I got a drink and mingled a bit, finding a nice warm spot near the back. It was standing room only, and the crowd was ready to celebrate.
“Did you make any New Year’s resolutions?”
The voice was low in my ear, but I knew it in an instant. My heart burst like one of those fireworks. Filled with a dead guy. How appropriate. Something beautiful and shimmery and magnificent that fades away to ash, and then you realize it was made of something rather unpleasant. Leo was back.
Leo was back.
I could ignore him. Pretend I hadn’t heard, but I wasn’t a teenager. I didn’t need to play games. I just needed to be honest with him and ask him to take his questions and the rest of himself elsewhere. I turned to do just that, but I made the mistake of making eye contact, forgetting, somehow, just how blue and hypnotic his eyes were.
“What are you doing here?” I’d meant to sound standoffish and impersonal, so that tone of hopefulness in my voice was completely misplaced. I didn’t want him here. I didn’t want him back. But here he was. Standing before me cloaked in all his Leo-esque charm. He’d gotten a haircut and was clean-shaven, to better showcase his dimples, no doubt. So unfair.
“I’m here because I missed you and you won’t return my calls.”
I’d missed him, too. So much, but I’d stuffed that down, like the way you bank a fire. I knew the heat was down there, but from the surface, it just looked cold and gray, and I wasn’t prepared to admit anything to him. No stoking allowed.
“Um, I haven’t answered your calls because I don’t want to talk to you. We don’t have anything to say to each other.”
“I do. I need to tell you some things, Brooke. Will you at least listen?”
I didn’t want to. Not because I was mean or unforgiving but because I wasn’t. Truth be told, I had forgiven him. I’d forgiven Dmitri for a lifetime of deceit; I could certainly give Leo a pass for just doing his job. But telling him that would only complicate this misery. Because he didn’t live here. Because if the jewel thief issue hadn’t broken us apart, something else would have, but my hesitation in answering seemed to offer enough encouragement for him to continue.
“Christmas sucked,” he said. “And do you know why?”
“You got coal in your stocking?”
“No, it sucked because for the first time in years I had somebody I wanted to spend it with, and I couldn’t. Gina told me I should man up and get over it, but I realized something. I don’t want to get over it, Brooke. I don’t want to get over you. If missing you is all I have left of us, then I guess that’s what I’ll hang on to, but I’m hoping to turn things around.”
“Hey, kid,” Dmitri said, appearing at my elbow and handing me a much-appreciated gin and tonic. His interruption gave me a chance to absorb Leo’s words.
“Mr. Krushnic,” Leo answered. “It’s good to see you. Especially without the hat.”
“The hat served its purpose faithfully but has recently been retired. I find myself no longer needing it.”
Leo raised his bottle of beer in a toast. “I’m glad to hear that, and speaking of retirement, you might be interested to know that I escorted an old friend of yours back to his previous place of residency. He’ll be living there for quite some time, I’d imagine. Sort of a forced retirement from the glamorous life he’d aspired to.”
He meant Mick, of course, and I couldn’t deny the sense of relief I felt at hearing that he was back in prison. I don’t think he ever would have shot me, but in the weeks since that incident I’d woken up more than once from the grip of a nightmare in a cold sweat. Ironic, really. The most dramatic moment of my life, and I couldn’t even tell anyone. Just like I couldn’t tell anyone the real reason Leo had left so suddenly. Now he was back, and here we all were, chatting like friends on the surface while underneath my emotions were churning and erupting like an active volcano.
“I also delivered that package you were holding on to, and the recipient was very happy to get it back,” Leo said.
Dmitri smiled. “So I gathered. She sent a note of appreciation to the mayor.”