Moments after Cameron stormed off, I burst into tears. From exhaustion, from the terror of losing him, the shock of discovering the nasty things he'd been hiding underneath his layers of kindness. He went on and on about how Leo hid his personality and wasn't as great as he appeared, but was Cameron any better with a behavior like this?

Despite the spark of rage in me, the tears pouring out were tears of pain, of sorrow. Before all this nonsense, Cameron was my rock, becoming my world. I was so, so close to being in love with him, and seconds away from admitting it to him. To lose him now was more brutal than anything.

It all started at that damn party. Damn Leo, organizing it, getting me drunk, then too hungover to control my heart, my mind. Damn Leo, being the man of my dreams but inaccessible, and then suddenly making himself accessible and making me revise every single thing I'd been thinking the past few months.

I wanted to hate him. I thought he'd be a nightmare instead of a dream. That because of the VIP concert night when he canceled on me, he'd turn out to be a jerk. He was anything but a jerk; he had his moments, his moods, but he had a gentle heart and was a philanthropist and a gifted musician.

If he'd stayed away from me, from my life, then Cameron and I would have gone on uninterrupted.

Cameron was partially right. Leo ruined us.

I cried harder realizing that I wasn't even mad at Leo. Was it his fault that he was so immensely charming and enthralled anyone standing within a few feet of him? He was an international superstar, and that made him hard to resist. Had he been a class A asshole, things might have been different. There was nothing I could have done to prevent myself from falling for him.

Cameron was the opposite. Stability, loyalty, love. He was the perfect boyfriend, until his tough shell cracked, and a silent monster was revealed underneath. Most days I could wrangle those monsters; I'd dated men and women who were way worse, and I'd stayed with them. Yet Cameron had let all his flaws out at once and they hurt, deeply, when smacked onto my face.

I glared at my phone, wondering if he'd call. Last time, when he'd fucked up like this, he'd been too embarrassed. Would this time be any different? It felt different; it felt final. The way he'd told me to handle Leo came off as him passing the torch, leaving the competition, moving on to something else.

I wouldn't message him first. Even if I ended up forgiving him, I couldn't be the one to cave. He needed to remember he wounded me, and only time would teach him that lesson.

But if he learned anything, he didn't tell me. He didn't say a word—for the next three days, I stared at the screen, waiting for it to light up with his name, for paragraphs of apologies to scroll through. Nothing came. I'd hoped he'd speak to me, clarify what was going on—were we broken up? Or was this another fight that we could move past?

Even when we'd been distant, he texted me. He checked in with me. But after this, he disappeared altogether, forgetting I existed. His social media was quieter than usual, too. He hadn't been online, from what I could tell.

If storming out and telling me to handle Leo was his way of breaking up with me, then no, thank you. He owed me an explanation and a real break-up, in person; but not this bullshit.

On my third night of stuffing my face with ice-cream and fake-posting sappy shit for Leo on my social media, I'd had enough of the silence. I grabbed my phone, unlocked it, and as I was about to open a previous message from Cameron to text him my discontent, the device buzzed in my hand, accompanied by a familiar ringtone.

Leo.

I hesitated to answer. We hadn't spoken since our most recent staged meeting, and I'd left feeling unsure about him, about where our feelings were.

It was nine p.m., and if he was calling to set something up last-minute, I wasn't in the mood for it. But declining his call would only prompt him to keep calling until I answered.

"Hi, Leo." I swallowed my icy mouthful of chocolate raspberry ice cream.

"Cameron handed in his notice," he said, without missing a beat. "Effective immediately."

I gasped, dropping my spoon into my lap. "He what?"

"He did it formally, too. Emailed Petra and me, addressing us as if we were strangers, only his employers, and not his extended family." He sighed. "I'm still in shock."

I picked up my spoon and dipped it into the ice cream, shaking my head. "I hate to say this, but it doesn't surprise me, at this point."

"You're not surprised? Where are you, with him?"

I chuckled; a disheartened, spiteful laugh. One of being fed up and giving up. "I'm at home, eating ice cream, watching Friends reruns. I have no fucking clue where Cameron is."

"Whoa." He was sipping on something; probably a stiff drink to help him process the news of Cameron quitting. "What happened?"

The ice cream gave it away, I was sure. A stereotype: the troubled, depressed woman masking her feelings with cold cream and giving herself a headache to ignore the pain in her heart. I'd fallen into that stereotype, unsure how else to go about accepting what was going on.

"We've been tense ever since L.A., but I thought we were working through it. I thought he'd processed his emotions, his jealousy—" I hiccupped, and a slither of cold crept down my throat.

"Jealousy? He admitted he was jealous?"

"In so many words." I licked my spoon. "A lot of mean words, actually."

"Emma," Leo's voice was a breath of fresh air, "tell me everything."

Not that I'd needed his permission to unload, but to know he was willing to listen endeared him more to me. "I complimented you once. I defended you when he was being a dick, and from that, he assumed I was falling in love with you. He blew up." I paused for another bite of ice cream. "He was such a ball of nerves and negative energy, you know? He said he owed you, you owed him, that you owned him. And he said he couldn't compete with you, never could, that you were the rich and spoiled one, that I should handle you now...ugh."

The silence on the other end scared me at first. Had he hung up so he could go find Cameron and punch him? Cameron deserved it, after how rude he'd been. But would Leo stoop to that level, especially after Cameron had already resigned, already thrown in the towel?

"Are you, though?" he said at last, after nearly convincing me he'd dropped the phone or had me on hold while he made another call.

"Am I, what?" I'd gotten halfway through the tub of ice cream, and considered stopping. But the frostiness numbed my pain, helped me through my troubled thoughts of not being good enough, of not being worth Cameron fighting for me, of not being strong enough to continue in the dating scene. Was I too weak? Too easily roped up in feelings? Too gullible?

"Are you falling for me?" The way he said it, I thought he might have been shaking. "Or was he overreaching, saying things to hurt you?"

Though Cameron was being hurtful, he hadn't realized he'd hit a soft spot. "Is that all you retained in everything I just told you?" I had the urge to laugh; this was typical Leo, only hearing what he wanted to hear.

"I listened to everything you said. His attitude is...nothing like what I know Cameron to be like. We've been friends for decades, and not once has he been so cruel. I'm sorry for it, because I know I indirectly caused it. But I need to know," he took a deep breath, "is it true? Are you falling?"

I bit the insides of my cheeks to not blurt out the truth. Cameron was spot-on, but to admit he was right, and then to tell that to Leo, would change everything. I was still reeling from Cameron's outburst and disappearance, and if I were to give in to Leo now...it was too fast. Too soon.

And technically, I hadn't made up my mind yet.

"I don't know." This was the truth. Was I falling for him? Had I already fallen? Was it lust for something I wasn't allowed to have? A desire for the unknown, a craving for the hot rockstar I'd been crushing on for a decade? "To be honest, I'm too conflicted to figure it out right now."

"But you still have feelings? Like when we talked after the party?" His voice elevated, taking on a tone of hope. "Nothing has changed?"

I gulped. "If you're asking if I'm still mad at you, the answer is yes." I scooped one of the last bites of ice cream. "But you haven't talked down to me or made the kind of implications Cameron did. I'm bound to you by that contract, so it's not like I can shut you out or ignore you."

"But did you want to see me, regardless of the contract?" I'd never sensed such hesitation in his words before. Leo always spoke with confidence, sometimes cutting people off with excitement to convey his emotions. Here he was slower, cautious. Tiptoeing around me and my feelings, considering them. "If the contract wasn't there, would you still want to meet up with me? Talk to me? Associate with me at all?"

He was pushing, but I wouldn't hang up on him. Talking to him made me feel a smidgen better. If there was anyone to chat with about Cameron, it was Leo.

"I think so. Look, I don't hate you." My hand was numb and frozen from holding on to the ice cream, so I set it onto the coffee table. "I never have. Even though you lied to Cameron about why you blasted into his room and implied messed up shit. How he spoke of you, demeaned you, it rubbed me the wrong way. No one is perfect, and I understand the two of you have a history, but it was unnecessary."

"I appreciate you defending me," he said, his voice returning to his deeper, raspier level. "But Cameron and I's history is so complicated...what he says doesn't offend me, not anymore. I'd hate to know that you stepping in for me is what caused a riff between the two of you."

A riff—no, this was much more than that. Cameron left. Departed my life. He wouldn't come back, not unless I cut all ties with Leo and promised him that I'd be his and only his forever. I'd been so flattered when he'd first said to me, "you're mine," but it never occurred to me that he might have meant it in a more possessive way. That demeanor, how he'd spat at me...I hadn't yet recovered.

"Are you going to be okay?" He shifted in his seat. "Here I am calling to vent about Cameron ditching me, and you're the one who needs to vent. He abandoned you worse than he abandoned me."

I shrugged. "I thought he was different. That he wouldn't be like the other men I dated."

"I'm here for you. Whatever you need." The thoughtful lull to his timbre gave me butterflies.

I was still holding on to the spoon, and inadvertently started twirling it around my tongue. I licked it on both sides, slow and languorously as if someone were watching me, as if I were trying to seduce.

As if Leo were there.

"I'll be okay," I said, suppressing in a huff, blocking another round of tears from falling from my eyes. "It's not my first break-up, nor my first heartbreak."

"You know what? I'm coming over."

I shot up from the couch, my spoon tumbling to the floor. "Wait, what?" My gaze fell to my holed leggings, my stained t-shirt, my fuzzy, far from sexy socks. Last I'd seen my hair, it was absolute chaos, and I'd omitted putting on makeup because my eyes were too red and puffy to keep any color on them, my skin too blotchy to be concealed.

"I'm coming over," Leo reiterated, louder, "because you need company, someone to wallow with. We need to figure this shit out. And you need a hug."

I cringed; as much as I did need a hug, I didn't think it was a good idea to get one from him. He was at the source of all my conflicted feelings and complicated lifestyle. He fueled my wet dreams and populated my nightmares. Leo was everything I thought I wanted, everything I yearned for, but told myself I couldn't have.

If he came over now, nothing would stop me from indulging in him, at last.

"No," I said, hurrying to toss the melted ice cream tub and throw the spoon in the sink. I spun to my messy studio and almost shrieked. "No, definitely not. You can't come here. This place is a pig's stye right now."

"You think I care?" Leo chortled. "I'm coming over."

I stilled, standing right where the kitchen tiles became hardwood floor. Teetering between two areas, balancing myself back and forth, deciding. Like my love life—stuck between two men.

But this was real, and one of those men was gone.

Was I supposed to clean the kitchen counters? Hide all the boxes? Or hang up all the clothes I'd laid out on the bed?

"No, seriously, Leo," I swallowed, "you can't come here. And," my eyes widened in realization, "you don't know where I live, anyway. You've never been here."

"That doesn't mean I don't have your address," he said, cryptic. I pictured him saying this as he swung a shirt over his bare, chiseled chest, licking his lips at the notion of visiting me, taking me by surprise. "You signed a contract with me. My manager ran background checks on you, and I know she put your address somewhere—" He must have been ruffling through papers, because I heard pages turning. "Ha! There it is. In Harlem."

"Leo, please." My legs were jittery. "I don't want you to come here. I'm not ready, I'm not presentable, I'm not—"

"—you're not okay, and as your friend, and sort of your employer, I need to come check on you." He was breathless. "I'll be there soon, okay? Sit tight."

Before I could add anything else, the line rang with that hollow beep that terminated our conversation. A conversation that I'd wanted to dominate, to win, because if I lost, that meant Leo was coming here.

My brain fogged over as I studied the giant task before me: to tidy my tiny apartment enough to welcome an international rockstar. No luxury, no pomp, no fancy drinks and finger foods. No cook to serve us up a late-night snack, no stocked bar with all our favorite liquors, no separate living area with a canopy bed and walk-in closets.

Leo Lee would see my mess, and me as a messy, newly single basket case. I didn't know where to start.

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