by Hazel Kelly
With you in it.
I smiled. His mind-reading was a small mercy in light of all the questions swirling in my head. But I figured I had two choices. I could freak out and let us both down by pulling all my hair out and dropping the ball on Fujama, or I could give him the benefit of the doubt.
Then again, I loved him.
So I really had no choice at all.
F O R T Y T W O
- Landon -
I didn’t have a concrete plan the day I walked out of Acacia. Not a plan that was good enough for Margot’s exacting standards, anyway, and I had no intention of facing her until I reached that point, no matter how much it sucked.
I was lucky she was even giving me the time I asked for after the way I fell off the grid…assuming she wasn’t just getting over me and “my issues” more with each passing moment. Ugh.
I wished I knew what she was thinking, but it wouldn’t be fair to ask. Not when I wasn’t ready to share my own thoughts with her, which were swarming in my head like a bunch of aggravated bees.
After several days, I’d finally crafted a plan for getting back to work that I had confidence in. So that was a load off. Still, I had a long road ahead of me if I was going to pull it off, and I couldn’t get ahead of myself. I had to keep things simple, tackle one task at a time, and hope that when it came time to share my intentions with Margot, it went well.
As far as whether I was going to tell her about the conversation I’d had with Dick Monday morning, I was still undecided, though she obviously deserved some explanation as to why I left her to finish our project on her own.
But she deserved far more than that, probably more than I could give her. Maybe more than anyone could. But deep down, I felt like no one on Earth would try as hard as I would to keep a smile on her face, to keep her safe, and to keep her happy. That was the job I wanted most, the job I’d always wanted.
And she deserved to hear me say it. I just didn’t know how. I never meant to care about anyone like I cared about her, never prepared myself for that apart from promising that I wouldn’t. After my mom left, love was nothing but a word that left a bitter taste in my mouth. Nothing but a lie. Nothing but a curse.
But I couldn’t get her words out of my head. I need to hear it, Landon. Why did she need to hear the one thing that made me feel like I had a mouth full of cotton?
I slumped on my couch, her voice still playing in my ears. My phone rang a second later, and I picked it up, desperate to talk to someone who wasn’t a lawyer or a banker.
“You quit your job?”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Matt. What’s up?”
“My sister’s up the walls with stress, asshole. She told me you abandoned her to finish your project.”
“What else did she say?”
“Besides the fact that she wants to wring your neck?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Besides that.”
“Just that she has no idea what’s going on with you,” he said. “She sounded seriously worried.”
“She shouldn’t be.”
“Why wouldn’t you give her a heads up that you were going to leave her high and dry like that? You were like her mentor, man.”
“I didn’t leave her high and dry. She can handle the client just fine.” I ran my fingers through my hair and took a deep breath. “And I didn’t tell her in advance because I couldn’t for…legal reasons.”
“Legal reasons?”
“Yeah,” I lied, hating myself for it. “It’s complicated, but I haven’t lost my mind. She needn’t worry.”
“I think she needs to hear that from you, to be honest.”
“She will. I just need a few more days to solidify some business arrangements—”
“You sound weird, Landon, and you’re not making any sense.”
I scrunched my face.
“Do you want me to come over?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Do you want to tell me what the hell is really going on?”
“Not really, no. Not yet.” I wracked my mind for a change of subject.
“Does this have anything to do with the girl you’re seeing?”
Fuck. Should’ve thought faster.
“It does, doesn’t it? Only love makes a person act this crazy.”
Love. The word rolled right off his tongue. I sighed. “It doesn’t have nothing to do with it.”
“She better be worth it, man.”
I smiled and thought of the way Margot looked at me right before she said it, right before I ruined everything. “She is.”
“Are things okay or—?”
I put a foot up on the coffee table. “Not really.”
“I’m listening.”
“If I talk, do you swear you’ll keep it to yourself?”
“Don’t flatter yourself. No one else gives a shit about your relationship drama.”
I swallowed.
“Except maybe Margot, and I’m not about to tell her you dicked her over for some girl.”
I bit the inside of my cheek.
“Or whatever the hell you’re up to over there.”
“She needs me to tell her I love her, and I can’t do it.”
“What?”
I rubbed my eyes with the fingers of my free hand. “She loves me, Matt.”
“Wow.”
“And she needs to hear me say it back.”
“But you don’t feel the same?”
“It’s not that,” I said. “I’m just—”
“Emotionally stunted?”
I rolled my eyes. “Actually, I feel the same. I just…saying that is synonymous with losing people for me. The last time I said it to someone, I meant it with everything and—”
“She left,” he said. “I remember.”
“So you get it.”
“Ehhhh.”
“What?”
“I get that your mom screwed you up,” he said. “I get that she fucked you and your dad over in a way no husband or son deserves and that it changed your life, that it changed you.”
I pressed my lips together.
“I get that when she left she took your mom away and your childhood away and your trust away.”
It wasn’t an easy thing to hear. As much as I’d come to accept what she did, I’d never really talked about her with anyone or tried to verbalize how her leaving affected me. Still, the blunt conclusions he was drawing were no less accurate than if I’d drawn them myself.
“But what I don’t get,” he continued, “is why you’d let her take love away, too.”
My chest tightened at the suggestion.
“I mean, it’s just a word, Landon. The reason it’s loaded is because of the way people say it, the way they look at each other when they say it, the way they feel when they say it.”
“I know, but I don’t think I can be that guy. Just the thought of saying it makes me feel like I’m about to get sucker punched.”
“Sorry to break it to you, bud, but everyone does shit that makes them feel like crap for love. It’s part of the package. Compromising and striving to be a better version of yourself aren’t optional. It’s the mutual willingness to do that which makes loving bearable for both parties.”
I squinted at the ceiling.
“I tell Kelsey I love her all the time because she’s a girl and girls need to hear that stuff,” he said. “But it’s only when I do stuff I don’t feel like doing just to make her happy that she knows it’s true.”
“I want to say that doesn’t make sense, but I think I get what you’re saying.”
“Good. Because you and I both know we wouldn’t be having this conversation if you didn’t love this girl. You would’ve kicked her to the curb the second you suspected she was more into you than you were her, and she’d be history like all the rest.”
“You know me so well.”
“I know, right?” he said. “Anyway, don’t blow this by being the one guy who thinks he can keep a good woman in his life without havi
ng to feel like an idiot from time to time, because no one is that lucky.”
His words were like a pitcher of ice water to the face. How could I be so selfish? I’d give up my job for her but not my qualms about one stupid word? One stupid word that may not have been strong enough to keep my mom from going but might just be strong enough to make Margot stay?
“Plus, this girl—sorry, what’s her name?”
My lips formed an M, and I fought it with everything in my body. “Mmmmaggie.”
“Nice,” he said, not skipping a beat. “Maggie’s the first and only girl who’s ever loved you, as far as I know.”
You have no idea how right you are.
“So at this rate, you’ll be a miserable, bald prick by the time you manage to charm another girl.”
“Just when you were doing a good job of cheering me up.”
“Seriously, though. All women have different needs, and if what Maggie needs is for you to suck it up and say some sappy stuff from time to time, then she’s delightfully low maintenance, and you shouldn’t let her get away.”
“I wouldn’t say low maintenance. She’s pretty Type A.”
“I love that in a woman,” he said. “Seriously. After I work all day with widowers who come in wearing mismatched socks who can barely hear me through their forests of ear hair, I can’t tell you how high I skip on the way home to my bossy-ass wife.”
“Do you really think I’m going to go bald?” I asked, rubbing the back of my head. “Did you say that because you’re trying to prepare me for something?”
“Yeah. I’m trying to prepare you for the fact that I’m going to shave your head while you sleep if you don’t fix things with Maggie and let me meet her this weekend.”
“Can’t be this weekend.”
“Two weeks, then,” he said. “Or your luscious locks go straight down the toilet.”
“You’re making me wish I gave Christophe my spare key.”
“As if he wouldn’t hand it over and let me borrow his razor.”
“Good point,” I said. “Thanks for the pep talk anyway. You’ve certainly given me plenty to think about.”
“There’s nothing to think about,” he said. “She wants to hear it so she knows you won’t do the exact same thing to her that you fear she might do to you.”
My eyes grew wide. “Shit.”
“And she might. Shit happens.”
I clenched my jaw.
“But if you don’t work out because you were too big of an idiot to love her back, then you don’t deserve the love it sounds like she’s prepared to give you anyway.”
I nodded.
“I love you, Landon.”
“Goodbye, Matt.”
“Say it,” he said. “If you can’t say it to me, how the hell are you going to say it to her?”
“Besides the fact that she’s infinitely more attractive than you?”
“Impossible,” he said. “And I love you more, too.”
“I feel sick.”
“Landon.”
“What?”
“I love you.”
“I’m hanging up now. I don’t appreciate being taunted,” I said. “This isn’t a joke to me.”
“Shame,” he said. “Because I love jokes. Just like I love y—”
I hung up, shook my head, and reached for the remote.
He texted me a second later. “I love you, man. You got this.”
While I didn’t appreciate him teasing me right after I spilled my guts, I was grateful for his advice. And his friendship.
And he was right.
Even if I they were the last words I ever said because I choked on my own tongue, I had to tell Margot I loved her. But I had to do more than say it.
I had to make her believe it.
F O R T Y T H R E E
- Margot -
By Saturday afternoon, I was ready to kill him.
In fact, there were only two things stopping me. One, I was afraid I’d show up at his place ready to wring his neck and find that he had, in fact, fled the state. And two, I wouldn’t be able to plead insanity.
After all, I’d been premeditating how I would kill him for the last thirty blocks of my anxious speed walk. I wish I could say run, but there are so many people in New York that any attempt to run outside the park just feels like a full-body stutter.
Still, as much as I tried to play it cool all week and give him the space he asked for, I was exhausted and stressed over the Fujama shitpile he’d dropped in my lap, and—love him or not—I didn’t really like him just then.
When I reached my street, I treated myself to a bagel with cream cheese so I could get another stamp on my loyalty card and strolled the rest of the way, throwing my trash in the garbage can outside my building.
I was going to take the elevator since my impromptu bagel binge had probably undone the health benefits intended by my walk anyway, but a delivery man was busy loading it with a bunch of enormous flower arrangements, so I settled for some free sniffs and took the stairs.
Surprisingly, though, I ran into him again when I exited the stairwell. He came around the corner wheeling his empty cart, smiled at me, and re-entered the elevator. I wondered which of the neighbors could possibly have wanted that many flowers for what I could only assume were apartments no bigger than mine, but I figured someone had a balcony I didn’t know about or something.
My thoughts had moved on by the time I rounded the next corner and saw Izzy standing in our open doorway like she was expecting someone.
“Well, this is a warm welcome,” I said, my ponytail swinging behind me as I headed towards her.
“I’m not holding the door for you. I’m holding it for your flowers.”
“My flowers? What are you talking about?”
“You tell me,” she said, stepping back.
My feet stopped at the door. Every surface in the kitchen and sitting area was covered with bouquets. Half of them were roses, deep red roses accented with delicate tufts of baby’s breath. The other half were mixed bouquets, each one different than the last. It was impossible to tell whether my eyes or nose was more overwhelmed by the scene before me.
“You want to tell me what’s going on?” she asked, crossing her arms and leaning back against the door.
I stepped up to the nearest bouquet of roses. “Are you sure they’re not from your stalker?”
“Of course I’m sure. If they were, I would’ve called the police by now.”
“I just need to make one more trip,” the delivery guy said, wiping his brow before wheeling in another batch of mixed bouquets.
I stared at the overflowing cart.
“Don’t just stand there,” Izzy said. “Help the guy unload them.”
“We don’t even have the space for all these,” I said, reaching down to grab a vase. “Are you sure this isn’t some kind of mistake?”
“Your name’s Margot Roberts, isn’t it?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said, setting my vase down on the floor in front of the fridge.
The delivery guy squinted and pointed at Izzy. “I thought you were—”
She shrugged. “So I signed for them. How was I supposed to know there’d be so many?”
The delivery guy was already on his way back to the elevator when I reached for the small white card on the closest mixed bouquet.
“I knew you guys had an argument,” she said, eyeing our kitchen-cum-floral shop. “But I didn’t think it required an apology like this.”
I opened the card and swallowed when I recognized his handwriting.
“What does it say?” she asked.
“It says Happy 14th Birthday, Margot. Love, Landon.”
“Ahhh,” she said, like it made perfect sense.
I looked up from the card. “Why’d you make that noise?”
“The mixed ones are for birthdays.”
“What?”
“The roses are for Valentine’s Day. Or days, I should say.”
“How do
you—?”
“Because I read the first card when it came to the door,” she said, pointing to the arrangement at the edge of the kitchen table.
I walked over to it, careful not to bump any vases on my way, and slid the card from the clear, plastic stem. “Happy Valentine’s Day, Margot. Love, Landon.” I blinked at the last words and tried to imagine him writing them. “It’s dated 2014,” I added, staring at the date in the corner while I tried to make sense of—
“Sorry I’m late.”
I spun around when I heard his voice and felt my whole body come to life. “Landon.” I wanted to say more, but seeing him standing in the doorway made me realize I’d missed him even more than I thought.
His eyes smiled as he read my mind. “It’s good to see you.”
“That better be the last batch,” Izzy said, pointing to the tray of roses on the cart behind him. “Because if your romantic gesture blocks my bathroom, you’re going to owe me flowers.”
“Landon, this is Izzy,” I said. “Izzy, Landon… And he didn’t owe me flowers.”
“I did, actually,” he said, shaking her hand. “And it’s not the only thing I owe her.”
I was trying to guess what he meant when Izzy’s blushing caught my attention. “Let go of his hand, Izzy.”
She did, albeit reluctantly. “Nice to meet you,” she said. “And thanks for coming to my show.”
“You were great,” he said. “I hope to come to many more.”
Izzy raised her eyebrows at me and whispered behind her hand. “This one might be a keeper.”
I shifted my weight. “Would you mind maybe…?” I tilted my head towards the door.
She nodded. “Right. I’ll, uhh, I was just leaving anyway.”
Landon and I kept our eyes on each other while she disappeared into her room. Then he unloaded the last of the roses and parked the empty cart in the hall.
Izzy came back in the kitchen with a beret on her bedhead and a duffel bag under her arm.
“You don’t need to be gone for quite that long,” Landon said, eyeing her bag.
“I do, actually,” she said, holding it close to keep from knocking anything. “I have a show today.”
Landon smiled. “Break a leg.”
“Backatcha,” she said, glancing at me one more time before twisting her hand into a phone and mouthing that I should call her.