Chapter 28
1175 Words
The first time he came to my house for dinner, my family acted like I had brought home a celebrity.
Which, in fairness, to them, I kind of had.
Nathan answered the door before I could get there, took one look at Landon standing on our porch with flowers in one hand and a bottle of sparkling cider in the other, and yelled:
“Mom! Your daughter brought home Edward Scissorhands!”
I almost died on impact.
Landon, to my horror, laughed.
Actually laughed.
Then held out his hand.
“Landon.”
Nathan looked at it suspiciously.
“Nathan. Resident hater.”
“That tracks,” Landon said easily.
And just like that, he was in.
Traitor.
Complete traitor.
By the time dinner was over, my sisters had made him promise to attend one of their school choir performances, my dad had somehow gotten him into a twenty-minute conversation about baseball, and my mom had already started giving me the look.
The look.
The one mothers invent specifically to say:
You like him too much. Be careful.
And the worst part was—
she was right.
Because after dinner, when he followed me out to the front porch while my family pretended not to watch from every window in the house—
I felt it.
That pull.
That ache.
That certainty that something about this had become bigger than either of us.
The porch light cast a soft glow over him as he shoved his hands into his pockets and looked down at me.
“I think your brother wants me dead.”
I laughed.
“He’s just protective.”
“No,” Landon said. “That was personal.”
I smiled.
“Probably.”
He smiled too.
Then the quiet settled between us.
Not uncomfortable.
Never uncomfortable.
Just heavy in that way it only gets when two people are both standing on the edge of something and pretending not to notice.
He looked toward the front window where, unfortunately, Sierra’s face was very visibly pressed against the glass.
I groaned.
“Oh my God.”
Landon laughed softly.
Then looked back at me.
And when he did—
his expression changed.
Less amused.
More honest.
More him.
“I like this,” he said.
I blinked.
“What?”
He glanced toward the house.
Then back at me.
“All of it.”
Something in my chest folded in on itself.
Because I knew what he meant.
Not the house.
Not the dinner.
Not the chaos.
The feeling of it.
The normalcy.
The warmth.
The love.
The kind of family dinner where people talk over each other and no one cares.
The kind of life that wasn’t polished or curated or cold.
The kind of life he maybe hadn’t gotten enough of.
And suddenly, I saw it.
Not just the boy everyone else saw.
But the one underneath him.
The one who wanted to be chosen without performance.
Wanted to be loved without conditions.
Wanted a place to set all that heaviness down.
And God help me—
I wanted to be that place for him.
I stepped a little closer.
“Good,” I said softly. “Because they’re going to keep inviting you back.”
His mouth twitched.
“You say that like it’s a threat.”
“It is.”
He laughed under his breath.
Then he reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear.
Such a small thing.
Such a soft thing.
And somehow it made my pulse go wild anyway.
His hand lingered there for half a second too long.
And when he spoke again, his voice had dropped.
“Do you know what’s really messed up?”
I swallowed.
“What?”
He looked at me like I was the answer to a question he’d been asking his whole life.
And when he said it, it was barely above a whisper.
“I miss you even when I’m with you.”
I forgot how to breathe.
Forgot how to think.
Forgot how to be a functioning person at all.
Because what kind of thing was that to say to someone?
What kind of person says something like that and then just stands there looking beautiful under a porch light like they haven’t changed your brain chemistry forever?
My lips parted, but nothing came out.
And for once—
for once—
Landon Baxter looked just as affected as I felt.
Like maybe he hadn’t meant to say it.
Like maybe it had slipped out from somewhere too real to take back.
We just stared at each other.
No jokes.
No teasing.
No escape hatch.
Just truth.
Raw and trembling between us.
And maybe that should have been the moment one of us pulled away.
Should have been the moment we slowed down.
Should have been the moment we realized this was no longer just sweet or fun or harmless.
But instead—
I reached for him.
And he met me halfway.
His hand slid to the side of my neck just as my fingers curled into the front of his hoodie, and when he kissed me this time, it wasn’t playful.
It wasn’t teasing.
It wasn’t just chemistry.
It was ache.
Need.
Recognition.
The kind of kiss that says:
There you are.
There you’ve been.
There’s the part of me I didn’t know I was missing until you touched it.
When we finally pulled apart, I was still holding onto him like I might drift if I let go.
His forehead rested against mine.
His breathing uneven.
Mine worse.
And somewhere behind us, inside the house, I heard Sierra shriek.
I closed my eyes.
“Oh my God.”
Landon laughed against my mouth.
And somehow, somehow, that made it even harder to let him go.
That night, long after he left, I laid in bed staring at my ceiling with my phone in my hand and his words replaying in my head like a song I couldn’t turn off.
I miss you even when I’m with you.
It was ridiculous.
Overwhelming.
Too much.
And maybe that was the problem.
Because Landon was becoming too much.
Too easy to love.
Too easy to need.
Too easy to imagine in every version of my future.
And that was dangerous.
Because if there was one thing I knew for sure, it was this:
The things that feel the most beautiful when they begin…
usually hurt the worst when they end.
And somehow—
somehow—
even with that thought sitting heavy in my chest…
if he had called me right then and asked me to come running—
I would have.
Without hesitation.
Without pride.
Without a second thought.
Because somewhere in the span of a few short weeks—
without permission, without warning, without mercy—
Landon Baxter had become my favorite part of every day.
And I was starting to realize that if I wasn’t careful…
he might become the part of me I could never get back.
(Chapter Theme Song: Glue Song by Baebadoobee)
- Writer
