KARMA COLADA

Chapter Thirty-Seven

LEON returned to the bar and sat himself down next to Hank, the bitter taste of emptiness slowly trickling from his chest into every bone in his body.

He lost her now.

And he had nobody else to blame but himself.

Why couldn't he tell Naomi he loved her?

She deserved the affirmation, at least, if not an over-the-top dramatic confession that would mark the beginning of their relationship.

Naomi Wu deserved the world.

But at the last possible moment, he blew it.

All because he couldn't lie to her beautiful face.

The truth was, Leon had no clue what love meant. He cared for Naomi, that much was true. Even the thought of being apart from her made his heart twist with incredible yearning. But saying 'I love you' aloud was always going to be a mammoth task where he was concerned.

When he was younger, Leon had no problem with the phrase, offering it freely and recklessly, even to the point where it became a desperate plea to get someone to stay.

More specifically, his mother.

And look where that got him. Catastrophically messed up with the aversion to those three simple words.

Leon had hoped Naomi would've been more understanding of this. Although now, he realized how selfish he was to even consider that fact. After all, Naomi Wu deserved the world, and by default, someone categorically better than him.

So Leon conceded defeat and let her go, even if the vision of Naomi in someone else's arms made him want to drive his fist through a drywall.

"I'm guessing something happened between you two in Thailand?" Hank's voice speared through his subconscious.

"Is it that obvious?" he retorted flatly.

From the corner of his eye, Leon recognised the same flirtatious bartender approaching.

What was her name again? Sherry? Sandy? Either way, he wasn't looking forward to fending off her advances again.

Only, instead of her usual 'come hither' gaze, Sherry or Sandy regarded him with a look of pure pity, much like the face one would make if they saw a three-legged pooch in an animal shelter.

"I know you don't drink, but you look like you need a shot of vodka. On the house," she said with a mournful sigh.

"Give me two," Leon replied with little to no hesitation, eliciting a loud gasp from Hank.

"Okay, now I know something big happened in Thailand."

Leon glared at him, annoyed. "I don't want to talk about it."

"Roger that." The detective waved an invisible white flag.

They sat in silence as the bartender set down two shot glasses filled to the brim with vodka. Her lips curved into a genuine smile before she sauntered away to tend to other customers. Maybe he misjudged her after all. But then he caught her 'unintentionally' exposing herself to a group of much younger men, and he realized she was just fickle in nature.

Leon slid one of the glasses to Hank, before draining his in one go, gladly accepting the burning trail down his throat as a form of punishment.

Leon could feel Hank's eyes trained on him like a hawk. A big, mustachioed hawk.

"I'm an old-fashioned guy, Fink. You gotta take me out to dinner before you start piling me with drinks," Hanks mused.

"Very funny," Leon replied in a tone that implied the opposite was true. "You're going to need one of those for the road."