“I know. I just.” A sob. “I need to talk to you.”
Despite all he’d been through with her, despite the fact that she’d left him, despite that she’d made him a publicity stunt, he felt for her. He may not have been in love with her, but he’d cared about her. Caring wasn’t something one could simply turn off. Not even him.
“Carson left me, Landon. He went back to his fat ex-girlfriend.” She sobbed again, the sound muffled by sniffling.
“I’m sorry.” He meant that. Which surprised him. Whatever bitterness he’d harbored while watching the amateur video of Lissa sliding lips with Carson had vanished. No, not vanished. Had been absorbed. Kimber had taken it from him. Soaked in his ambivalence, the hardness that had made him a terrible partner in the past. She’d infected him with her softness, her vulnerability.
“… come back?” Lissa was saying. “Maybe we could try one more time.”
He snapped back to present, her comment as sobering as a slap to the face. “You want me back.” So that’s what this phone call was about. Lissa was lonely.
“Please, Landon. I never stopped caring about you. I never stopped wanting you.” That wasn’t hope in her voice. It was desperation.
“Yes, you did,” he stated. “When you left. You stopped wanting me on a dime, Lissa.”
Her sobbing stopped abruptly. “You’re the same as you always were, do you know that?”
But he wasn’t. “How would you know?”
She didn’t answer him, only continued her self-indulgent speech. “You’re the same pompous jackhole you’ve always been. You shut down your feelings when things get hard. Did you ever think if you’d actually shown me how you feel you could’ve held on to me? If you’d let me see who you really were, maybe I wouldn’t have left your stuffy ass for Carson Robbins.”
Her tirade didn’t upset him. If he’d have told her how he “actually” felt, she would’ve left him sooner. “If that’s true, then why do you want me back? Why would you want to be with a man who shut you out and pushed you away? Wouldn’t you rather have a man who told you, no matter the cost, how much he loves you?”
Like you should have done with Kimber. Idiot.
Lissa was railing, volume escalating, her vocabulary becoming less refined and beginning to smack of the trailer park she’d prided herself on escaping. She ended the call with name-calling, which she knew he hated. Then she hung up on him. Which he also hated.
Shaking his head, he threw his car into drive and peeled into his father’s driveway. Scotch was calling his name.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Red and blue balloons tied with silver ribbons were strung throughout Aiden’s house. Aiden stood on a chair tying another pair of balloons to the curtain rod.
“We’re here,” their father, Mike, announced as he and Landon walked through the open front door.
“Hey, Pop. Landon, you made it. Nice!” Aiden climbed down and met them at the door. Mike hugged him, then wandered into the kitchen and struck up a conversation with Sadie.
Landon took his first look around at Sadie and Aiden’s house. “Good-looking place, bro.”
“Yeah.” Aiden hugged him, then stepped back to admire their home. “It’s modest, but we manage.”
“Nothing wrong with modest.” Nothing wrong with modest or vintage or simple. Or women who wear your work shirt and play dress-up with your nephew.
Aiden’s eyes went to his empty entryway. “Where’s Kimber? Lyon said he invited her. Hasn’t shut up about her, Evan says.”
Great. So Landon had ruined more than his own heart by letting Kimber go. He thought back to what he’d told Lissa last night. Wished that he was the kind of man who could say what he thought, what he felt. Wished he could convince Kimber to come back to him. But she’d made her decision, and he would abide by it.
“She’s in Chicago.”
Aiden grunted. Landon waited for him to reprimand him, but instead Aiden handed over a roll of tape. “Help me with the rest of these streamers.”
He obliged, happy to have something to do with his hands. Evan and Lyon arrived soon after, and Angel an hour after them. She’d left Richie at home, blaming a work assignment and teasingly accusing Landon for forcing weekend labor. Three more kids and their parents filed into the house, friends Lyon played with when he was in town, Landon guessed. Sadie and Angel corralled them into the yard, where tables covered in confetti and games waited.
Landon was about to head out to help with the piñata when Crickitt walked in, her bright blue eyes shadowed by dark circles, her curls in disarray. Shane walked in behind her… carrying the reason for her dishevelment.