“You can’t hide how much you hate Miranda any more than my family can.”
“Hey,” I said, holding up my hands. “I don’t hate Miranda. I don’t even know her.”
“Well, if you knew her, you’d hate her, too.”
“Maybe so,” I conceded. “But that doesn’t make things any easier for you. Clearly, you must have loved her.”
“It’s just…yeah,” he said. “I don’t know. It all happened today.”
“No wonder you’re drunk and acting like a fool. Maybe we should have addressed you leaving Miranda first and made out second.”
He grinned devilishly. “So, we’re going to make out again?”
“No,” I said, smacking his arm. God, I could hardly keep my mind out of the gutter. I was never going to succeed in keeping his out of there, too. “We shouldn’t have kissed in the first place.”
He might have left Miranda today, but who knew what tomorrow would bring? I doubted he had even filed paperwork for a divorce. I had so many unanswered questions that, even though I wanted to kiss Landon…to give in to this thing between us, I couldn’t do it. I knew it was wrong.
Not just because of Miranda, but also because of all the women I’d seen my dad with.
My mom had died in a carjacking when I was in middle school. She’d been brutally murdered, and I’d been a zombie through much of middle school. Without Emery, I never would have made it.
But my dad had coped with women. He’d go from girlfriend to girlfriend—regulars who came to Hanks, the bar he owned. I knew the signs for when he settled for married women—when a woman flipped the diamond over or took it off, leaving a pale stripe on her ring finger, or when I’d find a wedding ring on the sink at night. I’d decided at a young age that I’d do anything to be a different person than my dad. I wasn’t about to let Landon Wright fuck that up.
“Yeah, I probably shouldn’t have kissed you,” Landon said. He scratched the back of his neck and winced. “But I’d been thinking about it since New Year’s.”
“Landon, you can’t come here and talk to me like this. If you want to talk about Miranda, I’m here.” I held my hands up in supplication. I wouldn’t deny him a friend or a shoulder to cry on, but that was it. “We can talk after the reunion, but now, maybe try to forget about it.”
“About Miranda or you?”
“Both.”
“Not going to happen.” He stepped toward me and cupped my cheek. “There’s no way I could forget about you, Heidi.”
“You’ve done fine so far. Do what you’ve been doing, Landon, and you’ll have no trouble,” I said with a bit more heat than I’d intended. Then, I turned and walked back into Flips.
Three
Heidi
Leaving Landon standing outside felt horrible. I knew he was in a rough place, and he needed someone to talk to. I was happy to be that person. Even if the last thing I wanted to hear about was Miranda. I couldn’t do that while we stood out back where we had just kissed. I trusted myself with most things, but Landon Wright was not one of them.
I glanced over my shoulder to make sure that Landon hadn’t followed me. The last thing I wanted was for people to see us coming in from outside together. When we’d walked out there, only a handful of people had been in attendance, but already, the bar was filling up. I recognized nearly everyone and was stopped constantly as people wanted to say hi to me.
In high school, I’d been a cheerleader, class vice president, and student council vice president. I’d been very involved. So, planning this evening with Meredith and Dave—the class president and treasurer—had been a blast, but it’d also put a lot of pressure on me. I was the only one who still lived here. That meant I was the one who’d had to do most of the groundwork. The benefit of that was, we got to have the event at Flips.
“Tequila?” the bartender, Peter, asked when he saw me approaching.
I nodded my head and held up two fingers. Yeah, make it a double, buddy.
Peter knew what kind of alcohol I was into based on my mood. That was how often I was in here. It was a little scary honestly.
“Care to toast with your bestie and roomie?” Emery asked, sidling up beside me.
“The shots are not celebratory unless I am licking them off your stomach,” I informed her.
“Let’s do it, baby!” Emery said. She leaned back on her chair and hoisted her black tank up to reveal her flat stomach. “Peter, I need the salt!”
“Oh God, are you two doing this again?” he asked. He tilted his head and judged us, as per usual.
“Hand it over!” Emery crooned.
“It’s really not a reunion if we aren’t drunk and ridiculous,” I said.
“Let’s be real,” Emery said. “It’s not a reunion if we’re not drunk on wine coolers and running from the cops because Landon has pot and is afraid he’ll get arrested.”
Emery hoisted herself up onto the bar and lay down. She balanced the shot on her stomach and started shaking salt next to her belly button.
“Honey,” Jensen said, appearing at her side, “what in the hell are you doing?”
“Body shots. Don’t tell me you’ve never done one.”
Jensen’s face pinched. “Who is doing a body shot off of you?”
“Heidi, of course,” Emery said with a grin.
“Yeah, Wright, get out of the way.” I nudged Jensen, and he gave me a pained expression. I knew how much it hurt him not to get to take that shot, but I wasn’t giving it up. “This is my girlfriend, and we might or might not have done this once or twice in high school.”
“There were a lot of things you two did in high school that don’t need to be repeated,” he said.
“Party pooper,” Emery called at him.
“Don’t listen to him, Em. He’s jealous because I get to take the shot. We all know he’s done worse.”
Jensen shrugged and didn’t deny it.
Emery winked at her boyfriend and then placed the lime in her mouth. She made a come-and-get-it gesture. I laughed at my best friend and felt unbelievably grateful for having her. Even if she didn’t know something was wrong, she allowed me to completely forget about what had happened.
I bent down, licked the salt from Emery’s stomach, and then downed the shot. After I swallowed the tequila back, I took the lime straight from Emery’s mouth. She hollered with excitement as I sucked on the lime. My grin was magnetic as I raised my arms like I’d won a gold medal.
“What did I miss?” Landon asked as I turned around to face the rest of the crowd.
I dropped my arms and shrugged. “Body shots.”
“Ah, like old times then.”
“You don’t have any weed on you, do you? Emery reminded us that you used to be a pothead.”
Landon raised his eyebrows at me and then shifted his attention to Emery. “I was not a pothead.”
Emery hopped off the bar. “Nah, you were too scared of getting caught to be a full-blown pothead.”
“Actually, I think he was too afraid of our dad,” Jensen chimed in.
Landon shrugged. “Well, he could be a scary motherfucker.”