Page 77 of Five Days

“What happened?” Landon asked quietly when I’d gone silent for a few long moments.

“He lost his license for driving under the influence. At twenty, he’d escaped sexual assault charges because the supposed victim was known for crying wolf and had lied to the authorities before. But a year later when a second young woman accused him of the same, he wasn’t as lucky. My brother’s world was reduced to a jail cell, a place he would never have ended up in had I done my job of being a better caretaker. He blamed me. Refused to see me when I attempted to visit him. We wrote each other off, which was for the best.”

Landon had been aware my brother was in prison, but I’d just never gone into the full details of how he’d landed there.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Landon argued from where he’d landed on my lap, straddling my thighs, his hands on my face. “That idiot made his own choices, same as me. We can blame others all we want, cook up excuses for what we did, but the truth is that we’re the ones who decide what we do.”

“But had I?—”

Landon pressed his fingers to my lips. “No, Cal.”

I kept silent, swallowing down how I felt, same as always.

“That woman on the news just now—she was the one he took advantage of, right?”

“Yes.”

“You aren’t accountable for her death any more than you were your brother’s actions,” Landon insisted.

Nodding, I wrapped my arms around him and pulled him against my chest, accepting his emotional support.

But I needed more.

Zack. His physical strength that allowed me a different level of vulnerability and comfort. I longed to crawl into his embrace, submit to his ability to empty my mind. Not that he could heal my wounds, but he sure as hell could make me forget them for a while.

I didn’t speak about the man we both missed though. Didn’t want to have Landon thinking he wasn’t enough for me, same as I wasn’t for him.

We needed our man.

“We should get out of here. Take another vacation to escape the shit that seems to constantly surround us,” Landon murmured, his lips brushing over the skin of my neck where he’d shoved his face.

I glanced around the living room while my hands roamed down his back in soothing assurance. Outside the house, we didn’t have much of a life, and while our situation had changed for the better since our five days on the island, it still lacked. We were nothing more than codependent hermits who hid from the world and fucked like rabbits when not missing our third.

“I’ve always wanted to see Italy.” I suggested the one place both Landon and Zack had mentioned they hoped to see someday.

“Let’s do it.” Landon sat back, a hint of life on his face, the first stir of anything resembling excitement since Zack had left us.

I opened my mouth to agree, but my cell buzzed in my pocket.

Landon climbed off me, allowing me to fish it free.

No name was listed on my screen, but I recognized the number.

“Hello?” I answered cautiously, staring at Landon.

While I didn’t know the man’s voice, I was very familiar with his name. My eyes widened as he stated the reason for his call, my face splitting into a grin at the offer he extended.

It was exactly what Landon and I needed.

Chapter 31

Zack

“You’re going to do me a favor.”

I snorted at Sean’s statement while giving myself some privacy by hiding in the supply closet to take his call. No other volunteers at the shelter knew what I did for a living, and I preferred to keep it that way. “You still owe me for covering you for Valentine’s Day when Drake got called to New York.” I reminded Sean of what had gone down back in February.

Drake had been booked both nights that weekend, but I’d agreed to fill in for him. Good thing I had. He’d ended up reconnecting with his stepbrother while stuck in a broken elevator, and now the two of them planned on having a white picket fence and a dozen kids.

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