I’m always complaining to him about losing them because they all look the same. Not this one, though, as it’s purple and stands out like an exotic bird among a flock of pigeons because the chest piece is iridescent too.
“Thank you.” Clutching my shiny new stethoscope, I rush to him, forcing him to stand up, and I fling myself around him as soon as he’s on his feet. “Thank you for everything, Leon.” I snuggle into the crook of his neck, inhaling his familiar scent.
“I didn’t do anything.” He squeezes me in return.
“You never judge or comment on my poor choices in life.” Or my choice in men. “You’re always there for me.”
“You’re always there for me too. That’s what friends are for. I’ll always be here for you.”
“Don’t let your future wife hear you say that,” I reply quickly, wishing I could take it back.
“Why?” he asks, leaning out of our hug before he places a hand gently on my cheek. His touch is welcomed by me and feels different from before. Loving.
It’s no longer a simple brush of a hand; it’s a caress, and it’s intentional.
My gaze drops to his mouth. When he licks his plump bottom lip, it makes me want to nibble on it a little and taste him in the same way I did in my early twenties.
That’s all the proof I need to realize that stepping away from Huck’s orbit has once again reignited my obsession with Leon.
Here we go again.
I might have been able to run away from marrying Huck, but the one thing I can never run away from is the truth… I gave my heart to someone else long before I ever agreed to get engaged to Huck.
I have been hiding my feelings for another man.
This is terrible.
Because he’s not just any man.
He’s Leon.
My Leon.
My rock, the man I admire, and the person I call every morning and every night, and anytime I can find during my busy days.
I swallow hard, my chest heavy with the weight of that truth and the hidden feelings I’ve been harboring for my best friend, who doesn’t even know I like him the way I do.
I don’t think he sees me that way, which hurts, so why I still feel this way remains a mystery to me.
It doesn’t make any sense; I’m not even sure I fully understand my feelings. But when everything was falling apart on Saturday, he was the only person I wanted to run to.
“Why should I not let my future wife hear you say that?” he asks again, breaking me out of my wandering thoughts.
“Because your future wife might get jealous of what we have,” I reply as anxiety climbs up my spine. I already dislike her, this unknown future wife, sparking that nausea I really don’t want to feel. What if she doesn’t like me? Then I’ll have to eat alone in the cafeteria at work, and who will be waiting for me in the parking lot after a terrible day? She won’t let Leon care for me the same way, and vice versa. She won’t let me cook for him on my days off or let me attend jewelry auctions with him, trying to find the rarest Patek Philippe watch. Whoever she is will put an end to our road trips and days hiking in the mountains, too. She’ll get jealous, tell him he isn’t allowed to have a girl as a friend, and then I’ll lose him. I just know it.
His next question is calm and gentle. “What do we have, Erika?”
“A friendship that feels… sometimes…” like we are more than friends, especially by the way he’s brushing his thumb across my cheek, “like it’s more?” I finish. It’s a question, not a statement.
Through a narrowed gaze, he keeps it steady and controlled, yet something flickers in his eyes that looks like an emotion I can’t read. “Wearemore than just friends, beautiful.”
“Are we?”
The next thing I know, he’s moved his mouth to my ear, resting his cheek next to mine. He lowers his voice. “We…” he starts, then stops, like the tiny word that sums us up weighs too much. The small space between us warms, charged, and that weird static energy rises again between us. “…We are so much more, and yet we keep tiptoeing around something neither of us are brave enough to call it.”
My breath catches. “What happens if we give us a title?” I ask curiously.
He exhales slowly, his voice now dangerously low. “Then it would be real. And real things demand more attention, beg for more than flirty banter, midnight conversations, prolonged glances, and meeting for lunch every week. It would be much,muchmore. It would be everything.”
