Page 58 of Last Chance Love

He still wanted to argue, but he watched me break a pill into a few pieces before popping them, grimacing from the taste, and drinking the water. “Why did you break it?”

“Helps get it into your system quicker,” I admitted with a guilty smile. “Not something you’re supposed to do because it can mess with the rate of metabolism, but I think we’ll be okay with one.”

“I’ll keep your dirty little secret,” he said with a small smile.

I couldn’t help myself as he set the glass aside, reaching up to brush the hair off his forehead and look at him carefully. “You know, for all the shitty things your parents did to you, your genetics had to be the best thing they ever gave you.”

He blinked. “I…what?”

“You haven’t exactly had a good life from start to now, yet you still manage to be impressively handsome.”

“Oh yeah, GQ, here I come.”

“Well,” I said, giving his hair a light and playful tug. “Ithink you’re handsome, and I always have. Even when you’re beat up, exhausted, and looking cranky as hell, handsome as always. Glad to know I was right that day.”

“That day? Vague as hell.”

I chuckled, adjusting his hair. “We were young, middle school. I don’t remember exactly when, but I remember talking to you, and you were complaining about how big your feet were getting, you didn’t have new shoes, and you kept tripping over. You went on this whole rant about how goofy you would start looking. It was then I realized I was crazy about you, and when you grew up, you were going to be handsome as hell. And here you are, proving me right.”

“I’m sure I look great,” he said, his face regaining color and going pink because, of course, he was still terrible at receiving compliments about his looks. Once upon a time, he used to get so flustered I reserved them for when we were alone, and usually when I knew he could express his embarrassment in a different way.

“Some things don’t change, do they?” I asked, more to myself than anything, but it was still an amusing question. Because right now, I could see the seventeen-year-old kid he insisted he wasn’t anymore, and I could see the twelve-year-old complaining about needing new pants and how annoying his brothers were. Now I was staring at a man who was thirty-three, who had born the world on his shoulders, and now needed to bear responsibility of some sort, or he’d find himself lost and adrift in a world that simply didn’t care.

“Some days, I feel like I haven’t changed at all,” he admitted with a small smile. “And other days, I feel like a completely different person.”

“If you ask me, which you didn’t,” I said, getting a laugh out of him. We both knew that when it came to him, I’d always been a bit of a busybody, and now the door had been opened on our friendship again, old habits died hard. “I think you’re just the same but different, in a mixed-up way.”

“I think same but different covered it being mixed-up.”

“No, I mean, some of it’s better, some…not. You’re just different. And the same. And I really think this place is a chance for you to find yourself. To be better, and you’ve been doing that. All without my interference, so I guess I should consider that when I’m getting into your business.”

“I used to get so frustrated when you butted into my mess,” he admitted, his hand resting on my upper arm. “And then came a time when you weren’t around anymore, and I realized I missed it. How the hell do we as a species manage to survive this long when we contradict ourselves so easily?”

“Don’t ask me,” I said with a laugh, letting my hand slide down to his face to rest gently. “I went into medicine because it was easier to fix people’s bodies than try to understand how their minds work. That’s a whole level of confusing I don’t need.”

He chuckled. “Sometimes I think I understand how people work, but then they turn around and surprise me. It makes my job here, well, a challenge.”

“You’re a lot better at it than you think,” I told him with a small smile. “You forget, I hear a lot of things around here, and people do like to talk about you.”

He sighed. “And I’m sure they like to make jokes too.”

“A few,” I said, evading the question. “But even Reno respects you. He may not show it, but he does care.”

“Reno?” he asked, raising a brow. “What’s he doing in the clinic?”

“You know I’m not going to tell you why patients are in the clinic,” I said, thinking it probably had been a big deal for Reno to come into the clinic looking for sleeping medicine. He didn’t strike me as the type to seek medication for any of his problems, so his was definitely a visit I wasn’t going to talk about. If he were willing to seek help, I would do everything I could to encourage it, even if it was just keeping my mouth shut.

Leon sighed. “It’s just frustrating. I feel like I’m constantly navigating and dealing with these guys, and I’m blind and wandering around. Reno and Elliot are a prime example.”

“Listen,” I told him gently. “I don’t think anyone else could do what you’re doing as well as you are. And better than you think you’re doing.”

“Aren’t you obligated to say something encouraging and nice to someone when they’re injured?” he asked but betrayed himself by smiling.

“I’m being honest,” I said with a smirk. “And it just so happens it works out to be nice to you as well.”

“How convenient,” he said, his old, dry humor coming back in that little secretive smile I’d always thought of as a secret shared between us.

It was a stupid thing to do, but I was pushing toward him before thinking. And if it was stupid, then it was a shared stupidity because Leon had enough time to stop me before I reached him, but he never tried.

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