Maybe not. Maybe Leland was at ease with it the way he seemed to be at ease about everything. But it was unfair to him that his sexuality had to be a conversation while mine was accepted.
And I really wasn’t surprised by it. Ever since my realization about Ash, I’d gone about life thinking everyone was capable of attraction to everyone, regardless of gender, unless theywantedto specify and tell me otherwise. I laid back down and nestled the pillow under my head.
“I thought that’s what upset you,” he said. “Seeing me with him.”
The mountains were a dark silhouette in the distance. I checked if Leland’s hand was still flat and open before me and spotted his small tattoo of a moon and stars over rocky mountains, realizing it was Creatus. His fingers flexed a few pulses in quick succession like he wanted me to take it, but I left it there a minute.
“Thinking about you withanyoneupsets me,” I admitted. “But I don’t care if you’re bi or pan or whatever sexuality. I guess I just want to know . . .” I fussed with my shirt and stalled uncomfortably. “Does everyone know? I mean, the thing with Vyra, is it . . .” I cleared my throat. “Is Case a secret?”
“Case is not a secret,” he said softly. “Not as far as I’m concerned, but there are other reasons people don’t know about him.” Leland sounded different tonight. Sad, even as his fingers wiggled for me to take them again.
I thought about the way he’d said,I thought that’s what upset youandDoes that change the way you look at me. In that moment, refusing his hand felt like rejecting him, so I lightly took it.
“Is it like a throuple?” I asked.
“Are you okay talking about this?”
His hand was dry, warm, calloused. Holding it felt like there was something solid under me for once, and my blood was finally content.
“I think so,” I said.
“They’re separate things. They both know how I feel about relationships. No one’s out of the loop about any of it. Case — we try not to go there, but he’s an Elemental, and we love each other, so it happens.”
Love?
I didn’t want to pry, but curiosity got the best of me. “You love him?” I asked.
Leland sighed. “I do.”
My chest ached, and I had no idea if it was in response to the bond or Leland laying there sad, closing himself off to a relationship with someone he was in love with. “Why do you sound not happy about it?”
“Because it stopped working.” He squeezed my hand and explained. “I get tired. Case doesn’t. I don’t want to spar all the time. Case likes to jab. Most of the time it makes me laugh, but there’s moments when I just want to be alone in the washroom and can’t.” He rolled his head to the side and looked at me deeply. Actually me. My eyes. Not my forehead.
I stared back into his, feeling tiny flutters in the lowest part of my stomach.
“I think he’s fine with it, but it’s also a challenge, which he loves,” Leland said.
So unbelievably attractive, I thought, with the starlightflecking his eyes and his serious expression. He opened up. He listened. He heard the ache in my voice and took it seriously. No laughing it off, no challenges to stuff thirty marshmallows in my mouth or suck in a balloon full of helium. I loved Gray’s levity, I did, but suddenly I found myself wanting more of this, more seriousness.
“I get it,” I said, thinking about how hard Belinda was trying to be friends. I liked her but couldn’t match her energy. There was something forced, tiring, something not connecting.
“Your turn,” he said. “You want to tell me about Gray?”
I blew out a long breath. “Hot topic today.”
“Perhaps because you called me his name.”
I had no memory of doing that. “When?”
He tried to smile. “Last night. When I came to your room.”
“Oh. I was daydreaming about him when you came in.”
“You want to get back together with him?” He asked it so casually I couldn’t tell if he was pretending not to care or if he really didn’t.
“It’s not really an option,” I said.
“If it was?”
