“I owe you, Landon,” she said, walking backward.
“For what?”
She looked around, wide-eyed and completely in awe of her surroundings. Her hands fell against her chest as she locked her stare with mine and stole my breath away. “Making this dream come true.”
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 wished I 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.
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 road
block 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.”
“Ohh.” Sarah swooned. “A bad boy. Me likey. Go on.”
“And just when you thought the bad boy couldn’t get better…” Shay locked eyes with me and the smallest smile fell against her lips. “He does. He opens up and truthfully is this kind, giving person who’d just had his walls up—for good reason. And once you knocked them down, he’d come rushing into your life with so much love and care that you hardly knew what to do with it. Landon as a teenager was complex. Broken, but somehow whole. Angry, yet so unbelievably gentle. And one of the best people I’d ever known in my life. Landon was the kind of boy any girl could’ve fallen head over heels with. I knew one girl who did exactly that. And rumor has it, that she never fully recovered.”
Her words pierced me and I wanted to both hug her so tight and kiss her so hard. There was so much emotion floating back and forth between us that I was certain the whole damn room could tell about the powerful connection we once shared.
All except Sarah, who seemed to have it go all over her head. “Wow. He sounded amazing. I would’ve loved to know you as a youth,” she said, leaning into me and touching my inner upper thigh. Like wayyy upper and wayyy inner.
What the actual fuck?
My eyes landed on her hand and I gave her a half-smile as I took my hand on top of hers and relocated her grip to the table. “I wasn’t that great.”
I looked across the room and noticed Shay noticing the grip that Sarah had against my leg before she shyly looked away.
Don’t think too much into that.
The room grew quiet, and the air thick with questions about what to say.
“So,” Maria took charge, cleared her throat and stood to her feet. “Who’s ready for dessert?”
Just then, the front door opened, and Camila came barging into the room. “Sorry we’re late!” she exclaimed, the biggest grin on her face known to mankind.
I waited to see her dog, Bella, trotting in behind her, but instead a full-grown man walked in with two bottles of wine and a huge grin on his face.
Everyone’s eyes were wide as we all stared at the stranger.
“Who are you?” Maria asked, looking at the man.
He gave her the friendliest smile, and hurried over to her side. He placed the bottles of wine on the table and pulled Maria into a hug. “Oh my gosh, you must be Camila’s mother. Though, that’s shocking, seeing as how you look old enough to be her sister.”
Maria seemed a bit confused by the whole interaction, but her cheeks flustered a bit with color from the compliment. “Well, thank you. But again, who are you?”
“Oh, right.” He stood tall and smoothed out his suit. “I’m David.”
“David,” Shay said, echoing his name.
“Yes, his name is David,” Camila said, grinning wider than I’d ever seen her grin. “He’s my fiancé.”
30
Shay
What in the actual hell was going on? A stranger currently stood tall in Mima’s dining room—David apparently—and was claiming to be my mother’s fiancé.
I cocked an eyebrow. “I’m sorry, what?”
“He’s my fiancé,” Mom said, confident as ever. As if she didn’t hear how ridiculously ludicrous the words leaving her mouth were. My mother didn’t have a fiancé. Heck, my mother didn’t even have a boyfriend. My mother was the freaking CEO of WWLTHMC—Women Who Love to Hate Men Club. She didn’t date men, she passionately hated them.
The odd pairing moved in toward everyone and cuddled against each other. My mother’s body was against a man.
Again—what in the actual hell was going on?
“Uh, I can tell that this seems like a private matter, so perhaps Sarah and I should get going,” Landon said, standing from his seat.
“Probably a good idea,” Mima agreed.
“Oh, Landon! Can you give me a drive back to my place? I rode with Shay, and obviously she’s too busy to take me,” Sarah commented as she rubbed his arm up and down. I almost rolled my eyes right in her face, but I held it in.
Besides, I was still stuck on the fact that a man named David was standing in my grandmother’s house.
“Of course,” Landon agreed. The two said their goodbyes to everyone and hurried away, leaving the four of us to talk.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know other people were going to be here,” Mom commented. “If I did, we would’ve brought more wine.”
“What do you mean you’re engaged!” Mima shouted, ignoring Mom’s words.
Mom’s face turned a nice shade of red as David took her hand into his. “I didn’t know how to tell you guys, but we’ve been dating for a while.”
“How long is a while?” I asked.
“Three months,” Mom replied.
“Three months?!” I gasped. “And you didn’t even tell us you were dating someone?!”
“Okay, miss nine-months-pregnant relationship that no one knew about for the longest, I doubt you have much say on the subject,” Mima cut in, pointing me out for my flawed comment.
Touché, touché.
“But how did you meet?” Mima asked, taking a seat at the table. She gestured for the two to do the same, and they did.
“Well, when I went to pick up Bella three months ago, there seemed to be some confusion on the paperwork. It seemed that David was also promised my sweet Bella. He showed up at the same time as I did, and of course I was furious. I mean, you know how much I loved Bella the minute I saw her.”
“Yes, it was a little too much if you asked me,” Mima added in. “But continue.”
“Yes, well, David was just as passionate about the situation. So, we came to an agreement that we would co-parent Bella.”
Oh, for the love of God. Is this real life?
“And one night, when it was my turn to drop Bella off, I realized Camila had a terrible cold. I’m a doctor and—”
“A doctor?!” Mima beamed, her eyes growing wider with joy. “Go on!”
David bashfully continued. “Yes, well, I’m a doctor, and I was trying to help prescribe her something to make her feel better. But you kn
ow Camila. She’s a bit hard to give advice. Especially when said advice is coming from a man. But, I insisted. We bickered back and forth for a while, and she finally told me that she was a nurse and she could take care of herself. I told her just because she could take care of herself, didn’t mean she had to. Long story short, it turned out we worked at the same hospital, we fell in love over debates and bad coffee from vending machines, I asked her to marry me, she said yes, and here we are! Meeting the family!” He turned to me with the biggest smile. “By the way, Shay, hi. It’s so nice to meet you. Camila has gone on and on about how amazing you are.”
I gave him the blankest of stares known to mankind.
“Well, this is so exciting! Let’s open up the wine to celebrate!” Mima said, as if she didn’t just hear the most horrifying story of her life.
“Wait, no. You two aren’t really engaged. What’s going on for real? Mom, you wouldn’t just marry someone you don’t know.”
“You’re right. I wouldn’t. But I do know David. I feel like I’ve known him all my life.”
“That’s ridiculous and childish,” I said, shaking my head in disbelief. “I’m sorry, but I’m not going to play along with this.”
“Shannon Sofia, watch your tone,” Mima ordered.
“I’m sorry, Mima, but this is insane. You’re making a mistake, Mom. A massive mistake. It’s clear that he’s trying to get something from you. He wouldn’t just want to marry you.”
The moment the words left my mouth, I tasted the bitterness of them. Mom’s eyes watered over.
“And why’s that, Shay? Because I’m not good enough?” she asked.
“No. Stop. That came out wrong. What I meant was, no one should get engaged that soon. You need more time to see how he’ll let you down.”
“Shay.” Mima sighed. “Not every man is the devil.”
“Yes, but they can all hurt you the same way the devil can.”
“When did you become this way, Shay? When did you become so cold?” Mom asked, leaving me baffled.
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