I wasn’t sure it was possible.
Goddamn, I was so excited that I just might burst.
“I guess we could go home,” Landry said. “But I’m tired of driving in the truck, to be honest. My hand hurts, and I know your leg has to hurt. Let’s get a mot—”
“Absolutely not,” my mother disagreed. “We have a pool house, and you’ll use it.”
I felt my lips quirk.
“Okay,” Landry replied, knowing better than to argue with the woman when she was in her current mood.
My mother stood up and clapped her hands excitedly. “Your dad and I will go pick up lunch at the new steakhouse in town. It’s amazing, and I think you’ll really like it. Medium rare?” she looked at me.
I rolled my eyes. “Is there any other way to eat a steak?”
My dad grunted in agreement.
“I want it…”
“Done,” my mother replied with a smile.
“Disgusting,” my father replied, a smile on his face, too. “I’m not even sure that restaurant will cook it like that, to be honest. I’ve heard people laughed out of there a time or two when they ordered something that they didn’t want to make.”
Landry shrugged. “If that’s the case, get me something else. You know what I like.”
Landry was a picky eater when it came to meat. Under no circumstances did sushi, fish, or shrimp get anywhere near her.
Though, shrimp didn’t get near her at any time because she was allergic to it, though I’d never seen the side effects, and hoped that I never had to.
After hearing that she breaks out in hives and starts swelling with a single bite, I hadn’t ever wanted to either.
Just as I was about to comment, the woman standing in the entryway with her lawyer started to wail, and Jimmy looked at us with a frantic “help me” in his eyes.
Instead of helping him, we chose to leave.
My bladder protested walking past the bathroom, but I’d rather piss myself than talk to a crying woman.
Once I got outside, I immediately took a left down the alley that ran in between my uncle’s building and the one next door. The only thing between them was a large dumpster at the end.
“Wade, where are you going?”
“To take a piss.”
My mother growled. “Wade Beauregard I will kick your…”
Her voice trailed off the farther I moved down the alley, and by the time I was finished and limping back, my mother was laughing with Landry.
“They have the best chocolate cake,” she was saying to my wife.
My wife.
God, it felt so goddamn good to call her that again.
Calling her my ex-wife always felt like I was taking a sharp knife to the heart.
“I’ll have that, too.” Landry sighed, then turned to me, her cheeks pink. “Are you ready?”
Her words were stiff, and she looked like she was ready to blow.
My lips twitched, and her eyes narrowed, causing me to bite my lip to keep the smile from overtaking my face.
She narrowed her eyes even farther. “Give me your keys, and I’ll go get the truck.”
Not even thinking about arguing with her after the look in her eyes, I handed over my keys, thankful that I didn’t have to make the walk.
First, the drive hadn’t been kind, and I was stiff all over. Then, sitting down for that short amount of time only seemed to give me the smallest of reprieves.
Everything hurt—and my leg felt like it was going to fall off any second.
Landry snatched the keys straight from my hand and left without another word, and we all watched her walk off.
Me staring at her ass and thighs in those goddamn shorts that were driving me wild.
My mom in happiness that she was seeing Landry.
My dad? Well, who the hell knew what he was thinking. He was always hard for me to understand motive-wise.
Speaking of…
My father snorted. “Y’all go back to the house. Let the dog out, and we’ll go get lunch. This place takes a fuckin’ hour to get the shit ready, but their steaks are the best. It’ll give you an hour to calm her down.”
I snorted.
I’d need it.
“Thanks, Dad.”
Chapter 9
Pineapple goes on pizza like tongues go into assholes. It’s not for everyone, but who are you to judge?
-Text from Wade to Landry
Wade
“My mom wants me to go let her new puppy out,” I murmured, trying not to let my eyes linger too long on Landry’s shorts. Shorts that were so short that I wouldn’t even consider them shorts as much as long underwear. “Do you mind if we go do that first?”
Landry shrugged. “What happened to Boscoe?”
Boscoe had been my mother’s Jack Russel Terrier who had been older than dirt. He’d died last year of a heart attack while my parents had been asleep.
“Dead,” I said simply.
Her breath inhaled deeply. “Your mom loved him.”
She had.
“She did,” I confirmed. “And she’s still trying to get over it, to be honest. Dad brought her this dog to hopefully help her get out of her funk. He’d have brought her one earlier if she could’ve decided what breed she wanted. Eventually, we decided to find her a rescue.”
I saw Landry melt a little bit.
“I almost got one from your rescue,” I admitted. “But I didn’t want her to get attached to another dog and have that one die on her, too. I felt it was kind of the wrong thing to do in that situation.”
She smiled at me sadly. “Not all of the ones I’m getting lately are old, though. Some of them are just so broken and or unwanted that they have nowhere else to go. Sure, the majority of the ones that I’m getting are older, but we’re branching out into some battered souls with missing body parts.”
I grinned as I pushed open the door. “Watch out, he’s rather feisty.”
I hadn’t actually seen him in a while, but what I remembered of him had me bracing my legs and hoping that the dog wouldn’t barrel into me like a freight train like he had the last time.
Luckily, Rover didn’t come barreling out.
He came at us quietly and softly, almost as if he’d realized that we were both hurt.
“Awww,” Landry said as she dropped down to her knees.
I stopped her before she could make it all the way down.
“Pet him outside. Mom says he pees when he’s excited,” I ordered. “I don’t want to be cleaning up pee.”
She snorted but did as I asked, walking farther into the house and closing the door.
Instead of stopping to pet the puppy, who was looking at us and wagging his tail, we both shuffled past him to the back door and walked outside.
Rover followed us outside, did his business, and immediately came to Landry who was once again crouched on the ground waiting for him.
“Is he a pure bloodhound?” she asked.
I shrugged and walked to the swing and took a seat, groaning audibly when the pressure on my leg finally diminished.
“I don’t think so,” I admitted. “He might be, but we don’t really know.”
She hummed and petted the dog’s ears for a few long minutes before the dog finally broke away from her and started to explore.
“Mom says that if he finds a scent, he’s occupied for hours.” He paused. “Which is why he was at the shelter to begin with. He wanders. Doesn’t do cages well. Dad said that they let him out sometimes in the morning, and he doesn’t come back until the sun is going down.”
“Coonhounds are notorious for that,” she murmured. “They’re easily distracted by scents and will follow it all the way back to its source if they’re interested enough.”
“Guess we’re just lucky that they live off in the middle of a hundred acres,” I admitted, shifting slightly on the seat when I saw she was looking to sit down, too.
&nb
sp; Once there was enough room, she took her seat next to me and started to gently push the swing with her toes.
And although it was causing me pain, I let her do it because I knew that she loved to rock.
We sat in silence like that for about five minutes before she said, “This is bad.”
And suddenly I got angry.
So. Fucking. Angry.
“It’s not bad,” I snapped. “It’s the best thing that’s ever happened.”
It gives me a fighting chance to show her that I was no longer the dumb, useless piece of shit that I was to her when I found out about her sister.
I just needed time!
She looked at me like I’d lost my mind. “You don’t think that being back together is going to blow up in our faces?”
I tried to remain calm, even though the idea that she didn’t want to be with me still stung. “How would it?”
She crossed her arms over her chest and said, “Oh, I don’t know. You’ve turned your whole club against me. Everyone in town looks at me like I’m a pariah, and I’m living with another man! Let’s not forget about that date I saw you on a few days ago.”
I frowned. “I haven’t been on a date. I haven’t wanted to be on a date. I don’t fucking want anybody but you.”
Please give me a chance.
She frowned. “I saw you. You were eating at a diner with a woman.”
“I was eating at a diner with a woman because I was almost done, there were no other tables, and I invited her to sit with me while I took the last bite of my hamburger,” I countered. “Which you would’ve known had you had the balls to actually talk to me when you came in instead of glaring holes through me.”
She opened her mouth, then closed it, seemingly stunned speechless.
“And my club doesn’t hate you. They’re worried about me, and they know that I still love you.” I paused. “Which is not a bad thing. As for another man? I think it’s time that we stop beating around the bush. You haven’t been with anyone else and likely never would. Please. Give us a chance.”
Her mouth dropped open. “I know that, but your club thinks I am. I get no respect from them. Your friends would cross the street to avoid walking past me.”
There was no denying it. They had my best interests at heart.
She got a worried look on her face, and when she started to stand up, I had no other option but to pull her into my arms and deposit her sideways on my lap to keep her from leaving.
The moment that her fine ass made contact with my lap, she started to squirm and pull away.
I refused to let her.
Locking my arms around her, I held tight, despite that her movements were making my leg jostle causing shards of pain to shoot along the nerve endings in my leg.
“Let me go!” she ordered fiercely.
I laughed.
In her face.
She narrowed her eyes and reached for me with her hands. Both buried in my hair as she tried to use leverage to push herself away.
Different shards of pain shot through me, but this pain was most welcome.
I wanted her hands in my hair.
I loved her hands in my hair.
I loved her hands on my body.
I smiled, and she got even more angry.
“Never. I’m never letting you go. All I need is time. Time to convince you that I won’t ever put anyone else first. Only you.”
***
Landry
Things had gone from bad to worse.
As if hearing that we were still married hadn’t been enough, Wade then took me to his parents’ home and proceeded to tell me that he wanted to stay married. That all he needed was time to convince me.
Was he crazy?
Yes, yes he was.
The fact that I was happy about the fact that I was still married to him should’ve been frightening. But it wasn’t. It wasn’t scary at all. It felt right.
Which was what scared me.
And when I’d tried to leave, Wade had grabbed me and pulled me into his lap—locking those strong arms around me and refusing to let me go.
I’d squirmed, pushed, and struggled all to no avail.
He wasn’t letting me get away.
I’d buried my hands in his hair, trying to force myself away from him and cause him enough pain to let me go—but he’d held strong.
“Let me go now, or I’ll hurt you, and I really don’t want to hurt you,” I hissed, letting one hand go to move to his bicep. There, I dug my nails in and started to rake them up and down his arms.
He didn’t flinch.
In fact, he grinned wider.
“Gonna take more than your claws to hurt me, baby,” he informed me, his eyes alight with mischief.
He was enjoying this, even though I could see that I was causing him at least some pain in his injured leg.
He was enjoying this immensely.
I wanted to claw his eyes out and wipe that smug, satisfied, superior look off his stupid, pretty face.
I struggled harder, being careful not to hurt my hand which I could feel starting to throb from all the movement, as well as keep most of my weight off of his injured leg.
And if I was hurting, my struggling was likely hurting him, too.
Yet he wasn’t saying a word.
He kept his mouth shut and put up with my struggles.
“God,” I hissed, giving one final attempt.
I squirmed out of the seated position he had me in and got my knees up and ended up practically straddling his body facing him.
All I ended up accomplishing was wedging the solid column of muscle and flesh that I’d been studiously ignoring with everything that I had further between my thighs. Now, it was pressed perfectly between the gap in my ass cheeks and I was frozen solid.
I leaned forward and put my face into his, all the while whispering words that I didn’t mean—and never had.
“I don’t want to do this,” I hissed.
He laughed in my face again, causing me to recoil.
I narrowed my eyes and leaned forward to tell him off, but he responded before I could. “That’s your problem, hellcat. You don’t want me this close to you because you don’t trust yourself. You love me. You’ve loved me from the moment that you saw me just like I’ve loved you from the moment I first saw you. I knew you were the one the moment you walked through that classroom door. I knew the moment that you walked away from me that I couldn’t wait to see you again. I just knew. Because my soul recognized its soulmate. And you’re it. You’re the other half of my soul, and I can’t find a single thing wrong with being back where we were always meant to be.”
“You don’t see a problem?” I shrieked. “We’re married again! You chose someone else over me! Someone who’s always been chosen over me!”
He sobered instantly. “And you will never understand how sorry I am that I didn’t put you first. That I didn’t see what I was doing when I did it. If I had…if I had, I would’ve been able to prevent spending all these months in a perpetual state of torture because you weren’t there by my side.”
I clenched my teeth and bared them at him.
God, his face. His sexy bearded chin drove me wild. I just wanted to plant my fist into it.
He wouldn’t be hurt by it, though.
He’d love it.
He’d love anything as long as it came from me.
Which stopped me in my tracks.
All the venom and rancor, all the uneasiness and need to get away—it just vanished.
I stilled and loosened up on my hands, allowing them both to drop to my lap.
He didn’t let up a single bit as he waited for what I’d do next.
“Nothing I say will matter, will it?” I asked, feeling something inside of my chest tighten.
He shook his head.
His perfect hair shifted, causing a lock of it to fall over those green eyes that I loved so much.
I looked away and studied the rolling hills that blanketed Porter and Minnie’s massive backyard.
“You let me leave,” I whispered brokenly.
He dropped his forehead onto my shoulder. “I was so hurt when I got the papers from that nurse. You never even gave me a chance. I wanted to fight for you, but you wouldn’t give me a chance. I also knew that if I didn’t let you go, you’d find a way to do it without my help. You were that determined. But honey, I was also determined. I knew that one day I’d be back…I was biding my time. Each day, I made sure I found a way for you to see me. For you to realize what you were missing…and it worked, didn’t it?”
It had.
I thought back to how he seemed to show up wherever I was, no matter how hard I tried to avoid him. Whether it be him dropping his uniform shirt off for me to sew a button on it while I was at work, to arriving at my dog rescue to help me unload the pallet of dog food just to turn around and leave once it was accomplished. And nary a word was ever said between us. He was just there, and I was just letting him be there. It didn’t matter that I never said a word. He wouldn’t allow that to deter him.
Little things like him pulling up to get gas while I was at the gas station and pumping it for me, to him making sure to send me flowers even though he never signed them.
He really hadn’t left me, had he? I didn’t go out of my way to see him, but he always ended up in my vicinity.
He’d made sure that he was always on my mind.
I inhaled a shaky breath, then blew it out.
Moments after that…my mouth found his.
And that was all she wrote.
I was done.
The moment my lips touched his—the moment my tongue tangled with his—I knew that what we had would be forever. That, even if we weren’t together, he was always going to be mine.
Because he was right.
He was my soulmate.
And I was fighting a losing battle.
He groaned into my mouth, and one of his hands loosened from around my waist to run up the length of my spine to bury itself in my hair.
I shivered when he gently slanted my head to get a better angle…and then I was reminded why Wade had always done it for me.
How About No Page 9