Chapter Twelve #2
Day quickly bled to night, and the cavernous, cozy house filled with more cousins, aunts, and uncles than Rose could keep track of.
Though she knew she was drinking at a steady clip, her wineglass was somehow always half full, her empty hand always seconds away from merging with Landon’s.
Moments burrowed in her memory like photographs.
Jess called her into her father’s study to flip through old photo albums of her and Landon as children, the resemblance between them more prominent when comparing tiny bodies to arms and limbs fully grown.
Leaves unfurled on the dining room table and folding chairs were hauled from the basement, and Rose ate until her stomach hurt.
She knew her face was flushed and was sure her hair was wild.
The overworked oven and throng of family had raised the room’s temperature to the point of steaming the windows, and Rose could feel the makeup she’d hastily applied dripping down her chin.
Landon didn’t seem to care. All morning he’d looked at her like she was some kind of saint, every vegetable she diced the most perfect cube he’d ever seen.
Evening told a different story. In his warm, glassy eyes she was no saint, but with every sidelong touch he made his desire to worship her clear.
Jess floated two plates of pumpkin pie on the table in front of them, and Landon reached for the half-full bottle of merlot at the same time Rose did.
Their fingers met on the smooth glass. Rose held him there long enough to transmit a message: I want you, too.
I want everything you want. The room swirled, and children yelled, and people cheered, but they might as well have been alone in her dorm room for all anything else in the world mattered.
“My dad gave you the key to the pool house,” Landon said, sliding his pointer finger down her thumb. “Didn’t he.”
“Yes,” Rose said, somehow already breathless. And before she could say or do anything else, Jess was pulling her from her seat, hauling her up, shouting in her ear, “It’s time for the songs!”
Landon groaned so loud Rose heard it over the increasing commotion. “Songs?” she asked, pleading with Landon. “What do you mean songs?”
“We’re busy,” Landon said to Jess. “Nobody will miss us.”
“Literally everybody will miss you,” she said. “Eighteen years of tradition, and you think you’re going to just skip out and hide in the pool house?”
“How did you—”
But Jess and Landon said at the same time, “Twins.”
A cousin with a face and name Rose had learned and forgotten over the course of the evening passed her a sheet of paper. “‘Simple Gifts’?” she asked. “Like the Shaker song?”
If it was possible for Landon’s face to turn redder than the heat and the wine had already made it, it did. “It was my grandpa’s favorite.”
Sure enough, as if on cue, his father pounded on the keys of the Steinway at the base of the stairs that Rose had assumed was just for show. “Gather, gather!” he called out, an actor in a play who’d said the line a hundred times on a hundred different nights.
“We don’t have to do this,” Landon said. Rose knew he meant it.
“We should,” she said. “It’s tradition.” And though she’d only ever heard the song sung by earnest choir singers at school assemblies, she wasn’t worried about joining in. Jess gripped her right hand, Landon her left, and she felt that there might be a world in which she could actually have it all.
“I can’t breathe!” Rose doubled over with laughter, cradling her stomach. “Oh my God, I really can’t breathe!”
Landon chuckled, nowhere near as strapped for breath. “So that’s it, then,” he said. “I blew my one shot.”
“Did you see how much wine your grandma had to drink?” Rose asked, again folding in on herself. “How was she still singing? How was she still standing?”
“Muscle memory, I suppose.”
The trees and the sky and the stars blurred, and Rose tilted her head back. “I had too much wine,” she said. “Oh my God, I’m just like your grandma.”
Landon grabbed the collar of her shirt playfully and pulled her close. “You are absolutely, positively, nothing like my grandma.” He placed a whisper of a kiss on her neck in the spot he knew sent shivers down her spine. “And please never say that again.”
“That I’m just like your grandma, or that I’ve had too much wine to drink?”
“The former,” Landon said, placing another kiss just below the first.
“You haven’t had too much wine to drink or else you would have used plain English.
” Rose leaned her head back. She’d seen stars like this before.
Dozens of times, and it still bowled her over.
At this point in her life, she was fairly sure the novelty wouldn’t wear off.
“Former and latter are stupid words for stuffy people.”
Landon sighed, but even in her state she could tell he wasn’t blowing out exasperation. “I love you,” he said. “My English major with a scorn for the English language.”
“I love you, too,” she said, then stuck out her tongue like a child. “We’re gross.” Rose threw her arms wide and spun in a circle. “We’re gross, and in love, and I’m drunk, and I love you and I love your family and I love these stars and I—”
Landon spun her around and into him like a top, the same way he had when they’d danced for the first time. “You love my family?” His dark eyes, which had been so playful all day, searched hers.
Rose laughed. “Are you kidding?”
“I’m not kidding,” he said, deadly serious.
She took a breath, evaluating him. “Oh, Landon.” Rose grabbed his hand, tracing exactly where she knew the lifelines on his palms branched.
Her chest rose and fell with the telltale signs of emotion begging for release.
“Landon—” It rose, fell, rose, fell, until tears sprang loose.
“Landon—” she said again, but he’d already smothered her into his chest.
“It’s okay,” he said. “You’re okay.”
“No.” She pushed off his chest just enough she could look him in the eye.
“No,” she said again. “That’s not what I want to say.
I don’t want to talk about that.” Landon did not press, making clear he understood exactly what she meant by that.
“I want to tell you—” She ran fingers through her hair, then tightened them into fists.
“I want you to know that I didn’t know. I didn’t know it could be like this. I forgot this was an option.”
“What was an option?” He said it softly enough he could have denied it, no doubt still trying to give her the space to say what she needed to.
“This!” she said, throwing her arms out again.
“Being part of something. I didn’t think to want anything, because nothing lasts.
Nothing good lasts. But you—” She stood on her tiptoes and reached for his head, which he lowered for her.
She cradled it between her hands. “You have this. It’s all still here.
Eighteen years of tradition.” Rose spun out, then sat in the grass.
The pool house was in view; she could see the twin lights on either side of the door. “What if I could have this?”
Landon lowered himself into the grass beside her. “You can.”
She spread her arms like she was making a snow angel. “It’s not that simple.”
“It is.” Then it was him cradling her head in his hands. “I love you, so it is.”
Worlds flashed before her eyes: birthdays, and Easters, and Christmases; scavenger hunts, capture the flag, and buried treasure; births and deaths. “Where did you come from?” she asked.
“Wherever it was,” he said, “I think I knew you there, too.”
How was it he made everything so simple, even the unexplainable? She latched on to him, twisting their legs together. “Thank you for bringing me here.”
“I have a feeling I’ll be grateful all my life.”
Time. What was time? The world spun, and the stars danced, and Rose didn’t care the hour, or the day, or the year. She was where she was meant to be, regardless.