“As you wish.”
But he didn’t leave leave. 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.”
Then, she stopped speaking.
That was it.
Was that what counted as an apology in this day and age? A non-apology was now what people were calling apologies? She simply said they never expected me to find out, not that she was sorry for her bad decisions. She hadn’t said she was upset about the flawed choices she made, just that she was simply disappointed I’d found out about their sexcapades.
Tina shifted in her shoes. “I mean, let’s be honest, you can see why I’m the right choice for him. Sam and I make sense in so many ways, ways you never connected with him.”
What in the hell was happening right now? Was the woman who’d cheated with my boyfriend actually telling me all the reasons she was right for him and I was wrong?
I couldn’t wrap my head around the concept of Tina standing in front of me and saying those words.
I loved women.
I loved women so much more than I loved men. I went out of my way to celebrate females, to cheer them on, to make them understand the power in their existence, and see themselves as the queens they were. I fought for our rights, I pushed for feminine self-discovery, and I was an advocate, a cheerleader for any woman who’d been scorned by the opposite sex. I. Loved. Women.
I knew it sounded odd, but in some ways I was more disappointed in Tina for her actions than Sam. Maybe I was so jaded that I figured Sam would end up being a letdown anyway, but Tina? Tina was supposed to be a part of the sisterhood. She was supposed to have my back the same way I had hers. Yet here she was now, telling me how I wasn’t right for my ex-boyfriend and therefore she felt okay screwing his Jar Jar Binks brains out.
“If you think about it, maybe the universe brought me to this coffee shop all those months ago just so you could connect me with Sam. If it weren’t for you, we would’ve never met one another,” she said with a smile.
With a goddamn smile like a freaking psychopath! What was she going to do next? Start skinning cats as she sipped her coffee?
That was when it happened. That was when the logical part of my brain shut down.
As we stood there, face to face, I lost myself. It was as if I had an out-of-body experience. I held a drink in my hand as Tina spoke my way. She kept moving her mouth and repeatedly kept explaining why she and Sam were meant to be. She kept moving her hands in such rapid movements, and the next thing I knew, the latte in my hand was soaking into her T-shirt.
At some point my hand jerked the drink toward her face, covering her head to toe. It was an iced latte—obviously. I wasn’t a complete psychopath like her, just a semi-nutjob at best.
Tina stood there frozen as everyone in the shop turned our way and stared, including Landon. Oh crap. He was still there, seeing me in the limelight of average joes.
Tina’s mouth was agape in shock, and I would’ve bet my stare mimicked hers.
“Shay, what the hell?!” Brady asked, hurrying out from the back room, holding bags of coffee grounds in his grip. He was my manager, so it was clear this wasn’t going to go over swimmingly.
Tina finally breathed out as her body shook, and then she hurried out of the shop, dripping latte across the floor the whole way out.
Brady pulled out a mop, cleaned up the mess, called me to the back room, and proceeded to tell me I was fired.
“What?” I gasped. I mean, yes, throwing iced lattes at customers does fall under the employees behaving badly category, but she slept with my boyfriend. There had to be some kind of corporate policy to let that slide on the employee’s first offense.
“You threw a latte in her face, Shay! We can’t just let that slide,” he explained, pinching the bridge of his nose.
“It was an iced latte,” I commented, as if that made a difference. “Please, Brady, I need this job right now. I can’t afford to lose it.”
“Yeah, I get that, Shay, I do, but you made a choice, and I cannot stand by and let that kind of behavior go without drastic consequences.”
“Then suspend me from my lunch breaks. Take the latte out of my check. Just don’t fire me.”
Brady frowned, and I knew he wasn’t having an easy time with the decision at all. He was the complete opposite of confrontational, and if he could have, he would’ve rather buried his head in the sand than fire me. “I’m sorry, Shay. It’s just out of my hands now. Please don’t make this harder than it has to be.”
I parted my lips to speak, but no words came from my mouth. He was right—I’d thrown a drink into a woman’s face, and there was no getting around that fact. Truth was I deserved to be fired; I just wished Brady could’ve overlooked it all.
I took off my apron, grabbed my purse, and headed out toward the front of the shop to leave. As I began walking, Landon gathered up his things and hurried after me.
“Shay, wait up. What the hell was that about?” he asked.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I muttered, still walking toward the bus stop.
“Yeah, but are you all right? Did you just get fired for that? Also, why did you throw a drink in that girl’s f—"
“Landon,” I barked, whipping around in my sneakers to face him.
“Yes?”
My eyes watered over and my chest burned a little as he stared my way. I didn’t say a word, and I didn’t have to, because he already knew. He knew I was cracking, knew I was slipping into a moment of pain, because he knew me, even after all the time that had passed.
How was that possible?
He stepped toward me and wrapped me in his arms as I began to sob into his T-shirt. “You’re okay, Chick. You’re okay, I got you,” he soothed, smoothing his hands over my hair.
In the past week, I had caught my boyfriend cheating, slept with my ex-boyfriend, thrown an iced latte in a woman’s face, and lost my job. If that wasn’t a terrible weekly recap, I didn’t know what was.
He cleared his throat, lowered his mouth to my ear, and whispered, “We should probably move from here.” I went to raise my head from his chest, but he held me in place. What the heck? “Stay down.”
“Why?”
“There’s a bit of paparazzi surrounding us right now, and I doubt you want your face all over the magazines tomorrow. Let’s go.”
“Go? Go where?”
“Any place but here. Trust me. I got you. Just stay close and keep your head down. We have to get to my car around the corner, then we’ll be good to go.”
As Landon led me over, he wrapped his jacket around my body, keeping my face covered. The moment I got into his car, he instructed me to duck down until he drove off.
Was this what it meant being in the limelight? Never being able to break down in public without someone being there to snap a picture of you for the cover of some tacky tabloid?
As we began driving off, I realized I was sitting in the car with a man I was working hard to keep from reentering my heart, going God knows where.
“You can
take me back. I’m sure it’s calmed down,” I told him.
“They like to hang around the place for a bit after a celebrity sighting takes place. We should wait about an hour or so.”
“We?” I questioned. “No offense, but I don’t really have the energy to hang out with you for an hour. You can take me to my place.”
“Are you sure you want to be alone?”
No, of course not.
Nobody wants to be alone. Some people just end up that way.
“I’ll be fine,” I answered as I went digging in my purse for my keys, but I paused as I realized they were still in my apron pocket, back at the coffee shop.
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “I need my house keys. I left them at the bakery. I have to go back sooner than later.”
“Later than sooner is better,” he disagreed. “Trust me, I can take you to my place. We can stay there until things settle down. I swear, I won’t even try to talk to you.”
“Fine, but no talking once we get there.”
“Not a word.”
I shifted around in my seat and clasped my hands together. “I have wanted to ask you something since the whiskey party…”
“Anything. Go for it.”
“Are you clean?” I blurted out, turning his way. “I mean, like…have you been tested in a while? I’m on the pill, so there’s no worries for an unexpected pregnancy tabloid scandal, but I do know your reputation of being a manwhore. If you’re not clean and I need to get tested, let me know and I will. It was a stupid mistake on my part. I would’ve never slept with you without a condom if I wasn’t drinking. I mean, I probably wouldn’t have slept with you at all if I weren’t drinking.”
He frowned for a split second before pushing the grimace expression away. “I’m clean. I was tested a few months ago and haven’t slept with anyone since then. Contrary to popular belief, I’m not a manwhore.”
“That’s not what TMZ says.”
His jaw clenched and his hands gripped the steering wheel so hard I wouldn’t have been surprised if it snapped in half. “You shouldn’t believe everything you read on the internet.”
“So, what am I supposed to believe? You?”
“There was a time that you would’ve.”
“That was also a time when I was young and naïve.”
His eyes glanced my way before moving back to the road. “You resent me.”
I did. I resented him for years for the way he ended things. I resented the pain he caused me. I resented the way he made me shut off my heart from the world, and I resented him for coming back out of nowhere, and making it start to beat again.
“Maybe we should just ride in silence, too,” I murmured, turning my back slightly to him and peering out of the window.
We pulled up to a five-star hotel and used a private entryway to get to the penthouse. Never in my life had I stepped foot inside of a penthouse, and Landon’s did not disappoint. It was beyond beautiful and lavish. The second we walked in, I swooned at the view. All the furniture was cream colored, and accents of blues and sea green filled the space. The décor was spot on, and it felt as if you’d walked directly into a Pottery Barn ad.
All you needed was a dog sitting on a rug to make it PB approved.
Just that second, a dog came trotting out of a back room, wagging his short tail back and forth with his tongue hanging out of his mouth.
“Hey, Rookie,” Landon said to his faithful companion. He bent down to pet the dog, Rookie, but instead his pup kept on trotting on over my way, wagging that tail and nudging me in the leg.
I couldn’t help but smile as I lowered myself down to pet his belly.
“Hey there, cutie. How are you doing?” I asked, giving him the best cuddles.
“I was just ditched by my dog for a woman.”
“You can’t help it that he has good taste.”
Landon gave me a crooked smile as he took off his coat and walked to the kitchen area. “Do you want a drink?”
I grimaced. “I think I’m going to hold off on drinking for the next few days. The thought of alcohol makes me want to gag.”
He laughed. “I mostly meant coffee or tea.”
Oh. Of course, because it was only ten in the morning. “If you have coffee, I won’t fight against it.”
“I thought you hated coffee.”
“I’m a complicated woman.”
He made me a cup the exact way I always loved it—with more creamer than coffee—and he even placed two cookies on a plate to go with it.
“Thank you,” I said, picking up the coffee and treats and moving over to the sofa to sit and drink. Rookie hurried over to my side and cuddled up closely.
“If he bothers you, you can shove him away.”
I’d never be the girl who pushed a dog away.
I smiled at Rookie as he laid his head down and fell asleep.
Landon brewed himself his own cup of coffee then moved over to the dining room table. He pulled out a notebook and began writing nonstop upon the sheets.
I couldn’t help but wonder what it was he was scribbling, but I knew better than to ask. I had told him to not talk to me, and it would’ve been rude to break my own rule.
He was scribbling so quickly, moving page to page as the words poured out of him. Every now and again, his lips would curve up, and once he finished one sheet, he’d fold it like a letter, and put it to the side.
The more letters he crafted, the more my anxiety began to build. Was that how he’d looked when he’d written his words to me in the notebooks from the past? Had he smiled a little and put in such thought?
“It broke my heart, you know,” I said.
He looked up to me with a bewildered look in his eyes. “What did?”
“When you stopped writing me the letters and never came back.”
He lowered his arm to the table and placed his pen down.
I knew I shouldn’t have been speaking about the past, because it had a way of opening old scars I’d worked hard to close, but I couldn’t help it as I watched him craft letters, the same type he used to make for me. “It hurt me so much when I saw you happy and healthy on television. I know it’s stupid, but it did.”
“It’s not stupid,” he disagreed.
I tried to smile but couldn’t force my mouth to turn up. “Who are you writing to?”
Where do your love letters go today?
His lips parted to tell me, but I held my hand up to halt him.
What am I doing?
I didn’t want to know that, partly because it was none of my business, mainly because it would hurt too much to know who they were all for. I glanced down at my phone to check the time. “I think I can head out now.”
“I’ll drive you back to the coffee shop.”
“No, it’s fine. I’ll take an Uber. It’s probably safer than having you go back over there.” I stood and gave Rookie one last snuggle before heading to the front door. “Thanks for the coffee.”
Landon got to his feet and headed toward me. He held the door open, and as I stepped past him, his hand landed on my forearm, stopping me. “Shay, wait.”
“What is it?”
He moved a step closer to me, hovering over my body as chills raced through me from his small touch. “A few days back when we made love—”
“Had sex,” I corrected, trying to tame the wildness that was shooting through me.
“Yes. A few days ago when we had sex…did you feel it, too?”
My eyes locked with his. “Feel what?”
He lowered his voice and his hot breaths brushed against my skin. “Everything. Shay…not a day has gone by that I haven’t thought about you. You are the first woman—the only woman—who ever awakened every sleeping part of me. You were a defining moment of my life.”
“Then why did you disappear?” I whispered, feeling the ache in my chest growing more and more. I felt my emotions building up, which was exactly why I knew I had to leave. I couldn’t fall apart over him anymore. I was
supposed to be past it. I was supposed to be free of his chains. I was supposed to be fine. “Forget it, really. This isn’t an easy conversation. This is heavy, and I can’t do heavy with you anymore. Sorry, Landon. I can’t.”
I didn’t look back at him as I pushed myself out of his penthouse. I hurried down the hallway and tried my best to keep the tears burning in my eyes at bay, but deep down inside I knew the answer to his question when he asked me if I felt anything at the whiskey party. I knew the truth I was trying my hardest to ignore.
I had felt it all.
I’d felt everything the night we fell together, and for a moment in time, it had felt so good.
23
Shay
“I must admit, it’s a little clever,” Raine said as we sat in front of her computer monitor, strolling through article after article. “They’re calling you Coffee Girl, and the headlines are true gems. ‘Coffee Girl—A Whole Latte Crazy’,” she said, giggling as it rolled off her tongue.
“That’s not funny, Raine.” I groaned, slouching over in my chair. How was this even happening? Just yesterday, I’d lost my job, and lucky for me, Mr. Hollywood was there, which brought about a ton of people with camera phones snapping videos and pictures of him inside of the bakery. They made it right on time to capture me throwing a latte—correction: iced latte—into Tina’s face, and now I was the girl all over social media, throwing a drink into the face of a seemingly sweet customer.
Isn’t life grand?
“Oh look! You have a collection of memes on Twitter! Oh gosh, Shay. You’re a meme!” Raine exclaimed, taking it all in stride a lot better than I was. Then again, it wasn’t her face looking like a complete madwoman all across the internet.
“This is humiliating,” I groaned, pulling my shirt over my face to hide my shame. I couldn’t believe this was happening. The angles that they got of me that day were awful, too. It appeared that I had resting bitch face, which was the complete opposite of who I was. I was a happy girl! It just so happened that they caught me during a not-so-happy moment.
This was all Landon’s fault.
If he wouldn’t have showed up, wanting to have an easy conversation, I would’ve been able to have a completely normal iced latte face toss moment, without bystanders capturing it on camera.
Landon & Shay - Part Two: (The L&S Duet Book 2) Page 18