Page 54 of Landon & Shay: Part Two

“I get the feeling that you don’t mean that.”

She released a dry chuckle and moved to the table with the bottles of whiskey, where she poured herself a glass, tossing in two ice cubes before chugging it. “Why wouldn’t I mean it? We’re good, Landon. We’regreat.”

The way she said the world great with such emphasis made it clear as day that we weren’t great at all. “Then why have you been rolling your eyes at me all night?”

“You’re delusional. I haven’t been rolling my eyes at you all night.”

“Yes, you have. Even Greyson noticed it.”

She shook her head. “I hate to break it to you, but you’re wrong. It’s all in your head, and I’m sure you just put those thoughts in Greyson’s too. I told you, we’re good.”

“Yes, right. Cool as a cucumber, right?”

“Exactly,” she said, turning away from me slightly and giving the biggest eyeroll yet.

“See! That! Right there! Shay what the fuck is that?!”

“Oh my gosh, Landon.” She groaned. “Let it go.”

“I can’t, Shay. I can’t, because it’s clear that you’re irritated by me right now.”

She sighed and placed her glass down on the table. She tossed her hands in the air. “Okay, Landon what do you want? Obviously, you’re not okay with us keeping it simple, so what do you want from me? You want me to cry like a pathetic little girl, because you broke my heart all those years ago? You want me to fall apart and grovel at your expensive shoes and beg for you to love me again?” she barked, all the coolest of her cucumber completely gone. “Well, too bad, because I left you in my past, and I’m happy now, okay? I’m happy.”

My brows lowered. “I’m glad you’re happy, Shay.”

“No, you’re not,” she countered. Her brown eyes looked up to my blues, and she shook her head. “I bet you were hoping I wouldn’t be happy,” she murmured, her eyes glassy. I wasn’t sure if the glassiness came from the whiskey or from her emotions. Either way, there was nothing sarcastic and light about the situation in front of me.

“I would never want you to be unhappy, Shay.”

“Then why did you leave?” she snapped. The words came out so raw I almost thought I’d imagined them, but the pained expression in her eyes told me I’d heard her correctly. I parted my lips to reply, but she shook her head. “Don’t answer that. I didn’t mean that. I don’t want to know.”

“I can, Shay. I can try to explain, at least.”

“No. I refuse to be how we were before, dramatic and heavy. Nothing heavy.”

I took a few steps toward her. “We can be heavy for a minute. There’s a lot of history between us.”

“Yes, exactly. History—past tense. Besides, I’m over it. I’m over you. Everything’s fine.”

I frowned, finally seeing the reactions coming from her that I thought would appear. I slid my hands into my pockets and took a step forward. The closer I grew to her, the more tense she became.

“Dammit, Landon, will you stop walking toward me?”

“I can’t help it, Shay. I just want to be near you after not for so long.”

“And whose fault was that?”

“Mine,” I admitted. “Everything that went wrong with us was because of me, and I want to make up for that.”

“Stop saying that kind of crap,” she ordered. “You can’t just show up and start saying that kind of stuff, because you’ll make me say something, too.”

“Like what?” I asked. I needed to know. I needed to know what was on her mind, and where her thoughts for me were residing. “What would you say?”

She had to be feeling it. She had to be feeling the strong connection between us, the magnetic pull that we’d always had whenever we were near one another. Never in my life had I felt a link as strong as the one I’d had with Shay.

The words that left her mouth weren’t what I was expecting to hear. I didn’t know what I was looking for, or more so hoping for, but what she gave me felt like a knife through the heart.

“I hate you, Landon.”

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