New Romantics

Chapter 14

"Dani," Leo drawled with a casual smile. "What's up?"

Dani's eyebrows shot to the top of her forehead, and she looked at me with a look that asked, is this seriously happening, right now? "What's up with you, Aldridge?"

The teasing lilt of her voice sent my heart rocketing into my throat.

"I came to see how Aria was doing," he said matter-of-factly. "I didn't see her come home last night and I was worried."

Worried.

When Leo leaned back casually on his hands, his ankles crossing lazily in front of him, the tips of his fingers brushed my clasped hands, and I tried my hardest not to make anything of the gesture. It was an accident. Completely not on purpose.

From my bed, I saw Dani's mind racing a mile a minute, calculating, processing, and disbelieving.

Sasha on the other hand was scheming. And when Sasha was scheming, well, interesting things happened.

"Our baby, Aria, is doing great, aren't you?" Sasha asked. As she spoke, she did a thing where her eyes widened, looking buggy on her pretty face, and gritted her teeth in a smile that said she was trying very, very hard to convey something to me. I stared at her, panicking, as I tried to figure out what that was. I was terrible at charades. But then she fluttered her eyes toward where the tips of Leo's fingers rested against mine, and the answer clicked into place.

"I'm feeling a bit... off..." I said slowly, feigning an exhausted, shallow sigh. Inside, I was electric sparks and excitement. Channeling my best old-world swoon, I added, "My head..."

"Oh!" Sasha rushed to my side, the picture of concern. Her theater minor was coming to good use. "Leo. Could you stay a few minutes? Just in case we need to take her back to the hospital?"

I mustered my best innocent, sweet, puppy-dog-eyed pout. His eyes smoldered, and he appeared conflicted—just briefly—while seconds stretched into eternity. There was no way he would say yes to staying just because I looked so—

"Okay."

Okay! My insides screamed with delight. He said okay!

"Great!" Sasha crooned, shoving a grinning Dani back into the hallway. "We have extra chicken and coconut shrimp if you're hungry!"

That left Leo, me, and the too-warm bedroom. We looked at our hands. The air whooshed out of my lungs. Pulling away, I pretended that the pathetic little somersaults in the pit of my stomach didn't exist. "Thanks for staying to keep an eye on me. I hope you like Howl's Moving Castle."

"I remember watching it once," he mused. "Didn't understand much of anything."

"I watched it four times this summer alone," I admitted. Leo stood and stepped aside as I shimmied to the edge of the mattress. For a brief moment we looked at each other, and I became too aware of the scene: me, scantily clad, sitting on the edge of my bed with a tall, devastatingly handsome frat boy staring down at me like I was a leafy green oasis in the middle of the desert. Nobody's eyes were that intense by chance. "It's so sweet the way Howl looks for Sophie all those years—hey!"

In one moment, I was on my bed, and in the next, without warning, Leo's arms were around me, scooping me right out of bed like I weighed absolutely nothing, and he carried me toward the door.

"W-what are you doing?" I demanded, instantly grabbing onto him for dear life.

His smoky scent enveloped me. "We don't want baby collapsing in the hallway, do we?"

Oh, dear God.

He said it in a low, husky whisper that sent my mind to a very naughty place. He answered that thought with a flex of his warm fingers along my thighs as he adjusted me in his hold, pulling me further up his hard torso, our breaths lingering.