CEREAL DATER (The Way To A Man's Heart Book 13) by Frankie Love (people reading books .txt) 📕

And I mean hate me. Not to mention everyone else back up in that place – everyone else who looks at me out of the corners of their eyes, as though they’re trying to work out what I am doing here.

Hell, I am not even sure right now. I want to be with him, I know that, but that world – it’s not something I can cope with. All that money, all that pressure to look and act a certain way. And his parents reacting to me as though I just shot the officiant for the wedding right in front of them, it would almost have been funny if it wasn’t so hurtful.

If this is the life that Landon wants, that he lives, I know I can’t do it with him. I think back to the café, and I wonder if I would have been better off staying there after all. I take another sip of the wine that I managed to get out of the rehearsal dinner. At least the booze is good...

"Lucky?”

I glance over my shoulder, and to my surprise, see Landon standing there at the top of the path that leads down to the beach. I smile at him, a little sadly.

"Hey."

"Can I join you?”

"If you don’t mind wrecking your suit..."

"I don’t," he replies at once, and he plants himself down in the sand beside me, his hand just behind the small of my back. Even now, I can feel the heat of it burning against me, and I want nothing more than to shift over and snuggle myself into his arms.

"Some party, huh?” I remark flippantly. He shakes his head.

"Fuck them," he replies, and the vehemence in his voice catches me off-guard. I furrow my brow at him.

"What did you say?”

"I said, fuck them," he repeats himself. "If they don’t even have the respect to treat you like a real person, I don’t want anything to do with them."

"Landon, it’s your sister’s wedding," I remind him. "You don’t have to take a stand because of me–"

"I want to," he replies, and he slides his hand over mine in the sand, the shape of our fingers marking the damp earth below us.

"Really?" I murmur.

He nods. "It has gone on long enough," he replies. "I have put up with it for a long time, I just – couldn't see it until now. Until I saw how they spoke to you. I’m sorry you had to put up with that. Nobody deserves to be treated that way, just because they come from a different world than you."

"Agreed," I whisper in return.

"And all they want is for me to be with that woman that they picked out for me," he continued. "I don’t know shit about her, but they’ve decided that she’s right, and I – I can’t go along with that. Not when I feel this with you."

"You feel it, too?” I breathe. He turns to me, some of the moonlight that is glancing off the water catching the lines in his face. He looks older than he did before. But still just as handsome. More handsome, even. He is a real man, who knows what he wants, and God, that is sexy.

"It’s why we’re leaving, tomorrow," he tells me. "I don’t want to sit through this farce. I want something real. And I don’t want to have to pretend anything else for another moment."

He catches my hand and brings it to his lips, plants a kiss against the back of it. Even though I’m smiling, I feel a wash of emotion catch me off-guard, and it’s not until he turns to me and sees the tears in my eyes that he realizes.

"What’s wrong?" he asks, worriedly, stroking my face and brushing away a tear with his thumb. I shake my head.

"Nothing," I murmur. "It’s just... it’s been a long time since someone made a sacrifice like that for me. It means a lot. Especially since..." I trail off. I don’t want to dump this all on him. This trip was meant to be fun. But he cups my face in his hand, and I know that I can tell him the truth.

"Especially since what?"

I take a deep breath. I know that I need to tell him the truth.

"I lost my parents," I confess. "Earlier this year. And God, it feels like it just ripped me apart. Both of them, gone in a car accident, just like that."

"I’m so sorry," he murmurs, and I shake my head.

"It’s why I opened the café," I explain. "Because when I was a kid – well, we never had much money, but my dad would bring home this ridiculous sugary cereal every Saturday morning, and we would all hang out on the couch and watch cartoons together, and it was... it was my happy place, really. I want to keep that alive. It’s why I didn’t want to leave the café, because if I fail at that, I feel like my last connection to them will be gone."

"That’s not true," he tells me at once. "You guys loved each other. Still love each other. You know how precious that is? To just have those moments like that, know that you were cared for by people who really wanted the best for you?”

"I think I’m starting to," I reply, and I kiss the center of his palm. "I can’t imagine how it must have been for you, being stuck with those – with people who just wanted to use you for what they needed."

"And you never will," he replies. "We’re leaving. And you can get back to that café of yours. I want to hear all the stories you have about your parents, all right? Everything you remember from them, everything you don’t want to forget."

"Thank you," I say back. It feels like far too small a sentence for everything that I am trying to say to him, but he understands me, and that is all that matters.

And, as he gazes into my eyes,