Page 33 of For The Record

The smile on his face is gentle, kind, the touch of his fingertips protective over mine. I don’t want him to be any of those things right now.I want…Leo swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing as his eyes meet mine. “I guess I should let you go.”

But he doesn’t. Instead, his hand moves to rest on my knee and then, I think for a moment that he must have read my mind. His fingers are carding through my hair, and he pulls my mouth to his. My eyelids flutter shut, one of my hands coming up to hover over the nape of his neck.

I keep trying to find reasons to go, but this kiss? It’s giving me far too many reasons to stay.

Adrenaline and desire alike make my heart race, fingers shaking as they brush over his neck, tracing the column of his throat, the shell of his ear. Something breaks open in me, some wall I’ve been trying to keep up crumbling to ash as I breathe him in. His fingers tangle in my hair, angling my head upwards to deepen the kiss.

His hand moves from my knee up to my thigh, pulling me onto his lap. A shudder runs down my spine and I push against his chest, trying to draw in a breath.

Leo’s green eyes meet mine, his pupils dilated, taking a heady breath. “Skye, I—”

The moment breaks when he speaks because I fall apart, too. My defences melt into sand, washed away just as steadily as the Pacific gnaws at the Malibu coastline, and I’m left with nothing. Nothing to protect me from his prying eyes, his caresses, his ability to make me forget who and what I am and dream of who I might become.

I smile, but it’s weak. Wan. Shifting my legs off of his thigh, I ignore the coldness that comes between us now like a blast of AC. “Like I said before… I should go.”

Something flashes in his face. Hurt. Rejection. In a city full of people pretending to be someone else, have I found the one guy who refuses to hide his emotions from me? “Of course. I’ll give you a ride.”

I don’t protest as I pick up my jacket and my keys, reaching for my phone from where I left it on top of the baby grand. The hem of my dress rides up and I tug it back down, fighting some emotion I don’t want to name. If Leo notices or even stares, I don’t care. At least, that’s what I tell myself.

Of course, I’ve had first kisses before. Plenty. At least three. They ranged from awkward to experienced to sloppy, in the vein of expertise, but they never really made me feel anything. Not like this. I was always left wondering… what’s the point? With Ryder, I thought I had something. I thought I had something more tangible, more solid than a mere emotion or passing crush. I thought what we had was real, and I’m tired of thinking things that turn out to be lies.

“Any plans for the weekend?” I say when we get into the elevator to go down towards the parking garage, only for Leo to shake his head.

“It’s Thanksgiving tomorrow,” he says, and my mind does an abrupt U-turn.

Thanksgiving. Crap, how could I forget about Thanksgiving? My stomach sinks. Probably because I dread it every year and this year, I pretended if I ignored it, it wouldn’t come. Yet I know I’ll still be there anyway. I force a smile. The elevator seems to be taking forever to reach the bottom. “Got any big plans?”

“My family dinner, as always.” Leo seems to brighten at the mention of his family. I think of the little sister he mentioned on our first date. And part of me wishes my family had the same effect on me, instantly lighting up his eyes and animating his face. “My sister, Raina, will be there, and she always accuses me of not spending enough time with her, so I’ll be making a weekend out of it.”

So he won’t be in the office Friday. The thought saddens me for reasons I don’t want to probe into.

“Sounds fun.” I can’t imagine willingly extending the time I have with family. I love my father, and Heidi has become like a second mother to me, but everything with my siblings feels too complicated for me to ever untangle, a constant knot of tension tightening and loosening. Although, the traffic alone of driving to Beverly Hills would probably make it worth it if I stayed that long.

“Yeah, I mean, she’s almost out of high school now, so I want to be around before she goes off to college and I see her less,” he says, sounding wistful. “I feel like I missed her in-between years because I was too busy working, and now I’d like to make up for it, somehow.”

The way he speaks reminds me of my half-sister, Harper, who’s fourteen, almost fifteen. I wonder if she and Raina would get along. Then again, why wonder? They’ll never meet. “I hope you get the time to do that.”

The elevator dings and slides apart at last, and I button the top button of my khaki jacket. “You know, maybe I’ll just get an Uber.”

You can go home now.

He doesn’t take the hint. “We’re already here. And I’d like to see you again, Skye.”

“I might be able to do that.” I fiddle with my keys, even though they’re technically useless, their jangling obnoxiously loud in this parking garage. “After Thanksgiving, though.”

“Of course.” He moves closer, something unreadable in his eyes. No longer hurt, but something else. “I’d like to kiss you again, Skye.”

I tilt my head back, confusion knitting my brows. No man has ever said those words to me before. Usually, it’s either an insecure question—can I please kiss you—or a command. “Then why don’t you?”

“Because, the last time I did, you bolted so quickly that I thought you hated it and were immediately making plans to quit your job and delete my number from your phone,” he says, his smile proving him completely earnest.

“I didn’t, um,” I say, staring down at a crack on my phone screen. “I didn’t bolt. I’m right here, aren’t I?”

Leo accepts my flimsy excuse, his hand tilting my face back up as his thumb brushes over my cheekbone. “Well, since there are no complaints…”

This time, it’s sweeter, somehow both less cautious and more gentle. My hands don’t shake, my heart doesn’t pound, but yet somehow, I feel even less in control, like I’m losing myself. Like some part of me is melting, dissolving into the ether, fusing into him. And somehow, I don’t mind it in the slightest.

There’s no wariness, no skittishness in the way he cups the back of my neck or rests his hand on the dip of my waist, pressing me against the glass of the car door. His body flush against mine, my fingers curve over his bicep, feeling the solid strength beneath his shirtsleeve.

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