Keeping Him Longer

LEONARD:

The instruction was to grant his requests, but not let him leave the hotel. I didn’t want him out, not only to protect him from hungry reporters but to prevent this exact kind of collapse: him pulling me into a whirlpool of anxiety and shock.

My hotel management would pay for putting me in this state of helplessness and breathlessness.

“Should I let him in?” Tracey asked.

He was already inside, slipping his cap from his head.

Eric stood behind Tracey, and even as I looked past her, she hadn’t noticed.

I couldn’t blame her. Eric looked like a walking ghost. With his dull eyes, pale lips and a too-thin frame, he was hardly visible.

He wore a full male outfit—simple, casual—but disarmingly beautiful: a soft linen shirt with sleeves slightly rolled. The fabric clung just enough to hint at his slender body without flaunting it. Nothing about him screamed for attention, yet I found him seductive. Even the slim leather bracelet at his wrist seemed to whisper something personal, an intimate message. ‘I want you.’

What the heck.

“Leonard,” he murmured at the door.

Tracey turned, glanced at me—my stare fixed on Eric—muttered something I didn’t catch, and stamped her heels out of my office.

“I…brought you lunch,” he added softly.

My scribbled warning was clear: ‘The next time I see a flask will be the last time you see him.’

I’d told him to keep deliveries and deliverymen away from my company. Yet here he was, clutching a lunchbox and his cap like they were the pillars of his small life.

I rose. Gasps rippled outside my office as Eric stepped back, shrinking. Through the blinds, I felt staff gawking, mouths agape. When I looked at them, they sprang into action.

I closed the blinds, walked past the fidgeting Eric, shut the door, and stood behind him.

“I thought I made it clear I do not want to see you or your food.”

He turned carefully so we faced each other at a small distance. “The note said you don’t want to see the flask or the deliveryman.”

“Why are you here?” I snapped.

“I brought you—”

“Lunch,” I finished. “Why are you here, Eric?”

“I needed to see you.”

“To ask for more forgiveness?”

“Leonard…”

His voice trailed as I walked back to my desk and leaned against it, trying to steady myself…to hide my shaking hands. I was nervous. My heart was beating louder than a choir band.

Eric turned back to face me.

I noticed the bruise on his neck had faded as if it had never been there; the mark on his wrist was gone, too. Relief washed over me. Living with that memory had been brutal. Good, the bruises were gone…Maybe I could stop thinking about him so constantly.

“What can I do to make you forgive me?” he asked.

Staring at him, I had to admit that the nerd wasn’t the only fickle one. Eric was, too. Still, it didn’t feel abnormal to see him in a softer feature like it was with the nerd.

“Leonard?”

I heard him. What could he do? Even if I forgave him, what would change?

“I can disappear if that’s what it takes,” he added pleadingly. “I’ll leave Sierra tonight, and you will never see me again.”

I said nothing. My head was a mess.

“Should I go?” His voice cracked; he sounded on the verge of tears.

But then… he just put me into another haze. Should he go?

I could have ordered him out of Sierra, like I’d wanted days ago. But I didn’t. I wanted him here until I decided how severely he would pay for what he’d done to my reputation… to my heart.

“I don’t want to go, Leo. Please, let me stay and make it up to you.”

“How?” The word slipped out before I could stop it.

He looked stunned, maybe because I sounded calm, or because he hadn’t planned how to redeem himself.

“I will do anything,” he said.

This is the moment I should smirk and say, ‘Anything, huh?’. But this isn’t fiction—it’s me, in my office, standing in front of Eric, baffled and clueless.

I cleared my throat. “I don’t want you doing anything. I want you gone. Until the ruckus is under control, get out of Sierra for good.”

He could leave tonight. He’d come here without being torn apart by reporters; he could leave the same way for Panila. Saying ‘leave’ when things are under control was a disguise…a way to keep him longer.

“No, you don’t.”

“Excuse me?”

“You don’t want me gone.”

“What?”

He was right, but I didn’t like it. I didn’t like that he boldly called me a liar. I hated that he spoke my truth.

“You wouldn’t have sent someone to confront my mother about Erica and me if you wanted me gone. You want to know more because you want to know me better.”

A coarse, humourless laugh ripped out of me—more like a strangled cry.

For now, I’d set aside how he knew about Jimmy and the trip and focused on the fact that he’d come trembling and yet had the gall to call me out. He’s stormed into my office and exposed a part of my secret I hadn’t meant to give away.

“Know you better?” I said, refusing to surrender. “Is there anything new besides having a dick and being a gold digger?”

“Don’t do that…”

“Do what? Define you?”

“I didn’t know he was a friend,” he said, reading my accusation accurately. “I didn’t know who he was when I met him.”

I could tell—he hadn’t clicked with Bernard to extort. I’d said those things to sound rigid and unmoved.

“Please, believe me, ” he added.

I did.

Still…he wasn’t finished. He had more to confess, and he knew it.

“I didn’t know you were close,” he continued.

My brows furrowed as he went silent.

“I knew after the dinner…”

“You said that before,” I cut in.

“I…only went that night for my pictures.”

He was close.

”Say something new.” I pressed.

He flinched, crasping the lunchbox. “I…was supposed to keep him indoors until Lucas was ready with the phone.”

“And you did a good job.”

“I…am sorry. It was wrong. Not after what we shared.”

So he knew.

Eric climbing back into Bernard’s bed after everything felt like a blade in my chest…an ugly proof of betrayal.

“Shared? Were we together?”

“Leo—”

“Let me make it clear,” I said, standing. “Whatever happened was because I thought you were a woman. What’s happening now is a confrontation, not an opening for restoration. Don’t expect anything to resume between us now that I know your real version.”

“I love you. It’s not your fault I fell in love with you. But can you please…”

“Be gay for you?” I spat.

“…”

“I have nothing against you being gay. You know my best friend is as chronic as one. Not my problem, definitely not my thing.”

“Leonard…”

“I felt a thing for Lucia,” I cut him off. “If…just if, I pretend those feelings remain, do you think we should flourish while Bernard diminishes? Do you expect me to cuddle you because you claim you fell for me?”

“I could explain things to Bernard. He would understand.”

Jesus. Did I finally end up with a drumhead?

Wait. End up?

I burst into another round of laughter that startled him.

“Leonard, if you let me, I…”

My phone buzzed, cutting him off.

A message from Bernard.

~I didn’t know you would have energy for earnings. Left your home. Almost at your company~

What the—? I thought he’d agreed to dinner.

He shouldn’t meet Eric…not in my office with a lunchbox.

I texted back: ~Let’s sit for lunch. Vinelight~

I grabbed my car keys and hurried for the door.

“Leonard?” Eric called.

I paused. I’d forgotten about him for a moment.

“Stay here,” I said.

“What’s happening?”

“Don’t leave until I return.”