Wren Ridley
This was different. The feeling of another body laying next to mine, his warmth, his breath brushing against the skin of my neck, the anticipation of him waking up and realizing that he was sleeping against me.
I had been awake for at least an hour, unmoving while Landon slept with his face buried in my neck and his body turned toward mine. Part of me thought I should get out of bed as best I could without waking up, but the other part of me, the part that won, wanted to be here in this position when he woke. I wanted to see what he would do knowing he had pressed himself against me in the night.
It was only a little while later when Landon stirred, groaning in my ear as he fought himself waking up. When he finally opened his eyes and came to his senses, I felt his breath stop for a moment. He sat up and put his head in his hands.
"What the fuck..." he said, his voice groggy and raspy from sleep.
"Good morning to you too," I said, sitting up against the headboard.
"Be quiet," he grumbled, rubbing his hands down his face.
"Why so grumpy?" I asked, grinning at the back of his head. "Did you like sleeping with me and now you don't know what to do with yourself?"
Landon turned to glare at me, but made no move to get out of bed.
"Don't say it like that," he said.
"What? That you liked sleeping with me?"
"I didn't sleep with you," he said, his jaw tense. "You know how that sounds."
"And who is around to hear how it sounds?"
Landon shook his head at me, moving backward to lean against the headboard. His eyes moved up my body, lingering on my bare chest, before meeting the smirk on my face.
"You can look," I told him.
He rolled his eyes, crossing his arms over his chest.
Landon was being calmer than I had anticipated. I had expected him to freak out, start yelling at me, maybe hit me. What I didn't expect was for him to sit in bed with me like this was something we did all the time. Like we were some couple that just woke up after a night together. How this wasn't too much for him, I didn't know, but it was too much for me.
I got out of bed, climbing over his legs. I didn't bother getting dressed as I started toward the door. Landon followed behind me. He stood close to me like he hoped my body would hide his. I knew the muscular hockey player behind me wouldn't go unnoticed, but I let him believe it would work for him.
When we got down the stairs, I heard my mother and father in the kitchen. I stopped at the bottom of the stairs, Landon still standing on the last step, and thought about what to do.
There was a chance my parents wouldn't recognize Landon. They had only really seen him when he played against Fox's team in high school, but that didn't mean they would recognize him if they saw him face to face. However, they knew him by name. They knew that he had fought with Fox before. And was Landon a common enough name that they wouldn't make the connection? Or could I get away without introducing him?
I took too long to think everything through, so the decision was practically made for me. There was a knock on the door and both my parents came out of the kitchen to go toward the front door.
"Wren!" Mom called out with a wide smile, holding her arms out to pull me to her. Dad glanced over as he got the door, revealing Dan and Mindy on the other side.
Oh this was just fucking perfect.
I could feel Landon tense behind me, his chest pressed up against my back. Mom pulled away, her eyes drifting to Landon behind me.
"Hi!" she greeted. "Are you a friend of Wren's from school?"
"Uh..." Landon started.
"Yeah, that's exactly right, Mom," I told her with a grin.
My mother might have bought that, but Dan and Mindy wouldn't, and they were already in the house. The two of them looked past me at Landon. Mindy had that soft, motherly gaze she always had as she looked at him. I turned to look at him, having to glance up because he was still on the step. His eyes were wide and his jaw was clenched. I could feel he tension radiating off of him.
What I've learned about Landon in the time that I've known him was that he hated being confronted with his past. Facing Dan and Mindy was just a huge confrontation with who he was all those months ago. The things he did to their son, the way he hated himself for it, maybe even a realization of how opposite Elijah's parents were to his own, all rushed to him now.
Landon was frozen, so I grabbed his wrist and pulled him down from the step. Mindy walked over with a soft smile and put her hands on his shoulders.
"It's good to see you, Landon," Mindy said, squeezing his shoulders. "You look good. Have you been taking care of yourself?"
Landon nodded and hummed in agreement. I watched him. I could tell it was hard for him to maintain eye contact with her. His face was trying to turn away, but his eyes stayed on hers.
"Good," Mindy said. She smiled over at me before releasing Landon's shoulders. Dan nodded in acknowledgement over at Landon while he was in conversation with Dad.
"Wren, sweetie, we're heading out to a brunch, but we'll be back later okay?" Mom said. "Will you be home?"
"I'll let you know," I told her. Mom nodded and kissed my cheek before the four of them left the house, leaving Landon and I standing side by side.
Landon's eyes were still wide as he stared straight ahead. His hands were clenched into fists at his sides.
"Are you going to stand there all day?" I asked him. I was just trying to get a reaction out of him, get him to stop looking like he was frozen in time. He glanced over at me and didn't say a word before following me into the kitchen.
He sat down at the table while I opened the fridge, taking out the eggs.
"Are omelettes alright with you? Is that something you'll actually eat? Healthy enough?"
"That's fine," he muttered.
I started cutting up some vegetables and getting the eggs ready to be cooked. I could feel Landon watching me as I cooked. I would briefly glance over and he wouldn't look away. His eyes were on my bare back as I stood at the stove.
I plated the omelettes once they were done and brought them over to the table. I turned around to pour us each a cup of coffee, scouring the fridge until I found the oat milk. I put some sweetener in mine, but left Landon's how it was after I poured the oat milk in.
"Can you put a fucking shirt on?" Landon snapped as I set the coffee in front of him.
I looked down at him, my lips tipping up in a smile. It was funny how he didn't even really try to be subtle with his attraction to me anymore. He knew I knew and it was useless to pretend I didn't.
"Sorry, is my chest distracting?" I asked him. "You can touch it if you want."
He scoffed. "I don't want to touch it."
"But seeing it makes me hard to resist," I teased. "You don't have to resist me, you know. You want me to give you a little kiss?"
"I don't want to be kissed," he snapped with more ferocity than I expected. My smile fell.
"Okay, I'm sensing that it's not my irresistible chest that has you all bothered," I said, sitting down across from him.
"You're insufferable," he groaned, cutting into his omelette before taking a bite. "How much cheese did you put in this?"
"The right amount," I said. "A little cheese isn't going to make you gain ten pounds of fat."
He didn't say anything and the two of us continued eating in silence. It was a few minutes later when Landon finally spoke up again.
"It was hard seeing Mindy, okay?" Landon muttered, looking down at his plate. "Last night was hard, this morning was hard. It's like I only get peace in my sleep and even that's not always the case."
"Who did you see last night?" I asked, not sure whether he would actually tell me. But he was choosing to be vulnerable, I didn't have to coax any of this out of him, so I was going to let him share with me what he wanted.
He looked up at me. He looked so tired. I felt a brief squeezing sensation in my heart.
"It was my dad," he said. "It's just... him seeing me... it just wouldn't have been a good situation. And it fucked me up more than I thought it would. Seeing him, I mean."
I thought back on last night, wondering if I saw the man that plagued Landon like this without realizing, but I couldn't imagine any face I saw last night being him.
"And Mindy this morning... God..." he paused, rubbing the heals of his hands into his eyes. "She was so kind to me when I didn't deserve it."
My stomach was twisted in knots. I didn't know why I cared so much, and maybe I should care less, but seeing him like this made me want to shield him and tell him everything would be okay. I had never been good at comforting anyone. I had no idea how to.
"It's not up to us to determine what we deserve," I told him. "No one deserves anything, not really." Whatever his father did to him to make him fear him, Landon didn't deserve. He didn't deserve the mental turmoil he still goes through and he didn't deserve to think that he didn't deserve kindness.
Landon took his hands away from his face and looked straight at me. I could tell he didn't believe me. He had his ideas about what he deserved and my words wouldn't change that.
"Do your parents... do they think we're... you know."
I shook my head. "They don't."
"How can you be sure?"
"They don't know I like men," I admitted. The look of surprise on his face almost made me laugh.
"What? Why?" he asked.
"I don't want them to know."
"But why?"
"Why does anyone not want their parents to know of their sexuality?"
Landon narrowed his eyes at me. "That makes no sense. Your brother is openly gay. You don't have to hide from them."
"I'm not hiding," I denied. I didn't think he could look any more annoyed with me, but then he did.
"You are," he said. "You hide behind your big words and your superiority act, but that's all it is: an act."
Somehow this conversation had turned on me and I didn't like it, so I had to shut it down.
"When did you get so wise?"
"Maybe I just learned to read you like you read me." I didn't like the sound of that at all.
"Or maybe you're just delusional," I replied, shooting him a smile that was anything but a happy one and then stabbing my omelette with my fork. "And honestly I find it quite amusing that you're accusing me of hiding when that's all you seem to do. Why were you so determined to come home this weekend? What are you hiding from at school? Why were you hiding from your father last night? Why were you hiding from me this past week?"
Landon stared at me, his mouth open slightly like I had asked him the most shocking question in the world.
"I wasn't hiding from you," he replied.
"You were. Ever since that night at the club."
I had given him space, figured I would let him deal with his emotions from that night since I knew it was so overwhelming for him, and he avoided me up until yesterday when he needed a ride home. I didn't even want to think about why that bothered me so much.
"Don't act like you weren't avoiding me too," Landon retorted. "You ran right past me one morning and didn't even look at me."
"I did look at you." I said it before I could stop myself, before my brain caught up to my mouth and realized what I was admitting. That I looked for him when I was out on my runs, that I looked at him without him noticing.
Landon was speechless at that. He gaped at me. His mouth moved like he was about to say something, but the words weren't coming to him.
He probably thought I always knew what he was thinking, and he was usually pretty easy to read, but I got nothing from him at this moment. I wished I could read his mind, know what he wanted to say but wouldn't.
"I figured you wouldn't want to see me after the club," I continued, filling the silence.
"I didn't," he said almost instantly. That was a lie. I could tell by the intense stare he was giving me. It was like he was trying so hard to appear like he was telling the truth that it seemed disingenuous. He had been thinking about me and didn't want me to know it. I didn't want him to know that I had been thinking about him either. I wanted to deny that even to myself.
Landon had squeezed his way into my mind and I had no idea how to get him out.
"It was overwhelming for you," I said, taking a sip of my coffee.
"No," he denied. "That's not it."
I quirked an eyebrow at him, my expression telling him I didn't believe what he was saying. I didn't expect him to admit it, but I knew it was overwhelming for him. He had never been in that type of environment before. It was scary for anyone their first time, especially someone like him who obviously had some religious trauma going on. He probably felt a lot of different emotions that night, conflicting ones that kept him up at night. It was no wonder he avoided me after the fact.
Before either of us could say anything else, the girls and Colt came bounding into the kitchen, glancing at our plates.
"Did you make us breakfast?" Colt asked, raising his eyebrows at me. He didn't even question Landon's presence.
"You're all capable of making your own breakfast," I told him. Landon continued eating his omelette, staring down at his plate.
"Not if you don't want us to burn the house down," Fawn said, a hand on her hip.
"Ever heard of cereal?" I asked.
"I have a better idea," Fawn said with a grin. "How about you take us out to breakfast since you kinda owe me anyway? I could really go for a stack of french toast at Betty's."
"Oh little Fawn, you'll have to do better than that. Remember what we talked about last night?"
Basically I told her she better be careful asking too much of me since I could tell our parents about her spending habits with her allowance and her savings from her summer job. She basically depleted her savings from the summer, buying clothes she only wore once and makeup that sat in her vanity untouched. They wouldn't be too happy to find out she had spent all the money she saved over the summer. I only found out because I paid attention. And because she started asking me for money.
Fawn glared at me and crossed her arms over her chest.
"But I suppose I could drop the three of you off at Betty's with my card."
Fawn's glare fell and a wide smile took over her face. She squealed and hugged me tightly.
"Thank you, Wren. I love you!"
Fawn pulled Ava along with her back upstairs while Colt went to the fridge to pour himself a glass of orange juice.
When I looked back at Landon, he was already looking at me.
"What?" I asked.
"You have a soft spot for your sister," he said.
"Don't you have one for yours?"
He nodded and looked back at his now empty plate.
Seeing even an inkling of sadness on his face made my chest feel hollow.
That feeling in my chest let me know I was in quite the predicament when it came to Landon. And I had no idea how I would get myself out of it.
**
Thanks for reading!
Let me know what you thought of the chapter :) Were you surprised Landon didn't freak out more? And that he let himself be a little vulnerable with Wren?