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“This is Landon and Tara. I believe Landon is here to see Malia?” Ian motioned to us.
Recognition flashed on Malia’s face. “Yes! Landon, it’s nice to meet you. I’m glad you came. And Tara, I’m happy to meet you too. I’ve read some of your pieces.”
I was stunned. “You have?”
She laughed. “Random, right? Your mother brags about you quite often. Before my accident, I was in school to be a sports reporter. I mentioned it one time when I was picking up some dry cleaning, and your mother bragged on you for a good half hour.”
“I’m so sorry about her.” I knew my face was red. I didn’t want Landon to focus on the reporter part. My mother always interchanged writer and reporter. I couldn’t believe she got it right when talking to Malia. I was hoping he would assume I wasn’t interested in writing human-interest pieces. What I’d been doing and what I wanted to do used two parts of the brain. They didn’t always mix.
“No! It was cute. You’re a great writer.”
“Thank you so much. That means a lot.” Every time my career was brought up, I worried Landon would back off and get suspicious of my interest in him. Still, I didn’t want to lie to him, and there was no way I expected to run into anyone in Ashford who’d read my pieces other than my parents.
“Landon, you mentioned you were a writer as well?” Malia’s wide eyes settled on him.
“I am. Or was. I guess the jury is still out. My agent wants me to be one again, and so do I. I’m just stuck. Sorry, that was the definition of rambling.”
“You’re good. I know all about getting stuck,” Malia offered, pointing to her leg.
Landon mentioned she’d lost a limb. I couldn’t imagine how horrible that had been.
“That’s why I hoped to talk to you. I’ve seen your YouTube videos. You’re a wonderful inspiration.”
Gerry wrapped his arm around her shoulders, kissing the top of her head. “That’s my girl.”
She pointed to him with a smile. “He’s my biggest fan.”
“Gerry! Ian! It’s your turn!” someone yelled from the horseshoes.
Ian turned to Mina. “You’re good here, right? We have to go defend our title.”
Mina rolled her eyes. “Your Horseshoe Champion title? I would never stand in the way of that. Go ahead. I’ll stay here with these guys.”
Gerry and Ian jogged to the horseshoe court… or whatever you called it.
“Sorry about those guys. They work hard but play even harder.” Malia laughed.
“What do they do?” Landon asked, looking genuinely curious.
It was something I’d started to notice about him. When he asked questions, he truly listened. It seemed as if he took everyone’s stories and locked them away, asking pertinent questions and making each person the center of his attention. It was a skill I was intimately familiar with.
It was the same way I interviewed people. It reminded me again how careful I needed to be. He would spot pointed questions from me, or anyone else, a mile away.
“Ian is a construction foreman. His team is working on the hospital right now. It’s a big contract. Gerry is a surveyor for a local lumber company. They’ve been friends for a while,” Mina explained.
Landon nodded as we watched them start their match from where we stood. His focus shifted back to Malia as she asked him how she could help.
“I should probably explain what I’m hoping to gain from talking with you. As I said, I was a writer, but I had my own accident several years ago. Since then, I haven’t been able to pull the plug, so to speak. I have ideas every now and then but putting them on paper eludes me. I know it’s psychological, but I can’t move past it.”
Malia’s brow furrowed. “Was the accident related to writing somehow? Like you were coming back from a signing or your agent?”
“No. I was quite successful as a writer. I let the fame go to my head and made some really bad choices. Being the bad boy of fiction earned me a lot of media attention, and they followed me everywhere.” He paused. I could tell this was hard for him. “One night, I was tired of them hunting me down, and I took off in my car. They chased me until I missed a curve and totaled my car.”
“Oh, wow.” Mina stepped back. “That’s horrible.”
“I saw it as payment for the spoiled brat I’d become. When I woke up in the hospital, it was like a light had gone off. I knew I needed to change my ways, and I connected writing with my bad choices when in truth, my bad choices were related to me being too full of myself and letting fame carry me away.”
“It sounds like you’ve worked through the hard part of it, but you’re still stuck on the writing?” Malia observed, leaning against the bar table we’d placed our drinks on.
