Page 24 of Five Days

I couldn’t argue anything he’d claimed because he spoke the truth about how I’d bent over backwards to make sure he wasn’t alone. But that last bit?

“What dreams?” I asked, hating my interest had been piqued. I did. Not. Care.

Landon waved his hand, frowning. “Doesn’t matter. What does is that I felt like my world was ripping in two, that the one person I trusted to stay beside me had turned eighteen and was going to go seek out his destiny without me. I thought giving you my virginity would tie you to me, make you stay, and when you rejected me as though I meant nothing to you?—”

The words ripped from his heaving chest, and he pressed his lips tight while swallowing hard against the tears threatening to spill down his flushed cheeks.

“You were only fifteen. Fucking jailbait, Landon,” I said, my voice low as I leaned forward, wondering how the fuck all that emotion lingered inside him after so long.

But didn’t anger cling to my mind, desire in my soul no matter how much I denied it, in the same way? His appearance had only intensified the desires too, much to my annoyance.

“I was young, but can’t a teenager fall in love?”

“Lust, maybe,” I said, “but not long-lasting commitment.”

“Bullshit.” Fire blazed in his stare regardless of the wetness darkening the base of his blond eyelashes. “My feelings for you haven’t changed one bit since that night. I loved you then, and I love you still.”

I sat back in my chair, stunned by his adamant reply. “You…you don’t even know me anymore, Landon. Where I’ve been. What I did in order to survive. The man I became after leaving Rhode Island.”

“The heart wants what the heart wants. Cliche, but that’s how it is.”

Fucker hit the nail on the head, and I hated him even more for speaking the truth between us.

Landon leaned forward to occupy the space over the table I’d vacated while I sat in wary uncertainty. “I chased after fulfillment elsewhere for years. Zack, if you knew half the shit I got myself into?—”

He pressed his lips tight again, his eyes revealing conflict and even more pain as he shook his head as though disgusted with himself.

“Not that I’m blaming you,” he finally continued, his voice broken when I couldn’t cook up a goddamned thing to say. “I take full responsibility for sowing my wild oats. But you’re the one I always came back to in my mind. It’s always been you. The only man I’ve ever wanted.”

He sounded sincere, but emotional wounds and too much time lay between us to simply falling into what we’d been, the platonic relationship that had once held potential for so much more.

Besides, there was now another card here at play. And while I wasn’t usually impulsive, I found myself in a situation where a risk had to be taken in order to find peace once and for all.

“What about Callum?” I watched Landon closely for micro-expressions that would reveal his thoughts for the other man who loved him in ways I no longer could.

He blinked, his head tipping to the side. Giving up the table’s higher ground, he sat back, his shoulders wilted again as his hands landed in his lap. “What about him?” he whispered, uncertainty in his tone I refused to be moved by.

Still, I hesitated crossing over a line I swore I never would.

But Callum and I weren’t friends as Landon and I had once been. What did it matter if I betrayed Callum’s trust he’d put in me by sharing his feelings for Landon?

He played a game I was ready to participate in to free myself from the enemy I refused to see as anything else no matter how much my heart disagreed.

“That man is madly in love with you and right at your fingertips,” I stated quietly, refusing to feel guilt over the truth I spilled. “He’s gone above and beyond for you—and you’re still stuck on me?” I shook my head, holding his unblinking stare. “I’m not the right choice here, Landon. Be smart for once in your life. Grab hold of the one who has the ability to entrust his heart to you—because that will never be me.”

Chapter 10

Landon

Madly in love with you.

That damned statement hit me like an uppercut to the chin.

The words echoed in the vast chamber of my mind, and I sat stunned. Staring and uncaring that Zack had basically called me stupid for making poor choices. If he only knew the truth of how far I’d actually gone in my need to rid my heart and body of want for him.

But back to Callum…

I remembered how my best friend had looked at me a mere hour or so earlier. Similar warmth as always had filled his sea-like eyes, a swirling of emotion I’d considered to be tenderness, the kind of caring a person felt for loved ones. Like brothers, maybe.

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