Page 66 of Landon & Shay: Part One

Now I was confused. I didn’t know much about how girls’ minds worked, but I knew it was a shitshow inside their heads, so confusion was always going to be likely.

“Then, why did you…” I started.

She shrugged. “I didn’t want to be alone with my thoughts tonight, that’s all.”

“Oh.” I raised an eyebrow. “You can be not alone inside my house.”

“No. I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’ve been thinking about kissing you.”

I smirked a little. “Oh?”

“Don’t let it go to your head, dork. I just mean, at some point, we have to kiss for the show, and it’s just been on my mind a lot. Just for show purposes, of course. If I go inside your house, I’ll keep thinking about kissing you because I’ll think you’re thinking about kissing me, and I can’t be thinking about kissing you inside of your house, because in that house is your bedroom, which contains your bed, and I don’t want to be just another girl you’re kissing in your bed, even if it is solely for bettering our performances.”

Well, that was an earful.

She lowered her head. “You can take me back if you want to. I know this isn’t what you signed up for tonight.”

“It’s fine,” I muttered. “I didn’t really feel like being alone tonight, either.”

“What are we doing, Landon? This bet, this stupid challenge between us, this back-and-forth pettiness—what is this? Why are we even bothering with something so dumb? A challenge that was forged by Reggie, who probably hasn’t even thought about it since the drunken night he brought it up…what is this?” She sighed, begging for an answer to her question.

“I don’t know,” I told her. Truthfully, I didn’t know what to think about us. All I knew was that when I thought about her, my thoughts didn’t feel so heavy. “It’s weird, right?”

“Yeah, it is.”

“It’s just…” I sat back in my seat and clutched the steering wheel in my hands as I closed my eyes. “If I’m thinking about you and this stupid bet, it gives me less time to think about me and the shitstorm that is my life.”

“Same,” she confessed. When I opened my eyes, her head was tilted my way. Those deep brown eyes burned holes into my soul with such ease. Her eyes were my favorite part of her, too. They told full-length stories without any words.

That was my favorite part of watching her perform on stage. Her eyes always showed the truest forms of her emotions, and that night, they were saying something so heartbreaking.

“You’re sad tonight,” I whispered.

“Yes,” she replied.

I combed a fallen piece of hair behind her ear. I wasn’t certain I was even allowed to touch her, but I did, and she let it happen. I placed my head against the headrest and kept my stare locked with hers.

“Can I ask you a question?” she asked.

“I won’t stop you.”

“Why do you hate me? Why have you hated me all these years?”

“Easy—because you always seemed so happy, and I envied you. I envied how people loved you, and how your life is this picture-perfect thing. My life has been hard for longer than I remember, and you walk in and you’re all rainbows and crap. I’d kill for that.”

She snickered a bit. “That’s it? That’s why you hate me?”

“Pretty much. You have everything I’ve ever wanted…a stable life.”

She laughed even harder. “If only you knew why that was so funny.”

“You can tell me. I like to laugh.”

“Since when?”

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