Landon's Obsession: An Endless Series: Book 3 (Series 3) (18 page)

     Maya had left her car at Gabby’s house and then rode
over with her and her girl’s boyfriend. We’d met up at a nearby fuel station
where Maya had switched to my car. Now Gabby and her boyfriend were following behind
us.

     At the fuel station Gabby had walked Maya over in the
guise of getting directions, but I knew it was to check me out. I’d done the
same to her. She was a little Mexican girl, though not as little as Maya, maybe
five-five. She had shoulder length brown hair with red highlight, and was a
little on the plump side, but not overly heavy. She was cute, but not a great
beauty, not like Maya, but then I was beginning to notice that no one came
close to her.   

     “We’ve been friends for six years, ever since I moved
here from Charlottesville. I’d like to say we’ve been inseparable, but ever
since she started dating Lon two years ago I barely get to see her any more…at
least alone. Those two are joined at the hip.” She rolled her eyes. “Lon’s not
bad though. He’s two years older than her, and if you ever need to score some
pot he can head you in the right direction.”

     My head swiveled her way in shock, but I redirected my
gaze back to the road. “You smoke weed?” I smoked pot every now and then, and
only during off season, but I couldn’t imagine her smoking it. I mean, she
barely drank alcohol.

     “I tried it a few times at Lon’s house with just the
two of them…” Maya grinned. “And Gabby I became giggling fools. But then I
tried it once and went dancing and I completely freaked out. I became paranoid
and thought everyone was staring at me and knew what I’d done. After that I
kind of lost my taste for it.”

     I shook my head. “For some reason I can’t imagine you
doing something illegal like that. You seem too sweet.”

     She laughed. “I drank at that party and that was
illegal.”

     “Yeah, but pots like, really illegal.”

     “Well, if my kids ever ask me if I tried it I can tell
them I did, but then I can say that it only made me paranoid and not to bother
trying it themselves.”

     “Is that the only drug you’ve tried?” I asked
curiously. I felt like I was suddenly learning about a whole different person.

     “Yeah, I’ve had no desire to try anything else. A
couple of my friends have tried acid, but I wasn’t in any way interested. I
really don’t like to feel out of control, that’s why I don’t drink too much.
What about you? What’s your drug history?” She threw some raised eyebrows my
way.

     “The only thing I’ve done is pot, as well, but because
of lacrosse and drug testing I have to be careful when I do it. I feel the same
concerning the other drugs, except for the alcohol. I have no problem getting completely
plastered every now and then.” I grinned.

     Hearing this new information about Maya was extremely
enlightening. Besides drinking that one night I was beginning to think Maya was
a bit of a goody-two-shoes. That she was hadn’t bothered me because I hadn’t
seen her be judgy with anyone, but hearing that she’d tried marijuana told me
that she was interested in trying new things, but had a limit of what she would
do.

     It made me wonder what other things I could get her to
experiment with.  

     “To each his own on the alcohol thing. If you want to
puke your guts out and wake up with a hangover, that’s all on you. I am glad to
hear you don’t do those hard drugs though. They’re not good for you.” She
smiled, flushing.

     “No they’re not, especially when you do sports like we
do.”

     Silence encased the car for a few minutes and a
question drifted into my head that I’d been wondering about but hadn’t yet
asked. “Maya, can I ask you something?”

     “Sure.” She sounded slightly hesitant, probably because
of my serious tone.

     “You talk about your mother, but you’ve never mentioned
your father. Why is that?”

     There was a deep inhale and then forceful exhale from
the seat next to me. She didn’t answer me right away, but she didn’t tell me to
mind my own business either, so I decided to wait patiently. And it paid off.  

     “Mama got pregnant at eighteen and when the guy found
out he didn’t want to have anything else to do with her.” I couldn’t tell if
the emotion I heard in her voice was anger or hurt, or a little of both. Most
likely both.

     “That kind of sucks…for both of you.”

     “I never knew him so I could care less.” I wasn’t
certain I believed those words of hers; her tone was too tight and strained. “But
mama still carries around a lot of hurt and resentment because of what he did.
Remember that conversation you eavesdropped on, and that name you overheard?”

     “Tony…that’s your father?”

     “That’s the name of my sperm donor.” She stated firmly.
“Tony’s the reason my mama doesn’t want me anywhere near you.”

     I jerked my head toward her in bewilderment. “And how
does that work?”

     A received a twisted smile before turning my attention
back to the road. “Let me go back a bit. My mama didn’t have many prospects when
she graduated high school. My grandmother was a housekeeper for this really
wealthy family in Greenville, North Carolina and made pretty good money, but
she had three children and my grandfather had died when my mama was eleven so
there was only one income coming in for four people. There was no extra money
for my mama to go to a good college. She wanted to take some business courses
at a smaller college so she was hoping to find a job where she could save up
some money. My grandmother, with the help of that family she worked for, was
able to find a really good position for my mama as a sort of maid slash housekeeper
apprentice in another family’s home. That housekeeper was going to be retiring
in a year or two and when she did my mama would be able to take over for her. Well,
this family had a nineteen year old son.”

     I instantly knew where this story was going.

     “To make a long story short; the son pursued my mama,
she fell in love, thought he loved her, but when she found out she was pregnant
he and the family kicked her to the curb.” Maya’s voice was hard for the first
time in definite anger…for her mother or her?

     My first thought was that Maya’s mom had been looking
for a free ride, my cynicism was too ingrained to stop it, but the guy was still
a complete fuckwad for abandoning his child. Was Maya angry that her rich
father wasn’t supporting her, bitter that she’d missed out on having a wealthy
upbringing? She never acted like it, but how could she not be somewhat
resentful? 

     Maya continued. “My mama’s never told me what any of
them actually said to her, but from what she has revealed I think his parent’s
rejected her because of her station and maybe me for my ethnicity. They were
fine with black servants, but they didn’t want any black grandbabies.”

     I gaped. “Are you shitting me?” Indescribable fury
filled me on her behalf.
Prejudiced cocksucking assholes
!

     “It affected my mama, their behavior and rejection.
That’s why she said what she did about us being different in more than one way.
But I don’t want to think that way. I know other people do, I can’t do anything
about them, but I can control how I view people. To me people are people.
Whether you have money or don’t have money, or if you have brown skin or white
skin, or are Indian, some of them are nice and some of them aren’t. I’m not
going to put up a wall and expect certain people to act a certain way. I could
really miss out of meeting someone really exceptional if I did.”

     And there she went again, blowing my mind with
something deep and profound. She might not be a goody-two-shoes, but she was edging
in on being a saint…with some naughty tendencies.

     Her comment about meeting someone exceptional made me
wonder if she meant me. A warm feeling washed through my chest that she
was
talking about me, but suspect also washed through me because the only thing
exceptional about me was my wealth.

     Both feelings merged together to form disgruntlement,
but I kept it in check. I didn’t want to have these feelings of doubt, but I
was unable to stop them.

     “Thank you for trusting me with your life story, Maya,
and for trusting me with you.” Her cheeks pinked as I stressed ‘
you’
. “I
think whoever this guy was, if he were to ever meet you, he’d be kicking his own
ass for missing out of knowing you…him and his douche bag parent’s.”

     She gave a self-conscious shrug looking out her window.
“I don’t care what any of them think. I never knew them, and you really can’t
miss what you haven’t had. You know…I hear stories about how other fatherless
or adopted children have this uncontrollable need to find their biological
parent’s to find out ‘why’, but I don’t have that need. Maybe my mama loved me
enough that the need never had a chance to take root.”

     Yet again, ingrained doubt washed through me, and once
more I pushed it aside and asked curiously. “Not even when you were a child?”

     “That doesn’t count.” She uttered gruffly, still not
looking at me when I wished she would. “As children we’re ruled by emotions and
hate feeling different from than those around us. I was a child without a
father when so many of my friends had a father.” She left it at that; not
divulging her actual deep seated needs which I’m certain as a child had been
heartrending. No child wants to think that a parent didn’t love them.

     Unable to help myself I reached over taking her hand,
enfolding it in mine. I’d been doing that a lot during the last few weeks. However,
I tried not to over examine why I felt the need to touch her constantly.

     Maya finally turned to look at me. Her eyes looked
slightly over bright and sad, but I didn’t see any actual tears. Not caring for
the sadness in her eyes I decided it was time to change the subject.

     “Can I ask you something else?”

     “Sure.” She huffed like ‘what else could you possibly
ask me’.

     “Did you bring a bikini or a one-piece?”

     Her eyes widened in surprise, but then she shook her
head with a grin and watching that sadness fade felt tremendous. I did that.

     “I’m not telling. It’s going to have to be a surprise.”

     I complained for five minutes about that, and then we
moved on to other light hearted, random topics for the rest of two hour drive.
By the time I pulled up to the beach house Maya and I were fighting over a song.
Some kind of boy band song had come on and I had wanted to change the station,
but Maya had stopped me. I’d groaned in disbelief that she’d liked that shit,
but she’d told me to get over my jealousy, and then she’d laughed at my
revolted expression.

     Like I was jealous of those dickless asshats.

     Punching in the security code to get in the gate I
drove down the drive and parked in front of the garage.

     Maya looked up at the house, mouth gaping. “Holy crap,
this place is amazing…and huge! You said fifty people could sleep here, but I think
you under exaggerated.” She looked around and frowned. “I don’t see any other
cars. Are we the first ones here?”

     “Yeah, everyone else will probably be another hour.”
Shutting off the engine I opened the door and climbed out waving forward
Gabby’s boyfriend to park next to me.

     Maya jumped out and looked over the hood at me. “How
are we going to get in? Did someone give you a key?”

     I realized suddenly that I hadn’t told Maya we were
staying at my family’s beach house. Before I could tell her, Maya’s friend,
Gabby jumped out of the car she was in and ran over to Maya squealing. “Oh. My.
God. Maya! This place is freaking awesome! Thank you so much for inviting us.”

     Maya turned with a smile. “Don’t thank me, thank
Landon.”

     Gabby turned her smile my way and I noticed her average
features became less average. “Thank you for inviting us, Landon.”

     “Any friend of Maya’s.” I quoted. Gabby’s boyfriend
stepped up next to her and I stepped forward to shake his hand. “Hey, I’m
Landon.”

     “Lon.” With a short nod and a quick handshake he
stepped back, observing me guardedly. The guy was about six foot and was bulky
with muscle, like weightlifter muscle. He was Mexican, the same as Gabby, had tattoos
on both his arms, wore his hair in a short buzz-cut, and had hard, rough
looking features.

     Nothing cute about this guy. He looked hard-nosed to
Gabby’s button-nose cute. I didn’t want to stereotype, but thoughts of gang
affiliation flashed in my head.

     I turned and popped the lock on my trunk. “Grab your
bags and let’s go inside. Since we are the first ones here you guys get first
pick of bedrooms.”

     Maya moved in next to me and mumbled under her breath.
“Is that going to be okay with whoever owns the house?”

     Grabbing both our bags I shut the trunk and turned to
smile down at her. “Since I own it I say it will be fine.”

     Her mouth gaped again. “Landon! I can’t believe you
didn’t tell me.” She looked back at the house, rolled her eyes, and shook her
head. “You know, this doesn’t help the whole Maya and Landon thing.” She said
pointing her finger between the two of us.

     Leaning forward to whisper in her ear I brushed my
cheek against hers, inhaling her scent. “Keep trying though, because I’m liking
it.”

     “Okay.” She pressed her cheek into mine and her breath
blew into my ear causing shivers of arousal up and down my spine.

     Pulling back I watched her eyes flare as she observed
the heated desire I knew blazed from mine. She flushed, and her gaze moved down
to my lips. I was positive she about to lean forward and kiss me, making this
the first time she would take the initiative, and I waited with baited breath.

     “Maya! I would love to see you making out since you are
always a voyeur to Lon and me kissing, but from the way you two are looking at
each it may go further than a simple kiss, and I don’t want to stand out here
all day.” Gabby chortled.