Page 59 of For Butter or Worse
Leo almost felt sorry for the guy. He’d been on the receiving end of that withering stare more times than he could count. But, then again, Charliehadjust made fun of his Halloween costume and kissed Nina. Not okay.
She closed the door firmly, brushed past Charlie and walked toward Leo. When she grabbed his hand, a sense of relief flooded through him. She’d chosen him. He didn’t know why she’d been kissing Charlie at all, but she was leaving with Leo.
Whatever was going through her head, he’d ask later. He could tell by the pleading look she shot him that she needed out of this situation. What he really wanted to know was if she waswithCharlie. But he couldn’t ask that, because he had no right to.
She didn’t owe him an explanation. Still, seeing her with someone else was gutting.
He couldn’t talk to her about whether or not she had feelings for him or how she viewed him—not now. So instead of saying anything, he opened the passenger-side door for Nina, then got in the car himself and they drove away.
His house was a twenty-minute drive from Nina’s. As they drove, the sun dipped behind the mountains and turned the sky a fiery orange before settling into a murkier blue.
Trick-or-treaters filled the sidewalks, and he was glad he’d left massive bowls of candy outside the house. He parked in the garage.
Nina still hadn’t said a word. She continued to stare out the side window as the garage door closed behind them. He wanted to respect her need to just process what she was feeling, but...
“You haven’t even mentioned my pointy horns,” he joked.
If she heard him, she was ignoring his comment. “I didn’t know he was going to show up like that.” She stared down at her hands, rubbing at a scar on her thumb.
Was she mad that Charlie had come to her house? Or was she mad that Leo had caught them kissing? “He seems to have a knack for surprising you,” he offered.
“Unwanted surprises, yes.”
Unwanted. Now there was a word Leo could live with. He could handle the mental image of her locking lips with a human Ken doll so long as she hadn’t actually wanted that to happen.
“Wait, did he force himself on you?”
“He didn’t give me an option or ask my permission, if that’s what you mean.”
So Charlie was no longer a guy he was jealous of. He was now a guy he’d plan to punch in the face if he ever ran into him again.
She took in a deep breath, then another.
Leo recognized that kind of breathing—he’d had several occasions where he’d attempted steadying breaths to calm himself down.
“Three deep belly breaths have been scientifically proven to ease anxiety,” he said.
She cocked an eyebrow at him. “Did you learn that in a self-help workshop?”
“I get panic attacks.” Why did he go and tell her that? No one knew about his...issue, let alone the woman who had brought him to the brink of a public panic attack by storming off set many weeks ago. Now she was going to think less of him, or judge him, the way he’d worried anyone would when they found out about his condition. The last thing he wanted was for Nina to view him as weak.
“Used to get them, anyway,” he lied.
She nodded with a slight frown, then looked ahead, and around... “Wait, why are we in a garage?”
While Nina investigated the bar cart in his living room, Leo took a bottle of white from the wine fridge and poured them two glasses.
Then he opened up Postmates and found his favorite dumpling spot. He couldn’t cook, but judging by what she’d frequently ordered at craft services, he knew she loved just about every kind of steamed bun and dumpling she met.
He glanced at Nina. Why did the mere thought of Charlie touching her make his throat burn? The whole scenario was ridiculous. This was Nina, a woman who was embarrassed to be seen out in public with him, until she had no other choice.
But the truth was that Leo liked Nina; he’d developed feelings for her. Now he had to learn how to manage those feelings.
“Voulez-vous vino?” Leo asked as he handed her a glass of wine. “I didn’t know the French word for wine, so you got a bit of both there.”
“It’s vin.” She snorted and took a sip of the wine, then scowled. “Is this...?”
The wine was the same bottle they’d had at the Sunset Grande weeks ago. He’d liked it so much he went and bought a bottle for himself. It had never occurred to him that he’d be sharing it with Nina—not at the time, at least.
