Oliver steps back, and I exit the car, slamming the door shut with more force than intended.
“Rough day?” he quips, and I sigh, not in the mood for anything or anyone.
Only the truth is, it wasn’t a rough day. It was a relatively good day. I watched the Red Sox destroy the Yankees and secure their playoff spot. I played around with the schematic for my dream house—one I haven’t touched in years—for the day when I can actually bring myself to sell the house we’re living in and move. Stella and Layla were upstairs together or in the greenhouse after Layla spent the night last night.
All was good.
Then Elle had to walk out of her house looking like sex in heels with a guy beside her. A guy who had his hands on her back and referred to himself as her date. I’m tempted to ask Oliver how he stands it. Feeling this insane over a woman. He loved and lost and now here he is, years later and in love with Amelia. Happy. He’s so fucking happy. When the hell was the last time I was happy? Thankfully, Gulliver takes over and jumps on me, slamming me back into my car with his weight while slobbering his dog breath all over my face.
“Down, Gulliver,” Oliver commands, giving his leash a good tug. “Come on, boy. Down.” Another lick followed by another tug, and the dog finally relents. “I’ll be honest with you, man. I saw my life flash before my eyes just now, and there’s too much missing from it. I have a lot more shit to do. So how about you try not to kill me next time.”
“I’ll make every attempt.”
“Mom looks good today.”
Awesome. That’s precisely what I needed to hear. I’d smile at that if smiling were possible.
I close my eyes, leaning back against the cool metal of my car, rubbing my hands up and down my face. I need to get a grip. This woman is messing with my head. She’s become the line between obsession and hate I’m trying not to tiptoe, and yet I have no idea how to flip her switch off in my head now that it’s been turned on.
“I have a problem.”
“I can see that.”
“I’m ready to kill someone I don’t even know.”
“Do you want to take my car or yours to do it?”
I grin. Fucking Oliver.
“What’s her name? The one who has you this tied up in knots, since I’m assuming she’s not the one you want to kill?”
“Ellery. Elle.”
“Your neighbor Luca told me about? The one who laid the public smackdown in the coffee shop?”
“One and the same.”
“Are you fucking her?”
“Not since that first night in the bar.”
“So fuck her again then and be done with it.”
You’d think it would be that simple. Especially when that’s how it’s been for me since Reese. Any woman I ever felt compelled to see more than once never made it past the second round. By then, anything that had made my dick think it wanted more from them died. But Elle is smart and so damn sexy. She’s feisty and sweet and vulnerable.
And every time my lips press to hers, I feel like a teenager with his first crush, who finally got the girl.
She knows what I did. Both to her and to Reese.
And she forgives me.
I’m fucked.
Oliver’s smirking at me. “You’re fucked, huh?”
I chuckle mirthlessly. “You reading my mind now?”
“It’s a talent we’ve had to acquire since you’re a man of few words. Come on in. Spend the evening with your family and forget about the girl.”
“That work for you when you tried it?”
“No. When they get under your skin, they’re there to stay.”
“Thanks,” I mutter.
He slaps my shoulder.
“It’s what brothers are for. What’s so different about this one?”
“She doesn’t care that I’m Landon Fritz. She yells at me and doesn’t take my crap in any form.” She sees the real me and wants me anyway. She forgives me.
“Ah. I get it now.”
Glad one of us does.
Grabbing the back of my shirt, he hauls me up and off my car. My baby brother drags me along, across the driveway, down the front path, up the porch stairs, and into the main house, only for me to be instantly wrapped up in my mother’s bone-thin arms before she places twin kisses, one each cheek. A Hermes scarf covers her bald head, but any time she leaves this house, she has a wig on.
Octavia Abbot-Fritz, Boston’s reigning queen, is all about appearances, and since she is essentially the Joneses everyone tries to keep up with, that will never change.
“Oh, Landon. So happy you’re finally here. Come, we’re having drinks in the solarium.” She smiles, leading me deeper into the house, through one room after the other. She’s smiling tonight, and there’s more color in her cheeks than the last time I saw her. “Oliver, will you please put Gulliver somewhere he won’t break things? I love your newest fur baby, as Amelia calls him, but he broke a chair in the library your father purchased for me at an auction last year. He’s not happy and needless to say, I’m not either.”
“Where would you like me to put him?”
Gulliver gives a loud bark as if asking the same question his owner is.
My mother points to the right as we reach the back sitting room. “How about in the garden room? He can’t get into too much trouble there, and if you leave the doors open and his long leash on, he can go outside on his own.”
“Fine.”
Oliver walks off, leaving me here with my mother. “Honestly, I just want him to look at the space now that it’s been cleared out. I’m hoping he and Amelia will get married in there since it leads straight into the ballroom.”
“They’re not actually engaged.”
“Yet, Landon. They’re not actually engaged yet. They’re living together, and she’s still wearing my grandmother’s custom-made Harry Winston diamond ring.”
I smirk. “You’re diabolical.”
“When it comes to my children, Landon, I make no apologies. A mother has to do what a mother has to do. Especially a mother of five boys and a daughter who loves testing my every nerve. Besides, if Oliver won’t marry Amelia there, then Carter will marry Grace there. Before she delivers my grandson. I swear, at this rate, I will have to arrange Kaplan’s marriage. Who knows what trouble he’ll get himself into since that seems to be the theme for all of you. Rina unfortunately will end up eloping in Las Vegas of all places. Brecken already asked for our permission to marry her but said she’d never agree to a real wedding.” My mother rolls her green eyes. “I believe Brecken has already purchased tickets to Vegas for that very thing. I’ll have to plan something after the fact and try not to cringe as I do.”
“At least you know Grace won’t say no to you and your scheming.”
“My girl wouldn’t dare.”
Grace and Carter told the family last week they’re expecting. First Rina, then Oliver, and now Carter. Three of her six children are in love. My mother is in seventh heaven and best of all, it’s giving her not just another grandchild, but more reasons to fight her cancer. And with the way she looks tonight, it seems to be working.
“Ah, he’s here.” My father comes up, giving me a hug and a smack on the back. “Thank God. Come hide and have a drink with me. If I have to listen to your siblings go back and forth over baby names and TMI OB appointments any longer I’ll—”