palm and I feel it, the stubble I dream of. It pricks like kitten-paw-soft cacti against my skin.

“What’s wrong?”

I expect him to brush me off, get up. Become his business-self. Give me a low, clear order I can carry out for him.

But Leon’s knees slide apart, making room for my body. His hands scoot around me, pulling me into him, and something shifts in my womb even though it’s probably too early.

His sigh is so heavy. Arms spread over my back, fingers pressing into flesh, fanning upward until a fist curls around my neck. The pinch is painful as he nudges me closer, bending so he can delve in against my throat.

“Just family stuff scrambling my brain,” he whispers. Can he hear my heartbeat? It’s fast, insistent. Hopeful. When I dare to move my arms from their frozen, low-slung sides, it’s to link them into his embrace. He turns my face to him and kisses me, first chastely on the mouth, until I open and he deepens the kiss.

He finds bare skin under my shirt, and as we make out, he forces a hand into the crack at the top of my pants.

I let him.

I want him happy.

Not thinking, I lift a foot up on the railing of his barstool as he scoots out on his seat enough to leave only fabric between us. He puffs a grunt into my ear. “Wait, let me…” he begins but trails off in favor of action. Deft fingers undo the top button of my slacks and unzip my fly. “Much better. I couldn’t get to you.”

I gasp when his fingers find my entrance from behind, easing in, showing both of us how quickly I heat for him.

“Sweetie, the guys will be down any minute—”

Leon cuts me off with a stinging slap on my ass, ending his violent caress with a firm grasp on the butt cheek he spanked. “Trust me.”

I do. I—

He holds me while he fingers me.

The boys laugh at the top of the stairs. “Nah, I’m good,” Christian rumbles. “Got my Shannon—she keeps me busy. But go for it. They say once you go threesome, you’ll never want to go back.”

Cameron howls with laughter, their high-five ringing down to us. “Damn, that’d be awesome. Gotta find me some chicks who’ll be into it more than once. I mean how ’bout forever, am I right?”

If I hadn’t been drowning in Leon’s world, I’d roll my eyes again at Cameron.

“Sure, and marry both of them. In different states before you all move to a third one,” Christian helps.

“
You
. Are. A. Genius,” Funny-Cam bursts out. “Or in a different country! Sweden.”

“Ingela, huh?” Christian asks.

“Yeah, I might’ve suggested it to her. She said I was, and I quote, ‘gross.’”

Christian’s reply is dry. “Go figure.”

“Open your eyes,” the man I love says to me. He isn’t paying attention to the guys’ inane prattling. His eyes burn through me, engrossed in the desire I can’t hide. I’m climbing—I’m already so close, but… so are my colleagues. This is insanity.

“Leon,” I whimper. “Please, let me go.”

“Shh.” He swings me sideways between his thighs, moving me out enough to push a hand down my front too. Both of his hands reach my…

“Fuck, Arriane,” he breathes into my ear. “Hurry, beautiful. Come.”

My heart, my poor heart. It gallops for him, for unplanned babies. It races out of fear that the boys will discover us. I’m dying a little, and then I explode in his hands, dampening him, and I can’t hold back the yelp he’s grown in me. Leon stops my cry—stops
me
with—

God, how I love his lips on my mouth.

Cameron jumps down the stairs two at a time.

“You’re a fucking hippo on the loose, dude,” Christian chortles at his young apprentice.

I’m gelatinous. Weak-kneed and wilting. Leon tugs my pants in place. Keeping me on my feet with one hand, he zips me up with the other. He’s fast—sure. I’d expected nothing less from this man. By the time Cameron hits the last step, Leon’s got me seated on the stool opposite him.

“All set, boss,” Cameron beams.

So am I. Wow.

Behind him, Christian bites his lip, studying me. “You all right, Arriane?”

“Huh, she’s beet red,” Cameron mumbles not-so-discretely to Christian.

Leon follows their gaze to me, and for a nanosecond a tinge of tenderness floats through frosty irises. His eyes land on my flushed chest, and I wish my neckline were higher. Or that Leon was the one facing them. Or that we hadn’t just…

“She’s still sick,” Leon explains, causing me to blush harder. He has no idea, and I haven’t decided what to do.

About him not knowing. About the sweetest curveball. About… any of this. It’s early. I have plenty of time to wrap my head around things. Come up with a plan.

“No? Have you been puking for two weeks straight or something?” too-observant Cameron asks.

Leon’s expression is inscrutable. Hands on his thighs, his eyes don’t stray from my face. “Arriane, I think you should stop eating leftovers. You’re not an old food kind of girl.”

Lights are low, and the party is throbbing. Hat Day is another one of Arriane’s successes. She undulates subtly behind the bar, hips moving to the beat as she fills her glass with soda. Her nose wrinkles when Cam waves an e-cig in her face. Bubblegum-flavored I’m guessing, because she looks abnormally disgusted.

Serene, levelheaded, beautiful Arriane. I overstepped my boundaries again today when she came to me. Open and trusting, she wanted to ease my funk. But I barreled in and “helped” her instead.

I squeeze my eyes shut, missing Pandora, missing the bitches I fucked before her, every one of them so deserving of me, of what I had to offer. Perched on my post by the DJ booth, I survey boozed-up dudes in cowboy hats swirling tipsy girls with tiaras on the dance floor.

A flaxen-haired girl sits alone at a tall table on the other side of the DJ booth. She’s pretty in that fragile, porcelain way I can work with. Shoulders faintly sloped, her intention is to disappear. She sniffs and whips her hair back in a way that’s not natural for her. She’s out of place. Trying hard to seem at ease. Sensing my attention, she peers up but ducks in over her beer when I keep checking her out.

I catch my DJ’s eye. Robin pushes out of his booth. Leans an ear into me.

“Who is she?” I ask, tipping my chin in her direction.

“Marla something. A transfer to the University of Deepsilver,” he yells.

“Odd name.”

He laughs, in agreement with me.

“Set her up, will you?”

Robin’s on it. He’s often involved in my baby steps when I test out a new woman. I watch the spring in his step as he hops down the one tread to her level. She covers her mouth, shocked at him talking to her. He bends in, explaining. Then, he points at me.

A slight turn of her head, and Marla’s mouth drops open. I’m encouraged by the way she can’t hold my stare. Now, she lifts a hand to her cheek. She’s warm—embarrassed. Nice.

Robin retreats, flaunting a dimpled grin before he returns to the DJ house. Marla can’t seem to remove her hand from her face. My cue.

I stand. Take the three steps to the lip of the podium and look down from my vantage point above her. She’s got the heaving bosom thing going that I like, so I lift two fingers and waggle them. Marla giggles behind her palm.

Lazily, I advance until I’m by her stool. “Marla?” I say, like I’ve done dozens of times before. It’s a fucking repeat. Predictable. Always fucking the same. So easy. So—

Fuck.

At the bar, Christian serves up a beverage for his girlfriend Shannon. A couple of college football heroes bob their heads offbeat in front of the counter while they wait for Arriane.

Marla’s nod is subtle. She’s agreeing that I got her name right. I read these chicks easily, and this one’s already flustered.

“Haven’t seen you here before. First time at Smother?” I curl my upper lip in a half-smile, waiting for her reply.

My focus revisits the bar where Arriane smiles to the football thugs, lashes lowered as she passes them the beers they’ve ordered. It’s not a flirty smile, no—it’s friendly. This is genuine, real Arriane who deserves every penny of the pay raises I insist on.

I let my gaze glide over Arriane’s slender frame while I introduce myself to Marla. Arriane inhales deeply, her black bartender shirt tightening over her chest. Even at this distance, I catch the gleam of a brass button in the spotlight. The way it strains to pop open in the middle. Worried, I imagine the black lace she probably wears beneath, how it could spring free for everyone’s viewing pleasure.

Marla waits shyly for my next move. I lift my drink, sipping slowly. Shift it into my left hand and sink my nose into my right. Huff Arriane’s scent again.

In front of me, Arriane’s face contracts in worry lines before she turns away from the counter. She leans on the bottle shelf behind her for a few seconds. And incredulous, I watch her sink to the floor.

I run past the dancers. Nod to Christian who spins to the source of my attention, but I get there before him.

When I arrive, she’s got the fridge door open to our champagne reserve below the back counter.

She’s fine. She’s fine.

Someone must have asked for a bottle, and she lost her balance.

Only, she’s not removing anything from the shelves. She just sits there, holding on to the half-open door. I’m on my haunches, and she jumps when I put a hand on her shoulder.

Arriane is my most trusted employee next to Christian. With her bouts of illness over the last weeks, maybe months for all I know, I’m concerned. “Arriane,” I say, “are you okay?”

“Yeah, I—I got vertigo is all.”

“Have you been to the doctor?” I start.

“Why would I need a doctor?” she snaps, surprising me. I feel my eyebrows cinch while I read her expression. Frustration. Maybe even anger. In the years she’s been part of my staff, Arriane hasn’t shown a temperamental side before.