Page 20 of Don't Look Down
Skysthelimit: Sorry, boo. Hold that thought. Gotta get back to it, but I’ll hop on for a bit tonight. Maybe in about two hours if you’re able to join. Mwah!
I close the app and lock my phone without waiting for a response. Not with B watching me so closely. I was gone way too long, and I have patients to check on. Where was my head? Jesus.
I exhale to release the remaining nerves, letting out the tension that still fills me. Funny enough, it’s a little too easy to let it all go.
Maybe I’m not all that tense anymore after all. Landon should copyright that shit, because he can work magic.
The Landon Effect has a nice ring to it.
When I enter Mr. Vargas’s room for the last time this shift, there’s a small smile gracing my lips.
5
Skylar
The next morning, it’s earlier than I intended when I wake up. Which is the norm for me, but I’d hoped to sleep in at least a little after such a late night. After I’d gotten home, Landon and I spent way too long online. We’d talked more than we played, but the hours flew by unnoticed.
He’d gently encouraged me to vent about Mr. Vargas, and it had all spilled out. I try not to bring work home with me, but I care too much. Each patient’s care is personal. I treat them how I’d treat a member of my family. With my whole heart. I’m doing everything I can to help him, but it still doesn’t feel like enough.
Landon shared a little about his own experience losing his grandmother during his final year of college. She’d wasted away from the catastrophic effects of the cancer that ravaged her body. And her mind. He’d talked about how he and his family had to watch her forget everyone she knew. Forget herself. My eyes welled with tears at the pain in his voice.
As I lie in bed this morning, remembering our conversation, my stomach twists itself into knots. I can’t even imagine losingmy own abuela like that. Let alone at all. It makes me queasy. Death comes for all of us at some point, but that doesn’t make it any easier to think about.
It’s the thought of unexpected death that motivates me to live my life balls to the wall. I live my life as much as I possibly can, while I can. Like each day could be my last. Because it just might be.
Landon trusted me enough to share with me, and it warmed my heart, but the heaviness was suffocating. The conversation had lightened after that, thank god. He’d talked about going to dinner with his mom and catching up with her. It’s adorable they’re so close. He’s not ashamed to be a momma’s boy. So sexy.
Wait. What?
It’s not sexy. It’s cute. So, so cute.
He enjoyed my random science facts, but he seems to truly appreciate my nerd jokes. They’re my favorite.
“I’m reading this great book about gravity.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“It’s so great, I can’t put it down.”
“Oh, Christ, I’m embarrassed to say I wasn’t expecting that. I thought you were being serious.”
He laughed with me. All signs of our heavy conversation well and truly evaporated.
We’d successfully avoided the subject of his job. I’d wanted to prysobad, but I refrained. We had plenty of other topics to discuss.
It was well after midnight when exhaustion won out. Landon couldn’t hold back his yawns anymore.
I really enjoy talking to him. There’s an ease about everything with him that I’ve never experienced before. Not even with Addy or Cayden.
And it doesn’t hurt that his voice is so goddamn sexy.
With every passing hour, it had deepened into a sleepy, sexy-as-hell rasp. Not gonna lie, it did something to me. My dick was half hard just from his voice alone. That rasp tickled along my nerve endings and made goosebumps pop up along the skin of my neck. Like he was speaking directly into my ear.
His raspy voice replays in my head and my morning wood twitches. I groan as it lengthens against my thigh. Ugh, if I’m getting hard just from remembering his voice, it’s definitely time for some action. Reaching into my underwear, I gently squeeze my cock, enjoying the sensation. Plumping up to full mast. Ignoring the fact that I’m hard from just the memory of Landon’s voice.
I don’t even know what he looks like. And we’re just friends.
There was a time when I’d hook up every other weekend, if not more. But the thrill of hookups has dwindled. And quite frankly, they just don’t excite me anymore. Call me crazy, but I cringe at the thought.