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He chortles. “Liv-Andria, quit apologizing. You’re fine.”
I shrug.
He copies me with goofy exaggeration.
Teasingly, I say, “You know, I sometimes wonder how old you really are.”
“Me, too,” he agrees. “Maybe I should be a teacher or something instead of a bartender. I’d get along pretty decently with the students.”
“You’d be their absolute favorite teacher.”
“Think so?”
I assure him, “Know so.”
He grins. “Hm.”
We stand here another few seconds and look at each other.
It occurs to me that he and I never finished talking about Lolly because of Rae’s fall, and I open my mouth to bring the conversation back. But then I remember he needs to head back to the park, so I close my mouth again.
He notices I’m not saying something. “What’s up?”
“Oh, just…I remembered our conversation about Lolly got interrupted. I’m sor—”
I cut the word off because I’m supposed to stop apologizing. We share a quiet laugh.
“Yeah, don’t worry, though,” he says. “She’s doing all right.”
“Okay. Good.”
He nods, wets his lips, and tells me even more sincerely, “Thanks for caring, Liv. Foralwayscaring about both the big things and the little things. It means so much to me.”
You’d think anyone with a brain in their head would care about what he’s going through, but he and I both know it’s not true. His ex is proof of that.
Hell, there are people out there who don’t even care about the thingsI’vebeen through. But I guess if everyone were decent, such things wouldn’t happen in the first place.
I don’t want to think about that right now, so I focus on how light and happy Landon’s expression is. It’s a much better thing to fill my mind with.
“Of course, friend,” I say. “I’m very happy to help however I can.”
As I connect this and that in my head, I feel like I can see him doing the same: thinking about the word‘friend’and him saying it to me earlier after he touched my hair…which happened at the park, which is where he’s supposed to be going right now.
Indeed, we both gesture toward the living room and start talking.
“I should—” he begins.
“You—” I start.
After a second of silence, we chuckle again and say, “Yeah,” together. Then we leave the kitchen.
I open the front door for him, and he looks at me sunnily. “Thanks for the hug, too, by the way,” he says.
“Thankyoufor everything.” After a beat, I confess, “I don’t really know how I’d have gotten through any of that by myself.”
He gives me a casual thumbs-up, but his tone is gentle. “Anytime.”
I nod gratefully.
