Page 18 of All In

I don’t. I just lean into it.

Because the truth is, none of it feels forced or false. I try to remind myself that he is pretending to be my boyfriend. But for right now I’m choosing to simply enjoy it. Because Leo is exactly the kind of man I’ve always wanted. I was beginning to think that the charming, funny, nerdy, wicked smart man was a myth.

Leo takes that and says ‘hold my beer. I’m not only all of that, I’m absurdly handsome too.’

I chuckle to myself which earns my shoulder a little squeeze from Leo’s hand.

The panel itself is good. Better than good, actually. Three people who clearly love this material discussing the kind of behind-the-scenes detail that makes a franchise feel less like a product and more like something somebody bled for. I’m absorbing a good seventy percent of it.

The other thirty percent of my attention is occupied by the warm, solid weight of Leo’s arm. And the way he laughs, low and real, at exactly the right moments.

I spot Eric twice during the panel.

Once near the side aisle, arms crossed, watching us instead of the stage. Once again closer to the end, when the lights come up after they played some clips from the behind the scenes documentary that’s scheduled to release next year. Eric’s expression is doing something complicated and unflattering that I choose not to spend any more time interpreting.

My sister was right, I’ll give her that. Eric is definitely the type of man to not want to engage in competition with another man.

I decide, somewhere in there, that I’m not going to let him have any more of my attention today than he’s already gotten. It’s a small decision and it feels disproportionately good to make it.

“You good?” Leo asks quietly, leaning down during the Q&A, his mouth close enough to my ear that I feel the question more than hear it.

“I’m great,” I say. I turn my head to face him and he’s leaned so close our noses nearly brush. I swallow thickly and focus on how ridiculously long his eyelashes are. “Why?”

“You went somewhere for a second.”

“Just doing some mental house cleaning.” I try not to look at his mouth. I fail. “Deciding what gets my attention today. Turns out the list is shorter than I expected.”

Something in his face shifts at that. “I’m very glad to hear that.”

We go from that panel to two more. By the time the last panel lets out, my feet have officially entered open rebellion against the choices I’ve made today. The prospect of real food—not con food, not a protein bar, actual sitting-down food—has become the single most appealing idea I’ve encountered all day.

“Dinner,” Leo says, like he’s reading my mind. “Real dinner. Out of costume.”

“You’re trying to get me out of costume.”

“I am trying to get you into a chair that isn’t load-bearing convention furniture,” he says. “I also would like to ensure you eat something besides a protein bar and a bag of nuts. The costume thing is incidental.”

I smirk at him. “Sure it is.”

“There’s a place near the hotel. Decent pizza. I scouted it on the drive in, which I recognize makes me sound like I had a whole plan, and I want to clarify that the plan was just find food, not meet a beautiful woman and seduce her with mozzarella.”

I laugh, surprised out of me again, which seems to be becoming a theme. “Mozzarella seduction. Not something I’ve ever considered, but it definitely sounds promising.”

We part ways in the hotel lobby, after a brief, slightly absurd negotiation over whether forty-five minutes is enough time to get human again. Which is debatable. The dress isn’t the easiest to get out of alone, though I do have some tricks to make it manageable. But there’s also the whole air myself out because we live in Texas and even with air conditioning, you sweat. Especially when your costume involves crushed velvet and silk.

By the time I make it down to the lobby, I’ve already had three arguments and subsequent negotiations with myself. Ultimately, I decided on a nerdy t-shirt with my jeans, my hair up in a ponytail because it’s more me, but I left on my good bra.

I’m seven minutes late and mildly out of breath from the elevator sprint. I’m already mentally formulating my speech on why I’m late.

Leo’s already there.

And every single thought I have evaporates on contact.

He’s in a plain gray t-shirt and dark jeans, hair slightly damp like he just got out of the shower. The glasses are the same, that aww-shucks grin is the same, but I’m registering that I had not completely comprehended what was costume and what was actual Leo.

The absence of the costume does something genuinely unfair to my ability to function as a person. The chest plate, it turns out, was not doing nearly as much work as I assumed. The shoulders are real. The forearms, visible now in a way they weren’t under three layers of molded plastic, are real. His left arm sports a brightly colored Marvel-inspired tattoo sleeve that I definitely want to investigate closer.

He looks like exactly what he is—a toned, solidly built, devastatingly unbothered man waiting in a hotel lobby, and I am, for one full humiliating second, struck completely speechless.