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

by Brittainy Cherry

  I thanked her for the little details she had offered me.

  She frowned. “Landon, maybe a good starting point is you showing her the parts of you that you keep hidden from the world. Maybe that will help her show you her own shadows, too.”

  “Yeah, all right.” Not a fucking chance.

  “Just read the book. I swear, it will help.” She gave me a stern look. “But that’s not me getting involved. Again I’m smelly, Swiss cheese over here. You and Shay are none of my business.”

  “Message received, Raine. I won’t ask you for anything else about her. I swear.”

  “Good. Good night.”

  “Night.”

  I walked down her driveway, and she shouted my way. “Landon! Landon! One more thing!”

  “What?”

  She bit her bottom lip and groaned, slapping her palm to her face. “Shay loves peonies!”

  “Penises?” I echoed. Okay, those were the kind of details I could work with.

  She groaned even louder. “No, you sick jerk. I said peonies. They are her favorite flower, but you didn’t hear that from me!”

  How the hell were peonies and a book about love languages going to help me make Shay fall in love with me? Hell if I knew, but my dumb ass started reading the book the minute I made it home.

  17

  Shay

  I wished I could’ve enjoyed the triumph of torturing Landon for a longer period of time, but when I made it home, my house was a warzone once again. The fighting lasted straight into the next school week, and I was exhausted.

  I was struggling through my rehearsal that afternoon after suffering from a morning of arguments in my house. The yelling had come back, and no matter what, it seemed my father couldn’t do anything right in my grandmother’s eyes. With good reason.

  It seemed I hadn’t imagined the stench of whiskey lingering on his breath.

  I was exhausted from all the anger swimming throughout my home, and it was affecting my sleep patterns. I couldn’t think of the last time I’d had a decent night’s sleep, truly. Most of the time, whenever I laid my head down, I wondered if Dad was okay or not.

  My lack of sleep led to me stumbling over my lines during rehearsals and lagging behind. I felt how clouded my brain was, and I was having the hardest time clearing the fog. By the end of rehearsal, I was kicking myself for messing up so many times. I’d have to rehearse on my own at home to make up for the crappy rehearsal.

  “You kicked ass today,” Landon said as I packed up my bags to head out for the night. He said the words, but he was completely wrong. I’d missed my marks. I’d hiccupped over words. I’d forgotten my lines, and yet still, there he was, telling me how well I’d done. I couldn’t help but think he was being his nasty self when the words left his mouth. I wasn’t really in the mood to play our back-and-forth game at the moment, though.

  I was mostly in the mood to tear up and cry.

  “You don’t have to mock me, Landon. I know I messed up all night.”

  He cocked an eyebrow and tilted his head, but he didn’t say anything. He simply paused his steps and stared at me, looking completely baffled.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Nothing.” He shook his head. “Just wondering if you’ve always been your harshest critic or if this is a new development.”

  “It’s not easy for me.”

  “What’s not easy for you?”

  “This.” I gestured toward the theater space. “This doesn’t come easy to me, not like it does for you. Most people can’t just pick up a book and memorize the lines like it’s the easiest action known to mankind.” Landon had been off book faster than anyone else. Sure, I wasn’t convinced he knew exactly what he was saying, but the words danced off his tongue in the most magical fashion that made you believe he was, indeed, Romeo.

  “You make it look easy, though,” he commented, his voice low. “You get on that stage and own every inch of it. You demand people’s attention. You ooze confidence. Watching you onstage is like watching live art being made. It’s addictive, all-consuming, and you do it in a way that looks so effortless.” He combed his hand through his hair then stuffed it into the pocket of his jeans. The biceps in his arms were showcased nicely as he rocked back and forth. “It doesn’t matter if it comes easy or not. It matters how it looks, and it looks perfect.”

  I wanted to think of something snarky to say. I wanted to shoot something sassy his way, but I was too emotionally exhausted to do so. Plus, his words made my heart skip, and I couldn’t be snarky with skipping heartbeats.

  “What’s up your ass today?” he asked me.

  “Nothing.”

  “Bullshit. You’re off. Why?”

  “If I was off, which I’m not, you’d be the last one I’d talk to about my issues, Landon.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because I know you don’t really care. I know everything that happens between us is just part of the stupid game.”

  He dropped his head a tad, and his shoulders rounded forward before he looked up at me with those blue eyes, irises that swam in a gentle sea. “You’re having a shitty day, and you’re right, you probably can’t trust anything that leaves my mouth. I’m known for being cold and heartless, but I get having off days. I’ve been having nothing but off weeks—off months—lately. So, I get feeling like shit. Therefore, I’d never use your bad days against you, Shay. Not for this game; not for this life.”

  I wanted to thank him for that, but I didn’t have time to do so.

  He turned around on the heels of his sneakers and murmured, “I hope it gets better, though. ‘Night.”

  “Good night,” I muttered, and I wasn’t even sure he heard me.

  On my way home that night, I tried my best to push out the thought that I’d be spending the next few weeks in Landon’s presence. Although, lately, I’d choose spending time with him over my own family.

  When I got home, it was clear it wasn’t a good night for my family.

  As I walked up the front porch, I heard Mima hollering with anger. When she was extremely angry, she went from speaking English to Spanglish, and then, when she was at her breaking point, full-on Spanish.

  I cracked the front door open and stood there listening before entering the house. I knew they’d stop talking about what was going on when I walked in, and I hated not knowing all the details.

  “You can’t keep making excuses for him, Camila! I smelled it on his breath when he walked in today. He rushed to shower and wash up because he knows I know. How are you going to sit here and act like everything’s sunshine and rainbows when your husband has fallen off again and lied—again?”

  “Mom, I don’t need this right now. I know this is a mess. You think I don’t see that he’s broken and falling apart? Don’t you think I know he’s losing his way?”

  “Of course I know you know that, Camila, but what I don’t think you know is that you don’t have to keep picking up his broken pieces. He’s bringing his demons into this house over and over again.”

  “Having you snap at him over little things isn’t helping. You’re adding to the drama of it all.”

  “It’s not my fault he’s a liar. This isn’t my fault, and I’d wish you’d stop making up excuses for him. What are you teaching your daughter about relationships?”

  They went back and forth about Mima wanting Mom to leave Dad, about her abandoning him, and truthfully, I understood where Mima was coming from. How many chances could you give someone before time was up? How many times could my mother be forced to sacrifice her own wellbeing at the expense of his?

  It was becoming an embarrassing show to watch, and ever so slowly, I was becoming so disappointed in who my mom was becoming. I always pictured her being the strongest woman I knew, and she was that person…except for when it came to her love for my father.

  We had been so much happier when he was behind bars.

  I crept back outside, not wanting to go in.

  If Dad was inside, I wa
nted nothing to do with him. He’d lied to me. He’d looked me straight in the eyes not that long ago and promised that he wasn’t going to be getting into any trouble anymore. But that was what liars did best—they lied. I hated how he’d let us down time and time again. I hated that Mom defended him time and time again.

  I hated the loop that we were stuck on.

  I pulled out my phone and sent a quick text message to Eleanor.

  Me: Sleepover?

  Eleanor: Always.

  I headed over to my cousin’s house, which was always the safe landing place when my father pushed himself over the edge. Whenever I came over to spend the night, it was a clear sign to my aunt and uncle that my father had slipped up.

  Aunt Paige opened the door, and the moment she laid eyes on me, she knowingly said, “I’m sorry, Shay.” She looked tired, but she didn’t give me much of a chance to study her appearance before she pulled me into a tight hug. Paige had a way of giving the best hugs each and every time I came over.

  She didn’t even know what she was apologizing for, other than the fact that all my unplanned sleepovers at her house meant there was a war going on at my residence.

  I lazily grinned. “It’s okay.”

  “It’s not,” Uncle Kevin said firmly, walking into the living room. “It’s not okay.”

  It felt good to hear that, to hear that it wasn’t okay.

  If only my family could’ve realized that fact. The fighting drove me mad. Watching Mima and Dad go at it on the regular was really wearing on me. Sometimes, it didn’t even seem as if they were fighting about anything of importance. If there was a spoon left in the sink, they’d go to war over who had left it there, and, like the peacekeeper she was, Mom always took the blame, which would spiral into yet another argument from Mima about how Mom was being an enabler, not a team player.

  “Your love is what keeps him from doing right,” Mima would tell my mother. “Why should he do the right thing when you always forgive his wrongs?”

  So often I thought Mima was right.

  So often I prayed she was wrong.

  Coming to my cousin’s house always felt peaceful. I wasn’t sure they ever fought, and if they did, it was probably over what TV show to watch or something. I’d never seen three people fit so perfectly together. Eleanor’s family was pretty much perfect. They were those smiling people you see in the picture frame before you put the real photograph in.

  Picture perfect.

  My family was an episode of The Real World. You could walk in and see what happened when people stopped being polite and started getting real.

  I headed to Eleanor’s bedroom, and she already had a blowup bed pumped up with air. She lay on it with a book in her hand. I would’ve fought her about her taking the air mattress over her actual bed, but whenever I stayed over, she refused to let me take the uncomfortable bed.

  “You’re already feeling down. Your back doesn’t have to feel down, too,” she’d tell me.

  Eleanor’s room was filled with bookshelves from floor to ceiling. There were dozens and dozens of novels sitting on those shelves, and if it were anyone else, I would’ve assumed so many of those books went unread, but knowing my cousin, she’d probably read through all of them more than once.

  I plopped down on her bed, where she’d already laid out a set of pajamas for me. My lips released the most dramatic sigh in the history of sighs.

  Eleanor looked up from her book then closed it.

  I knew that didn’t seem like a big deal to a lot of people, but for Eleanor to close her book to have human interaction was a big deal. My shy introvert of a cousin only closed her book for those she loved the most.

  “What were they fighting about?” she asked, sitting up and crossing her legs to face me.

  “Beats me. I just heard the yelling and turned around to leave.”

  “Seems to be happening a lot more than normal lately,” she commented, and I didn’t reply because a reply wasn’t needed.

  Yes, it’d been happening a lot more lately.

  Yes, I hated it every single second of every single day.

  “Do you think your dad is…” Eleanor’s words trailed off because she knew how sometimes words could hurt even when they weren’t intended to sting. She didn’t want to finish her thought, but I knew what she was asking—was my father dealing again?

  No, I prayed.

  Yes, I found more likely.

  “I don’t know,” I answered, speaking truthfully.

  The last time my dad and I had spoken about it, he’d promised he wasn’t, but a promise from a former liar was the hardest truth to believe. Dad used to lie about everything to cover up his missteps. It usually worked for such a long time, too, up until he either blacked out drunk, overdosed, or Mom caught him in his web of lies.

  Once, she followed him to a house where he was dealing.

  I’d sat in the back of her car.

  I was ten years old.

  What a time to be alive.

  “I hope he’s not,” Eleanor said.

  I gave her a sad, tight smile, because her words made my eyes water over. I was so tired of crying over the man who was supposed to be my hero.

  “I just wish my family could be more like yours.” I wiggled my nose to keep the sniffles away. “You guys are perfect.”

  Eleanor’s gaze shifted to the ground, and she grew a bit somber. “We’re not perfect. We have struggles, too. Really hard struggles.”

  “Yeah, I get that. It’s human to struggle, but you all struggle together…as one.” They all played for the same team; they all wanted the same thing in life—happiness. My family was split up into different divisions. Sure, we all wanted happiness, but we all thought it came from different avenues.

  “We can talk about something else,” she offered, feeling the heaviness of the room.

  “Please,” I choked out. I’d talk about anything—anything that wasn’t my family’s wounds, which were being deepened with each passing day.

  Eleanor jumped up from her sitting position and moved over to her desk. She picked up a stack of papers and came back over to join me on her bed. Then, she plopped the paperwork on my lap with a big thump.

  “What is this?” I asked.

  “It’s the script you sent me.”

  I arched an eyebrow. “Ellie, I sent this to you at like ten last night.” When I couldn’t sleep, I wrote. When I wrote, I sent my pages over to Eleanor. The night before, I’d finally completed a manuscript I’d been working on for over three years, and I had sent it to my cousin for her painfully honest feedback.

  “Yeah, I know, and you’re the reason I slept through my alarm clock, by the way. I read through it three times, Shay. I read it over and over again to look for where I could give you notes on improvements, on your character developments, on the story arc, but there’s one major problem.”

  I swallowed hard. “What’s that?”

  “It’s already perfect.”

  My heart started racing at a pace I couldn’t keep up with. “Don’t just butter me up because I’m having a crappy day, Eleanor.”

  “I’m not. Shay, this is a masterpiece. All you have to do now is share it with the world somehow.”

  My heart hiccupped as realization set in that the one person I wanted to share it with was the person who might’ve fallen back off the wagon. I couldn’t share my blood, sweat, and tears with my father if he wasn’t doing right.

  Clean-cut father deserved to share my passions with me. Liar father did not.

  “How would I even begin to share this?” I asked her.

  “Come look,” she said, hurrying over to her desktop. She sat down, opened a web page, and started scrolling. “I did some research, and there are all these contests you can enter to have professionals read your manuscript. You can even send them in to some colleges for grants or scholarships. I know you’ve been wavering back and forth on getting a degree in film and creative writing, because realistically, for the average person,
it’s a crappy idea, but you aren’t average, Shay. You’re extraordinary.”

  “You’re only saying that because I’m your favorite cousin.”

  “You’re my only cousin,” she remarked as she nudged me in the arm. “But really, I get not wanting to risk the financial side of things. So, maybe apply for scholarships to see what you can get. That could ease up the stress of losing a crap ton of money to an art degree.”

  I scrunched up my nose. “Maybe.”

  Eleanor was always pushing me to go for more, to chase my dreams, to become the best human I could be. I had her email me the website with the applications and said I’d look into it more when I had time.

  I didn’t know what my future would be, but it felt good to have someone in my corner who believed in me.

  We talked about everything under the sun until both of our eyes grew heavy, and as I lay down in the darkness of the room, Eleanor called out to me.

  “I know we don’t talk about boys, because, whatever…but what’s the deal with you and Landon?” she asked, her question making my stomach swirl. Eleanor never really engaged in high school drama, and she was highly skilled at keeping to herself. Outside of me, she didn’t really care much about anything that went on within the halls of our high school. So, the fact that she’d even noticed something between Landon and me was baffling.

  Were we that obvious with whatever tango it was that we danced?

  “What do you mean?”

  “I heard about the bet you two have going on. It’s high school people talk. Sure, they weren’t talking to me, but I overheard.”

  “Oh.” It was all I could think to say.

  “Are you okay? Are you falling for him?”

  “No, not at all.” Just a few heart skips every now and then, nothing I didn’t have under control.

  “But you could,” Eleanor offered up. “You have a loving kind of heart. You could love monsters if they could be loved.”

  I snickered. “Tracey called it a sensitive heart.”

  “Yes, that’s it. I don’t mean it in a bad way. All I mean is, I think you feel things more than most people do. You love harder and deeper, and I just worry if Landon hurts you—”