Two seconds later, the girls bolt out of the house. I force my gaze away, trying to catch my breath. Just before Aaron can open the car door for me, Stella calls my name.
“Elle!” she yells across our lawns. “This is my best friend, Layla, I told you about.”
Awesome timing, Stella.
I twist back to meet them, forcing yet another smile. The girls come bounding across the expansive lawn, stopping about ten feet away. Landon’s boots crunch along the grass, but he holds back, even if his eyes are glued to me once more.
“Hi, Layla,” I say with a warm smile. “It’s so nice to meet you. Stella has told me everything.”
Layla giggles, her long blond hair swinging around her narrow shoulders, though she has about a head of height on Stella. “You too. Stella doesn’t shut up. She told me all about your cooking lessons. Can I come too one day? Are you doing it Monday? Because I can totally do Monday.”
“I’m fine with that if Stella is because, of course, I’d love to have you join us.” I look at Stella, who is one giant, beaming smile as she jumps up and down, showing more enthusiasm than I’ve seen in her before.
“Yes! That would be the coolest.”
“Awesomesauce,” Layla squeals along with Stella. “We’re headed to my surrogate grandparents’ compound for dinner even though it’s Saturday, and we normally do family dinner on Sunday. Stella is like my BFF and kind of cousin-in-law. It’s complicated.”
I laugh lightly, turning to Aaron, who is patiently waiting by my side, a small, amused grin on his face as he watches the girls. “So I’ve been told.”
“Is this your boyfriend? He’s super cute,” Layla goes on, and I want to die. Behind them, Landon stiffens, his fists clenching at his sides as his gaze drops down to the grass.
“No,” Stella answers. “She doesn’t have a boyfriend.” She turns to me. “Right?”
Aaron laughs while I awkwardly shift my weight, wanting the sidewalk to open up and swallow me whole. I was wrong. This night just got worse.
“No, I’m not her boyfriend,” Aaron replies for us. “Just her date for dinner tonight.”
Shoot. Me. Now.
“I thought Mrs. Belay wasn’t going to set you up at her dinner party.”
Thanks for pointing that out, Stella. Right in front of your father and my non-date.
“Well, she likes to pretend she’s Emma.”
Both girls nod in understanding because both girls are avid readers.
“Seems I’m going to have to read Emma,” Aaron muses. “Clearly I’m behind on my women’s fiction. You said it was Jane Alsen?”
Stella and Layla cringe, and I fight mine.
“We should go, or we’ll be late,” I say before this moment gets worse. “Have fun at your grandparents’, ladies, and I’ll see you for cooking Monday. Just text me what you want to make. Night.”
I say that last word to Landon. But he’s already storming off toward his car, his back to me.
“See you,” Layla calls out. “Have fun on your date.”
“Thank you.” Aaron’s voice is light, oblivious to any of the tension strung tighter than a high-wire between Landon and me. Hell, I’m not even sure he noticed Landon was there lurking. “Sweet kids.” He’s still smiling his perfect smile as he helps me up and into his car.
I pull out my phone from my purse, tempted to text Landon, but what would I say? I don’t owe him anything. Not any sort of explanation. He kissed me, but he told me to go. I all but put myself on the line, telling him I forgive him. He’s made it clear nothing can ever truly happen. The dance between us has been all that’s occupied my mind, and I’m tired. So tired of fighting a winless battle with that man.
So tired of everything, I just want to go back inside and crawl under the covers, never to come out again.
I think back to the other night in his house. “You need to go.” “Why?” He had stared into my eyes with so much pain. “Isn’t it obvious?”
Yes. It is obvious. I understand everything. All too well. Some men are just too far gone to ever be retrieved. And after the blow my heart has taken these past few years—hell, the blow it’s taken tonight—I’d be wise to listen to him. To keep my distance.
But that look in his eyes just now.
The way my heart pounded.
I glance out the window over at his driveway, searching, and finding him standing beside his car door, staring straight at me as if he was waiting for me this entire time. He shakes his head when our eyes meet and gets in his car, slamming the door shut.
I can’t fix him. Not with all the glue or tape in the world. Frankly, I have enough mess of my own to deal with without trying to navigate someone as intense and complicated as Landon Fritz.
“You ready?” Aaron asks as he starts the car up.
I turn to him with a forced smile. “Sure. Let’s go.”
18
The whole way to my parents’ house, I don’t know how to unlock my jaw. Or unclench my fists from around the wheel. Layla and Stella are gabbing away like teenage girls, but the topic is all about Elle. They’re analyzing everything from what she was wearing—that fucking skirt and those boots—to the way the guy touched her back, to the way he looked at her, to the fact that the guy called himself her date.
Her date!
And just what the absolute motherfuck is that?
A date! Hell, I can’t even contemplate women, let alone other women, and she’s…
“Dad, watch out,” Stella yells, and at the last second, I catch Gulliver’s glowing eyes hitting my headlights, and I swerve, narrowly missing him, my brother, and a row of my mother’s rose bushes. I slam on the brakes, gravel and rocks shooting every which way. The second the car’s stopped, Oliver’s pissed off scowl fills my window as he slowly taps on the glass.
“Taking the driveway at fifty? Really? And with my kid in the car?”
Shit.
“She’s not your kid.”
“Might as well be. You also have my niece in there.”
I grunt.
That’s as good as I’ve got right now.
“Do you plan to move so I can get out?”
“I thought that was kind of fun,” Layla counters, giggling. “Like doing donuts in the mud. You know, since you didn’t kill Oliver or my dog. Did I ever tell you about the time I nearly killed all of us when Oliver let me drive his Jeep?”
“Yes,” Stella and I say together. “Only about fifty times,” she finishes.
“Good times,” Layla agrees, opening her car door and jumping out. “Let’s eat. I’m starving, and your grandma told me she’d have Sophia make that sausage tortellini thing I like. There’s a party in my tummy, so yummy, so yummy,” Layla sings, doing some kind of swinging arm dance thing, and Stella laughs because that’s a lot of what they do together. Layla talks nonstop, and Stella laughs because Layla is all wild energy, and Stella is contained shyness. Somehow these two work, though, the closest of friends and now practically family since I know Oliver is itching to make the fake engagement ring on Amelia’s hand the real deal.