Page 17 of Hold Us Close
The club would handle the cost. It’s covered by your insurance.
I hope that you’ll at least consider it.
Let me know something soon.
I have no idea what he’s talking about. Glancing in the living room to make sure Landen’s still sleeping, I click on the link. Oh my.
If his coach is sending him info about a place like this, he must be in serious trouble. I read the description of the place. It’s in California. Then I click on the frequently asked questions. Several of the services mentioned sound a lot like the kind of help Landen could use.
“What are you doing?”
His gruff voice scares the crap out of me. I drop the phone as if it’s on fire.
“Um—”
“What the fuck, Layla? We go through each other’s phones now?” His broad frame blocks the light in the doorway.
“Sorry. It’s just, you left it outside and I wanted to make sure it wasn’t messed up from the rain.”
“Oh yeah?” Landen takes two steps, closing the distance between us, and snatches his phone up off the bed. “You had to read my texts and open my web browser to be sure?”
Swallowing hard, I stand up to face him. We have plenty of issues, like any other relationship, but we don’t lie to each other. “No. I wanted to see what upset you. I checked your recent calls. The text notifications popped up and I was curious.”
“Whatever,” he snaps. “Here. Knock yourself out.” He pitches his phone at me and stalks out of the room.
I let his phone bounce off the bed and hit the floor. “Hey. Talk to me,” I demand, following him out of the room, which is never a good idea when he’s pissed. But he’s overreacting this time. More so than usual. If anyone should be upset, it’s me. We live together. I tell him everything. If he has so many secrets he’s going to flip out over me looking at his phone, then we have bigger problems than I realized. Which is saying something.
“Why?” he asks, whirling around to face me. “Nothing you can’t figure out by snooping in my phone.”
“Don’t be an ass. I was worried about you. I do that sometimes.”
He snorts and turns from me again. “I’m going for a run.”
“Oh good. That’ll help. It always solves all of our problems.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” He glares at me as he pulls on a T-shirt.
“It means, you’ve been talking to your dad, your suspension is obviously more serious than you let on, and my aunt has called you a million times. None of which you’ve even bothered to try and talk to me about. So yeah, good idea. A run should take care of everything.” I huff out an exasperated breath.
“I’m pissed off. Looks like you are too. It’s better for me to run off my anger than lose control of it here.” He laces up his running shoes as I stand there seething.
“Landen, we talked about this. You can’t run every time you’re mad.” I move in front of the door in a pathetic attempt to keep him from leaving.It didn’t work.I thought maybe I could help somehow; take some of his anger away. But the look in his eyes tells me I was wrong.
“Like hell I can’t. If I fucked you right now, I’d fuck one or both of us right into the emergency room.”
“Please don’t do this.” Angry tears burn my eyes. “I want to know what you and your dad talked about. I want to know what he said.”
“Tough shit.” He steps towards the door. “I don’t want to talk about it right now. Move.”
But I don’t move. I fold my arms and will him to stop being this way with everything I’m worth.
He looks at me as if I’m an unknown species he can’t understand or communicate with. His eyes are intense and desperate. “I’m trying to keep myself from hurting you. Christ. What do you want from me?”
“I want you to stay,” I say, knowing I sound like a petulant child. “I want you to grow up and stop running and stop acting like the incredible hulk. Don’t rip your shirt off and beat on your chest and blow up every time something doesn’t go your way. I’m pregnant. We’re both scared. We had messed up childhoods and we might both suck at being parents. You’re keeping things from me and I looked at your stupid phone. Let’s deal with it.”
Both sides of his jaw tick as he gives me a slight shake of his head. “Fine. You want me to stay? Here, I’ll stay.”
My shoulders sag forward with relief. We’re finally going to talk things out. For once. But before I can apologize for my hateful words, Landen grabs the vase off the end table, the one that holds the shells my mother and I collected every summer in Gulf Shores before she died. Before she was taken from me. It’s the one thing I have left that really reminds me of her.
