Crazy but Sweet, Sweet but Crazy

61: invitations

A cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth, Landon emphasized, flipping through a damp car magazine.

"I'm an alcoholic. Alcoholics are prone to falling down."

Scooting his chair closer to Landon, Elliot continued, grinning.

"Stop using alcoholism as reason for everything, it's getting over-worked a little, don't you think? The last time you stopped drinking was ten years ago, Landon."

The miasma of booze- usually beer- that pierced the nostrils of anyone who came within one meter radius of Landon, was long gone. Now, he smelled like shampoo and detergent.

"Shh. Let me read."

"And when are you going to quit smoking too? Are you sure you can smoke here?"

"I bought a bar and not a nursery precisely so that I can smoke in peace. There's a 'Smoking is allowed' sign outside, damn it."

"Why're you even here if you're just going to sit and smoke? Your employees are busy on their feet. Not helping?"

"Exactly, Mr. Elliot!" shouted red-headed waitress Kayla Nilsson, as she jostled past them and brisk-walked toward the kitchen, four empty beer cups in her hands.

Elliot raised an eyebrow, watching Kayla Nilsson disappear through the curtains of the kitchen, and Landon quietly pulling the cigarette out of his mouth.

"Ah."

Wearing a much offended look, Landon flicked ash off his shoulders. "What is that suggestive utterance supposed to mean?"

"Extremely bold. Red-headed. And clever. Ms. Nilsson seems to have the combination of all three traits you like in a woman."

Elliot couldn't help a snicker. "So you're not just sitting here to smoke, you're-"

The back of the bar had but a single overhead light. But it wasn't hard making out the slight flush of Landon's ears.

"Get lost."

"Not getting out until you say yes to my request."

"I don't know if you forgot, but let me remind you again. I hated you extremely intensely and beat you up for quite a few years."

"I haven't forgotten," Elliot shrugged.

"Have you put together a plan to take revenge on me? That why you keep visiting this damn place and ask me to do something like that?" Landon demanded, arms akimbo.

"To be precise, you only beat me about once or twice a month. The days you returned from visiting Mrs. Lock-" The old habit wouldn't die. Elliot cleared his throat. "- her."

"I saw the footage, I told you. I saw how your mum died. My mum pushed her down the stairs. Yeah, don't tell me it was an accident.

"Accident no shit, but she didn't call the ambulance. That's the only important thing. Why're you making me repeat this?" Not meeting his eyes, Landon flipped through the magazine again.

'Mum'. It was like a foreign word, still.

The kind of a word he knew how to pronounce, knew what it meant, but wasn't fully internalized in him.

Sophia Chase, his mum. Brown hair like his, except maybe a shade darker. A big smile, and crescent-shaped, smiling eyes.

Her face, he could never quite clearly remember.

Her room had always smelled like her- men's perfume, and pizza.

On the rare five or six days a year she brought him back from the orphanage, she'd microwaved frozen pizza from the supermarket.