Page 17

Chapter seventeen

Landon

ESPN notification – Colton Beaumont leads Sabertooths to beautiful win over Atlanta in their week four game. Here are some key takeaways…

Bay Area News 5 – Landon Beaumont throws punches at Arizona linebacker in the third quarter of a devastating week four loss. Is head coach Ray Landers finally ready to accept Beaumont is a liability and needs to go?

Keala didn’t say a word as she pulled up beside them, her face betraying nothing. They piled into her car, Ikaika in the passenger seat, Landon behind her, hoping to avoid her disapproving glare.

Several tense moments passed before Keala spoke, cutting through the thick silence. “Did either of you hit your head?”

“I don’t think so,” Ikaika mumbled.

Landon opted for humor in hopes of settling some of the building unease. “Nope. I couldn’t have, not with how Ik hit me across the chest.”

“So, to be clear, neither of you hit your head?”

“I didn’t,” Ikaika confirmed again.

“Me neither,” Landon responded quietly.

“Good. Do either of you have a headache?”

“No,” they answered in unison.

The next several minutes of the drive was spent with Keala calmly, if not tersely, assessing them for signs of shock, internal bleeding, or something equally insidious. She must have been satisfied with their answers, because by the time they arrived home and got into the elevator, her line of questioning had come to an end.

Once inside, Keala disappeared into her room. Landon sat beside Ikaika on the couch, his head hanging low. When she returned, she had a stethoscope, pen light, and blood pressure cuff.

“Landon, turn off the lights.”

He complied. She shined the pen light in Ikaika’s eyes with her hand split down the bridge of his nose, then did the same to Landon. He knew she was checking for a concussion, something he’d been assessed for many times after practices and games.

Next, she made quick work of inspecting Ikaika’s injuries. His knuckles had bruised but, unlike Landon’s, hadn’t split open.

When Keala finished, Landon looked away while she hugged her cousin tightly, murmuring something to him. Ikaika hadn’t spoken much since they’d left the scene of the crash, answering Keala’s questions with clipped responses. Landon couldn’t help wondering if his friend was upset with him. But maybe there was something more going on that Landon wasn’t privy to.

Chowder hadn’t left Ikaika’s side since they’d gotten home. He picked her up, said a quick good night, and went to his room, leaving Landon and Keala alone.

Landon stood, heading to the kitchen to avoid the conversation he’d been dreading all night. To his dismay, Keala followed him, carrying her things with her.

“Get comfortable.” She nodded toward the island, putting her hair up. As she washed her hands thoroughly and dried them with a paper towel, Landon hopped onto the counter. He tracked her movements, his spine rigid as he waited for her to yell at him. She refused to make eye contact, and all Landon could think was that the moment of truth was coming.

When she finally met his eyes, she said nothing. Like he had anticipated, he detected a level of disappointment mixed with something he couldn’t discern. Landon couldn’t imagine what she was thinking.

To break the tension, he joked, “Everything I touch turns to shit.”

Leaning back against the other counter beside the sink, she sighed. “Okay, reverse Midas.”

Was she joking? He couldn’t tell, but if there was a way for him to use humor to prevent the conversation from coming, he would. “I’m not sure the opposite of gold is shit.”

She pointed at him, her lips fighting to keep a frown on her face. “Don’t. Don’t you try to make me laugh when I’m upset with you.”

There it is .

“Why are you upset with me?”

Keala rolled her eyes. “Take your shirt off. I need to check for injuries.”

A joke was on the tip of Landon’s tongue, but he thought better of it as her glare grew more irate. He tried to brush off her request, unsure of how he would handle the confusing concoction of Keala both upset with him and flustered by his near nakedness. “Nah, I’m sure it’s nothing serious. Some bruising and a few scratches. My knees feel pretty banged up, but that’s the worst of it.”

When she crossed her arms, he shrugged, unbuttoning the linen shirt he’d put on after the game to expose the bruise on his chest. Keala took a couple of steps toward him, his legs on either side of her body. The bruise hadn’t fully bloomed, a faint reddish purple whose shape mimicked the strap of his seatbelt.

Her fingertips trailed over it gently, as if she didn’t realize what she was doing. Landon was acutely aware, goosebumps erupting in her wake.

“Why?” she murmured.

“Why what?” he whispered back, trying not to jump as her featherlight yet frigid fingers brushed over his chest.

Earnest eyes met his, and he was shocked by the concern in them. “I know why Ikaika acted the way he did today. Fighting and driving under the influence.” She dropped her gaze to his hands, where they rested in his lap. She grabbed them, inspecting his knuckles. “What’s your excuse?”

Her proximity was driving him crazy, the smell of vanilla lingering in the air between them. When he didn’t respond, Keala gathered her first-aid kit from below the sink. She cleaned her hands with hand sanitizer, then pulled out a packet with a pair of gloves. “Are you allergic to nitrile?”

“No.”

After setting gauze and other supplies onto the counter, she slipped her small hands into the blue rubber material. Busying herself, she sprayed his knuckles with a saline rinse, allowing it to sit for a few moments while she gathered pieces of gauze to wipe off the dried blood.

Landon’s lips contorted in pain, the rough fabric pulling at his skin despite how gentle she was being. Once clean and dry, she used a cotton-tipped applicator to swipe the wounds with petroleum jelly. She laid the gauze across one hand and peered up at him, catching his intent stare. He didn’t so much as blink, not wanting to miss a single moment of her so close to him.

“Hold here while I wrap,” she instructed. He listened, and she repeated the steps on his other hand.

Landon was desperate to avoid the question he’d ignored. Instead, he asked, “Why did Ikaika do it? Is something going on?”

Keala glanced up at him, her face only a few inches from his. Realizing that, she moved away, backing toward the freezer. She pulled the door open, grabbing two small ice packs and saran wrap from the drawer beside him, returning to her place between his thighs.

As she wrapped his hands with the ice, she spoke. “Ikaika’s sister passed away a few years ago. Six years ago today, actually.” Her eyebrows rose, like the number surprised her. Like she still felt the pain, the sadness, like it had happened yesterday. “He didn’t tell you?”

“No,” he answered quietly. He and Ikaika were as close as they could be for two people who didn’t talk about their feelings. He wished he had known.

She set his hands in his lap, her fingers brushing over his leg. Landon closed his eyes from the contact, reveling in the feel of her smooth skin against his.

“Sorry,” she said, seeming to shake a thought from her head. She told him how Ikaika’s sister had died in the third trimester of her pregnancy, recounting every detail as if she had been there for it all, her eyes glassy.

God, Landon was such an asshole. He’d had a fight with his dad and acted like a child; meanwhile, his best friend had been dealing with something so much worse.

He swallowed around the lump forming in his throat, choking out his next words. “I’m so sorry.”

Keala gave him a soft smile. “It was harder on Ikaika. He’d been sent to live with us for half of his childhood and then stayed on the mainland for college, so he spent a lot of time away from his family. I think he blames himself for being away, but a team of highly qualified medical professionals weren’t able to save her. There’s nothing he could have done.”

Landon sighed, looking down at his wrapped hands, numbing more by the minute.

“So, what’s your excuse?” she repeated faintly.

“Doesn’t matter. I shouldn’t have done it. If I had known what he was dealing with, I never would’ve…” He sighed again. He could have done better, been better for his friend today, had he known. He could have avoided his father’s taunting and focused his energy on Ikaika instead. Prevented the fight in the first place—the fight that had broken out as a result of Landon’s poor attitude and desire to see the good in his father even when he’d learned long ago he shouldn’t.

October third. He’d never forget it. He wouldn’t bring it up though. If the roles were reversed, he wouldn’t have wanted Ikaika to. And since his friend was even more emotionally reserved than him, he was sure it was for the best. Every year from now on, though, he would make sure he was there for his friend.

Keala studied him intently. Her eyes drifted over his features, and when he smiled, about to say something only a cocky asshole like him would, she held up a hand. “Don’t. Don’t be a dick. If you don’t want to be vulnerable with me, that’s fine. But don’t act like nothing’s wrong. That may work with Ikaika and everyone else in your life, but all it does is make me want to hit you.”

Landon blinked at her in a daze. No one had ever called him out for his behavior except Maya, and even she allowed him his humor. It was his coping mechanism when things got serious because he was sure no one wanted to see the side of him that had feelings. He’d built his entire life, his entire personality, around that fact.

And yet here she stood, an inch or two from the counter where he sat, between his knees, her chest heaving with emotion. He didn’t know if it was from anger or standing so close to him. What he did know was that he wanted her to stay there, maybe get closer, and he wanted to prove that he could let down some of the walls he’d spent so much of his life building up around himself.

“My dad called before the game. I always tell myself not to expect anything from his calls because, more often than not, it’s a ploy to pit me and my brother against each other. Or to make me feel badly about not being as good as Colton. But he never calls me before games, so I thought maybe he had…”

Landon flexed his right hand, grimacing at the twinge of pain he still felt despite the soothing numbness the ice provided. “It was dumb. It is dumb. Now that I know about Ikaika, I feel like such an idiot. My dad said some shit about how I’m a disappointment to him. That’s nothing new. In fact, it’s old news.” He shook his head. “I don’t know why I do it. I don’t know why I got pissed off and hit the guy. I think with him talking shit about me not being as good as Colton, it just pushed me over the edge when combined with everything my dad had said and all that I think about myself…”

Landon trailed off, realizing that not only was this his first time genuinely letting someone see the hidden, dark, and messy parts of himself, but he was telling her entirely too much. As a child, talking about emotions had, at best, ended in nothing changing for him. At worst, it’d ended with his father telling him how discouraging it was to have a son who was too emotional to focus on being the best he could be like his brother. And on the rare occasions Landon had spent time with his mother, it had been in the kitchen, relieving the stress of the day enough that he hadn’t felt the need to talk about his feelings.

He didn’t know why he’d said so much. He should have kept his mouth shut. Something about the way she’d been tending to him, or maybe it was the alcohol, made the confession feel easy. Like a breath of fresh air. Like walking out into the sun for the first time after being in the cold shade for too long. But Landon knew, right about now, Keala would back away slowly and say something about wishing he had stuck to being a dick.

To avoid that, he said, “I’m sorry for being an asshole today. I shouldn’t have gotten into a fight. I shouldn’t have let Ikaika join me. And I sure as shit shouldn’t have let him drive. I should have insisted we call a car.”

He held his breath, waiting for her to say good night. Knowing her opinion of him was probably getting worse.

Keala exhaled, and when Landon finally looked up at her, she was a step closer, breathing the same air as him. She pretended to examine the bruise on his chest again, but he knew there was nothing she could do but tell him to ice it.

“You’re not an asshole despite what I may have said. You’re human. You have good and bad days like everyone else. Being upset for how your father treated you is completely valid. Though, maybe you could refrain from punching people,” she joked, lips quirking up into a small smile. It dropped as she stepped back, pulling off the gloves and throwing them into the trash. “And maybe you should stop answering your dad. He sounds like an ass.”

Landon blinked. Then blinked again. Had he heard her correctly? Not only was she not confirming all of his greatest fears, but she was also validating his emotions in a way no one else had ever bothered to.

Maybe it wasn’t the feelings themselves that were a problem but who he expressed them to.

And maybe Maya was right. Maybe therapy would do him some good.

Something new, completely apart from disappointment, shone in her eyes, and he wanted to bottle it and keep it for later. Forever . He wanted whatever she was thinking about him in this moment to eclipse all the bad that she’d seen in him.

And, damn it, he wanted to kiss her again.

After washing her hands, she gravitated back to him, like she felt it too.

“You’re not mad at me?” he asked.

“I’m not happy with you. I wish Ikaika hadn’t been brought into either of the things that happened tonight because I know he’s going to regret it all tomorrow. Especially if anything comes out about the accident. It’ll devastate his parents, and that will devastate him.”

“It won’t come out. I’ll make sure of it.”

Her eyes bounced between his. “But no.” She paused. “I’m not mad at you. He’s a grown man and is accountable for his own actions. Neither of you had a good day, and while that’s not an excuse, it’s you two who will have to deal with the consequences.”

Landon nodded, gathering her hand in his. He had meant to give it a brief squeeze to thank her for what she’d done for him, but as if his hand had a mind of its own, he pulled her closer until she stood right against the counter. Her eyes, with that new emotion seeping into them, locked on his and held. Her chest heaved once more, and this time, he knew it was because of their proximity. He leaned forward an inch, eyes dropping to her lips, but he waited just a breath away, waited for her to make the move.

Her eyes closed, then flew back open a split second later. She took a step back before busying herself, tossing out the gauze packaging and double-checking there was nothing more she could do for Landon’s injuries. Landon felt a strange melancholy crawl through him, residing thickly in his throat at the loss of her. He smiled sadly as he watched her.

Nothing and no one had ever made him feel this way.

“I understand more than you know,” she murmured quietly as she worked. “About how hard it is to be overshadowed by a sibling.”

“You? The person who, according to Ikaika, does everything everyone wants all the time? Except for me, of course.” He grinned. “And who was, what? Second in her high school class and excelled in every avenue of school imaginable? Along with everything else he’s mentioned you’ve accomplished?”

And he had. It was clear how proud of her Ikaika was, and Landon certainly hadn’t minded learning more.

Her cheeks pinked, and she rolled her eyes. “He’s so silly. He just likes to hype me up. More than I deserve.”

“I highly doubt it’s more than you deserve.”

Keala put up the saran wrap and washed her hands. Landon wasn’t sure if she was moving around so much because she found talking about herself to be an agonizing task, but he was starting to think it was more likely she felt keeping herself busy was how she stayed relevant to others.

And that made his heart ache for her.

“My younger brother is a certified genius. Seriously. Nothing I ever did was good enough in comparison to him. And my parents were never hard on me because of it, but…my older brother, Nohea, was different. He was always getting into trouble, doing things he shouldn’t. Until, one day, he messed up so badly that my parents finally kicked him out of the house. I don’t even know what it was. One day, he was there, getting yelled at, the next, he was gone.” Her face took on a haunted look, shadowed and pale. Her freckles, which were quickly becoming Landon’s favorite constellation, contrasted strongly against her skin.

“I’d never seen my parents fight like that, the way they did when they were trying to figure out what to do about him. I did everything I could to make things easier. After Nohea was gone, my mom sobbed for weeks, and I know my dad struggled with it too. But I thought, you know, that I never wanted to be like that. Never wanted to do that to them. I wanted them to love me the way they loved Akoni, my younger brother, not Nohea. So yes. I know what it’s like to be overshadowed by my siblings.”

No wonder she seemed to always do what others expected of her. Still trying to make everyone’s life easier at the cost of her happiness.

“We really are two peas in a pod then, huh?” Landon asked, mostly joking, because Keala had gone down a different, much more productive path than he had.

They had come to entirely different realizations as children. He had decided that putting effort into anything was useless because he was never good enough, and she had worked herself to death just to try to get half of the attention she deserved. Were either of them happy with that? Was there a better way? A happy medium?

She smiled. “I wouldn’t go that far, but I do understand where you’re coming from. The difference is that you’re always on your worst behavior, acting out to get the attention you never did, and I put my head down, do everything everyone wants, and push myself so I can, at the very least, be on the same playing field as my brother.”

Keala had read his mind. She, who had known him for a little over a month, could read him so easily, knew him better than almost anyone else in his life. And though the last part of that sentence about pushing herself to be on the same playing field as her brother hadn’t been directed at him, it may as well have been a lance from her hand directly into his chest.

Her knowledge of him, her awareness, scared the shit out of him, because if she saw the demons warring inside of him…

Well, he couldn’t imagine she would want to stick around.

“So, the whole healthcare career…you’re doing that to earn your parents’ approval?” Ever since her confession at his apartment that first night, he’d wanted to untangle everything she had said, study her until he could make sense of the pieces she’d given him.

But, clearly, she was done sharing for the night because she scowled at him. “Good night, Landon.” She walked out of the kitchen but called over her shoulder, “Ice your chest.”