She also has the courtesy not to stare as I leave the room.
It’s not that I can’t walk, or that I look stupid. But I’m slower since the bullet. Since a surgeon’s knife took me apart and put me back together again. I spent two weeks in a hospital bed, just rotting; another three weeks at home, lying on the couch and hiding from a world that was desperate to know if my injury was, indeed, an accident. All the while, I micromanaged Lore Corp from my cell and laptop, tripping on painkillers and angry because I was Tuija-less. Fearing I might become Leo-less at any moment. Though I never did. She visited when Ash was at school, worked in tandem with Harvey at Lore Corp, and when I made my return to the office amid a sea of gossip and controversy, she was right at my side—even when I told her to fuck off, because misery does not love company. It loves nothing but the ache of the thorn in its side.
I thought, perhaps, she was merely grateful I’d lied to the police. Indebted. Afraid of this strange creature she’d saved.
Do you love me, Leo?
I try not to. I try not to!
I knew she’d stopped trying when she pushed a scalpel into my hand, begging me to just be Aeron again. And then, of course, I’d won. I let Leo back in because I trusted her, as far as I could ever reach to do so; she could never just walk away from me, not with the things I know about her or the way we seem oddly stitched together. But another assistant? Hire a stranger, without leverage?
What fucking planet is she on?
***
By the time I finish all the admin I have to do on top of everything else, it’s way past nine p.m. We broke the Blood Honey story; I stood in front of the twin screens in my office and let the buzz sink in. My newscasters were sullen, their eyes blank and glassy, and we featured the eccentric psychoanalyst from NYU with the crazy afro…it was perfect. Even if there’s no other murder, we’ll be picking this carcass for weeks. I’d be tempted to stay later, watch it all play out, but Leo is already waiting at my apartment; I sent Ash and Ethan away skiing this week, so she’s permitted. So rarely do I have her in my own space. Alone. In the dark.
Old wounds along my belly prickle at the thought of her in my kitchen, where she’ll stand over the stove in nothing but one of my shirts. She made a habit of this when nursing me; the sight of her bent just slightly was an excellent incentive to haul my ass off the couch.
All through the apartment, a film of smoke hangs in the air as if Leo left a trail in her wake. It spirals from the spitting griddle pan on the stove, where two fat steaks are already branded in patterns of ashy black. Leo lingers behind the refrigerator door, bathed in a halo of mellow gold; she stands on tiptoe to reach salad bags on the top shelf. When she turns, clad in a tailored white shirt of mine, her nipples are pebbled beneath the cotton. Cold body. Cold girl. Does she think now that I want this?
“You’re late,” she says, barely looking up as she positions herself by the chopping block and tears into a bag of lettuce.
“I had two hundred and forty-two emails to answer before I could leave.” I drop my bag on the glass table, step out of my loafers. Then I pad over to her, peer over her shoulder, wrap my arms around her waist. Draw her up close. Inhale, exhale. “Really. That exact number.” The contrast between the cool floor under my feet and the soft heat of her body, all pressed into mine, has my nerves coarse and sensitive; she stiffens when I drop my mouth to her throat, when I run my tongue along her skin until I find the firm rise of a vein.
She rolls her shoulders, making a show of pulling away from me. Maybe she still feels like she ought to. Or maybe she just knows how much it gets me off. “Is this how you played house as a kid? Because that’s just creepy.”
“I never played house.”