Page 91 of Hero for the Holidays

Part of the grooves that Landry had worn into her soul that she could never quite be rid of.

This need. So bright and intense and shocking.

Need she hadn’t felt in so long she had thought that maybe it didn’t exist inside of her anymore.

She was wrong. She was so wrong.

But finally. Finally she did exactly what she had to do. Finally she managed to extricate herself from him. Not because he was holding her so tight. Because she couldn’t bring herself to let him go.

Her lips felt swollen, her heart pounding fast. She was slick between her thighs, and she could feel how hard he was. Pressed against her like an iron bar.

“Please don’t,” she whispered.

“I had to.”

“No. Because we have to be better than this. Because we have to beparents. And not... Not this. We can’t be human torches for each other. Because... It’s the same. That’s the worst part. It’s the same. It doesn’t feel any different. I just thought... I thought I wasn’t all desperate for sex because I was older. I thought I was over it. But apparently I’m not. You kiss me and it’s all the same. You say something dirty to me, and I can’t help it. The whole... The thing that happened on the porch swing. It’s just the same stuff. We can still get in each other’s heads. We can still hurt each other this way, and we have to be better than that.”

“What’s better than this?” he asked. “Seriously, Fia. What’s better? I haven’t felt like this... Not since you.”

“What’s better? Today was better. The zoo and the courthouse and Thai food. It was better. The movie that we’re watching. It’s better.”

“The movie really is only okay.”

“You know what I mean, dammit. You know what I mean. It’s better than us trying as hard as we can to burn each other out again. It’s better than us being fools over hormones. We make a really good team when we’re being reasonable and rational. When we’re talking. When we’re this... It’s all we are.”

“Are you, twenty-nine-year-old Fia Sullivan, going to look at thirty-year-old me and tell me that we are not different than when we were kids?”

“Yes,” she said. “With this. With just this. Because tell me... Does it feel different to you?”

“Yes,” he said. “It feels better.”

The words lit her up. And she really wanted to be done being lit up. She wanted to be over this. All of it. She wanted to somehow be past this moment. Back on stable ground. But maybe that was a lie. Maybe there was no stable ground with them. Maybe there never had been. Maybe it had always only ever been this. This shifting lava bed of hot endless need.

But no. They had been more these past few weeks. They had been co-parents. They had been sensible. Responsible.

“The caseworker and the judge both said that they had never heard a story as amazing as ours. Angela said she was so proud of us for doing this. And we can only do it because we aren’t broken by each other anymore. We cannot let that happen. Not again, Landry.”

“Okay,” he said, taking a step back. “I’m going to listen to you this time. Because I didn’t before. I want you, Fia. Time and anger and distance and all of that hasn’t changed it. Common sense hasn’t changed it. So maybe you’re right. Maybe that means it’s something I shouldn’t want. Something I shouldn’t indulge in. I’m not going to argue. And I’m not going to punish you for not giving me what I want. I’m different. And so was this.”

“To what end, Landry?”

If he said marriage and more babies to love, she might be too weak to turn him away. But somehow, she knew he wouldn’t.

“Just being together for a while,” he said. “Just feeling alive like that again.”

She shook her head. “Not good enough for me. It’s not enough.”

“And I’ll give you what you think you want. But I still want popcorn.”

“Okay.”

She moved aside and let him get his bag out of the vending machine. Then she stood there, feeling hollow. And when he left, she finally picked up the ice bucket and filled it. She should stick her face in it. Try to get a handle on herself.

She had acted like an idiot. Worse, she had acted like her sixteen-year-old self. She didn’t know why she was like that with him. Well. It was that thing. That thing that had always been. But they had to be more to each other now. They had to be better. They had to be...

She had spent so many years without sex. She didn’t need it. Why did it always feel like such a big deal when Landry was involved? Why did it always feel essential?

She let out a breath. And she tried to visualize the room she had just left. The two beds. Landry sprawled on one, Lila sitting on the floor against the bed. And her bed. They were a family. A different sort of family. But functional.

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