Losing Her (40 page)

A bag of chips falls to the floor as Jameson stands. “You punched someone?” His question comes out with as much shock as I feel.

“My thumb kills,” she whines, dropping her purse. “Apparently, you’re supposed to have your thumb on the outside of your fist, which is not at
all
how I form a fist.”

“What in the hell happened? Are you okay?” Jameson’s eyes scan over her repeatedly.

“No, my wrist hurts, and my thumb hurts—”

“Why’d you punch someone?” His agitation grows as he cuts her off.

I turn to Savannah, who looks reluctant to join in the conversation. The girls have been convening over here more and more recently, causing mayhem on my emotions, which has led me to spending more time with Erin at her apartment.

“Who’d you punch?” Landon asks.

“Was there hair pulling involved?” Wes adds with a grin.

Jameson shoots him a glare before turning back to Kendall, whose face has turned calculated.

“Abby what in the hell happened?” I demand.

“We sort of ran into Nathan Hudson …” Abby begins, letting her words trail off.

Jesse lets out a line of profanities in Spanish as he looks up at the ceiling.

“What in the hell were you guys thinking?” Jameson snaps. “You guys have been drinking and you tried to get in a fist fight? You were supposed to be celebrating Jenny’s engagement! And she’s pregnant!” he says, waving a hand to Abby. “And you didn’t get in a fight with just anyone … you went and punched an asshole that would probably have hit you back! What in the hell happened?”

“I’m only four months pregnant. I’m still tough,” Abby retorts.

Jesse, who already looks ready to punch someone himself or start screaming, mutters something in Spanish and shakes his head.

I look over in time to catch Kendall’s expression. I’m expecting to see fire and anger, followed by her screaming about how she can take care of herself. Instead, her face is somber before it crumples, and she falls into Jameson’s chest and cries.

My gaze hits the area rug as my jaw stretches. I force myself to believe that what I’m feeling is purely sympathy for Kendall, who I’m starting to less reluctantly view as a friend, rather than just Jameson’s girlfriend. My attention turns to the other girls. Jenny shifts uneasily, looking over to Savannah, who also looks on the brink of tears.

“Babe, it’s okay. Nothing’s going to happen. Shhh.” Jameson tucks her under his chin.

“I hate him,” Kendall’s muffled voice cries. “I just want her to come home.”

I feel eyes turn to me, waiting for a reaction I can’t give. I know her absence affects all of us, but sometimes I forget the magnitude of it.

Kendall cries for a few minutes before she pulls back, and wipes her face. “He really is dense. His head felt like punching a cement wall.”

Wes is the first to laugh, holding nothing back as he leans forward and repeats her words. Jesse and Landon join, and I smile. A choking sob has me turning to see Abby wiping tears from her cheek with one hand, and holding onto Jenny, who tries to smile through tears falling down her cheeks with the other.

“I need you to teach me how to punch,” Kendall adds, brushing her cheeks with her fingers. “I want to be able to lay someone out.”

“You weigh like a hundred pounds. You’re never going to be able to really lay somebody out,” Landon says, trying to hide his grin.

“Okay, well at least be able to hurt them more than it hurts me.”

“Punching someone usually hurts,” Jameson says. “Even if you know what you’re doing.”

“You’re lying.” Her eyes come directly to me, and Jesse and Wes both laugh even harder.

“It depends on where you hit them, and how hard, but yeah, it can hurt,” I admit.

“Ace would call that karma,” Savannah says quietly and then bursts into a new stream of tears.

The Bosse women stay. In my house. For a fucking sleepover.

A.

Fucking.

Sleepover.

Waking up to the blond heads has me jittery with memories, and they progressively get worse when I smell the scent of pancakes coming from the kitchen, accompanied by a chorus of giggles.

“Let’s go,” Landon says, standing from the couch.

I look up and he nods toward the front door. “Let’s go for a run.”

I stand and disappear upstairs to pull on some shorts and socks and then bound downstairs to find Landon hooking Zeus to his leash.

We run for over a mile with the only sounds coming from the city around us.

“I think he’s starting to get used to the leash,” Landon says as we slow to a stop at a crosswalk. I look over to Zeus and watch Landon pat his head and then turn to look at me. “Eventually you learn to adapt.”

“I’m fine,” I respond to his shrink talk.

Landon nods a couple of times and then scratches along his chin.
She
had pointed out to me once that Landon does this when he’s feeling pensive. I don’t know how I’d never noticed it prior to her pointing it out, but she was right. And for some reason that reminder annoys me.

“How’s school going?” he asks as we start again.

My anger ebbs and disappointment floods me. I’ve already dealt with the anger on this subject, and the denial. I’m onto regret. “I’m going to have to re-apply and beg the dean to allow me to come back. Promise her that I won’t fuck things up again and actually take things serious next year.”

“That’s alright, dude. Do what you have to do to clear things up, and get your ass back in there. I think she’ll understand that you just needed some time off.”

I release a deep breath, and my chest feel like it’s nearly going to cave with the movement. “I don’t know.”

“This was your dream a long time before any of this shit happened. If it still is, you need to do whatever you need to, to get it done.” He directs us down toward a coffee shop that we’ve run to a few different times with Zeus still trotting along beside us. “You’ve got some shit to sort through, but you’re going to be okay. J and I are going to be there with you, and so is everyone else. You’ve got a whole team behind you, man. We’re all cheering for you.”

It feels good to sit with Landon and laugh and talk about things, even things tangled with memories of
her
have us both laughing without tension.

We’re both breathing hard from pushing ourselves for the last leg as we make it back to the house. I rest my palms on my thighs trying to catch my breath as Landon extracts his keys and gets the door open.

“Shit,” he breathes as his body becomes rigid, standing in the entrance of the front door, unmoving.

I straighten, and step up behind him with Zeus on my other side. My jaw drops at the sight of our house. “What in the hell happened?” I ask, looking around.

A loud crash followed by a squeal lets me know Erin happened. I haven’t seen her in several days. I’ve been ignoring her again, hoping that she just loses interest. I should have known better. I’m not that lucky.

I look around again, taking in the millions upon millions of bubbles that seem to be growing and inching toward us by the second. I release a dozen expletives, loud enough that Landon quietly chuckles as he follows me in.

We make it to the kitchen and find Erin on the floor with the vacuum cleaner, surrounded by suds that are up to my knees and continuing to pour out of the washing machine.

“What happened?” I repeat.

“I think your washer’s fuckin’ broken! I was going to vacuum it up. The thing’s possessed!”

Landon’s thigh high in foam as he twists the dial on the washer. He waits for a moment for it to unlock, and then opens the door. A large mass of bubbles erupts, flowing over his arm.

He turns to me with a harried expression. “You used dish soap,” he says, shaking the suds off his arm, still looking at me although he’s speaking to Erin.

“Oh. My. God.” Kendall’s voice rings through the house.

The heels of her shoes click against the hardwood, and then a loud grunt and thud tell me she’s fallen.

I turn back to the living room and see her struggling to stand up. Making my way over to her, I feel the slickness of the soap under my tennis shoes. I wrap my hands under her arms to lift her like a child, which I know by the glare she’s giving me, she doesn’t appreciate.

“What is this?” she asks, looking around.

“Don’t turn on the vacuum! You’ll break it, and probably kill yourself in the process!” Landon’s voice booms.

Kendall eyes me with curiosity and then removes her heels. Holding them with two fingers, she leads me back into the kitchen, sliding every few steps. I place a hand on her elbow to offer her stability, and then grasp a leather bound photo album she shoves into my chest that the bubbles are getting dangerously close to reaching.

“I’ll grab the Shop-Vac,” Landon says, lifting our house vacuum and heading out the garage door.

Erin grasps a hand towel, and starts uselessly blotting at a pile of suds. “Look, they’re going down!” she cries eagerly.

“I don’t think that’s going to help,” Kendall says, heading toward the kitchen counter. Before she gets all the way to it she slips and falls unceremoniously with a quiet squeal.

“I don’t understand what happened?” Erin looks around the kitchen, hovering by the washer that’s still spewing suds.

“You put dish soap in the washer. What don’t you understand?” Landon asks. An extension cord that he’s plugged into an outlet in the garage trails him as he carries the Shop-Vac in.

“Is that why it smells like lemon?” Kendall asks.

“That’s why our house looks like a fucking full-sized bathtub!” Landon shouts. I’ve never heard Landon shout. I don’t think I’ve ever heard him even raise his voice unless he was drunk and telling a story.

“You don’t have to be such an ass about it. I was trying to do you guys a favor and do some fuckin’ laundry.”

I cringe. I don’t know if it’s her voice, or her incessant need to use that word, but my ears feel like they’re ready to bleed.

“What did you wash?” Kendall asks, looking slightly fearful for a new reason.

“Stuff that was in the laundry room.”

“What stuff exactly?”

“Why are you interrogating me?” Erin screeches.

“Max!” Kendall’s voice rises in warning.

“Don’t yell at him!”

Kendall’s eyes widen as her head snaps to Erin. She takes a few slippery steps closer to her and I momentarily pray she doesn’t attempt to practice her newly-learned punching skills.

“I can’t do this anymore!” She raises her hands in the air and turns back to me. “I’ve held my tongue, waiting for you to stop and realize that you’re making a mistake. You need to get your ass up and go to Delaware and stop this shit or we’re all moving out!”

I feel Landon’s eyes on me and turn to see him giving me an expectant look, not making any effort to disagree with Kendall’s threat.

“Delaware?” Erin asks. “Why in the hell would he need to go to fuckin’ Delaware?”

“Fucking. Fuck-ing!” Kendall screams. “He needs to go to
fucking
Delaware.”

“I’m leaving, I’m not going to allow you to treat me like this!” Erin moves and slides against the floor, but continues through the house, slamming the front door as she leaves.

“God, never again am I allowing her in when no one else is here.” Kendall says, shaking her head as her eyes rove over the kitchen. “How much soap did she add? An entire bottle?”

“An entire
fucking
bottle,” Landon says sarcastically.

I don’t know what to do. A part of me feels guilty for the way Erin was just treated and that side is telling me that although she’s driving me out of my mind, I shouldn’t be a dickhole and just let her walk away without saying something. Part of me wants to yell at Kendall for bringing up
her
again for the twelve hundredth time this week, realizing that she’s been slowly incorporating her into more conversations lately. And another part of me just wants to ignore everything, and focus on cleaning up the suds that are somehow still pouring out of the washer.

Landon takes a step forward and pushes the coffee maker back further on the counter and with his next step he falls with a loud thud, and suddenly I’m laughing. I’m hurting, I’m laughing so hard.

Cleaning up the mess goes surprisingly fast with the Shop-Vac, however the residue left behind is a bitch. The floors feel like we’ve waxed them with furniture polish. Kendall and Landon don’t complain as they help me scrub everything in an attempt to lessen the slickness.

Jameson arrives home and falls on his ass within seconds of walking through the front door, confirming our efforts are wasted.

“Son of a bitch,” he mumbles, rubbing his elbow.

“We need to go find some of those orange cones to steal,” Kendall says, shaking her head.

Jameson’s less than amused when Kendall shares with him what had transpired this afternoon, not even bothering to look at me as he shakes his head.