Desiring Dylan - Suzanne Jenkins Page 0,2

people you know. We’ll have a private bedroom and bathroom, though. He promised me that.”

She’d happily stay in a tent if we can get away for the weekend. Packing for it like she was going on a cruise, her expectations kept climbing higher and higher.

But when they got down there, her hopes were dashed. There were other couples; the only one Landon knew was Tina and Arvin. The others were all drinkers and partiers. Dylan got caught up in their ridiculous drinking games. On Saturday afternoon, one of the men got so drunk, he almost drowned, his girlfriend singing the blues while Dylan dragged him out of the surf over his shoulder.

Tina and the other women tried to get Landon to relax, but it was too much. She was left on her own, supposedly to do things with the women, while the men fished and drank and played poker. She should have stayed home.

But she didn’t complain, understanding it was his last hurrah, so to speak, that he was the one who was going to be working around the clock for the next two years. It was her own fault for waiting on him. She should have been coming to the beach with her friends all summer.

After that, she did exactly that. Every weekend during the month of June, she got together with her friends or her sisters or her coworker Sukey and headed for the Jersey Shore. It had the opposite effect on her, though. She wanted to be with Dylan. She missed him when she was trying to have fun. There didn’t seem to be a happy medium as long as they were a couple.

Sitting near the promenade, watching the ships go by on the Delaware River, she realized she’d come to the end of herself. The relationship was intolerable.

Joining up with their friends at the table, Arvin had a paper tray holding four plastic cups: wine for Tina, beer for Arvin and Dylan, and a margarita for Landon, light on the rum.

“Arvin always remembers what I drink.” She lifted her glass and clicked his.

“Don’t I?” Dylan asked.

“No, when we were at the shore house, you got her a screwdriver,” Tina said, laughing.

“I knew it was something with citrus fruit in it.”

“So! Monday’s your big day?” Arvin asked.

“Big day in the ER,” Dylan said. “I won’t be a resident any longer. Are you sick of me yet?”

“I’m sure you’ll try to push me around.”

“Ha! I promise I won’t. I still have a lot to learn.”

“How are you doing with all this, Landon?” Tina asked, trying to draw her into the conversation. “I remember how it was almost impossible to maintain a relationship when I was doing my residency, and it wasn’t as rigorous as Dylan’s.”

“Me too,” Arvin said. “I was up for a booty call, and that was it.”

His irreverence made Landon laugh, and then embarrassingly, she got emotional.

“How honest do you want me to be? I could say, yeah, it’s hard because he’s always busy, but that’s not all. Dylan isn’t serious about me. The weekend at the beach proved it. I felt like I was in a scene from Animal House.”

“Landon—” he objected.

“No. It’s true. In over two years, Dylan has never said I love you. What am I waiting around for? Friends keep telling me a guy like this will marry someone else when he’s finished busting his and everyone else’s balls after a residency. I don’t want that to happen. It feels like a huge risk.”

“Bro, do you love Landon?” Arvin asked.

Dylan looked at Landon sitting next to him, how beautiful she was, sexy, tall and raven haired, and full of energy, but he did not love her. Not at that moment. And it pissed him off that he was put on the spot like that by his friend. “I don’t even love myself right now,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

Looking away, the pain on her face was intense, and he was responsible for it. The hurt and betrayal he’d dished out was sure to backfire down the road.

But she didn’t overreact, shrugging her shoulders. “What are you sorry for? If I don’t do it for you, I don’t. There’s no getting around it.”

He didn’t love her, but it wasn’t because of anything she did. He was incapable of love for some reason, numb to everything but medicine.

“You do do it for me. You’re my perfect woman if I weren’t in this current situation.”

Arvin and Tina giggled when they saw how pleased that made Landon.

“I