“You heard wrong, buddy,” Leon’s voice suddenly sounds from behind me. “So why don’t you listen tomy wife,take your pathetic excuses for cheating on her, and shove them where the sun doesn’t shine? And get the hell out of here. Or, like she said, she’ll call security.”
His presence fills me with intense contentment, and the way he claimed me as his with such open admiration makes all the shadows across my heart float away like a cloud, revealing the sunshine. A wave of powerful relief fills every cell of my body. Joy returns in a rush. Something I didn’t think I could feel again.
How long had Leon been listening for?
What is he doing here? When he should be in the house, taking it easy.
And holy hell balls, the way my husband stood up for me is deliciously domineering as glimmers of my old Leon make an appearance.
Huck’s brows furrow in frustration, and without saying another word, he storms through the ER, and in a final desperate effort, shouts, “You will never love her like I did.”
“No, I won’t. I’ll love her harder. Now get out of here, you halfwit,” Leon counters, his voice full of certainty and strength.
I leap up from my seat and nervously look around the pit, my cheeks feeling hot from all the unwanted attention.
“Show’s over,” Doris announces, looking amused. “Holy shit. You have two men fighting over you? That’s so hot,” she says through the side of her mouth as I walk toward Leon, my heart full, butterflies dancing in my stomach.
“Just one,” I correct her, staring right at my husband.
“Girl, you get it,” Doris counters, chuckling under her breath as she snaps her fingers.
“Oh, I plan to,” I mutter, so as not to be heard.
“Are you okay?” Leon asks, looking over his shoulder, ensuring Huck has gone.
“Yeah.” I’m shaken but not completely rattled.
“So that was Huck?”
“It was.”
“He looks like a halfwit. Ash told me that’s what he calls him. Did you know that?”
I chuckle a little at that as I imagine how angry Ash sounds when he calls Huck that. “I do now. What are you doing here?”
“I wanted to see you.”
My already buoyant mood reaches new heights of euphoria knowing he couldn’t stay away.
“Could you not wait until I got home?”
“No.” He shakes his head. “I couldn’t. I got this, I don’t know, like a deep urge, a feeling, in here.” He points to his chest with a hand that holds a gift bag. “I wanted to see you. Had to get to you as soon as I could. I feel like… you, I don’t know, that I… fuck, I’m sorry… this isn’t coming out right… I feel like I wanted to, needed to, kiss you. I didn’t kiss you when you left for your shift today. And I wanted to, to do that—kiss you, that is.”
“Holy mother of swoon.” Doris’s dreamy voice floats into our conversation.
When I side-eye her, I discover she’s sitting with her head in her hand, staring at us longingly as if she’s watching the best romance she’s ever seen; all she needs is popcorn.
“Get back to work, Doris. Nothing to see here,” I say, my voice laced with humor and joy. “And you, come with me.” I thread my fingers through Leon’s, tugging him along behind me.
“Bye, Doris.” Leon laughs, sounding every inch his old playful self as I pull him into the supply room, shut the door, and rest my back against it.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I can’t believe he showed up at my work.
“I told you. I needed to see you.” He’s so casual about the whole thing when he just made one of the biggest declarations of devotion to me, in front of my work colleague.
“To kiss me?”
“Yes, that and to also give you this.” He pulls out a Siberian husky plushie from the gift bag he’s been clutching. “I think a husky is important to you, to me, us. I’m not sure, but this little guy looks exactly like the one I keep seeing in my dreams, like a memory that keeps floating in. Does that make sense?”
