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At the end of the day, though, I couldn't keep living the way I had been for the past few months. I couldn't keep doing everything in my power to avoid Landon and be mad at him.
"Sure." I kept any emotion out of my voice.
Relief washed over Landon's face at my response, and I couldn't help a small smile.
"I'll make all the snacks and dinner, Belle. All you need to do is show up." He looked so hopeful that I couldn't stop a full grin from taking over my face.
"As long as you actually show up," I said jokingly, but then I saw his face fall. I felt like a jerk for saying it, but I couldn't take it back now.
"Promise." He nodded, patting the side of my arm before taking off to his floor to work.
I did the same and spent the entire day at work wondering what tonight would be like, and how awkward it might be.
Landon almost always got home from work after me, but today, his car was in the driveway when I arrived home. I just walked since I told Zach that I didn't need a ride home, but I was still expecting Landon to be at work. He usually stayed later than our normal four-thirty end time.
When I walked in, my senses were attacked. There was a massive bowl of tortilla chips on the coffee table in front of the couch, and three bowls of salsa were sitting there as well. The sound of my favorite characters reached my ears from the television, and I saw that my show was on. And it was one of my favorite shows.
The spicy aroma of tacos filled the entire house, and I salivated at the smell. Fajitas were one of my favorite meals, no matter how hard it was to get the smell out of the house for a few days. I could even hear the sizzle of the onions and peppers cooking in the kitchen.
"Queso's in here!" Landon called from the kitchen, and I grabbed the bowl of chips and the salsa that I could tell was my favorite from Trader Joe's. Yes, I ate it enough that I could tell exactly which of the three it was.
Walking into the kitchen, I set the chips down on an open counter and started dipping chips into my salsa, seeing a small warmer of queso next to the stove where Landon was cooking. I stood next to him, seeing that he had a smaller bowl of chips next to him so that he could eat the queso while he cooked.
And suddenly I felt weird. This was our old normal, and it hadn't been this way in so long. We used to always cook meals together, or one of us would cook for the other just to be nice on days when either of us stayed at work late. I didn't know how to behave now that things seemed okay.
Taking some of his chips, I used them for the queso and salsa, which were great mixed together. For now, I would just act normal since it seemed like the only thing I could do.
"Ah-ah!" Landon said, noticing that the queso was now mixed into my salsa bowl. "You just cross-contaminated."
"Oh, did you think that I was going to share this?" I joked, holding the bowl away from him in an obvious claim.
"Yes, I was planning on having some, too."
"Too bad, Landon. This is my special salsa. You can eat the other two kinds out there." I moved the bowl of salsa close to my chest, cuddling it like it were a pet. Landon grabbed a chip and turned towards me, making it clear he was coming for my salsa. "No!"
I jumped away from him, running to the other side of the kitchen to protect my salsa.
"Fine. But I'll get some later."
"Not if I eat it all myself." I shrugged, grabbing chips from the big bowl and dipping all of them into the salsa.
Landon just rolled his eyes and laughed, returning to cooking the fajitas on the stove.
Once dinner was finished, we made our plates and moved to the living room to eat on the couch. Again, it was incredibly normal for us, and part of me wanted to just avoid talking about anything serious so that I could avoid any of these happy, warm feelings from fading into something less.
"Thanks for cooking," I said, moaning as I took a bite of the chicken. He seasoned these to perfection, as usual. "It's amazing."
"Of course. I've missed us having dinner together." He gave me a weak smile, and I knew that it was going to be awkward from here on out.
I held back a snide response that I wanted to give him about how we could have had dinners together if he hadn't been acting so weird about Zach, and also spending all of his time with Tiffany.
"Me too," I responded instead, proud of myself for being mature about this. I could do this. If we could get through our feelings together in an understandable, calm way, we could fix the crack in our friendship.
We ate for a few more minutes in silence, the only sounds of the crazy characters on the TV as they tried to cook the Thanksgiving turkey in the dryer, which is hilariously stupid and unrealistic, but still entertaining.
"Belle, I'm sorry," Landon started, turning to me and placing his plate on the coffee table. "I know that things have been so off between us and I know a lot of it has been my fault. I shouldn't have acted so terrible about Zach and to him, and I definitely shouldn't have told you that you cheated our game by going out with him. And goodness, I'm so freaking sorry for missing our last movie night. I can't believe that I did that, and I will get on my knees and beg for forgiveness if I need to. For all of this."
I just stayed silent, trying to process all of the words he'd given me. I didn't want to respond too quickly or react in an unreasonable manner. That would definitely not help us get through this rocky spot.
