He’d left. After promising he wouldn’t.
I shouldn’t have been surprised. I knew better than to let hope mend what trauma had cracked. Still, Landon’s consistency, his unflinching dedication to keeping his word, had convinced me he was different. In the end, he must’ve realized what I already knew: I wasn’t worth the fight. Now, he was gone, and I felt shattered, all my jagged pieces tearing me up inside.
With tears burning my eyes, I rushed home, ripped the card out of the bouquet, and read it again. Same message. Same lie. No matter what he’d said, Landon was gone.
Anger surged. I grabbed the vase and marched it to the trash. I couldn’t kill the hope choking me, but I could at least trash the damn flowers. Lifting the lid, I froze. With orange bicolor roses, purple cushion spray chrysanthemums, and bronze daisies, the arrangement was so beautiful, unique, and… special. It made me feel special.
I let the lid fall and carried the vase back to my room, setting it on the nightstand like an idiot.
Then I crawled under the covers and cried myself back to sleep.
23
Mercy
“THERE’S NO BETTER cure for heartache than a party,” I said to my reflection, trying to force a level of cheer into my voice that I sure as hell didn’t feel. Two days had passed since Landon left. It was Christmas Eve, and I’d peeled myself out of bed, showered away my tears and funk, dressed in something other than sweats, and dabbed on enough concealer to hide the sickly green bruise fading from my temple. Now, all I wanted to do was put my pajamas back on and climb into my beckoning bed. “You love your job. This party will be amazing, and you’re not staying home and moping all day.”
Darkening my lashes and lips so I wouldn’t look like such a zombie, I plastered a smile across my face and high-fived myself in the bathroom mirror. The makeover wasn’t much of an improvement, but it would have to do.
A biker was waiting outside my building when I emerged. His back was to me, displaying the easily visible Dead Presidents MC patch on his vest. In the darkness of the early morning, I could see little else about him before he turned, and my breath caught in my lungs.
“Landon?”
Emotion churned inside me like a hurricane.
I’d spent the last two days bawling my eyes out, believing he was on the other side of the world, and he was right here.
Wearing a Dead Presidents vest.
Questions piled up on my tongue until I asked the first one that escaped. “What are you doing here?”
“Walking you to work.”
It was such a matter-of-fact answer for such an unreal situation; I almost laughed.
But tears kept stinging my eyes, and my heart felt like it was running on a hamster wheel in my chest.
“I mean… your mom said you went to Africa.”
“She said what?”
“Monday. You left for the airport.”
He cocked his head, that slow smile that both attracted and infuriated me playing on his lips. “To pick up a brother who was flying in.”
I closed my mouth and let his answer sink in.
He hadn’t left, but he’d been MIA for days.
You kicked him out, a little voice in my head reminded me.
“What about Doctors Without Borders?”
He shrugged. “I never actually signed a contract. I paid for my flight and was planning to room with my friend while I checked it out.”
Not knowing how to respond, I nodded, like his explanation made perfect sense, even though nothing did. He’d stayed, but I couldn’t get my hopes up without knowing his reasoning, and I was too chicken to ask.
“We should get going.” Locking all my emotions in a box to figure out later, I started walking toward Beth’s.
