Page 45 of Landon & Shay: Part One

“Trust me…” He snickered and kept flipping through his comic. “You don’t want her to love you the way she loved me.”

I didn’t want her to love me at all, but if that was the only way to win the bet…

“Just give me some tips and crap to help get in her good graces.”

“Oh no.” Eric tossed his hands in the air. “Nope. I’m not getting in the middle of this mess. I’m Switzerland.”

I glanced to Grey, and he shook his head. “I love the Swiss Alps. Sorry, buddy.”

Crap.

I cocked an eyebrow at Hank, and he laughed. “Did I ever tell you my favorite cheese is Swiss?” he joked.

“What happened to bros before hoes?” I spat out.

“Hey, watch it!” Raine hollered, tossing water toward me. “Your sexist ways are showing. Besides, I think we can all agree that Shay isn’t a ho. But…” Raine wrinkled up her nose. “She’s always been into writing. She writes screenplays and stuff. I’m sure you’ve seen her with one of her millions of notebooks.”

“Raine! Come on!” Hank sighed, splashing water toward his girlfriend. “We’re Switzerland! We don’t get involved in other people’s drama.”

“I never said I was Switzerland. I’m more like America, just kind of sticking my nose in other people’s business. Plus, I think it’s kind of romantic.” She swooned. I swore, she swooned, and I didn’t even know what she was swooning over.

“What’s romantic about it?” I asked.

“Well, it’s obvious the two of you are going to fall in love at the end of this. Therefore, like every good romance movie, you need a fairy godmother to help push you toward each other.”

Hank groaned, slapping his forehead, knowing his girlfriend was being dramatic as always. “You are no fairy godmother,” he said.

“And you don’t like Swiss cheese,” she shot back.

Hank flipped her off.

She flipped him off back.

“Love you, honey buns.” He winked.

“Love you, too, my Swedish Fish,” she replied.

No doubt about it, I was going to get love diabetes from being around those two. They were always that dramatic with their love. They were snappy and rude and corny and fun.

If I ever fell in love, I’d want it to be something like theirs. It wasn’t always rainbows and butterflies for them, but it was real, and it was theirs.

“What else, Raine?” I asked.

“Recently, she’s been obsessing about her upcoming Shakespeare audition,” she told me.

Shakespeare, huh? Interesting. I knew my fair share of Shakespeare, though I wasn’t a pro. Lance had a collection of Shakespeare plays, and over the past few months, when I wasn’t able to sleep, I’d go into the coach house and thumb through some of his books out of boredom. If you needed a sleep aid, Shakespeare’s plays worked like a dream.

“Do you want a basket to catch all your word vomit, Raine, or are we done being nosey Nancys?” Hank asked.

“Nosey Nancy, over and out.” She saluted and then lay back on her floatie.

She’d given me enough to keep me going, though. This was the second mention of Shakespeare—the first being from Maria—so that had to be pretty important. I was going to take that Shakespeare knowledge and run with it.

When Thursday came around, KJ showed up and dropped off the weed for the guys. He’d decided it was best not to stick around too long, seeing how Mom had caught him the last time, and he hadn’t wanted any trouble.

As we made our exchange, my mind was on Shay, thinking up a million ways I could get near her. The other day, Reggie had come up to me mocking me about how I hadn’t been able to get Shay to fall in love with me yet, going on and on about how he could’ve already banged her and had her loving on him if he wanted to.

I wanted to punch him in the face and tell him he would never be good enough for Shay, but I kept quiet. I didn’t feel the need to waste my breath on a pointless person. I’d have bet Kentucky was missing their favorite clown boy.

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