Mine (11 page)

“My folks think… I mean, I told them how good he looks, how amazing his business is, and all about you. They’re dying to meet you.”

I had not anticipated that.

“How is he?” he asked, and his breath was shaky. “I mean, how does he function?”

“What are you talking about?”

“I mean, he used to go into these rages and just… he came at me with a knife once. We were in the kitchen and I said something, and our maid was cooking, and he grabbed the chef’s knife, and if my father hadn’t been there… I mean, he came at me, do you understand?”

I understood what he was saying, but Landry’s intent was lost to me since I hadn’t been there.

“I went into his room one time and he was slicing up his arm, and I remember screaming for my mother, and everyone came running and they took away the knife and held him down and just…. Trevan, if he’s never gotten any help, then you’re living on borrowed time.” He said it earnestly, willing me to believe him. “I swear to God he could hurt you… more than hurt you.”

The concern was there, real, on his face.

Yes, Landry could be volatile, but so was I. And Landry was the guy with the balanced life now; mine was the scary one.

“Hey.”

We both looked up, and there he was, yawning, eyes watering as he looked down at me and Chris.

“Can you move so I can sit?” he asked his brother.

“Sure,” Chris said, getting up so Landry could push by him to retake his seat next to me.

Once he was down, Landry put on his seatbelt and offered me either the chocolate chip granola bar or the Power Bar from where he had stuffed them into the pocket in front of his seat.

“I’m not hungry,” I assured him.

“You sure?”

I nodded, and he reached up and touched the ten gauge hammered steel plug in my right ear. “What?”

“I got those red jade ones for you for Valentine’s Day, but you never wear them.”

“That’s because they’re red.” I smiled at him. “What do I own that goes with red?”

He smiled at me. “You need to try something new.”

I closed my eyes. “I don’t like change.”

“I know,” he said, and I felt his fingers tracing over my eyebrow.

“I like all those bracelets you make,” Chris told Landry.

“I have one for you, but I don’t know if you want it.”

Silence.

“You made me one?”

“I picked you one. I didn’t have time to make one from scratch, but I have one that I think fits with your vibe.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“Can I have it? I mean… I’d love it.” Chris was breathless, and no matter what he thought of his brother, about his brother, Landry doing anything for him flipped him inside out.

“Here,” he said, and I didn’t open my eyes to see. It wasn’t that important to me. What was important was that Landry had done something for his brother.

“Oh shit, Lan, this is awesome,” he breathed out. He was in awe, and it was good to hear.

“You like it?”

“I love it.”

“Good. Now the amber is supposed to ground you so you don’t go crazy,” he told him. “Trev always tells me that I should be draped in it.”

Chris sucked in his breath, and I started chuckling.

Landry let out a snort of laughter before his lips pressed to my jaw, his fingers grazing my throat. “Let’s get drunk tonight, okay?”

“Whatever you want.”

“Whatever I want?” he asked, his voice almost a growl. “If I beg down on my knees, will you please tie me up?”

Sometimes Landry needed to be rendered completely helpless to allow his brain to just shut off. In the following moment of vulnerability, when there was no choice but to surrender to me and trust in me, everything could just stop. He was asking me now for the peace that only I could provide for him even as I recognized his desire for the reset even sooner.

“Yes,” I assured him.

He was instantly breathless. “Thank you.”

I could tell from the way his hands were clutching at me that he needed something else. The problem was that I had no idea what it was.

The landing, getting off the plane, getting our luggage, all of that was easy. It was when I told Chris that we were going to rent a car that he balked.

“My father sent our driver to pick us up; he’ll be at your disposal when we get home. You don’t need to get a car, Trevan.”

I cleared my throat. “We do.”

“I just—”

“If we need to leave, we need a car,” Landry said flatly, eyes leveled on his brother. “So let us rent the car or we’ll just get back on the plane. Your choice.”

Chris wasn’t happy. He told me, leaning in, whispering harshly over my shoulder, that he felt I was adding tension that had not even been necessary. I wasn’t going to argue; it was how I needed it to be. I had to have an escape route, and I was much too independent to ask for permission. If I wanted to go, I would go, and that was it.

“I’m starving,” Landry told me minutes later.

“I called Mom last night and told her when we would be in; she’s having breakfast catered this morning.”

I looked at Landry, surprised and a little intimidated. How rich was his family? Catered.

He shook his head, disgusted.

“What?”

“Typical.”

Typical?

Once we were in the silver Dodge Charger following the black Audi sedan, I asked what he meant.

“It’s just like I told you they were. They’re not like your mom or your aunts or your sister. Breakfast for me for the first time in eight years—catered.”

“It’s nice.” I shrugged. “I mean, this way no one has to get up. It’s like being at a restaurant, you can all just talk.”

He was quiet, and I reached out and took his hand, lacing my fingers into his.

“You know what I’d like?” he said.

“What’s that?”

“I’d like you to pull over so I can give you a blow job.”

I rolled my eyes. “Or, you can think about what you’re gonna say in the next half an hour.”

He sighed deeply and looked away from me.

I so wanted to ask him about what Chris had told me, but I really didn’t want to sound like I doubted his word. We would go with his recollection of the events until it was proven that he was wrong. If he was.

It took a lot longer than half an hour to get to Landry’s childhood home. We passed the strip and just kept going. I had never seen so many mansions, golf courses, and long private drives. The one that led to the Carter home was a mile in and tree lined, so it was like driving under an arbor the whole way. The grounds looked like a botanical garden. There was a man-made lake, and when we were almost to the house, we were suddenly driving over cobblestones. The house was huge—I couldn’t see anything else—and it looked like a giant white Spanish-tiled movie set.

“Holy fuck” was all I could think of to say as I leaned forward over the steering wheel and laughed. “Are you shitting me?”

“What?”

I turned and looked at him, chuckling.

“What?” He was starting to smile.

“Oh, c’mon,” I teased him, waggling my eyebrows at him. “Hey mister, can you keep me? Can I have a diamond car?”

“Ass,” he groused at me, smacking my shoulder.

I turned off the car and got out, closing the door gently, turning around, absolutely blown away by the display of wealth and privilege just from the damn driveway and what else I could see. The front door was under an archway, and the ground was covered in what looked like hand-painted tile. There were walls of water on both sides of the entranceway, all blue with mosaic tiles. I had never seen such opulence in my life. To say I was overwhelmed was an understatement.

“Fuck.” I shook my head, turning to look at my boyfriend over the roof of the car. “What are you doing hanging out with me?”

His eyes were locked on mine. “The only thing I see that’s real here is you.”

“That’s a good fuckin’ answer.” I smiled, waving him over.

He was pretty happy with himself and strutted around the car for good measure, diving at me when he was close, arms around my neck, kissing me happily, hungrily. I grabbed him tight, kissed him back, and when we parted he looked good, solid, content.

“Come on, you guys,” Chris called over to us, gesturing at his driver. “Juan will bring in the luggage, don’t worry.”

“Juan,” I called over to the driver, “we’ll get our own stuff, man, no worries.”

He nodded as I walked around to the trunk of the car.

Landry got his garment bag and his rolling suitcase—the man had brought enough clothes to stay for a week—and I grabbed my bag, whipped it over my back, and followed after him.

Once we went through the outer door, we entered a courtyard with a tile sort of path and a garden on each side, patio furniture, an outdoor fireplace, and what could only be called a grotto, complete with frescoes. Following Chris, we walked over a stone footbridge that crossed over water, and on the other side, there were wide steps covered in grass and wildflowers, and then it looked like you entered a cabana. The porch was huge, all wooden planked and carved and solid. There were chairs every five feet or so, and tables. You could have a party just on the front deck.

It was all windows, floor to ceiling, like the house was just made of them, and we walked into a huge space that was a living room, I guessed, but the doors were open on the other side, and there was the biggest pool I had ever seen in my life, a back deck, and stairs.

I trailed after Landry and Chris. Outside, the stairs descended to a bigger deck where there was a Jacuzzi and a covered area. Down those stairs was another pool, long and skinny, that emptied into a backyard that was lush green grass and tennis courts—two of them—and buildings that were probably for the servants. All I noticed, everywhere I looked, were huge trees. It was like a movie set; I expected dinosaurs at any second.

I did not belong there. I was uncomfortable, so far out of my comfort zone that I was seriously ready to bolt, and every drop of confidence I had just shriveled up and died. It was like a siren blaring in my brain. I was in way over my head.

“Landry!”

I looked, and there was an older woman, and you knew as soon as you looked at her that this was Landry’s mother.

Cece, short for Cecilia, Carter. Landry looked just like her. They had the same delicate, fragile features, same short little upturned nose, and the same dimples when they smiled. They also shared wide, symmetrical almond-shaped eyes that were almost but not quite the same color. Her hair was blonde; he had inherited the color from her, but the thickness and the waviness, he got from his father. Neil Carter had also gifted him with the breadth and strength of his shoulders, long legs, and a square jaw. His parents were both gorgeous, but that followed, since their son could stop traffic. Landry was like a perfect melding of both of them.

Other people hovered around, a couple and two men. As I followed after Landry, I wasn’t sure what to do with my hands. I really wished I was still carrying my duffel, but Chris had had us leave the luggage beside the couch in the big room that we had walked through.

“Landry!” She bolted for him, the mother flying to her son, and he let out a breath and opened his arms to receive her.

I thought she was going to knock him down with how hard she hit him, but he absorbed it, holding her tight as her arms wrapped around his neck and she hugged the life out of him.

“My baby,” she chanted, kissing his cheek, hugging him, so happy, whimpering and whining, more kissing, squeezing him as tight as she could.

He patted her back, stroked her hair, told her he’d missed her, offered condolences on her illness and hoped she was better. And all the time he did, none of the kindness of his words or the smiling he was doing touched his eyes. They didn’t change. They didn’t soften. They didn’t warm. So I knew—and maybe I was the only one—that he wasn’t feeling any part of what he was showing them.

That was not to say that he was not genuinely sorry that his mother was ill. He was, but sorry in the same way he would feel if a coworker was sick, or a neighbor—it wasn’t special because it was her. If my mother was sick, God forbid, he would have been devastated and been her new shadow. This was different, and I saw the distance on him, all over him, from his posture to the furrowing of his brows to the smile that did nothing for his face. He didn’t light up, he didn’t glow—there was nothing. I was stunned, and even more so that I was the only one who even noticed.

“Yes, I am better,” his mother breathed out finally, bringing my attention from my boy back to her. I saw her hands on his shoulders, her eyes everywhere, absorbing his face, his clothes, his shoes, his hands—she missed nothing. “I’m in remission right now, but we just don’t know how long it will last. That’s why I reached out to you. I won’t miss this, I won’t miss reconnecting with you… I won’t.”

He nodded, forced another smile before turning to look at me. “I’d like you to meet Trevan.”

She turned her deep blue eyes to me.

I took off my cap and smiled. “Pleasure to meet you, ma’am.”

Her breath caught as she let go of her son and walked over to me, her arms open as she moved. “Trevan,” she gasped. “Please, call me Cece.”

Whatever I had expected, the reception she gave me was not it. The woman was on me, arms around my neck, kissing my cheek, pressed tight to me, thanking me over and over for coming because she knew sure as she was standing there that without me there was no hope.

“He would have never come without you,” she told me, her breath shaky as I heard the tears. “Oh darling, thank you… thank you so much.”

My eyes flicked to Landry as he walked over to us, putting his hand on the back of my neck, squeezing, massaging.

She let me go, stepping back to look at us, taking us in. “Well, don’t you two make a beautiful pair.”

Landry’s smile was instantly brilliant, all there, animating his features. She gasped, the understanding hitting her. Compliment me, make her son deliciously happy. She was observant, and that lesson was an easy one to learn.

“Come see everybody,” she commanded, taking Landry’s hand, tugging him after her.

He let go of my neck and grabbed my hand, and I took hold of it and held on so his mother ended up pulling a chain, first him, then me.