I walk over slowly, so as not to scare her.
“Evie?”
She jolts, lifting her head. I see her squint.
“It’s Landon.”
She stands quickly, wiping her eyes. I know from the way she tucks her arm around herself that she wants to look composed, so I don’t close the distance between us. I sure as shit don’t put my hands on her.
I stand there, breathing hard and trying not to look like I am. My heart is fucking pounding. I feel like I’m sixteen years old.
“You okay?” It comes out sounding gruff.
“Yeah, I’m fine.” In the dim light from a street lamp by the road behind her, I can see her try to smile. “I’m just a weepy drunk.” She wipes her eyes. “I have to work tomorrow. Shouldn’t have come out. That stuff was so sad,” she says softly. “Made me want to have a drink and just forget.”
I nod.
She looks behind her, at the road. “I need to call a ride.”
I check my phone. “I’ve got one. Here right now,” I tell her as I spot the message from the app. “Only fair,” I add. “I owe you.”
“Mmm.” I can see her searching for the words to turn me down as a dark SUV pulls up along the curb. My arm arches around her back. I touch her gently with my fingertips.
“C’mon. I don’t mind.”
“I can’t,” she says thickly.
“It’s just a Lyft, Evie.”
She nods once, and then she lets me urge her toward the sidewalk.
Evie
I had three screwdrivers—three too many. Now I’m doing something foolish. I know as I buckle up that I should get out of the Lyft and call my own ride. But I’m drunk, and Landon is beside me. Grown up Landon, with his bulky shoulders, scruffy face, and big-but-gentle hands. He’s wearing a starched button-up and straight-front khakis, and he smells faintly of cologne and liquor.
Add to that: he found me while I was crying. Is there anything sexier than a well-dressed man wiping your tears? Of course not.
With my inhibitions gone, there’s no way I’m doing the smart thing. I’m going to sit beside him on this leather seat and pretend he’s my date. We’re going somewhere good, and if I shut my eyes…just for a second, if I close my eyes, he might lean over. Touch me.
It’s the feel and smell and look of him that calls to me, but also so much more. Riding in a car with Landon is like going home. The kind of home you can’t go back to once you’ve left. And I left. I really, really left. In a certain sense, I left the day he left. He took my heart. I’ve never found it.
The fullness of that loss, sharpened by vodka, comes down on me like a monsoon. I just left a bar with Landon. I’m interning alongside Landon. I could reach across the car and touch him right now.
God, I used to dream of this. And it actually happened. My dream came true, but I can’t touch it. I can never touch it.
“Evie?” His voice is rough and quiet.
I notice that my head is in my hands. Oops. I try to lift it, but my eyes seem to be leaking again. When I don’t lift my head, I feel him moving closer to me. No. Fuck. I peek through my fingers and see the road tilt out the windshield. We’re moving, so I can’t get out. Oh my God, I’m so dumb.
“Evie…what’s wrong?”
Landon’s here, and he’s so fucking nice. A grown-up Landon. He’s a surgeon, too. Why is he a surgeon? Why does he smell good?
I think of sitting up and kissing him. How good his scruffy face would feel under my hands. I would kiss him, and his eyes would close. When we were younger and we kissed, Landon’s eyes would always close—and I would sometimes look at him. This is what he looks like, I would think: my person.
Mine.
I still feel like he’s mine. When he leans over right beside me and he murmurs in his Landon voice, my heart says mine.
With my hands still over my face, I twist away from him, toward the door. “Stop the car, please.”
“What?”
I curl over my lap. “I need to get out.”
If I stay near him in this state, this will not end well. I feel it.
“You want the car to stop?” he asks quietly, his voice sounding concerned.
“Yes, please.”
I feel Landon lean up toward the driver’s seat and hear him say, “Hey, man, can you pull over?”
The car stops, and I struggle with my door handle. My hands are damp and unsteady. When I finally manage to push it open, I find myself looking at Landon. While I struggled, he got out and came around. He holds a hand out for me, and I just look at him.
He’s handsome. With his striking eyes and high cheekbones, plus that stubble, Landon is the kind of guy who probably gets a lot of female interest—and that’s in street clothes, without the magical white coat.
His hair is short, and in the darkness it looks brown. His eyes are still that earnest gray. They look at me as if they’re trying to send a message. I can’t hear it. I can’t do this. If I do, I’ll talk. I can’t lie to him, and I can’t tell the truth. Landon is off limits. Why did I think that we could share a Lyft?
After a long, unreadable look at me, he presses his lips together, glances down, and walks back around the car. I’m so confused that instead of getting out, I turn around and watch him climb in. I’m expecting him to meet my eyes, so when he doesn’t, just buckles and blinks straight ahead, I’m thrown; I pull my door shut.
After a long glance in my direction, Landon tells the driver, “You can go.”
I frown at his profile. Swallow. In my dumb, tear-softened voice, I ask him, “Why did you say that?”
He blinks at me, impassive.
“I told you I was sick,” I whisper.
His jaw twitches. “No. You said you wanted to get out. You’re not even drunk, Evie.”
“I am, too.”
His lips flatten and twist down. He glances away for a moment before his eyes return to mine. This time, they’re hotter. “Do you think I can’t tell when you’re lying, Evie?”
“Are you kidding me?”
“You think I’m kidding?” He looks incredulous. “I watched you lie a thousand times. I know what you look like when you’re holding something back. You’re not sick, Evie, and you’re not that fucking drunk. You just don’t want to be in here with me. You said you wanted to get out, but when you found me right in front of you, you wouldn’t even take my hand.”
“I wasn’t sure if I would need to,” I murmur, but it’s bullshit, and it sounds like bullshit.
“What about now?” His gray gaze burns. “Do you need to get out now?”
I blink through tears. “No. I don’t.”
“What address?” he asks me tightly.
“What?”
“What’s your address?”
After I tell him, Landon looks ahead again, his jaw tight and his shoulders tense.
“I’m sorry,” I say softly. “I’m a mess.” I don’t even plan the words, they just roll out, because I’m me and he’s Landon.
Four
Evie
Landon’s gaze angles to mine, and in a softer tone, he murmurs, “Why?”
“Because…I’m sad.”
He turns to me more fully, looking like he did as he stood by my door a minute ago: as if he’s trying to discern something.
“You never wrote,” he finally says.
I shake my head, my eyes filling with tears.