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“I see,” I said, suddenly miserable again.
She loved me, but she didn’t want to even be near me. Miranda had hated my family for no reason, and now, Heidi hated them with good reason. I couldn’t fucking win.
“So, I just…I need time, Landon.”
Hello, time, my old friend.
“Of course,” I found myself saying. “It’s the last thing that I want to give you, but I will if you think it will help.”
She took a stutter step forward, as if she wanted to throw herself into my arms. Then, she seemed to catch herself and stopped. She shrugged out of my jacket and offered it back to me.
“Keep it.”
“I can’t.”
“Please, Heidi. Let me take care of you even if you don’t want to be taken care of.”
I bridged the distance that she had been hesitant to cross before and tugged the jacket closer around her. Her eyes were round with concern at my nearness. But she didn’t pull away.
“You might hate me right now, but I’ll be right here. If you need me, if you think you can move past what happened. I’ll be here, trying to fix what I broke between us.” I leaned forward and pressed my lips to her forehead. “I should have waited for you. I should have probably waited until Jensen or Morgan moved me. There are a ton of things I could have done, but I can’t regret our time together. I never will. You stole my heart completely with that first kiss in the back of Flips, and I don’t even want it back.”
A tear slipped down her cheek, and I gently swiped it off her face.
“No more tears, love.”
“I’m sorry, Landon,” she said in a choked gasp.
Then, she turned away from me and fled through the cemetery, leaving me with nothing but the dead to console my broken heart.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Heidi
“I cannot believe that I let you talk me into this,” I said with a heavy sigh as Julia parked her SUV in the parking lot of the Overton.
“It’ll be fine,” Emery insisted from the passenger seat.
I was seated in the back in the dusty-rose slip dress that Julia had gotten for me. I had no idea why in the hell I was wearing it or why I was about to attend the Wright Charity Benefit.
“I have it on good authority that Landon isn’t even going to be here, and you know most of the company doesn’t even show up. It’s mostly for hoity-toity types with a lot of money to dish out,” Julia reminded me again. “Engineering would never show up for this.”
Well, that was true at least. No one in the department I had worked for had any interest in dressing up and going to some high-class function. But I didn’t understand why Landon wouldn’t be here. It was a Wright event. He was a Wright.
“And why isn’t Landon coming again?” I asked.
Julia and Emery passed a look between them.
“Jensen said he was busy,” Emery said at the same time Julia said, “I think he’s busy.”
They both laughed nervously, and I sat straight up. “He’s going to be here, isn’t he?”
“No!” they both said at once.
“Oh, Jesus, y’all lied to me?” I groaned. “Take me home! I am not dealing with this tonight.”
“How else were we going to get you here?” Emery asked, swiveling to face me. “So…Landon might be here. I don’t actually know. But we can still have a good time either way. I really didn’t want to go without you. Think about how much fun we had at Sutton’s wedding because you dragged me there.”
“You’re both shitty friends.”
