Page 75 of Wedding Bet

“Yeah, yeah. Things are okay. Inthismoment, at least. They haven’t exactly been very good for the past few days.”

He hummed on the other end of the line, and I could feel that he didn’t know what to say. I sure as shit had no clue what to say either. I hadn’t planned any of this out, to say the least. I hadn’t even thought I’d be calling him until the moment I’d noticed the little green button, right there on my phone.

“Hey, no, that’s not food, you little beast,” I heard Landry saying quietly on the other end of the line, and I could picture it now.

“Is Sprinkle trying to eat your tulips?” I asked.

“He sure as hell is,” Landry said, and I heard a faintmewsound a moment later. “That’s right, you. Eat the cat food instead.”

“You feed him sometimes?” I asked.

“I buy him the best cat food in the store,” Landry confirmed. “Sprinkle eats like a king around here.”

I puffed out a laugh. “No wonder he likes you so much.”

Landry sighed. “Is that how I can get you to like me again, Jamie? Should I feed you some cat food, and then everything will finally fucking make sense to me again?”

Something lurched behind my chest. “Was wondering when you were going to yell at me.”

“I’m not going to yell at you,” Landry said. “I just don’t understand, Jamie. Your text hurt. It really hurt.”

I was nodding even though I knew he couldn’t see me. “I’m so sorry,” I whispered. “Landry, you have to understand. I landed, and then my mom hurt herself, and now we have so many more medical bills, and my roommates are a disaster, and my job just isn’t enough—I’mnot enough, Landry. I can’t see what any possible future between us could look like.”

He cleared his throat on the other end, and the image of him breaking down on the night of the wedding flashed through myhead. He wasn’t feeling that way again, was he? Was that even possible?

“It could look like me driving down and meeting you at the beach, for one,” he said, his voice sounding weak. “I can hear the breeze. I can hear the waves.”

I couldn’t even imagine what that would be like—him sitting right here with me, under the stars.

“It could look like me never even stepping foot into your restaurant or your home, if you don’t want me to,” he offered. “And it could look like me putting my damn arms around you again and getting tokissyou again, Jamie. You can’t even imagine how much I want to feel that again.”

My voice was wobbly and barely a whisper when I spoke. “I think I can imagine that,” I said. “I think I want it more than anything, if I really let myself.”

“Ninety minutes, Jamie,” he said softly. “I can be in Stellara Beach in ninety minutes.”

A wave crashed against the rocks near me. I pulled in a long breath, reaching a tipping point that I didn’t think I could come back from.

“I’m at Paintbrush Cove,” I whispered. “It’s a little beach off of Mira Street. It can be hard to park near here—”

“Ninety minutes,” Landry repeated again before hanging up.

20

LANDRY

My Italian leather loafers slipped against the little narrow staircase as I made my way down toward the water, my breath catching in my chest. Coming down to Stellara Beach on a moment’s notice was the quickest and easiest decision I’d made in my life, but also one of the most nerve-wracking.

My heart was slamming inside me.

I had no idea what the hell I was doing, but somehow I also knew that it was one hundred percent, unquestionably, therightthing.

The sound of the waves drowned out my own pounding heartbeat as I saw a dim figure sitting on a patch of sand in front of the water. I would have recognized Jamie anywhere, but especially here, where he seemed to belong.

He turned to look at me as I walked up, his eyes wide as a deer in headlights. He was shirtless, his tanned, lean muscles on display in the moonlight, his hair a thick swoop of dark blond.

“You’rehere,” I said, my voice barely louder than the waves. “And you’re not a marshmallow anymore.”

He stood up, the ghost of a smile on his face. That smile hid more emotion behind it than I could process, so much pain and longing and disbelief. It was how I felt, too, seeing him here.

---