Chapter 8
“Hi,” I eek out as a smile flirts on his lips.
“I hoped I would see you around,” Landon says, looking around. He shoves his hands in his pockets and shifts back and forth on the balls of his feet.
I tuck my hair behind my ear. “You remembered.”
“Barely,” he says, looking at the ceiling and back at me. “I’ve been switching between multiple coffee shops that are connected to bookshops. I’ve been hanging out at City Lights too, just in case it was that one.”
“Wow, you went all the way over there? Do you live around here?”
Landon shakes his head. His lips rub together with a gleaming eye.
There’s so much to say.
“So, is this fate?” I ask. I honestly do not know how he will answer.
“I don’t know,” Landon says. “I just know that I can’t stop thinking about you. I tried; I was skeptical. But from that first moment I saw you, something happened. It’s never happened to me before.”
He takes my hand in his and swings our closed fists between us, like we are crushes on the school playground. “I am so sorry I did not get your phone number.”
“Why didn’t you?” I ask.
“Let’s go sit over there,” he says with a point. We get out of line and walk to a crumb-covered black table in the corner. Landon wipes up the crumbs and throws them away like a gentleman.
He sits down and clasps his hands together. “I was raised by a single mother. She claims my dad was the love of her life, and she met him one night. One night. He disappeared, and she was convinced my no-good dad was it. We wasted a lot of years trying to find him, just to find out he had a wife and children and didn’t care about us.
“When I met you, I had no idea that could happen. That you could be that connected after one night. You were this lightning bolt that hit me when I least expected it. I don’t know what happened, but I knew. I knew, but I let you go.”
He rubs his hair and locks eyes with me. “I’ve had girlfriends before. I always thought I had to build to some great relationship. It took work and sacrifice and time. Then, you came in, and I felt closer to you than I had ever felt to anyone. It threw me for a loop, you know.”
I could cry right now. After all the men I’ve been with, men who weren’t sure about me when we were about to get married, and I sat with a man who was sure about me after less than twenty-four hours.
“I remembered that you love coffee shops connected to bookstores. The freedom to get a coffee and then peruse without having to go outside. I needed to find you. I couldn’t find you on social media…”
“I deleted Facebook, and my Instagram is super private. There is no way you could’ve found me,” I add.
“Okay,” Landon says. He grabs my hands again, and his eyes are like a claw that grabs my heart. “I am so sorry I thought what we had was nothing. It was something. It was a lot more than something.”
He whips out his phone and unlocks it. “Erin Blank Campbell, may I have your phone number?”
“Yes,” I say. I recite it to him, and he texts me.
There it is. Landon’s phone number. I hold my phone to my chest like it’s a treasure I thought long lost.
“Now, you have mine,” he says.
“My middle name is Phyllis,” I say, leaning forward. I blush, and he lets out a laugh.
“Phyllis? Like The Office? I love it!”
“It is after my great-aunt that my mom was close to. Supposedly, she was a riot.”
“Erin Phyllis Campbell. That is such a good name.”
“Thanks,” I say.
He turns his phone around, and I’m in his phone as Erin Phyllis Campbell.
I follow suit and enter his name as Landon Bernard Walcott.
“I’m so glad I found you,” he says. He shakes his head in disbelief. “It had to be fate. It had to be real. It was love at first sight—for me, anyway.”
“It was. For me, too,” I say. He kisses my hand, and it sends shivers up my arm.
We are quiet for a moment, and I say, “I quit my job today.”
“Wow, really?” Landon stands up and attacks me with a bear hug. “I’m so proud of you.”
“I could hear your voice in my head the entire time. My boss wasn’t going to give me that promotion. He was just using it as a ploy to get me back to New York.”
“I wondered about that,” Landon says. “I think we should celebrate.”
Worry about money must seep into my expression, because he adds, “On me.”
“Okay,” I say. He stands up and offers his hand. I take it, and I stand up.
We have a lovely evening and an even better night. We eat at a tiny restaurant that overlooks the water, and I feel at peace, like my life is locking into place. Everything before felt shaggy, out of control. Now, it feels like it has always been this way, and Landon has always been in my life.
We drink decent margaritas and watch the sun set. After we ride back to his place in a rideshare, I follow him into his apartment and meet Henry, who is sitting on the couch, holding a game controller.
“Hey, Henry, this is Erin,” Landon says.
“Oh, so you’re the mysterious lady,” Henry says. “I knew all Landon needed was you.”
That statement hits me, and I smile.
We are kissing before his bedroom door closes.
“I have condoms this time,” he says, his breath hot on my cheek, and I pull his flannel off him.
“Oh really,” I say.
“This apartment is much nicer than the motel room anyway.”
This is the cleanest man’s space I have ever seen. All manly dark blues and gray. Photos of him with an older woman, probably his mom, on his bookshelf. A diploma hangs over his desk.
My shirt comes off quickly and his is soon after.
He kisses me with the promise of a tomorrow, making me swell with a desire that calms the chaotic parts of me. It doesn’t matter I am jobless or in between apartments. He was the catalyst, the starting point. Everything is before and after him.
When I step out of my leggings, standing there with my hips sticking out sharply, he looks at me like I’m the sexiest woman he has ever seen. He takes my face in his hands, and they travel from my ass to palm my breasts and to that in-between that screams for him—has been waiting for a man like him.
“Are you okay?” he asks as he lays me down on the bed, crouching so he’s level with my sex. I nod with a plea, and he dives into me, flicking his tongue against the most sensitive part of me. I’m back in that dingy motel in Waterloo that is still one of the most erotic moments of my life, receiving and giving pleasure with a stranger that became so much more.
After he rolls a condom onto his length, he pushes into me, and liquid warmth whips within my core. He brings me to the brink again as he holds one leg up, thrusting into me like he has no finish line to cross. It’s about this moment.
My leg drapes over his shoulder as he leans in to kiss my collarbone, my neck, and I cry out as the orgasm shatters me. He comes shortly after with a grunt so deep and settles into me.
“Henry heard every bit of that,” I say with a laugh.
“Probably did. Henry is cool, though. He had to listen to me talk about you endlessly when I got home.”
Landon slips out of me to dispose of the condom. I prop up on my elbow and watch him as he disappears into his en suite bathroom, an anomaly for most San Francisco apartments.
“What happens now?” I ask.
“The rest of our lives.”
Usually, a statement like this would alarm me. If Patrick would’ve said something like this to me after our official first date and the two, maybe third cumulative day we had together, I may have run, had drinks with the girls, and told them about this stalker guy I went on a date with.
Still, with Landon…it feels like fate.
It feels destined.
It feels meant to be.