“How can I make it right?” Landon whispered, letting go of his neck and dropping his hands onto his thighs.
“You don’t need to make anything right.”
Landon’s hair was so fucking soft. Gregory tugged it and Landon’s head rolled the way it was pulled.
“Jesus,” Gregory said quietly. Landon’s submission had bloomed into this perfect and elegant thing that was almost greater than the whole of him. He wasn’t even trying right now, he justwas, and everything about him was perfect—correct.
“Hmmn?” Landon hummed, letting his head be rotated from side to side as Gregory tightened his hold on Landon’s hair.
“You don’t even have to try, do you?” Gregory asked him. “This is just how you are? Who you’ve become?”
Gregory rolled Landon’s neck and pushed the back of his head so he was facing the floor, then splayed his palm open and held him that way, pads of his fingers pressing into the back of Landon’s bared neck.
“It’s who I am for you,” Landon whispered.
12
Landon
Gregory left on Sunday,telling Landon they needed some distance between them to think about things. He was right. Landon’s mind was so lust-filled and clouded with want he couldn’t even see straight, let alone make a rational decision about his future with Gregory.
Landon suggested a week, as Gregory had to work anyway. Landon threw himself into working out, spending mornings at the gym and afternoons with Verity doing things around the house or the club.
It was Wednesday now, and Landon had just gotten out of the shower after his morning workout. He’d been eating healthier this week and was dedicated to seeing the softness around his midsection disappear in time. He’d thought about Gregory often in the past three days, most of the time with surprisingly fond affection.
Finding out Gregory had known about his application to Columbia hurt, but it was a pain focused around Gregory’s feelings of betrayal more than anything else. To know Gregory had swallowed his own hurt down and carried on with Landon like nothing had changed rubbed him bitterly. He had been the one in the wrong. That was clear to him. Now he just needed to find a way to make it right. He hadn’t been lying when he told Gregory this was who he was for him and him alone.
Landon had been in relationships since college. He’d played casually, too, and he always submitted. That was who he was in his core. But if submission had levels, everyone else only saw him halfway down. Not to say Landon hadn’t tried. He had. He wanted to submit fully, and the closest he’d come was with Verity, and that had taken years. Gregory had seen it instantly. Maybe it was something about the newness and the exploration of what they were doing when they were younger, but Landon had given it freely, and given it all.
From downstairs, Ed barked, so Landon pulled on a pair of jeans and followed the sound, finding Ed, as expected, staring at Verity’s laptop and yapping at it. A ringing phone jingled out through the speakers on the computer, and Landon slid onto the couch and picked the laptop up.
“Verity!” he shouted, “Jack is calling.”
Landon accepted the Skype call, and Jack’s face filled the screen.
“Hey-lo!” their friend Jack said with an enthusiastic wave.
“Hey, Jack. Gimme a minute, I’m trying to find Verity.”
Jack gave him the thumbs up, and Landon pushed Ed aside and jumped off the couch, jogging back upstairs.
“Jack’s on Skype!” Verity’s bedroom door cracked open and they slid out, pushing the door closed with a click. They looked up and smiled, brushing a hand through their hair.
“Sorry. I wasn’t decent.” Verity joined Landon on the stairs.
“You’re rarely decent.” He laughed.
They arranged themself on the couch and Verity pulled the laptop onto their lap.
“How are you, Jack?” Verity asked with a warm smile.
“I’m good. I still miss you two, though. You haven’t been back in years.”
“We were there last year,” Landon protested.
“Nice try. Two years ago, though.”
Had it really been two years since they’d been back to see their friends in New York? It didn’t feel that long, but it also didn’t feel like they’d lived back in Los Angeles for four years, either.
