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The first people to leave were Tiffany and Landon, which loosened everyone else up in the house.
"What crawled up Landon's backside?" Mandy asked, shaking her head.
"Yeah, what was his problem?" Leslie added, both of them looking to me for answers.
I just shrugged. "How am I supposed to know?"
"You live with him."
"I've never seen him act that way before, so who knows? He'll get over himself eventually, I'm sure," I answered, not wanting to talk about it anymore. It was uncomfortable enough when he was here.
Cooper and Andrew were snickering about something, but stopped when they realized that no one else was talking.
"Sorry it was...odd," I told everyone, as if it were all my fault that we cut our evening shorter than usual.
"Better luck next time," Cooper said with a shrug, grabbing Mandy's hand and pulling her out the front door. "See you on Wednesday."
"Bye, guys," I said to everyone as Andrew and Leslie followed them out.
And then it was just Zach and me, and I was so embarrassed for the way Landon treated him.
"I'm so sorry, Zach. I swear, I've never seen Landon act that way before. He really is a good guy, I promise. He's just been...different lately."
"Don't worry about it, Belle. You don't have to apologize for him. You wanna know what I think it was?" He pulled me over to the couch and made me sit with him. When I nodded, he continued. "I think Landon doesn't like seeing you with another guy."
"What?" I said incredulously, laughing at the idea. "That's ridiculous. We've been friends for a long time, and he's never acted that way when I brought any other guys around."
"Are you sure? Because he was seemingly only mad that I was there. He just kept glaring at me in this oddly possessive and threatening way, as if he was mad that I was even breathing the same air as you." Zach let a small smile form on his mouth to lighten his tone, but I still considered if he was right.
I shook my head. "Landon has never expressed interest in me. I highly doubt he disliked you just because you were with me. Did you maybe cut him off in traffic one day, or something, and he's been holding this long vendetta against the guy in the yellow Camaro?" I knew it was ridiculous and unlikely, but it was better than believing that the alternative could be true. "Plus, he literally brought his girlfriend tonight. Why would he be jealous that you were with me?"
"Maybe he's realizing that he wants you." Zach was all serious now, looking down at me.
Again, I just shook my head. "He had all the time in the world for that and never made a move. So even if that was what was going on, that ship has sailed."
"Has it? You got a guy in your life?" Zach teased, scooting closer to me.
"Sort of. There's this really cute guy who likes to buy me sweets."
We both laughed and settled into a night of watching my favorite show on the TV, which Zach had no qualms about.
Still, I wondered what Landon was doing and why he had acted so weird.
22
Landon
"You'reherewayearlierthan you ever are," Belle commented as I sat down across from her. Usually, I sat right next to her with an arm slung around her chair, but things were different now. We were different now. And I hated it, yet didn't have the slightest clue how to fix it.
"Bad day at the gym. I just decided to cut my losses and leave early."
"Ah," she mused, sipping her liquid sugar with a drop of coffee in it. She usually drank black coffee, but today she must have been feeling adventurous.
"Been a minute since we've actually talked." The truth in my statement hurt because we'd never been the type of friends to go long without talking.
"Yeah, we've both been really busy." She just shrugged, as if it didn't bother her at all, and that drove me insane.
"What have you been up to?"
