A hand settled on my shoulder, squeezing gently. “Hey, it’s okay. Calm down. Take a deep breath and just try to calm down. Everything’s all right, Beau. I’m not upset with you at all. I just want to know if Judy made you move out of your room. I would ask her, but she’s not even here and she’s not answering her phone. Lord knows what she’s up to. God help Blue Harbor.”
Lea pressed closer to me, that sweet scent of his curlingaround me. I finally looked up at him, and when I did, he moved his hand and took my earlobe between his thumb and forefinger. The spark of pleasure that ran down my spine made me suck in a sharp breath. “I didn’t—I don’t?—”
He moved his hand from my ear to my jaw, cupping it gently. “Breathe,” he instructed, brushing his thumb across my jaw.
I held his gaze and took a deep breath, the placid warmth in those cobalt eyes coiling around my being. My exhale was shaky, and when he raised his brows and said, “Good. One more,” I inhaled again.
Lea ran the back of his fingers down my cheek, then pulled his hand away.
I just barely stopped myself from reaching for it.
“You okay?” he asked.
I nodded.
“Good. Now tell me what happened.”
I still couldn’t bring myself to keep eye contact while I said it, so I looked down at the floor. “She thinks I’m…she thinks we’re…she thinks w-we’re—we’re dating,” I said hoarsely.
I was burning up. Everywhere. Humiliation was written in every red blotch on my body as I stared down at my feet.
Lea said, “Fuck,” so quietly I almost mistook it for an exhale. He sank down onto the edge of the bed, his mouth pulled down in a frown.
He was upset with me. I’d messed up, I should’ve stopped her as soon as I realized what was happening, I should’ve?—
A strangled sound erupted from the back of my throat, and I paced to the window. My hands trembled, so I gripped the bottom of my shirt to try and hide it. “I’msosorry, Lea, I—it?—”
The bed creaked, and then two strong arms wrapped around me from behind. His warmth, his scent, his entire being enveloped me so completely that I closed my eyes and sank into him.
“You don’t ever have to be afraid with me, love,” he murmured, and when he rested his cheek on my head, I thought maybe I’d died and this was my heaven—being entirely wrapped up in Lea. “I will never, ever get mad at you or yell at you, okay? And this ismyfault. You should be upset withme.”
Upset with Lea? Never.
“I had no idea she would just drop in like this, or jump to that conclusion, and I am so damn sorry you had to deal with it alone.” He stepped back, then put gentle pressure on my shoulders, urging me to turn around.
He looked and sounded apologetic when he said, “My family thinks I’m dating someone because I told them that I was dating someone. I guess she just assumed you were that someone.”
Wait, did he actually have a partner? “Are you?”
“What—no, I’m not dating anybody. It was a lie.” He blew out a breath, then pinched the bridge of his nose as he admitted, “I lied because I’m a coward. I didn’t want to deal with them interfering in my life anymore. They live on the other side of the country and I never—ever—thought they would come visit. Well, not unannounced like this. But I should’ve known, Judy can be annoyingly unpredictable.” He raked a hand through his hair, staring at a spot on the floor, then cut his eyes up to mine. “I’m sorry she—no,I—put you through this. Can you forgive me?”
I was so overwhelmed that I was barely following the conversation. “Forgive you? But—I mean, there’s nothing to forgive. You didn’t—”Do a single thing wrong.“You didn’t know she was coming, or else you would’ve told them the truth. Right?”
Lea opened his mouth like he was going to say something, then pressed his lips together and averted his gaze. “Like I said, I’m a coward. I just didn’t want to deal with their nosiness.” Hischeeks were flushed a delicate pink, and I was so distracted by how pretty he looked that I didn’t say anything for a long moment. “I still don’t.”
“What was the lie?” He’d already said, but I wanted to knowexactlywhat he’d been telling his family.
Because I was about to propose the craziest thing.
He rubbed his hands down his face and groaned. “Essentially that I’m in a serious relationship and deeply in love. And that we live together. And do everything together. I got sick of them always bugging me about it, so one day I kind of lost it and told them I’d found somebody and he was the one, yada yada.”
“Okay,” I said slowly. “So what would happen if you told the truth?”
That pink tinge just beneath his sharp cheekbones deepened. I felt like I was seeing a side of Lea that hardly anyone got to see; a vulnerable, uncertain side that he covered with layers and layers of confidence and a happy-go-lucky veneer that was thinner than he thought.
“If I tell her, she’ll tell everyone else in the family, and then they’ll all come down here and give me some kind of intervention about my love life. They’re so damn nosy, which is half the reason I wanted to live on the opposite side of the country and I just…they’ll dredge up the past and I can’t…”
He hung his head in his hands, utterly defeated.