Page 49 of Clean Sweep
I returned to the other side of the car while Landon settled her in. The moment Landon clicked his seatbelt into place, he pulled Starla into his arms. She leaned into his side, head on his shoulder. His arm circled her whole body like a tight anchor.
“Our apartment isn’t far away,” he said quietly.
Our apartmentrang like bells in my head. After he told me his address, I pulled away without another word. Landon murmured quietly to Starla every now and then. The gentle man that Landon had become felt like an odd juxtaposition to the ferocious, competitive athlete I used to coach.
She lay limp at his side, and I pulled a few crumpled grocery bags out of the back when we stopped at a light. Landon nodded as I passed them to him, then kept them handy—just in case she spilled her stomach all over the place.
Whatever had happened, Starla didn’t look well.
Twenty minutes later, I stood in the doorway of a run-down apartment complex on the other side of the city. I wouldn’t say the neighborhood had questionable tenants, but I also wouldn’t let Celeste live here.
Landon’s keys rattled in the doorknob as he carried Starla into the apartment. They disappeared down a hallway to the right while I yanked the keys free, locked my truck with the fob, and advanced inside.
Clearly, they’d just moved in. Maybe only a few days or a week ago. Three cardboard boxes lined up against one wall, near a ratty couch that looked like someone had just offloaded it on them for free, and a vague array of paper plates and plastic cups in a small kitchen. A laundry basket full of mixed dirty clothes wasn’t my first clue that these two weren’tjustdating.
The whole thing had a hasty feel to it, like they just moved in, hadn’t expected it, and didn’t know what to do now.
I stood in the middle of the room until Landon showed back up. The dark hallway that he’d stepped into wasn’t long—I could see a bedroom door at the end of it, closed tight. The immediate concern had faded from his expression. Now, something haggard lay in its wake.
“You need to talk?” I asked.
He lifted an eyebrow. “You want to listen?”
I nodded.
He motioned to the couch with a wave of his hand. Out of the kitchen he conjured a folding chair, opened it, and sat across from me. Once there, he ran a hand through his hair and let out the world’s longest breath.
“Started a month ago.”
For the next half hour, Landon spun out a story I would never have expected.
“Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma,” he murmured with a shake of his head, as if he couldn’t believe it himself. A slight tremor of his hand accompanied the words. “She was tentatively diagnosed three weeks ago, but the doctor just pushed the official diagnosis three days ago, when the final results came in with a bigger picture. Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma has a huge range of things that go with it. It’s hard to nail down what’s going on and . . . anyway, there’s more involved than I ever thought.”
He trailed away for a moment, and I was grateful for a chance to grapple with what he’d just said. Cancer? In a girl as young as Starla? Fate had always been mean, maybe downright catty, but this just seemed diabolical. Granted, I hadn’t seen her cumulatively for more than a few hours, and we’d only directly spoken once or twice, but I sensed enough life and zest in her that this felt terribly wrong.
“Landon,” I said quietly. “I don’t know what to say.”
He shrugged. “What can you possibly say?”
He rattled details about doctors, treatment options, potentials, different diagnostic imaging, and words I only knew existed because I’d once dealt with player injuries. Hearing them rattled off so quickly from Landon meant he’d been living this reality with her for all the weeks of their existence together.
“Did you really meet only six weeks ago?” I asked.
He hesitated, then nodded. “Yeah.”
“And when did you marry her?”
He paled. My hunch had been something of a long shot, but not really. The picture stacked up quickly now that I had concrete details. Landon’s jaw tightened as he looked away.
“Four weeks ago.”
My eyebrows shot up. “For insurance?”
“No,” he snapped, “because I loved her then and I love her more every day. Yes, we were married at two weeks but . . . we knew already that it would happen.” He held up two hands, his voice softening. “It’s insane, I know. But until it happened to me . . . I would have never thought such a thing possible.”
The pragmatism of his mother set against this story created a wild twist that I both dreaded and anticipated. What would Leslie have to say to such a romantic notion? At such a decision?
Pride, I hoped.
