He lets her get it out of her system.
An absolute avalanche of words and hand gestures. He'd always attributed the latter to her Turkish roots, but it seems since crossing over to the French her expressivity has dialed up that much higher on the social meter. Once she lapses into a fizzy, uncertain silence, he lets another few seconds go by before speaking.
"Do you remember my ex?... You remind me of her a little bit right now." There's a touch of fondness in the confession – blink and you'll miss it – but immediately after he's said it, he wishes he hadn't. Given their last conversation in private, it hardly seems an appropriate comparison right now. He forges on quickly, lest she feel pressed to remark upon it.
"Leyla, you've gone from zero to one-hundred in the span of about ten seconds. What's got you wired?" He searches her eyes, wishing she was easier to read. For all her surface expressivity, there's a part of Leyla that's always been inaccessible to him. Maybe to most people. He understands that, better than many... But sometimes Gideon wishes he could see beyond the veil. "Is it your safety? Is that what you're worried about? I know you don't hold the eldest of my two sisters in high regard, but they've worked with the hosts to line this place up with air-tight security. If you can handle the imminent risk of being turned into a pancake by sky jumping, I'm sure you can handle a Valentine's Day auction."
There's a beat of silence. Maybe it isn't a threat to her physical security Leyla is worried about. Given the last time they spoke like this, and Lara's omnipresence around her own fiancé, then, he wonders if he's missing a more insidious fear. The subtler kind, but more devastating than any weapon. Gideon glances at the glass on the balcony door, the blurry forms of people on the other side of it. When he speaks this time, his voice is soft.
"... Is it Laurent?"
That got her to stop.
"Your ex?" She asked, her hands dropping to her sides as she tilted her head slightly, genuinely trying to understand what he meant. No one liked being compared to anyone. Not ever. But this felt a bit weird and possibly slightly misplaced? There she was, rambling and spiralling here just because he had managed to remove her from the situation inside. Maybe she would have said stole her away, considering the way he grabbed her and pulled her outside. When he here had been something in his voice too. Something she hadn’t quite placed in his tone. Also, not something she should have let herself wonder about.
"I uhm… Am glad?" She offered, and then after a small pause she added. "Sorry?" Leyla didn’t quite know what to do with that. So she didn’t do anything at all. She just shook her head slightly and let him continue, as if giving him space would somehow help her untangle her own thoughts.
"I… uhm…" She pressed her lips together, trying again. Trying to sort the chaos out into something that sounded reasonable. "I’m just a bit of a mess. I have this knot in my stomach that won’t go away. A few years ago, when it was us choosing the dates, it didn’t feel like this." There were too many emotions sitting under her skin all at once. None of them clear enough to voice or even understand.
At the mention of his two older sisters, she scoffed softly, rolling her eyes. "Yeah, that’s.. Whatever. I don’t even cross paths with them. And it’s been years. It’s not like any of that would suddenly be dragged back out into the open." She let out a short, slightly nervous laugh. Slightly annoyed, too. "I’m safe. I’m not worried about that. Events like this have always been safe." For the most part.
Wrapping her arms around herself, she took a small step back and leaned against the wall behind her. The quiet noise from inside still drifted out, but she welcomed the change. Out here, it felt easier to breathe. Easier to talk. At the very least, Gideon had managed to calm her down enough that the words didn’t feel like they were clawing their way out anymore.
Leyla looked up at the mention of her fiancé, and pressed her lips together immediately. That was not a topic they touched anymore. Not since the hospital. After that conversation, it had felt like they were constantly just missing each other. And she knew it was her fault. She had always known that. Which was exactly why she had stepped back and given him space. From her, from the chaos that followed her around.
"I don’t think so," she said. There was more, there always was. But she didn’t let herself go there.
"Maybe we can just write it off as one of my weird manic episodes? Crazy Leyla acting out again?" She attempted a small, sheepish smile. "Embarrassing herself by rambling while making her friends worry for absolutely no fucking reason?"
