Off-Limits Box Set

by Ella James

  I nod, smiling. “When you were still a young’un.”

  After we’re settled in our car and headed toward our destination in the suburbs, Landon slides his gaze to mine. “Do you wish that had happened?” he asks quietly.

  “What had happened?”

  “Earlier, you said something about us getting married when I was a young’un.” He smirks slightly at my wording, but his mouth gets stuck in a frown. “Do you ever think about what might have happened if I hadn’t left the group home?”

  I swallow. “Yes,” I whisper honestly. “And when I do, it scares me.”

  I watch his mouth move, supple with emotion. His hand covers mine. “Thank you.”

  “For being happy that you saved yourself?”

  He shakes his head. “For being mine.”

  That’s what I am when we stop the car in front of the split-level, wood-and-brick house. I’m his, so one glance at the place snatches my stomach into a knot of nerves.

  We walk down the driveway and up to the porch, still holding hands, and Landon knocks.

  “Remember,” I say, as we hear footsteps, “you might want her, but you don’t need her. You have a family now.”

  His shoulders rise and fall. His fingers squeeze mine. “I’m okay,” he says. And then the door opens.

  It’s her. I know it must be her, because her hair is red and gray, and she has Landon’s eyes. When her gray eyes take in his face, they pop open wider than I’ve ever seen a person’s eyes, and then she starts to sob.

  She knows him on first sight, and what’s more—she grabs his shoulders.

  The woman—Laura—sobs so loudly, I soon hear more footsteps, see more gray eyes. And then a pair of brown ones behind glasses: her husband. I look at their shocked faces, then at Landon, with his chin atop his mother’s head, his arms around her back, and I start crying, too.

  Her husband ushers us inside and hugs me. Then he wraps his arms around his wife—and Landon. I watch her hands rub up and down Landon’s back, and see his back and shoulders start shaking. The three kids—older teens—are waved away by the man I guess is Landon’s stepfather. I stand there in the foyer, my eyes glued to my husband…and his mother.

  His eyes are red and wet when he steps slightly back. He looks at her with his brows knitted, and her face crumples.

  “I’m sorry!” She sobs louder. “I’m so very, very sorry that I left you there…”

  I can see his thoughts on his face, see the moment he puts it behind him. He hugs her.

  “I had no more money,” she cries against his chest. “We had been crossing…a street…and I had gotten hit. I didn’t even know where we were…but we got a ride to that hospital. When we got there,” she says, tilting her head up to look at him, “there was this doctor…who saw you crying—you were hungry,” she says, in a voice that cracks, “and she brought you a popsicle.”

  She shakes her head and starts to weep again, her cheek on Landon’s chest, and his palm rubs her back as he nods.

  “It was cool that day. You didn’t have a coat…or anything. I was in withdrawal, and we’d just…gotten evicted—from the place I rented.” Her back shakes as she looks up at Landon—but he’s nodding, and I think that reassures her.

  “I loved you. I loved being your mother. You were my gray-eyed baby. I just…wasn’t giving you the best…” She starts to cry again, and I cry with her—because I understand those words. I understand this stranger so much better than I ever thought I could.

  Landon, without fully separating from her, reaches for me, brings me up against his side.

  “I wasn’t going to leave you…but I wasn’t thinking clearly,” she weeps. “Once I left and I came back…you weren’t there. There was this woman at the desk, and she told me they’d taken you.” Laura rubs her tear-drenched face, squeezing her eyes shut as she wipes her tears and sniffs. “That was the day I started trying to get clean.”

  She takes a few deep breaths as Landon peers down at her with the softest eyes I’ve ever seen on him.

  “I’m sorry…” She shakes her head, laughing awkwardly. “What a greeting. I just—I didn’t think I’d ever see you again.”

  Fresh tears fill her eyes, and her husband reappears to stand beside her.

  “I’m Bobby.” He smiles politely. “You must know this is Laura, my other half.” She waves us more fully into their modest foyer, and I catch her staring awe-struck at Landon. He notices it, too; I see his face go neutral with his nervousness. His mother laughs. “I’m sorry. I just…know your face. You look just like my father.” Her mouth quivers as she nods.

  “I looked for you, for a while…but I was in and out of rehab. I loved you, but I hated myself. I made…a lot of awful choices.”

  Her husband murmurs something near her ear. She shakes her head—and then she pulls away from him.

  She wipes her face and shakes her head. “I’m sorry. I’m not usually a crier.” She chuckles, even as she wipes her swollen eyes again. “Anyway, I’m Laura. And…your name now?” she asks Landon. She looks like she’s braced for something.

  “Landon.”

  Fresh tears flood her eyes. “You’re still named Landon?”

  For a moment, he looks confused.

  “You jotted it down,” I murmur automatically.

  “Did I?” She looks at me, then Landon.

  Something loosens on my husband’s face—a kind of understanding.

  “You don’t remember?” he asks quietly.

  She shakes her head. “That’s the worst part,” she says hoarsely. “I remember nothing. Well—not much, beyond arriving there with you.”

  Landon’s Adam’s apple bobs, and in a low voice, he says, “That’s the worst part for me, too.”

  Then she’s hugging him again, and I’m observing. She’s almost as tall as him. She’s wearing a flowing, green dress. On a hall end table, there are stacked editions of the New York Times Magazine, I note with amusement.

  After a few more minutes mostly occupied with Laura staring at Landon, and him at her, we step into a little library with a well-loved leather couch, and Landon sits between the two of us: his mom and me. She holds his hand between hers, and I listen as she tells him things she does remember. She seems eager—over-eager—to connect with him. So shaken that it seems as if she only left him there last year.

  I think how strange it is that she loves him the way she seems to. Yet, she doesn’t know my Landon. How strange that flesh and blood can fall so far apart. How strange and sad.

  We stay at her house for nearly four hours, her husband, Bobby, making dinner while she talks, and Landon and his half-siblings talk politics. Somehow everyone is laughing about nothing, and everything.

  We gather ’round the table, no one touching the chicken Bobby made as they listen to Landon talk about med school and residency. They’re wide-eyed as he tells them where he met me, but they seem accepting. He doesn’t mention private things, like how much he struggled on the path his mother chose for him. He doesn’t mention Ashtyn, or even his wreck, and after her initial burst of emotion, Laura seems a little more reserved.

  Still, the day is perfect.

  Landon’s three half-siblings who are still living at home—Ainsley, Kam, and Beara—are all articulate and kind. Bobby is interesting and funny, and Laura seems quick-witted and warm. When we leave, she hugs Landon’s neck and begs us to come back tomorrow.

  Landon nods. “We’re here for one more day.”

  He wraps his arm around me as we walk back to the car.

  He almost always gets my door for me, but this time I get his. He smiles tiredly. I drive to our rented condo, where we order pizza and then climb into bed.

  Our lovemaking is slow and sweet. After we finish, Landon starts again immediately. In the dark room, when we’re both sated, he pulls my body up against his, rests his cheek against my throat, and falls asleep.

  A few minutes later, I get the pizza, eat two slices, and follow.

  I hear
something in the night and wake to find him in the adjoining family room, eating pizza, drinking ice water, and looking at a powered-off TV.

  “Wild times in here.” I sit on the couch beside him, then decide that isn’t close enough, and curl up in his lap.

  “I’ll show you wild times.”

  And he does. Afterward, we curl up in a hammock on the balcony, and Landon pulls a blanket over us. We watch the sun rise over Charlotte, and after that, we spend the day with Laura and the rest of Landon’s family.

  As we fly back to Denver, he seems different. I feel different. When we land, he asks to go see Ashtyn.

  “Do you think she’d want to meet me?”

  “I think she would love that.” I smile. “Actually, I happen to know. Her parents texted a while back. When do you want to go?” I ask him.

  “Would you want to…now?”

  I smile. “Why the hell not?”

  Epilogue

  Landon

  January 2018

  Denver, Colorado

  I step into the donut room sometime in early afternoon, eager to look out at the snow I heard of as I scrubbed in on an endovascular repair. This is my first winter at 5,000 feet, and I have to say, I fucking love it. Everything is better when it’s snowing outside. I’ve loved the fluffy white stuff since I moved to Maryland, the years since haven’t dulled my appreciation for it. Out here, though, it’s better. It’s draped over mountains.

  I saw Evie’s name scrawled on the board for the VP shunting going on in OR 3, so when I blink around the room, I’m not expecting her.

  She’s seated at the table nearest to the fridge, leaned over one of those plain avocados—a travesty, here in the donut room. She’s got her iPhone ear buds in her ears, her brows scrunched in quiet intensity. I bet she’s listening to one of those dirty novels that she’s secretly obsessed with—ones where some domineering doctor straps a naughty surgeon to a bed and gives her an exam.

  I watch her scoop a bite of avocado from the shell and eat it as she stares off into space, the snowy mountains spread behind her like a postcard. It’s as if the stunning scenery exists as a mere backdrop for my much-more-stunning wife.

  I grin, and wait for her to notice me. How can it be that someone skilled enough to save a life with a laser or a blade can fail to notice that another human moved into her sphere—her husband at that. I laugh as she rubs her nose. Evie doesn’t hear me. All around her shoulders, through the long glass pane, snow falls from a pale pink sky, cloaking the cityscape.

  Evie’s hand reaches into her hair. She pulls her rubber band thing out and lets her tresses spill around her shoulders. Another scoop of avocado. Evie swears they’ve kept her healthy while the rest of us have coughed and sneezed our way through respiratory season.

  I step closer. Finally, she jumps, and her hands fly up to her face. “Landon!” She laughs, pulling out the ear buds. “Oh my God, you scared me!”

  I shake my head, tsk-ing. “Eating avocado in the donut room.”

  “We shouldn’t have a donut room, Landon. This is a hospital.”

  I grab a chocolate one and claim the chair beside hers. “So I’ve heard.”

  “Those things are awful for you. I know I might eat them sometimes, but—”

  “You mean all the time?” I laugh.

  “I don’t eat them all the time.” She sniffs. “I have one maybe once or twice a week.”

  She’s lying—even to herself, poor girl. She eats one almost every day. We all do. Typical doctorly hypocrisy, I guess…or maybe we need to do something that defies the awful truths we know. One day we’ll all be gone, so why not eat a fucking donut?

  “Sure you do,” I tease her. I reach over, thumb the corner of her mouth.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Little flake of icing there.” I smirk, and Evie kicks my leg.

  “I have not had one of those today. Or yesterday.”

  I chuckle, and her lips scrunch. “Okay—maybe yesterday. But only half of one.”

  I grin, shaking my head. The truth is, I give zero fucks, but it’s fun teasing her. Teasing Evie is the best part of my day. Well, second behind some other things that only happen on the second floor.

  I reach down into my bag and pull out the newspaper. Ev arches her brows.

  “There’s nothing wrong with being informed,” I inform her.

  She shakes her head. “Mmm-hmmm.”

  Sometimes I can’t believe I’m married to a woman who hates politics.

  “So how’s it going?” She props her chin in her palm and looks up at me with her blue eyes. It’s a dreamy look—the one she gets sometimes only for me. “How’s your morning going?”

  “Pretty sure it’s afternoon.”

  She looks down at her phone. “Oh yeah—I guess it is.”

  “It’s been good. Busy but good. How was that VP shunting?”

  “Good.” She smiles. “You jealous?”

  “Nahh.” They did the surgery on a baby, placing a shunt to help him live a normal life with a condition called hydrocephalus. I’ve been on two, and both times, I felt like a fucking champ. Working with kids is always like that for me.

  “Eilert let me do a lot,” she says, getting another scoop of avocado.

  “Sweet.”

  She flashes me a quick, proud smile, and my heart catches. It’s been years since I met Evie, but it still feels like the first day sometimes. I remember when she followed me up to the school’s front doors and watched me punch the wall. I didn’t know, of course, that I should kick the fucking thing, and spare my hands. I couldn’t fathom that I’d be a surgeon one day. But I think Evie always could. She looked at me, and she saw something no one else did. Even I don’t know what.

  It amazes me sometimes to think the boy who sneaked into the family room to watch the girl sleep on the couch grew up and went to med school, tracked her down and married her. I feel weirdly proud of younger Landon. And Evie—fuck. She had a baby, gave her to a better life, and went on living. Thriving. There’s no one stronger than Evie. My wife.

  We shoot the shit a little longer, and then we both head to the annual meeting to discuss new patient safety objectives. I kiss her right behind the door before we step into the hallway and walk past the nurses’ desk to Conference Room 2. It’s packed with all the residents and attendings who signed up at this hour. We have to stagger these meetings, but still—there’s lots of us.

  Evie stands beside me in her sneakers, paired with dress pants, and her coat. She pulls her hair back up as Peterson gives the lecture. As he drones on, she touches her mouth, rubs her neck, adjusts her coat. And I watch her. I admire her freckles, watch the way her coat falls over her breasts. I think of opening the coat, pulling her sweater up, and freeing her breasts from her bra. I’d cup them…nip them. Annnd—I’m getting hard. Fuck.

  Evie catches my eye, noting my strange look, but she doesn’t know why. Not until the meeting ends. We all file out. That’s when I ask her for a piece of gum. Her eyes hold mine for just a second too long. “Yeah—sure.” She reaches into her coat pocket. I unwrap the gum and chew. “Thanks.”

  “Sure. Not a problem, Dr. Jones.”

  I arch a brow. “Well, thank you, Dr. Rutherford.” I give her my polite smile. “Until we meet again.”

  We part ways by the nurses’ station—and I go straight down to floor two. Half the time, we’re paged, and have to finish in five seconds, or don’t get to start at all. But the other half…

  Evie bursts into the door a minute after I do. I pull her coat off. She goes for my pants, her skilled hands pushing them down in record time. Her fingers find my dick and start to stroke, before I even get her pants unbuttoned.

  “Evie—fuck.”

  “I’ve been wanting this.” She squeezes…tugs and strokes. With heavy eyelids, I smile and peel her pants down, finding her warm pussy with my hand. We end up on a stretcher, going at each other with our hands and mouths until that’s not enough, and I’ve got the d
efiant doctor bent over the table, getting pounded with a stiff, hard dose of Vitamin D.

  Evie gasps and groans and grips the table as my knees go weak, I start to pant…and, fuck, I’m so hard.

  “Evie—”

  “Yes!”

  A few more rough strokes, and she cries out, taking me over the ledge with her. I lean down over her as I pant, and Ev’s hands reach back, stroking my chest.

  “Oh God,” she breathes, still panting. She laughs. “That was good.”

  “It’s always good.”

  I dress her carefully and slowly—still no page for either one of us—and when there’s still no page—the world has ended—I push her pants back down, hook a finger through the crotch of her thong, and bathe her slick clit with my hungry tongue. She comes with a sharp cry. I’m hard as marble when my pager vibrates, but that’s okay. It’s worth it. Every day. All this is worth it.

  All the shit we had to go through to get here—right here on floor two, in this dusty storage room where we have at each other: worth it. Every time I stalked her online throughout college, looking painfully at her new profile pictures, at her changing hair and different poses, at those pictures that I wasn’t in—until I was again: worth it.

  Running from the group home: worth it.

  Tracking down my mother: worth it.

  Missing Ashtyn’s birth and ten years with her: worth it.

  Not because it’s easy now. It’s not easy. This shit is the opposite of easy.

  Evie’s off at nine. I’m not finished till ten, and so I wait—eating a donut—which, by now, is stale. On the drive home, we try to talk about the weirdest shit we saw that day so that whoever’s driving—six blocks—doesn’t fall asleep behind the wheel.

  Worth it.

  In one month, we share one single off day.

  Worth it.

  Because it has to be. There’s only two choices: it’s either worth it, or it’s not. So I choose blindly. Desperately. I choose Evie. And our love—our fractured, splinted, restored love—is fucking worth it.

  —THE END—