Page 117 of Tell Me When It's Over

Her little sniffles don’t help the ache in my chest as I tilt her chin to meet my gaze that she’s trying to avoid. The glassy eyes that meet mine lodge my heart into my throat and chokes me with emotion. “Hey,” I murmur quietly, offering her my free hand and waving it to get her to move. “Come here.”

She stares at me with unblinking eyes until I grab one of her hands and tug her up, swinging her body around until her head is using my lap as a pillow instead of her legs. Stroking her hair, we sit like that for a few moments before I loosen a sigh. “Is it work?”

I know Leighton well enough to know nothing at the café could make her cry. Not even the scumbag who owns the place or the coworker who’s selfish enough to sell bogus fucking stories to the press for a quick buck. She’s stronger than letting low lives like that win.

“Is it school?” I guess when she doesn’t answer, her head burrowing into my leg more as she battles me for the blanket. “Lenny, I’m not going to let you hide. Tell me what’s up so I can try helping.”

It’s faint, but I hear her words perfectly clear when she croaks them out. “You can’t.”

There isn’t much that I can’t help her with, so I need her to explain. “I’m sure there’s something.”

Her head moves in a shaking motion.

My hand stops brushing through her loose hair. “If you don’t tell me, I’ll be forced to use my charm and wit. And if that doesn’t work, I’ll have to use threats.”

More sniffling. Then, “What would you threaten me with?”

Narrowing my eyes, I scope out the roots I helped her cover. “I won’t help you dye your hair again if you don’t tell me what’s wrong.”

A pause. “You already told me you were never doing that again because of the smell.”

The smell is atrocious. “Fine. I’ll…” My hand starts moving again on its own free will, sending calming strokes through her thick strands. “I’ll hide all your mac and cheese so you can’t find it.”

At first, I think she’s crying harder because her shoulders shake lightly. But after the softest, choking-like sound escapes her lips, I realize she’s laughing. “That would be cruel,” she replies, a bit of amusement laced in her tone.

My hand drags down her head to her neck, massaging it before settling on her shoulder and squeezing. “Can you at least tell me if you’re okay? I can kick somebody’s ass if you need me to. Mia would too if it came down to it.”

After a moment, she turns to face me, her eyes still glazed with tears, but no more falling that I can see. “I know you guys would.” She presses her lips together for a moment, absentmindedly staring off in front of her like there’s something fascinating about the plain gray tee I’m wearing. I’m still staring at her when she glances up at me through her thick lashes. “I got into a fight with Chase.”

My eye twitches. “Oh.”

She nods once. “Did he…” Licking her lips, she takes a deep breath and asks, “Did he come to see you after I went to stay at Mia’s?”

Scratching one of my raised eyebrows, I look away from her for a second. The kid had come to see me a few days after the incident, and I gave him a lot of props for it. If I were in his shoes, I probably wouldn’t have shown my face for a while.

“He did,” I answer cautiously, not sure what he told her already. Based on her question, I’m guessing not much.

She waits for me to enlighten her.

Clearing my throat, I shift under her until I’m sunk into the cushion I’m occupying. “He wanted to make sure things were going to be okay moving forward. With you two. With…all of us.” The conversation may have been a bit more complicated than that, and there was a time or two I considered threatening him with my fist or a gun, but I figured Leighton wouldn’t appreciate that. Because the truth is, any guy who’s willing to face me after that happened is always going to fight for her, and she deserves somebody like that no matter how I feel.

“You two fought?” I inquire, my hand palming the length of her bare arm before making slow strokes back up it in warm friction. My mother used to do the same to me, calming me when I was worked up. I’m not sure who needs it more for this talk—me or her.

It feels like an eternity stretches between us before she says, “We broke up.”

My hand stops halfway through its stroke, a tangle of hair wrapped around my fingers as I watch her carefully. “Oh.” The repeated word comes out much slower this time, my head wrapping around the three words. I blink, snapping out of the haze and tensing up. “Want me to do something about it?”

Leighton snorts, looking up at me again with a twisted smile on her face. “Like what? Hire the mafia you elude to knowing?” Her gray eyes, nearly charcoal from the tears, roll. “Can I ask you something, Ky?”

Clicking my tongue, I nod slowly.

She repositions so she has a better angle to look up at me, one of my hands falling to her hip when she sits up on her elbow. “Have you ever been with somebody because you thought it was for the best, but all it does is mess things up between you?”

My brows fold in as I watch the seriousness meld over her features as she lies in wait for an answer. I’m the last person anyone should ask about relationships because I haven’t been in a semi-serious one in years. There have been dates and sex, but nothing that ever lasted more than a few weeks. I always ended it first before things could get misconstrued. “I, uh, don’t think I’m the person to ask, Lenny. Maybe Mia would be the best person to have this conversation with.”

Her lips waver downward, but she fights it off and plasters a fake smile on her face instead, nodding in understanding. “Oh. Okay.” Her tone is distant, disappointed, making me sigh and pinch the bridge of my nose.

“I don’t have an answer for you that I think would help,” I explain quietly, thumb making circles where it rests on her hip bone. “It isn’t because I don’t want to, I just…”

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