Leo Maddox (9 page)

But the weirdest part of the entire experience—in the end, I’d decided to purchase myself a season ticket too. I liked Paul. I even liked his outspoken brothers. I wanted an excuse to hang out with them again.
Did that make me just as bad as my father? Had I bought my friends in this instance?
I wasn’t exactly sure. But, as it happened, I’d grown close with the guys since that night.

When work didn’t interfere, I never missed a game. So today, when I didn’t have a clue what to do for Clara, I called Paul. I asked for his advice and he surprised me by rushing over to the hotel.

“Let me read the note you wrote,” Paul nodded to the paper in my hand. “Trust me. I get more ass than a toilet seat. I’ll tell you if it’s good or not.”

I chuckled. “You have a girlfriend. You liar.”

“I’m not a liar. I get to have sex with her every night—which is much more than you can say. So give me the note.”

“Fine,” I groaned, feeling strangely protective of my note. But I handed it over anyway.

Slowly, his dark eyes scanned down the sheet of paper. After way too many seconds, he finally said something. “It’s okay. I guess. Direct. To the point. Do you mean to sound so…
indifferent
?”

I swiped the note from his hands and reread it.

Clara and Stephany-

There's a Yankees game today at 1:05. Want to meet me there? Text me yes or no and I'll send a car to pick you up. If you already have plans, I understand.

Leo

Taking a deep breath, I decided that I
did
mean to sound indifferent. Last night I’d come on pretty strong and I didn’t want to make the same mistake today. That was the whole reason I was inviting Stephany too. “Yeah,” I said aloud. “Clara is… Clara’s different than most girls. I don’t want to scare her off. I just want to hang out with her.”

He nodded. “Then I think you’re golden. But after the game is over, if all goes well, then you should ask her to go out to eat with you or some shit like that.”

Jesus
. A date? Alone? Now
that
had my hands shaking.

“Anyway,” Paul said. “I’ve got to go. I’ll tell Tony and Charlie what’s up. They’ll be on their best behavior for you later at the game.”

“Thanks again for the tickets,” I told him. “I appreciate it more than you know.”

“Nah, without you, I wouldn’t even have the tickets in the first place. I don’t mind missing one game in the name of love.”

I laughed as I walked with him across the lobby. We said goodbye and then all there was left to do was have my box of baseball stuff delivered to Stephany’s apartment in Brooklyn.

* * *

C
lara never responded to my note.
What the hell?
After losing my cell phone for a couple hours and then finally finding it, I unlocked the home screen like a kid on Christmas. But I was sorely disappointed when I found that I had zero missed calls or texts from Clara. She’d completely ignored me.
Couldn’t she at least have texted me a simple ‘no thanks?
’ I even tried calling her, just to make sure everything was okay, but my call went straight to her voicemail. So after that wonderful kick straight to the balls—I didn’t know what to do with myself. But I wanted to get as far away from work as possible, so I decided to still go to the game.

But the game was pure fucking torture.

Paul and Richard weren’t there. That left me with Tony and Charlie—the younger and more rowdy of the four brothers. And I just wasn’t feeling social enough for them today. They laughed and joked like it was any other day, but I couldn’t seem to shake the disappointment off my shoulders.

That kiss with Clara had been amazing. Even if I hadn’t wanted her since I was six, it still would have been amazing. The way my body had fit against hers. The way my heart had felt like it might explode right out of my chest. I had expected a good kiss out of her, of course. But that kiss…that kiss had been something extraordinary—the stuff of fucking gods.
Did she feel nothing I had felt? My whole life, and especially last night, was I beyond delusional for wanting her like I did?

“Dammit, guys,” I suddenly voiced to the others and to two empty seats. “I need to get back to work before my dad realizes I’m missing.” I stood from my seat, not really worried about my father, but wanting an excuse to get the hell out of here.

Tony groaned. “That blows that she didn’t show. Sorry, Leo.”

I shrugged like it was no big deal. But it was a big deal. “It is what it is,” I told him. “I’ll be out of town for at least tomorrow’s game. Want me to send my ticket your way?”

“Sure.” Tony smiled. “I’ve got this cute little honey I’d love to bring on Monday.”

“Okay then. Later,” I told Tony and Charlie, putting on a smile but feeling like shit.

Then I left, marching up the stairs, ready to call it a day and to head home to lick my wounds. That was when I ran straight into an orange shirt.

And amazing purple hair.

Clara.

“You're here,” I stated, baffled but happy. She wore an orange shirt that I think a toddler might have scribbled on. Her purple hair fell in wavy locks around her shoulders. Her eyes were tired and her face frowning—but hell I was just happy she was here. My stressful day instantly became a whole lot less stressful.

“Of course I'm here,” she grunted, her gray eyes squinting out at the baseball field rather than making direct eye contact with mine. “I said I was coming, didn’t I? No thanks to you, by the way. We waited and waited for that car you said you would send, but it never came,” she rambled, speaking faster and faster as she went. “Then we were forced to take a taxi. I'm surprised we even made it at all. What the hell! Where are you going anyway? Are you leaving already?”

“Whoa,” I told her. “Slow down, killer. What?”

“Hi, Leo,” Steph said. I hadn’t even noticed her. Yet again. But suddenly she was there beside me. “Thanks for inviting me.”

“Hey, Steph,” I said back to her. “No problem. I'm glad you both came.” I shifted my focus back to Clara. “I told you to text and let me know what you were doing. When I never heard from you, I tried calling. Your phone was off so I assumed that meant you didn't want to hear from me. I should have sent the car—I would have, had I known you wanted to come. I should have sent it either way.”

“I texted you.
Then
my phone died. But I did text you.”

“Who cares, guys?” Steph interrupted. “Let's just go watch the game.” She turned and moved in the direction I’d come from a few moments ago, toward the waiting seats, but I didn't follow after her.

And neither did Clara.

I moved a step closer, forcing her to actually look at me. Yes, we’d kissed. So fucking what. The least she could do was look at me. “Clara,” I murmured. “Did you mean what you said yesterday?”

She swallowed hard, her eyes finally latching onto mine. At the contact, her pretty cheeks went pink. And suddenly I knew she meant it and my body started humming at the realization.

“I said a lot of things yesterday,” she whispered, deflecting. “It's hard to remember.”

I frowned. Dammit. I thought when I kissed her last night I’d broken down some of these barriers between us. I guess maybe I hadn’t done such a good job. “Just answer me, please,” I muttered as softly as possible.

“I know what I said to you last night, Leo. And...” She sighed midsentence and then finished her thought. “Yes,” she said firmly. “I meant what I said. Every word.”

My whole body shuddered. And it wasn’t even what she said that had me reeling. Well, yes, her words meant everything. But it was the way she looked at me after she said them. Her eyes were big and wide and waiting. She was looking for my acceptance—for me to reaffirm everything that had happened yesterday. For a moment, I couldn’t even respond. We were on the same fucking page…finally…

Then I glanced down at her shirt and immediately lost my train of thought. Her orange t-shirt
did
have scribble on it. It said ‘Jesus hates the Yankees’ in big black letters. And then, much to my increasing horror, she’d drawn the worst looking Jesus face anyone in existence has ever drawn. “Dammit, what are you wearing?” I demanded. “You have to take that off. Now.” Yankee’s fans had unequaled pride. And that shirt was just ridiculous and asking for it.

“You want me to strip down naked in front of thousands of people? Pervert,” Clara joked.

“I'm serious,” I groaned, moving aside to let a family pass us on the steps, trying to use my body as a shield from Clara’s horrible shirt as they went past. “You're going to get me slaughtered wearing that. Is that the idea? Is this your latest attempt at murder, killer?”

“Chill out. No one's said a single word to me yet.”

“
Yet
being the operative word in that statement. The Orioles are losing. That changes and I'm a dead man.”

Clara stopped arguing with me and stared at me intently. I realized I’d just given myself away. Unintentionally, and not in the way I’d wanted to, I’d given her that reassurance her eyes had been longing for a moment ago. I’d told her all over again how much I truly cared. Maybe she and I had a nasty habit of constantly arguing, but I’d beat anyone to a bloody pulp if they ever so much as looked at her funny. She should have already known that—but for the way she looked at me now, this was all new information to her.

Nervous out of my damn mind, I broke eye contact and glanced out at the baseball field. My hand rubbed at the back of my neck and I slowly exhaled—a tactic I used to give myself a moment to think and to calm down. But then I realized something and the new information slammed into me like a bullet to the chest. Clara knew I was a Yankee’s fan, or, at the very least, she had to assume I was since I was from New York. So, had she’d worn that shirt to annoy me
on purpose
?
Maybe this little arguing thing we did constantly—maybe at some point over the last two days, or even over the past couple years, it had shifted from actual aggression into something completely different. Something a whole lot sexier. Something that completely floored and surprised me.

It also gave me confidence. In general, I was a very confident person. But, like most things, that personality trait kind of went flying out the window when I was with Clara—but with each passing second, more and more, I got the impression that I wasn’t flying solo here with my feelings. That knowledge gave me back my self-assurance.

I moved up the final step separating us, narrowing my eyes down at her as she stared back at me. “You wore that shirt to purposely fuck with me,” I muttered. “Didn't you?”

“No,” she breathed out, seemingly rattled by words and very unconvincing.

“You enjoy fucking with me.” It wasn't a question. It was a statement. And my chest turned all gooey inside as I said it. “You have a funny way of flirting with me, Clara. One I never understood until just this moment.”

A strand of her hair fluttering across her face as she tried her best to glare at me. But it was a forced glare. “You're delusional and possibly narcissistic,” she retorted. “I wore this shirt because I hate the Yankees. It has nothing to do with you.”

“Keep telling yourself that, killer,” I said softly, moving a little closer to her.

Then gently, because I was scared out of my damn mind here, I brushed that loose strand of her hair out of her face. I tucked it carefully behind her ear. Immediately that pretty little mouth of hers shut up.

“Prove it to me,” I whispered, stealing her words from last night. I then cupped her face in my hands and planted one firm kiss on her lips before pulling away. “Prove to me you aren't toying with me,” I continued, “that you aren't leading me on like you did with Andrew Wellington, and I'm all yours, baby. All yours.”

I hadn’t meant for my words to sound sarcastic and I wasn’t even fully sure why I’d brought Fuckface Andrew into this. Maybe because it was hard to break old habits with Clara. Or maybe because my insecurities about her relationship with Andrew were trying to break free. So instead of saying anything more, I turned around and moved in the direction of our seats. Then over my shoulder I yelled, “Come sit with me.”

When I reached the very first row, I started shimmying toward the corner of the seating section.
Please follow me. Please follow me.
I repeated those words over and over in my head as I waited to see what Clara would do.

CHAPTER 9:

I
plopped down in my empty seat in the front row of our section. Stephany sat two seats over. Clara’s empty seat lingered between us.

“You should try
not
arguing with her,” she muttered.

“It’s hard,” I whispered back. “But I am trying.”

“Try harder.”

A second later, Clara was there. My feet were blocking her way and she was glaring at me. I hadn’t even realized I was in her way. I was about to stand to let her pass when suddenly she grabbed the sides of my seat and stepped one leg over my body. She ended up straddling my lap.