Chapter 6

Back at the table Leah found herself jammed between David and Richie who were firing questions at her so fast she could hardly keep up. She could see in the corner of her eye Jon, Dot and Tico shaking their heads at their friends obvious battle to see if either of them would be taking Leah home tonight. She found it quite funny and when Richie put an arm around her shoulder, David tried to put his around her much to Leah and everyone else’s amusement when she moved leaving Richie and David looking like they were holding hands in some sort of man hug. “Should I leave you boys alone for a while,” she winked and moved into the space between Tico and Dot much to the disappointment of Richie and David. Jon watched her closely, she didn’t take offence to the way the guys were acting it was more of a playful decision she had made to move that would secure her place as the one in control of this game Richie and David were playing as she was now directly across from them instead of stuck between them. Jon smiled to himself, if he had been single he would have loved to take part in this battle, this woman was smart and he was certain that she wouldn’t be going home with Richie or David tonight or any other night for that matter. It was much to his amazement when they were leaving the bar, Leah agreed to have Richie and David walk her back to her hotel.

Walking arm in arm, Leah had David at the left side and Richie on her right the three of them started up the street towards her hotel. It was a beautiful night and she walked almost silently letting the two men do the talking. Both were trying desperately to impress her with stories of things that had happened on past tours hoping to get an invite up to her room. Just as they reached the entrance Leah stopped beside a window making sure she could see both men’s faces reflected in it. Slowly she turned to Richie, “Thank you for a good night, I’ll see you tomorrow,” and gave him a kiss on the cheek. As she moved back she could see David’s face in the window looking like the cat who got the cream and she saw him mouthing the words “You lose, she picked me,” to Richie. She then pulled him over, kissing his cheek, “Ok Mr Happy, thank you for a good night too and I’ll see you tomorrow.” When she walked through the hotel doors she smiled at the confused look on both their faces, they clearly weren’t used to being left at the door.

Richie looked at David who was looking back at him with the same astonished look on his face then the two men burst into laughter. “I guess she’s not interested then,” David said while still laughing. “Well at least she thought I was cute and cuddly.” Richie burst into more laughter when David explained what had happened before he arrived. “I would have killed to see the look on your face!” Richie insisted on teasing him all the way back to the hotel where they bumped into Jon in the hall. “Well I was expecting 1 of you to come back not both. Did you decide it was some man to man time you needed after all?” Jon joked. David just smiled pleasantly and showed him his middle finger before saying good night and going to bed, leaving Jon and Richie alone. “So what do you think of Leah?” Jon asked him. “That woman is something else! Have you ever seen a woman that beautiful? It should be illegal - I nearly died when I saw her at the bar tonight. She’s so, so, so……I don’t know the word.” Jon was surprised at his friends reaction, he’d never known him to be short of the words he wanted to use and couldn’t remember the last time he was so enthusiastic over a woman. “Yeah, she’s definitely something else, shame she wasn’t interested in any of you.” Jon playfully hit Richie’s back before heading to bed. Richie made his way to his own room. He was still confused about Leah, she had made it clear she wasn’t interested in him or David but he couldn’t help thinking about when their eyes met across the room at the bar, her eyes were saying a different thing from her mouth then - he was sure of it. He felt a connection with her then and it was unlike anything he had felt before.

Back at her own hotel Leah was thinking about the same moment. It had surprised her how strongly she was attracted to this guy. She hadn’t felt like that in a long time, she even began to wonder if she had ever felt like that over someone, had she felt it with Joe all those years ago? It scared her to think of questioning her time with Joe as he was such a big chapter in her life, to feel like it might have been a mistake or that they were just together because it ‘worked’ was a thought that terrified her. Thinking of Joe was still a painful thing for her and talking about it seemed to be impossible. She had tried many times to tell the people she cared about what she had went through but the words just didn’t seem to be there. She even went out for revenge to help herself feel better but that turned into a self-hating fast track to destruction that she eventually managed to bring herself out of. Determined not to go down that path again she decided she would keep her guard up and dismissed her thoughts about Richie as nothing more than a crush.