Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 69413 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 347(@200wpm)___ 278(@250wpm)___ 231(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69413 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 347(@200wpm)___ 278(@250wpm)___ 231(@300wpm)
Landry just watched me, frozen in place, like he’d been stunned.
Confused, even. Like he’d maybe never thought about his actions in quite the same way I did.
I clicked my tongue, shaking my head and looking away. “Listen. You’re crazy if you think I don’t like you, Landry,” I said, my voice a little hoarse. I squinted up at him in the sun, wishing I could rewind time to this morning when I’d been cozy in his bed. “I’ve had more fun with you in the last few days than I’ve had with anyone else in the last couple of years, as sad as that sounds.”
He shook his head slowly. “It’s not sad. Or if it is, then we’re both sad, because… I feel the exact same way.”
I hated the tightness in my throat that formed when he told me he felt the same way. I wasn’t sure if I was angry that he could say that and still drop my hand like a hot cake, or if I wished so damn badly that things could be different.
“So let’s enjoy the rest of this trip. The wedding. All of it. We shouldn’t care about whether we’d make good friends, or whatever the hell this is.”
His expression was unchanged. He still seemed like he was behind some kind of wall, not letting out his true emotions. “I need to get back to my hotel and fix up my hair before the wedding starts,” he said, going into the slick, businesslike persona I’d seen him have on his video conference the other day. “I’m sorry. And you’re right. Let’s just go to the wedding, be good guests, and show Chase a good time.”
With a nod he was gone, walking off back toward the hotel alone.
Every fiber of my being wanted to call out to him. To tell him to wait. To make him turn around and to kiss him again, making everything feel right.
But instead I was frozen in place, watching him walk away.
12
LANDRY
My spine pressed up against the rigid, wooden back of the fancy chairs at the wedding ceremony, already making my lower back ache. I knew the exact type of chair Chase and Adam had chosen, because they’d texted me and Emmett to ask for advice six months ago when they’d really started getting deep into wedding planning.
Go for the ones without cushions, I’d told them. The ceremony is only thirty minutes long, and the wooden ones look sleek.
Now as I sat in the very chic, very uncomfortable chair as people started to filter in and sit down for the ceremony, I had one thought and one thought only: screw Past Landry.
In fact, that was the only thought that had been wrapping itself around my chest all day, like a snake slowly constricting around my heart.
Screw. Past. Landry.
I used to think the worst thing about the utter failure of my proposal to Parker was that I’d never be able to have hope for the future again.
Now I knew that was wrong. Dead wrong.
The worst thing about it was that I never could have expected Jamie to fall into my life.
He had finally given me a glimmer of hope again—just a little, so quickly and so unexpectedly—and it had been stamped out before it had any chance to grow.
I had been the one to stamp it out.
And when things had suddenly felt all too real, earlier today, I was pretty sure I’d fucked up royally.
I knew I’d been closed off. Hurt people hurt people, my mom had told me a long, long time ago. I was pretty sure that’s exactly what I’d done to Jamie today, and now I was sitting here with a dull, buzzing feeling of deep regret.
I couldn’t suffer another potential heartbreak, so help me God. Even the simplest idea of dating someone and giving myself a chance to get to know them sounded like a five-alarm fire to my heart.
But I also couldn’t imagine looking into Jamie’s eyes again and telling him I didn’t want more.
“Well, look at you, there, darlin’!” I heard from beside me in a thick Southern accent. I turned to see the biggest hat I’d ever seen. White, wide-brimmed, and just the right amount of floppy.
I glanced down and saw the lady rocking the hat. She was older, with plenty of wrinkled skin that looked just as good on her as the hat. She was probably in her seventies or eighties, even, wearing bright red lipstick, and wearing an equally nice pink dress.
“Hello, there,” I said to her.
“May I take that seat next to yours?” she asked.
“Be my guest,” I said as she sat down right next to me. The ceremony space was filling up now, but I still hadn’t seen Jamie walk in yet.
“Let me guess,” I said to the woman. “Louisiana? Mississippi? Alabama?”