“Safe travels back to Charlotte.” I roped my arms around his neck and dropped my head against his shoulder.
“I’ll be driving back up with all my stuff even though I’m leaving most of my furniture, so this will be the easy part of the trip.” His soft chuckle settled in my belly as I melted against him. Right or wrong, I wanted to be close to him and was too tired in body and soul to fight it.
“Hey,” he crooned, drifting his hands up and down my back. “I’ll be back before you know it. And for good. Get some rest, darlin’,” he whispered into my hair.
I was too tired to ask about why he’d told his father or relay what Mr. Clark told me Landon had said about me.
“See you soon, doll.” I kissed his cheek, spotting the corner of his mouth lift as I inched back.
I watched him drive away, and I shut and locked the door behind me.
My eyes were wide open. What we had was rare and wonderful—and terrifying.
16
LANDON
“Hey, man. I’m really sorry. I can put you up in a hotel for a night. There’s one not too far from here.”
I held in a groan as I kept my weary eyes on the road. The last thing I wanted to do was check in to a hotel tonight and have to leave in the morning. I should have known that Marco’s offer was too convenient to be true. Marco was every bit the flake that Julie had said he was, but I had been desperate enough to overlook it and hope for the best.
The one time I didn’t overprepare screwed me in the end. I’d asked for a form to sign to sublet the apartment for the next few months, but I was so focused on closing everything up and packing before I left Charlotte, I’d forgotten to follow up. I’d headed up here on good faith, and right as I pulled onto the New Jersey Turnpike, Marco called to let me know the family who was subletting had moved back in earlier today.
And without a form, and since they were in already, there wasn’t anything he could do—at least not for a place to sleep tonight.
“I’ll figure out something. Thanks anyway, Marco.”
I ended the call, not wanting to hear any more excuses that would just piss me off. I’d been in the car for over ten hours today and just wanted a place to sleep. I only knew of one hotel close by to where the apartment building was, and I didn’t feel comfortable sleeping there, let alone parking my truck with everything I owned in the lot.
I had two choices. I could either drive an extra hour and a half to Connecticut and disrupt my father’s life with his fiancée, or turn onto the Cross Bronx Expressway and be at Julie’s in half the time. Before everything had shifted between us the past couple of months, it would have been a no-brainer, but staying in her house—alone with her for a few nights—had me uneasy.
I loved Julie. Not only as my best friend, but loved as in was head over heels in love with her. Maybe I had been all along, and I’d managed to compartmentalize it enough for the sake of friendship all these years, but now, I wasn’t unsure of my feelings or what I wanted. After I’d blurted it out during dinner with my father that night, it was an epiphany I couldn’t deny or take back.
Julie had broken me when she’d told me in Vegas how she thought of her life as temporary. I could never think of her in those terms, but wasn’t life temporary in general? Hesitating now seemed not only pointless but wasteful. Maybe the New York office was fate setting us on a path to each other when the time was right. Or almost right.
We’d be amazing together, and I was sure Julie felt the same way. But I knew she was a couple steps behind me in what she wanted to do about it. Judging by the way she looked at me lately, I could tell she was still back in the terrified and confused stage.
I wasn’t totally free from the fear, but I wasn’t the least bit confused.
I wanted to make my best friend mine, but it had to be done in baby steps. Staying with her while I hunted for a permanent place to live, however long that would take, I feared would set us back instead of moving us ahead to where I wanted us to be.
But at eight p.m. on a Wednesday night, I didn’t have any other choice. I’d be a big boy and handle myself, even if the woman I wanted more than anything was in the same house and close enough to touch. I called her and hoped for the best.
“Hey, are you okay? I was starting to get worried.”
I smiled at Julie’s relieved sigh over my car speakers. I’d told her I’d call once I got to the apartment, which I’d expected to be a lot sooner.
“Traffic set me back a couple of hours, but I need a favor. Can I stay with you for a few days?”
I checked the screen on my dashboard to see if the call had dropped after a long few seconds of silence.
“Jules?”
“So, Marco flaked out?”
“He did, and you can tell me all about how you told me so later.”
“Of course you can stay as long as you want.”
