Page 47 of Raising Love
So I went to him, my steps along his floor letting him know I was closing the distance between us.
He barely turned to face me when he made a beeline for his bed. “Ivy, go.”
He’d plopped down into a seat when I was only steps away. And when I took a seat beside him on his bed, he kissed his teeth and dropped his head back between his shoulders.
“Oh my God,” he expressed to the ceiling. “Please, don’t do this shit right now.”
I didn’t say anything else. Didn’t think I needed to. The only thing I did was wrap my arms around him and pulled him in. And he collapsed in my arms.
I held him tighter, feeling my own tears wanting to fall too. They welled in my eyes, and I took a couple of deep breaths to keep them inside.
So many times, Leo was my strength. And there was some reassurance with that. That I could break down, and he would be there to make me feel whatever I was feeling would pass soon.
I wanted to be that for him.
But watching him sent a pang in my chest. Several pangs. A deep, aching echo of his pain that made me draw him nearer, doing my very best to offer any comfort I could in that moment.
Aside from his sobs, the night was quiet, and sleep for me was long gone after seeing him like this.
“All this shit, man,” he said lowly, pulling away slowly, covering his face with his big hands. “Having to raise a baby…” He dropped his hands to look at me. “Having to live here. Needing to still perform my best at every game. God.” Leo inhaled a deep breath. “I’m just tired, Ivy.” He shook his head. “I miss my boy.” Leo’s chin quivered before he balled his lips to force it to stop.
I placed a hand against his back and started running my palm up and down the length of it.
“When the fuck does it get easier?” he asked, turning his attention to me.
His eyes were even more red-rimmed than they were when I walked in here, skin flush. I wasn’t sure how long he’d been crying before I walked into his room, but it must have been for a while because he looked terrible… but handsome too.
The vulnerability, the openness. I had never seen Leo express anything emotionally. It’s like I said, everything was always a joke to him. Class clown shit 24/7. But that night, his sadness was humanizing, showed emotional depth. His willingness to be vulnerable, even though he tried to fight it at first, reaffirmed that despite our differences, he trusted me, and that did something to me. I almost felt protective watching him like this.
We held our stare for the longest, saying nothing, my hand still caressing his back.
And I’m not sure how it happened, but I went from caressing his back to watching him in real time close the space between us until his lips were pressed up against mine. And while I was there as it was happening, it almost felt like I wasn’t. Like I’d stepped out of myself and was watching as our lips parted and our tongues joined in each other’s mouths.
I dropped my hand from his back as he wrapped his arm around me to pull me closer, an attempt to bring our kiss deeper. And the moment I realized what was happening, what we were doing, I pulled away, abruptly breaking our kiss.
My hand was at my lips a second later.
“Shit,” he whispered, bringing his hand to his mouth to swipe down. “Damn, my bad.”
We were quiet for a few breaths. In my head, I was sorting through the thick of the emotions. Trying to wrap my mind around how the hell we’d gotten here.
“I’m not thinking straight,” he said. “I’m trippin’. I’m trippin’ so hard. I’m sorry.”
And maybe he was.
I had to be too because a second later, I was the one closing the space between us now, leaning into him, my face to his, pressing my lips back against his.
He moaned, his arm quickly wrapping around my waist as he not only kissed me back but also reclined us back onto his bed, him taking a position over me.
Lips parted and our tongues reunited after a short separation. And I melted under him, feeling his body pressed against mine as he caressed my tongue with his. His breath against my skin, his pulse beating with mine. It was insane that all of that was capable between us.
Honestly, I was wrecked with so many emotions. Grief, shock, insomnia. So much shit was bombarding my consciousness at one time every day since Kendra and Tyrell’s accident, that I just needed something, anything else to feel.
I was desperate for an escape. I needed more than a getaway. I wanted to run away from this supposed new norm neither of us asked for. I needed a heavy dose of anything to forget right now. Something Leo’s hands skating up the hem of my shirt to palm my breasts underneath provided.
I remember when Kendra returned to our dorm to let me know the guy she was dating had a friend, and we would double-date that night. Believing that the friend would have to be like her new guy Tyrell, I didn’t hesitate to agree to go out with them. Tyrell was responsible, attentive, and of course handsome. His friend had to be all those things too, I thought.
Within seconds of meeting him, I realized I couldn’t stand the friend, Leo. He was too goofy, constantly busting jokes, and just annoying.
