Raine:Forgive me, please.
Me:No
Raine:If it makes it any better, you should know that I peed myself in line at the grocery store today after I bent over to pick up a Snickers bar. That’s right. I pissed myself in the checkout line, and then I broke down into tears, causing even more of a scene. Have pity on your awful friend.
I smiled at the text message. Oddly enough, that did make me feel a little better.
Raine:Let me make it up to you—brunch next Sunday, on me. Endless mimosas for you, and I’ll just have to sit and watch you drink my favorite drink in the world. I’ll allow you to get shit-faced as I try not to wet myself in another public place.
Me:Deal.
I hurried into my bedroom and began running a bath, one I was planning on staying in until the water ran cold and my fingers turned into prunes.
My phone dinged once more.
Raine:But he looked good, right? I thought he looked so good. Healthy. Happy.
Me:I’m deleting your number until Sunday, and I fully expect you to name your child after me after this incident.
Raine:But I’m having a boy.
Me:Make him suffer the way you’ve made me suffer.
I climbed into the steaming-hot pool of water with a bottle of red wine, because when your celebrity ex-boyfriend showed up to your door after a decade of silence, one had no need for a wineglass. Straight from the bottle it was.
After a few very large chugs from the bottle, I set it down on the tiled bathroom floor. I leaned back in the tub and tried my best to shake the thought of Landon away, but it seemed almost impossible to do so.
Because Raine wasn’t wrong—Landon did look good. Too good. Sure, in the moment he hadn’t looked like the happiest guy in the world, sitting in the rain, but he had looked healthy.Sigh.And handsome. He looked so painfully handsome standing there, dripping wet, with me on his mind.
What I hated most about him was how he aged so well, like the finest of wines. I’d wished he had gone from a swan to an ugly duckling over time, but alas, Landon was beautiful. I hadn’t known men could be beautiful until I watched him grow up from a young preteen with acne to the striking adult he’d become. He became so damn handsome it was nauseating. Once when Eleanor and I were watching Hallmark Christmas movies in July, we looked up the most expensive bottles of wine in the world, and dammit if Landon wasn’t a 2010 Barolo Monfortino Riserva Conterno.
I was truly hoping he’d become a $2.99 gas station bottle of Moscato.
It wasn’t one characteristic that made him beautiful, either. It was every single thing. He had so many well-defined facial features, from his bright blue eyes to the carved-out dimples in his cheeks, his chiseled jawline, and his lips.
Oh, those full, kissable lips.
Landon’s skin glowed, too, even when it was dripping from the rain. When we were kids, the sun used to attack him and turn him into a ripe tomato, but nowadays, Landon seemed more sun-kissed than burned. He had a coppery tone to him that probably made millions of women go mad.
I still wasn’t sure what he had been looking for when he came to my door that night. A reunion? A flash of emotion pouring out of one another? Me telling him I’d never stopped loving him after all this time?
I didn’t give him any of what he’d wanted—not my time or my attention. I gave him nothing because nothing was what he deserved. I was no longer the girl who waited around for guys to make time for me to fit into their lives.
I was too old for games, and I refused to allow Landon Harrison to play me again.
* * *
The next few nights, I became a recluse, working on my manuscripts. When I felt extra stressed, I went into artist mode and stayed in my writing cave. Truth was, the writing cave was an excuse for me to skip out on reality for a short period of time. Reality felt heavy as of late. I was in my thirties and still working at the same coffee shop where I’d been for years now, seeing no growth in my career. All I seemed to receive were rejection letters time and time again. I was beginning to feelas if my dreams were simply that—make-believe. It was hard not to feel like a failure with every passing year.
On top of that, Landon kept crossing my mind like a bad habit. I felt intoxicated by the memory of him standing in the pouring rain on those steps. I couldn’t shake it away no matter how hard I tried, and I really, really tried.
As I reached my car to leave for yet another morning shift at the good ole coffee shop, my phone dinged with a message from Eleanor.
Eleanor:Just a heads-up, I think Landon is bringing a woman tonight. Maybe reconsider having mystery man on your arm?
Oh, grand. Casper the Friendly Ghost and I were already planning our outfits for the party.
36Landon