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"No, I’m serious, guys. I’m in love with Landon Ryan and he’s in love with me. Or at least he said he was until I completely fucked it all up."
The memory of his face before he left her apartment came rushing back and Katie dissolved into tears all over again, then dropped her head all the way down to knock against the table.
"Babe, I think, she’s being serious," Alex said over her back.
"Noooo. No way! Are you fucking with me right now, Kat? You’re fucking with me? You’rereallydating Landon Ryan?"
Katie lifted her head and one shoulder. "Dating? I don’t know, we were...talking."
Ellis choked on his drink and had to spit it back into his glass. "You slept with him?!"
Katie coughed, but didn’t deny it.
"You slept with Landon Ryan?! Really?"
"Oh a little louder please, I don’t think they heard you in that back corner over there."
"What?! Where? When? I mean, what? How?!" Ellis bounced on his seat like a bird ready to take flight.
Katie finally turned on him. "Ok, what the hell is with the shock? I know I’m no Layla Lamar, but is itthatshocking that Landon Ryan would have sex with me?"
Ellis rolled his eyes. "Honey, you are smoking hot, of course he’d fuck you. I’m surprised you’d sleep with him. You’re such a rule follower. And Lori would go ballistic. She’d more than fire you. I don’t even know how that’s possible, but she’d figure something out."
"I know, I know, I should have cut it off after the first time, but—"
Ellis stopped slurping his straw."The first time? You slept with him more than once? How many times?"
"Oh geez, it doesn’t matter, El, I slept with him and more importantly, I fell in love with him, and now I’m forced to not only watch, but help find him the woman of his dreams. Who is probably Layla Lamar, because let’s face it, what man wouldn’t dream of her?"
Alex and Ellis exchanged glances that hovered somewhere between confused and concerned. Then Ellis gestured to the bartender for another round and they proceeded to relentlessly press every last detail out of Katie, from her first chance meeting with Landon at the coffee shop to that last disastrous night in her apartment when she’d ruined it all.
Rehashing it only made Katie realize what she’d given up. Seen through fresh eyes, Landon was even more amazing. Ellis and Alex didn’t hesitate to call her out on some of the times she’d been unreasonable. Like being upset that he’d left her his truck. Alex loved that. "That’s just so thoughtful." And Landon agreeing to be on the dating show to throw Lori off their scent? "Actually quick and astute thinking on his part, Kat."
"What am I going to do?" Katie groaned.
"Why don’t you just reach out to him?" Alex asked. "If he really is in love with you like he said, I’m sure he can forgive what you said."
"What’s the point? Nothing’s changed. I can’t give up my job for a man. Not again."
"Not even for Landon Ryan?" Ellis asked. "Come on, Kat. It's Landon Ryan."
"Especially not for him," she argued back. "He’s a pro athlete and beyond that, a celebrity. Even if he cares about me right now—and the jury is still out on that—I don’t fit into his lifestyle. He’s sweet, but he’s a fuck boy; everybody knows that. He has an ego and any woman he wants falling at his feet. Sooner or later, he’s going to move on, and I’m not going to be able to get a job in this industry or probably an other if I fuck up Lori’s grand plan to build her media empire around Landon."
"Why do you think it can’t work with him?" Alex asked. "Different lifestyles can work. We’re proof of that."
He squeezed his husband’s hand and Ellis smiled sweetly in return. Katie took another mournful slurp from her almost empty glass. She got what Alex was saying, but the differences between her and Landon felt like too big of a gap to bridge.
"Ummm, Kat…" Ellis hedged.
Katie knew exactly where he was going, could already hear the pity in his voice, and she drank up the very last drop of her drink in preparation.
"What happened with your ex? Whatreallyhappened, Kat? There’s something you haven’t told us," Ellis said.
She toyed with her straw, unable to muster the energy to scramble out of the conversation. She’d confessed about Landon. It had slipped out so easily and brought so much relief. Maybe it was time to set free a few other secrets.
"Remember how I told you about how we broke up and then sorta got back together?"
Alex and Ellis nodded.
