It wasn’t perfect, and it wasn’t like it was normally was, but we were together, and that was a good start.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Kai
Leo slippedinto my office at Silver Linings. The firm was busy behind him, with employees and clients rushing around, and I had a full schedule ahead of me.
“What’s up?” I asked, typing as I talked.
Leo closed the door and took a seat at the couch across my desk. “Not much. Just trapping you in your office where you can’t ignore me.”
I kept typing. “I wouldn’t be so sure about that last part. I could probably ignore you all day, if I really wanted to.”
“Ha ha,” Leo answered, saying the words. “Don’t think you fooled me by not answering the door when I knocked last night, either. I know you were in there.”
I finally stopped working and faced him. Leo had a paper cup of coffee dangling from one hand, and he wore his suit open and without a tie.
He shot me a wide smile. “You can’t hide from me, Kai,” he fake-mocked.
I wiped my hand across my mouth. “I know,” I grumbled.
“Are you really still upset about the incident?” he asked, using the same phrase River had used when he tried to corner me the other day.
Great, they were all talking about it. Of course they were all talking about it.
“Yes,” I admitted. “I am still upset about the incident. Are you really that surprised?”
“No, but I also don’t think it’s that big of a deal if you’re into costumes or whatever.”
“I’m not into costumes,” I objected, my voice strained.
He raised an eyebrow. “But it was obviously a sex pic, Kai,” he said under his breath, like it was a secret.
“It’s not like that,” I said. “It’s just a thing, unique to me and Izzy, that we do to have fun sometimes, okay?”
“Touchy,” Leo mumbled, “and a little kink-shaming, but okay. You know, if you were a client, we’d come up with a million solutions to this.”
“Yeah, and one of them would be to delete the picture and pray that it goes away.”
“I’m sure I have some old dick pics circulating online,” Leo mused. “Back when I used Scruff, you know. I didn’t really think anything of it. The second I thought I might hook up with a guy, I unlocked this one pic where I was—"
“I didn’t ask, Leo.”
Leo waved that away. “Well, if you decide you want to handle this like a smart PR man, just let me know. And please confirm for me that you’re talking about all of this with Izzy. If you try to grin and bear it alone, Kai style, then you’ll really make a mess of things.”
My silence must have answered the question for me because Leo groaned.
“Really, you’re not talking to him? Come on, Kai. Izzy’s good for you.” He glared. “I’m going to be so mad if you mess this up.”
“We’re talking,” I said quickly. “Kind of.”
Izzy had stayed over through dinner on Saturday, and things had inched a little closer to normal, although the finish line was still pretty far away.
I wanted it to all just be fine. I wanted to wave a wand and not feel mad at him for making a mistake. I wanted to think about fun, goofy, sweet sex with him and not immediately sink into humiliation.
I wanted all my dirty laundry back in the basket and locked up inside, where no one could laugh about it.
And I especially wanted to stop screwing up and saying the wrong thing. Whenever I let my emotions get the best of me, I ended up hurting him, and that felt even worse than all the rest of it.
