Page 7 of Keep Me Still
“Landen,” she says softly, and I know I’m screwed. She’s giving me that look, the goodbye look I’ve given girls time and time again.
“My bad,” I say, pulling back. “Sorry I got all in your space. It won’t happen again.” She looks lost, and I want to punch myself for overstepping so soon and making her uncomfortable.
“It’s not that, it’s just—”
“It’s okay. I get it.” I take a full step back. But then she surprises the hell out of me. Right there in the crowded hall, she grabs my shirt and pulls me in close. Much closer than I was to her ears. I’m instantly drunk on the sweet scent of Layla Flaherty. Drowning in her wide ocean-colored eyes. It’s a miracle I’m still upright.
“It’s just, I don’t really have friends here. I haven’t had a friend in a long time. I like you, Landen. A lot. And I want to be friends.”
I’m fucking ecstatic to be this close to her. But the friend word keeps cutting into me. I work hard to form a coherent thought while lost in the depths of her open vulnerable stare. “I want to be friends too, Layla. And I think I might like to be more than that. But if you’re not interested—”
“I’m interested,” she says, cutting me off as her eyes flash and burn into me. “But I might not be…ready for something like that.”
“Then I’ll just stick around until you are ready,” I tell her with a grin. Her muscles visibly relax and I risk taking a step closer. “Patience has never been my greatest skill though, but I promise to give it my best shot.”
“And what is your greatest skill?” She’s backed up against her locker, and I want so badly to show her the answer to that question.
“I’ll show you. When you’re ready.”
Ittakes me nearly all of first period to get my heart to beat normally again. Didn’t help that Landen sat right behind me and his breath was tickling my neck. Whenever he’s even remotely close to me, I seem to develop superpowers. My spidey senses kick in or something because I’m hyperaware of his every move. And constantly fighting the urge to grin like a crazed lunatic.
For the first time, someone sees me. And he’s new, an outsider, and he thinks there’s something wrong with everyone else instead of what I know deep down. There’s something wrong with me.
I should tell him, like Aunt Kate said. Let him cut and run before it’s too late. But I’m desperate. When he started to walk away from me today, I felt like I was drowning. So I reached out and grabbed him like the life preserver that he is. And he seemed to like it.
When I find him waiting under the magnolia tree where I normally have lunch, I can’t help but smile. When he smiles back, my breath catches in my throat, and I think about his promise earlier.I’ll show you. When you’re ready.
“Okay if I have lunch with you?” he asks, and I notice his eyes look three shades brighter in the sun.
“Sure. Long as you don’t mind your friends staring like you’ve lost your mind.”
“What friends?” He looks honestly perplexed, like he didn’t spend his first few days having lunch with the social elite of Hope Springs. Whatever. Never look a gift horse in the mouth and all that. I lower myself onto the grass across from him. “So, is your middle name Roxanne?” Landen asks after swallowing his first bite of pizza.
“Very funny.”
“I was just curious,” he says with a shrug. But the gleam in his eye tells me he was teasing. “I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours.”
“Faith,” I say softly. It was my mother’s name, but there’s no reason to pull this sweet, seemingly carefree guy down that dark alley of despair.
“Layla Faith Flaherty,” he announces. “I like it.”
“Glad you approve.” I’ve almost finished my bagel when I realize he hasn’t told me his middle name. “We had a deal,” I remind him, and once again I’m treated to that adorable dimpled grin.
“It’s Landen,” he replies, and I know I’ve been tricked.
“So you go by your middle name then. What’s your first?”
The thick knot in his neck bobs as he swallows his last bite of pizza. “Ah, a guy’s gotta have some secrets. Plus, if I told you everything about me upfront, what reason would you have for hanging out with me tomorrow night?”
I almost choke on my water. “We’re hanging out tomorrow?”
“Sure, that’s what friends do, right?”
Heck if I know. “Okay,friend. And what is it we’re doing tomorrow?”
“Grabbing dinner after practice? Maybe a milkshake too if you can guess my first name.”
“And you’ve found my weakness,” I say, clasping a hand to my chest as my heart threatens to pound straight out of it. We’re joking around. I know that. I’m not completely mental. But my mind is asking a million questions a minute.A date. He’s asking me on a date…sort of. Or is he?
