Page 92 of Landon & Shay: Part Two

Anytime, brown eyes.

Anytime.

“But just to be clear, this doesn’t mean I don’t still hate you, because I do,” she said, with a sparkle in her eyes.

“Of course. I hate you, too.”

She smiled, because she knew it was a lie.

I could never hate her, even if I tried.

* * *

“I wishedI had a guy who was so into me that he’d get me a job on a set of a major motion feature,” Willow remarked as we sat in my trailer later that afternoon.

She was typing nonstop, probably updating my social media, as I bit into the sandwich she’d brought for me. “It’s not that big of a deal,” I said, shrugging it off. “She deserved it.”

“And you deserve her.” Willow smiled, looking up from her phone. “I’ve worked for you for a very long time, Landon, and never in my life have I seen you look at anyone the way you look at Shay. Why don’t you give it another go with her?”

I laughed. As if it were that easy. “You know the story, Willow. Shay and my story didn’t end on the best of terms.”

“Maybe that wasn’t the ending,” she disagreed. “Maybe that was just the middle. Why would the universe bring you back together if you weren’t meant to finish your story?”

A torch of fire raced through me. “You’ve been hanging around Sarah and her hippie-dippie persona too much with your talk about the universe bringing people together.”

“All I’m saying is, if I had something that made me as happy as she appears to make you, I wouldn’t let it go.” She walked over and snatched my pickle from the sandwich container. “People don’t get second chances at love, Landon. Don’t blow yours.”

* * *

The following Sunday,I headed over to Maria’s for dinner, fully prepared to have my mind blown by her lasagna. I missed her homecooked meals so much, but not as much as I missed our Sundays together. For a long part of my life, those Sunday dinners saved me from falling too deep into my depression. Maria hadn’t known how much of a lifeline she’d been for me during my darkest days.

“Is it just me, or does it smell like heaven in here?” I remarked as Maria opened her apartment door for me. I held a bottle of red wine in my grip and held it out to her. “I’m sure you already had a drink picked out, but I figured it would be rude to not show up with a bottle.”

“Oh, this looks fancy. It will go great with everything. Thank you. Now come in, come in, make yourself at home.”

I did as she said, taking off my shoes as I walked inside.

Maria’s home felt so welcoming, just like the woman who lived inside of it.

“Shay and Camila should be on their way soon enough,” she explained. “One or both are always running behind.”

“Did you tell them I was joining you all?”

“I figured it would be a nice surprise,” she said, heading back to the kitchen to finish preparing the meal.

Oh boy. I wasn’t sure how either of the two were going to take to me joining their dinner party. It was no secret that Camila wasn’t my biggest fan when I was a teenager, and I was certain she’d hated me even more after things went south with Shay. I wouldn’t hold it against her if she hated me completely.

Then there was Shay. Sure, we’d spent the past few days on set together, but I wasn’t certain we were to the point of having Sunday dinners with one another. She was letting me in a little at a time, and I didn’t feel right crashing into her world too much. I wanted to work my way back in, but I didn’t want to seem desperate—even though I was. I wanted her back in my life to the extreme, but I also knew I didn’t want to scare her off at all.

“I put out a photo album on the living room table if you want to give it a flip through it to see some adorable photographs of Shay while I finish setting the table.”

Don’t mind if I do.

I hurried to the couch and picked up the album. As I began flipping through it, the widest smile in the world fell to my lips as I studied a young Shay, riding a pony. She looked absolutely terrified by the whole situation, which made the picture that much better. The next one was an awful elementary school photograph with her hair in two messy pigtails. I couldn’t help but snicker at the sight of it. Even though it was a bad, bad picture, it was so perfect.

She was an adorable kid.

I used to wonder what she looked like as a child, and wonder what our kids would look like if we had any.

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