by Brynn Hale
I push away from him and he sets my feet down.
“I can’t. I’m happy you’re alive, but what you put me through…” My eyes water. “My heart isn’t going to heal from one kiss.” I shake my head and the tears roll down my cheeks. “Get out, Landon.”
And he does.
3 Landon
That could’ve gone better, and probably not worse, but what did I really expect? I broke into a woman’s home. And when I knew she was waking up, I should have left. I should’ve called her, but wouldn’t that have freaked her out just as much? Seeing the fear in her eyes made me regret every second. I should’ve done it different.
A lot of things different.
But then we kissed. And she kissed me first. She jumped into my arms and having her there again was the best feeling.
She’s still mine. I can feel it. But I could also feel when she turned cold and memories clouded her happiness.
I walk out to my car and get in. I watch as every light turns on in her apartment. I not only freaked her out, but I ruined her sleep.
I drive off to my normal spot in a park nearby. I never would’ve thought that she was so close. But yet so far away.
I lean my seat back in my Jeep Cherokee and close my eyes. That kiss rolls my mind. My hands firmly planted on her ass, holding her against me as tightly as possible as she looked into my eyes, glassy gleam and hope in there.
I know it was.
Or maybe I want to hope, too.
“Hello?” I answer my phone without opening my eyes.
“Murphy, we have an assignment that we need your expertise on.”
“Halsey?”
“Did you hear me?” There’s a long pause and then, “Are you at a children’s playground?”
I lowered my window for fresh air during the night and in fact, there is a playground full of kids not thirty feet from my car. I sit up and a few mothers turn their heads with a little over-examination. I can see the creepy guy alert is sounded in their minds. I start my car and back out.
“You’ve got forty-eight hours to accept or…”
“Decide I’m done?”
“You got it. It’s a triple.”
Triple meaning lots of money, but also lots of danger, as everything was judged on both in my life lately. And lots of headache to boot. And I’d just started feeling my constant headache fading these last two days.
“I’ll let you know tomorrow. How’s Fiona?” My Dutch shepherd search and rescue dog is a part of my family and the team’s. But, if I go, she comes with me. That’s in my fucking contract and it’ll happen.
“She’s good. And Murph…”
“Yeah…”
“Good luck.” He’s obviously talked to Bronson.
“Thanks, Halsey. I think I’m gonna need it.”
I hate being controlled and this job has me by the ‘gnads. The money is incredible. The rush is indescribable. But the jobs—pulling people out of dangerous situations, rescuing diplomats that decided to go for a walk without their security detail, like idiots, and even worse, collecting bodies to bring them back home to their loved ones because not everything goes well, it all drains me. I feel like I can’t feel anymore, which is weird to think. I feel like…a zombie, so in many ways, maybe Luna was right. A lot of my past haunts me like it’s the ghost in my life.
But the memory of Luna’s blue eyes last night haunts me even more. I need to get her to forgive me for leaving and for dying, but since normally my actions are firm and I do what I say and don’t have to apologize, I’m at a loss.
I don’t think luck’s going to be enough. I’m going to have to call in the big guns. But I don’t mean actual guns this time.
At least I don’t think so.
4 Landon
“Wow, Lennox Wright. Damn. I haven’t seen you in years.” My buddy from college, Jedd, reaches across the bar top with an outstretched hand. “How the hell are you?”
Well, I’m not my twin brother.
This is bound to happen. We look alike, but not super alike. Jedd’s brain is justifying that I have to be my brother. It can’t be Landon. That would be crazy to be in the presence of a dead guy.
And in the process of seeing his semi-confused face, I’m seeing and realizing all the dominoes falling all around me. What Black Ice suggested was “best” for friends and family…
Probably wasn’t.
And I won’t pretend. My brother has been pretending to be me. He’s living a life in Nevada last I checked, but that address a couple years back. Being dead hasn’t been easy, but I can tell it hasn’t been easy on everyone who was still alive either.
Jedd owns the Bump & Grind cowboy bar in downtown and one of the only places that Luna loved to go. She was a line dancer and damn good at it, too. Probably still is.
“Actually, Jedd, it’s me…Landon.”
He stands upright and pulls his hand back quickly like touching me will take him to hell.
“What? You’re alive?” His head shakes. “Or are you a ghost?”
“I’m breathing, so I’m going with alive, but the way everyone looks at me, I’ll accept the second as well.”
He rounds the bar and about knocks me over with his hug and slaps my back. “What the hell, Lando? You disappeared and then we all got this cryptic message on Facebook, from a person who it seemed didn’t really exist, that you were gone.” He makes it back behind the bar.
“Really?” I didn’t ask how Black Ice would plan and execute my death, didn’t seem to matter at the time. But now it does.
“Yeah. Freaked me the fuck out.”
“It was for the best.”
He huffs. “Can’t imagine Luna sees it like that.”
“Yeah, kinda why I’m here.”
“How’s that?” He washes some pint glasses.
“She still come in here?”
“Occasionally, but not as often as she should.”
I sit on a high-backed stool and the tension in my shoulders wipes away. It’s like old days and I can feel it in my bones.
“What do you mean by that?” I ask, grabbing a napkin and motioning to the beers. “Whatever you have craft…”
He wipes his hands and pours the beer. “She’s a free dance instructor. I’ve gotta pay the others and they aren’t cheap, but she does it because she loves it and it shows.”
The gears turn in my mind as I down a majority of the beer.
I pull out my phone. “You have her number?”
“Yes.”
“Is it the same as when I left?”
He walks away and pours two shots at the end of the bar. He brings them back. “Tequila, ’cause you’re gonna need it.”
We clink and throw it back. I don’t need lime or salt. Scurvy can’t be that bad.
I’ve kept a healthy mind and body—mostly—the last ten years. Every once in a while the Rebels would find a bottle of something in a rundown cabin in the woods, or desert, or jungle or wherever we were, and we all sat around a fire and drowned our sorrows, but the next day would be a pain, and it’s not fun to go into a fist, gun, or knife fight with a hangover. So those slipups were few and far in between.
“It’s the same number,” he says, collecting my shot glass and walking away.
I’ve been shot at. I’ve been stabbed multiple times. I’ve had about thirty percent of my bones broken over time, but this is excruciating, and it feels like I’m in danger of an extreme amount of pain. I might have totally broken the woman I still love. And it’s highly possible that no amount of love-casts or apology medicine is going to fix that.
Luna
The number appears in my phone and I have to take a seat at my kitchen table. It’s a text. He’s trying to ease back in, but after last night’s little stunt, there’s no easing. We’ve jumped into the deep end and I’m still treading water, trying to figure out to either swim or sink.
312-4445: I know last night didn’t go the way I planned. I’d love a second chance. Meet me at the B&G B
ar tonight at eight? Please. I know you felt what I felt, Luna, and I just want to know you’re okay.
I allow the text to settle into me. I take a soothing drink of my sweet iced tea, allowing the cool sensation to calm some of my lady parts that went back to last night, really quickly. I’ve never been as worked up as after being in his arms.
Memories of our first meeting at the Bump & Grind flood back. I spilled a drink on his crotch…accidentally or on purpose, I’ve never really figured it out and it all happened so quickly that I never questioned it. He stripped to his boxer briefs in his cowboy boots and T-shirt and stayed that way for the rest of the night. Since his friend Jedd owns the bar, he let Landon stay that way. I spent the remaining part of the night trying to keep my eyes north of his equator, but damn, he has some extensive and view-worthy property below it.
However, his toffee brown eyes, with gold glitter sparkling through the iris, made it a lot easier. And his humor. And his sweetness. And his hotness. And that night we made love. I gave him a part of me I’d never given to any man, my body, and then I gave him my heart the next morning when he wrote me a love note before heading off for his ROTC work out training.
I knew it wasn’t a one-night stand and so did he. And then every night after that for four months we made love, until he had to leave for the military…and then he asked me to marry him.
But I couldn’t. There were so many reasons. I still had school to finish up for my law degree. And it was easy to see that he was going to be married to the military. He felt a call to serve and to be part of a team. I thought I would never be enough, and I couldn’t ask him to stay, so I told him no. I thought I was saving both of us from future hurt.
Then he left. Then he died. Then I died inside, too.
I shiver and roll my bottom lip through my teeth to stop the roll of feelings.
As much as I’m not sure that the first chance at the B&G Bar was all that much of a chance meeting, it seems in my mind to have been a little set up, and that’s kind of his way—surprising me at every turn. He’s back from the grave and I would regret not at least hearing from him. Hearing that voice that will take me back and remember the good times.
But if he’s still in his own hell, I’ll walk away again. I can’t be worried about him like that. Military is one thing. Mercenary is another.
Luna: Okay. I’ll see you there.
I add him back into my contacts. Maybe he’s right where he belonged all along.
I call my friend Gwen. She needs to be my wing-woman for the night. She’s reluctant and I know why. Not only because a man who was declared dead is alive, he’s asking for another chance with me.
She’s listened to me on margarita nights telling stories of Landon. And she wasn’t happy with what happened and how it ended. I’m truly afraid of what she might say to him. She’s a very strong and passionate woman and I admire her for that. But sometimes, she scares me, more than a little. I’d warn him, but I kind of want to see how he handles her.
Probably should be more concerned with how he handles me.
I meet her outside of the Bump & Grind.
“Whoa.” Her mouth stays open and I reach over and tap her chin to close it. She grabs my hand and makes me twirl for her. “Damn, woman, you are fucking hot tonight.”
I went out and bought a new dress. An off the shoulder, cotton, empire-waist, flowy, covered in yellow flowers. For off the rack, it fits perfectly. And on my feet, new boots. Brown with an embossed pattern of stars and the moon. They make me feel like I could honestly kick ass.
I want him to see what he’s missing. I want him to regret so much. But then I feel like shit even thinking of putting him through half of what I went through.
I texted Jedd to save our favorite U-shaped booth and he seemed to have no problems with keeping it open for the night. Which sent up a small red flag in my head. A busy June Sunday night and he’ll keep space open? Seems a little suspect, but I’m not going to complain, it’ll be packed.
Jedd brings over two drinks, without us even ordering. He knows what we want. “For the prettiest two ladies in the bar.”
Gwen rolls her big dark chocolate eyes and gives him the once up and down with her gaze. “You keep talkin’ like that and I might have to take you home, Jedediah Thomas,” she says with her perfected sweet southern twang.
“You name the night, Gwendolyn Reyes, and I’ll be there.”
And this is how we start most nights here. Oddly, they both go home alone. I can’t understand why, but it seems their flirting and banter is lead up to a self-love session when they seem so perfect.
My eyes catch someone across the room. The way he moves is like he’s still in hiding, trying to evade something or someone. He can clearly see me, even if he hasn’t scanned the room. I’m sure his advanced training allows for nothing less than full awareness of his surroundings, but not necessarily of what’s actually important.
“Luna, if you decide to get up and teach a dance or two, drinks on the house for the rest of the night.”
“That include for me?” His voice is soft and controlled and it makes my body go on heightened alert.
He’s snuck up behind me. Behind. That’s how good he is at his fucking job. That’s why I couldn’t say yes. I knew he wanted to be a part of something bigger and more dangerous than us. He wanted to be the best. But I’m not sure what he’s really the best at.
I don’t turn around or flinch. I lift my glass and take a long sip of the tangy margarita, crisp, slightly metallic, citrus taste coats my tongue. My brain ignites with happiness.
One of my favorite line dancing songs comes on and I instantly uncross my legs to jump to my feet.
But before I can rise, warm lips brush the outside my right ear. “Can I have this dance?”
Gwen throws back a majority of her drink—priming the pump. “He looks good for a dead guy.”
And once again, Gwen doesn’t mince words. Landon does wear death well.
My lips rise into a small smile, hoping he can’t see it.
Landon leans over the back of the booth and reaches out to her. “Landon Wright.”
She looks at his hand and slips hers into it. “Gwen.”
“Nice to meet a friend of Luna’s.”
Gwen lifts her drink and toasts to him. “We’ll see how nice it is, Beetlejuice.”
I chuckle at her nickname for him. “I think I’ll do a few line dances first before anything more.” I rise and start to the floor, hearing Gwen’s boots clacking behind me to catch up with my quick strides and she’s not short like me, so it’s one of hers to two of mine.
She starts before I’m even settled. I think she’s the better dancer of the two of us. “Damn, girl! He’s not hot, he’s five-alarm smoking.”
“Yeah, but you know what they say about where there’s smoke…”
I lose myself in the tempo and routine. Soon I’m laughing and feeling like nothing can take this away. And then I spin and see him and my world spins too, because he’s here.
“Hey, I’m gonna go get some water.”
Gwen nods to me, but continues her fancy footsteps with a crowd following behind her. If someone decided to create a woman who was the best and most of everything, so that it intimidated most men, Gwen would be their perfected prototype. But that’s mens’ problem. Not hers. She wears her dominance well and I admire her for it. It’ll take a lion of man who can both tame and release the lioness in her.
I walk to the bar and motion to Jedd. “Water, please.”
“You okay?” His voice makes a trail down my back and zips right to my core.
I turn my head and he’s right there, again. “I’m okay. Just haven’t done that much spinning in a while, got a little off balance.”
His hand slips under my arm. “Have a seat. Jedd, make it room temp, no ice.”
I crinkle my nose and his eyes hold to the spot.
“Room temperature water maintains hydration better,” he adds, and I watch his che
rry lips with every word. There’s something about them that beckons to me.
We sit in silence. There are words I want to say, but I don’t know where to start.
And then it happens. The music changes and he smiles lightly.
“Did you do this?” I ask with a tipped head.
“No. But it is a commanding show-off of the universe.”
Our song rolls from the sound system. The one that we first danced to that night. The one that he put on while we had the best sex I can remember, mostly because he’s the only one I’ve ever had, but more because of how he makes love. With authority. With care. With attention that’s undivided and all about me. And it makes me wonder if he’s been with other women since we ended.
Of course he has. He’s a man. He has needs. The fact that I’ve quelled mine with a vibrator and a few steamy romance stories, doesn’t mean that he’s done the same. And I can’t blame him.
I’m not sure why I haven’t moved on. Actually, I’m sure, but the reasons make me feel like I’m controlled, and I don’t like that either.
“I Love the Way You Love Me” by John Michael Montgomery swoons to us and his hand slips under mine on the bar.
“Dance with me…” It’s a request without a question because he knows I can’t not dance to this song with him.
On the dance floor, he starts a slow two-step, but soon he pulls us off to the side and does more of a junior/high school slow rock of our bodies. I keep space, but he guides me closer and I give in. My heart tries to find a beat to the music, but then I realize it’s trying to match Landon’s…and his heart is racing.
I look up into his eyes.
He tips his head. “Can you forgive me for not letting you know I was alive, Luna?”
I still. He thinks this is all about forgiveness for being alive? It’s not.
“I forgave you the day I thought you died. I didn’t want you going to Heaven with any weights on your shoulders or to be the reason you didn’t get in.”
His arms tighten around me.
