He looked up, still not sure what to say or how to explain how fucked up he felt. He didn’t want her to see him that way, as a guy with too much fucking baggage. He was afraid that if he exposed his weaknesses she would decide he was unlovable, and he didn’t need any additional proof of that.
Nora frowned slightly and nodded, as though she understood that he wouldn’t, couldn’t validate her. She made a slight move to lift herself off the bed. Leo felt panic surging in his gut, and pulled her back down, leaning in to kiss her. She didn’t pull back, instead, received his kiss with just as much need as his own. He ran his hands up her back, kissing her with a fervency that said ‘read my mind, my story is there, I want you to know me.’ He hoped that if he willed it to happen, she would just understand.
He tugged on her towel, leaning her back into the mattress, but she quickly stiffened up, pulling out of his kiss.
“Leo,” she whispered, readjusting the towel around her, “not tonight. Please, let’s just sleep on this. I need time to process my feelings, and maybe you do too.”
Leo didn’t want to stop. Not at all. He wanted more than anything to feel close to her. He needed to fuck her, to push himself deeply inside of her, prove to her that he could make her happy. He needed to buy more time.
He shook his head grinning at her, hoping his charm would win her over, and kissed her again, this time more assertively, his cock quickly stiffening against his boxers. She pulled away again, smiling patiently at him.
“No, Leo,” she stated firmly, gently stroking the hair by his temple.
He inhaled deeply, knowing he needed to pull himself together and buried his head in her neck, allowing her to comfort him.
“Get back in bed, I’ll join you in a minute,” she coaxed, lifting herself off the mattress.
He shifted himself back into the pillows and pulled the sheet over himself.
She returned to the bathroom, leaving him alone for several minutes. He took that time to consider what she had shared with him. He knew he had to make a choice, and soon. He either needed to take a leap of faith with her, or let her go. She had drawn a line in the sand, he needed to decide if she was worth the risk.
Nora returned to bed, wearing a pair of panties and a tank top. It was the first time she slipped into bed beside him and hadn’t been completely nude. The message was not lost on him.
CHAPTER 18
NORA
Nora woke up before Leo did, but wasn’t quite ready to crawl out of bed. Her best guess told her it was probably only six a.m. She lay beside him quietly, just able to make out his features in the slivers of dim light that lit the room from behind the blinds. It was strange sleeping beside him and not being in her own bed. It was even stranger to be sharing his childhood bedroom with him when she hadn’t even seen his apartment yet.
She wasn’t sure why she chose last night to confess her concerns to Leo, except that perhaps she had such high hopes and quickly realized that the only thing different about the weekend was geography. As he sidestepped all her personal questions, she became acutely aware that while he had invited her away, he had no intentions of inviting her in.
She probably should have been more patient, but when he introduced her to the hostess—his previous lover, and the first person he had ever introduced her to—he referred to her as his friend. She wanted to be a grown up about it, but that stung a little. When she pushed him a bit harder to see if he would give her something, anything, he told her he had been married before. Married! While she hadn’t shared all the details about her relationship with Devon, Leo damn well knew that she had been married and divorced. His own divorce seemed like information that he probably could have confessed at the same time that she had opened up to him.
It just didn’t make sense. She spent her entire professional life analyzing people, uncovering their stories, and figuring them out, yet when it came to Leo, she was clueless. It was like she was lost in his kisses, and under some sort of kinky spell. He just had to wave his magic wand and she would tune out everything else. That big, stiff, delicious wand. She knew if she had allowed him to seduce her last night, everything she had shared with him would have been neatly tucked under the bed, just hollow words demoted to dust bunnies. She was smart enough to know how those things worked. Leo was a master of deflection.
The simple truth was this. If you wanted things to be different, you had to behave differently. Wasn’t doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results the very definition of insanity? According to Albert Einstein it was, and he was a fucking genius.
She had made the right choice, she knew that. Even if he wouldn’t admit it, Leo needed time to think things through. She knew coming into the weekend that she needed answers, and she wouldn’t get them if his mouth was full of pussy the whole time. She was acutely aware that Leo used sex as a crutch, and as long as she was enabling him, he would never step out of his comfort zone. She would be in a state of uncertainty, on a proverbial teeter-totter, her hopes constantly being raised up, only to come crashing down. Fuck that. She adored Leo, but she needed more than just mind-blowing sex.
Leo rolled over and threw his arm around her, sleepily pulling her nearer to him, yet clearly still asleep. It was such an intimate act, as though Leo could only allow himself to be loved when his subconscious mind was in charge, a testament to how much head-trash he was nurturing. She knew bits and pieces about his family, very general stuff. He grew up in Jersey, in his grandparent’s house. His parents were decent people. His life seemed pretty good. Up until yesterday she had no idea that he had been a rebellious teenager, a fact that endeared him to her even more. He seemed so relaxed about sharing his past until she asked him what his turning point had been, then he shut down. There was obviously more to Leo’s story. She could probably use therapy techniques to draw it out of him, but she wasn’t his counselor, she was his lover, and it needed to come from him, honestly and organically, otherwise they would never truly get where they needed to be. Their relationship could never evolve.
If they couldn’t work through it, then she would have to face the fact that maybe they were not meant to be more than lovers. Square pegs didn’t belong in round holes, regardless of how much you tried to force it. She had seen women lose their minds trying to change the men in their lives. She wouldn’t let that happen to herself.
Nora shifted herself gently off the bed, not wanting to disturb Leo, and quietly wandered through the house. She stopped every now and then to admire the pictures on the walls. Leo and his brother in their soccer uniforms, maybe nine or ten years old, their arms draped around one another, trophies in their hands, and another of the two of them with an older gentleman fishing off a pier. She assumed this was Leo’s grandfather. Leo had his looks and she could picture him in 30 years looking exactly the same way. She smiled to herself, wishing she had known little Leo.
By the time Leo got up, she was sitting on the patio, already on her second cup of coffee, browsing through a year old People Magazine. She was shocked to see a celebrity news blurb about Gage and his ex, Kim, the soap actress that broke his heart. Kim looked nothing like Nora had pictured in her head. The story talked about the break up with a headline that read “Is Kim Kearney Pulling the Goalie?” The story, only about a paragraph long, went on to explain how Kim had left him for a new leading man, leaving Gage Cooper ‘pouting between the pipes,’ with a picture of the two of them in a ‘broken heart’ graphic.
She found it oddly coincidental that she came across that article about Gage, and wondered if the universe was trying to convince her of something. She had been thinking about him a lot. He had texted her the night before while she was at dinner with Leo. Normally, she wouldn’t have checked her phone while on a date, but Leo had left her alone for quite a while, and she had to pass the time somehow.
His message just about stopped her heart.
I know you’re away, but I just wanted to tell you something. The first time I saw you my so
ul whispered, “She’s the one.”
Gage’s sentimental text seemed to point out, very clearly, the stark contrast between himself and Leo. Where she had to coax Leo’s feelings out of him, Gage had offered his own on a silver platter. His willingness to be vulnerable and open was precisely what she needed from Leo, and very well might have contributed to her confession the night before.
Nevertheless, she adored reading Gage’s words. She had always been mindful of staying in the moment with each of them, focusing on both relationships separately, but it was getting harder and harder to do that. She did her best to avoid comparing the two of them, instead enjoying their vast differences, at least up until recently. She knew she had to make a decision soon, she couldn’t carry on this way. Her heart was investing too much into each of them.
The only thing she knew for certain, in that very moment, was that she was more confused than ever. She was falling in love with both of them for completely different reasons.
Leo walked into the living room freshly showered and clean-shaven. As he knelt down to give her a kiss, Nora was aware of how good he smelled. He didn’t seem to have any reservations at all, and Nora wondered if he had dismissed her concerns completely.
“Good morning. Did you sleep well?” he asked, kissing her a second time.
“Not really,” she admitted, breathing in his aftershave, “but I have been enjoying the morning sun. How about yourself?”
“I slept great. Why don’t you go get dressed, and we’ll get some breakfast. I have somewhere I want to take you,” he suggested, a sense of calm about him.
Nora regarded him curiously.
“Where are we going?” she asked, taking the hand he offered her.
He helped her out of the lawn chair, pulling her into a loose embrace and whispered in her ear, “To the past.”
* * *
Leo pulled up to what looked like an abandoned water tower, and shifted his car into park. He looked thoughtfully over at Nora, his eyes filled with expression. He looked nervous, Nora thought, wondering why they were there. He gestured to her with a nod to follow him out of the car. She opened her door and met him behind the vehicle where he took her hand and led her over to the rusted out tower. Her eyes followed his as he looked up, his face pulled with worry. Nora waited patiently for him to speak, but he said nothing for several minutes.
“You were bang on the money last night, you know?” he began, his voice heavy with emotion. “I have been holding you at arm’s length.”
Nora nodded at him solemnly, wondering where this conversation was going. She didn’t want to make assumptions, but she felt hopeful that he was ready to break through whatever had him so bottled up.
“I’ve been doing that for years now, since my divorce, keeping women at arm’s length. It wasn’t a problem until now,” he continued, finally making eye contact with her.
She stared at him kindly, encouraging him to continue.
“See, the thing is, I was an emotional, impulsive, reckless kid, Nora. I was fucking angry when my parents moved here. I’d just lost both my grandparents and no one even talked about it. I had no way to work through my grief,” he stammered, as though he was struggling for words.
Nora took his hand and led him to a rotting picnic table that looked like it had a million stories of its own to tell. They climbed on top, resting their feet on the bench.
“Go on,” she urged, not letting go of his hand.
“Like I told you, my parents seemed deliriously happy and my brother didn’t seem affected by anything at all. He’s always been a really laid back guy,” Leo, looked at her briefly, as though wondering how much to share.
Nora nodded and squeezed his hand softly, afraid to interrupt him and spook him from continuing.
“The first few years I took my anger out on everyone and everything. I acted like a punk, truthfully. I knew it was tough for my parents, but I didn’t care, I wanted them to suffer, but eventually my rage turned inward. Then depression set in. I didn’t fucking care if I lived or died. I had been acting like a complete jerk, so I had very few friends, and no girlfriend,” he explained quietly.
Nora could hear the pain in his voice, but she knew that the only way out of pain, was through it, so she let him talk.
“I self-medicated with alcohol and pot. I was in my senior year of high school and barely squeaking by. Life seemed pretty dismal for me, so one day I woke up and decided I was done,” he whispered, avoiding Nora’s eyes. He closed his mouth, as though afraid to go on.
“What do you mean?” she asked cautiously, even though she knew full well what he meant.
“I came here. To this water tower. It was pretty late, a Friday night. I was completely shit faced and had every intention of climbing to the top of this rusted out old bucket and throwing myself over the side. I hadn’t left a note or anything because I didn’t think anyone would care.”
Nora inhaled sharply, suddenly feeling anxious for Leo. She had no idea he had ever hurt that deeply. She squeezed his hand, hoping it would keep him grounded in the present.
“I know,” he said, as though he understood her intention, “it was messed up. Anyway, I’m not sure how I even made it to the top without killing myself, but I did. I sat up there for maybe twenty minutes, trying to summon the courage to fling myself overboard, when I saw some headlights pulling up. It was a kid from school, this nice guy I had in a few classes. I guess he was there to make out with his girlfriend, I dunno.”
Nora looked up, way up, to the top of the tower. She could imagine young Leo, leaning his arms over the rusty railing, drunk and afraid, and her heart ached for him.
“He obviously saw my abandoned car there and I watched him walk around the tower looking for me. When he finally looked up, I thought there was no way he would see me. It was too dark. I figured he would just go away, but he didn’t. I watched him lean into the passenger window and say something to his girlfriend. A few minutes later, she drove off, and the kid started climbing the tower,”
He went on to explain how this kid he barely knew talked him off the ledge that night. Leo said he was a fucking jerk to him at first, but the kid didn’t flinch. He just sat beside him, and let Leo rant and rave, unloading all his anger, puking all his rage over the side of the tower. He yelled and cursed and carried on until the tears started flowing. Leo insisted that his life was saved that night by that young kid. He put his arm around him and just let him cry it all out, and by the time his tears had dried, he knew things were going to be okay. Then his new found friend helped him climb down the tower and they talked for another hour, right on the same picnic bench that he and Nora were sitting on.
“It’s pretty remarkable that he happened to be in the right place at the right time,” Leo shuddered, as though it still gave him goosebumps. “And that he wasn’t afraid to just hold on to me. How many young guys would do that?”
“Not many, I imagine,” Nora agreed, equally awed by Leo’s account.
“He’s still like that, you know. Just a decent, sensitive guy. To this day we’re still best buds. I would do anything for him. He never fucking judges me,” he observed humbly.
This was a side to Leo that Nora had not yet seen and it warmed her heart. His vulnerability softened him, making him even more desirable.
“I would like to meet him,” Nora pressed hopefully, kissing his hand.
He smiled at her, nodding his head gently.
“There’s more, you know, if you want to hear it?” he offered reluctantly, as if he was worried he was over-burdening her. She assured him that she wanted to hear the rest.
“I met Corrine that night, my wife,” he said flatly.
She could feel him stiffening beside her.
“My new buddy and I decided to go to a bush party up in the mountains, apparently half the kids in town were there, including his girlfriend who agreed to meet him there. He drove my car of course, because I shouldn’t have been driving in the first place. When we got there
I was surprised by how many people seemed happy to see me. Everyone was friendly. Maybe they always had been and I was just so lost in my own fucking misery I couldn’t see it. One thing was certain, my eyes had been opened that night. Once I had decided to live, life invited me back with open arms.”
It often happened that way, Nora thought. How many times had she witnessed her patients transform right before her eyes? Once they recognized that their suffering was a choice, that they could just set it down and walk away from it. The epiphany was like a curtain being thrown open and light flooding in.
“Corrine was sitting by the campfire. The first thing I noticed about her was her smile. Honestly, it was like a beacon of light on a very dark night. She was at the party with some girlfriends who had all taken off with some cute guys. I gave my new friend an elbow to the ribs and made my way over to her,” he reminisced, his voice soft with memory.
He said that they hit it off almost immediately, him and the girl with the beautiful smile. They talked, laughed and teased each other until about 3:00 in the morning, until he was sober enough to drive her home. He dropped her off that night, more hopeful than he had been in a very long time. Leo didn’t think it had been a coincidence that she had been at the party that night, either. It was as though the universe, God, source, or whatever the hell you wanted to call that greater power, made sure that their paths would cross. He said she was like an angel that came into his life just when he needed her the most.
They fell madly in love and spent almost every free minute together. She inspired Leo to get his shit together, and he did. He graduated high school, and then went on to college, until he decided that he wanted to be a fire fighter. He switched gears because he felt called to the profession and wanted to be of service to others. He knew what it felt like to be rescued, to feel protected, and he wanted to do the same for people.
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