Licking her lips, Leo tried to soften her chiseled face. It was clear that she hadn’t meant to snap, that her exasperation was more for my sake than out of her own annoyance.
Before she could find the words to apologize for her outburst — an apology I wasn’t even sure I’d earned, I shook my head. “If I turn it off or send it to voicemail, she’ll just keep calling. And if I answer, she’ll try and bully me into giving her my money again.”
Leo sighed, her hulking shoulders dropping as she turned to look at me. “In the gentlest way possible… you can’t hide from her forever. I say this as someone who had to make the same call. At some point, you have to decide whether youwanta relationship with her or not.”
A part of me was offended.Like she knows anything about my life. She fucking kidnapped me for god’s sake.
Opening my mouth to shoot back at her, Leo simply raised her hand and continued as the phone clanked around on the tray. “But until you do, consider me your answering machine.”
Wiping her fingers on a grease towel, she snatched my phone and answered the call before I could even process how tiny the phone looked in her hands.
Clearing her throat, she kept her chestnut eyes on me. “Hi, ma’am. Kiera’s not available right now. But when she is, she’ll give you a call.”
Before Maura could utter a single word back, Leo hung up the call and handed the phone back to me with a nod. “You’re welcome.”
But as I scooped my jaw from the floor, thanks were the last thing on my mind. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
79
KIERA
“You can’t just grabmy phone like that!” I glared at Leo as she got back to work on the engine, ignoring my complaint. “Hello? Earth to Leo, can you hear me?”
“Now I can,” she pointed to the phone, which sat blessedly silent in my palm.
I scrunched my brow as I looked down at it, confused. There was no way that had worked. Maura didn’t take no for an answer, especially not when it came to me.
Still, a second passed, and then another without a follow-up call.
Holy shit, is she… actually backing off?
‘Backing off’ was a bit too generous it would seem. As soon as the thought crossed my mind, a new text popped up.
Who was that? Call me asap.
Mom
But the text wasn’t followed by the usual barrage of phone calls. The edge faded from my headache as a sacred kind of silence filled the shop.Is this what peace feels like?
I wanted to be mad at Leo. That had been my line to draw, and stepping in to do it for me was certainly presumptuous. But if I was being honest, I was never going to do it. I would sooner let Maura torture me for sport than risk upsetting her with a hard boundary.
I’d been waiting for permission to tell Maura to fuck off my whole life. And Leo’s assist was the first glimmer of hope I’d ever gotten that it might be possible.
I let out a deep sigh, crossing my arms over my chest. “How about next time you want to help me, you warn me first?”
“I’m willing to consider that.” Leo murmured, finally lifting her eyes from the engine. “I’m sorry if that was too far. I just… I don’t like watching people push you around.”
“I know,” I nodded, surprising myself by reaching out a hand toward her.
Wiping her hands on that work rag, she stepped forward, letting my fingers wrap around the swell of muscle at her forearm. Her brows furrowed as my index finger caressed the sensitive skin by her wrist, tracing a line of her tattoo. “When you say you had to make this call…?”
The question landed on her shoulders like a lead weight, dragging her eyes down along with her posture. But I slid my hand down, giving hers a squeeze. “You can tell me anything.”
Her honeyed gaze flicked up to mine as she squeezed my hand back. “My folks were always very strict and had high-expectations — that kind of stuff comes standard with the whole military brat thing. But they were just never happy with anything.”
A bitter laugh pressed past tight lips. “I got straight-As and they were disappointed, I graduated early and they were disappointed, I became a doctor and… at a certain point I realized that there wasn’t anything in particular they wantedfrom me besides ‘more.’ And I couldn’t keep living like that so… I drew a line.”
She shrugged as she ran her thumb over the back of my hand. “I know the situation with your mom isn’t the same, but the way the light fades from your eyes when she does that… I don’t want to see you dim for anyone.”
