Page 69 of Landon & Shay: Part Two

No, screw that smile.

“Who told you I worked here?”

“Greyson might’ve let it slip by mistake.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out cash to pay for his coffee. “I figured maybe we could have an easy talk during your break.”

“I don’t get a break for an hour.”

“That’s fine by me. I’ll wait.”

“Don’t bother. I don’t want to talk to you.”

“But you said if you saw me again, we’d have an easy conversation.”

“I said if we crossed paths, which means in an organic fashion. There is nothing organic about you figuring out where I work and just showing up.”

“You didn’t make the organic part clear,” he mentioned. “Besides, I’m not big on organic things. Give me the bad stuff, and I’m all over it.” He lifted his coffee cup and nodded my direction. “I’m going to sit in that back corner until you change your mind.”

“You’re going to be sitting for a while, so make sure to buy something else later on. There’s nothing worse than a person who sits in the coffee shop for hours and hours and only orders a one dollar coffee.”

“Don’t worry.” He lifted a daily paper from the stack beside him and tucked it under his arm. “I have an endless addiction to coffee.”

As he spoke, people snapped pictures of him, reminding me once again that to me he was simply Landon, but to the rest of the world he was a star.

“Do you ever get sick of that?” I asked, nodding toward the individuals holding their cameras out.

“It’s a gift and a curse. I know I wouldn’t be able to live the life I do without them, but also I wish there was a way I could do what I love and still be anonymous.”

“Voice acting for the win.”

“I would’ve made a badass Shrek.” He nodded toward me. “Do you ever get sick of that?”

“Of what?”

“Pretending like you don’t want to at least have the conversation we should be having about us?”

Oh yeah. It’s a gift and a curse.

“There is no us.”

“Come on, Chick,” he said, his voice low and controlled. “Just an easy conversation.”

Butterflies. A swarm of stupid butterflies that didn’t belong anywhere near my stomach. Why did I have butterflies from him calling me Chick?

“Go away, Landon.”

“As you wish.”

But he didn’tleaveleave. He did exactly what he’d said he would do. He went and sat at a table and he began studying his newspaper as cameras ‘sneakily’ snapped photographs of him. It was so odd seeing the fame side of his life. It’s strange seeing people you grew up with in a different type of light.

I went back to work trying to shake off the idea of Landon sitting in the back of the shop. Wasn’t he a famous actor? Didn’t he have something better to be doing with his time?

Just when I was able to push him out of my head, someone I currently despised even more than him walked into the shop.

“Shay, hey. How are you?” Tina asked as she stood next in line like a freaking psychopath. Her eyes were filled with emotion, and she looked kind of pathetic.

The only thing that separated us was the tray of croissants and bagels.

She combed her hair behind her ears and glanced down to the ground before looking back to me. “I just wanted to come in here to apologize for the things that happened between Sam and me. We never expected you to find out.”

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