Next to Me

by AnnaLisa Grant

  “Hey! Everything ok?” she asks, a mix of concern and confusion painting her face. “I thought you were working, but then I heard you and Landon fighting last night. It got quiet so I came out to make sure you were ok. Then I heard other noises coming from you room, so I figured you were, um, getting over whatever it is he did.”

  “I’m so sorry about that. It was a huge misunderstanding,” I tell her.

  “So…is he still here?” Spring raises her eyebrows in that goofy way that only she can and get away with it.

  “Yes,” I tell her hesitantly.

  “Oh, my God! You two did it!” she laughs.

  “Shh! And, no, we didn’t,” I say. “The circumstances weren’t really right for optimal enjoyment. I have a lot on my mind. He was totally great about it though. I’ll eventually make up for it,” I wink.

  There’s a knock at the door and Spring and I look at each other, puzzled. No one we know would be here this early on a Saturday morning. Even when Spring does something with Matt, she always meets him at his place so he gets to sleep in a bit longer.

  I open the door and a frazzled Mercy is standing before me. She’s wearing scrubs and her hair is pulled back, so she’d obviously come here straight from work.

  “Oh. My. God! I cannot believe you didn’t call me! I had to hear from Tim in ER that your ass-hat of a boyfriend cheated on you? Jerry has already sworn to kick his ass!” Mercy is channeling her inner New Yorker and I need to calm her down before she wakes Landon, and all of Chicago.

  “Landon cheated on you?” Spring responds to Mercy’s rant with wide eyes.

  “Ok, first, shh! Second, Landon did not cheat on me. He had a work thing last night with a woman who thought their business relationship was more than that,” I tell them. It’s partly true. Of course, Landon lead her to believe he was interested in her in his effort to find Veronica Matthews, but I can’t explain all of that to them just yet. “I overreacted and Landon followed me home and explained everything. We’re good so call Jerry off before he shows up here with a baseball bat!”

  “Really, Jenna, I didn’t realize you were that stupid! If it looks like cheating, it’s cheating! He comes here and gives you his sob story and just like that you two are all good?” Mercy cocks her head to the side in disbelief.

  “Yeah, we’re all good,” Landon says entering the living room. He’s wearing his dress pants with his white dress shirt completely unbuttoned. Spring gives a quiet, but still audible gasp when she sees him. I can’t blame her. My boyfriend is undeniably hot. “I explained everything and Jenna knows I told her the truth. I can understand your protectiveness of her but don’t ever refer to my girlfriend as being stupid again. Ever.” Landon puts his arm around me and the tension in the room becomes palpable. I have to give Mercy credit for the restraint she’s showing.

  “I swear to God, if I find out you were cheating on her, or if you ever do anything to hurt her…I wasn’t joking. I will kill you.” Mercy gives Landon a dagger-filled stare before addressing me. “You’re going to have to explain this to me, but clearly now is not the right time. I’m exhausted and hungry. I’m going to go home to eat and sleep off the fury. I’ll call you later when I’ve calmed down.”

  Mercy doesn’t bother with a goodbye. She just turns on her heels and closes the door behind her. I’ve seen Mercy mad before, but I’ve never seen her like this. It’s because we’re family. She’s been my mother and sister rolled into one cute little Italian package for the last few years. Once I have all the answers from my father I’ll know better what’s happening and be able to tell Mercy everything. She won’t apologize for her rage because she never apologizes for protecting the ones she loves, but she’ll be so happy for me to have my father back.

  “If Jenna believes you, that’s good enough for me,” Spring tells Landon.

  “Thanks, Spring. I appreciate it. I’m really sorry if our arguing woke you

  last night.” His sincere apology and smile are enough to make me weak in the knees right there.

  “No worries. I’m an excellent judge of character and I have a feeling you’re the real deal. But…if by some crazy fluke I’m wrong, you know I’ll have to side with Mercy, right?” she smirks.

  “I’d be disappointed if you didn’t,” he smirks back.

  Spring excuses herself to her room to get dressed, leaving Landon and me alone. I finish making coffee and pull some breakfast items from the fridge.

  “How’s your leg? You don’t seem to be limping at all.” Landon stands behind me and rubs my shoulders.

  “It still feels a little tender, but it’s fine. I’ll still have to wait until I feel zero pain before I can dance again. I need to know that the little muscle she cut has healed completely before I work it like that,” I tell Landon as he sits on one of the two stools at the counter bar.

  “I’m glad you’re feeling better. I’ve hated watching you in pain. I was…I was really scared that night, Jenna.” Landon rests his face in his hands for a moment before running his fingers through his hair.

  “Hey…I’m ok. We’re ok. We’ve dealt with everything else and now we’re moving forward physically and emotionally. Ok?” Landon takes a deep breath and nods. “Good. Now, I hope I didn’t wake you. Are you hungry?”

  “I felt it when you got up. I wasn’t nearly as warm.” A sexy smile appears and his eyebrow rises with suggestion. “I waited a few minutes for you to come back, but then I heard you and Spring talking so I figured I’d go ahead and call your father. He’s going to call me back when he’s got his flight secured.”

  “Wow. I can’t believe this is happening.” My stomach flips and I’m not sure if I’ll be able to eat breakfast or any other meal today.

  “I can’t believe you haven’t asked me a million questions. What’s up with that?” Landon gets up and assumes my breakfast-making tasks seeing that I’m now quite distracted.

  “I have more than a million questions. It’s just that I plan on holding my father hostage and asking him every single one of them. The last time I saw my father I was watching him die. I plan on replacing that memory.” Landon kisses my forehead, causing a rush of warmth to run through me.

  “That sounds great,” he says.

  I come back to the moment and Landon and I work together to make breakfast. I soften some cream cheese in the microwave to mix with the eggs I’m going to scramble while Landon gets started on the turkey bacon. The first time I made breakfast for him we had quite the discussion on the validity of turkey bacon being real bacon. He said that they were strips of turkey and it’s disrespectful to pigs everywhere to call what I was cooking up bacon. When it came time to eat, though, his feelings on the subject didn’t keep him from downing six pieces of my faux breakfast meat.

  Spring swings through the kitchen are her way out, grabbing a travel mug and adding some coffee to her cream before she leaves for the day and Landon and I sit down to eat.

  “Can I ask you something?” Landon says as I pour him some coffee.

  “Anything,” I tell him with a confident smile.

  “If the circumstances were different…if I weren’t Landon Scott, the guy who was hired to find you…if I was really Landon Scott, random guy who works in securities…would you have told me about your past?” He looks at me with genuine inquiry.

  “You want to know if I would have ever really let you in.” It’s a legitimate question, but I’m not sure how to answer it. I don’t know what he knows about my past and I’m not prepared to lay it out there, even now, not until I have answers from Dad. “I don’t know. I was running from someone who I believed had my father killed...someone I believed was going to kill me, too, if I didn’t cooperate with him. I would never have wanted to put you in danger.”

  Landon presses his lips together and nods, not sure how exactly to

  respond. “Will you tell me the whole story one day?”

  “Yes,” I answer truthfully. Once I have all the answers from my father I’ll be able to te
ll Landon everything. I just have to fill in the blanks of my own questions first. “Can I ask you something?”

  “Of course,” he smiles, seeming to feel better now that I’ve agreed to let him in on all the details at some point.

  “If you hadn’t been brought into the ER, and I hadn’t met the blonde, when would you have told me the truth?”

  “Well, I was honest when I told you I was worried I’d be left behind as soon as you knew. I was sure there would be a combination of being focused on your father and being totally pissed at me for lying to you. I never expected to fall in love with you. I mean, I’ve been doing this a long time, Jenna, and I’ve never, ever gotten close to anyone like I have you. I never wanted to,” he tells me. “But, I’ve been in Chicago for over six months now and your father was getting impatient, so I imagine I would have had to tell you soon. I told him a few days ago that I was running my last lead, but that I thought you might be his daughter.”

  “So…how long have you been doing this? Finding people who don’t want to be found?” I ask. “This doesn’t seem like something you just decide one day you’re going to do.”

  “I became a kind of reverse skip tracer shortly after I got out of the military. I stumbled upon it out of necessity. The S Squad had a pact. We had each written letters to our families that would be delivered only if we were killed in combat. The pact was that whoever survived would deliver the letters by hand. The Navy would send the official messenger to their homes, but we wanted someone who knew us to personally connect with our loved ones with our last words to them. We hoped we’d all make it home, but never thought it’d be only one of us. So, I had to deliver all three letters.

  “The problem was that Kyle had a falling out with his family before he enlisted and hadn’t been in touch with them since. By the time I got to deliver his letter, the address he had for them wasn’t any good and there was no forwarding address. The rift was so bad that they moved without tell him.” Landon gives an annoyed sigh before continuing. “Their son was fighting for their freedom and they didn’t bother to tell him they moved. It took everything in me not to punch his asshole father in the face when I finally did track them down. He showed little, if any, emotion. His mother, on the other hand, was a mess. Clearly the problem had been between Kyle and his dad.”

  “That sucks. So how did that lead to you becoming this reverse skip tracer?” I ask him.

  “Well, a skip tracer helps people get lost who don’t want to be found. Whoever helped you get lost would have been a skip tracer.” I guess Dad didn’t tell him about Oz, which would make sense since it seems something has happened that Dad couldn’t get my whereabouts from him. Dad wouldn’t have gone into all of that and would have just stuck with the mission at hand of finding me. “As a reverse skip tracer, I find people. Word got out with some other guys I knew in the Navy and they got me connected with some people who were willing to pay me whatever it took to find people who may or may not have wanted to be found.”

  “Why would you do that? If someone doesn’t want to be found, why would you unearth them like that?” I ask with a bit of annoyance in my tone.

  “Sometimes people skip town because they owe someone a lot of money,” he begins.

  “Yeah, and some people skip town because they’re running from something terrible,” I counter, using myself as an example.

  “Hey…I’ve also found a lot of people who were happy to be found. Long

  lost families, birth parents, children given up for adoption, people who had crazy inheritances coming to them. It’s a job, Jenna. A very good paying job that’s allowed me to see parts of the world I would have never travelled to otherwise,” Landon explains in defense of himself. His voice is strong after

  my challenge.

  I hadn’t thought about the fact that Landon’s job has him travelling all the time. I lower my head as I wonder what this will mean for us. Now that his job of finding me is complete, does he have another job waiting in the wings? Will his next job have him convincing unsuspecting women that he’s interested in them just so he can get as close as possible? Or will this new job take him to the other side of world for an undeterminable amount of time?

  I’m about to express my fears when Landon’s cell rings. He pulls it out of his pocket and stands as he answers it. “Yes sir…excellent. Of course, but she’s right here if you’d like to tell her yourself.” It’s my father! My father is on the other side of that phone conversation! “Of course. Yes, I’ll be sure to tell her. Yes. Yes. Excellent. We’ll see you then.”

  “He didn’t want to talk to me?” My face squishes together in sadness and confusion as Landon ends the call and drops his phone back into his pocket.

  “He didn’t want your first conversation in six years to be over the phone. He knows you have a lot of questions for him and was sure that once you got his ear you wouldn’t be able to hold back,” Landon says.

  “Well…he’s right. So when will he be here? When can I see him?” I ask excitedly, momentarily forgetting about my own fears of abandonment by Landon.

  “He wasn’t able to get a flight out until later, so it’ll be 8:00 tonight before we can meet with him. He’s already made reservations at Fronterra, so I guess we’re going out for insanely good Mexican food tonight,” Landon smiles.

  “Ok, then. I have ten hours to figure out what I’m going to wear.” I stand

  and a little laugh escapes me as I realize I’m actually nervous about seeing my father tonight. Landon gives me a confused look. “I was 19 the last time my father saw me. I’m not a kid anymore. I’ve grown up. I have a career and a life…and you. My dad was always really protective of me, and while I’m ecstatic he’s alive and I’m going to see him tonight, I just want to make sure he knows I’m all grown up and doing really well.”

  “I’m sure he’s fully aware of that, Jenna.” Landon wraps his arms around me, calming my nerves. “Are you ok? You were looking a little off when I answered the phone.”

  “Yeah…I’m fine,” I tell him. There’s no sense in bringing up my concern about our future now. There’s a lot to think about for tonight and Landon and I will just have to cross the bridge of his job when we get to it. We’ll consider all the options when it comes time.

  We eat breakfast and Landon leaves me to my silent thoughts. I have so many questions for my father. I’m not sure which to ask first, after I wrap my arms around him, that is. I want to know what happened after I left him in the park. How long did he lie there, alone, and who rescued him and took him to a hospital? What has he been doing all this time? Why didn’t he just ask Oz where I was and come for me himself? Has something happened to Oz? Most of all, I want to know how he’s able to safely come for me now.

  “Tell me about your dad,” Landon says as we climb back into bed. He’s back down to just his boxer briefs and I question the sanity of stopping him from taking my clothes off last night.

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “No. I’ve spent the last month completely avoiding as many real conversations about family as possible. And I’ve been really inconsiderate in not asking about your family at all, only because I was afraid you’d ask about mine. So, since you’ve already met my dad, I think it’s my turn to ask you about your family,” I tell him.

  “I only know your father as my employer, not as my girlfriend’s father. You’re supposed to tell me about him so I know what I’m headed into.” Landon pulls me closer and I rest my head on his shoulder, engulfed by his strong arms.

  “I see your point, but…”

  “But?”

  “But I really want to know about your family. I’ve missed really knowing someone. I’ve had to keep from asking about people’s lives so I could remain guarded about mine. If I didn’t open the door to knowing about my friends’ families, then no one would knock on mine and my secret would stay safe. I want to know you, Landon. Please, let me have this right now.” I feel Landon’s arms tighten around me follow
ed by him kissing the top of my head.

  “What would you like to know?” he asks softly, giving in to my plea.

  “Tell me about your mom and dad,” I say.

  “Well…my dad was a cop and my mom was…a mom. She had the dance studio, but mostly stayed home while Dad brought home the bacon. Real bacon, by the way,” he teases. I poke his side giving him a retaliatory tickle. “She was only at the dance studio a couple of days a week.”

  “Do you really have a sister or was that just part of your story?” I ask. Being an only child, I’m hoping he says it was true. I’m seeing a long life with Landon and to have a sister, even if an in-law, will be amazing.

  “Ouch! Yes, I have a sister. Her name is Amy and she still lives in Miami, just like I said. Her husband’s name is Steven and her daughters are Isabella and Jordan, who are ten and eight.”

  “What’s your mom’s name?”

  “Lucia.”

  “And your dad’s name?”

  “Michael.”

  “Well, I can’t wait to meet all of them. I hope your mom likes me. Maybe

  I’ll have to dance for her approval,” I laugh.

  “If that’s the test, you’ll win her over immediately! You have nothing to worry about. I’m the one who’s biting my nails over here about seeing your dad tonight.” Landon takes his arm from around me and moves so he’s facing

  me. I follow and mirror his position on my side.

  “Are you kidding me? You have absolutely nothing to be worried about. You found his daughter! I’m pretty sure that makes you boyfriend of the century!” I lean in and kiss Landon with the intent of making it quick. Landon has other plans and pulls me in and on top of him. His hands are quickly on my back and under my shirt, pressing me closer to him. He’s careful not to cross the line I set last night. I don’t think either one of us wants our first time together to be under these circumstances. There’s too much to think about…too much on my mind for me to be able to really get my head in the game. Once things settle down I’m sure we’ll fall into a normal groove, but now is not the time.