Waited For You

I'll Tell You

       Joelle's P.O.V
    I picked that we go to a burger place instead of the high end restaurant we went to last time. It wasn't bad, but it just seemed like too much.
" Your easy to please," Landon smiles and I laugh.
      " You're just expensive," I laugh and he joins in.
" My mom is waiting on you to come over again," Landon claims and I smile.
" I'm becoming apart of the family," I gleam over to him and he's staring at me as I grab some fries from my plate.
" You shouldn't be so happy," he jokes and I laugh.
     " Everyone's family has its faults," I proclaim and he shrugs as he grabs his burger.
       " These are Heaven sent," he looks over to me in shock and I laugh a little.
      " Not every good food has to be 100 dollars a plate," I smile and he can't even laugh because he's so fascinated in the burger.
       " I haven't had one of these in ages," he explains and I look up to him trying to avoid the fact that it's so cute how intrigued he is right now.
      " Well then I picked the right place," I laugh and the waitress comes a little while later to bring the bill.
       " I'll get it," I say as Landon tried to grab the check, but he's just a lot quicker than me.
     " This isn't a date and you paid last time," I pour and he smiles to me before pulling out his wallet.
      " This experience was worth the money," he claims and I find no reason to argue.
       " I'm about to go back to my house and make root beer floats if you want to come," I ask and he shakes his head.
     " Sorry, you probably have to get back to work," I apologize and he shakes his head again.
      " You've never seen my house before, we've been friends for a while now," he states and I look up to him.
      " Landon, I am not sleeping with you," I proclaim and he laughs.
     " I just want you to see my house, nothing more, nothing less," he says with his hands up in surrender and I come closer to him.
      " I'm trusting you," I proclaim and his eyes are like fire burning into me.
      " As you should," he responds and we both go separate ways to our cars
    I trail him to this huge gated community with gates  the size of my apartment. Landon leads me up the stairs and inside, my mouth just falls open.
      " This is so nice, Landon I thought your moms house was nice, but this," I say looking around the main foyer and he smiles.
      " I work so much, it seems like I barely get to see it," he claims and I turn to him.
     " Tour," I ask and he nods as he leads me to all of the rooms. 
     He has a game room, theatre and indoor with attached outdoor pool. It's so nice and clean.
     " It's over done, I know. It's just when you're in this field, the lifestyle people see is apart of the reputation. They see the boss with a nice life, they feel like I can give that to them,"He shrugs and I nod.
      " As long as you can afford all this, it's nothing worth having to explain," I respond and he smiles with looking out his huge window.
     " I wish I brought my swimming suite, the pool looks so relaxing ," I say out loud and Landon turns quickly.
" Who uses swimsuits anymore," he smiles." The pool is private," he jokes and I turn to him.
" Next time, I'll just settle for a movie," I proclaim and he shrugs.
" Suit yourself ," he smiles and leads me to the theatre room.
" Do you have any snacks," I ask as we settle down to watch fifty first dates. He gets up and goes behind the bar, grabbing some Twizzlers and pop.
" Do you like these,"he asks and I nod as he sits back down. I watched the movie as it starts up but I can feel Landon's eyes watching me. His eyes are focused on me like I'm the movie and as it closes out I turn to look at him.
" you didn't watch any of it ," I proclaim and he smiles.
" I watched what's important," he smiles and I stare at him lightly.
" Do you care about hurting me," I ask, the question that has been floating around my head since I've met him and I didn't think I wanted an answer until the words came out of my mouth.
" What kind of question," he starts but I cut him off.
" You say you can't love me, but you seem to be doing everything in your power to make me think you can. If you don't want to be with me, I really would appreciate if you'd just stay my friend. My actual friend and nothing else," I claim and his expression is fading.
" I don't want to talk about this," he proclaims and I nod.
" I know you don't and I don't want to talk about a lot of things either, but I'm willing," I say to him lightly and he looks at the wall for a second.
" You're the person I'm going to tell, when I'm ready. I just , I can't. I can't talk about any of it, about her," he calls and I look at the ground.
      " If you can't talk, then I will," I look over and he scoots closer to me.
      " My mother was a drunk. I rarely saw her at home and when I did, I wish I didn't. She was losing her mind way before the alcohol and we all knew it. So when she left, my father and I went about things the same. We ignored the fact that she wasn't around and for a while ignoring the problem was okay. Until we started to face other problems. My dad burned his leg pretty bad at his job and was out of work for a while. When you become desperate you do dumb things. I met this guy who made sense at the time because he had money and I needed it. He also had anger and dominance issues that broke me. He almost made me give up on love, but I had to figure out that what he was showing me wasn't love," I call and his eyes are glinting but I know the tears would never come down.
      " I want you to feel loved, even if it's not with me," I whisper and he just stares into my eyes. He's thinking about her and I know how hard it is to fight the memories.
      " Joelle," he starts and I just hug him.
    " I don't want to hear about it until you're ready to tell me all of it," I say and we sit like that for a minute just trying to figure out where everything went wrong.