looked pretty great in the space, it was nothing compared to Leo’s mom’s touch in his apartment. I didn’t want to be unworthy of Leo. I wanted to show him how special he was and how much he meant to me, and that I’d go the extra mile in all respects for him.
Cleaning up was to show how much I valued his time and how much his good opinion mattered. I didn’t expect to entertain him in a cave of moving boxes and half unpacked clutter, so I’d busted my ass getting everything straight, and the couch was even mostly fixed.
I sent a glare in my oversized furniture’s direction. The movers had damn near broken the thing in half bringing it through a doorway that was too small when they should have used the door at the back that opened nearly the entire length of the wall and just carried it through, but that would have meant more walking.
Still, it meant Leo and I would get to go couch shopping on their dime, I guess.
That was if Leo wanted to go shopping with me. I hoped he wanted to go shopping with me. I hoped he wanted to be with me.
This date was my chance to show Leo everything we could be if he gave me a chance. If he thought I deserved one. Did I deserve a chance? Fuck, I hoped so.
I’d never stopped loving Leo. Never. And my last long-term relationship had ended… Shit. I barely even knew when it had ended.
Possibly it hadn’t even gotten started. There was a guy I called my boyfriend, but my heart was never in it. He just wasn’t Leo. And he wasn’t enough. Tendrils of guilt chilled me. I should have been kinder to Anson. But I’d used him to scratch an itch, to replace what I couldn’t have, for a warm body to be held by at night.
I snorted. Yeah, and Anson had known all of those things. He’d cheated on me with someone else—anyone else—every time I went away to work. Perhaps in the end we’d both been as bad as each other. I’d brought my memories of Leo and all he meant to me into our relationship, but Anson had brought actual other guys I could have gotten an STD from.
Neither of us had been honest, and neither of us regretted the end.
I lit a scented candle at one end of the room and played some slow, seductive music. Then I checked on the food. Everything was going perfectly to plan. My home was a perfectly serene oasis—completely opposite to my home with my parents, the one I’d never been able to share with Leo.
I swallowed against my anxiety. This was the first time he’d been in a space that was truly mine. It seemed like a big step, but I was more than ready to take it. I’d been ready for years—since the first time I’d accidentally called him cute.
I straightened one of the drapes, nervous energy bouncing me uselessly around the room like someone was controlling my movements with a pinball flipper. I straightened things that were already straight and wiped things over until the next pass of the cloth might wipe my belongings completely out of existence.
Eventually, I headed for a shower before choosing my clothes, but that left me with another dilemma—Leo hadn’t worn anything under his pants when we ate dinner at his house. Did I have those same balls, or would that suggest I was expecting too much from our date? I laughed at myself as I caught sight of my furrowed brow in the mirror. Apparently, the struggle was real.
And I was so nervous about fucking all of this up.
I didn’t deserve him. I just flat didn’t deserve him. And he still might give me a chance to try to win him back. Tears filled my eyes and I swiped them away. I wanted him back so badly.
And I was so nervous about fucking all of this up.
I headed back to the living room and stood close enough to the door that Leo wouldn’t have to wait long, but far enough away that I didn’t seem like the butler, whose sole job was to stand by the door and open it. I didn’t sit on the couch in case I made a dent in the perfectly arranged cushions.
When he knocked on the door, I counted three seconds as slow as I could and then I opened it, a big grin pretty