There he was, standing with his back to me, hands stuffed deep into his pockets.
Even with his face turned away from me, I knew he looked so handsome.
“Hey, Satan,” I softly said, my voice sounding more nervous than I’d anticipated. I was a wreck of emotions, and the moment he rotated his body toward me, and his lips curved up, revealing that dimple of his that sat in his left cheek, all my nerves dissipated. I was left with only happiness.
“Hey, Chick.”
“What are you doing here?”
He shrugged his shoulders and rubbed the back of his neck. “You said you could really use a hug. I know I’m a little late since you said it, but—”
I cut him off because I couldn’t wait any longer. I dived toward him, wrapping my arms around his broad figure and pulled him close to me. He instantly hugged me tighter, nestling his head into my neck, breathing me in as I inhaled his cologne: smoky woods and all man. Gosh, I missed his smells. I missed his hugs. I missed him. Every piece, every inch, every breath.
“I’m so, so sorry, Shay,” he whispered.
My eyes glassed over as I was finally given the chance to fall apart, knowing he would catch me. “She was amazing,” I murmured. “She was one in a million.”
“I bet.”
Giving him a sloppy grin, I pulled back a little and studied him. I stared in wonderment, like a proud parent. I rested my hand against his cheek and couldn’t stop smiling like a fool. I was happy, so, so happy—the kind of happy I figured only happens once in a lifetime.
This reunion meant so much to me, Landon coming to hold me when I needed him so much.
“How’s your heart tonight?” I asked him, brushing my nose against his.
His lips curved up. “Still beating, but mostly, I’m here to hear about your heart. We can go sit in my car,” he offered, nodding his head toward the walkway back to the parking lot. “I just wanted to see the trees up close again. It’s too cold out here for us to just be standing.”
I agreed. Honestly, he could’ve said, Let’s go rob a bank and then get tacos, and I would’ve been down with that idea.
Wherever he led, I was going to follow.
We headed to his rental car and hopped inside. He blasted the heat, and I appreciated the warmth that engulfed me.
“I missed you,” he said, provoking instant fluttering in my stomach.
“I missed you, too. How have things been? How’s California? How are you?” That was the most important question.
He smiled his gentle smile and brushed his finger against the bridge of his nose. “Things have been okay. Busy, but good. I have a lot of appointments with my therapist, to keep me in a routine. We are trialing a few different meds to help keep my mind on track. So far, so good. I just miss you and my friends, but I know it’s the right fit.”
“Good.” I sighed, feeling so much relief at hearing that he was doing okay. He looked okay, too. No, he looked better than okay. He looked damn good. “And your mom?”
His grin deepened. “She’s great. She’s been my rock, and it’s been good having her by my side through all this. I’m glad I’ve been able to be by her side, too, with all the divorce crap my dad’s putting her through. I don’t get it, really—him being so cruel. Mom has always been good to him, and I’m certain there was a time they were in love. I just can’t imagine being so cruel to someone who at one point you thought would be your forever. It’s like the love never really existed in the first place.”
I frowned. “My mom’s not handling her divorce much better, but our moms are strong. They’ll get through it.”
He nodded. “Yeah. Your mom is strong, for sure. I’m pretty sure she hates my fucking guts, but she’s strong. She’ll be okay. My mom will be, too. She’s resilient.”
“I’m guessing that’s where you get the trait from.”
He reached across to me and placed his hands in mine. “You want to talk about it?” he asked, his voice low and somber. “About your aunt?”
“It’s hard. If I think about the cancer, I get too sad. It sits in my throat, and words become hard to get out. Watching her as she struggled for the last few months was the hardest thing in the world.”
“Then let’s not talk about those months. Tell me about who she was before she got sick.”
“What do you want to know?”
He smiled and brushed a fallen piece of hair behind my ear. “Everything.”
We sat in that car for hours, laughing, reminiscing and holding one another. We stared silently for a while, too. Being quiet with Landon came so easily to me. If we had to sit in silence for the rest of our lives, I knew I’d be comfortable as long as it was with him.
As I sat in his lap for a bit, he wrapped his arms around me and held me. There was nothing sexual about it, either. Our bodies lay against one another, my head nestled against his neck as I closed my eyes. I could’ve fallen asleep right then and there, and I would’ve prayed I’d awaken in the same position.
“Did you win the lottery?” I asked after hour four passed by.
He snickered. “No, I just owe Greyson a big amount of money down the line.”
“He paid for you to come out here?”
“Yeah. Things are pretty tight with Mom at the moment, and my dad completely cut me off. Greyson reached out and helped, though. He knew how important it was for me to get to you, the same way he got to Eleanor.”
“Gosh, he’s such a good guy.”
“The best. The world needs more people like Greyson East.”
I sighed against his skin, snuggling in even closer. “Do you think Eleanor and him will figure things out with her being in Florida and him going off to college?”
“I hope so. I really do. I’ve never seen Greyson really care about someone the way he does Eleanor. Plus, it’s my hope that true love finds a way to work out in the end, no matter what.”
I snickered. “Who would’ve ever thought Satan himself would become a bit of a romantic?”
“What can I say? I met a girl who changed my views on life and love.”
“I have that effect on people,” I joked. “I had to stop talking to people about us for a while. Tracey said it’s stupid for me to be so young and in this type of situation with you.”
“Yeah, well, Tracey also dated Reggie, so I find her opinion null and void.” He looked me in the eyes and gave me a lopsided frown. “I do worry sometimes, though, that I’m taking too long trying to figure things out…that I’m not going to be able to be the person you deserve.”
“I told you to take your time, Landon.”
“Yeah, but shit.” He released a breath. “This is harder than I thought.”
“Tell me about it. Tell me what you’re going through.”
“It’s hard to explain. It’s like, trying to unpack my messed-up brain. There’re boxes upon boxes of crap with no filing system. There’s so much shit to shift through, and each time you take something out of one box, another box appears. Then you have a good few days of progress and bam! A panic attack shows up and you feel like you’ve failed. The worst part about the panic attacks is that while it’s happening, you beat yourself up even more that it’s happening. You cuss yourself out because you’re supposed to be past that stage. You’re supposed to be stronger.
“So, you have the panic attack, you blame yourself for allowing a panic attack, then it spirals and gets worse.” He brushed his hand over his face and shook his head. “Shit. That sounds depressing as fuck, but that’s where I am now, just shifting and sorting, and I feel bad for making you wait for me. Shay, I love you, but you don’t have to wait for me. I don’t know how long this is going to take.”
“Would you wait for me?”
“Forever,” he said matter-of-factly.
I thought he meant it, too.
I thought he meant forever.
My palms fell to his cheeks, and I leaned in to kiss him lightly against the lips. No tongue, no pressure, just a gentle kiss filled wi
th my love.
“I’ll wait,” I swore.
“For how long?”
“For however long it takes.”
“Geez, Chick…” he muttered, pressing his forehead to mine as he shut his eyes. “I came back here to make you feel better, and you ended up making me feel better instead. How do you do that? How do you make things better?”
“That’s what we both do for one another. We make each other better without even trying. That’s what love is, I think. Love is feeling healed whenever you’re near your person.”
This time, he kissed me harder. I kissed him back with just as much passion, sucking on his bottom lip, allowing his tongue to make love to mine.
“It’s getting late,” he commented, pulling away from me a little. “You should get home before your mom and Maria start worrying. I noticed you’ve been ignoring your texts.”
I frowned. “Do I have to go?”
“Yes, but I’ll be here for two more days if you want to—”
“Yes,” I cut in. “Whatever, whenever, wherever, yes. I want all your time here to be spent with me.”
He kissed my forehead. “I wouldn’t have it any other way. Before you go, I got you a present.”
I climbed into the passenger seat and combed my hair behind my ears. “You didn’t have to get me anything.”
“Oh, but I did.” He reached into the back seat of his car and pulled up a bouquet of beautiful, exquisite, breathtaking peanut butter M&M’s.
I smiled bigger than I’d smiled in days.
“I couldn’t find peonies, so I figured this was the next best thing,” he explained.
I kissed him again, completely baffled that anyone in their right mind could think what Landon and I had wasn’t worth fighting for.
“It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my life. I have something for you, too. I mean, it’s not officially from me, but it’s for you. One second.” I hopped out of his car and moved over to mine, grabbing the containers of food Mima had sent with me. The moment Landon saw them, his eyes lit up, and he hopped out of his car.
“From your grandma?!” he exclaimed, taking the containers from my grasp.
I laughed. “How did you know?”
“Are you kidding me? I would never forget Mima’s food containers!” He opened one of them and dug in with his fingers like a madman, stuffing the mashed potatoes into his mouth. “Fuuuck,” he moaned, sucking his fingers clean.
“I need you to moan like that when you taste me,” I stated nonchalantly.
That caught his attention. He cocked an eyebrow and probably cocked another body part, too. “Come again?”
I leaned in and kissed his cheek. “Good night, Landon.” I headed to my car, and he groaned.
“What? No. No fucking way. You can’t say something like that and just leave me, Shay!”
“I have to. Like you said, it’s getting late. You’re the one who notified me of the time.”
“Screw time—we own the night!”
“Text me tomorrow when you’re ready to hang out.”
“It’s one in the morning, Chick—it’s already tomorrow, so we might as well hang out and taste some things together.”
A pool of heat filled my stomach, and I slid into the driver’s seat of my car. I rolled down the window and stuck my head out toward Landon. “I’ll see you later.”
“You’re killing me, Smalls,” he muttered, walking over to my window after he set his precious food in his passenger seat—even buckling it in. He leaned into the window and gave me that smile that drove me wild. “Good night, good night, parting is such sorrow,” he said, leaning in and kissing my lips. “I’ll text you in the morning.”
“Good deal.”
He started walking back to his car and spun on his heels to face me once more. “And Chick?”
“Yes?”
Those blue eyes of his sparkled as his lips curved up. “I love you times two.”
3
Landon
If Greyson ever needed a kidney, I was fully prepared to give him one of mine. Shit, he could have both. The fact he’d gotten me to Illinois to be with Shay was a big deal. I’d already felt like a huge letdown to her with each passing day, and I’d often felt like I wasn’t good enough for her. I’d lie awake tossing and turning, wrestling with the fact that I couldn’t be there for her to give her the kind of love she needed and deserved.
I often thought about her starting college in a few months and how I didn’t want to hold her back from living up the full experience. There were times my thoughts tried to convince me I wasn’t enough, tell me I couldn’t provide the normal kind of love a girl like Shay deserved, but then I saw her.
I held her.
We fell together with a magnetic pull, and nothing felt better than being able to hold her when she needed me. Nothing felt better than feeling needed. As if there was a reason I was in this world, and that reason was to help others.
Speaking of helping others, I was going to try my best to help my mom next. She’d been crying herself to sleep a lot with the stress of the divorce with the way Dad was draining her for pretty much every cent she had.
While Shay was at school, I headed down to Chicago to visit my father’s law firm. I hadn’t spoken to him since Mom and I moved out to Los Angeles. He hadn’t tried to reach out, so I hadn’t seen a reason to contact him. When it came to picking parental sides, I was in my mother’s corner until the very end.
I walked into the law firm, feeling like a foreigner in the space. I couldn’t believe I’d spent so much time there sifting through paperwork, trying to make my dad proud of me, trying to build a better relationship with him.
I nodded to April, Dad’s assistant, who was sitting in her cubicle outside his office. “Hey, April. I was hoping to talk to my dad today.”
She frowned. “Oh, sorry, Landon. You should’ve made an appointment. Mr. Harrison is busy today. Maybe try back next week.” She went back to click-clacking her fingers against the keyboard.
“Yeah, but you see, I’m only in town for the next thirty-six hours. I was hoping to meet with him before I head back to Los Angeles.”
She glanced up and then looked back at her computer. “Yeah, sorry. It’s not possible. He’s a very busy man.”
I didn’t have time for this, so I ignored her and walked straight toward Dad’s office door.
“Hey! You can’t do that!” April hollered, chasing after me, but I was already inside.
He sat on a phone call with his bushy eyebrows lowered and that same stern look upon his face. When he looked up at me, he grimaced and waved me away.
“Sorry, Ralph. I told him not to bother you today,” April called out, apologizing profusely for my intrusion. Since when did April call her boss by his first name?
Dad gave me a harsh look and pointed toward the door.
I took a seat instead.
“You can’t do that,” April whisper-shouted.
“Watch me. Close the door on your way out, will you, April?” I said, crossing my arms and making myself comfortable.
Dad grumbled a bit before speaking to whoever he was on the phone with. “Mr. Jacobson, I do apologize, but we just had a distraction at the office that I have to deal with, so if you would excuse me, I’d like to reschedule our conversation for a later date.” He paused. “Yes. Indeed. I’ll have April set it up with your assistant. Thank you. Goodbye.”
He hung up the phone and frowned like a regular Scrooge. “Close the door on your way out, April.”
She did as he said without any back talk. I’d have bet he liked that—having someone who never went against him simply because he signed her paychecks.
“What do you want, Landon?” he asked, glaring my way.
“It’s good to see you, too, Dad.”
“I don’t have time for small talk, boy. Get to your reason for being here or leave.”
“I’m here because of Mom. You are really doing a number on her, and I wanted to
see if we could come to an arrangement to just get this whole divorce thing over with, without you taking so much from her.”
“Your mother knew what she was getting into when she agreed to marry me. It was all in the prenup she was so willing to sign.”
“Because she loved you, Dad. She signed it because she loved you and wanted to be with you.”
“Yes, well, she should’ve thought that through beforehand. Now she has to deal with the outcome of divorce.”
“She’s barely keeping her head above water with the lawyer bills. Can’t you at least help her with that? Or just call it a done deal? You have enough money to put an end to all of this.”
“I refuse to pay for your mother’s lawyer fees. She is a grown woman and should be able to take care of things on her own. It’s not my fault she doesn’t understand the value of savings. She should’ve been working for years instead of looking after you like you were a damn newborn. This is her own doing. There are consequences to life choices, boy, and now your mother has to deal with said consequences.”
“How can you be so harsh? You loved her at some point. You had to if you married her.”
“People change, your mother is a prime example of that fact.”
“What did she do to you?”
He knitted his brows and clasped his hands together. “It’s not what she did to me, Landon. It’s what she did to you. She babied you. She coddled you all your life, making you the way you are.”
“The way I am? What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“Weak. She made you weak—her and that messed-up brother of hers.”
Every hair on my body stood up as he brought up Lance. I gripped the edges of the chair as my knuckles turned white. “Lance wasn’t messed up. He was sick. He had an illness.”
“Bullshit,” Dad huffed out, throwing his hands in the air in frustration. “Your uncle was a child who threw a fit because he couldn’t figure out how to hold down a goddamn job or keep his life together. He was a user and he manipulated your mother with his sob story into taking him into our house. He was the definition of weak, and your mother let him influence you. You should’ve never been allowed to be around that psycho and his issues.”
Landon & Shay - Part Two: (The L&S Duet Book 2) Page 2
