Now say something—anything.
“Hey, Landon,” I said quietly, looking up into shocked hazel eyes. I’d almost forgotten how beautiful they were, how the color changed with his mood or what he was wearing.
Which wasn’t a lot at the moment.
Well, he was wearing my margaritas. They were currently dripping down the insanely hard lines of his abdomen, paying no mind to the myriad of tattoos that colored his skin.
Did he cover up the one he got for me? Not that I could see it under all that bright green muck sliding down his body.
I jerked my eyes back to his, but he was still just standing there…staring. Okay, maybe this wasn’t going to be as bad as I thought. “Well, it’s good to see you,” I said with a shaky smile, taking in every detail of his Hemsworth-worthy face. He’d lost what little softness he’d had since I’d seen him last, leaving the strong lines of his nose and chin, but those lips still looked as soft as ever and just as practiced at smooth lines and smoother exits.
I tried to block out the barrage of memories, but they assaulted me, pelting me with the low timbre of his voice when we would spend hours locked in conversation, the look in his eyes the first time he’d told me he loved me, the feel of his hands on my skin. No matter how hard I’d tried to keep everything locked up tight, it all came rushing back, overloading me with emotions I couldn’t afford to explore. Ever.
I’d been on board for a week, known he was here—known the incredibly sneaky lengths Paxton had gone to get me here—and avoided him like the plague he was. I was here for Leah, for me, to touch my own history and find my birthplace, for a hundred different reasons that didn’t involve Landon.
“What…how…?” His normally smooth lines were absent.
A thousand times I’d practiced this in my head. How cool I was going to be. How dismissive. How I’d show him that maybe he’d wounded me, but I wasn’t broken. My imagination had nothing on this moment, or my physical reaction to seeing him.
Why didn’t you tell me you were leaving? Why couldn’t you choose me? Why wasn’t I enough for you? Every question eighteen-year-old me had cried into my pillow reared its ugly head, and I beat them all back down, swallowing past my suddenly dry throat that had zero to do with the desert heat.
“Um, do you know each other?” the blonde he had his arm wrapped around asked. I wonder if he even knows her name.
A wry smile twisted my lips. Different year. Different country. Same Landon. “We used to.”
He was still shell-shocked, and I took what little advantage I had. “Well, I guess I’ll see you around.” I ripped my gaze away from him, my chest aching like he’d left me yesterday instead of two and a half years ago.
I managed to turn and walk away, dropping our margarita cups in the trash. I’d find Leah and explain later, but right now I had to get the hell out of here. The elevator was ahead, maybe only ten feet away when he caught up with me, no blonde in sight.
“Rachel!” he said, his fingers brushing my upper arm like he’d changed his mind midreach.
So close, I thought as the elevator doors closed ahead of me.
I turned slowly, trying to visualize locking up my emotions with a row of dead bolts. He wasn’t getting through. “What can I do for you?” I asked his pecs. His chest was safer than those soul-melting eyes.
“Rachel,” he whispered.
Inch by inch, I drew my gaze up until I met his over a head above me. Landon’s light brown, finger-tousled hair towered above my five-foot-two frame, but the difference had always made me feel protected, like he was a mountain no one could move. Turned out I couldn’t really move him, either. “What?”
“I…don’t know what to say,” he admitted, a look of awe and fear on his face.
Me, either, eighteen-year-old me called out from where I’d locked her away.
“Wow. I have to admit that I expected some smoother lines from you.”
He shook his head a little and blinked, like he expected me to disappear, like I was some figment of his imagination. “I wasn’t expecting you.”
“That’s pretty obvious. Look, we don’t have to see each other. You stay to your classes, and I’ll stay to mine. I’m sure we’ll have some overlap with the whole Leah/Paxton thing, but my plan is to generally ignore you.” I had to in order to survive.
His eyes narrowed. “Leah/Paxton thing?”
I arched an eyebrow and tried to calm the pounding of my heart. It felt like the damn thing had wings, and it was hammering against my ribs to get out of my chest and back to the one person it had always belonged to. Hell, no. “They haven’t told you?”
He stepped forward, and I retreated. “Told me what?”
We continued our dance—I backed up and he followed. Each step took me closer to the elevator, closer to getting the hell away from him.
“Rachel, would you stop? I’m not going to stalk you into the elevator.”
“Yeah, you’re usually a walk-away kind of guy.”
He winced. “Really?”
The horn blew, and the ship launched from the dock. “I have some pretty personal experience with that side of you.” I looked behind him, where the blonde was staring at us with her arms crossed under her breasts. “And from the looks of things, nothing’s changed.”
“Rachel…” He reached for me, and I stepped back, turning slightly to hit the down button on the elevator.