Page 28 of In Frame
He’d picked up his phone and dropped it into a robe-pocket, going downstairs: habit, both for work and in case a sibling needed him. Interestingly enough, so had Leo. Sam wasn’t sure what this meant, other than that Leo might be one of those people who liked having the comfort of constant connection to the larger world.
“Late night brunch means mimosas.” Leo plunged into his fridge. “Obviously. This isn’t the best champagne, but it’s not the worst either. Also we’re celebrating. Glasses are in that cupboard to your left, no, other left, sorry.”
“We’re celebrating?”
“My loss of gay sex virginity? My film premiere? You being here? All of the above.” The cork popped. Leo did that with casual ease, Sam noticed: not flinching from the release. “And you’re spending the night, aren’t you? We did say there’d be a round two.”
The lightness in that tone belied the question underneath. Hesitance opened chasms under the assumption.
The toast bounced up. Right into the moment.
Sam went to collect it, did not have a plate, glanced around. Picked a logical cupboard, and was correct. Leo bought interesting plates, grey with little glittery flecks that pinwheeled down one side like dandelion fluff.
He said, between dropping hot toast onto the plate, “Yeah. I mean…if you want.” He couldn’t quite look at Leo. What if, between the cork-pop and the cupboard, those quick hazel eyes had figured out just how much Sam didn’t belong? What if the offer was only Leo being kind, the way Leo Whyte was kind at heart?
No. Leo meant words when saying them. Unfiltered. Real.
“I do want.” Leo put eggs on a piece of toast, posed a champagne-flute beside it, whipped out his phone. “There. Pictures. Well, just one. Social media. The fans like it. I’ll tag it asafter-partyand confuse everyone. Actually it won’t, never mind, they’re used to me not doing the expected.”
“You share your life,” Sam said, picking up a mimosa, “with your fans.”
“I don’t have secrets, and it makes some people happy, somewhere, sometimes.” Leo twitched a shoulder, not exactly a shrug. “It’s just eggs.”
“You want me to stay.” He waited until Leo took a bite first. “I can. I want to. I have to leave in the morning.”
“I thought you might.” Leo fiddled with the stem of his glass. “Or you could…not. I’ll be in London for a while. Staying here. Until the New York and then the Los Angeles premieres.”
“I can’t,” Sam said. That specter of helpless distance rose; he couldn’t even be angry. Another world, another planet. “I can’t just…decide to stay. I need to go home. I need to check on my sisters. And then I’ll have to be in Atlanta, I think.” Trying to get set pictures, he did not say, from the latest superhero blockbuster. “I can’t drop everything and stay with you. I don’t even have a toothbrush.” True. It was back at his peeling-paint hotel.
“I have spares.” Leo’s eyes got a little more—not sad, not exactly. Resigned. Sam hated the emotion and the fact that he’d put it there. “But never mind. It wasn’t a fair question. This is tonight, and this is wonderful, and I’m glad you’re here. Though I’m realizing how much I don’t know about you. Sisters?”
“Two,” Sam explained, “the twins, plus my brother,” and then ended up telling Leo all about his family, not about the finances or the grief but about Diana’s work for her school newspaper and Thea’s varsity letter in swimming and Carlos’s acceptance to a PhD program, about the time the three of them had made him a completely terrible breakfast in bed for his birthday, about the reasons they had a family ban on playing Monopoly and how they’d never found the top hat playing-pieceagain.
Somewhere in the back of his head the puzzle pieces didn’t align, or only did so with disbelief. This was himself, talking about his family to Leo Whyte. Over eggs and toast and mimosas at two-thirty in the morning. In Leo’s kitchen. Naked under a robe. After one of the best orgasms of his life.
He even took out his phone and showed off a picture or two, carefully chosen. A birthday party, a swim meet, a heap of siblings on the sofa watching a movie. He adored his family; he wanted Leo to see them. Leo did not try to take the phone and scroll through photos; his expression went from surprise at the sharing to soft warmth, looking at the screen.
Leo was also a good listener: asking questions, nodding, inviting more words with eyebrows and head-tips. So mobile, so expressive. Nothing hidden, everything on the surface, worn openly. Sam loved that. Sam loved—
He froze mid-word. Love?
Mimosa. A sip. A large one. Faking crumbs in his throat. The toast, being a good ally, did not betray him.
“You miss them,” Leo said. “I would too, if I had siblings. Of course you’ll need to go. What time’s your flight?”
“Ten. Not too bad, but I’ll need to get there early. The airport.” Words. Making sense. What were they?
He couldn’t be in love with Leo Whyte. Not so fast. Not after a night. A night and a kiss.
That wasn’t how love worked. Love was more difficult, hard-won, rare. In Leo’s movie it’d required sacrifice, a battle, a lost arm. From what Sam had seen, his mother and Jack had both been nervous, finding a second chance with someone new, after scars and time.
Love wasn’t the slide of Leo’s robe off one bare shoulder, or the way Leo had simply accepted Sam’s priorities, or the fact that Sam had successfully guessed which cupboard the plateswould be in. That wasn’tpossible.
He stared at a corner of toast. The toast, despite general helpfulness, did not spontaneously provide an answer.
Thiswasn’tpossible. Because he was who he was, and movie star Leo Whyte was Leo Whyte. No getting around that. A roadblock. Massive.
“We can sort out the airport in the morning.” Leo shamelessly licked butter from fingers. “I had a question. Only wondering.”
