I hardly taste the river salmon I ordered. I drink some Cabernet but it only makes things fuzzy, and not in a good way.
At the end of the night, I go home and sit in the same spot in my living room as before.
I get up, do a few pushups. Sit down.
Get up, put away the dishes. Sit down.
Fuck.
I don't want to think about it. But could Harley have been right?
I get out my phone, glare at it.
Before I know quite what I'm doing, I've called Kyra up. No answer.
Another call - no answer.
Another call - what the fuck am I doing? - no answer.
Another - "Landon, what the hell do you want?"
Oh. Shit.
"To talk," I tell her.
"It's eleven o'clock at night," Kyra grumbles. "I'm about to go to sleep."
"Doesn't have to take long. I just wanted to... is there someone else?"
"How could you even ask me that?" Kyra demands.
All at once, I know. She's telling the truth. She always was.
"So, all the phone and weirdness - that was just because you have a kid," I say.
"Yes. Because I have a daughter. Like I told you."
"Don't act all high and mighty with me," I snap. "You were the one who was ducking around, not telling me for weeks. Acting like someone acts when there's someone else."
"Yeah, there was - my daughter."
"As you keep saying."
"It's not like we even had the exclusive talk anyway," Kyra continues. "So I'd be well within my rights to be seeing someone else. Not that I have been, but still."
"I thought we understood each other. That we were on the same page."
"And what page is that? Because you sure as shit haven't shown it to me."
"Isn't it obvious?" Fuck, she's really making me spell this out for her. "We're trying again."
"OK."
"OK. That's it?"
"I don't know what to say, Landon." Her voice is mad, constrained. "You accused me of using you, cheating on you. You freaked out on me."
"Can you blame me? That was a pretty huge thing to be keeping from me."
"And I'm sorry. But I still can't believe that you'd think I was capable of that. I thought you knew me better than that."
"I did - I do, I just..." Damn, how to explain it? "You've changed a lot. So have I. And that thing you said to me, that first day: I hate you. It made an impression."
"Yeah, well how you dumped me made an impression too."
"Kyra. Are we ever going to get past that?"
"I don't know," she says miserably. "All I know is that it took me a long-ass time to work up to telling you about Madison, and then it blew up in my face."
"I'm sorry for that. I just wish I understood - "
"This whole time, we haven't really known what this was," Kyra argues. "It's been going in fits and starts. I didn't want you meeting her until I knew for sure."
"For sure what?"
"That it's going to work between us."
Does that mean what I think it does? "And you know now?"
"No, I don't. It just didn't feel right not telling you anymore."
"Thanks for that, I guess. Although I still don't see why you couldn't have just told me all that."
"Yeah, I could've," she says wearily. "But I didn't. OK?"
"OK."
"OK."
Silence.
"I should go," she says.
"So, that's it?" I say.
"Landon, you accused me of cheating on you and basically being a terrible, manipulative person. Sorry, I'm not dying to talk to you right now."
"What about later... in a few days?" I ask.
"Your first instinct was to jump to the conclusion that I've been using you and cheating on you."
"Yeah, I made a mistake, we've established that."
"But what we haven't established is what to do about it," she says. "This all has got me thinking..."
Fuck me.
She better not be getting at what I think she is.
Chapter 16
Kyra
"I can't do this," I tell him. "I can't be with someone who doesn't trust me."
"Really?" he says. "You're really going to hold my reaction against me? Kyra, you dropped a literal bomb on me last night."
I swallow. He's right. I know he's right. But I also know that I can't do this. I can't be fully honest with him like I want to. I can't get my head around this.
It's just too hard.
"Give me a chance," he says, softly now. "To make it up to you."
A sad laugh. "Do you take anything I say seriously?" I ask.
"Only when it's what I want to hear."
Another sad laugh. "Can't you see how messed up that is?"
"Have I made you do anything you didn't want to?"
"No, but - "
"Case closed. I want to be with you, Kyra. That's the long and the short of it. Daughter, no daughter - strings attached or no strings - I want to be with you. Do you want to be with me?"
God, he makes it sound so easy. "It's not as simple as that - "