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Tommy thanked me for a wonderful evening, smiled, and said he’d see me soon.
It was all shaping up to be so insanely simple. Like the kind of thing I’d been waiting around my whole life to happen. Boy comes into my life. Boy is nice. Boy and I get along. Next comes marriage and a baby carriage. Except there was a dark undercurrent to the fairy tale.
Before boy met girl, girl met Landon. And Landon planted a poisonous seed of hunger in girl—a seed that girl was apparently too stupid or weak to flush out of her system. No matter how much girl should’ve wanted to let this thing with boy happen, she couldn’t stop thinking about the dark prince who had tried to break her heart before she even gave it to him.
I was standing in front of the bathroom mirror in my room, and I let out a bitter laugh. I was on a dream trip where I’d just been able to attend a beautiful wedding in an amazing venue. My room was spectacular, and a really nice guy had practically fallen into my lap. All of that, and none of it had been enough to get Landon off my mind.
There was a knock at my door.
I took a look at myself in the mirror. I tucked a loose lock of hair behind my ear and then checked my teeth. I hurried to the door, took a deep breath, and pulled it open.
“Hey,” Bree said. “Jeez. Don’t try to hide the fact that you’re disappointed to see me or anything.”
I laughed. “Sorry. I’m not. I was just—” I shook my head. I was just hoping you were Landon. That you’d come because you couldn’t bear the thought of me being with someone else. That maybe you’d rumble something possessive about how I was supposed to be yours and you wouldn’t stand for somebody else touching what belonged to you. “What’s up?” I asked as perkily as I could.
Bree leaned forward, making no secret of the fact that she was scanning my room for any extra guests. “Hmm…”
I put my hands on my hips. “It’s just me in here.”
“I see that.”
“Did you need something, or were you just being nosy?”
“Just being nosy!” Bree said cheerfully. She gave me a soft little punch on the shoulder, a wink, and then strolled off. She even tried to whistle, but my little sister had never been a whistler. It sounded more like an elderly man breathing squeakily through his nose.
She was up to something. It was either something she’d already done, or something she was about to do, but Bree was meddling. For all the great things about my little sister, one of her faults was her tendency to think her perceptiveness about people was an obligation to intervene. In her mind, she felt like she could see the bigger puzzle—and when two pieces appeared to fit together, she couldn’t help trying to make it happen.
I was packing my bags when Tommy stuck his head in the door. “Hey,” he said.
“Hey.”
“Catching your flight out today, right?”
“Yep,” I said.
An uncomfortable silence passed between us, so I let my palms flap against my thighs and pressed my lips together in an approximation of a smile.
“Yeah, this is kind of weird,” he said, echoing my thoughts. “I mean, I get it. We’re out of town and everybody just was looking for ways to enjoy the weekend. But I’d still like to see you again. Maybe just to figure out if there’s anything here.”
“You live in Pennsylvania. It’s a bit of a drive,” I said. I wasn’t even sure what I wanted at this point. Did I really want him to ask me about giving the long-distance thing a try? Did I want him to say he’d drive to New York every couple weekends to see me? Or was I trying to make excuses for him because I knew my heart was still foolishly stuck on the idea of Landon.
I didn’t know.
All I knew was the way Landon still swirled in my thoughts like a shadow. Even now, I could practically feel the way he spread across the room, making everything darker by comparison. Would it really be fair to step into a relationship when another man had that kind of hold on me?
“I’m gonna be honest,” Tommy said, laughing a little at himself. “I really like you, Andi. You don’t give a shit what people think. You’re funny. And you’re—” He gestured to me, clearly implying he liked the way I looked, too. “Point is, I’m willing to look a little pathetic and just ask, because I’ll be kicking myself if I don’t. Can I come see you sometime? I’ve got a cousin who lives in the Bronx, so I could stay with her and it wouldn’t have to be weird. We could get coffee, I don’t know. Just something?”
