Mine (26 page)

When the doctor finally came in twenty minutes later, I thanked him profusely.

There were a few quick questions for Landry, and then, finally, he was discharged. He was walking out the door as I thanked the doctor, grabbed his garment bag—he had grabbed his duffel—and ran to catch up with him at the elevator.

Downstairs, I put him in a cab and we were on our way to McCarran Airport.

“You okay?” he asked me, worried, like I was the guy who had been kidnapped and not him. “You don’t seem like yourself.”

But I couldn’t talk, so I grabbed him instead and held him close, kissing his cheek as I shivered beside him. “I just wanna go home.”

“We’re going,” he assured me. “Everything’s okay. But we might be there a long time depending on what flight we can get on.”

“It’s fine.”

“You just want to hang out at the airport?”

“Yeah,” I nodded. “I just wanna be right there, ready to go.”

“Okay, baby. I like that plan too.”

I would be better once we were on the plane and gone. If I never got back to Vegas it would be too soon.

W
E
ENDED
up spending the entire day at the airport, walking around, eating, but mostly just talking which was nice. Landry and I never ran out of things to say to each other, and I told him about Gabriel and his family and he told me about Koa wood that he was thinking about having shipped from Hawaii. We bought magazines and made out in a bathroom stall, and shared ice-cream. It was a great day of hanging out. Getting on the plane was sort of anticlimactic.

L
ANDRY
was very concerned with the smell emanating from the refrigerator when we got home early Monday morning, just after nine.

I went to make sure the radiator was on because you could hang meat in our apartment.

“Gross,” he mumbled from the kitchen. “I think the oranges are moldy.”

He was fine. He had been on the phone with both the women who worked for him, waking them up, I was sure, but they were both so happy to hear his voice that it didn’t matter. He was asking about sales and how some new piece was selling and how the fall promotion was going. The man had been kidnapped, his life had been turned upside down and inside out, and he was perfectly fine. He was actually very interested in going out for breakfast with me as well as others, having called Javier and Dave, Jeff and Tim, and Russell and whoever the flavor of the month was.

“They might not be able to, babe,” I told him. “It’s Monday morning, after all. Everyone has to work.”

This was not a consideration, and I was certain once I explained to everyone, they would change their plans to be there for him.

“I’m dying to see the restaurant Gabriel’s setting you up in,” he said happily, dumping what was dirty into the hamper and hanging up what was clean. “Is April excited? I bet she’s excited. I bet she can’t wait to quit working at the bank and start training her staff and thinking up menu items. Oh honey, I’m so psyched for you. Your restaurant dream is finally coming true! We have to celebrate and have a huge party as soon as your mother gets back from visiting your aunt.” He sucked in his breath. “Oh my God, did you call your mother and tell her the good news? Does she know that her—”

“Jesus, Landry, could you shut the fuck up?”

“What?”

His brain and his mouth were going a hundred miles an hour.

“Trev?”

I took his face in my hands, staring at him, studying him.

He was looking at me like I was nuts. “Baby, are you okay?”

“I am, but how can you be?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Landry.” I choked on a breath.

He started laughing, and I shoved him down onto the couch. “You’re not—”

“Love,” he said with a giggle, sitting up, “I understand that to you this is weird. I mean, I was kidnapped and held for ransom, and I had a SWAT guy on top of me when I heard them fire the shots into Brendan, and I should be freaking out, right?”

“Yeah.”

“I should be a puddle on the floor.”

I nodded.

“Because I’m fragile, I break easy, and I break a lot, right?”

What was I supposed to say? “I’m just worried that—”

“I’m gonna fly apart.”

“Yeah.”

He nodded and bit his bottom lip before he made a face at me like he’d bitten a lemon. “Yeah, I’m not gonna do that.”

I flopped down into the overstuffed chair beside the coffee table, just staring at him.

“Listen, I know your life has been a little surreal over the past week, but really, my life used to be like that all the time. Everything changed constantly. I mean, my father traveled for work every week, my mother had so many social engagements I never saw her, and us kids, we were so heavily scheduled that we never even saw each other. I saw our housekeeper, our nanny, our chauffeur, but between school and sports and activities and friends… I didn’t have the kind of life you had. Once I left, once I left that life and came here for college, between working all the jobs I needed and friends and then parties and guys and everything else I was into—it was the same. It was a big blur. So what you have to understand is that only within the past two years, only since I’ve been with you, has there ever been a routine in my life. You are the only constant I’ve ever had. Do you understand that?”

I didn’t, not really.

“So we’re fine? I have my routine back, and I’ll go to work tomorrow. I’ll come home after that and make you dinner. When you get home, you’ll tell me about your day, I’ll tell you about mine, and it’s all good. I’m good. All that crazy that we just went through, all that shit, I can shake that off easy as long as this, this right here, doesn’t change. This, us, can never, ever, change. Do you understand?”

I stared at him.

“Do you?” he asked again.

“Yes.”

He smiled at me. “Good.”

I watched him get up and walk to the bedroom. After a minute, he poked his head out.

“I was thinking that when I see Dr. Chang tomorrow, when I go have her check me out like Dr. Han said I’m supposed to, maybe I’ll have her recommend a therapist for us to see and maybe make an appointment. I prefer going to somebody’s office instead of going to a clinic, and I know that’s sort of elitist of me, but that’s how I feel, okay? I mean, you just got a promotion; I actually have health insurance… let’s get somebody good to tell our problems to, okay? Or, you know, my problems.”

I just stared at him.

He giggled.

“Lan––”

“Oh c’mon, I’m not stupid.” He grinned at me, his voice low and husky. “There really isn’t anything wrong with you, but I am a little too fucked-up possessive sometimes. I can own that now.”

“What brought this on?”

“When I was lying on the cot in that hunting cabin, I got really scared that I wasn’t going to see you again.”

I got up and was across the room fast, grabbing him tight, crushing him against me, holding him so I’d know he was really there with me.

“And I thought,” he said softly, “that if I did get to see you again, I would commit myself to being the guy you really deserve.”

“Landry, you’re better than I deserve.”

“You’ve got that backward,” he assured me, snuggling against me, taking a deep breath. “But as long as you think so, I’m happy. The thing is, I know I can be a handful, but you just press on like it’s normal, and you never freak out like everybody else in my whole life has. It makes you different, and so because I want you to stay, I want to change some so you will.”

“No matter what, I’ll never leave you, you know that.”

“But you might if I scare you bad enough or do something really stupid, so before that happens, before I lose it, I wanna talk to somebody.”

I bent my head forward, and we stood there, foreheads pressed together, noses touching, quiet and just breathing each other’s air.

“I’m never gonna take pills or shit like that, I just won’t, but maybe I can learn to get myself unfixated when I do that or realize that you being a nice guy and people wanting to touch you really has nothing at all to do with me.”

I smiled, so content with him there.

“I know you, I trust you, and so I need to stop being such a spaz.”

“I don’t love the jealousy, but I love you enough to overlook it.”

“Yeah, I know, but you shouldn’t have to. I mean, what the fuck?”

I chuckled, kissing his nose before letting him go.

“And you’re gonna go with me? To the therapist?”

“Of course,” I assured him. “You know I will.”

“And tomorrow at lunch, will you take me to see Kady’s old restaurant?”

“I will.”

“And can I go with you when you tell April the good news?”

“Yes, you can.” I smiled at him because he was getting so excited and lighting up, just glowing he was so happy.

“You know I’m sorry for everything that happened, right? I mean, I’m sorry about Benji and Adrian, but that guy Kady, he was bad news, so I’m glad he’s not around to try and hurt you.”

I nodded.

“I just, out of all this shit, I feel like we’re still us, you know? We’re Trev and Landry, and we’ll always be okay because we always have each other.”

“Yes, we will,” I told him.

“Yes, we will,” he repeated before he released a deep breath. “Now seriously, I need to eat. I’m frickin’ starving. Get in the shower; you reek. I’ll start making calls.”

“What?”

He nodded, wincing. “You smell, but you’ve gone almost two days without a shower, it’s really not that surprising.”

“Nice.”

He shrugged as I turned toward the bathroom.

“I’ll hurry.”

But he wasn’t listening; he was already on the phone.

B
REAKFAST
was nice. Our friends all gushed over Landry, kissed the boo-boos on his face, and told him how brave he’d been and how strong. They were all in awe of him, and he ate it up—the looks on their faces, the way they all had to touch him, and of course, the hugs and the petting. Landry loved to be smothered in open displays of affection. He was basically floating on cloud nine.

Back home, I told him to go take a nap, but he didn’t want to. I told him if he did that I would watch his shows instead of mine that evening. Since his were all frou-frou girl shows and I watched the History Channel, he was cackling as he went to lie down. I was sure the snickering was what it sounded like when you made a deal with the devil.

I was right, though, he needed to sleep. I didn’t want to leave in case he woke up, so I called for deep-dish spinach pizza, his favorite, and had it delivered. He woke up yelling for me, which he did sometimes.

“Hey,” I soothed him as I walked into the room. He looked so good with soft eyes, bedhead, and his face flushed with heat from being under the down comforter. He was just staring at me, mouth open, like a fish. “You okay, baby?”

There was no change, no signal that he heard me, no sign of life, and I started to get a little worried. “Love?”

“I had a dream about Robbie Stone’s party.”

“Robbie Stone.” I took a breath of relief. “What made you think of him?”

“You guys used to be friends.”

“Yeah.”

“But you stopped being friends because of me.”

“No,” I assured him, even knowing it was a lie. Robbie and I had absolutely parted ways over Landry Carter.

“Yeah, ya did.”

“We didn’t, but who cares.” I wanted to move on. “Tell me why you were dreaming about him.”

“Not about him, about that party we went to.”

“Okay. Why?”

“I dunno.”

But I had an idea. It was the last time the man had felt powerless, and being kidnapped had reminded him. “That was right after we started dating.”

He nodded.

W
E
WENT
together, like our fifth time out as a couple, and Kent Jeffries, a guy I had never liked, came up to us as we were standing with Robbie and his date for the evening, some underwear model who was walking around in leather chaps and nothing else.

“Did you know that your boyfriend gave me a blowjob?” Kent said to me instead of hello or kiss my ass or anything else.

And it wasn’t that I couldn’t handle people saying crass, lewd, crude, or obnoxious things to me, it was more that he said it to purposely embarrass me and make Landry feel cheap. I was instantly furious, and I had that sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.

Kent smirked at me. “And he wasn’t even that good.”

“Oh yeah?” Robbie scoffed. “When was this, stud?”

“I dunno, like, what, a month ago at that party at Drake’s.”

The same infamous party where I had seen my boyfriend on his knees as well.

“Oh.” Robbie laughed, slapping Kent’s face gently. “That’s where you were.” He looked at Landry. “I knew you were in the back givin’ head.”

I grabbed Landry’s arm and walked him away, through the lounge, and out onto the patio of the club. There were tiki torches everywhere and those portable heaters, because it was October in Detroit and it was cold outside. I didn’t stop until I got to a dark corner. I pushed him up against the wall and stood in front of him. He wouldn’t meet my gaze, so I tipped his head up with my fingers under his chin. I was surprised at how wary he looked, his fox eyes, wild and bright and angry, staring at me.

“Look,” he started defensively. “If you’re pissed that—”

“Shut up,” I cut him off, and those eyes of his got huge. “I don’t give a shit what you did before I took you home.” My voice was low, and there was a chill to it that I didn’t want him to think was directed in any way at him. “It has nothing to do with me.”

He nodded slowly.

“All right?”

His eyes searched my face. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“You sound like maybe you’re not.” His voice was cautious and hopeful at the same time.

“Because I’m so fuckin’ pissed at Kent that—” I couldn’t even think straight. “—that I just wanna walk back in there and break his fuckin’ face!”

“You promise you don’t care?” he asked me, and I could hear the catch in his breath, the crack in his voice that let me know he was terrified.