After a brief pause, she quietly replies. “I know. Sit tight.”
It’s Meghan who picks us up from the garage.
“I’m sorry for being such a jerk,” she says to me.
Looking over at Crosby, who looks about as uncomfortable as a person can get, I tell Meghan, “It’s not me you need to apologize to.”
Swallowing hard, she opens her mouth. “I…”
Crosby holds up one hand in surrender and cuts her off right there. “We don’t have to do this now. Or…ever. Let’s just get Leela out of here.”
This, all of us agree on.
TWENTY
Crosby
The detectives have advisedus not to go back to my apartment just yet, and, alas, my bike is still held up in the impound lot.
“Where am I taking you?” Meghan asks as the car approaches the Pine Mountain University campus.
I look over at Leela. She bites her lip, thinking. “I’d really like to just go home now.”
“That’s probably for the best,” I say, nodding.
She breathes a sigh of relief. “I wondered if you would shoot down that idea.”
As if I’m going to tell her where to go and what to do. Have I scrambled her brain that badly? I feel like such an asshole.
When we pull up to the front of Beta Beta Psi, Leela turns to me again, like she’s waiting for me to exit the car first. “Well?”
“What? Isn’t this the part where we say goodbye?” I reply.
Incredulous, she answers, “No. You’re coming with me.”
I blink at her. “I thought…I thought you didn’t want to be with me once you understood the mess that was my life?”
Leela takes my hand. “I think it’s a little late for me to insist on maintaining my perfect, orderly image, don’t you?”
“This might be a step beyond the messiness I had planned for you,” I say with a rueful laugh.
“As my granny would say: in for a penny, in for a pound. We’re going in there, and we’ll talk to my sisters,” she tells me, then leans forward and directs her attention at Meghan. “Right, babe?”
“Yeah,” Meghan says. “We all need to talk. I’ll go inside and tell everyone to gather for an impromptu meeting. You guys take as long as you need.”
Once Meghan is gone, Leela turns back to face me with the expression of someone on a mission. Gone is the frightened girl. My big, bad love is back. I don’t know what will happen to us now, but I’m going to love this woman for the rest of my life.
“You don’t want me going in there and treading all over everything. I hate…I hate that I messed things up between you and your friends,” I say.
Leela smiles confidently. “Try as you might to stay away from the perceived plague of sorority life; you got involved the second you rolled up. Right here.” She points down at the curb, the exact spot where she first laid eyes on ol’ Crosby Nash.
“Why would you want me in the mix…in there?” I ask, gesturing with his chin at the stately wraparound front porch where we had our first conversation.
She looks over at it, at the very spot where the connection was first made.
“Because when you’re in a real relationship, you don’t keep it separate from the rest of your life. That’s what you do for the great big dummies you love!”
TWENTY-ONE