480 Hours

10 | Today

Maggie Bailey

The call ended up taking far longer than I had anticipated, especially for how late at night it was. My client could not decide on a color scheme for their logo and instead insisted on leaving it up to "artists interpretation," which only made my job that much more difficult. When I had left Landon and my brother alone in the living room, I had not expected to be absent for more than a few minutes. So when business pulled me away for over a half an hour I figured it was safe to leave the two together since they had been friends for years. I was wrong.

Dead wrong.

Liam knew about Landon and I, and he made sure Landon felt like an idiot for not telling him; which meant Liam was sure to give me an earful in the morning. I was definitely not afraid of my brother, but when he got to yelling, he didn't stop; especially when he was disappointed.

However, with the still warm sand from the setting sun between my toes and Landon's cool and calloused hand in my own petite one, all of the anxiety I had about talking with my brother about a boy vanished. Landon and I did not have long together and for the first time in my life I actually wanted to live in the moment.

"So he knows, at least now we don't have to hide it, right?" Landon looked down at me in response as the light from the full moon above reflected off of his beautiful ocean blue eyes. Instantly, I felt at ease and melted into his touch when he stopped our slow stride and loosely wrapped his muscular arms around my midriff.

For the millionth time since we had met, I noticed just how much bigger than me he truly was. "You're right, now we don't have to hide anything from the one person we both know." He laughed, then slowly leaned down and placed a soft kiss to my lips.

Silently, we walked together hand in hand with Duke pushing his way between our bodies every few minutes. Annoyed, Landon eventually came upon a washed up piece of driftwood and threw it as far off into the distance as he could. Duke eagerly ran after it like he could not help but allow his natural dog instinct to take over, leaving me alone with Landon.

Silence was a thing I had never really enjoyed; with silence came the daunting thoughts that I had been pushing out of my mind for years. Yet, as Landon and I walked in silence, I found my thoughts to be the most peaceful they had been in nearly a decade. I was at peace in the presence of a man I never thought I would meet.

A man who saw me for me.

"Hey, so, okay, I have a dumb question to ask you. Please, feel free to say no." I knew asking him was a stupid idea, but I really liked him and wanted him to be apart of my life, which meant he needed to be apart of every aspect of my life.

He pulled away slightly which allowed just enough room for Duke to squeeze his way in between us yet again. "Calm down, mutt, I'm not hurting her." He gave the oversized, dopey dog a pat on the head before insisting I continue speaking.

"Okay, again please feel free to say no, but my best friend from college throws this massive party every year for Halloween and she wants me to make the trip to GSU again this year so I can go. I am usually not a drinker, nor a partier, but I have not seen her in almost six months and well...I was wondering if you might want to come with me?" Instantly I regretted asking him to come with me and I knew when he responded and my face dropped, he could tell I was disappointed.

"This is actually on Halloween night?" His beautiful blue eyes were now staring daggers into my soul.

"Yes. Trust me, I don't want you to miss out on any time you have left with your mother. I know visiting hours at the hospital end at eight, so we could leave after. We would just show up to the party late. I promise we would be back before visiting hours the next morning."