“Oh fuck,” I grunted and slowly lifted my head. I stared at myself in the mirror, looking at my five o’clock shadow. I shaved my beard? What the fuck?

I closed my eyes and grunted, taking in a deep breath from my pillow. It had been over a week and I could still smell Mallory on my sheets. I could still hear her voice and touch in the dream like it was real life. She was wearing a Harvard gray hoodie and dark jeans with her old beat up Adidas and still looked sexy even though she was covered head to toe. I hugged the pillow and took a deep breath.

Something crashed in the kitchen and I jumped up off my bed so fast I almost lost my balance and fell to the floor. Holy mother of all hangovers. My God, what the fuck was that? I headed into the hall and noticed that neither the broken glass frames nor the bottle of Jack Daniels were there anymore. All the pictures on the wall were also taken off the wall too.

Did I clean up yesterday?

“Hello?” I rubbed my eye and walked into my kitchen not even caring if someone had broken into my house.

“Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you.”

My heart paused and my breaths were cut in half the second I saw her pink hair.

“I figured you haven’t really been eating much so I wanted to make you breakfast but I dropped one of your pans,” Mallory winced.

I rushed over to her and scooped her into my arms, lifting her high off the ground. I didn't care if it sounded like she was screaming or that each step made my head throb. I buried my face into her breasts and realized she stayed the whole night. She cleaned up my place, she threw away my bottles and weed and she took care of me.

“You don’t remember yesterday?” Mallory asked.

I nodded, holding her tighter and tighter as I dropped her on the island counter top. She was wearing the same outfit as yesterday, which brought a smile to my face. She stroked the back of my neck and I dug my head into the nape of her neck, still not letting go. I would never let her go.

“I’m so sorry,” I kissed her neck. “I’m sorry I tried to hide everything from you. I should have told you about Kathy and my dad and everything.”

Mallory hugged my neck gently and we held each other for what felt like hours but was only seconds.

“Leo? What did you mean yesterday, when you said you killed your mom because you didn’t give her money?”

I took a deep sigh and looked into Mallory's ocean blues. I guess it was finally time to tell her about my life. I couldn’t risk losing her again for the same dumb reason.

“My parents got married very early in their relationship, but they were happy and after they had me, they were even happier. I spent most of my time with my mom and my nanny, Tatiana, and finally my father. He was always busy with work, so I never saw him, but I looked up to him. Once he got his first firm off the ground, he changed. He realized how he could get away with anything because he had power and money. My mother quickly saw the changes in him and began to hate him. She hated the new him so much she asked for a divorce when I was around twelve, but Nico wouldn't have it. He wouldn’t let her leave unless she did something worth a divorce, but that meant she would lose everything. She would lose her money, her home, and her flower shop.” My voice was cracking, but I tried my best to clear it.

“So for three years she put up with it. She put up with his drinking, his affairs, his stealing, his arrests … absolutely everything until she finally broke. Until she finally had enough and did something she knew would end her marriage. She had an affair. Not because she was a cheater or because she loved the other man, but because she had to. It was the only thing my father couldn't stand for a wife to do. What a fucking hypocrite though. But my mom needed her life back even if it meant losing her money, this house, her job, and flower shop that has been in her family for three generations. She didn’t care as long as she was happy again.”

I looked down to Mallory’s soft hand lying on her thigh and took a deep breath.

“As much as I loved my mother … I loved money more. Money rules the world, after all. So when my father asked me who I wanted to live with. I. Chose. Him. Even after I knew exactly what he put my mother through I still chose Nico and all because of the fucking money.”

Mallory hugged me so tight I could feel her heartbeat through her chest.

“That wasn't the worst part. The worst part was when I had just turned eighteen and my mother asked me for money since she was having a hard time and I said no. My father had threatened me time after time that if I gave her money for anything, he would take away my precious millions.”

I swallowed heavily, feeling nothing but hatred for myself. I was so fucking young. So fucking stupid. And so fucking greedy.

“So, I carried on with my life. Going to university, getting a law degree because I had to when all of a sudden, my mother popped up in my life again. She was thin and frail when she came out of my father's office and I knew exactly what she asked my father for, but she didn’t ask me. She knew what made me happy and she didn’t ask for me to give it up.” I choked on my words. “So instead she kissed me goodbye, told me she loved me with all her heart and she hoped my choice brought me happiness.”

Mallory picked up my chin and stared at me with her swollen, glossy eyes. Every bone in my body ached as I still heard her voice telling me she loved me, even though I was a selfish bastard. I swallowed slowly, my throat hurting from the pain and continued the story.

“A few months later she died from a heart attack due to the last of insulin she couldn’t afford. She had diabetes and I didn’t even know it. Her death hit me hard. Very … very hard. I smoked more weed. I drank more alcohol. But the guilt never went away. So I started expanding my trips with coke, Molly, shrooms, LSD, heroin, meth, Xanax, but mostly more fucking alcohol. I must have tried it all, but nothing helped so when I couldn't put up with the pain anymore I …” I took a deep breath and bit my lip. “I tried to O.D. but that didn’t work. Obviously.” My chuckle was painful and Mallory saw right through it and stroked my back as she fell into my chest.

“I was in the hospital for about a week and only my nanny visited me. My father was too busy buying off the press and anyone around to forget what they saw so I wouldn't ruin his reputation. But that didn’t stop me and I went back to my ‘normal life.’ I drowned myself in temporary happiness and foggy, blacked out memories while I spent a great sum of money on booze and drugs and burning things up. And why not spend the money I have on killing myself? It’s not like I was going to help my mom now, I thought. A few years passed until I tried again to O.D., but this time I was at my father's house and Tatiana found and saved me. She called the ambulance and she stayed with me at the hospital the whole time. And again my dad never visited, but this time he made me go to rehab, but not because he cared, but because he found out he was dying. He only had about a few years left and he needed his money to go somewhere. To me. So he told me if I pulled my shit together, I would get all his money, his houses, his company, the flower shop and my mother's house. All I had to do was marry a woman he approved of and have a kid, a son if I could.”

“That’s where Kathy comes into play.” Mallory spoke into my chest and swallowed loudly.

“Exactly. I pulled myself together, but this time for my mom, knowing she would have hated how I turned out because she didn’t raise another Nico. My only goal this time was to get the flower shop and her house. Lucky for me, Nico let me buy this house right after I got out of rehab due to his ‘guilt’ over never visiting me. I played his game and dated the women he wanted me to — until I couldn't take it anymore. I hated the women he thought were ‘wife material’ so I played my own game. I started to pay off the women, telling them we were dating to shut my father up while I enjoyed my life. I tried to bring my mother back in my life by many ways like living in her house, gardening, changing my last name and getting a tattoo of her. But something was still missing. Her flower shop. I knew that when I got it, I would feel more at peace, maybe even happy.”

“So for a few years, life was good, until about two years ago when my father found out about the ‘serious girlfriend’ I had been paying off for a year and he was pissed. He threatened to take everything away if I didn’t follow his orders, but then something amazing happened. He had a heart attack, retired then gave me the title of, not the job but just the title of CEO. My father only did this because he needed a face for the company and I was the perfect victim, since I needed something from him and he knew it. So for the last two years I did what I was told, again, not taking a risk until I snapped about six months ago, which is when I found Kathy. Kathy was the perfect candidate. She was older like my father likes them, she was smart, but not too smart, and most importantly she needed the money. It worked for a while until Nico found out about you.”

Mallory separated herself from my chest and looked up. “What do you mean found out about me?”

“You remember the man outside the coffee shop when I dropped you off?”

Mallory nodded.

“His name is Edgar and before he was my glorified babysitter and bodyguard, he was a private detective who found out about my false girlfriend. Well, apparently Edgar has a younger brother, Eugene, who had been watching you … us since the restaurant rendezvous. He gathered information about you and went to my father to expose that not only had I cheated on Kathy with a girl who looked like you, but I had paid her to be my girlfriend. And so on, Tuesday night when I called you, I lost everything I had been trying to get for the past seven years.”

“You lost the flower shop because of me … I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry I didn't pick up I should have been there for you. I didn’t know,” Mallory sadly pouted.

“How could you have known? I didn’t tell you. I never told anyone.” I stroked her soft pink locks.

“Why did you risk it? With Kathy? With me? When you knew the consequences.”

I shrugged.

“I kept hearing my mom say ‘I hope you are happy.’ And I wasn’t. So I took another risk and found Kathy. And then I took an even bigger risk on you and played a little game called Leo’s List. You weren’t planned, not even for a millisecond. You just happened. You were supposed to be a one-time thing but you surprised me over and over again, and I caved. I loved the high you gave me when we fucked. I loved the high you gave me when I learned more about you. I loved the high you made me feel when you smiled at me, and for a second I was at peace with myself. The more I thought about you, the more I craved you and needed you. Greed killed me, Mallory. But lusting for you, which turned to addiction then love … it saved me. You saved me and I’m so fucking happy. So fucking in love. I know I lost my mom’s shop and I think a small part of me knew that once I fell for you. But the worst part about Tuesday was that I didn’t have you. The only thing I thought about was how much I wanted to talk to you and tell you what had happened. I didn’t want to hide from you anymore.”

Mallory was smiling nonstop as she wiped a tear.

“But you lost the last piece of your mom,” she sniffed. “I am so sorry. I really am. But your past doesn’t scare me as long as you don’t go back there,” Mallory sniffed. “Please, don’t ever go back there again.”

“That depends. Are you going to leave?”

“No,” she laughed. A hot tear rushed down her face. “Never. I’m kind of in love with an insane asshole and I plan to stick with him through thick and thin. I love you Leo, but please. Don’t ever go back.”

“Never. As long as you stay with me.” I kissed her lips and she kissed me back.

“Deal,” Mallory smiled with her ocean blues that guided me to sanity.