Sinner(117)
“Not going to be a problem, but thanks for the concern,” I say with annoyance in my voice.
Landon chuckles.
“There’s no boyfriend is there.”
I scowl as I tuck my knees up and hug them.
“I didn’t say that.”
He starts to laugh again.
“What are you, still pouting that I never called you or something?”
The line goes quiet at my response, and I grin.
“I don’t pout, Serena,” he says with a hint of amusement in his voice that irks me. “And just so you know, I also don’t do second dates or repeats.”
“Repeats?” I roll my eyes. “Believe me, it wasn’t that good.”
It’s my second time lying this evening.
“Serena.” His voice comes purring through the phone, instantly sending a shiver up my spine.
He sighs. “Look, we need to stop this back and forth if we’re going to work together on this.”
My scowl deepens.
“I thought I was going to be gone in thirty days.”
He sighs. “Yeah, well, if you’re gone, I’m gone, and neither of us gets a piece of the pie. So it looks like we’re in this together.”
“Now was that so painful to admit?”
Landon clears his throat. “Look, about what happened before-”
“I think we’re both adults.”
“Good,” he says firmly. “I don’t mix business and, well, that.”
I grin. “Were you seriously just about to say ‘pleasure’?”
“Look I can just tell there’s probably something lingering there, and I want you to know there has to be nothing but professionalism between us.”
My jaw drops in the empty darkness of my living room.
“Are you actually implying that I won’t be able to keep my hands to myself or something?”
Asshole.
“I’m just putting the cards on the table.”
“Wow,” I whistle, shaking my head in disbelief. “You seriously need to get over yourself.”
“There’s a lot at stake here, Serena, and I think it’s best if we both agree that-”
“Goodnight, Landon.”
I hang up.
Chapter Eight
Landon
The hospital is clinical and white in a sterile, chemical way. I can feel my jaw tightening, my fist clenching with every step as I make my way down the hall towards Sam’s room. The creep of something chilling slides up my spine and threatens to break into the little locked box in my mind of everything from that night.
I fucking hate hospitals.
I didn’t always. Hospitals used to make me think of the day Emily came into this world. They made me think of holding my newborn daughter in my hands, and for the first time ever in my life, truly understanding that there was more to this world than just me.
I lost those memories the night of the crash. Those memories along with almost everything else in my life. After that night, hospitals make me think of unbearable loss, and wanting to fight against something there’s no fighting against. No amount of drive, or muscles, or rage could bring back what I lost that night.
The night of the crash.
The night one random, senseless act of selfishness by a stranger ended in shattered glass and broken steel and bones.
The night I lost Sarah.
The night I lost my wife.
The drunk college kid who hit us that night died on impact, but not before he took away two of the biggest things in my life.
I knew the first one instantly. I knew I wasn’t ever playing football again even when I was still trapped in that car, just by looking at my leg. Before the EMTs even got to us, still hanging upside-down in what used to be a car, holding her hand and telling her to hold on, I knew my career was over.
That was a quick acceptance. That loss came fast, and I digested it, and moved on.
It was the second one that cut infinitely deeper. It was losing Sarah two hours later in this very hospital that all but broke me.
That was six years ago, and now I fucking hate this place.
But I didn’t lose everything. Somehow, I got to keep one last piece of good in my life.
Emily.
Emily who a friend was watching that night when we went out to dinner. Fate, or God, or whatever you want to call it let me hold onto her, and that little girl became my entire reason for living.
It still is.
I grit my teeth, pausing at the door to Sam’s room before I turn the knob and step inside.
It’s cold in here - the air filled with the same antiseptic chemicals as the rest of this place. He’s alone, laying propped up in his hospital bed connected to machines that breathe for him. His hair seems grayer, his skin sallow - a shadow of the man and the mentor who was the closest thing to a father I’ve ever had.
I’ve called Sam Horn my “Uncle” for just about as long as I’ve known him - first as a hot-headed player for the Rattlesnakes, then management after the crash. The man saw something in me, I guess. Somehow, Sam saw through my wild, bullshit ways as a younger guy and decided I had promise. And I did, under his guidance.