3. Predictable, Typical

Leonie

“Please excuse my brother,” Issy groaned, sitting beside me and nursing her own glass of coke and rum. “He’s…”

She froze when he gave her a death stare, jaw tight, eyes dark.

“She’s going to find out eventually.”

“I’ll find out what?” I asked softly. I’d seen anger in his features before; often, I was at the brunt of it, but there was a glint of something else. He was imploring her to be quiet.

“They broke up,” Issy said simply. “And Mia is a bitch.”

Mia wasn’t really my friend. She was Issy’s, which made her my friend by association. She was a little too bitchy, a little too loud for me.

She reminded me of the friends at school Issy still met up with.

When it came to her relationship with Dom, though… I’d known the breakup was coming. I’d pretended I didn’t. But I did.

Something gnawed at me whenever Issy had invited Mia out with us over the last few weeks. She hadn’t been her usual self. She kept her phone screen down and almost winced whenever Dom was mentioned.

“And…uh, why is Mia a bitch?”

Dom was breathing heavily through his nose, staring into his vodka.

“She, er,” Issy started, looking cautiously over at her brother still perched on the arm of the chair, “she slept with someone else.”

He glared at her. He had never looked at her like that.

“Don’t downplay it, sister. Tell her how it really was. If you’re going to air my dirty laundry, at least get it bone fucking dry.”

Is went to comfort him, reaching out, but he waved a dismissive hand and downed his drink.

“She… was sleeping with someone else.”

I gave a nod.

She continued, “And I’m going to kill her.”

No matter how drunk they were, you didn’t take a threat from a Belov like this with a pinch of salt. The family was rarely involved with the dodgy business anymore, but they were still feared. Their name was enough for wise people to tremble.

All Issy had to do was go out to the car park where Rocco and Andy would be watching our apartment block, request her death, and it would be done, all evidence destroyed before sunrise.

When the vibration sounded in the air, I jumped out of my skin, clutching my silent phone to my chest. It was his ringing, not mine.

“Again?” Issy groaned and went to take it from his iron grip as he rejected the call. “If she phones you one more—”

And she did. Immediately.

Issy went for the phone again, and, with a sigh, Dom released it.

His sister threw it to her ear. “Listen here, Mia, there’s a reason none of us are picking up—”

She was up and walking to her bedroom. Dom sat back in her seat, his hand over his face.

I couldn’t help but glance at him. Mia had cheated on him? I couldn’t quite get over the news. He was the untrustworthy one, he was the fickle one. I had first-hand experience of that.

I would have expected him to cheat on her.

“Tough night?” I asked and made for the new bottle of wine. It was still cold, condensation dripping down the label.

As the seal cracked open, he dragged his hand down his face, eyes locked on the bottle, cocking a brow. “Tough night?” he shot back.

“I don’t know what you mean,” I said, the glug of wine being poured the only sound as his brow shot up an extra inch.

“Second bottle of the night. Not quite like the Friday nights you’ve been having recently. Some might say those posts have been a quarter-life crisis.”

God, what a prick.

“You’ve been cheated on as well now,” I said, lifting my glass to him in celebration. “Welcome to the club. You’ll be as pitiful as me in a couple of weeks.”

His brows came down, eyes darkening. “Who the fuck cheated on you?”

I just shrugged. We didn’t need a repeat of the bike sheds. Not that he would care enough anymore.

He’d brutally beat up Sam Yun because of my relationship with Issy. It was only by association, not our past friendship at that point.

“Leonie. Who. The fuck. Cheated. On. You? Was it Jared?”

“It doesn’t matter anymore,” I said and took a larger sip than usual. “I’m sorry Mia turned out to be a bitch.”

His gaze remained on me, though I busied myself with the book on my lap as if I was actually reading it.

“Those don’t suit you,” he said and nodded towards me.

I lifted the lapel of my flannel pyjama top. “These?”

He nodded, that disgusted grimace on his face. “They’re wrong on you. You didn’t buy them.”

“And how would you know that?”

“You don’t wear flannel cotton pyjamas.”

I blinked and gave a breathy laugh. “And how on earth would you know what I wear to bed?”

He leaned over to refill his drink, the vodka making the ice clink in his glass. He sat back and took a long sip, his throat moving up and down with the swallow. “You sleep naked. I know your type.”

Drunk. He had to be drunk. Dom didn’t flirt, but his tone wasn’t playful. He was… frustrated. “I bet the fucker that cheated on you bought them for you. He wanted you covered up while he went and fucked someone else. He clearly doesn’t know you.”

“And you do?” I asked, before pressing my lips to the glass as if I was going to drink. I had to have my mouth around something. Needed it busy before I said something I shouldn’t.

Once, he had known me far better than anyone else. Even Issy. Once, before he stuck the knife in when I needed him the most, he had been everything.

“Better than you would think,” he said, his glazed eyes on the TV. The next film started automatically.

It was then that my phone went off. Mia’s face lit the screen with a mojito in her hand. I turned it around to Dom, and he only shrugged again. “Answer if you want. She’s your friend.”

“Not really,” I said. “She’s Issy’s.”

His eyes flickered to the top of my screen. “Who’s Do Not Answer?”

I rejected the call and snatched the phone to my chest again as he grinned.

“They want to taste you one last time.”

I groaned and slouched down, resting my wine on my chest as I heard Issy in her room, clearly finished with her call.

But his voice lowered as he faced me fully. “You going to let them?”

“Let them what?” I said, laughing awkwardly to try and break some of the tension that was clearly only in my mind.

“Taste you.” He swirled his glass, looking me up and down in my stupid, stupid pyjamas. Despite how covered I was, I felt so very seen. “Their name would suggest they’re not worth your time. That they screwed you over. Yet, here you are, hesitating.”

“I—I’m not.” I tried to give my voice strength. Tried and failed.

“Hmm,” was the only noise he made before downing the vodka again.

If I did that, I would be retching, throwing up. I would have already passed out.

“So what pizza do we want to get?” Issy asked as she came into the room, having removed her makeup, a towel over her shoulder.

Dom gave her a dull look and reached for the vodka again.

“I thought you didn’t want to talk about it,” she said with a shrug.

“I want to hear that she grovelled.”

And right about now, I wanted to disappear. This was too intimate a moment for me to stay.

“Oh, she grovelled alright,” Issy said, sitting on his other side and grabbing her drink. “Wanted to know where we were. I told her we’d gone to our parents for the weekend so she won’t be coming around here. I said she needed to get her shit out of your house before we come back on Monday.”

He gave a nod, and his grip tightened around his glass. “We’re going to have to co-parent.”

I nearly choked on my wine, almost spluttering it back into the glass. “Parent?” I wheezed.

Humour flooded Dom’s eyes as his mouth twitched.

Issy was grinning at me. “Fear not, he means the cat.”

“Ghost,” he said quickly, as if insulted she would call him ‘the cat’. From what I’d heard, he cared for nothing else like he did the feline. “What else?”

Is cleared her throat before putting on a whiny voice, “Please just make him talk to me. Please. He doesn’t know everything. I need to talk to him.” She took a long drink, then said normally, “To which I said that no one forced her to send those texts, those pictures or fuck anyone. And that no one can make you do anything. Especially not her, not anymore.”

He nodded in agreement. “It’s been over for a while anyway.”

“Eh?” I found myself asking.

“In my head, we’ve been over for a while. I haven’t been attentive, hoping she’d end it.”

Issy and I shared a quick glance, eyes wide.

“You’re staying here until Monday,” Issy said quickly. “You can take my room and I’ll go in with Leonie.”

“Fine with me,” I said, hesitating to look at the text that came through to my phone. Through my lashes, I saw Dom look over, too.

“Or we can go into my room?” she continued. “I have a king-sized bed.”

DO NOT ANSWER: Just one more night. Let me taste you one last time.

DO NOT ANSWER: Are you already with someone else? Cosy night in with a new man? So soon, Leonie.

“Yeah,” I said without thinking, my stomach churning.

There had been no one else. I’d contemplated texting Sam Yun — we’d been on and off since I was sixteen — but couldn’t put myself out there after two years.

“Right. That’s sorted,” she said, patting her thighs and standing. “I’m getting in the shower. Order my usual, please, Leo.”

And, again, she left me and Dom alone.

“What’s he said?” he asked, shuffling an inch closer.

“Nothing,” I said and opened up the internet on my phone. “What pizza do you want?”

He grabbed his wallet from his back pocket and chucked me his card. “Anything with a barbeque sauce base.”

I placed the book on the oak coffee table and scrolled through to order the food. I gave him my phone for him to pick his own pizza. He’d only question whatever I picked, even if it was exactly what he wanted.

But then he lifted the phone higher, gave a large grin and started typing away. It took me a moment to question him, taken aback by the smile again.

“What on earth are you doing?”

He dramatically tapped the screen once and handed it back over. “Answering Mr Do Not Answer.”

My heartbeat amped up as my breaths shallowed. Before me were our texts, the picture Dom had just taken at the bottom above the sign that it had been delivered. And read.

Jared’s question asking if I was with a new man so soon was high on the screen.

LEONIE: Wasn’t soon enough.

I gripped the phone tight. Fuck sake. Trying to keep him onside, desperate to please, hadn’t been easy. I hadn’t put years into this for Dom to ruin it in one text.

And Jared despised Dom.

“What the fuck have you done,” I mumbled.

He reached his arm along the back of the sofa, his hand twirling a strand of hair at my nape that had escaped my hair tie. Despite the anger, I still felt the tingle of his touch.

Wrong. He’d fuck me over like he did all those years ago.

“I saved you from making a mistake.”

You’re the mistake.

But with his fingers still in my hair, I wanted to make the mistake. Wanted his hand to knot in my hair and pull me to him.

When I didn’t respond, he looked at me with a smirk. “Come on now, you would have regretted getting back with him for one night.”

“You think I’m above a one-night stand?” I snapped. “It would be better than a stranger. He’d know how to make me come.”

That damn eyebrow raised again. Over the last six months, I’d forgotten the effect he could have on me. For Mia’s sake, I’d pushed it down for the last year, avoiding him the best I could. But now with the wine, with him so close…

I couldn’t risk Issy. I couldn’t risk the Belovs.

“Many men could make you come,” he chuckled, watching his fingers twirl the strand of hair. His mouth was inches from mine. “But you and all of your feelings would get in the way of it being just one night.”

The Belovs are your only family left.

I threw the cushion at his face. He lifted it off with his finger and thumb and a casual grace that shouldn’t be possible.

“You don’t know me. You’ve tried your hardest to not know me over the last ten years.”

“You’re easy to know. Predictable. Typical.”

The next thing I would throw at him would be my wine.

“Tell me,” he started and lifted my chin with one finger. His touch was warm and cast a shiver down my spine. I tried to keep my face as nonchalant as possible. “Were you really reading ‘Erotic Intelligence: How to Pleasure Yourself’ or was it just a quick grab so you looked like you weren’t waiting for me to walk through the door?”

When I didn’t answer, his finger traced my jawline. “Do you need help in that department? Is that why you were considering going to him?”

Pushing away his finger, I exclaimed, “I wasn’t considering going to him!”

But maybe I was. It would be an easy fuck. One he’d put work into to gain me back, which would undoubtedly be enjoyable.

Dom always left an electric current in my veins. One I needed to unleash with someone else.

“Hmm.” He sat back again, looking up at the ceiling.

“Even if I was, it’s not your business. Don’t tell me you wouldn’t go and have break-up sex with Mia.”

He rolled his head on the back of the sofa to face me, considering. “I might. But it would only be to get some frustration out.”

“Because she broke you?”

He snorted. “No woman could break me.”

“You’ve sure drank like a broken man.”

His smile was soft as he reached for that strand of hair again. Tired and a bit drunk, I let him. “She never had the power to break me. That’s mine to give. I’m here, tipsy, because I’m fucked off that she didn’t just end it with me, but decided to be a coward and now I look weak. I didn’t give her the power to break me, but I gave her the power to impact my reputation. I misjudged her.”

Issy and I had clearly done the same.

“That’s what we do when we’re in love,” I mumbled and let my head fall back, trapping his hand under my neck. For a moment he was still, then his thumb stroked my skin.

“Love,” he scoffed. “Did you love Jared?”

Now it was my time to consider. I focused on his touch, knowing once we were both sober in the morning, this would never be addressed again. It couldn’t be. “I think I did. But the last couple of months have brought a… a clarity to my mind.”

“A clarity,” he repeated. “Also known as frustrated chastity?”

“Not everything is about sex, you know.”

“Most things are.”

My phone rang and there was a split second where I considered staying, his touch relaxing, arousing. But already knowing who it was, I stood and ran to my room without looking back. I picked up the call as I closed the door behind me. “Yes?” I asked shortly.

“The hell are you doing with Dominic Belov?” Jared raged. “If you are fucking him—”

“I’m not,” I hissed. “He’s drunk. You know I hate him.”

He didn’t speak, only breathed loudly down the phone.

“Was I in the photo? No. He thought he was funny.”

And the second I paused to think, I realised I was getting defensive.

“Though it is none of your concern who I’m—”

“We’re not over,” he stated. “We’ll never be over. Make life easier for yourself and just come around. Give in to what we both know will happen eventually.”

For the last two months, I’d kept my distance, only letting him have the slightest hope we would get back together.

Enough that, if I asked for the unthinkable, he might do it to get me back.

But I wasn’t proud enough to pretend I didn’t miss his skin on mine. I missed the way he touched me. I missed sex.

Unlike what Dom said, I could do one night. Then never again.

This way, I would end it. My terms. His begs. My rejection. His loss.

I needed control over something tonight.

“I’ll come over later,” I said, my voice curt.

“What? When you’re done with Dominic? I don’t think so. Come over now.” His voice softened. “Please, Leonie, I need you now. Let me beg you to stay with me. Let me beg with my tongue.”

It wasn’t entirely to do with what he said but also how Dom had the hairs on the back of my neck standing. I needed to release some of this tension.

One more time.

I had to keep him on side after all.

“I’ll get to you when I get to you.”

And I hung up.