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One half of his mouth quirked with a smile. “I don’t think that’s true at all. But given that you said you just wanted someone to talk to, I’m guessing I don’t need to dole out any cash to get some insight into that mind of yours.”
The moment he said the words, I realized how strange it was. Landen, my gym buddy, was the guy I went to when it felt like my world was falling apart. And he wasn’t wrong. He wouldn’t need to pay a single cent to hear anything going on in my mind, because I wouldn’t hesitate to share. It had always been easy to talk to him, even if we hadn’t ever discussed the one thing I’d been hoping to for months.
“You know, this isn’t how I envisioned ever sharing a meal with you,” I mumbled.
Landen wrinkled his nose with curiosity. “But you have envisioned sharing a meal with me?”
I winced, feeling the flush creep over my cheeks.
Great.
Just great.
Maybe Robert was right about questioning my ability to handle this promotion. Clearly, I wasn’t thinking straight, if I’d revealed what I just had to Landen.
“This day just keeps getting better and better.” I sighed. “How mortified should I be right now?”
“I don’t think you should be embarrassed at all. I’ve imagined sharing a meal with you before, too.”
My brows lifted. “You have?”
Landen shrugged. “You did mention that you’d attend another wedding with me, didn’t you?”
So, never before that…
The wind was instantly out of my sails. “Do you have another wedding to go to?”
He shook his head. “No invites yet. But I do promise that you’re on my radar if I get one.”
“Well, at least I’ve got that to look forward to,” I reasoned, feeling marginally better. “I don’t want you to think I’m not grateful for this today, Landen. I am. It’s just that if I was going to join you for lunch ever, I wish it wasn’t with me feeling like such a mess.”
Landen offered a nod of understanding. “I’m so sorry you’re going through this. Hopefully, it’s nothing more than just a technical glitch. And at the very least, if that’s the case, you could take that to your boss and explain what happened.”
I’d be tempted to kiss Landen if he could figure out something like that. Then again, it wasn’t like I hadn’t ever imagined kissing him before. If he wound up solving this mess, there was no question I’d find him even more appealing than I already did and wouldn’t be able to show any restraint.
“That would be amazing.” There was such a tightness in my chest; I rubbed my hand against it in hopes of easing the ache. “These last couple of weeks have been so tough.”
“You did a good job of hiding it for a while,” he noted. “It wasn’t until this past Monday that I even had a clue that something was off.”
“Yeah. And then you asked me about it yesterday,” I reminded him.
It seemed we both took a moment to recall thatconversation from yesterday. Landen was a private investigator, so it shouldn’t have come as a surprise to me that he’d noticed something wasn’t right with me. But in so many ways, it had caught me off guard.
I could only assume it was because I hadn’t imagined he’d paid attention to me on that level.
“Why didn’t you tell me what was going on then?” There was such concern in his tone, just like I’d heard yesterday. “Or, better yet, if you’ve been having such a difficult time for a couple of weeks now, why didn’t you say something sooner?”
“I think there’s more than one reason for that.” I took a sip of my drink, allowing the liquid to slip past the lump that had become a permanent fixture in my throat recently. “At first, it might have been some denial at play. I guess there was a part of me that thought if I ignored those first few things, if I told myself that everything would be fine, it would all disappear. But beyond that, as things got worse at work and at home, I wanted something to stay normal. My workouts with you ever since this started were the one thing that still felt good. I didn’t want this negativity to leak into that.”
Satisfaction mixed with a growing sense of bewilderment in Landen’s expression. “What’s going on at home?”
I sighed. “Well, that’s probably just me being more dramatic than anything else. My hot water heater needed to be replaced during all this, and it just added one more thing to my plate.”
He hissed. “Wow. You really have been having a difficult time lately, haven’t you? Did you get the water heater taken care of?”
Smiling, recalling that day and not wanting Landen toworry more than he already seemed to be, I shared, “Walter did it for me.”
“Walter?”
