Smother (25 page)

“And how is that?”

He glanced at her. “Alone. Useless. Unloved. Lost. You feel like nothing, so you think you deserve the same. But you’re wrong,” he quietly added.

Her chest squeezed and she looked down the street, toward the coffee shop. “I feel like . . . I don’t know.” Reese didn’t know how to explain her thoughts in a rational manner. She’d never been good at expressing anything other than anger. “Knowing that you were around, I feel like I wasn’t as alone as I thought I was. So even though it didn’t help then, or even matter, it does now. Do you know what I mean?”

“I do.”

“Do you own the apartments or does my dad?”

“Me.”

“Why would you want to own an apartment building, of all things? What is the purpose of that? What do you get out of it? I mean, besides headaches and rent?”

His jaw shifted.

Reese thought of the residents and herself. Most of them didn’t seem to have much and a lot of them were elderly or young. She fixed her gaze on him. “I know what you’re doing.”

Leo looked at her, the lone lifted eyebrow telling her he was doubtful of that.

“The rent is disgustingly cheap. You fix everything around the place, whether you should or not. You supply all the appliances. It’s your whole . . .” She gestured to him, waving her hands and up down. “ . . . chivalrous thing you got going on. You’re helping people. You’re like a Florence Nightingale of tattoo shops or something.”

“Yes. Exactly that.” They turned down the street that led behind his shop.

“Does my father have anything to do with it?”

He hesitated, and then shook his head. “No. I know you’re looking for something from him, but I don’t think you’ll find it.”

“I’m not,” Reese protested quickly, adding immediately, “Maybe subconsciously.”

Leo unlocked the Durango and gestured for her to get in. She did.

Once inside and buckled, Reese glanced at his profile. “I should be upset with you. Whatever your intentions were, you still spied on me for years. Even saying that out loud makes it sound creepy and wrong.”

He turned the key, his jaw angled with stone.

“But all I feel is grateful.” A lump formed in her throat, making it hard to swallow. She searched her brain for something to fill the silence that followed.

“My mom told me my dad picked out my name. He loved ‘Reese’s Pieces.’ You ever have those?” Reese didn’t give him a chance to answer. “I used to eat them all the time. Then I stopped. It made me feel better, which was stupid.”

She blinked her eyes and looked at her gloved hands. She didn’t know why she supplied that tidbit with him. It had no significance on anything, other than to show how a child thought she could get revenge against an absent father by dissing his favorite candy.

“My full name is Leonardo, after the painter.”

Reese smiled. “It fits. They must have known you were made for greatness.”

Hand on the gearshift, he slowly turned his head so his eyes could meet hers. Sadness was etched into the hard slope of his eyebrows, with self-reproach following close behind. His eyes glinted silver and the softness of his mouth showed how vulnerable he really was. Mixed in with the bruises that should not be there, looking at him made all of her ache for this side of Leo.

“That’s the last thing I am.”

“Not to me.”

Leo’s eyebrows lifted as shadows fell away from his face. When he wasn’t frowning or glaring at her, she could see, how even though his features weren’t all that noteworthy, his face had beauty to it. The open, raw look in his eyes caused darkness to slide away from her perception of him in chunks of mud and dirt. Leo was awash in the wonder of clarity, and it was strikingly clean.

“Don’t look at me like that,” she breathed. Reese couldn’t handle it. It was too much. Too much feeling. Too much of Leo.

He averted his face and she wanted to take her words back. She didn’t. Instead she reached over and gave the back of his hand the barest of touches. He didn’t react, and that was okay. Sometimes the simplest, smallest gestures were big enough to wipe away the bad.

When Reese couldn’t take the silent drive any longer, she asked, “Where are we going anyway?” She nervously took off her gloves and tapped her fingers on the door handle.

“Just driving.”

“So just wasting gas?”

He parked the car alongside the road on the outskirts of town. Leo turned to her, studying her face in such fine detail that it made her nervous. “I have something to show you.”

“Is this the part where you suddenly have a knife within your possession and I run into a forest?”

“You must watch too many horror movies.” He got out and walked down a narrow, gravel road. The farther he walked, the more trees surrounded him, obscuring him from view.

Reese stared after him, blinking in the white of the reflective snow. She got out of the vehicle, immediately shivering in the icy air. If she was moving, she wouldn’t be so cold, and that was why she followed him. Curiosity or a need to be around him had nothing to do with it.

“My life is a mess,” she said as they walked, not sure why she told him something he obviously already knew.

Leo acted like she hadn’t said a single word. It made her want to talk more instead of less.

“I keep ruining everything.”

He squinted at her, quick to face forward when her eyes went to meet his.

“I don’t know how to stop.” She stepped over an uneven patch of ground and stumbled before steadying her stride.

“Say no.”

Reese blinked at him, not sure what that meant. “What?”

“No is a very powerful word, and you have the right to say it. Tell them no, tell yourself no. You’re in control, no one else. Not the past, nothing but you. Say no.”

“I don’t feel like I deserve that power.”

“Then you’ll never have it.”

“What happens,” she began slowly, “when you say no, and it doesn’t change anything?”

Leo lowered his face from her view. A full minute passed before he looked up. “Then you at least know you aren’t okay with it. And there is power in that as well.”

“What happened to you?” Reese whispered.

“I didn’t have any living relatives suitable to care for me after my parents died. I was moved around a lot in the foster care system. Some places were okay, but I was never at those for long.”

He stared at the fingers of his right hand, the fingers clenching and unclenching. The hand was etched in pale marks, a picture of old pain. “I wasn’t wanted, or I was, but for the wrong reasons. I stood up for myself when I wasn’t treated right. I was moved, every time. No one cared why I acted out, blamed it on me losing my parents. Made excuses. Kept it all quiet.”

Her stomach dipped and filled with nausea, and she feared she knew where this story was going. It was an unoriginal one—one she knew, one she’d lived.

“Bruises and scars were normal.” His mouth went into a thin line. “None of that was as bad as the last place.”

Reese moved for him, putting a hand to his lips and staring into the tormented gray depths of his eyes. “Don’t. You don’t have to tell me anything.”

He took her hand and gently squeezed it before letting it go. “He’s dead now.”

“Was my father—did he do it? You said he was dangerous.” Her lips were frozen, but somehow the words got out.

He shrugged, turning his gaze down as he replied, “I know you don’t understand, but he took me in and helped me when I needed it most. He lives by a code and there are laws. If laws are broken, repercussions follow. That’s how it is.”

It wasn’t an answer, but it was.

Reese nodded, looking away. She didn’t believe in what little she knew of her father’s world. He was nothing to her and she hoped he became nothing to Leo as well. It was safer for him that way. Vengeance could not be a mantra to live by. Neither could be blame, she decided, lowering her eyes. If she wanted to be happy, if she wanted any kind of an enjoyable life, she had to let go of the past.

“How do you forget?” she wondered.

“You don’t.”

Inhaling shakily, Reese admitted, “I guess that’s what my problem’s been. I’ve wanted nothing more than to forget.”

He began walking again. “Not too much farther now.”

“Leo?”

Leo paused to look at her.

“You’ve been through bad things.”

He nodded, waiting for her to continue.

She swallowed, not sure what she was trying to say, or asking.

He seemed to know, telling her, “I’ve been through bad, but also good. Can’t let one outshine the other.”

“Is there a point to this drive and walk?” she huffed, picking up the pace as tears pricked her eyes.

“Not really. Just wanted company. I like walking here.”

She stared at the tree-lined path. “Where does it go?”

“Nowhere.”

“It just stops?”

“The trail goes into a forest. Haven’t been that far yet.”

The air was crisp and clean with the scent of pine needles. Snow crunched under their boots as they walked, the sound of it hypnotic. In a rare exchange of roles, Leo was the one to break the silence as he offered information about himself.

“My mom was Irish and my dad was Mexican.” He glanced at her. “They were great parents—Cal and Marissa Chavez. Obviously, I take after my mom in looks.” A grin could be heard in his voice. “Dad ran the grocery store in town and my mom did the bookkeeping, always making sure she was home before I was.”

It was hard to take the emotion in his coarse voice. She’d gotten used to the controlled blankness Leo exuded at all times. Anything to the contrary was shocking.

“I can still hear them, in my head. His deep voice, her happy laughter. Used to pretend they were with me when I was in foster care. It helped some.”

Leo rubbed the back of his head, staring straight ahead. Reese could see the outline of pain in his profile. He swallowed and glanced at her, a slice of gray eyes her way. She carefully, hesitantly, found his hand. He threaded his fingers through hers, and they continued to walk, this time both of them quiet.

After Reese left home, she didn’t have much money and either stayed with friends or boyfriends as she worked various jobs and led the destructive life of someone untethered and lost. Her apartment was the first place she’d lived in alone, and sometimes the barrenness of it drove her mad. It never really felt like hers. She didn’t think she’d miss it when she was gone, but she would miss that connection to Leo.

The sun was shining on the day she looked at the house, and she decided to take that as a good sign. The yard was bigger than she’d had growing up, a short white fence surrounding it and two large maples standing as bare sentinels in the snow-covered ground. She imagined them protecting her against all the bad things, keeping vermin out of the yard and out of her mind. It was a trivial thought, but it made her content.

It was a small yellow house with white trim and a matching tin roof. The sun glinted off it, blinding her and making it appear to shimmer like a magical abode. A smile curved Reese’s mouth as she walked toward it, thinking of the colorful flowers she could plant around the house in the spring, if she was still here and it was allowed.

She’d never thought of things like that before. That made her sad, but also hopeful. Maybe she could do this. Reese hugged herself as she walked, breaths leaving her in white clouds of air. It wasn’t a lonely hug—it was an encouraging one. It was the new her hugging the old her. Telling her she wouldn’t leave her, she wouldn’t forget, but she could be strong too.

A red-faced lady with a bright smile and curly brown hair opened the door and greeted her, waving with both arms as she called out, “Hello! You must be Reese. Come in, come in. It’s cold out.” Her voice was friendly and Reese felt herself responding to that.

She carefully stepped inside, the temperature inside warmer than outside, but not by much. It had the freshly cleaned smell of synthetic apples.

“I have the heat turned down to fifty when no one’s renting the place,” the lady explained. She was rotund and dressed in a purple sweater and tan slacks. Reese guessed her to be in her sixties. She offered a hand. “We talked on the phone. I’m Nina Proctor.”

“Reese Ward,” she supplied unnecessarily and shook the woman’s dry hand.

Nina gestured to the room, bringing the scent of lavender Reese’s way. “So this is the kitchen. Most of it’s updated. Appliances, other than a washer and dryer, are already here, as you can see. The refrigerator and stove were put in a year ago. There are washer and dryer hookups in the basement if you ever want to have your own.”

She absently nodded and turned in a slow circle. Her heart repeatedly clenched and released, making her pulse race and her palms shaky. Reese’s eyes tripped over white walls and floors, not seeing a bare room, but instead envisioning what could be. The room wasn’t that big, but the layout was optimal for limited space.

Maybe she could paint the walls, get a table and a few chairs for the corner nook. Maybe even try her hand at cooking? She discarded that last thought, knowing the chances of that were slim. She liked easy food and couldn’t remember attempting any kind of recipes other than for chocolate chip cookies. Reese wasn’t a cook.