Page 3 of Square Waves (Big Fan #2)

II

An hour, another drink, and a shared basket of fries later, Leon and I are both tipsy.

We’re also still talking. We’ve somehow managed to avoid the What have you been up to?

chatter that kills most of my catch-up conversations with high school classmates.

Instead, we’ve walked ourselves into an exaggerated debate about whether or not it’s a betrayal that, while living in DC for six years, I’ve gotten into baseball. .. only to become a Nationals fan.

“But I didn’t ever like the Giants,” I say. I’ve pivoted on my stool, and so has Leon. One of my knees is pressed firmly against his, and it’s becoming increasingly challenging to focus on anything else. “So I don’t owe them anything.”

“It’s not just the Giants! It’s the whole Bay Area! That’s your hometown team .” He throws his hands up at my disloyalty.

“I feel like you should be happy that I’m into baseball at all. That I speak your language.” I down the last of my second martini.

Leon shakes his head. “Cassidy, not that much has changed since you last saw me. Sports is hardly my language .”

“So why do you care whether or not I root for the Giants?”

He rubs his jaw. “My ex got me into them,” he says. “She sold it as a way to connect to the whole city. To make yourself a part of something bigger. Something collective.”

“Your ex, huh?” That I manage to ask this without shame is a sign of how far we’ve come at this bar. I don’t know if that’s a good omen or a bad one.

“Yeah. We broke up last year.”

I do the mental math. It’s August now; at a minimum, that’s eight months ago. Is he technically still on the rebound at this point? And do I care?

“What about you?” Leon takes the final sip of his beer.

“Is that why you’re here? Hiding out from a terrible breakup?

” He knocks his knee against mine, and it slips forward so that the bone presses against the inside of my thigh.

My focus shifts to the sensation of pressure and how good it would feel sliding up between my legs. My mouth goes dry at the thought.

“No.”

“So you’re single.” His T-shirt is loose at the neck, and when he leans forward to talk to me, I can see the line of his collarbone, the hints of more tattoos. Hangul, I think.

Laughter from a few barstools down distracts me from my ogling. “Last time I checked,” I say. I have been single for six straight years now , I don’t say.

Leon drags a fingertip through the condensation on the outside of his glass. Dots a bead of water onto the bar top, and then another. I wish it wasn’t mesmerizing.

“I don’t like being single,” he says wistfully.

We’ve stayed pretty close to the surface so far, and that’s my comfort zone, socially. This conversational turn is more personal than I expected, and I’m surprised by how pleased I am that Leon’s opening the door to it.

“Why not?”

“I was with my ex for two years, and right after we broke up, I felt like I had so much autonomy. So much free time . But now, I don’t know. I miss Tuesday nights on the couch with someone. And I miss—” He cuts himself off abruptly, darts his eyes at a corner of the room.

Is Leon really not going to say it? “Sex,” I supply matter-of-factly. “You miss sex.”

As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I understand why he stopped short. All night, I’ve been trying—and mostly failing—to ignore the simmer of attraction I feel toward him. Now I feel like I’ve shown my cards.

Leon doesn’t miss it either. His smile gets smaller, more dangerous. “Yes.” There’s a low rumble in his voice. “I do miss sex, Cass.”

I’m so thrown by how turned on I am that I’ve basically lost control of my mouth. “That’s a surprise.”

He raises an eyebrow, holds it there. I feel like a mouse being toyed with by a cat.

“I mean, I just... I feel like you’re always—” I gesture toward his torso with my hands. It occurs to me that Leon and I have never had a conversation this long before. Maybe because I sensed that if we did, I’d find myself in exactly this position.

“Always what?”

“Nothing.”

“Always what, Cassidy?” Another nudge with his knee, another thrum in my stomach.

Of course he’s going to make me say it. “You know.” I play with the stem of my empty glass just to have something to do. “Girls were always falling in your lap.”

Leon runs his fingers through his hair. It has flecks of something in it—maybe paint? “Not sure about that. And anyway, I didn’t know you were paying attention.”

“It was hard not to.” I realize too late that I sound sulky, envious. Leon’s girlfriends were an endless roster of silky-haired stoners he’d met at skate parks and in surf lineups, each of them more carefree and effortless than the last.

Leon considers this, and I wonder if I’ve given myself away.

I jump in before he can decipher too much.

“I get it though.” There are warning bells going off in my head, but I barely hear them.

I try to sound nonchalant when I say, “Longing for sex. Even when it’s not so far out of reach.

” My gaze locks with his, and my breath catches.

Heat blazes between my hipbones. And I can’t make myself look away.

“In high school, you always seemed too good for it,” Leon says, his eyes transfixed, as though he’s afraid to blink. “Like you weren’t obsessively horny like the rest of us. I always sort of wondered what it would take to make you—”

My mouth has fallen open, I realize, and I force my jaw shut.

I’m so much less bold than I used to be Before, less stupid and selfish too.

But some things never change. Leon’s admission seems genuine, but it also has the distinct ring of someone throwing down a challenge. And I always rise to meet those.

“You could find out. If you wanted to.”

Leon’s eyes go wider, and his breath catches audibly, like he’s choking on air. No matter what happens next, the satisfaction of getting that reaction out of him will have been worth it.

I watch him swallow. Shift in his seat. When he can speak again, he sputters out, “You mean... okay, yeah.”

I shrug, like it doesn’t make a difference to me one way or the other. “I wasn’t planning on getting another drink, so...”

He’s already signaling to the bartender for the check, and as we wait, my brain catches up to what’s happening and starts reminding me why this is a terrible idea.

What the fuck did I just propose? I’m going to sleep with Leon Park ?

Sure, he seems different than when we were eighteen, but he’s still mildly arrogant and extremely irritating and way too handsome, and if our high school friends ever find out, I will never live this down.

Leon interrupts my racing thoughts with a touch: his hand, heavy and warm, on the small of my back. I turn into him instinctively, just as the bartender slides two separate bills in front of us. For this, I am grateful. It’s a good reminder of what this is between us. And what it isn’t.

“Just to be clear, this doesn’t mean anything,” I tell Leon anyway, signing my name with a flourish.

He leans down to whisper in my ear, his hand still warm on me. “Oh, don’t worry. I know.”