Page 142 of Tell Me When It's Over

For Christ’s sake. Before he even finishes that sentence, I do as I say. The call drops as Leighton grins at me from the doorway, a baby in her arms that makes me realize for the first time that Mia’s car is parked in the driveway.

I watch her hold Roman with care, looking down at him and making little faces. Taking a deep breath, I examine the house behind her, the garden, the domestication of the moment.

That baby might not be ours, but she looks damn good holding one, and it makes me realize how bad I want that.

The family.

The wife.

The kids.

Wetting my lips, I get out of the car and greet her with a quick peck on the lips before looking down at my nephew. “Not going to lie, Len, seeing you holding him makes me want to practice making one for ourselves.”

Her eyes widen when I glance at her, her cheeks flushed. At the thought of what I plan on doing to her as soon as we’re alone, or because of my admission, I don’t know. But all I do is grin and watch her eyes fill with the same kind of lust that I’m met with every time I pull drawn out moans from her body at night, exhausting us both until we fall asleep and wake up in the morning to do it all over again.

“You’d want that?”

“With you? Fuck yeah.” I kiss her again, this time drawing it out. Leaning my forehead against hers and watching my nephew doze off in her arms, I murmur, “But it’s early yet. We have plenty of time to talk about the future.”

Mia pops up behind Leighton. “Are you two done corrupting my son?”

I chuckle. “With you as a mother, I’m fairly sure he’s been corrupted since the day he was born.”

My sister goes to dispute that, then closes her mouth in contemplation. Raising her shoulders, she swipes her baby from Leighton’s arms and throws out a, “True,” before turning to go back inside.

I throw an arm around Lenny and follow my big sister in, closing the door behind us. That’s when the girl in my hold says, “Mia thought it’d be a good idea to invite your mother over for dinner. I thought maybe we should invite Harry too, if that’s all right. There’s something he’s getting for me.”

That draws my interest. “What is he getting for you?” I’m not offended that she talks to my father more than me. He and I are a work in progress that will never be perfect. If she’s comfortable speaking to him, asking him for things, that means she’s warming to the idea of help. It means that she’s willing to let people in, which is more than I could ever ask for from her.

She shifts, wetting her bottom lip. “He’s using some private eye to track down where Ms. Wynona is buried. I was thinking…maybe we could go to Arizona sometime and visit her?”

My eyes soften. “Of course.”

When she leans into my side, I press a kiss to the crown of her head. “Have you thought more about what Marcia asked you? It’s a big opportunity.”

“I’m going to email her and accept it.”

Smiling, I can’t help but wonder, “Have you considered more about the east coast? I know you put it on the back burner with everything else going on.” The truth was going to find its way out one way or another, we just entered the firestorm sooner than anticipated.

Some of the media has backed off since Harry did an interview clearing the air about him and Katherine, and Mia went to social media to play big sister, or “big sister-in-law” according to the post she made on Instagram that garnered over a million likes thanks to the picture she’d put of her holding Roman and me holding Leighton. All her caption said was, “Always meant to be a family.”

The way Lenny bites her lip has me even more curious.

“She said the scholarship was good anywhere, right?”

Hesitantly, she nods.

We talked in detail over everything her professor told her, and even though she asked what I thought she should do, I told her it had to be up to her. It’s her life, and I’ve derailed it enough. I’d go anywhere for her, support any of her choices like I know she would with me, but I want to make sure they’re decisions that will make her happy.

“I’d really like to stay at UCLA,” she finally tells me, with a confident nod. “It may not be Stanford, but I’ve given up that pipedream. Talking to Nora helped me realize that dreams change. So do people. I mean, I could probably transfer with the grade point average I have now, but my campus seems a lot more like…like me. This version of me. Does that make sense?”

“I think it makes perfect sense. Are you sure you’re going to be comfortable there though? I know how people can be.”

She offers a limp shrug. “It’ll blow over eventually. This isn’t the worst thing that’s ever happened to me, Kyler. There’s going to be a new story for everybody to obsess over soon enough. Nobody will care about us anymore.”

She’s not necessarily wrong, though I think there will always be people who care. Like Mia, who still calls herself victorious for her matchmaking skills. Or Harry, who doesn’t say anything about Leighton and me, but always looks at us longer than normal when we’re all in the same room. It isn’t judgment in his eyes, but something else that makes me feel a little bad about flaunting this. But then Leighton will blink up at me with those gray eyes, and I stop caring about what everyone thinks, because she’s the only one whose opinion matters to me.

“Anyway,” she adds quietly, “I like where I am right now. It’s definitely where I want to graduate, but I don’t know. Maybe it’s not where I’ll end up.”

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