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The Wright Boss(9)

By:K.A. Linde


"As do I, but if you haven't noticed, he's totally fucked up."

I nodded my head. I had definitely noticed even though I was trying not to. Though people had slowly been leaving the place, most of the football players were still being rowdy in the back. Landon, who had never been the type, had even started to join in with their antics. It made me cringe. He must really be going through something to allow himself to be this far gone.

Emery yawned long and dramatically, as if to say, Please, dear God, let us go now.

I laughed at her.

"I'll make sure he gets into a cab. I have to be here until bar close to settle up with Peter anyway. I won't let Landon do anything stupid," I told Jensen.

"Are you sure?" he asked. He got that look in his eye, like he was the older brother and had to guarantee the safety of all of his siblings. It was adorable.

"Yep. No worries. We have cabs coming at closing to get people. I'll make the football players carry him into one. No big," I told him.

Emery arched an eyebrow, and we had a silent conversation.

You're going to help Landon into a cab, huh?

Yeah. So?

And there's nothing going on?

No!

Sure.

There's not.

I don't believe you.

Fuck off, Robinson.

Whatever, Martin.

I laughed and pushed her toward Jensen. "Don't worry about a thing. Go have a lot of monkey sex."

Emery groaned. "I hate you."

"Love you, too, hooker."

"Thanks for doing this, Heidi," Jensen said as he motioned for Emery to precede him out of Flips. "I really appreciate it. If anything goes wrong or if you need me, don't hesitate to call."

God, Jensen is such a nice guy.

"I won't, but don't worry; it'll be fine."

"Famous last words," he muttered before following Emery outside.

I wanted to laugh off Jensen's comment, but with the Wrights, something always went wrong.

Without Emery, the reunion   deflated for me. I hadn't kept in contact with anyone else from our senior class, other than Landon. We were all friends on Facebook and Instagram, but I wasn't involved in their lives. I could go hang out with the cheerleading crowd, but I didn't fit in with them now that they had their own mommy circle. I knew everyone, but suddenly, I felt very alone. 

I slunk back over to the bar where Peter was cleaning a pile of glasses, generally looking exhausted.

"Long night?"

He shrugged one shoulder. "Pretty busy in case you missed it."

"Noticed that."

Peter dragged a hand back through his shoulder-length hair and sighed. "You've got company."

I whirled around at that comment, expecting to find Landon. Then, I quickly hated myself for that expectation. Instead, I found Brandon had returned with his pointed grin and flirtatious dude-bro personality.

"Hey, Brandon," I said with a smile.

"Heidi," he said, leaning me into the bar. "You want to get out of here?"

Just like that. No preamble or anything.

"I actually have to close down the bar for the reunion  ."

"I can wait," he said with a magnetic grin that I was sure worked on girls in LA.

"No, it's okay. It'll be boring, and I should just go home after that."

Brandon's grin slipped, and I could tell that his drunken mind was irritated. He hadn't expected me to turn him down.

He twirled a lock of my hair around his fingers. "Come on, baby. I know you were into me in high school."

I gently extracted myself from him. "That was more than ten years ago, Brandon."

"Couldn't have changed that much."

"Funny you say that," I said with growing aggravation. "I would say that I've changed a lot, but you wouldn't know that, as you've spent the entire time talking to me about your awesome life in LA and all the roles you could have gotten but missed. I'm not interested. You missed your chance to get someone as amazing as me."

I turned and strode away from him, feeling unbelievably empowered. Even though I could hear the words bitch and led me on being muttered under his breath. It might have been nice to flirt with him, but that didn't guarantee that I had to go home with him. And it most certainly didn't mean that he could push me around because of something I'd felt as a teenager.

Meredith announced from the front of the room that it was time for the bar to close and that everyone should head out now. A few people mentioned an after-party to the reunion  , and groups started arranging to go to someone's house to keep hanging out. I had no intention of doing that at all. I'd promised I'd get Landon home, and that was it.

When I found Landon, he was drinking straight out of a pitcher of beer someone had purchased for a game of beer pong on the patio attached to the side of the building. My eyes were round with concern at his level of inebriation. His eyes were glassy, and he was sloshing beer everywhere.