“Yes,” I greedily said. “I’d like that a lot.”
“You know…” She shrugged. “Like we were before we ever made that silly bet in high school. Just sarcastic and light. Nothing more, nothing less.”
If that wasn’t a knife through my fucking chest.
I fidgeted with my hands, unsure what to do with them. “Right. Yes. Of course. Sarcastic and light. I like that.”
“Yes,” she agreed. “Me too. Easy.”
“So…” I lowered my brows to study her. “We’re cool?”
She smiled so bright I swore my mind tried to take snapshots of her face so I could remember her forever. “Cooler than a cucumber.”
“Cooler than the flip side of a pillow,” I added in. What? Shut the hell up, Landon. You’re being awkward.
“Yeah, something like that.”
Before I could say anything else, Willow showed up, tapped me on the shoulder, and leaned in toward me. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but you’re supposed to do a welcome toast in five minutes. They are asking for you up front.”
Shay’s eyes danced over Willow, and then she looked at me. She tensed up and took a few steps backward. She frowned as she looked Willow’s way, and a knot formed in my gut as I realized what it probably looked like.
“Shay—” I started.
“We’ll catch up later. Go ahead.” She gave me a tiny smile. “Go be Mr. Hollywood.”
She walked away before I could reply. I knew I’d have to get a chance to find her to talk more later on. I couldn’t be in the same room after all these years and not want to be near her. I wanted to greedily take up as much of her time and energy as possible, because I missed her. I missed her, and her smile, and her laugh, and her heartbeats.
Fuck. This was harder than I thought it’d be.
I knew she wanted to keep things light and airy, but I wanted to have a chance to talk on a deeper level. To take some time to remember the two people we used to be.
But first, I had to be Landon Pace, because the people were waiting. As always, no matter how much I dreaded it somedays, the show had to go on.
At least I could rest a little easier, because Shay and I were as cool as a cucumber.
16
Landon
I’d been trying to get near Shay so we could talk on a deeper level, but we’d always be intermixed with groups of people. Plus, it almost seemed as if she’d go out of her way to avoid looking at me. We could be interacting with the same individuals, but she never looked my way. On top of that, whenever I’d say anything, she’d laugh with the crowd, and perhaps I was going crazy, but I swore she’d turn away and roll her eyes at every single thing that I said. I kid you not, at one point I thought I saw her make a gagging gesture.
A little while later, when I was able to track her down, I found her sneaking into a closed-off room with a security guard standing outside. She flashed him a pass that Greyson had given her and went inside.
I followed her toward the back room with my VIP pass in my pocket and showed it to the security guard. “Do you think you can make sure no one comes in here for a bit?” I asked, wanting to have a chance to have a real heart-to-heart with Shay for the first time.
The security guard cheesed ear to ear. “Hell yeah, she’s hot.”
“No, it’s not like that. I just want to talk to her in private.”
“Right.” He gave me a wink-wink and nudge-nudge. “Of course, Mr. Pace. Whatever you need.”
I thanked him, and he closed the door behind me as I walked inside.
“Hey,” I said, clearing my throat.
Shay’s back was to me, and she jumped a bit out of fright when I spoke. She turned to look at me, and for a split second I swore she frowned before turning her lips up into an easy smile.
“Hello,” she replied. “Following me?”
“A little.”
I stuffed my hands into my pockets and nodded. “So, earlier you said we were good, right?”
“Yup, yup! All is well.”
“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’re great.”
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 ga
ve me felt like a knife through the heart.
“I hate you, Landon.”
17
Shay
What. A. Freaking. Jerk.
What nerve Landon had walking up to me, looking all dapper, rich, and famous, like he hadn’t stomped on my heart and left me to die all those years ago. What nerve he had to keep following me that night, to keep trying to reconnect with me after all those years had passed.
I’d imagined what it would be like running into Landon a million times in the past. I’d played out scenarios of how I’d react. I’d gone through every version of it, too. There were three top set-ups I’d settled on the most.
Instant love. I see him, forgive him for everything he did and ignore the fact that he disappeared, broke my heart, and left me for Sarah freaking Sims.
Unleash the rage of a million demons. I snap like a childish psychopath and definitely don’t act my age or display any form of class.
Be like Michelle Obama. When he goes low, I go high. I appear above it all. I smile, I nod, I agree, and I let him know we are civil and fine. Fiiine. I comment on how we were so young when we were dating, we moved on, and I wish him well.
Let’s be honest, I didn’t wish him well.
There was a good period of time when I wished him massive diarrhea during a red carpet event. I wished he’d trip on the steps before accepting his many Oscars. I wished he’d go bald at thirty. There were many things I wished for Landon, but I definitely didn’t wish him well.
Between the three choices, number three was the most grown-up version. Also, I thought that version didn’t provoke any emotions good or bad from me, which made it appear as if he had no effect on me whatsoever. That was exactly what I wanted, too. I wanted him to think I felt nothing good or bad. I kept it classy. Meghan Markle would’ve been so proud of me.
But then, I started drinking, and the alcohol made my emotions skyrocket to a new height, giving me more rage than stillness.
“I hate you,” I repeated as he stood in front of me.
Four words left my lips, leaving me standing there with a very stunned Landon.
His face dropped, and my stomach rolled as I repeated the words. “I hate you so much it makes me want to scream. I hate how you just showed up at my place after all this time, with no rhyme and no reason. I hate that you walked in as if we could just be the people we were before and fall back into some normal conversation. And mostly I hate you because it was the only way I was able to stop the aching in my chest from the pain you caused me.”
“Shay—”
“Don’t.” I shook my head, feeling the whiskey coursing through my system. “Don’t do that. Don’t say my name like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like it still belongs on your tongue. I worked hard to get over you, Landon. I worked hard to get over the hurt you caused me, the heartache you created. So, excuse me if I don’t feel as if we can have anything more than friendly conversation. Excuse me if I was trying really hard to keep things casual with sarcasm and lightness, but I’m drunk now, and emotional, and I can’t really be near you like this, because my mind doesn’t know how to be drunk and near you. My mind is betraying me and making me think I want to talk to you, get some answers… hold you, hug you, ask how you’ve been, and I can’t do that. I can’t open that door, because I hate you. I have to hate you, Landon,” I said, my voice low and shaky.
“Why?”
“Because if I don’t, you’ll be able to break me all over again.”
“Shay,” he pleaded, moving in closer. I kept backing up until I bumped into a wall, and he boxed me in. The heat of his body pooled around mine, and I tried to ignore the thumping of my heart pounding against my chest.
There it was—the fireworks, the angst, the indescribable feeling Landon always unleashed in me. The yin and yang emotions he’d been able to build up inside of me confused me so much. I wanted to push him away while pulling him in closer. I wanted to slap him and let my fingers linger against his skin. I wanted to kiss him. Gosh, I wanted to kiss his full lips that were only inches away from me, breathing their hot breaths against me, his Cupid’s bow so perfectly shaped, so perfectly full, so perfectly…
No.
“Hear me out, Shay. I’m not that same boy I was when I left you all those years ago. I’ve done a lot of work on myself. I’ve finally figured out a lot of my mind’s triggers, and I know how to get around them. I found me, Shay. Fully, completely, I found myself.”
“I know that,” I agreed. “But you never came back. ‘When you find you, come back to me.’ Remember? Or did fame make you forget?”
He lowered his head. “I remember, but if you let me explain.”
“I don’t care,” I lied, because I had to lie. It was the only way I could keep from allowing myself to completely melt into him. The truth was, I did care. A big part of me loved hearing that he’d figured it out, that he’d found his way, that he was okay. A bigger part of me craved the answers I’d never received from him on why he never came back.
But another part was still aching from the way he’d broken me. On his way to self-discovery, he took a sledgehammer to my heart, and now he stood over me as if he was expecting me to give him my all.
There was no way I’d do that again.
I wasn’t that same, naïve, full of hope girl that I once was, and I wouldn’t make that same mistake twice. I’d given him my all once, and he had treated it like trash, something to be tossed out because someone better came along.
“I’ve changed too, Landon. I’m not that same girl you knew.”
“I know,” he agreed. “I can tell. You’re stronger. Wiser.”
“Your compliments do nothing for me.”
“Yes, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t true.” He ran a hand over his face and then placed one hand against the wall on each side of me. “Do you really hate me?” he asked, his voice low and controlled.
“Yes,” I said. I blinked my eyes shut. “No.” I sighed. “But that doesn’t mean I want to be your friend.”
“Trust me, I’m not asking you to be my friend, Chick.”
“Then what are you asking?”
“I don’t know,” he confessed as he raked his hands through his hair. “It’s weird being around you after all this time, and I can’t act sarcastic and light with you. Not after all we’d been through.”
“You don’t even know me anymore, Landon. We were kids back then, who knew nothing about life. You don’t know a damn thing about me, or if I’m something you’d be interested in.”
“I’d like to get to know you again.”
“No, you wouldn’t.”
“Yes, I would.”
I huffed, growing annoyed by his words. So, what? He got to pick and choose when he came back into my life? Now I’d managed to fit into his schedule?
The whiskey swirled inside me, and my heart was trying its hardest to escape my chest because it didn’t want to feel so much. I’d worked hard at shutting off my emotions a long time ago when it came to men. Leave it to Landon to walk in and effortlessly flip that switch.
He moved in closer and my hands landed against his chest and lightly shoved him. “Screw you, Landon.”
“There it is. Now we’re getting to the real emotions,” he said, stepping in again. “Tell me what you’re feeling, Shay.”
I shoved him again. “Screw you for right now.” Shove. “Screw you for the years of silence.” Shove. “And screw you for making it impossible for me to trust again.” I kept listing off all the emotions shooting through me as I shoved him over and over again. Tears burning at the back of my eyes as I lay my hands against his chest.
Shove. Shove. Shove. Pull.
Pull?
I pulled him closer. I pulled at his suit, bringing him in toward my chest. I pulled him inches away from me. Centimeters. Millimeters. The air in the space between us became harder to breath as he stared down at me with such intent in his eyes. I should’ve shoved him agai
n. I should’ve pushed him away. And yet instead, I yanked his expensive tie toward me and pulled him into the deepest kiss of my life. I kissed him with my love and then with my hatred. My hands wrapped around his neck as he placed his hands behind my back, kissing me as if he was relying on my lips for his next breath of oxygen. His hands fell beneath my ass, and he lifted me into the air as I wrapped my legs around his waist. He pressed me against the wall, his hardness pushing against the fabric of my dress. I dropped a hand down and hiked the dress up my thighs, allowing him to thrust his hips forward, showing me his want, his need, everything I’d been missing over the years.
“Shay,” he growled against my lips.
“Don’t talk,” I ordered as my hands moved to his belt buckle, scrambling to get it undone before I came back to Earth and realized the massive mistake I was partaking in. I’d regret this in the morning when the whiskey faded and reality set in, but in the heat of the moment, feeling him pressed up against my thigh, feeling his throbbing need, wanting to remember what it felt like having him so deep inside me, I gave in.
Whiskey and memories won that night, as I ordered for my once hero turned villain to take me right then and there.
A pool of heat filled my stomach as his hands wrapped around my thong and he ripped it off. His eyes were dilated and his touches were controlled as I slid his pants down to his ankles. He locked eyes with me and waited for a second as his hardness rubbed against my core, almost if asking permission to enter.
I nodded once, and in he came, pushing himself so deep inside me, I almost cried out from the unbelievable pleasure. Landon slid in and out of me repeatedly, bringing me to the edge repeatedly.
“Oh my gosh,” I whispered, laying my head on his shoulder and moaning into him to muffle the sound. “Yes, yes, please, Landon. Harder…please…fuck me like you mean it,” I begged.
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