He runs his hand through his damp hair as his eyes shift. He’s having difficulty meeting mine. “I never meant…we weren’t…this shouldn’t have happened.”
This shouldn’t have happened.
Four more bullets.
“What are you worried about?” I ask softly, but I know the answer. It’s the same one I locked away in the back of my brain.
“How would it look for me to go from Melanie to hertwenty-year-oldsister?” he asks, making sure to emphasize my age in a way that makes me feel small. I open my mouth to respond, but he beats me to it. “I can tell you how it would look. Bad. Really bad. On many different levels.”
I take a step toward him. “I get that it’s awkward with Mel,” I say. “I feel fucking awful about it. Of course, I do. But we can work through it. There has to be a way to make this work.”
He shakes his head. “I have a company and a public image to uphold. There are expectations and promises I need to keep. I can’t dothis,” he gestures between us, “with the nearly-teenage waitress from the country club.”
His words cut me, and my heart gives a brutal thump. My throat thickens, and the familiar sting of tears burns behind my eyes. I blink them back, refusing to cry. It’s just…I thought we were done with this part. I thought we were moving on to the inevitable. Why else would he have let me stay here all this time? Why else would he care? It makes no sense.
“I’m more than just a waitress, Landon,” I say, and my voice sounds funny. Wobbly.
After a moment, his eyes soften. Just a little. “I know you are. That wasn’t the point. I admire you, Violet. You’re beautiful, you’re fun, you’re spirited, but this can’t work. There’s nearly a decade between us, and much of that decade I spent with your sister.”
“I know,” I whisper. I know I sound pathetic. I know I look pathetic, standing here wet and teary-eyed and shivering. But we have something. Landon and I have something. I know we do. “But can’t we at least try?”
His jaw clamps, and the softness disappears. “I had…a moment of weakness. This can’t happen again. It won’t. I’m sorry, Violet.”
I don’t say anything. Can’t. He must realize this, because he gives me a sympathetic look that I don’t want before walking away from me, back inside the house. I can’t help it. I turn and watch him through the window, biting my lip to keep it from trembling, holding my breath to keep it from shaking.
He pauses in the middle of the kitchen, and finally, I see a burst of real emotion. He slams his hands down on the counter, glaring at a spot I can’t see, his shoulders rising and falling in deep, contained breaths. And then he disappears deeper into the house, leaving me completely alone.
I hold back tears as I ice the cupcakes. I hold back tears as I decorate them. I hold back tears as I package the order, and I hold back tears as I head upstairs, quietly shutting the door to my room.
It’s only in the shower that I let them fall freely, allowing myself to ride the rollercoaster of emotions I’ve felt since that first perfect kiss.
This can’t happen again.
Hair damp and eyes wet, I crawl into bed, burying myself under the comforter. It’s impossible not to replay the night, to obsess over Landon’s mouth and lips and body. To fixate on his smile, his laugh, his smirk. To realize I’ll probably never kiss him again. To recognize that everything’s different now, permanently altered, and the murky water surrounding our relationship’s turned pitch black. I can’t see my feet or my reflection anymore. I can’t see his. Because it was more than just a kiss. More than just a physical attraction. It was everything.
That’s what you get.
Landon belongs to Mel.
You’re an awful person and a worse sister.
Tears roll down my cheeks, dampening my pillow. I feel discarded and ashamed. Stupid for hoping and foolish for risking my heart.
You give too much to people who don’t want it. To people who don’t deserve it.
I know I do, but I don’t know how to change.
How do I change?
THIRTY-FIVE
Sleep is only a brief reprieve from reality. Waking up the next morning is painful.
Visions from the pool bombard me the second my eyes blink open, rushing around my head in cruel, mocking circles, and I grip the covers up to my chin, wishing I could stay in bed all day.
I can’t stop thinking about Landon. Can’t stop picturing his dark eyes and soft lips and hard body pressed against mine. How good it felt to be close to him, to share that with him. Those were the best kisses I’ve ever had, and everything, from the heat of the moment to the passion in our touch to the desire in my heart, holds me captive in an emotional spiral of lust and longing and another L word I refuse to consider, a word that possesses too much power because of the cold, hard truth.
None of that will ever happen again.
