Girl Code (17 page)

“You probably shouldn’t wrap your rental car around a telephone pole,” Leo said, sounding like he was reining in anger. He took a deep breath and his body relaxed a little, as did the hardness of his eyes. “It’s safer for you and for the other people out on the road if you don’t drive while you’re sleepy. You can stay in the guest room, or you can take my room and I’ll take the guest room.”

I rubbed my bare arm, which seemed to have erupted in goose bumps as I considered it. I was feeling pretty heavy, very sleepy, like those moments against the bookshelf had sucked away what little energy I had left.

Leo drained his beer bottle in a matter of seconds and put it on the counter before walking over to me. He gently touched my elbow.

“Come on, let’s get some sleep,” he said.

Somehow, just by touching my elbow, he was able to guide me back across the room, down a hallway and to a bedroom. He flipped a switch and the room was bathed in light. The guest room had a tall, full size bed in the center of the room, an armoire, a nightstand, and a comfortable looking chair by a large window that no doubt had a view of the beach.

“You already know where the bathroom is,” Leo said, pulling down the duvet and top sheets for me. “And if you happen to wake up before me, you can have or do whatever you want, as long as you don’t leave without saying goodbye.”

He stepped away from the bed and went to stand in the doorway.

“If you need anything, just let me know,” he said quietly. He didn’t look angry and stiff anymore, but he didn’t look happy either.

“Okay,” I answered softly. “Thank you, Leo.”

He looked like he was going to say something, or a lot of somethings, but he pursed his lips, nodded once, and closed the door.

At four in the morning, my bladder woke me up from a deep sleep. It took me a panicky moment to remember where I was and where the bathroom was. As I headed back to my room, I heard the television changing channels through Leo’s slightly open bedroom door. I continued to the end of the hall and poked my head into his room. He was lying in bed wearing nothing but shorts, remote in hand, looking bored to death.

“Hey,” I said.

He bolted upright, prepared to leap out of bed. “Are you okay?”

“What? Yeah. I’m fine. Are you okay?” I asked.

“I can’t sleep,” he said, looking relieved. I felt relieved, too, because the awkwardness that had been between us earlier seemed to have been gone. “Is the TV keeping you up?” he asked.

“No. I got up to pee and saw that you were still awake. What’s on the tube?”

He shrugged. “Not much.
The Fifth Element
is coming on in a few minutes.”

“Love that movie.” I smiled.

He patted the bed beside him. “Come on in then.”

“Umm...” I looked down at my bare legs. I had forgotten that I was only in my T-shirt. I had kicked my pants off before going to sleep.

“Come on. I promise to behave.”

He looked like he really meant it, and since I was up, I was wide-awake again.

It’s only a movie
.

I crossed the room and planted myself on the other side of his bed where he had pulled back the blanket for me so I could cover myself.

“What’s keeping you awake?” I asked him as I leaned back on the headboard.

“Just my thoughts,” he said, and looked away from me for a second. “What’s keeping you awake?”

“You are now.”

He grinned and said, “You love it. You love me, actually.”

“You’re really full of yourself, you know that? Some things don’t change.” I shook my head as he chuckled.

The movie started, and our conversation died down to the occasional snarky comment about it. Not even halfway through, my eyes started to close on their own accord. Stubbornly, I didn’t want to stop watching the movie I had seen numerous times, so I didn’t get up and return to the guest room. Eventually, my body gave up and I fell asleep in Leo’s bed.

Sometime later, as sunlight streamed in through the skylights, I was startled awake by his alarm clock blaring next to the bed. I was further startled by the fact that I was wrapped in his arms and my head was on his chest. One of my legs was draped over his, and my knee was touching his—

Oh, my god!

Leo groaned and rolled, moving me to my back in the process with him partially on top of me. He reached for the alarm on the table closest to me and smacked it off before falling back onto the bed. Just as he was beginning to sleepily wrap his arms around me again, I hurried out of the tangle of sheets and limbs and raced out of the room and back to the guest room to put on my pants. When I was dressed again, I slapped a palm to my head and chastised myself for falling asleep with him like that. I tried to ignore the very fresh memory of the weight of his arms around my body, the weight of his body on mine, the length and width of…

“Pull yourself together, Tabitha,” I whispered harshly as I put my flip-flops on.

I hurried across the hall to the bathroom. After I washed my hands and rinsed my mouth, I did the best I could do with my bed head and made my way out to the kitchen where I could hear Leo moving around.

Bare-chested with his shorts hanging low on his hips, Leo looked up from the mug of coffee he was stirring and smiled.

“Good morning, beautiful,” he said and then offered me the mug. “Extra cream, extra sugar, right?”

I accepted the coffee with a slight nod. “Thank you.”

He winked at me before putting the creamer back into the fridge. He stood there at the open door, like he was searching for something.

“Are you hungry?”

“No,” I said, wondering how the hell he could be hungry after that huge breakfast we ate hours ago.

I sipped my coffee as I strolled over to one of the large walls of glass. In the dark, I didn’t see the infinity pool and the attached hot tub in the spacious back yard. A patio wrapped around one side of the house with several seating options, an enormous grill, and a bar, and there was a worn path from the patio doors that lead directly to the beach.

“Do you like it?” Leo asked. A second later, he stepped up beside me with his own mug.

I continued to stare out at the white sand, the crystal blue water that reminded me of Leo’s eyes, all bathed in bright sunshine.

“I love it,” I said easily. “It’s beautiful.” No wonder San spent so much time there to recover from her divorce. One can probably recover from pretty much anything there.

We were quiet for a short while, but Leo stood so close to me that his arm brushed mine whenever he lifted his coffee mug to his mouth.

“Have dinner with me tonight,” Leo finally said. “We still have a lot of catching up to do.”

“We’ve been catching up for the past fourteen or fifteen hours.” I took another sip of my coffee and almost sighed. He got the measurements for cream and sugar just right, just the way I liked it.

“Hardly.” Leo snorted. “We have been talking, but not really
talking
. We have nine years to make up for, Tabs. Nine long years. I want to know everything I’ve missed.”

“I don’t lead a very eventful life, Leo. There isn’t much to tell. Besides, I have a deadline I have to meet and—”

Leo stepped in front of me, blocking my view. He put his free hand on my cheek, and my god, the tiny charges of electricity flowing from his skin had me surprised my hair wasn’t standing on end. His eyes were like magnets, pulling my gaze to his.

“There’s no fucking way I’m letting you go like that, Tabitha. You’re not going to leave here with promises of keeping in touch like all of those other assholes and then just fade away. You’re not leaving here until I am permanently cemented in your life, in whatever capacity that is.”

Whatever capacity…

“We made that mistake nine years ago, Tabs,” Leo continued, dropping his hand to my shoulder. “Let’s not do it again. You can work from anywhere, right? You can meet that deadline from the moon as long as you have a Wi-Fi signal?”

“Yes,” I dragged the word out as I looked at him with suspicion.

“So, why don’t you hang out in Miami for a couple of weeks? We’ll hang out, we’ll go do some fun things, and you can work when I’m at work. You can stay here in the guestroom and have this awesome view every day,” he nodded toward the windows.

The guestroom thing turned out completely different than either of us expected the previous night. My face heated at the memory of how we woke up and where my knee was…

“Come on, it will be fun,” Leo said, his eyes lighting up with hope and mischief. Of course, there was mischief; he was still Leo Pesciano. “Don’t make me put you in a headlock until you agree.”

“If you put me in a headlock, I will chop off your tiny balls,” I warned, taking a step back from him, making his hand fall away from me.

His grin was so wicked that I took another cautious step back and winced.

“Baby, you know I don’t have tiny balls,” he said in a tone that sent shivers up my spine. “You practically molested me with your knee this morning.”

“Fuck you, I did not!” I exclaimed, sloshing coffee on the hardwood floor. “Shit.”

I walked past a chuckling Leo to go find paper towels and put the mug down.

“It’s okay,” Leo said, following me leisurely. “I know I’m a good-looking guy. You couldn’t help yourself, just like you couldn’t help curling up to me in the middle of the night and grinding your pu—”

I gasped and my eyes widened as I picked up a roll of paper towels and started back into the living room.

“Now you’re just being an asshole, as usual,” I snapped as I walked past him again. “And for the record, I grinded nothing on you. Who knows what you did to me in the middle of the night while I was unconscious.”

I dropped to my knees to clean up the coffee I had spilled. Leo stopped a few feet away.

“Damn, I think I like the way you look on your knees, Tacky,” he said and then finished up the sentence with a small groan.

I stopped and glared up at him. “Leo Pesciano, if this is your way of convincing me to hang around Miami for another two weeks, you are failing.”

Leo laughed and then backed up a few steps with his hand up in surrender. “Okay, okay. I’m sorry.”

I huffed out a sigh and continued the cleanup. Leo’s phone rang from the bedroom. He left to go answer it while I disposed of the wet paper towels. His offer was…enticing. I had never really explored Miami before, so it would be kind of cool to do that. I could also take him up on one part of his offer regarding his home, and work there, right in that corner with the beautiful view. I’d get so much writing done with a view like that to settle my mind, but I wouldn’t stay there at night. Staying would be so dangerous, that was made clear by the way we woke up that morning, tangled and…comfy…

Leo had returned before I had time to think about it anymore. He put his mug in the sink next to mine and then leaned against the counter.

“So, will you stay?” he asked, crossing his arms across his chest.

“If I say yes, there are some parameters we need to establish…”

One of his eyebrows raised slightly, but he said nothing as he waited for me to elaborate.

“I will stay in a hotel, not here,” I said, tapping one finger. “But I will use your grand view of the ocean to work while you’re working, if that’s okay.”

He nodded once.

“Second, I can’t promise exactly how long I’ll stay. I have a lot of traveling coming up soon. We’ll have to take it one day at a time.”

He looked a little more reluctant to concede, but he did nod again, slowly.

“Okay,” I exhaled before moving on to my second parameter. “You and I…we have…a complicated history, but I want to be clear, Leo…it can’t…I can’t…”

He narrowed his eyes. “You’re still stuck on that girl code shit that you and Leslie came up with when you were like five?”

“We were thirteen,” I said, a little defensively. “And it isn’t shit. It’s—”

“It’s shit,” Leo said, tilting his head slightly. “I understand the premise of the code. Really, Tabs, I do. I get it, but in real life people can’t help who they lo—”

Damn it! It was almost an exact repeat of the argument we had nine years ago!