I guess Landon and I are similar in that fashion.
For years I felt guilty for trying to find what Landon couldn’t give me. Being in love with someone when another person’s hands were on my body carried with it a mound of disgust and self-loathing. Maybe deep down, I considered that what Landon had said was true. He could never love me the way I loved him.
Staying celibate and untouched for the rest of my life made me nearly as sick to my stomach as I felt the day I learned Landon and Keira fucked in her mom’s SUV in the school parking lot.
“You aren’t supposed to be in here. Twenty-one and up, remember?”
My flirtatious smile doesn’t even work on Drake, but then again, it never has.
“We’re just talking to our friends,” I argue.
The back of Landon’s hand hits my chest, and I fight the urge to reach for it when he pulls it away. “Maybe we should go.”
And this is what I’m talking about. Flirting with Drake makes him ill. I disgust him, and maybe I always did. Maybe we were friends for as long as we were because he felt sorry for me.
“Are either of your dads here?” Drake asks. “You can stay if they are, but you’ll need to sit in the far corner with them.”
Both Landon and I look over to the corner that the Cerberus crew sits in, but I don’t see Dad or Dustin, although there are several leather-cut wearing members where Drake indicated.
“You’re from Texas?” the woman asks.
“We’re both from here, actually,” I answer, a little more than distracted.
“Let’s go, man. I don’t want my dad on my ass.” Landon may be a heartbreaker, but he’s not really a rule breaker. Of course, he pushes the limits as often as he can, but we’ve been told not to go to Jake’s unless we’re with Cerberus.
“You actually may know his dad,” I say, using this opportunity to possibly get him into a little trouble. It’s never a bad thing when Landon gets knocked down a peg or two. If it brings on the wrath of my own father, so be it. “Dustin Andrews?”
“Kid?” the guy beside the woman asks. “You’re Kid’s son?”
“You dick,” Landon spits under his breath before looking back at the guy. “Yeah, that’s my dad.”
“I haven’t seen you around the clubhouse,” the woman says, and I can tell by the narrowing of her eyes that she doesn’t believe us.
I bet it wouldn’t be the first time someone around here tried to make it sound like they were closer to the club than they actually are.
“You go there a lot?” I ask, wondering if we got it all wrong about this woman.
There’s a certain type of woman the Cerberus guys pick up, and maybe I’m quick to judge, but she doesn’t seem like the biker-chasing type I’ve seen slink out the morning after a wild party at the clubhouse.
“I live there currently,” she answers.
“We just got in tonight and stopped here first,” Landon says while I try to wrap my head around who this woman is.
Dad hasn’t mentioned anything about new people, but to be fair, we don’t talk about the club much when we chat. He attempted to give me updates after I left for school, but I shut him down enough, he rarely mentions them. He only tells me when big stuff happens at the clubhouse these days.
“Rick doesn’t live at the clubhouse, and I guess, technically, I don’t either since my parents’ house is out back.”
“Aren’t you boys a little young to be in here?”
Landon and I turn around to face the growly guy that just approached. Landon looks like he’s going to test the man’s patience despite their size difference. Landon is strong, but his muscles are long and lean, built by years of dedication to baseball. This guy looks like he could pick up a motorcycle and throw it across the parking lot.
“Hey,” I say, holding my hand out to try to diffuse whatever situation may be building. “Rick Matthews.”
“His friend is Kid’s son Landon,” the guy we approached a few minutes ago explains.
I don’t miss the warning in his voice.
“Landon Andrews,” my friend says, holding his own hand out.
It seems he’s weighed his chances against this man and decided getting his ass kicked on his first night back in town doesn’t seem like such a bright idea.
“Harley Cobreski,” the guy says, shaking my hand first before shaking Landon’s.
I freeze, as does Landon.
We both know that name. We weren’t able to make it back to New Mexico for the Christmas holidays because of our ball schedule, but the man standing in front of us lost his wife on New Year’s Eve because of a drunk driver. This is one of the things Dad told me about months ago.