by Blair Grey
Lina looked saddened by that, and I could tell that she wanted to keep talking about it. I tried to think of some way that I could reassure her that I was totally over this. That I wasn’t interested in having something more with him. “Look at it this way,” I said. “Now that the seal is broken, I can start trying to get interested in other guys. Like that dude at the gym, the one you insist was flirting with me.”
Lina laughed, but I could tell that she was still thinking about Landon. “Why don’t you want to try something with him?” she finally asked. “I know that you were hurt before, but you can’t go on being lonely forever. Keep things light and fun, maybe you’ll just have a good time without getting in over your head.”
I shook my head. “You know me, Lina,” I told her. “I don’t do things halfway.”
“That’s true.” Lina sighed. “I guess as soon as you decide to keep doing things with Landon, you’re bound to get in over your head. And the last thing I want is for you to end up hurting again.” Her eyes twinkled. “Although it was pretty fun to binge-watch all those crappy chick flicks and eat our weight in ice cream,” she added.
I laughed. “That was pretty fun,” I admitted, even though at the time, it had felt horrible. I’d tried my best never to let on just how terrible I had felt about the way that things had ended. And Lina, for all her insights into me, seemed not to have ever guessed the real reason I would never have another relationship.
I wasn’t good enough for anyone. I knew that, all the way down to my bones. That had been proven. There was no coming back from that.
Landon had been sweet. But he wasn’t going to take care of me forever. He just wasn’t that type of guy. He was meant for someone else. And if I didn’t let him go now, I was going to have to let him go later.
Better that I just let him go now.
“What about you?” I asked Lina, trying to distract her. “You got any guys on the horizon?”
Lina shook her head. “Not really,” she said. “Although I have been flirting with one of the kids’ dads. Or at least, I think we’re flirting. It seems like flirting.”
“Risqué,” I said in surprise. “Is the school okay with that? Is his wife okay with that?”
Lina laughed. “What do you take me for?” she asked. “He doesn’t have a wife. He’s a single parent, and I think that’s very admirable.” She grinned slyly at me. “But I’d love to help out. With more than just his workload.”
I giggled and shook my head. “I hope things work out for you,” I said. “Does Mr. Right have a name?”
“Alex,” Lina said, a dreamy look on her face.
“Oh Lord,” I said, shaking my head. “You’re already head over heels, aren’t you? And we said that I couldn’t do things halfway.”
Lina laughed and shrugged. “I can’t help it,” she said. “He’s hot, and he’s a good dad. What more could I want in a man?”
I thought about Landon again, for one brief moment. What did I look for in a man? What was it about Landon that had drawn me to him? So quickly, too, like a moth to a flame. Was it the tattoos? The fact that he was so different from anyone that I had ever been with before? His personality? The way that he touched me? The way that he respected me, the way that he let me call the shots?
Because we might have ended up in bed together the previous night, but I knew, first and foremost, that I was the one who had brought us there. There had been that one slip-up when he had touched my cheek, but I had been able to tell that if I really asked him to go home alone at the end of the night, without having sex, he would have done it.
That, more than anything, was why I had gone to bed with him. Because he had proven to me that he was okay with it if we didn’t. And I would need both of us to exercise that same restraint now. To keep from a repeat performance. I knew I wouldn’t survive as unscathed the next time.
That night, though, getting home, the place seemed so empty, and I almost wished that I had his number. That I could call him and ask him to come over. Just for sex. Just to fuck me back into oblivion like he had the night before.
But even if I had his number, I knew that I would have to delete it. I couldn’t seem to stop thinking about him all day. No matter where I’d been and what I’d been doing, Landon had been on my mind. That was the first sign that I was getting in over my head, and I was determined not to do that.
The good news was, I knew that this would all pass. If I stayed away from him, gave myself plenty of space, these feelings would go away, and I would eventually stop thinking about him. I just needed to stop, now, before it was too late.
I just wished it wasn’t so lonely, here in my big house, all by myself.
15
Landon
On Sunday, I was up before Braxton. And today, it wasn’t my brother who I wanted to have breakfast with. No, I wanted to have breakfast with Anne. I laid there in bed for about twenty minutes trying to psych up the courage to go over there and ask her to breakfast. But I just had to frame things the same way that I had before. This wasn’t a date; this was just breakfast. Two friends meeting up and hanging out.
If anything, I’d just tell her that Braxton and I had gone together to breakfast the previous morning. If I could do it with my brother, then surely it wasn’t a date just because it was Anne and I instead?
I grinned and swung out of bed, dressing quickly and heading over to her place. I rang the doorbell and waited for her to answer. When she did, she looked sleep-rumpled, her curly hair falling in thick tendrils around her face, her eyes bleary. She was wearing a thin yellow robe over a T-shirt and short shorts, and she looked incredible. Like drag-her-back-to-bed incredible.
But I wasn’t going to do that. That wasn’t what I was here for.
“Good morning,” I said brightly, smiling at her.
“What are you doing here?” Anne asked, pulling her robe closer around her body.
“I wanted to take you to breakfast,” I told her. “Sorry if I woke you up.”
Anne stared at me for a moment. “I already told you,” she said finally, shaking her head. “I thought we were on the same page. This isn’t a relationship.”
“I know,” I told her. “And I’m not asking you on a date. But I eat breakfast and I assumed you eat breakfast as well, and I thought we could mutually eat breakfast together. If you wanted to.”
Anne rolled her eyes, but I could tell from the quick upturn at the corners of her lips that she was amused. “I have to get dressed,” she said.
“I can wait,” I told her, stepping inside. I watched as she headed upstairs, glad that that robe was hiding her short shorts from view, because otherwise I really was going to have to drag her upstairs and have my way with her again.
But this was meant to be about breakfast. Furthering our relationship. Getting her to trust me. Getting her to relax around me. I knew she was trying her damnedest to make this all about sex, for whatever reason, so I needed her to stop thinking like that. I needed her to realize that there could be something more than carnal attraction between the two of us.
She deserved more than just a quick romp in the sheets. I wasn’t trying to start something with her. I wasn’t looking for a relationship here in Sarasota. But I wanted to make sure she knew that she was worth more than sex. I wanted her to know that I appreciated who she was beyond the bedroom.
“So where are we headed?” Anne asked as we finally walked out the front door.
I raised an eyebrow at her. “Aren’t you the one who was born and raised here?” I asked. “You should come up with the suggestion.”
Anne rolled her eyes. “I’m sure you’ve at least figured out some of the breakfast spots by now,” she said. “How long have you been in town for?”
“I’ve figured out some of them, but that doesn’t mean that the places I’ve been to are really any good,” I told her. “I want you to show me the best place. What’s your favorite place to go for breakfast?”
Anne frowned, but then shrugged. �
�Come on,” she said, leading me to an old dining car style restaurant. The place was busy given that it was brunch time on a Sunday morning, but we were able to snag two seats next to each other at the counter. We were close enough that our knees kept bumping into each other’s, and I couldn’t tell whether Anne was doing it on purpose or not.
“So what really spurred the breakfast trip this morning?” Anne asked, folding her slender fingers around a mug of black coffee.
I shrugged. “Just wanted to see you,” I said. And lest she think it was anything weird: “Remember, I don’t have a lot of friends in this town yet. Mostly just my brother and you.”
Anne smiled over at me, but I could tell that she saw right through me. “You’d be meeting people if you had a job,” she pointed out.
“I do have a job,” I lied immediately. I didn’t want her to keep asking. “I do contract labor. My brother and I both do. That’s why we weren’t so worried about just showing up here in Sarasota.”
“That makes sense,” Anne said, nodding. “Contract labor during the weeks and bike rides on the weekends?"
“Something like that,” I said. “But the schedule’s never that regular. Sometimes you work straight through the weekends.”
Anne nodded like she understood. I didn’t really know why I had come up with contract labor of all things. Part of the reason I hadn’t told her about the MC was that I didn’t want her to think that I was just some goon. But contract labor seemed to be the most realistic thing that still shaded the truth enough that she wouldn’t ask too many questions.
Plus, in a loose interpretation of the words, “contract labor” wasn’t a lie. I was under contract to do labor for certain dudes. Ray, in particular.
I didn’t know why I was so worried about lying to her. But I supposed it was partly because I could tell she was already pretty jaded on the idea of relationships and I had no desire to add to that.
“Did you do anything fun yesterday?” I asked Anne.
“I went to dinner with Lina actually,” Anne said, her face breaking into a smile. I was starting to notice that she always smiled when she talked about her best friend. It was another of those things that I liked about her. Such a small thing, too, and one that I was sure she didn’t even realize she was doing. It was nice, though. I could tell she really cared about this Lina.
“What about you?” Anne asked.
“Hung out with my brother and chatted with a guy from back home,” I told her. Again, telling the truth without going too much into the details. “My brother and I have to do some grocery shopping, but he keeps putting it off. He’d rather just eat out for every meal I think.” I shook my head, and Anne laughed.
“Don’t tell me you cook for yourself,” she said, sounding surprised.
“Yeah, actually I do,” I said, raising an eyebrow at her. “Is that hard to believe?”
“Kind of,” Anne said. “I don’t know why, I just don’t picture the big, burly biker dude as someone who cooks.”
“Maybe I can cook for you sometime,” I suggested, hoping that didn’t cross the line between friendship and something more. I could tell from the way that Anne’s face shuttered, though, that it had.
“Maybe,” was all that she said.
“So what are the top ten drives that I should do around here?” I asked in an attempt to distract her. “I was thinking about going for a nice, long solo ride this afternoon, but I don’t want to end up somewhere boring.”
“I’ve never ridden a motorcycle before,” Anne said, looking surprised that I had asked.
I raised an eyebrow at her. “I figured as much, but I assume you own a car? Or at least I think I saw one parked in your driveway?”
“Yeah, I own a car,” Anne said.
“So where do you like driving to around here?” I asked. “I’m open to anything.”
“I could point you toward a couple of the nicer beaches,” Anne suggested. “The ones that only the locals know about. The non-touristy ones.”
“That would be great,” I said. I knew that Braxton liked the touristy beaches precisely because he was looking to bang hot tourist chicks, but a quieter place might be a good place for me to go, on one of my free afternoons, to try to think through this whole Mambas thing. To unravel the mystery behind it all, if I could.
Anne started giving me directions on the backs of napkins, and soon I had a small pile of them.
“Sorry,” she said, suddenly seeming to notice. She looked sheepish. “I get pretty excited talking about the places around here. There’s some really beautiful stuff that the average person never gets out to see.”
“I like it,” I said quietly. I held up the napkins and made a show of putting them carefully in my pocket. “Thanks for the recommendations. I’ll try not to put them through the wash.”
“If you do, you know where to find me,” Anne said, and just like that, that strange sexual tension was back between the two of us.
That wasn’t what today was about, though. We finished up breakfast and gave our seats up to someone else. I walked Anne back to her place, occasionally bumping shoulders with her. I paused when we reached her place. “So do I get to see you again?” I asked.
Anne stared up at me, biting her lower lip. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” she finally said, glancing away. “I really don’t mean to give you the impression that this is any sort of, you know, relationship.”
“I know,” I said, nodding. I smiled at her, hoping that it was reassuring. I could tell that she was scared, and I really didn’t want her to feel like I was pressuring her. “Friends or friends with benefits, whatever you want,” I told her, spreading my arms broadly. “I’m not giving up on you just yet.”
Anne looked up at me, and I could see the hesitation in her eyes. She was one step away from telling me that she didn’t want to see me again. But she had been one step away from that the whole time that I had known her, and yet here we were. Standing in front of her house after having a nice breakfast together. After sleeping together on Friday night.
She wasn’t ready to give up on me yet either. I knew that.
Sure enough, she nodded at me. “I guess I’ll see you around,” she said.
I smiled at her again. “See you around,” I agreed. Then, I turned and walked away.
16
Anne
I got to the gym on Monday morning, even though this was pretty much the last thing that I wanted to do. I hadn’t slept too well the previous night. I’d been too caught up thinking about Landon.
Breakfast yesterday morning had been really nice. I still couldn’t believe that he had just shown up on my doorstep like that, out of the blue. I still didn’t even have his number. No matter how much I was trying to hold back, it seemed like it was inevitable. He was going to sweep me up into his vortex. I didn’t know what I would look like when I came out on the other side.
I was scared, that was the honest truth. I didn’t want to trust him, didn’t want to fall for him, didn’t want to get hurt again. But I seemed powerless to stop myself. All night, I had lain there in bed thinking about how lonely it was, about how much nicer it would be to have him there with me. It wasn’t just sex that I wanted either. He made me laugh. I liked that. And most of all, I wanted him to curl his body around mine, to cuddle me close and make me feel safe.
It was something that I hadn’t felt in a very long time, and I ached with the need for it, almost as badly as I had ached for that first powerful orgasm that he had given me. It was as though my body was suddenly remembering how to belong to someone else. And I couldn’t get enough of it.
But this wasn’t like that. We were just friends, if that.
I really did think that it would be best for us to never see each other again. But I had spent the rest of Sunday kicking myself for not at least getting his number. Now, I couldn’t see him even if I really wanted to. Whatever we had, it was all on his terms. Whenever he deigned to show up at the pharmacy or on my porch.<
br />
I didn’t know how I felt about that. But it was the crux of what had kept me awake half the night, the night before.
So put simply, I didn’t want to be here at the gym this morning. Especially since I wasn’t the one trying to lose weight to begin with. I tried to remind myself that this was all about Lina. That I was here to support her. But it felt hollow. I was in no mood to be generous, not when it meant shortchanging myself from a little bit of extra sleep.
I yawned as Lina walked up to me. “Do you really want to be here?” I sighed, unable to help it.
Lina laughed, though, on the same wavelength as me, just like always. “You know, I’m really glad that you asked that,” she said, linking her arm with mine, “because really all I want to do this morning is go have some breakfast.”
“God, that sounds like a great idea,” I said. I had scarfed down a quick granola bar on my way out the door, but I had been running late so hadn’t had time to whip up anything more substantial. I hadn’t even worked out yet, and already my stomach felt like it was on the verge of growling.
“Let’s go,” Lina said, leading me toward the door.
We were seated at the café down the road, and the waitress brought us both coffees. “God, I need this,” I said after I took my first sip. Already, I felt marginally more awake. Marginally.
“Yeah, no offense, but you kind of look like crap,” Lina said, peering across the table at me. “Are you feeling okay?”
“Yeah, I just didn’t sleep that well,” I told her.
She grinned and waggled her eyebrows at me. “Did you and Landon have some fun last night?”