Favorite color—coral. I have no idea exactly what that is, but it sounds pretty.
Favorite food—the wings from Mario’s in New York.
Favorite alcoholic beverage—mint julep. She only drinks white wine more often because she can’t stop with just one of her favorites.
Favorite television show—she rarely watches television, and she doesn’t understand the fascination with Schitt’s Creek. She couldn’t get past the first episode.
Tyler frowns at her because of this. Moira Rose is his spirit animal, apparently.
Once the meal is over, and we’re waiting for dessert to be brought in, I inch closer to her, pressing myself to her side while Uncle Eddie shares a story about a recent trip to the Alps.
“You should take her,” Eddie says once he’s done. “Have you traveled a lot, Leighton?”
“Yes,” she answers. “I’ve been very lucky in life.”
“I’m the lucky one,” I say, pressing my lips to her temple.
Everything shifts. What was pretend, now becomes real. What were lies, what were half-truths now feel like commandments in my chest, and it takes all my strength not to pull back and look her in the eyes to see if she feels it too.
This has gone beyond clingy, and she must sense it because she pulls away, a smile on her face that I can tell she doesn’t feel. I’ve watched her enough over the last two weeks, seen her give prospective new hires this fake smile one too many times, been the recipient of her real one for it to work on me.
“You okay?” I whisper when someone else starts talking.
“Where’s the restroom?”
I push myself back from the table, pulling her chair back once I stand and escort her from the room.
“Hey.” I hold her hand, stopping her before she can enter the powder room. “What’s wrong?”
She doesn’t hesitate to step around me and close herself inside. The lock clicking into place doesn’t have the same effect it did the other day when she left me in bed with an erection. That left disappointment in my nuts. Right now, my heart is what’s hurting. The physical pain I could deal with easily. This new awareness is so foreign I stupidly press my fingers to my chest to try to rub the ache away.
“That won’t fix it,” my dad whispers from the end of the hall.
I pull my head from the wall, wondering when I pressed it there to begin with.
“What?”
“Seeing her happy is the only thing that makes that misery subside.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” It’s only a partial lie. I know what he’s referring to, but because I don’t exactly understand, it’s not a full deception.
“You will.” He gives me a sad smile, as if he’s known the entire day that Leighton isn’t my girl. “We’re getting ready for the game. See you out back.”
I’m still standing in the hall when Leighton steps out of the restroom, and I hate that she seems disappointed to see me. It’s clear that she was hoping she stayed in there long enough that I would’ve walked away.
“I have a headache,” she says before I can ask. “Will you take me home?”
I clasp her hand, nodding, refusing to call her out on her lie. I’d hoped that bringing her here would get my family off my back, but maybe it was too much. Maybe I’m too much for her.
Lala is shuffling toward the patio on our way through the dining room.
“Oh, there you are, Leighton. Help me out back. I don’t want to miss kick-off.”
Lala reaches for her hand.
“Leighton isn’t—”
She squeezes my hand once before releasing it, then she takes Lala’s hand and walks slowly beside her out the back door. Maybe the family isn’t the thing she wants to get rid of. Maybe it’s only me, because as soon as I join the rest of the guys on the grass, Leighton is smiling and joking with the women in my family like she didn’t walk out of the bathroom with a frown on her pretty face.
I can’t concentrate on the game at all. What is supposed to be a flag football game still sees me on my back more than a half dozen times because my eyes stay on her rather than paying attention to what’s going on. If I didn’t know her as well as I do, I’d think she was having a great time, but the longer I watch her, the easier it is for me to see that the same enthusiasm she had earlier has drained away.
She’s miserable, and I should’ve insisted on taking her home instead of being selfish and letting Lala drag her out here because I wanted to spend a little more time with her.
No matter what I do with this woman, I just can’t seem to do it right.
Chapter 28
Leighton
As put together and confident as Gaige looked when he arrived at my hotel this morning, he doesn’t look like that now as the football game comes to an end. He’s covered in bits of earth, grass stains on his khaki shorts, and there’s a smudge of dirt on his cheek.