Close to You (Fusion 2)

Now they’re laughing so hard that I wouldn’t be surprised if one or both of them has a stroke.

“I’m so happy that my bloodshed is funny to you.”

“Oh, baby,” Landon gasps, trying to gather himself. “I’m sorry. It’s just that it’s so horrible.”

“Horribly funny,” Kat agrees, wiping tears from her cheeks. “Damn, my makeup is a mess.”

“Yes, and my arms are a mess,” I say, which only makes them laugh more.

“Seriously, it hurts.” I pout, but I have to bite my lips because I want to bust out into laughter with them, but now it’s the principle of it all.

Jake and Max are onstage, singing one of their old hits, the restaurant is packed, and I’m back here with these two being ridiculed.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart.” Landon pulls me against him to give me a hug. “I should have gone with you.”

“Why does he like you so much and not me? I feed him! I give him a place to live. I’m nice to the little bastard.”

“He’s just temperamental,” Landon says reassuringly. “Are you set on staying through the show, or can I steal you away?”

“I guess we can go,” I reply with a shrug. “I’m not really in the mood for this anyway.”

“Come on.” He takes my hand and leads me out back where his car is. He must have swapped out the work truck earlier and come back.

“Where are we going?”

“Nowhere fancy,” he says, and takes my hand as he pulls away from the restaurant. He looks down at my arm. “Boy, he really got you good.”

“No kidding. I wonder if I need a rabies shot?”

“It’s not that deep, and I am quite sure that Scoot doesn’t have rabies.”

“No, he just has a bad case of the assholes,” I reply, sulking, which only makes Landon start chuckling again. “Keep laughing and you’ll be sleeping by yourself again tonight, funny man.”

“Oh, come on, I saw your lips twitch earlier. A year from now, this will be the funniest story ever.”

“I’ll wait until the wounds heal to laugh about it.”

The car comes to a stop in the parking lot of our old high school. I frown and glance over at Landon. “Did you forget your homework?”

“No.” He smiles and unfastens his seat belt, then mine, and turns to face me. “Do you remember that day when I was home from college for the summer and you had just graduated but needed to come back to the school for something or other—”

“I had to pick up my diploma,” I add, already knowing where he’s going with this. Of course I remember that day.

“Right, and you asked me to drive you over here. When you came back to the car, we just sat here for like an hour and talked about so many things.”

He leans toward me, his eyes on my lips. “I knew it then, but I was so young, and didn’t know what in the hell to do about it. And you were so fucking young too.”

“You knew what?” I ask with a whisper, but he keeps going.

“I had to take a step back and give you room. Time. Time to grow up and experience some life. But I’m not going to keep giving you room.”

“I don’t want room,” I say. He smiles softly, in that way he does when I’ve done or said something that he finds particularly cute. He brushes my hair behind my ear and rubs my earlobe between his finger and thumb. “You were the one that got away, Cami.”

“I didn’t go anywhere.”

“I’m not doing this right.” He licks his lips, and then leans in and stops talking altogether when his lips meet mine. I sigh into him, the way I always do when he kisses me because it feels so damn good. I fist his shirt and pull him closer, then moan when his tongue meets mine.

God, I can’t get enough of him.

But suddenly he takes my hands in his and pulls back, and when I open my eyes, he’s staring at me with wide, sincere eyes.

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

“Absolutely nothing.” He takes a deep breath. “I just wanted it to be here, in this place, where I wanted to say it then and couldn’t, for all of those reasons.

“I love you, Cami.”

Chapter 12

~Landon~

She’s not saying a fucking thing.

She’s staring at me with those incredible green eyes, unblinking. This can’t be coming from left field for her. Jesus, after all we’ve shared, she’s had to have felt it from me.

“Sweetheart, I need you to say something.”

She frowns, and that’s it. I’m positive that she’s going to say that she doesn’t feel the same way, but suddenly tears fill her eyes and she squeezes my hand as a smile spreads across her lips.

“I love you too,” she whispers, and my heart begins beating again. I lean in and rest my lips against hers.

“I couldn’t hear you.”

“Yes, you could.”

I simply wait, and after a moment, she says, “I love you too, Landon.”

“Thank God. For a second there, I thought I’d just made a huge ass of myself.”

“No, that was me today at the vet’s office,” she says, her lips still tickling mine. “Telling me how you feel isn’t being an ass.”

“I’ve loved you for a long time.”

She smiles and drags her fingertips down my face. “Ditto.”

I need her. Right now. I kiss her, taking it from sweet and soft to pure need. She reaches for my jeans, but I take her hand away and kiss her palm. “I’m not going to do this here, in the high school parking lot.”