I didn’t blame them.
Landon Harrison in the theater? Hell must’ve frozen over.
“Shay, you’re up,” Mr. Thymes called out, and she hopped up from her seat. Before walking to the stage, she closed her eyes and muttered something, holding on to the cross necklace around her neck. Maria had the same kind around hers. I wondered if believing in God came easy to Shay.
The battle of God was more like a war for me. I wanted to believe in him, but he’d given me so many reasons not to do so.
When she made it to the stage, the whole room went quiet. The second Shay began her audition, it was as if she became something completely new. She immersed herself in the character, in being Juliet, from head to toe. She moved across the stage as if she were a brand-new person. She talked with such powerful softness to her words. I didn’t have a damn clue what she was saying exactly, but I believed it.
She was beautiful, and anyone else who was auditioning for Juliet should’ve packed their bags and left, because she was easily the right one for the role, and I was determined to be her star-crossed lover.
Everyone clapped for her, and she deserved the applause. I probably clapped the loudest, and when she walked over to sit back down, I leaned forward and whispered against her ear with my hot breath. “You’re meant to be Juliet.”
She shivered from my heat and took a deep breath. “But you’re not my Romeo. You’ll never be my Romeo.”
“Landon,” Mr. Thymes called out. “You’re up.”
I stood and looked toward Shay. “Aren’t you going to tell me to break a leg?” I asked.
“Go ahead.” She nodded. “Break two.”
Cold, Chick.
I liked it.
15
Shay
Welp, I didn’t see that coming.
Landon got on that stage and blew his audition piece out of the water. He was exponentially more engaging than the other guys who auditioned for the role. He made it look easy, effortless. It was as if he’d been acting his whole life.
Even Mr. Thymes jumped to his feet and started clapping.
“Bravo, Mr. Harrison, bravo!” he shouted. “I think we just found our Romeo!”
For the love of all things righteous, this wasn’t fair. Landon couldn’t be an amazing actor without even trying. I’d have bet he’d picked out his audition piece the night before. It wasn’t right. You couldn’t be that good-looking, that rich, that popular, and that talented. I wondered which demon he’d sold his soul to in order to become the person he was.
When Landon came to sit back down, he leaned forward near me once again. “What was that about me not being your Romeo?” he mocked.
“Bite me, jerk.”
“Of course.” He leaned in closer, his lips gently touching the edge of my ear. “Just tell me where.”
“I know you think you somehow managed to figure out a way to hang out with me outside of school, but the joke’s on you—I haven’t even gotten the role of Juliet yet. You could end up spending your time with some other girl.”
“Come on, Freckles,” he whispered, shaking his head. “You were made to be Juliet. There’s no one better.”
I kind of liked Freckles. Most people didn’t even notice I had freckles. You had to look pretty close to notice them.
I didn’t tell him I liked the nickname, though. I didn’t want him to have that pleasure.
I narrowed my eyes. “Truth or game?” I asked.
“What?”
“Is that the truth or is it just part of the game to try to get me to fall in love with you by being sweet and crap?”
“What do you think?” he questioned. His eyes locked with mine, and there seemed to be such sincerity in his stare. Then again, he could’ve just been trying to get in my head and mess with my thoughts.
If so, it was working.
Gosh, it was working. Every now and then, he’d say rude comments, but then he’d slip in a few nice gentle words, and my heart would start to melt like butter. For a second, I almost fell for it, almost succumbed to his cheesy kindness.
But you know what you get from a melting-butter heart?
Clogged arteries.
That was what Landon did to me—he clogged my freaking arteries.
Mr. Thymes waited a week to announce the cast. Each day that passed felt like a ticking bomb, and I was certain it wasn’t going to go in my favor. To my surprise, it all worked out. Even though I felt as if my audition hadn’t been strong enough, Landon was spot-on about me being his Juliet, and even though it killed me inside, he was the perfect Romeo.
After I found out, I hurried home with joy racing through my veins. I knew it was stupid, but being Juliet was a dream come true for me. I’d been giving it my all, and the first person I wanted to share the news with was the man who’d helped me perfect my audition piece.
“Dad! Dad!” I shouted, rushing into the house and tossing my backpack to the floor. After searching the whole house, I hurried downstairs to his writing cave, where he was sitting at his computer, typing frantically.
“Dad…” I paused and raised an eyebrow. “Are you writing again?”
He turned around to look at me and gave me a dopey smile as he ran his hands over his head. “Yeah, I am.”
“I thought you gave it up, since…you know…”
You seemed unable to write without a joint in your hand and whiskey in your cup.
“I know, but I felt inspired, and when an artist is inspired, we have to create. You know this better than anyone.”
True. An artist without art lives a very lonely life.
“Well, I don’t want to take up too much of your time, but I got it!” I shrieked, unable to hold in my excitement. “I got the part of Juliet!”
“Of course you did,” he said, his voice not getting excited, because Dad didn’t get excited about things. “There was no way you wouldn’t have. You did the work, put in the time, and it paid off.”
“I couldn’t have done it without you. Thanks for helping me perfect the monologue.”
He gave me two nods.
He was proud of me.
He didn’t say it, but I saw it.
My feelings were still soaring from excitement as I raced over to him to give him a thank you hug, and as I wrapped him in my embrace, he turned his head slightly away from me, but it was too late.
I’d smelled it.
The whiskey on his breath.
My heart dropped in an instant, and I took a few steps back. I gave him a big smile and tried to push away the tears that wanted to fall from my eyes. “I’m gonna let you get back to your work, but I just wanted to tell you the good news.”
“I’m looking forward to seeing you on stage again. You’re going to nail it.”
Whiskey. Whiskey. Whiskey.
Had I made up the smell? Was I delusional? Had he gone back to his old ways?
“Thanks. Okay, good night. I’ll see you in the morning.”
I hurried up to my bedroom, closed the door, and shut off the lights. I climbed into bed and pulled the covers over my head, and the tears began to flow all on their own.
Dad was tapping into his old habits again… I’d smelled it, at least I thought I had. Soon enough, Mom and Mima would notice. Soon enough, there would be fighting. There would be yelling. There would be hatred.
There would be tears. There would be drama. There would be pain.
So. Much. Pain.
I was so tired of how history kept repeating itself every few months. I was so tired of being tired. I hated that a part of me believed Dad would change his ways after being locked up, but it seemed he wasn’t a different man after prison. Maybe people didn’t change. Maybe that was a truth that only existed in fairytales.
I lay in bed and mourned my father who was still alive. I mourned the man I was hoping he could someday be. I mourned my dreams of who he could’ve become. I mourned the loss of my trust in him. Maybe someday, Mom would start mourning him, too.
T
he following days, I convinced myself I hadn’t smelled what I’d thought I smelled. Mom and Mima hadn’t said anything about it, and there hadn’t been as much arguing at the house lately, so I didn’t want to bring on drama that didn’t need to exist.
Maybe I was wrong, too. Maybe I’d made a mistake. I hadn’t actually seen him drinking, after all. I hadn’t seen the toxins going into his body. There wasn’t a bottle sitting on his desk, he wasn’t slurring his words, and he had been coherent when I’d spoken to him. Those were all really good signs.
So, instead of focusing on what I had no control over, I focused on what I did: Romeo and Juliet and Landon Harrison.
Each day we rehearsed, Landon’s talent became even more apparent. It floored me how effortless he made it all look, too, and how dedicated he was. At first, I’d thought he would drop out of the show the moment he saw how much work it actually took to bring a performance together, but Landon didn’t shy away from the challenge—he embraced it.
When he wasn’t on stage, he was sitting in the auditorium, combing through the script of the play he’d already nailed down. He had his lines memorized by week one. By week two, the blocking was nailed down completely. But still, he studied as if there was something he could learn, something he could unlock from his chamber of talent.
Part of me hated how easily it came to him.
A bigger part was secretly turned on by his skills.
I was a girl who appreciated seeing raw talent. Raw talent—like my father’s—always amazed me. It didn’t work that way for me, though. I had to fight tooth and nail for every ounce of skill I had.
No one knew the hours I’d stayed up trying to perfect my audition piece. No one knew how I moved furniture around in my bedroom to recreate the setup of the stage so I could rehearse my blocking and movements. No one knew the number of hours I stood in front of a mirror and honed facial expressions.
No one knew the number of nights I cried because I felt like I was failing when I was giving it my all and it still wasn’t good enough.
We rehearsed for two hours after school each day of the week, and Landon made sure to always sit close by me. When he wasn’t near, I could feel his perfect stare gazing my way. If he wasn’t studying his script, he was studying me—his second favorite hobby. He knew he got under my skin, but sometimes, I’d catch him looking at me with such a gentleness in his stare that I almost thought he’d forgotten we were playing a game.
Good.
As long as we were going to be forced to be around each other, I might as well win the bet, too.
I had to remind myself daily that none of the butterflies that found me whenever Landon was around were real. I had to have pep talks about how the fluttering of my heart was just heartburn. I had to convince myself that anything I felt was just passing hormones.
I knew deep down that I could never fall for Landon.
He wasn’t the kind of guy who would catch the girl.
Especially me.
Me and my sensitive heart.
“I need ammo, Raine,” I told my friend, barging up to her and Tracey where they were talking at Raine’s locker after school. Tracey was probably going on and on about Reggie, seeing how she was the only person on the planet who hadn’t faced the reality that he was a complete douchebag. I’d watched him in the hallways, had studied the way he treated people who were deemed lesser than him in the way of looks.
He bullied Billy Peters for the clothing he wore. He tripped Jovah Thomas during gym class and called him a fat Teletubbie. He also told Wren Miller that eating disorders were okay if they were used on a body like hers.
I told Tracey all of these things, and she refused to believe it. “It’s just his humor, Shay. You just don’t get it,” she’d told me.
I supposed I didn’t find bullies hilarious.
I didn’t push the topic any further, because each day it seemed she was growing more and more protective of the guy. I didn’t want to ruin my friendship over something as mundane as Reggie. I simply prayed Tracey would figure out what he was really about before she got her heart broken.
As I walked up to the girls, Tracey made a quick excuse to leave. I’d have to find time to talk to her and make sure she wasn’t upset with me about voicing my opinion about Reggie. But first…
“Ammo? Why, are you going hunting?” Raine joked, tossing her schoolbooks into her backpack. “I’m pretty sure Hank can lend you some of his camo to blend into the woods.”
“No, I’m serious. I need you to give me some ammunition to use against Landon. I need information to use against him.”
Raine’s green eyes widened with nerves, and she shook her head. “Oh, no. Hank said I’m not allowed to meddle in other people’s business anymore, ever since I helped my nonna order a vibrator through a television commercial because she said my grandfather wasn’t the stallion he used to be.”
I cocked an eyebrow. “But you owe me.”
“Owe you? For what?”
“Oh, I don’t know—telling a boy I was auditioning for the school play and then having said boy also audition and get a part in the show.”
Raine’s eyes lit up. “Oh my gosh! He got a part?! I’m so proud of him!” she exclaimed. “I mean, I know you hate his guts, but it’s no secret Landon is like a little brother to me.”
“He’s older than you, Raine.”
“Yes,”—she placed her hand over her heart with a gleam in her eyes—“but his childish ways make him seem so young.”
“Well, seeing how you helped him out, it means you need to help me out, too.”
She cringed. “I can’t, Shay. Hank would kill me if I got involved again. He gave me the silent treatment for a solid five minutes after I helped Landon, and I don’t know if I can handle that again.”
“Fine.” I frowned, crossing my arms. “I guess that’s okay.”
“Don’t do that,” Raine said, waving her finger my way.
“Don’t do what?”
“Pout. You know I can’t take it, seeing my friends sad.”
“Well, I guess you just like Landon a little more than you like me,” I argued. “Seeing how you helped him out and not me. I thought we lived by the motto chicks before dicks, but I guess not…”
“Ugh.” She groaned, slapping her hand against her forehead. “Fiiine. You twisted my arm. But this doesn’t get back to Hank—or any of the guys. They are worse than us and tell each other everything.”
“You have my word.”
“Okay. Landon loves his dog Ham. Like, loves him. You should take them to a dog park to get on his good side.”
“What? No. I don’t want to know what he loves. I want to know what he hates!”
“Why?”
“So I can annoy him the way he annoys me.”
“Wait, don’t you want him to fall in love with you to win the bet?”
“Yes.”
“And you want to do that by torturing him?”
“Uh-huh.”
Raine raised an eyebrow and shook her head. “I don’t think you understand how love works.”
Maybe she was right. Maybe I didn’t know how love worked, but I did know Landon had entered my world, my space, and was making himself far too comfortable in it. The theater was supposed to be my safe haven, and he was currently leaving his fingerprints all over it with that annoyingly handsome grin of his, so screw love.
I wanted to annoy him the same way he annoyed me.
“Please, Raine?” I asked.
She released a weighted sigh and groaned. “Fine. He’s terrified of reptiles.”
“Reptiles?”
“Yes, reptiles. All kinds. Snakes, lizards, turtles—oh! And bugs! He hates bugs. Once I saw him physically run into a building trying to get away from a fly. Like, bam! Straight into a brick wall. And don’t even get me started on spiders.”
I smirked.
This was perfect.
“Thanks,” I said, patting her on the back. “You’ve done your country
good.”
“From here on out, I’m moving to Switzerland. Oh, and just for future warning, if your grandmother asks you for help buying a vibrator from a 1-800 number, don’t do it. It makes holiday dinner conversation very uncomfortable.”
Duly noted.
“Also, what’s the deal with you and Tracey? Are you guys fighting?” Raine asked.
“Not that I know of…but I’m guessing she’s mad I mentioned how Reggie doesn’t seem like a good guy.”
“Well, I’m glad someone did. He’s a total jerk. Have you noticed whenever he’s with Tracey, he’s checking out other girls behind her back? He’s a total creep.”
“Yeah, but Tracey is head over heels for the guy.”
Raine puffed out a breath. “More like shit over ankles. What a messy situation. If Hank ever treated me the way Reggie has been treating Tracey, I’d cut off his balls and make French onion soup.”
I laughed. “Why French onion?”
“Because balls smell like onions, and Hank is seventy percent French. If I’m going to castrate my boyfriend, I’m going to at least respect his heritage.”
I laughed at my crazy friend and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “You’re such a good girlfriend.”
She smirked. “I know, right? The lucky bastard doesn’t deserve me.”
No one does, Raine.
“So, since you and Tracey are in a rut, how about an old-school sleepover at my house sooner than later? We can do facials and gossip, and I can be Dr. Phil and help you two fix the dramatic state of your friendship.”
I narrowed my eyes. “I thought you were out of the business of meddling in other people’s stuff?”
“What can I say?” She shrugged her shoulders and gave me an angelic grin. “Old habits die hard.”
16
Landon
“Let’s go on a date this Saturday.”
I had to rub the tiredness out of my eyes in order to make sure it was Shay who was talking to me after theater rehearsal. She seemed to go well out of her way to avoid interacting with me during the school day and now during our rehearsals. Truly, the only time she’d given me the time of day was when I was Romeo and she was Juliet. She was a hard book to crack open, that was for sure. That didn’t mean I was going to stop trying.
Landon & Shay - Part One: (The L&S Duet Book 1) Page 13