Page 22 of Leo and His Love Bunny

No wonder I threw the airplane.

He chuckles. And then, to my surprise, he throws his airplane, and it hits the exact same spot on the mirror that mine did.

I turn my head and lift my brow at him. “Impressive.”

He gives me a satisfied grin, then lifts his own brow in return before taking his second airplane and hitting the exact same spot again.

I’ll be honest. I am not sure that I can hit the same spot. He is obviously a master of paper airplanes, and whoever heard of such a thing? Although, it hardly seems fair that he is an expert hockey player, with a speaking schedule that’s booked for the summer, and also is gifted in flying paper airplanes?

Not fair.

I take my second airplane, pull back, and release with a flick of my wrist and thrust of my forearm.

It’s very close to hitting the same spot, but it is about a half an inch off.

“Not bad,” he says, sounding impressed.

Considering that he just hit the exact same spot twice, I don’t see what’s so impressive about it. But he doesn’t say anything more, just picks up his third airplane, and lobs it off with a casualness that is completely deceiving since that airplane hits the exact spot that my airplane just had. Like he moved his aim over just half an inch, and I have to admit, there isn’t too much anyone has done that has impressed me more.

It’s the biceps.

I get my third airplane and pull up my strong woman. Kidding, strength really doesn’t have anything to do with being good at paper airplanes. It’s all about design, and honestly I wasn’t thinking too much about it when I was folding these. I was thinking more about my conversation with Leo.

Still, I pull my hand back, confident in my folding abilities, and toss it with the precision and finesse that a basketball player might shoot a foul shot with.

It hits the same spot Leo’s just had.

“You’ve done this before.” He looks at me with a new interest, like I’m a strange species that he just realized he’d never seen before.

“You have too,” I say, narrowing my eyes at him. I’m guessing that he didn’t learn to do it in fourth grade study hall.

“I did. I was the champion of the Children’s Hospital when I was six years old.”

Okay. He was six. I didn’t break my chops on paper airplanes until I was eight.

“The one time I got sent to detention in my entire school career was because in social studies class, we were supposed to be reading the rest of the chapter while the teacher prepared our math lesson, but instead he caught me making paper airplanes for the contest we always had during recess.”

“I can’t believe you went to detention.”

“Don’t tell me you never spent a day in detention?” I don’t believe that at all.

“I never spent a day in detention. Not an hour, not a minute. I was a goody two-shoes growing up.”

I believe him.

My heart sinks a little more. My background is definitely vanilla. I hardly ever stepped out of line, but Leo just makes everything I did seem...bland compared to his perfectionism.

“So you’re a superstar hockey player, you have awesome biceps—”

“They’re not delicious anymore?” Leo says, looking disappointed. “I’ve gone down in her estimation.”

“Delicious, awesome biceps, and you’re a paper airplane champion. Is there anything else I need to know about you?” My words are not flirting. In fact, if anything, there’s a little bit of sarcasm to them, because I’m disgusted with myself. It’s not often that I’m around someone who makes me feel like what I think is a rather well-accomplished life is actually nothing of the sort. He makes me feel small.

But that’s not all he makes me feel. I feel flutters for sure. Toe curls, and inspired. He inspires me, just by being himself. Just by showing his character, not talking about it, just living it. I want to be like that. Someone who lives what I believe and is theperson I want to be, without having to tell everyone what I am. They just see it.

“Did I tell you Goalie flunked out of my cat therapy certification?”

“But that’s okay. That doesn’t reflect failure on you. And maybe she’s just not a human therapist. Maybe she’s a parakeet therapist,” I say, looking over at the cozy picture of the cat, her paw in the cage, a parakeet standing on top of it, both of them sleeping like they couldn’t be happier.

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