by Lyla Grace
So instead of sitting at home and licking my wounds, my pounding head and I make ourselves comfortable against the wall next to Landon’s door. Coming or going, he is going to hear me out whether he likes it or not. My phone has been going off incessantly all morning. Not surprising, considering I made myself, and Landon, headline news. How the hell did I get myself into this mess?
I have been sitting here for what feels like hours when the doors to the elevator open. Silently I pray that it’s not Ashlynn on the other side. Because that…would destroy me. But it’s not. It’s Landon, looking like he just came back from the gym. Relief washes over me as I scramble to my feet.
“I don’t have time for this,” he says flatly.
“Landon, please. Can I come in so we can talk about this?”
He unlocks the door and enters his condo. “It’s not a good time.”
He’s not fighting. He’s not speaking. He won’t even look me in the eye. How can one night destroy everything we’ve been through, everything we shared? I feel sick to my stomach. And like a fool, I lash out. Because if he’s going to end this, it’s going to be on my terms. “Why? Is she in there?”
“This again? Really? No, Livie, she’s not in here. She’s never been here.”
“Oh, yes, I forgot. So was it her hotel, then? Is that where you’re coming back from?”
Well, if I was trying to make him angry, I definitely succeeded. His fists are clenched at his sides, and he is stalking toward me until I am backed against the wall by the elevator. “I am only going to say this once, so listen close. I haven’t been with Ashlynn since college. I don’t want to be with her, or anyone else for that matter. All I have wanted for months—hell, years--is you. But last night? What you did last night was inexcusable. I get that seeing me with Ashlynn upset you, and I can even understand you misinterpreting what you saw. But nothing happened. You, on the other hand broke the only two rules I have ever asked of you – you trust me and you don’t get physically involved with anyone else while were together. So, like I said last night. We’re done.”
The sound of the door slamming behind him sends a shutter down my spine. Anger turns to sadness. By the time I reached my apartment I am a mess. My face is stained with tears. One look from Becca, and the floodgates open again. He is right. I didn’t trust him, I didn’t listen to him. I ruined this, not him. Just like I always do. I’m exhausted, and the only thing I can handle right now is being curled up on the couch with my phone in hand, hoping, praying that he texts me, that he changes his mind. But that call doesn’t come. It probably never will. So I do the only thing I can. I text him, I call him, I try. I try like I never have before.
Three days of moping on the couch, sending pathetic text messages and drowning my sorrows in cookie dough and wine before Becca finally gets me into the shower. But not before I check my phone screen one last time. And when I fully acknowledge that it’s been three days without a response, I vow to make one final attempt before I let the man live in peace. I type out the words, “Landon, please come over so we can talk. I owe you a huge apology. Please, Landon.”
Remarkably, I do feel a little better after the shower, but there is a part of me that doesn’t want to feel better. As though this misery I am living in is keeping me close to him, allowing me hope and the ability to not believe it’s really over. Not like this. I plop back on the couch and check my phone. Still nothing. God, this is driving me insane. I just want a response. Something. Even if he tells me to fuck off, which I totally deserve. I’ve asked Chase more times than I can count if Landon’s okay and he refuses to tell me. He says that he’s Switzerland…he’s staying out of it. There’s a knock on the door. I sigh and haul my unenergized ass off the couch and open the door without checking the peep hole.
Landon. Finally, thank God. “Hey.” I open the door farther allowing him to enter. He is carrying a box in his hands. “I’m glad you came. There is so much I need to say.”
“That’s not what I’m here for,” he replies.
“Okay.” He places the box on the couch. “What’s in the box?”
He clears his throat before continuing. “Things you left at my place.”
The box is the final nail in our coffin. “No.”
“Yes, Livie. I wasn’t kidding when I said we were over.”
“Landon, I am so sorry about the other night.”
My apology falls on deaf ears. It means nothing to him, because I no longer think his anger and hurt has to do with me kissing some guy. It’s that I lost faith in him, I didn’t trust him, I didn’t love him, and I didn’t believe in how he felt about me when all he has done since we have known each other is prove otherwise.
I can’t watch him walk away; I can’t let him leave. “Landon,” I yell after him as he makes his way out of my apartment for what I can only assume is the last time. He turns back to me and for the first time I can see how racked he is from the events of the past few days. So I do the only thing I know how to do, the only way I can show him how I feel…I throw myself into his arms, my lips on his, tears flowing down my face. For a moment he kisses back. His hands are on my face, pulling away.
“Goodbye, Livie.” That’s it. That is the end. There is no going back. I just lost the one thing I never knew I wanted.
Chapter 22
Landon
“You sure that’s what you want?” Chase asks.
Fuck no, it’s not what I want. What I want is her. But that’s not ever going to happen. And not just because I ended things after she kissed that guy. I realized that I have been fighting a losing battle this entire time. She made it clear the night that she left that we would never be real. So what was I supposed to do? I know I said that I would take her any way I could have her, but frankly the closer we got, the harder it got to maintain. I want her, all of her. I refuse to settle for anything less.
“Positive.” It’s a lie. He knows it, I know it. Chase is the last person I should be having this conversation with. But despite the family connection, it seems he has taken my side in this whole debacle. He should be shouting “I told you so” from the rooftops, but he’s not--at least, not yet.
“Listen, I know Livie fucked up and you’re pissed. I get it and you know that I absolutely hate cheating…but come on man; did she really cheat on you? Or did she just do the typical Livie thing and act out because she was hurt?”
I shake my head as I take another sip of my protein shake. I need to refuel, because God knows I have been killing myself with workouts since she left. It’s the only damn thing that can take the edge off of all this anger and hurt I am feeling. “It’s not even that. I can get over that. She doesn’t trust me, man; she doesn’t think what we have is real or worth the risk. I can’t fight that anymore. I don’t want to.”
Chase nods in agreement. He knows Livie better than anyone, and he definitely warned me about the potential downfall of getting involved with her. It’s my own fault I didn’t listen, but hell, any man who takes one look at the woman would lose his damn head too and throw all rational thinking out the window for a piece of her. Stupid me, I ended up wanting more than that piece. Correction, I went into this wanting more than just a piece.
“Are you hooking up with Ashlynn?” Chase asks.
“What? No.” I look at him like he lost his mind, which if he is even asking that, he must have.
“Maybe you should. Get your mind off things,” he suggests.
“I’m not like you, Chase. I am not going to fuck my way through the city to get Livie off my mind.”
“Don’t knock it until you try it, brother.” Chase finishes the last sip of his protein shake and shoots the plastic cup into my sink. He pushes his arms into the air in celebration at his score. He pats me on the back. “Listen, fuck every woman that walks past you or don’t, I don’t care. What I do care about is that you get your damn head on straight. We have an amazing season going so far, and it’s only going to get better. I will be damned if this thing with you a
nd Livie is going to fuck that up for us.”
“Not that I mind a visit from my handsome son, but you want to tell me what’s going on?” my mother asks as I walk into her office.
I would say it’s mother’s intuition, but I’ve seen myself in the mirror. I look like hell. I feel like hell too, so that makes sense. “Livie and I broke up.”
Thanks to the media, I am sure she already knows this. Our little fight at the club made front page of all the trashy tabloids. Of course, they blew it even further out of proportion than it already was. It killed me to see those headlines, mostly because I cannot stand thinking about that night and how everything went terribly wrong, but also because I hate my personal life being in the limelight. I work so hard to keep it out of there. One night, one argument, and my privacy goes to shit.
“That much I know. What I don’t know is why?”
Strategically leaving out the part about us being naked in bed when I did so, I recount to her the evening’s events when I asked Livie to move in with me. Then I proceed to tell her about the night at the club and what transpired.
“And what part did Ashlynn play in this?” I look at her quizzically, unsure of what she means. “I like Ashlynn, I do, and I know she has been a good friend to you. But in my opinion, whatever your version of what your relationship in college may have been, I don’t think hers was quite the same. Ashlynn’s feeling for you goes far deeper than friendship. Perhaps now she is ready to pursue that, and quite frankly, I can see her using this opportunity to her advantage.”
I sink into the plush sofa in her office, my head against the back cushion. “I don’t know what happened between them. Based on Livie’s allegations, I am assuming they talked, but….” I get up from the couch and begin to pace the office. “It doesn’t even matter. This all started before Ashlynn even entered the picture—which, by the way, was Chase’s doing. Not mine.” I stare out the window at the world before me. It seems a much darker place to me now than it had when Livie was in my life. “She doesn’t love me, Mom.”
“What in the world makes you say that? I saw the way she looks at you. That girl is head over heels in love with you.”
“She told me she didn’t want me,” I admit. Saying the words still rips my heart out.
“Oh, Landon, you know that’s not true.” My mother makes her way over to me and pulls me into a big hug. She pulls back and looks me in the eyes. “Even if she hasn’t said the words yet, she’s shown you in so many ways. She let you in, she’s opened up to you when she hasn’t to anyone else.”
“Yeah, but Sarah…” I trail off.
“Livie isn’t Sarah, Landon. And you know I adored Sarah, but honey, she wasn’t as perfect as you thought she was. It was just harder to see. But with Livie, well, she came in full force, flaws front and center. And rather than accept them, you tried to fix them. As honorable and sweet as that may be, you can’t fix her. You either have to accept her as she is and help her work through her issues on her own, or if you can’t handle that, then you need to move on. A life with Livie is not always going to be easy. She is not the shy, sweet girl that Sarah was. Livie is a force of nature that has had to deal with a lot of things in her life. For you, though, Landon, she’s trying. I can see that. I think even you can see that.”
Even if it isn’t what I want to hear, she is right. She is always right when it comes to this stuff. “So what do I do?”
“What do you want to do, Landon?”
I let out a breath as my mother watches me intently. “I don’t know.”
“I disagree.”
Of course she does. Because God forbid she just let me wallow in my self-pity over here. No, she has to make me discuss things, come to terms with things. Damn her and her amazing motherly ways. I smile at her, realizing just how lucky I am to have her. Not only is she an incredibly hard-working woman, building POSH from the ground up on her own, she’s also an amazing mother that was always there for D and me when we needed her. “I want her back.”
“Then, Sutton, I say it’s high time you get off your ass and do just that.”
“You’re amazing--you know that, right?” She smiles back at me, and when she does, it hits me.
My mom’s bond with Livie. I can’t believe I never saw it before. They are so much alike. While for different reasons, they both had difficult childhoods. And while I don’t know the full details of my mom’s history, I do know that they both struggled, but they also both overcame it. I know my mom wasn’t always this perfect woman I see in front of me. Maybe she too was an amazing mess just like Livie, and with the love of my father she worked through everything and came out the other side. It would explain Dad’s change of heart where Livie is concerned. Actually, it explains a lot.
I quickly kiss her cheek before I rush out the door. I need to see Livie. And I need to start figuring out how exactly I should go about getting her back.
Chapter 23
Livie
I crumple yet another piece of paper and throw it on the floor. I don’t even bother aiming for the garbage can anymore. My mind is able to focus on only one thing: Landon. Any attempt at throwing myself into my work have proved futile. The physical beatings I took from Will are no comparison to the pain – physical and emotional – that I have felt since Landon said goodbye. His patience and kindness opened me up to possibilities that I never considered for myself. Had I been more honest, if I had the guts to tell him how I really feel, things could be different. Fear paralyzed me. And now, I have to suffer the consequences, because even if I were to go to him, tell him I want to be with him and move in with him, it would seem so disingenuous--as though I were giving in only to get him back.
Well, at least I made it until 10 a.m. today before I let my thoughts of him consume me. Sipping my coffee, I sit back in my chair, memories flooding my mind. “Hey, Livie,” Tasha interrupts. “There is someone here to see you.”
“Send them in,” I say absently. My mind is anywhere but where it should be. As I am waiting for my guest, my cellphone rings. “Hello?”
It’s the prosecuting attorney’s office. The court date for Will has finally been set. He will be going before the judge next week regarding his parole violation and the charges filed against him by the woman he almost attacked. To say I am relieved that he will be back behind bars for an extended period of time is an understatement. I finally feel like I can breathe again after the last couple of months. Which is great, since I now have this massive ache in my heart that won’t go away.
“Yes, next Wednesday. Court Room 157. I will be there. Thank you.” I hang up the phone, my eye spotting Landon in the doorway. I would be less surprised to see the Easter Bunny. “Hey,” I say softly, unsure how to proceed. His presence is a little intimidating after how we left things.
“Hey.” Okay, so at least I am not the only one who doesn’t know what to say or do. He makes his way into my office, his hands shoved in his pockets. “I didn’t meant to eavesdrop, but was that about Will?”
I nod as I get up from my desk and make my way to the table where I have all the arrangements for the gala laid out. “His court date is next week. They were just letting me know. I don’t have to be there, but I kind of feel like I need to. “
“You shouldn’t go alone,” he says. “I can--”
“I’ll be fine,” I say before I let him complete that sentence. Because I sure as hell don’t want to go alone; I want him by my side. But I don’t deserve that. Since I seem to be in the habit lately of pushing away anyone that tries to care for me, I should probably learn how to deal with shit on my own. I need to change the subject, before I change my mind. “So what can I do for you, Landon?”
“I…uh….” He just stands there, staring at me. “How is everything going?”
“You came all the way here just to ask how things are going?” I ask, more than a little confused.
“Uh…no. I….uh….” He pauses for a moment. “The gala.”
“What about it?”
“I know it’s just a couple weeks away, but I was hoping that maybe there was an extra ticket I could get,” he said. The stuttering and uneasiness now makes more sense. He needs a ticket for his date. Jealousy starts to rage inside me once I realize who his date probably is.
“Who’s your date?” I demand. There is no way I am going to let him ruin this night for me. I know the position we’re in is my fault, but I worked way too hard on this gala for him to show up with Ashlynn on his arm. “Because if it’s Ashlynn….You know what, never mind. It’s none of my business.” Though if he does show up with her, I may just lose my mind. And my job when I pull all her perfect hair out of her perfect head.
He moves closer to me. Close enough to touch, to kiss, to make mine again. Right there on my desk if I had to. There is a softness in his eyes that was nonexistent the last time we saw each other, and for a moment, I think he is going to lean in and kiss me. I part my lips, to let him know that I want that, too. Need it is more like it. I am so filled with need and desire in this instant that I think I may combust.
“Hey, Liv…” Becca’s voice calls from the door. “Oops, sorry, I’ll come back.”
Landon turns and breaks our connection. “No, it’s okay. I need to leave anyway.” He turns back to me, and I hand him the ticket he requested. His eyes are still soft and filled with desire.
“I hope you and Ashlynn enjoy the evening.” Quickly I turn around and begin to mess with something on the table to hide the tears that are stinging my eyes.
I feel his strong hands rest on my biceps, my body instantly craving more. God, I have missed his touch. His voice is soft. “I don’t have a date, Livie. But I was hoping maybe you could save a dance for me?” He places the ticket back on the table. I turn to face him to see if he’s actually serious or if he is just messing with me. The look in his eyes floors me. He is definitely serious. What the hell is going on here?