I shouldn’t be looking at him. I shouldn’t be worried about him. I shouldn’t be wondering why golf was a trigger for him.
But I couldn’t seem to focus on anything else.
I’d tried to forget him.
I’d tried to stay away from him.
I’d tried not to look at him.
All I did was fail.
Our eyes met across the distance, and my heart tugged in his direction. He nodded his head back toward the exit. It was a question and a promise. I knew that, if I went out there, he’d kiss me again. And I would give in to him. Because I wanted to.
“Ugh, who sent in these pictures?” Emery asked from next to me.
I guiltily looked away from Landon and stared at the picture. It was Emery and Landon together after a football game. She was in his letter jacket, and they were laughing. The next one was of them seated side by side for their Best Couple shot for the yearbook. The one after that had Emery sitting in his lap by a bonfire. I was sitting next to them, grinning like a fool.
There were three or four others, all in a row. A barrage of Emery and Landon. One big fat reminder that the guy I was dreaming about had dated my best friend.
This wasn’t like Jensen, who hadn’t known Emery when she dated Landon. I’d been there with them through everything. I knew the good, the bad, and the ugly. Emery and I had spent hours lamenting over our love lives.
There was no way in hell that I should be interested in Landon. I wouldn’t allow it. I promised myself that I wouldn’t look in his direction again. No way, no how.
And, when Brandon McCain moseyed back over to talk to me, I let him hit on me and told myself I wasn’t going to feel guilty about it.
Four
Heidi
“Well, I’d call this a success,” Emery said a few hours later with a yawn.
“A rousing success,” I agreed.
“Way better than the five-year reunion.”
“Yeah. This time, they let me have it at a bar. People are way better when they’re drunk.”
“True. Also, people have actually changed…sort of…since then. Everyone had just graduated college at the five-year.”
“Or they were on their second kid,” I reminded her.
Emery laughed. “Or that.”
“I’m glad you came. You’re going back with Jensen now, right?”
Emery gave me a sheepish look. “Don’t act like you know me.”
“Of course I know you. We’ve been best friends since kindergarten, and now, we live together!”
I pulled my bestie in for a hug, and we swayed back and forth in a tipsy sort of slow dance.
“You’re the best,” Emery said.
“You’re the bestest.”
“Sorry to break up the romantic moment,” Jensen said with an amused grin, “but I don’t think we can go home until we get Landon safely back to Austin’s.”
Emery groaned. “But I’m so tired! I want to go home.”
“As do I, but if you haven’t noticed, he’s totally fucked up.”
I nodded my head. I had definitely noticed even though I was trying not to. Though people had slowly been leaving the place, most of the football players were still being rowdy in the back. Landon, who had never been the type, had even started to join in with their antics. It made me cringe. He must really be going through something to allow himself to be this far gone.
Emery yawned long and dramatically, as if to say, Please, dear God, let us go now.
I laughed at her.
“I’ll make sure he gets into a cab. I have to be here until bar close to settle up with Peter anyway. I won’t let Landon do anything stupid,” I told Jensen.
“Are you sure?” he asked. He got that look in his eye, like he was the older brother and had to guarantee the safety of all of his siblings. It was adorable.
“Yep. No worries. We have cabs coming at closing to get people. I’ll make the football players carry him into one. No big,” I told him.
Emery arched an eyebrow, and we had a silent conversation.
You’re going to help Landon into a cab, huh?
Yeah. So?
And there’s nothing going on?
No!
Sure.
There’s not.
I don’t believe you.
Fuck off, Robinson.
Whatever, Martin.
I laughed and pushed her toward Jensen. “Don’t worry about a thing. Go have a lot of monkey sex.”
Emery groaned. “I hate you.”
“Love you, too, hooker.”
“Thanks for doing this, Heidi,” Jensen said as he motioned for Emery to precede him out of Flips. “I really appreciate it. If anything goes wrong or if you need me, don’t hesitate to call.”
God, Jensen is such a nice guy.
“I won’t, but don’t worry; it’ll be fine.”
“Famous last words,” he muttered before following Emery outside.
I wanted to laugh off Jensen’s comment, but with the Wrights, something always went wrong.
Without Emery, the reunion deflated for me. I hadn’t kept in contact with anyone else from our senior class, other than Landon. We were all friends on Facebook and Instagram, but I wasn’t involved in their lives. I could go hang out with the cheerleading crowd, but I didn’t fit in with them now that they had their own mommy circle. I knew everyone, but suddenly, I felt very alone.
I slunk back over to the bar where Peter was cleaning a pile of glasses, generally looking exhausted.
“Long night?”
He shrugged one shoulder. “Pretty busy in case you missed it.”
“Noticed that.”
Peter dragged a hand back through his shoulder-length hair and sighed. “You’ve got company.”
I whirled around at that comment, expecting to find Landon. Then, I quickly hated myself for that expectation. Instead, I found Brandon had returned with his pointed grin and flirtatious dude-bro personality.
“Hey, Brandon,” I said with a smile.
“Heidi,” he said, leaning me into the bar. “You want to get out of here?”
Just like that. No preamble or anything.
“I actually have to close down the bar for the reunion.”
“I can wait,” he said with a magnetic grin that I was sure worked on girls in LA.
“No, it’s okay. It’ll be boring, and I should just go home after that.”
Brandon’s grin slipped, and I could tell that his drunken mind was irritated. He hadn’t expected me to turn him down.
He twirled a lock of my hair around his fingers. “Come on, baby. I know you were into me in high school.”
I gently extracted myself from him. “That was more than ten years ago, Brandon.”
“Couldn’t have changed that much.”
“Funny you say that,” I said with growing aggravation. “I would say that I’ve changed a lot, but you wouldn’t know that, as you’ve spent the entire time talking to me about your awesome life in LA and all the roles you could have gotten but missed. I’m not interested. You missed your chance to get someone as amazing as me.”