Page 93 of Landon & Shay: Part Two

As I flipped through the photos, the doorbell rang, and Maria hurried to let the new arrivals in. My head was down as I heard a voice piercing through the air.

“OH MY GOSH LOOK AT THIS PLACE! IT’S SO QUAINT!” the woman expressed, her voice rocking through the apartment.

The moment I heard the sound, I knew exactly who it was coming from. What I didn’t know was why that voice was in Maria’s home.

I stood from the couch and turned around to see Sarah standing there, wide-eyed and bushytailed. Shay walked in after her, and confusion swirled in my stomach as I took in the situation.

The moment the two women looked up in my direction, shock hit both of them.

“Oh my gosh, Landon, what are you doing here?” Sarah gleamed, shooting over to give me a hug.

I hugged her quick and dropped my embrace quickly. “Maria invited me over for dinner a few days ago.”

“Really?” Shay asked, eyeing her grandmother. “That’s funny, she hadn’t mentioned it to me.”

“The same way you didn’t mention you were bringing a friend,” Maria shot back at her granddaughter before giving her a kiss on the cheek. “But the more the merrier I always say.”

“I hope it’s all right?” Sarah asked. “I was supposed to fly out to New York, but my flight was canceled due to the weather, so I would’ve been stuck in the hotel for the evening. Shay was going on about how she always spent Sunday’s at your house, and the way she went on and on about your cooking just made me want to invite myself over.” She eyed me up and down. “It’s even better now that there’s a surprise guest.”

Shay’s phone went off, and she was quick to answer the message that came through. “It seems Mom is running late. Bella chewed through her favorite pair of shoes, so she said they’d be late.”

“And she thought a dog would be better than a man,” Maria remarked, making me raise an eyebrow, but I wouldn’t question the question. That seemed right up there on the ‘none of my damn business’ category.

“Well, we’ll set a spot at the table once she and Bella show up,” Maria said. “For now, let’s all go sit to eat before the food gets cold.”

We all did as she said, and as she went around the room serving each one of us, she smiled toward Sarah. “So, Sarah. You’re an actor, too?”

“Yes. I’ve been in the business since I was four years old. I come from a family of artists. We’ve all been in the film world, dating back to my great-great grandfather. Oh,” Sarah held her hand up in front of Maria right before she was about to put the food on her plate. “I’m sorry, is there pasta in that?”

Maria raised an eyebrow. “Are you asking if there’s pasta in lasagna?”

“Yes, sorry. I should’ve mentioned I’m working on being low carb. I can’t have noodles of any kind.” She smiled brightly at Maria. “Do you have any pieces that are a bit less noodle-y?”

The blank stare Maria gave to Sarah almost made me burst out in laughter. Shay had to turn away to hide her chuckles.

Maria was her calm, sweet self and said, “I can pick the noodles out for you.”

What a waste of a perfectly great piece of lasagna.

As we all began to eat, the conversation took a minute to take off. It would’ve been better if Sarah wasn’t there, but it felt as if there was a roadblock keeping me from connecting with Maria and Shay. It was a shame, because I was truly looking forward to the chance to reconnect.

Instead, we were listening to Sarah go on and on about crystals and how it was so important to charge them out in the moonlight, or something along those lines. If I were honest, I’d zoned out when she began telling the differences between quartz crystals.

“Anyway, I’m interested to know more about my costar as a teenager,” Sarah said, nudging me with her arm and breaking me out of my thoughts. Thoughts that had been solely on Shay. She looked over to Shay with wonderment. “What was he like in high school?”

I snickered, grabbing yet another slice of lasagna. “You don’t want to be bored with those details. Trust me.”

“Oh, but I do. I love learning more about my costars. Years before, you were so wrapped up with your girlfriend at the time—even post breakup—that I didn’t get a chance to really get to know you. I’d love to now. So come on, Shay.” She closed her hands together and gleamed. “Do share the stories.”

Shay laughed uncomfortably and shifted around in her chair. “Do you want to know before when I hated him or after?”

Sarah’s eyes widened with excitement. “Oh my gosh! You two hated each other before you became friends? Tell me, tell me!”

“Well, there’s not much to tell. Landon and I butted heads for a million reasons,” she said. “Mainly because he thought I was someone I wasn’t, and I thought the same about him. Then, overtime, we became…” her words faded off and she glanced down at the fork in her hands, swirling it in her pasta. She rose her head toward Sarah. “You want to know who he was as a kid?”

Sarah nodded greedily.

“Landon was a jerk. A big fat, freaking jerk. He treated people awfully and me even worse. He’d walk into school with this bad boy persona and would act like he didn’t care about anything or anyone—except for his core four friends.”

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