by Emma Vikes
Suddenly, someone wrapped a hand around mine- the hand which thumb I had been chewing on- and roughly brought it down. I looked up and met Leo’s gray eyes. He hadn’t left even after I ignored him. “Ellie, what’s going on?”
I clenched my fist, holding my phone in my other hand tightly. “It’s none of your business, Leo.”
“If you won’t tell me, I’ll tell Megan that something’s up,” he threatened, looking at me with narrowed gray eyes.
My eyes widened. “Almost seven years since I last saw you and you still eavesdrop on other people’s conversation.”
He shrugged, feigning innocence. “I didn’t mean to, okay? But you mentioned Megan and you sounded worried. She’s marrying my brother, I think I have the right to know if there’s something wrong about their wedding.”
There was a surprisingly protective tone in his voice when he talked about Megan and when I looked at him, I could see that he was actually serious. With a sigh, I lowered my phone and looked him in the eye. “The person that we coordinated with on the venue of the bridal shower scammed us. I would really want to hunt him down and file him a case but the bridal shower’s supposed to happen tonight and we don’t have a location.”
Leo whistled lowly. “How much did the guy get?”
I glared at him. “I can handle that issue after I figure out where to hold the bridal shower. I’ll bring him to court here and make sure he pays us back. ”
He rolled his eyes. “You never had a temper and now you do. Geez, six years can really change a person.”
Flashing him a sardonic smile, I replied, “False love can leave you bitter.”
Leo gritted his teeth and I felt a pang of guilt, knowing that he was simply asking me because he cared about Megan too, like I did, and maybe he wanted to help. I should really keep my bitterness and anger towards him in check. But rather than snapping a reply at what I just said, he let me off the hook. “So what are you gonna do now?”
“I’m trying to find a venue but there aren’t many houses here up for rent,” I muttered, still going through my phone.
“What about here?”
His words made me pause and my thumb hovered over the screen of my phone. I looked up, meeting his gray eyes. “You’ll let us?”
Leo shrugged and then glanced back at the kitchen and then turned to me. “Julian’s going to take the kids out today. He promised Violet that he would and I might go with them so he has some help with Atlas. Everett’s going to stay in a café later since he has some work that needs to be done. We won’t be back until dinner or maybe after, depends on what happens.”
“But what about Milo’s bachelor party?”
He rolled his eyes and waved me off. “The guy’s been married once. We told him we’d plan it but he told us that he’d rather we spend some time as brothers before he gets too busy with his family once more. He doesn’t need one.”
I chewed on my bottom lip, a bit hesitant. Food wouldn’t be an issue because we’d contacted a caterer. All that needed to be done was just tell her that we’d changed the venue. There was the issue of setting up since the set-up was also meant to be done by the guy we paid. I looked around the house. The living room was spacious and could fit about twenty people at once. We didn’t really plan anything extravagant nor did we hire a stripper because that wasn’t how Megan rolled.
“I can bring Max with me,” Leo offered and his gray eyes held familiar sincerity that made my heart drop. I swallowed, trying to seem unaffected by his unwavering gaze. This was the guy who left me at the lake house with only a note telling me to give the key to the owner. There wasn’t even a goodbye. It’d been nearly seven years since that happened but the wound felt fresh now that he was right in front of me.
But instead of cold indifference and boiling anger surging in my veins, the sight of him sent a familiar shiver down my spine and awakened the butterflies that I thought were long dead.
Snap. Out. Of. It. Eleanor.
In front of me, Leo cocked his head to the side, the action so proverbial in my mind that it elicited a natural response from me: my heart skipped a beat at the sight. “And I’ll help you, Ellie. You’re not the biggest fan of doing things the last minute. It stresses you out. I’ve seen it happen dozens of times.”
My mind flashed back to the late nights I had to study in the library and Leo would be there, dozing off in front of me with a camera in his hands. Sometimes we would be in a café and I would get stressed out and overwhelmed by the amount of things I had to study and Leo would be the calm through my stress. I blinked, the images of our past blinking out of my mind.
I let out a slow exhale but nodded my head slightly. “Only because I don’t think Morgan and I can set everything up on such short notice.”
Leo smirked. “Don’t worry. You know I perform better with pressure.”
I pursed my lips at that comment and told him I was going to call Morgan, take a shower, and then we’ll leave for Target to buy whatever we could use as decoration. By the time I went back downstairs- freshly showered and on my phone, discussing with Morgan the theme of the bridal shower- Max was waiting for me at the end of the stairs, Julian, Everett, and Leo behind him. The sight made me stop for a moment, gray eyes staring at me intently.
“Mom!” Max squealed, running upstairs and hugging me. He had showered too and my fingers threaded his wet curls.
“I gave him a shower,” Leo quipped, answering my unspoken question, “and sorry but I had to quietly come into your room and get him a change of clothes. You were in the shower that time, obviously.”
I wasn’t sure what I was meant to say so I simply nodded my head and made sure that my face didn’t show the fact that my heart melted at his thoughtfulness and then focused my attention on Julian instead. “Are you okay with letting Max tag along?”
Julian nodded, grinning as Max bounded down the steps and into his arms. Somehow, my son already established a rapport with Leo and his brothers. “Don’t worry. This is gonna be one of his best vacations yet.”
Beside him, Everett gave me a small nod and a thumbs up. “Leo told me what you’re planning. I’ll head to Milo’s after I’m done at the café. Leo will head over there too after you two finish setting this place up. Good luck, Eleanor.”
Out of the three of them, Everett was seriously the nicest. I didn’t talk to Milo that much but he was marrying my best friend, I’m sure there must be a reason why Megan was head over heels in love with him. They told me that there were two rental cars parked outside and one would be used by Leo and I to go to Target and the other, Julian would drop Everett off the café and head to Milo’s to pick up Violet. We already had a plan and before I knew it, I’d clicked the seatbelt in place and Leo was in the driver’s seat. The very person I wanted to make sure I stayed far away from was the very person that I needed to help me. Oh, the flipping irony.
“What are we buying?” Leo asked as he backed away from the driveway.
I chewed on my bottom lip, unsure of how I was meant to describe the photo that Morgan sent me that was meant to be the theme and decoration so I showed it to him instead. Leo whistled lowly. “That’s...are you sure Megan would love that?”
Right eyebrow rising, I looked at him pointedly. “She’d love it. Megan loves anything that people do for her. Effort is her love language.”
“Exactly. So it doesn’t matter if it’s simple. As long as Morgan and you made the effort to do it,” Leo pointed out, clicking on the indicator so we could switch lanes. “I see what you want to happen for her shower but even if it’s just a picture wall filled with photos of her, her family and Milo, she’ll love it still. She’s the second simplest girl I’ve ever met.”
The last comment made me pause and stared at Leo. I shouldn’t ask. Asking will only lead us to a direction I didn’t want to take but I couldn’t help myself. “Who’s the first?”
The car stopped at the red light and I continued to look at Leo, my heart racing. Without any hesitat
ion, he turned to meet my gaze. “You.”
“I’m not the same girl you left at the lake house, Leo,” I whispered, wanting to make things clear. Leo still had an effect on me, that wasn’t something I couldn’t deny but another was the fact that the pain he put me through felt fresh now that he was in front of me. He kept distance after our last conversation but I just really wanted to make sure that I cemented the line.
But Leo tilted his head to the side, his hands tight on the steering wheel, a ghost of a smile on his face. “I know but no matter how strong and resilient you are now, that doesn’t mean that the girl in the orange dress isn’t somewhere in there anymore.”
CHAPTER 5
Leo
I stared at the grainy and low quality picture of Eleanor on my computer. It’d been seven years since I took this photo of the girl in an orange dress, drenched in the rain and burying her face in her hands, quietly crying, her tears masked by the rain. My brothers had seen this picture but they thought that I just randomly got it off the internet. None of them knew that I took it. None of them knew it was real. None of them knew that the girl in the orange dress was Eleanor.
Yesterday was the first time that Eleanor and I were in the same room with each other with her not purposely ignoring me or biting me with snide remarks. As we set up the living room for Megan’s bridal shower, she was quiet and we both moved with familiar synchrony side by side. She thanked me after we were done and a part of me kind of expected that she’d hug me as a thank you- she used to do that a lot even before she fell in love with me- but I kind of realized that I wasn’t entitled to those things anymore.
My finger hovered over the touchpad and lightly tapped next. A picture of Eleanor lying on a river bank showed up, her face turned to where the river flowed still. There was a mirror image of herself in the water. Her brown hair was in a bun on top of her head in this picture and there wasn’t a smile on her face. Despite the innocence and sweet nature she had then, there was this fiery vixen within her that rose up whenever she channeled it for our photoshoots.
She used to be my muse. She was my only muse.
In the other room beside the one that I was currently in, I could hear Eleanor and Max talking lightly. She was still trying to convince Max that it’d be fun at the hotel too and that there was a bunch of stuff he could do. There was even an indoor basketball court that he could use. But Max continued to complain, continued to convince his mother for them to stay and cancel their reservation.
I kind of wished that he could succeed in convincing Ellie.
Milo had made it clear for me to stay away from Eleanor and I had tried my best to keep myself in check, to keep any selfish desire and lustful thoughts at bay. But there always had been something about Eleanor that always drew me to her, like a moth to a flame, like how Icarus was undeniably drawn to the sun. The girl in the orange dress had always been the sunlight in my life, drawing me closer and closer, higher and higher until my wings melted.
And...
I slammed my laptop shut when I heard the doorknob turn and Max came bounding in the room, crashing in the bed, almost pushing the laptop off the bed but I didn’t have it in me to reprimand him because he looked upset. He looked up at me. “I...do-don’t...want to stay...in that...ho-hotel!”
I set the laptop aside and pulled him closer, wrapping my arms around him. Like Eleanor, I felt this pull with Max. He was so easy to impress and it was easier to make him laugh. He started obsessing about basketball when I began teaching him and earlier this morning, he woke me up just so I could teach him more. He told me he was determined to make the basketball team in Irving. I told him that I’d made sure that the coach wouldn’t even hesitate on letting him join in.
“It’s okay, bud. Your Mom already booked that place beforehand. She didn’t know that we’d be here and you’d have fun with us. I’m sure had she known, she wouldn’t have reserved a room in the first place.” I wasn’t a hundred percent sure about what I just said because had Eleanor known that I was Milo’s brother, I had a feeling that she wouldn’t attend the wedding. That, or she would make sure that she stayed as far away from me as possible.
To be honest, I had a feeling that now that they had a hotel to stay in, Eleanor would steer clear away from me as much as she could. Despite how civil things were with us yesterday because she needed my help, it wasn’t a guarantee that she was okay with me. It was clear that I’d hurt her, more so than I’d ever hurt any girl before. I was her first.
And I was the first to break her heart, it seemed.
Max looked at me, his gray eyes that were becoming more and more familiar to me were with hope. “Please convince her, Leo.”
It was the first time he asked something of me and there was this quiet desperation clear in his actions. I ruffled his hair, unsure if I can offer him any semblance of assurance. “Why do you want to stay so bad?”
Max stared at his small hands and shrugged. “Because...I-I li-like it here...with you...guys.”
“No promises, bud,” I said, standing up from the bed and making my way to the room he shared with Eleanor. The door was slightly open and I could see Eleanor packing the clothes and things that they’d pulled out of their suitcases. She was on the phone though and I knew that she just called me off for eavesdropping yesterday but I was rooted to the spot when I heard a male voice. She was on FaceTime and her phone was set on the nightstand so I couldn’t really see who she was talking to. Maybe it was Max’s Dad.
“How’s Max doing?”
“Surprisingly well. He’s hit it off with Milo’s brothers so he’s been trying to convince me all morning that we should stay here instead of transferring to the hotel room we originally booked.”
There was silence on the other end for a moment. “Do you want to?”
Eleanor sighed and then I heard her sit down on the bed. “Of course not!”
Her voice was defensive when she answered and then it softened as if she was apologetic. “You know that if Eva didn’t just mess up with the reservation, we wouldn’t be here.”
“I know, Elle. It’s not your intention to be in a house filled with guys.”
So he didn’t know that one of the said guys was her ex. Er, I wasn’t sure if I could even be labeled as an ex. “When are you coming to Irving? We miss you.”
There was longing in her voice and the tone felt like a stab to my heart. “I miss you too, Elle. If I could just rush things with work, you know I would in a heartbeat.”
Eleanor giggled and I stepped away, realizing that this was more than just an invasion of privacy. It was an intimate conversation between lovers. I swallowed and went back to my room just in time for Eleanor to call Max. The little boy stared at me and I smiled at him sadly. “Couldn’t talk to her. She was talking to someone on the phone.”
Max pouted but went back to the other room where his mother was. I sank on the bed, staring blankly at the ceiling as the sound of longing in Eleanor’s voice continued to repeat in my mind, like a broken record. The way she giggled and talked to him, assured him that she would no longer be staying in a house filled with men clenched at my heart.
It was slow rage, simmering in my veins, and I closed my hands into a fist, desperate to punch something or throw something. I wasn’t sure where the sudden irritation came from but the room suddenly swung open and Everett came in and I had to push down the building anger that was forming inside of me. Everett stared at me, his eyebrows rising. “What’s wrong with you? You look like you’re about to put a city on fire.”
I closed my eyes, not wanting Everett to read more to what I felt. “Did I ever tell you that I think Max is being hurt by someone?”
Everett sat down beside me. “He doesn’t seem like an abused kid, Leo. I know abused kids. I’ve seen too many in a span of three years.”
I let out a shaky breath as I remembered Max’s fear and indifference the first time he talked to me in the backyard. “When I first talked to him, he hit me on the back of
the head with a basketball and he was so scared that I would be mad at him. His fear, Ev, it was something else. Like he was expecting to be hit or something.”
“So what’s your point? I don’t think Eleanor would ever allow someone to hit her son. It’s clear that she loves him more than anything the world can offer her.”
“Ellie’s not one to hurt anyone. She’s too pure for that,” I murmured quietly, my fists still clenched as I remembered how she assured the man she was on the phone with, “Max’s Dad, on the other hand, I’m not too sure.”
“Max’s Dad?” Everett repeated, looking at me, his head cocked to the side and amusement dancing in his eyes. “Now it makes sense.”
I turned to him. “So you think that he hurts Max? Why do you think Eleanor’s letting him off the hook? She’s a lawyer!”
Everett rolled his eyes. “I don’t think you’re upset because you think someone’s hurting Max. And I don’t think anyone’s hurting Max. As I said, Leo, I know an abused person at first glance and Max isn’t it. He’s sort of an introvert. Like me. But he warms up eventually. I think you’re upset because you just learned that Eleanor’s taken. Jealousy looks foreign on you, Leo, and green isn’t your color.”
I gritted my teeth in annoyance. “I’m not jealous, Everett. She was one of my casual one night stands. She has to mean something for me to be jealous.”
Everett cocked his head to the side. “Are you sure she doesn’t mean anything?”
I swallowed, unsure of how I was meant to answer my brother and he laughed, clapping my back and standing up. “I’m driving Elle and Max to the hotel. Jules is coming with and then we need to buy some stuff at the mall. We’ll come back to change for the rehearsal dinner. Please, try to keep your emotions in check by then.”
