by K. A. Linde
Landon pointed between the two of us, but neither of us said a word. We just stared forward at Landon, as if he might be an apparition that would disappear at any moment.
“I meant to tell you—”
“Tell me what?” His posture was stiff. His eyes kept shifting between the pair of us, as if he were trying to decipher a particularly difficult code. “Are you two…together?”
“Yes,” Emery said, regaining her voice, “we’re together.”
Landon’s eyes moved, as if he were watching tennis. “I was only gone a couple of weeks. I don’t understand how this could have happened…and why I was never informed that this was fucking happening.” He shook his head and then glanced away from us.
“Where’s Miranda?” I asked him to try to move the discussion into safer territory. “Did she come in with you?”
“Are you kidding me? After the fit she had when she found out that Emery was still here, you think she’d have let me fly back alone?” he ground out.
“So…she’s here?” I asked warily. I did not want Emery to be here if Miranda was at my house. That was a recipe for disaster.
“She’s out shopping. Fuck, could you imagine if she was here?” Landon ran a hand back through his hair and then glared at me. “Could you fucking imagine? I came back at your request, and you didn’t even tell me about Emery? Is this what you wanted?”
“No,” I said. It had been my request. I hadn’t wanted Landon to miss Christmas with his family. I’d wanted him here because he was my brother, and I loved him. Now, he was pissed off, and I didn’t know how to fix this. But I would have to. “I wanted to tell you in advance about Emery so we could talk about this like men and not just get pissed off at each other.”
Landon looked like he wanted to tell me to fuck off.
“You know, I should go,” Emery said. She took a step back toward the door. “It’s been a long weekend.”
I turned to face her and wondered what she must be feeling. We’d both been anxious about telling Landon that we were dating, because the whole situation felt out of our hands. I didn’t want to piss off Landon. He and Emery might have dated almost a decade ago, but it was tricky dealing with someone else’s past relationship.
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“Yeah. Um…I should go see my sister. Check in, you know.”
“All right. I’ll call you later.”
“Yeah, sure.” She didn’t even lean in for a kiss. Just gave a half-wave and then was gone, out the front door, leaving me all alone with my pissed off brother.
“So, you’re fucking my ex-girlfriend now?” Landon asked. There was fury in his voice. It was something I hadn’t heard from Landon in a long time. Not since Dad had died.
“It’s not like that.”
“What is it like exactly? Gave up on messing around with every girl you came across when you were out of town and decided to dick around with all those in town, too?”
I ground my teeth and felt the hair rise on the back of my neck. Landon was looking for a fight, but I wouldn’t oblige him.
“I don’t want to fight with you,” I said finally.
“Well, you don’t get to make that choice, Jensen. You walked in here with Emery Robinson. We’d dated for two years. You knew her when we were in high school, Jensen.”
“I didn’t know her then, and like you, I didn’t even recognize her at first.”
“Like me?”
“At the wedding,” I bit out.
Landon’s face ignited, and he rushed toward me, shoving me backward. “You met her at Sutton’s wedding? You’ve known who she is this whole time and didn’t say anything?”
“Yes, all right? Yes. I’ve known who she was since that next morning. You were the one who told me that she was leaving town after a couple of days.”
“That wasn’t an invitation to go and fuck her!”
“I didn’t take it as one!” I yelled back. “I was going to leave her alone, but then we kept running into each other. I’ve fallen for her, Landon. I have.”
“For now,” Landon said under his breath. “What happens when you’re tired of her? We all know you bore easily. You can fool her with whatever you’re doing, but I know your reputation.”
“Emery does not compare to any other girl I’ve been with,” I growled. “Comparing Emery to any of my flings is an insult to her.”
“Or is it just an insult to you?”
There were a million things I could throw back at him—namely, his horrible wife—but I knew that wouldn’t get me anywhere. I needed him to understand.
“I should have told you.”
“You said that already.”
“I was planning to tell you before Christmas. But I wanted to make sure this was a real thing. I didn’t want you to find out this way.”
“Whatever, Jensen. Just admit it. It’s not that you didn’t want me to find out this way. It’s that you didn’t want me to find out at all. Everyone else in the family can fuck up, and you solve their problems, but you can’t solve your own.” Landon sneered at me and crossed his arms. “You just hide them.”
“That’s not what I was going to do. I care for Emery. I wanted to make things right. This isn’t a joke to me. And why are you so pissed off anyway? You’re married.” I reminded him. “By the way you’re acting, I’d think you still had feelings for Emery.”
“Fuck off, Jensen,” Landon said. He turned away from me and paced toward the door.
He twitched his hand toward the handle but stopped when I began to speak, “The breakup was ten years ago, Landon. This is all harsh for someone you’ve barely spoken to since high school.”
He whipped around to glare at me. “You don’t know anything.”
I bit out a laugh, harsh and low. “You went to different colleges. You were going different directions. A lot of couples break up for those reasons.”
“If you believe that is what happened, then you don’t know Emery.”
I tilted my head in confusion. Ten years ago, that was exactly what Landon had said about Emery. I remembered it because he had told me after our father’s funeral. They’d broken up shortly after that. I hadn’t ever suspected there was more to the story.
“And you’re smarter than this, Jensen,” Landon said. “You know that you don’t want to bring her into your mess.”
“She already knows.”
“Everything?” Landon prodded.
“Not everything,” I said slowly. “It’s only been a couple weeks. I’m trying to ease her into my life.”
“You better tell her, Jensen or I will.”
“Don’t threaten me, Landon.”
“Fuck! You know I won’t tell her. Though I should,” he said with a glare. “Emery is a good, kind, and genuine person. She’s too good for you.”
With that, Landon wrenched open the door, leaving me standing there in shock. I stared at his retreating form until he disappeared completely.
How had that all gone so completely fucking wrong?
Twenty-Three
Emery
After checking on my sister, I hurried over to Flips to meet Heidi. Peter was working the bar when I entered. He waved distractedly as he poured out beers for a few guys.
“Heidi here?” I asked.
“Pool table.”
“Of course. Should have known.”
I grabbed two tequila shots from Peter and then brought them to the back. Heidi was running the table, but it was a slow night, so she wasn’t hustling anyone…yet.
“Shot?” I asked.
“God, yes,” Heidi said.
We tossed back the alcohol, letting it course through our veins and make our minds all fuzzy. I needed a good fuzzy mind after the day I’d had.
“Good to have you back, baby,” she said, winking at me. “Now, tell me all about your Wright brother. Is he the right brother?” Heidi cackled, as if her joke were hilarious.
“How many drinks did you have before this?”
Heidi innocently fluttered her eyelashes at me. “More than one.”
“Whore.”
“I didn’t know you were back yet! And Julia is in Ohio or wherever she’s from. Somewhere cold and snowy.”
“It’s cold and snowy here.”
“Yeah, sometimes. But not today!”
“No, not today. But snow is on the forecast for forty-eight of the fifty states next week. Everywhere is cold, except for Florida and Hawaii.”
Heidi sighed. “If only. Now, tell me about your sexy weekend. There were sexy times, right?”
“Yes,” I conceded. “We ran into my ex-boyfriend, and Jensen bought a million-dollar company from a man who his ex-wife cheated on him with. Then, when we came home, Landon was waiting for us at Jensen’s house.”
Heidi blinked twice and then burst into laughter. She dropped the pool cue onto the table and then doubled over. “Oh my God,” she cried. “Oh, phew! Wow!”
“What the hell are you laughing about?”
“Did you not hear how ridiculous you sounded?” Heidi asked. She swiped at her eyes.
“I just told you what happened!”
“Yeah. Yeah, you did. Wow!”
Heidi chuckled some more, and I couldn’t help it; I joined in.
“God, you’re such a bitch.”
“You love me anyway.”
“True,” I admitted.
“So…Landon is back in town?” Heidi asked. Her eyes met mine, and then she glanced away immediately.
I narrowed my eyes in confusion at her strange body language. “Yeah. He just got into town with his wife. Not so great timing.”
“Did you see Miranda? Was she there?”
“Nah. Lucky for us. Sort of, I guess.”
“Yeah. She’s a nutjob.”
I nodded. “That’s true. But Landon got upset when he saw Jensen and I together.”
“Landon is a big boy. He’s a grown-up and married and living halfway across the country. He shouldn’t be upset.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “But you didn’t see his face when he saw us together. I know I haven’t talked to him in forever, but I feel bad for Jensen that we didn’t tell him. After all, he’s his brother and, we probably should have said something when we realized things were getting serious.”
“Serious?”
“I guess we’re official now,” I told her with a grin.
The idea that Jensen was my boyfriend was too exciting to contain.
Heidi screamed and jumped up and down. “Okay. Well, we definitely need to toast to that.”
We hurried over to the bar, and Peter poured us some fancy shots that promised to knock us both on our asses. I tipped back mine and could already feel the ramifications of that drink coming on strong. I excused myself to use the restroom, and when I returned, I told Heidi the full details of my weekend with Jensen. I still felt rotten about leaving Landon and Jensen together like that, but it was good to be with my girlfriend. To not have to worry about it at all.
I was on my third round, and I was unsure of where that put Heidi. If we kept this up, both of us were going to have to cab it back home. I was just debating whether or not to nurse this one for the rest of the night when Heidi perked up in her seat.
“What?” I asked. I was more attuned to my friend’s behavior than anyone else I’d ever known.
“Don’t hate me.”
“Oh God, I already do.” I glanced over my shoulder and saw none other than Landon Wright walking into the bar.
He looked the same as I’d left him back with Jensen. Dressed down in a polo and jeans, he shrugged out of his jacket to reveal his perpetually sun-kissed skin from hours of golfing outdoors in Florida.
“Did you invite him here?” I accused.
“Well, he texted me to find out where you were…and ta-da.”
“You’re right. I do hate you.”
Landon’s gaze caught mine from across the room, and his mouth ticked up into a smile. He strode toward us with a purpose that I recognized from my recent, vivid acquaintance with his brother. It was a swagger that I was very familiar with. Strange, considering I didn’t really compare Jensen to Landon when we were together. But it felt impossible not to compare Landon to Jensen.
“Hey,” he said, slinging his jacket onto the back of the seat next to mine.
“Hi.”
“Hey, Landon!” Heidi said with a big grin.
His eyes moved to Heidi’s and softened briefly. “Hey, Heidi. Thanks for the info.”
“For sure. Why don’t you two just…” She trailed off, swallowed, and then darted back to the pool table.
“Do you mind?” Landon asked, gesturing to the empty seat.
I shook my head and concentrated on my drink.
“Emery, I didn’t mean to ambush you,” he said at once.
“Why not? I kind of ambushed you.”
He breathed out heavily. “Not on purpose.”
“True.”
“I just wanted to apologize.”
I turned my head to look at him again. What was with these Wrights that I always got apologies out of them? They were the kind of men who probably didn’t use the word much.
“You want to apologize to me?”
“Yeah, I just saw you there…with him…and I kind of blew a gasket.”
“I noticed that.”
“Which I had no right to do.”
I would have freaked out if I had hypothetically found out he was dating Kimber. Jensen and I should have fixed this long before it got here. I knew that. I’d just been too blissful to consider what would happen and where things were going. I hadn’t wanted to do anything that could hurt something so fragile. And our relationship was fragile.
“How are you and Jensen?” I asked carefully.
Landon ground his teeth and motioned for Peter to give him a beer. “I needed some time to cool off.”
“So, you came to me?” I arched an eyebrow. “Don’t think we were ever the cool-off type. I think we argued most of the time.”
“Only so we could make up,” he said with a grin.
I shrugged, unable to deny it. “You know, Jensen and I didn’t mean for it to happen.”
“I don’t really want to know,” he said, holding up a hand. “It might have been ten years, Emery, but it’s still weird to me.”
“It’s weird to me, too.”
“Just…be careful,” Landon said. He dropped his hand onto my shoulder and looked me deep in the eyes. “I love my brother. But he’s an asshole, and he’s bad with women. Plus, he has more baggage than the rest of our family combined, and I think one Wright has hurt you enough for a lifetime. I wouldn’t want to see you like that again.”
I pulled back and let his hand drop off my shoulder. “I know about Jensen’s reputation and his past. I know that he hasn’t always made the right decisions with women. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that he’s going to fuck this up, too. If I thought he was playing me, I wouldn’t be in his life. This is me we’re talking about, Landon.”
“I know,” he whispered. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”
I sighed and shook my head. “You know what? I’ve had enough crap for one weekend. I apologized for not telling you about Jensen, but I’m not leaving him because of it. And I’m not being naive about our relationship.”
“I don’t think you know him.”
“You’re right,” I conceded. “I definitely do not know him like you do. How could I? But that doesn’t mean I don’t care for him and want to get to know him.”
“I just don’t want to see you get hurt.”
I stood from my seat and reached for my drink. “It’s about ten years too late for that, Landon.”
Landon winced, and I could see that my jab had cut deep. We both knew it. This was why he’d ignored all my messages after graduation. This was why we hadn’t really spoken since.
“That’s fair. I deserve that,” he said.
“Let me take care of myself. I’ve
been doing it long enough without your help. So, why don’t we go and play some pool with Heidi and hang out for a while? I’d love to see Heidi hustle you like old times.”
Landon glanced down at his phone. He grimaced, and I had to gather his wife was messaging him.
“Okay, but I don’t have that long. Miranda is almost finished shopping. It would be bad for both of our health if she found us in the same place, let alone at a bar.”
“She seems a bit…controlling,” I ventured as we joined Heidi at the pool table.
“I really do not want to talk about her.”
I held my hands up. “Okay.”
“What don’t we want to talk about?” Heidi asked. Her eyes darted back and forth between me and Landon. She had this little worried tilt to her mouth.
She was seriously confusing me.
Was she…vibing on Landon?
No way. That couldn’t be it.
It had to be that she was just concerned about me and Landon being in the same vicinity after everything that had happened with Jensen.
“Miranda,” Landon said gently.
“Is she coming here?” Heidi asked, her voice rising an octave.
“God, no.”
“We’re trying to make sure everyone makes it out of this alive. I mostly want to see you kick Landon’s ass in pool. So, hop to. Make this happen for me,” I said to Heidi.
Heidi grinned devilishly. Her eyes swept to Landon. “You rack, and I’ll break.”
“I’d expect nothing less,” he said as he got to work.
And, suddenly, the three of us were back in high school. We’d spent countless nights at Heidi’s dad’s bar playing pool and having a good time. Half of the time, one of Heidi’s boyfriends would show up. There was a lot of making out in back booths and trying to convince someone to get us drinks and a whole lot less actual pool.
So, this felt normal and comfortable.
I never thought I’d feel like this around Landon Wright again.
And it was nice.
Twenty-Four
Jensen
One more call couldn’t hurt.
I’d told myself that after the last five calls.
But Emery still hadn’t picked up.