Pocket Full of Posies

Chapter Forty-Two

He let me alone for the rest of the day. And for two days afterward.

While I appreciated it, deep down, the other part of me just kept wanting to him to call or even text. It was a selfish thing to hope for. After all, I'd been the one who'd freaked out and ran away. He probably wanted nothing to do with me now. Landon was basically a perfect guy, so I knew that probably wasn't completely true. Still. He'd tried to lay it all out on the line. And I'd not only stopped him, I'd ran away.

I was miserable for the rest of the week. Neither of us tried to contact the other.

But I wanted to. I wanted to call him and explain...except I wasn't really sure I could explain what I'd been thinking. I'd freaked out and I wasn't really sure why. Hadn't I just been thinking of how much I liked being near him and holding hands with him, getting all giddy from simple touches?

Everything I'd been feeling, though, so had he. Was it fair to make him keep waiting? I thought maybe I was ready. But then I'd flipped out. So was I ever going to be ready? What would happen now? Yeah, Landon was an extremely—almost to a fault—understanding guy, but would this prove to be too much? Maybe he thought he'd embarrassed himself or had gone too far. It hurt me to think of him beating himself up. I wanted to reach out to him just to tell him it was my fault, not his. But I wasn't ready for even that.

After almost three days of moping, though, I had to get a grip long enough to survive my shift at work. I'd debated calling out, but Carl would only be even more pissed at me than usual. Besides, I could use the distraction.

Except not calling out ended up being the worst decision. I'd have taken Carl's wrath if it meant not having to deal with this single table. Lulu wasn't working tonight and I didn't really know the new waitress all that well, but I knew she was a bit of a bitch. There was no way she'd take the table for me. I was trapped.

Guessing by the way he smirked in my direction, he knew it, too.

I stomped over with my order pad practically covering my face. "What do you want."

"In life or just what to eat?" he quipped.

I didn't even give him the satisfaction of rolling my eyes. I didn't do anything except stand there expectedly.

With a dramatic sigh, Leland said, "Listen, your boy has been making the entire house miserable. We still aren't on speaking terms, so I don't know what happened, but I'm guessing it has something to do with you." He cleared his throat. "I didn't...he didn't get mad enough about my little stunt to blame you, right?"

"Of course not," I snapped. "He would never."

Leland nodded as if he guessed as much himself. He'd just had to clear his conscious. "So...what happened?"

I snorted, doodling on my paper to busy myself. "Nothing. Are you gonna order or harass me? Because if it's the latter, I can go get my manager."

He raised a brow at me. "Really, get the manager? C'mon, Mar, what's going on? You look as shitty as he does."

"Gee, thanks. This all part of your plan to seduce me?"

The corner of his mouth lifted in a smirk. "You know you're the one girl I can't seduce. And he even though I'm guessing you're gonna have me kicked out for this, I'm just gonna come out and say it's because of Landon."

Lowering my paper, I full on glared at him. He was right, I did want to have him kicked out. In no way was I in the mood for his stupid antics. "You know, McDonalds is just down the road. I think they might be more your speed."