Landon & Shay - Part One: (The L&S Duet Book 1)

by Brittainy Cherry

  The only thing Eleanor and I had in common besides DNA was our love of words and stories, which was enough to make us each other’s very best friend.

  Having an Eleanor in my life was like having a fresh bouquet delivered to me each day. She was smart, kind, and refreshingly sarcastic. I swore no one could make me laugh more than Eleanor.

  The quiet ones always had the best under-the-breath commentary.

  “Speaking of scripts,” Eleanor said, turning her body my way as she stuffed cake into her mouth. “When do I get to read the one you’re working on?”

  Eleanor had read all my scripts up to this point—which were a lot of scripts—and she was, without a doubt, my biggest fan. She was also my biggest critic and she gave me feedback that made me a better storyteller.

  When I had first given one to Eleanor, I’d made her promise not to talk about the scripts with anyone.

  To which she had replied, “Okay, Shay. I’ll make sure not to tell Mr. Darcy or Elizabeth Bennet what you’re writing about. Though, I can’t swear I won’t tell Harry, Ron, or Hermione.” She joked, referring to the fact that other than me, she didn’t have friends, which was too bad. So many people were missing out on the greatness that was Eleanor Gable.

  My phone dinged, then it dinged again—followed by about a billion more dings. Mom looked up at me with a knowing grin. “Tracey?”

  “Sure is,” I replied. The only person who texted nonstop without ever receiving a reply was my close friend, Tracey. We’d grown up together, and it was no secret that Tracey was a bit chatty. She was the head of the cheerleading squad, and the president of student council, and she oozed school spirit. I, too, had a bit of school spirit in my bones, but Tracey was on a whole other level. She lived, breathed, and ate everything high school.

  It wasn’t shocking that she was one of the most popular girls at our school. She was smart, beautiful, and funny, too. It was just a shame that most of the guys were a bit turned off by her oomph for life.

  Tracey: Oh.Em.Gee! Reggie is going to the PARTY @ Land’s this SATURDAY! SHAY WE HAVE TO GO

  Tracey: Before you say no (which I know UR thinking) I NEED NEED NEED this!

  Tracey: I need you to be my wingwoman

  Tracey: Three words: Reggie will be there

  Tracey: Kk, that was four words, but you get it!

  Tracey: PLEASEEEE SHAY! I need you. Reggie is IT for me, and a party at Land’s will help him realize it.

  Tracey: Say yes?

  Tracey: I’ll make sure you don’t even cross paths with Landon, let alone breathe the same air as him.

  Tracey: I’ll also buy you a pony or something. Plz?!

  I laughed as I read Tracey’s overly dramatic comments. She was head over heels for this new student, Reggie. He was the exact type of guy Tracey seemed to always lose her mind over: overly masculine, cocky, handsome in a ridiculous way, and very aware of his good looks. I didn’t know much about him other than what Tracey had told me and what I’d witnessed during our brief encounters at school, but I was certain Reggie had what I called AT—Asshole Tendencies. I hadn’t gathered enough information to know if he was an FBA—Full-Blown Asshole—but I was slowly but surely collecting data in hopes of protecting my friend from a heartbreak.

  If there was one thing I was a professional at, it was reading people. It came with my gift of using real-life people as case studies for my characters’ development in my scripts. I could usually see a person and tell if they were a hero, a villain, or a supporting character with just a glance, but some people were a bit harder to grasp from a first meeting. I needed a chance to be around Reggie more to get a real feel for what he was all about.

  Tracey: Does your silence mean yes?

  Me: I want a blond pony named Marcy.

  Tracey: That’s why you’re my fave human.

  Going to a party at Landon’s house would be odd. We did pretty good at keeping our hatred for each other strong, and that meant I never went to his place for parties even though he had thrown them frequently throughout the past year. Ever since his uncle passed away, it seemed he had a party every other weekend.

  I made it a habit not to attend, but seeing as Tracey was desperate for a shot with Reggie, I knew it was in my friendship duties. My hope was that the party would be big enough that I wouldn’t even have to interact with Landon at all.

  We ran in the same group of friends, and I pretty much loved them all, but somehow, Landon and I never connected in a positive light. Even when we were kids, he hated me. Once, he called me a chicken because I wouldn’t smoke pot at a party. After that, Chicken became his nickname for me. I called him Satan—for obvious reasons.

  We’d only ever so slightly connected one time, and that was when Mima took me along to Lance’s funeral. The reception after the service was held at his house, and I wandered upon Landon by accident as I looked for the bathroom. He was sitting in his bedroom, sobbing his eyes out on his bed, wearing his suit and tie, unable to breathe.

  I didn’t know what to do because I wasn’t his friend. We were hardly even acquaintances. If anything, I was the villain in his story, as he was the one in mine, but at that moment, he looked so alone, so broken. I might not have liked him much, but I knew the love he had for Lance. It was no secret that Lance was a father figure to him. He was pretty much Landon’s father, if you asked me. His actual father was just a man who deposited money into Landon’s bank account.

  As I watched him cry, I didn’t know what to do, so I did the only thing I could think of. I went and I sat beside him. I loosened his tightened tie and held him in my arms as he sobbed uncontrollably in my embrace. He fell completely apart, and I saw every piece of him shatter.

  The next day at school, I walked up to him as he was grabbing books from his locker because I wanted to make sure he was okay. He grimaced and slammed his locker shut. His head lowered a bit, and he refused to look me in the eye as he spoke low and controlled. “This isn’t a thing, Chicken—you and me talking. You never cared about my feelings before, so don’t pity me now just because Lance is dead. I don’t want your charity. Go give your words to someone who gives a shit because I don’t, and I won’t.”

  We didn’t talk about his breakdown again. It was almost as if the I’d made that moment up in my mind, and it was only a delusion. I was fine with that. If he wasn’t going to bring it up, then neither was I. We went back to our hatred, and I was thankful for the familiarity…though parts of me still thought about it sometimes. I thought about how sad the most popular kid at school was, yet nobody really even noticed.

  Maybe it was a temporary sadness, though; the type of sadness that passed with time. Maybe by now, Landon was okay. Either way, he’d made it clear it was none of my business.

  I had to come up with a game plan for his party—a few rude remarks in my back pocket, a lot of left turns when he was coming toward me, and a ton of complete avoidance.

  “Hey, Eleanor.” I nudged her in the shoulder. She’d already slammed her piece of cake down and was now back to reading her book. “Do you want to come to a party with Tracey and me this Saturday?”

  “Is it a reading party?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

  “A reading party?”

  “You know, where a group of people get together, sit in a circle, and completely ignore one another for hours as they dive headfirst into a novel of their choosing? Does it happen in a library? Will there be bookmarks?”

  I laughed. “Well, no.”

  “Oh. Then that’s a hard pass for me.” She went right back to reading. I swore one day, I was going to drag her to a ridiculous high school party, and she was going to have an awful time like the rest of us teenagers.

  And who knew? Maybe she’d fall in love. Or heck, even fall in like. Mom always said the first step of love was falling deeply into like. Then the freefall of love didn’t feel so dangerous. Eleanor never put herself in a position to even like someone, though. My cousin wasn’t into guys that much unless they wer
e fictional, but I really hoped one day someone would sweep her right off her feet. Then again, that might’ve just been the storyteller in my heart. I had a thing for happily ever after in all my scripts, and I wished the same for the people I loved, too.

  That said, I had a feeling Eleanor would’ve lived a perfectly content life being locked in a dungeon with five million books surrounding her.

  Oh? And how did Eleanor Gable die?

  Surrounded by a million happily ever afters and a handful of what-the-hell endings.

  While Eleanor dived deeper into her book, I tried to wrap my head around the fact I was going to be attending a party at Landon’s. I was going to walk through the front door of the home of a boy I couldn’t stand and who couldn’t stand me right back.

  And I, for one, wasn’t ready for that at all.

  3

  Shay

  I spent most of Saturday morning trying to calm Tracey’s nerves. If there was anything my friend was good at, it was overthinking every situation tenfold. My mom tried to talk me into staying in and eating Chinese with the family, but I knew Tracey would kill me if I ditched at the last minute.

  I would’ve killed to have an eggroll instead of going to Landon’s place, though.

  “Oh gosh, I got a belly full of nerves,” Tracey spat out as we stood on Landon’s front porch.

  Me.

  On Landon’s porch.

  Crap.

  For a second, I thought about retreating. I considered turning on the heels of my sneakers and waiting for the next party at someone else’s house the following week. I hadn’t been able to shake this weird feeling in my gut since I decided to attend the party. I knew I was overthinking the whole situation, but the fact that my arms had been wrapped around Landon the last time I’d been inside that house was messing with my head.

  The intimate moment of our momentary slip in hatred was so vibrant in my mind, I swore it felt as if it had just happened the day before. I saw his deep blue eyes swimming in the sea of his sadness, I felt his body tremble against my touch, and I felt his pain, so raw and unfiltered. He’d been the complete opposite of how Landon presented himself at school. He always seemed so unbothered by the world as if he was in it but not a part of it. He was cockily cool, calm, and collected as if nothing and nobody could or would ever bother him. That night as I sat on his bed with my arms wrapped around him, I saw his heart, his gentle, pained heart, and it bled just like everyone else’s did.

  It might’ve even bled a little bit more than most people.

  I looked over at my hopeful friend. Tracey hadn’t stopped talking about the party or Reggie since the day she found out there was going to be a party the two of them could attend together. Tracey was convinced she did her best flirting at house parties. She said trying to be flirty at school was too much pressure. She preferred low lighting, and loud music, and tequila.

  Tequila mostly.

  “I really can’t get rid of the nerves,” she repeated, snapping me from my thoughts of Landon.

  “Why? You’re great, and Reggie would be crazy not to notice,” I told her as she applied her lipstick, then handed me the tube to do the same to my lips.

  “Yeah? Do you think my outfit is too much? I was going for slutty, but not a slut vibe. Like the yeah, I have boobs, but no you cannot touch them kind of vibe.”

  “You could be completely nude, and it still wouldn’t give a guy the right to touch you,” I explained. “Plus, clothes don’t make you a slut. That’s just society’s messed-up judgments.” As the words left my mouth, I swore one day I would become exactly like my mother and grandmother—preaching about a woman’s worth, knowing what I did and didn’t deserve from a man.

  She snickered and rolled her eyes. “Okay, Mother Teresa, but all I’m saying is how do my boobs look?”

  I laughed. “If I were Reggie, I’d definitely steal a few glances.”

  Tracey combed her hair behind her ears before nervously pulling it back out to where it had been originally. She fiddled a lot when she was nervous. “Okay. Okay. He’s just a junior. It’s not like he’s the hottest senior on the block. He’s only like four months older than me—that’s like nothing, right? There’s no need to put this much pressure on the situation, but then again, if I don’t put pressure on it then maybe he’ll think I don’t like him, and well, that’s the complete opposite of the idea I want to give him, and, and, and—”

  “Tracey,” I cut in.

  “Yes?”

  “Breathe.”

  She blew out a cloud of hot air. “Okay.”

  “Just be yourself, and if that’s not enough, screw Reggie. There are other guys in this world.”

  She snickered. “That’s easy for you to say. Guys are throwing themselves at you daily, Shay. Not everyone was born freaking flawless.”

  I didn’t respond to her comment, because Tracey always said stuff like that, and it always left me feeling weird. I didn’t want to be known just for my looks, but it felt super fake and annoying to say something like that. I knew I was attractive, but for some reason, I was ashamed to admit it even though it wasn’t like I’d given myself my looks. It was the least interesting thing about me.

  I’d preferred guys be into me for my creativity, my humor, or my intense knowledge of all things Charmed, not just because they thought I looked hot.

  I was blessed with my mother’s genetics. Mima called it our Martinez gift. I swore, my grandmother looked as if she were closer to forty years old as opposed to sixty. We were blessed with youthful-looking skin. Dad always joked that Mom had me all on her own, and there wasn’t an ounce of him in me. “That’s definitely my earlobe,” he’d comment, “and no lie, that’s my left ring finger.”

  I had Mom’s deep chocolate eyes and her full lips. My hair was curly and charcoal black, and my body had the same curves as my mother’s, which guys seemed to like about me. But those very features were also a deterrent for me when it came to liking boys. If one of the first things they mentioned about me had to do with my body, I knew it would never be theirs to have.

  “You’re more than your body, and only the ones who notice that are allowed to have you in that way,” Mima always told me, a message I was sure she’d also told Mom when she was a teenager.

  Tracey and I walked into the party, and I released the breath I hadn’t realized I was holding.

  I’d done it. I’d crossed the entrance into Satan’s den and lived to tell the story. And, shockingly, I wasn’t set on fire. Angels like me weren’t supposed to dance in the same ring as the Devil.

  A comfort washed over me as I looked around the room and noticed every person was someone I’d call my friend. That made it easier. I could be myself and feel fine knowing my people were around me.

  “Look, there he is!” Tracey whisper-shouted, nudging me in the arm. She nodded her head toward the fireplace where Reggie was hanging out with a few of the guys from the football team. He had a beer in his hand and was laughing, probably using that Southern accent of his that made half of the student body lose their damn minds.

  “Let’s go say hi,” I offered, and Tracey tensed up. “Oh, for goodness’ sake, Trace, come on. It’s not like he bites, and if he does, it will probably feel good,” I joked, pulling her forward.

  As we approached the group, the manly conversation stopped, and the guys smirked our way.

  “Well, well, well, if it isn’t trouble,” Eric remarked, eyeing me up and down. “And trouble’s trouble,” he said, whistling low at Tracey and me.

  I smiled wide and nudged Eric in the side. “Hey, buddy. I was hoping I’d see you here so I could roll my eyes a bit tonight,” I teased. Eric and I had dated for a bit, and by dated, I meant we’d kissed a total of three times before he told me he’d be more into it if I had a penis in my pants. Fair enough. Eric hadn’t come out to anyone other than me, though, and his secret was safe. The best thing we’d gotten out of our five-month relationship was a solid friendship.

  Yes, we’d d
ated five months and only kissed three times. Red flags should’ve gone up a lot sooner for me, but when you have your first boyfriend, you don’t really overthink the situation.

  “Well, you’re in luck,” Eric commented, wrapping his arm around my shoulder. “I’m feeling extra annoying tonight.”

  Tracey stood still, seemingly nervous and feeling out of place. She was drowning in her own self-doubts, and like the good friend I was, I was determined to get her to shore.

  “Hey, Reggie, you any good at beer pong?” I asked.

  “Only the best,” he said cockily, and I swore I saw my friend swoon just from those three words. While he wasn’t my cup of tea, I had to shake it off in honor of Tracey.

  “Well, Trace here is a reigning champion herself. She’s never lost a game.”

  Reggie turned to Tracey and cocked an eyebrow. Jesus, even his brows were cocky. “Is that so?”

  “Well, er, yeah, I guess. I’ve never lost a game?” Tracey stammered, making it sound like a question. My poor, nervous butterfly. If only she would spread her wings a bit, she’d remember she could fly.

  “It’s true. You guys should team up and get a tournament going. It could be fun,” I suggested.

  Reggie shrugged. “Yeah, that could be fun. Let’s go grab a drink and get a game going. Your name’s Tracey, yeah?”

  Her cheeks turned redder than an apple. “Yes, Tracey with an E, not that it matters, because the E is silent when you say it, but my mom thought—”

  “Rambling,” I coughed into my hand, giving my friend a slight push in her shoulder.

  She blushed more and stopped talking. “Yeah, it’s Tracey. Let’s go get that drink.” Before going, she leaned into me, and whispered, “You’re so going to get that pony tonight. Also, since Eric is here, you might as well try giving his pony a ride.” She smirked and winked, feeling proud of herself.

  Oh, Tracey. If only she knew Eric’s pony had a no-XX-chromosome-riders policy. Reggie was more likely to get to ride it before I ever would.

  They hurried away, and I listened to my friend blabber about everything under the sun as Reggie stole a few glances at her boobs.