They were all… significant to me. But which one was my heartmate? It had to be Leo; even now, I felt a tether to him across the table. I snuck looks at him when he wasn’t looking, admiring his sculpted facial features.
My eyes slid over to Oliver, silently thanking him for telling me that Leo’s girlfriend was fake. Now I could obsess over him in peace without thoughts of a woman’s hands on him.
Now that there was a shred of a possibility that he and I could maybe… possibly end up together, my mind latched onto that and ran with it.
Was he my person?
He looked up at me and I quickly looked away, embarrassed at being caught staring at him.
I felt the heat rise into my cheeks as I looked down at my buttered roll.
How could I make things go further with him? How could I make him want to talk to me? The only thing I’d done with him so far was sit on the bench next to him lamely.
Then Hazel’s words were there in my mind again, reminding me that there was someone I needed to forgive.
As the extroverts engaged in chatter around me and the waiter brought out some very Mediterranean salads, I got lost the labyrinth of my mind.
Who the hell did I need to forgive?
There was that bully that called me a faggot all the time in high school, but I didn’t even think about him anymore. My parents were fine — boring Ohio people. I didn’t harbor a grudge against Boring Guy or Narcissist Guy, so there wasn’t anything to forgive there.
I looked down at my salad sadly.
“Everything all right, Charlie?” Mason asked.
I was jerked out of my thoughts and forced into the present as five pairs of eyes were on me like spotlights.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I said, feeling a weird squirming in my gut.
Having to comb through my mind for anything that had ever made me unhappy was… it was putting me in a weird place.
Maybe there was something so bad that happened to me that I’d forgotten about it?
My brain picked at that like I was picking my thumb cuticle, and then I felt a pinprick of pain.
Looking down, I saw a bead of red blood forming on the edge of my thumb.
“Excuse me, I need to use the bathroom,” I said to the table.
Alina’s black eyebrows pulled together in concern as she watched me go.
The bathroom was way fancier than it needed to be. Like the rest of the restaurant, it felt like I was in some part of an Italian palace.
I ran my thumb under warm water, gritting my teeth as it stung.
My mind continued to explore that unpleasant feeling I was getting, and the more I thought about it, the more my suspicions seemed like they might be true.
I’d forgotten about something.
I looked into my reflection, watching as my features rearranged themselves into a look of disbelief.
I knew I was putting too much stock into Hazel’s words. Maybe my imagination was taking this forgiveness thing and running wild with it.
Maybe nothing had happened to me at all, and I was just feeling anxious around all these movie stars. Getting lost in the possibility that one of them might be “The One.”
It was silly. There were billions of people on this planet; it didn’t make sense for there to be someone— a special person that was made for everyone, did it?
There were pages and pages full of qualities I was looking for in my perfect man. No one person could be all of those things. I would certainly have to settle for someone as normal as myself eventually.
Just as the thought of doubt emerged in my mind, the door to the bathroom opened.
Leo was there, and his eyes were fixed on me with a look it took a moment for me to recognize:
Hunger.
Chapter Twelve
“Are you okay?” he asked in his slow molasses voice.
“I— I am. Just picked my thumb a little too much,” I said quickly, drying off my hands.
“Alina asked me to come and check on you,” he said.
That dark look of hunger was still there in his eyes, fixated on me.
“Well, I’m okay. You can tell her I’m okay,” I said stupidly.
His lips parted ever so slightly.
My mind couldn’t make sense of it, so I blurted out, “Why?”
“Why what?” he asked.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” I said, my knees shaking.
He looked away. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
There was a charged pause as I scrambled for something to say.
“Look, maybe I was worried about you,” he admitted.
I barely let myself believe what he just said. My mouth came open. “Worried?”
He joined me at the sink. “And to give you this…”
He handed me a fresh bandaid.
“Th-thank you,” I said, my fingers closing around the bandaid. “How did you know?”
There was no way he could see me picking my thumb under the table.
He shrugged and said, “Earlier today when we were on the bench, you were doing this,” he held up one of his giant manly thumbs and picked at the side. “I knew it was only a matter of time before you’d bleed.”
The words hung in the air, heavy. I had to wonder if they had more meaning than he let on.
He looked down at me, his eyes liquid gold, full of concern.
My heart was beating in my throat. I wanted to pinch myself because this felt like a dream.
“Be nice to yourself,” he said, touching me gently on the shoulder.
As soon as he touched me, I felt fireworks go off in my gut.
I was… giddy.
“I’ll try,” I said, looking up at him earnestly.
He smiled slightly, then turned and left the bathroom.
As soon as he left the room, it felt a little colder as though the sun had just set.
All I knew on
