Page 136 of Love Notes & Lifelines
Silas splutters and curses. He just doesn’t quit.
Leo takes a menacing step forward, and Silas retreats on his hands and knees before scrambling to his feet.
“Get out of here, Silas. I hope you get hit by a fucking bus and then vultures eat your nasty-ass carcass.”
Leo raises his brow, and his lips twitch at the corners, then he kicks gravel in Silas’s direction, and we watch him scramble down the driveway like a rat.
“You know,” Leo says. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you curse before.”
A humorless chuckle gurgles in my throat. “It seemed like the right time.”
“Yeah, it did.” His tone is gentle and filled with sympathy.
As soon as Silas is out of sight, my body spasms. I heave and drop forward with my hands on my knees. My false bravado is immediately replaced with shock as the adrenaline leaves my body in a whoosh. I have to get out of here.
Danica’s voice carries over the ocean breeze. Hearing her say Emmy’s name makes me heave anew.
“I have to leave. I—I can’t be here.” Each word cuts through my throat and burns my skin.
“Come on,” Leo says, offering me a hand. “I’ll take you to Tabby’s.”
I look up into his eyes, so kind and patient, then I scan the mess at the beach. “Beck…”
“I’ll get you set up at Tabby’s, then come back and give him an update. You don’t need to be here for this. Let’s get you somewhere you can think for a minute, okay?”
I nod, but sadness weighs me down. I don’t want to leave Beck or the girls. “My mom,” I say as new tears clash with old ones. I can’t catch my breath. My blood is boiling in my ears and my vision tunnels.
“Lucía will take care of her,” Leo says, gently holding me up by my biceps. “You can come back tonight if you want, but I have experience with PTSD, Stella. What happened out there just now? It fucked you up. I’m only trying to help.”
He’s right, I know he is. And that’s why I follow him to his car. “You’ll tell them I love them? I don’t even have my phone.”
“Yes, I’ll take care of everything. Get in the car, and I’ll run down to let Tabby or Elijah know, okay?”
I’m nodding like a broken doll—a sad, broken doll. “Emmy will worry about me. I don’t want her to be sad.”
His eyes soften, and he expels a long exhale. “You’re good people, Stella. You know that?”
I open the car door without answering him because the truth is, I don’t feel like a very good person right now.
Leo pulls upin front of Tabby’s Tasty Treats on Main Street and hands me my phone. He must have grabbed it earlier. It’s the first time I’ve been to this part of town. Next to it is Cool Vibrations—Yoga and Meditations.
I turn back to Leo. “Is your shop next door to Tabby’s?”
“Yup,” he says, turning off the engine, then points to the second floor. “She lives above the yoga studio, and I live above the bakery.”
“Huh.” It’s all the words I can form right now.
We exit the car and walk in silence to the side entrance of the building, then I follow him up the stairs.
When he reaches for a door, he lifts one shoulder in a shrug. “I have to grab Tabby’s keys. Do you want to come in?”
He opens the door and after hesitating for half a breath, I follow him in. It’s so…homey in here. Photos of him and Tabby line the mantel. There are even some of them together as children.
“Are you and Tabby together?”
Leo’s grin doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “It’s complicated.” He holds up a key he takes from a hook on the wall, and we exit his apartment, then enter Tabby’s.
Her place is decidedly un-homey. It has a sterile feel with clean lines and a minimalist atmosphere that has me spinning in confusion.
