Page 95 of You're so Bad

I watch as Leonard pushes through the curtain.

“The front door should be locked. Who let you in?” Rafe asks with accusation, his eyes more onyx than dark brown as he studies Leonard. Maybe it’s because Leonard is covered in sweat. He has on an AC/DC T-shirt and athletic shorts. His hair is damp, and there are sweat spots beneath both of his arms and under his chin. Did herunhere? It’s got to be at least five miles from his place, across some major roads without streetlights.

My heart does strange things in my chest, trying to grow and break at the same time.I want him.I want to hold him close and press my face into his sweaty neck, and I want to push him down onto my worktable so I can ride him in here, where I’m queen of the monsters. And I also want to throttle him for staying away from me, for making me feel like one more person I value has left me.

“A lady down the way,” he says, pointing. “Said she was Becca of The Paper Place.”

Rafe mutters something about The Paper Place being the weak link, and Leonard shuffles a little on his feet, his eyes darting to me.

He looks like Bertie does after he’s relieved himself on the floor or mangled one of Nana’s slippers.

“You punched Colter, huh?” Rafe asks.

“That I did,” Leonard confirms. He runs his right hand back through his sweaty hair, the knuckles scabbed over. The sight of his bicep, sliced through with that scar he got while defending someone, makes my heart even more confused.

Rafe grunts, looking torn between being a dick to Leonard and patting him on the back and getting him a beer. I understand that.

“I was going to do that someday,” my friend says after a second.

“Nothing’s stopping you,” Leonard tells him. “He’s got another eye that’s as perfectly punchable as the one I got to.”

Rafe laughs, but it fades after a second, as if he’s remembering there’s more he’d like to say. Probably some sort of not-so-cryptic warning about Leonard having two perfectly punchable eyes too, so he’d better mind himself. But Leonard came here, possiblyranhere, and I need to know why.

Rafe starts to say something, but I grab his arm and usher him toward the curtain. “So have a talk with Sinclair, and maybe we can have a meeting about the Halloween event in the next day or two, huh?”

“Sure,” he says, lifting a hand to rub his mouth. “But are you certain—”

I give him a littleout you gopush toward the curtain. “I’ll text you.”

“Tonight,” he insists, looking back with a somewhat dark expression.

“Tonight.”

“See you,” Leonard says, throwing him a salute.

Rafe gives him a severe nod but doesn’t give voice to any of the things running through his head. I’m guessing Leonard’s not going to get a free pass forever though.

I don’t have siblings—my parents looked at me and said no thanks—but Rafe is like a brother. Has been since we met at the first craft fair either of us had ever participated in, exchanged a look, and agreed we had no idea what we were doing.

Rafe passes through the curtain with another grunt. Some people might linger and listen by the curtain—Bianca would—but I know he’s not some people.

I turn back to Leonard, watch his throat bob, take in the sweat on his forehead.

“Did you run here?”

“Yes,” he says, his eyes on mine.

“Why, Leonard?”

He swallows again, and I want to bite his Adam’s apple and then lick it. I want to do bad, bad things to him.

“I had to be with you,” he says after a moment, his voice pitched low. “I couldn’t make myself stay away anymore.”

With one sentence he lifts me up, and the other he brings me down. Because he wanted to be with me but was making himself stay away.

“If you’d called me, I would have picked you up. And you wouldn’t have been in danger of getting flattened by a truck.”

“I didn’t want to ask you to do something for me when I’ve been a dick. And I needed the run. I had to work through some shit on my feet.”

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