He stepped toward me, and I sucked in a breath. This close, I inhaled the scent of him: crisp linen dried in the outdoors, a fragrance uniquely Landon, and one I’d never smelled on anyone else.
My heart picking up tempo, I peered up at him. His gaze skimmed from mine, downward, but I didn’t realize what he stared at until he lifted a hand to touch the chain around my neck. Heat flooded my cheeks like I’d been caught doing something wrong. I held my ground as he tugged the chain out of my shirt until the pendant lay in his hand.
“You still wear it,” he said quietly.
I didn’t respond because there was no point. The evidence lay between us.
He’d given me the pendant a couple months after I’d started dating him. Made of ivory or bone, it was crescent shaped, polished down to a curved point like a moon, set inside a rose gold mount and attached to a matching chain.
Since he’d given it to me, I rarely took it off. The longest span was while I was in basic training. But it meant more to me than I could ever express to him—that he’d had something made specifically for me—and I never wanted to take it off again. It was a reminder of that perfect night on the beach a few days after our relationship turned a corner into something more physical and intimate. A night where I’d closed my eyes and pretended we were a regular couple with a future together.
Pretending was the only way I stayed sane that whole year.
He let the pendant fall on the outside of my shirt. When he stepped away, I shivered, the warmth of him replaced by the cool air of the stairwell.
“Why do you wear it?” he asked, a plea for the truth in his tone.
I met his gaze straight on. “I told you not everything between us was a lie.”
He closed his eyes a moment, then met my gaze once more. “I don’t think I can believe a word that comes out of your mouth.”
Another punch to the gut I accepted with a thrust of my chin. I’d lied to him for a year. I deserved it.
Swallowing around the dryness in my throat, I lifted the scarf. “Let’s get on with it, shall we?”
He stepped away from the staircase, closer to me, and for a second I thought he meant to embrace me. Then I realized he was allowing me access to the stairs behind him because of our height difference.
My cheeks warm, I climbed two steps and stood behind him. The width of his shoulders strained against the wrinkled shirt, a little too tight, displaying his impressive back muscles. My stomach fluttered as I reached, my forearms brushing his shoulders. I made sure the scarf covered his eyes properly before swooping the silky material around to secure it tight to his head.
“Turn around,” I said, cheeks burning more at the scratchiness of my voice. I didn’t want to be affected by any of this.
He did as I asked, and I adjusted the material a bit to make sure his eyes were fully covered, my fingers sweeping against the soft skin of his cheekbones. I shivered. This had to stop. There was nothing between us except betrayal and bitterness. I needed to remember that, no matter how many good memories bombarded me in the process.
“All right.”
He stepped back at my words. I hopped down to the ground and headed to the keypad on the wall. Six beeps echoed up the stairwell. The door clanked open to reveal a holding room made of concrete, the elevator door beside us, and another thick metal door on the opposite wall. Two cameras were mounted in each corner. I waved, knowing Marley and Alina watched from the cockpit.
Landon remained where he was, trapped in his forced darkness. There was no way I could lead him around without touching him. After taking a deep breath, I placed my hand on his forearm. He twitched.
“This way.” I led him forward, through the holding room and to the door on the other side. “Stop.” I punched the six-digit code into the keypad. The door clanked open. Bright mid-morning sunshine streamed inside. Landon tilted his head to the side. Even if he couldn’t see, he had to have felt the change in brightness and warmth.
I pushed the door open all the way. Fifty feet ahead, a chain-link fence enclosed a concrete yard. When first built, this place used to be a storage facility for a car-part manufacturer, but had since changed ownership a few times. Most of the factories and warehouses around us were deserted. The ones that weren’t, Marley had vetted for activity that would conflict with our own, and Alina had made visual confirmations of each building’s vacancy. A few artists had a collective down the street. More were used for storage by various individuals who didn’t come by often.
Cameras recorded the property at every angle. With my hand on his arm, I led Landon across the yard. Weeds stuck up two feet high through the cracks in the concrete. Behind us, the warehouse didn’t look like anything fancy, and my friends and I preferred it that way. We’d kept boards over some of the windows, even though Marley had swapped them out for bulletproof glass. The shabbier it appeared, the better.
I paused when we reached the gate, putting light pressure on his arm to make Landon do the same. The locking mechanism buzzed and I pushed the gate open, the metal rattling. I guided him through, then made sure to shut the gate tight behind us. He stood there, waiting, his face upturned toward the sun, looking like some shipwrecked victim with his eyes covered, his hair messy, beard scruffy, and the wrinkled shirt open at the throat showing a hint of chest hair.
Licking my lips, I turned away and closed my eyes against memories where we cuddled together and I sifted those short, soft hairs through my fingers. I gave myself a shake.Quit thinking about shit like this.It wasn’t helping anyone. But I couldn’t stop where my mind went, to those gentle spaces we’d created together whether they were a lie or not.
Swallowing, I opened my eyes to regard his towering form. That he could allow me to lead him blind like this said a lot about his character. I’d wronged him, and he had enough trust in me to allow it.
Or maybe it didn’t have to do with trust at all.
“Jolyn?”
I’d been staring at him for too long. He reached up like he was going to take off the blindfold, and I grabbed his forearm.
“I’m here,” I said, annoyed my voice went croaky. “This way.” I tugged him to the left.
