by Mari Carr
“I don’t do that.”
“Liar, liar pants on fire.”
Landon’s mom had gotten pregnant in high school. The sperm donor walked away, leaving a very jaded, very down-on-relationships Ms. Riggs behind. Her stance on that hadn’t changed until Landon was in high school, and his mom married a divorcee with two grown sons in college.
For some reason, Landon had gone the opposite way. As much as his mother rebuffed dating and relationships, Landon embraced them. Where Sunnie had a long list of short-term boyfriends, Landon had a short list of long-term girlfriends—three, to be exact.
Sunnie suspected he would have proposed marriage to Allison, if she hadn’t broken things off. Or maybe it was more accurate to say they’d drifted apart because they’d simply wanted different things out of life. Baltimore had never been Allison’s final destination. An aspiring actress, she’d headed to New York, desperate to make it on Broadway.
And while Landon had toyed with following her—both Sunnie and Finn terrified he would leave—Landon knew he wouldn’t be happy in the Big Apple. Baltimore was home, and he was as devoted to the city as Sunnie was.
Allison had gone anyway and broken his heart, but Sunnie knew Allison had been devastated as well. Why wouldn’t she be? Landon was a great guy.
And he gave stellar foot rubs.
And…
“Should we talk about that kiss?” Sunnie said, deciding they might as well address the elephant in the room.
He shook his head. “Nothing to say. You were being a pain in the ass and I put a stop to it. That’s all there was to it.”
That didn’t feel like all. Ever since April Fools, it felt like something had shifted between them. “That’s kind of a weird way to shut someone up.”
Landon closed his eyes, and she realized he looked really tired. Chances were good he hadn’t slept any better than she had.
He was a true friend. More than that, he was an honorary brother.
Or at least he had been. Until those two kisses.
“Yeah. I know.” He opened his eyes, his gaze capturing hers. “I’ve been thinking about it. Last night, you were pissed at Derek and you took off down that dark street. It was an impulsive reaction. Can you just accept it was the same for me? I saw that guy push you down, saw that mark on your face,” he reached out and touched the bruise gently, “and I reacted. I was terrified and relieved at the same time. It came out like that.”
“So…no more kisses?”
He didn’t reply immediately and when he did, she wasn’t sure what to make of his response. “If that’s what you want.”
What she wanted?
Wasn’t that what he wanted too?
“I don’t want this to change things between us,” she said. Landon wasn’t like other guys to her. She would never risk their friendship on a few kisses…or more.
“Okay. And just for the record, you don’t have to run out immediately and find some other gym rat like Derek to date just to hold me at bay.”
“I didn’t…” Sunnie didn’t finish her statement, his words sparking something she hadn’t considered. After April Fools, she had latched on to Derek because he’d been there…and it made it easy for her to pretend that kiss with Landon hadn’t happened.
She recalled every second of the kiss, but she’d lied, pretended to not remember because it was the only way she could handle what it had done to her.
Landon captured her gaze. “Yeah. You did.”
She appreciated his honesty, even though it annoyed her how well he understood her. It made it hard to win a fight against him.
Then she considered his reassurance that the kiss had been impulsive. His reasoning made sense…but only if it had been her who had initiated the kiss. She was the one who reacted first, thought later.
That wasn’t Landon.
Regardless, she decided to let him off the hook.
Because she had to.
She and Landon were practically family. More than that, they were at two completely different places in their lives at the moment. She was focusing on her career. He was looking for true love.
So it was time to forget the kisses and get things back to normal.
Somehow.
Chapter Six
A week later, Sunnie threw on her scrubs and headed toward the kitchen, curious about the hushed tones she heard. People were whispering. Collinses never whispered. At least not well.
She walked into the kitchen to find Yvonne, Finn, Padraig and Darcy all standing there. They stopped talking as she walked in.
Sunnie experienced a strong feeling of déjà vu. “Didn’t we just do some variation of this last week?”
Finn was frowning again. He’d bounced back from her near mugging fairly quickly, so she wasn’t sure what had him looking so…concerned. Or was it confused?
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Nothing,” Darcy said too brightly, too loudly.
It was obviously a lie.
“What happened?” she pressed.
Finn ran his hand over his chin but didn’t speak. Sunnie established eye contact with every person in the room, but none of them appeared prepared to tell her what was going on.
“Fine,” she said at last. “I’m going to work.”
Finn put a hand out, grasping her wrist. “Maybe you should call in sick today.”
Sunnie became alarmed. “Why would I do that?”
He shrugged. “I just think maybe you should lay low for a little while.”
“Lay low? What the hell are you talking about?”
Yvonne looked around the room, raising her eyebrows. Finn sighed, and she thought he might have cursed under his breath.
There was clearly some sort of nonverbal conversation passing between everyone.
“I’m going to lose my shit in about three seconds if someone doesn’t tell me what’s going on,” Sunnie declared.
“She’s going to find out sooner rather than later, Finn.” Yvonne held out her cell phone. “You and Landon have gone viral.”
“Viral?” Sunnie frowned—until she saw the headline on the YouTube video.
Hot Cop Saves Sexy Nurse.
“What the fuck?” Sunnie pushed play, horrified to discover someone had recorded almost everything that happened last week, starting with Landon running toward her.
Whoever filmed it was too far away to pick up their voices, so they’d superimposed a romantic song over the whole thing. While nothing they said could be heard, the person recording them was in a perfect position to pick up everything else. Landon kneeling before her, checking her for injuries, hugging her, the way he helped her stand up, the kiss—oh God, the kiss—and then him carrying her back toward the cruiser.
That was where it ended.
And that was when she realized where the recording had come from.
The reporter.
She glanced down at the number of views…and gasped. Yvonne hadn’t exaggerated about the viral part.
“Where’s Landon?” She hadn’t seen him since last week, not since the foot rub and their decision to put the kisses behind them and carry on as normal.
Of course, if they’d been truly doing that, she would have seen him at least two or three times this week and they would have texted a few times every day, but that hadn’t happened. He hadn’t come by. She hadn’t texted. It had been a very unusual radio silence.
“I talked to him this morning,” Finn said. “It was supposed to be his day off, but Dad called him into work.”
“Why?”
Finn rubbed his neck, his confusion giving way to a weary expression. “The captain had some questions for him.”
“About that?” she asked, pointing to the phone.
Darcy nodded.
“He can’t get in trouble for that!”
Finn reached out and placed a comforting hand on her arm. “I don’t think he will. I mean, when the recording first went viral, no one knew who either of you were.”
“First went vira
l?” she asked.
“Someone pointed it out to me last night right before closing time,” Yvonne said. “It was one of our regulars, and she made some comment about it looking like you, but she wasn’t really sure.”
“Why didn’t you wake me up?” Sunnie asked.
“You’d had a really shitty day, and I didn’t want…” Yvonne let her excuses drift away. One of Sunnie’s cancer patients had passed away yesterday. She’d come home after her shift, hit the couch, cried, then gone to bed early.
“I understand why,” Sunnie said, letting Yvonne know it was okay.
“This morning, someone identified Landon,” Finn said.
“But not me?”
“Right now, you’re still anonymous. Just known as ‘sexy nurse,’” Yvonne said. She added with a grin, “That nickname is going to stick, by the way.”
They laughed, prompting Sunnie to roll her eyes. “You don’t seriously think I’m going to complain about that, do you?”
“Even so,” Darcy added, “it’s pretty obvious it’s you, and now that Landon’s been identified, we figure it won’t be long before someone outs you.”
“Is Landon in trouble?” she asked, worried about him.
“The captain knows Landon’s practically a bro—” Finn cut the word “brother” short.
There was nothing brotherly about the kiss she and Landon had shared.
“That kiss didn’t mean anything, Finn,” she insisted quickly. Landon had offered an explanation that both of them seemed willing to live with.
Except they hadn’t seen each other in a week to test the theory.
“Sunnie…” Finn started.
“I’m serious. Nothing has changed.”
She had been the pest of a little sister bugging him and Finn since they were kids, and now they were friends. No. More than that. He was like another brother to her. She would never jeopardize that. No matter how amazing a kisser he was.
Unfortunately, watching the kiss on the screen only reminded her how freaking hot it was. And that horniness emotion returned.
Finn frowned, and she could see he didn’t believe that the kiss was nothing.
“It’s not the first time the two of you have kissed lately,” Yvonne pointed out, very unhelpfully.
Sunnie narrowed her eyes. “April Fools doesn’t count, Vonnie. Landon and I were both drunk and we’d overdosed on the bacon buffet. Plus, I was Jasmine—I was feeling very Dance of the Seven Veils that night. You can’t hold me responsible for anything I do when I’m in Disney Princess mode.”
Yvonne and Darcy laughed and agreed with that argument. Finn crossed his arms, shaking his head.
“Besides,” Sunnie continued, “neither one of us even remembers it!”
She tried to hold on to that lie. The tequila had wiped away any inhibitions she might have had in regards to kissing her brother’s best friend.
It was all that talk about what he liked in the bedroom. Sweet merciful heaven. He’d said the words, and it had taken everything she had not to strip off her costume right then and there.
She recalled leaning toward him, and while she’d been tipsy—okay, drunk—she was ninety-two percent certain that Landon had met her halfway. And he’d definitely been the first to introduce tongues to the kiss.
No. Crap. Maybe that had been her.
But she definitely hadn’t forced him to snake his hand over her bare waist to tug her closer.
“It really doesn’t mean anything?” Darcy asked. “Because it looked—”
“I was upset,” she wasn’t, “and he was comforting me,” he wasn’t, “so yes, I swear it was nothing more than that.” It hadn’t felt like nothing. God, it had felt incredible. And she’d wanted more. A lot more.
She squeezed her eyes shut and pushed that thought away, refusing to go down that path.
Brother. He was like a brother to her.
Funny how that word no longer felt like it applied. In fact, it felt downright wrong.
“Are you sure Landon would agree that it’s nothing?” Finn asked.
Sunnie nodded, not sure at all. “Yes. It was a mistake. We laughed it off and now it’s over.”
Had they laughed? She couldn’t recall.
Shit. The video could probably tell her.
Finn studied her face, and she worked hard to hold his gaze, to dare him to argue with her about it.
She was on system overload, between the near mugging, the punch, the kiss, her patient dying, the video and now…Finn’s face.
Was he angry about the kiss? Upset by it?
Landon was Finn’s best friend. Was her big brother feeling protective of her? Hell, was he feeling protective of Landon? Ever since graduation, they’d become a gang of three—her, Finn and Landon. She liked to joke that it had taken her over a decade to wear them down, but in the end, she’d finally made them play with her.
“It didn’t look like nothing,” Finn muttered.
“We’re friends, Finn. That’s all.”
“Closer than friends,” Finn corrected. “Family.”
That was—and wasn’t—true. Landon had never made any secret of the fact he’d wished countless times he had been born into the Collins clan. And while he’d been “adopted” into her family, there was no denying things had gotten fuzzy between the two of them lately.
Was that what Finn was worried about? That she and Landon might cross a line they couldn’t step back over?
“Nothing has changed for either of us. I swear.”
He nodded and she wasn’t sure if she saw or imagined a look of relief on his face.
“I think I should go to the police station. Try to set things straight.”
“Dad’s going to be here in a few minutes, Sun,” Darcy said. “He really doesn’t want you to go to the precinct. Right now, no one knows who you are. If you show up, people might put one and one together and—”
“I know that, but Landon—”
“Landon isn’t in trouble.” It was the first time Padraig had spoken. “He saved you last week. Chased away the bad guy.” He crossed the room and hugged her. He’d done the same thing the night of the mugging, but she’d been too distracted by what had happened to acknowledge the warmth of it.
She squeezed him back. “I’m fine, Paddy.”
“Thank God,” he murmured, his cheek pressed to the side of her head. “I couldn’t stand it if anything bad happened to you.”
She felt guilty for causing Padraig even a second of worry. Mia’s face flashed before her eyes as she closed them, desperate to fight back the tears gathering in her lashes. She’d only known Paddy’s wife a short time before she’d passed away. But that one year of friendship had been enough for Mia to leave a hole in her heart no one would ever fill. She missed her every day.
“I love you,” he whispered.
Before Mia, love was something they all felt for each other, but rarely expressed out loud. Since her passing, Padraig was much freer with the words.
“I love you too, Paddy.”
He kissed her on the forehead. “While you wait for Uncle Aaron, you might want to pay a little visit to someone downstairs.”
She grinned. “Pop Pop?”
Padraig winked. “He’s a nosy old man. Go indulge him.”
Sunnie sighed. “Let me call work and see if I can trade shifts with someone. This is going to be a pain in the ass, isn’t it?”
“Depends on how you look at it,” Padraig said. “Stuff like this is as good or bad as you want to make it.”
Her older cousin always found the best way of looking at things, putting a positive spin on stuff that always helped.
“A day off is never a bad thing,” she joked. “And hey, viral is pretty much synonymous with famous.”
He ruffled her hair playfully. “Atta girl. Just don’t let the fame go to your head.” He excused himself and headed back downstairs, Darcy and Yvonne following.
Finn still leaned against the kitchen counter. She hated seeing him
so worried. Walking over, she hugged him. He wrapped her up in his arms, squeezing her tight.
“You’re a pain in the ass,” he murmured, making her laugh.
“I know. It’s what you love best about me.”
He was silent for a moment, then he released her without another word, walking out of the kitchen.
Sunnie called one of her nursing colleagues, relieved when the first person she reached out to gladly agreed to switch shifts with her.
Then she headed down to the pub.
“Hey, Pop Pop.”
Her grandfather brightened up when she claimed the stool next to him. “There’s my lass.”
“You’re here early,” she said.
“You know perfectly well why I’m here, sweet girl. This nosy old man wants the…” He paused, before coming up with the expression. “ The 411.”
Sunnie laughed loudly, drawing Padraig’s attention. He’d been shooting pensive looks in their direction ever since she sat down, but now, he was smiling as well, shaking his head, though she was certain he hadn’t heard what Pop Pop said.
“The 411, huh?” she teased.
“Darcy said you’ve got a virus.”
“Gone viral,” she corrected with a grin. Then she blew out a long, slow breath. “I guess it’s too much to hope you haven’t seen the video.”
“Ah, lass, according to your sister, everyone with the Internet has seen that video. I didn’t want to be left out.”
She knew exactly what part of the video her romantic grandfather was interested in hearing about. “It was a heat-of-the-moment thing, Pop Pop. I’m not sure either of us thought about it. The kiss just…happened, and now it’s over.”
Pop Pop nodded slowly, but there was no denying he wasn’t buying a word of what she was selling. “I see. Heat of the moment.”
She waited for him to contradict her, but her dad walked into the pub at that moment.
Dad approached them, frowning at her sitting in her scrubs.
She raised her hand before he could speak. “I called in sick. How’s Landon?”
Dad walked around the bar counter, grabbing a mug and pouring himself a cup of coffee. “He’s fine.”
“Is he in trouble?”
“Oh no, sweetheart. I mean…the captain wasn’t thrilled to have a Baltimore police officer touted as some heartthrob hot cop all over YouTube. In addition to the reporters lining the block outside the station, we now have about fifty women trying to meet him. But Captain Ramirez is crazy about you, and when he found out you were the ‘sexy nurse’ Hot Cop saved, he settled down quick enough.”