“Hi,” I greet him softly, opening the door before he can knock.
“Jesus, how do you get more beautiful each time I see you,” he mutters as he keeps walking toward me, scooping me up into his arms in the doorway and planting a kiss on my lips.
He sets me back down on my feet, pulls his mouth away from mine, and looks down at me with a soft smile.
“Hi,” he says, finally returning my initial greeting. “How was your day?”
I move out of his arms and step out of the way so he can come inside, closing the door behind him.
“Oh, nothing too eventful. I got a box of amazing coffee mugs from this hot guy I know, and then the entire town decided to stop by, bring me food, and tell me they don’t hate me anymore. You know, the usual,” I answer with a shrug.
“A hot guy gave you coffee mugs? Wow, he must be pretty awesome,” Leo replies with a grin.
“Jesus, you’re just like Emma Jo. Focusing in on the least shocking part of whatever I say,” I complain.
Leo laughs, cupping my face in his hands and kissing the tip of my nose.
“I’m sorry, you’re right. Having the entire town decide they don’t hate you is a big deal. I heard all about Emma Jo’s announcement on the town square. How’s she doing?” he asks.
“Oh, she’s perfectly fine. She couldn’t care less that all of her secrets are currently being spread all over town and everyone will be pointing at her and whispering about her for the next fifty years,” I mutter in irritation.
“Okay, let me rephrase that. How are you doing since Emma Jo told the whole town what Jed did to her?” Leo asks softly, rubbing his thumbs back and forth against my cheeks, and making me feel like a jerk, though I know he didn’t mean to.
“I know, I get it. I have no right to be upset about any of this. It’s Emma Jo’s life, it happened to her and it’s her choice whether or not she wants one person or five hundred to know what kind of hell she lived through for twelve years. I just never wanted her to put herself out there like that, especially not for me,” I admit quietly, looking away from his eyes to stare at the collar of his t-shirt.
“What do you mean, especially not for you? What’s wrong with someone doing something for you for a change?”
“Why should she do anything for me?” I fire back, bring my hands up between us to pick imaginary lint from his shirt. “I was a shitty friend to her for twelve years, and I had no idea what was going on back here because I didn’t want to know. I left and I didn’t look back, and I didn’t care.”
Leo sighs, putting more pressure on the hold he has of my face to tilt it up and force me to look at him.
“Just because you think you were a bad friend, doesn’t mean you should have to deal with the whole town blaming you for a murder you didn’t commit, Payton. It’s insane and I’m sorry, but I’m glad Emma Jo told everyone. I know it was hard for her, and I know she’ll have a long road ahead of her to heal from all of this, but as you saw today, the people here…they’re good people. They take care of their own and they’re going to take care of Emma Jo and protect her, just like you did.”
For some ungodly reason, it seems like I still have tears left and they quickly fill up my eyes and spill over onto my cheeks, where Leo’s thumbs swipe them away one by one as they fall.
“Uuugghhh, I hate crying. Crying is so dumb. Tell me about your day,” I demand, pulling away from him so I can stand in front of the hall mirror, wipe my own cheeks and get my shit together, considering I need to prepare myself to come clean about the award.
“Well, you’re not the only one who had an eventful day,” he says, coming up behind me and watching through the reflection as I dry my tears and wish I could be a pretty crier, like women in movies. “It seems poor Buddy had his hands full after Emma Jo’s announcement when the whole town filed into the station and every one of them confessed to Jed’s murder.”
My eyes meet his in the mirror, and when I see he’s not kidding, I whirl around to face him.
“What? Are you serious?”
Leo laughs, but it’s not really one filled with humor. It leans more toward exhaustion and frustration, which is evident when he runs his hand through his hair in his signature “I’m about to lose my shit” move.
“Dead serious,” he replies, then quickly winces. “Sorry, bad choice of words. So, yeah, everyone rallied around you and confessed to the murder because they felt bad about blaming you now that they know you came home to help Emma Jo and the reasons why. And I can’t take any of those people seriously which means I still don’t have a prime suspect, a reason for the murder, or a murder weapon.”
My heart starts beating faster and my palms start to sweat as soon as he says murder weapon. I glance over at the empty hall table and my stomach immediately gets tied in knots.
“Leo, I-”
He moves in the blink of an eye, swooping me back up in his arms and cutting off my words with his mouth. Just like every time he kisses me, I lose all sense of reason and I lose myself in him. He deepens the kiss and lifts me up against him, my legs automatically wrapping around his waist as he moves us through the house, stopping at the base of the stairs to break the kiss.
“Whatever you were going to say, can it wait until tomorrow?” he asks, hefting me up higher with one arm and bringing the other one up to smooth his palm down the side of my face. “This has been a shitty day, at the end of a shitty week, and right now, I don’t want to think about murderers or the meddling people of Bald Knob. I don’t want to think about anything for the next ten to twelve hours but getting you naked as fast as possible, sinking myself inside of you, and forgetting about everything else around us. Right now, I just need you, Payton.”