Page 81 of Landon & Shay: Part One

That wasn’t a lie. Even if I didn’t do it all, I was going to fight like hell to get as close to my dreams as possible.

“What about you?” I asked. “What do you want to do?”

“I hate that question,” he muttered. “It always feels loaded.”

“Loaded with what?”

“Pressure.” He grumbled a little through the receiver and then cleared his throat. “Everyone has an idea of what they want to do. Hank and Raine want to open that bakery and café shop crap. Eric wants to do engineering. Grey is a shoo-in for taking over his family’s whiskey company. Reggie has it locked down to be a homeless dick begging people for money so he can get a ticket back home to Kentucky. Everyone has their stuff figured out, while I’m walking around lost as fuck like John Travolta inPulp Fiction.” He paused. “That’s another favorite movie.Home AlonethenPulp Fiction.”

“I’ve never seen that movie.”

“Ah, and to think you were just starting to grow on me.”

I snickered. “You’ve been growing on me, too, actually.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes. Like a disgusting fungus between my toes.”

He laughed out loud, and my stomach fluttered with butterflies from the sound. I liked that. I liked that I made him laugh.

“You don’t have to have it all figured out right now, Landon. So many people go to school undecided. Some people take a year off to figure out what they really want to do. Some people don’t go to school at all. None of those are wrong choices. None of those choices are better than others.”

“Yeah, I guess. I just wish my dad understood that.”

“I’m beginning to think parents aren’t meant to understand us kids.”

“And we aren’t meant to understand them,” he added.

Never a truer statement. I wondered if parents even remembered what it felt like to be young, and confused, and completely without direction.

Then again, Mom had looked to be all those things that evening.

Maybe parents were still kids with old, tired hearts, and every time they beat, they cracked a little more.

My phone dinged and I received a message from Tracey. She and Raine had been texting me all night about a party at Reggie’s house—which was the last thing I wanted to be a part of.

Tracey:You were right about Reggie. He’s an asshole and I’m done with him forever.

The relief I felt when I read those words was overwhelming. For a split second, I wondered what brought about her revelation. Then, I realized it didn’t really matter. As long as he was out of the picture, I was happy.

“It seems Tracey is officially over the Reggie infatuation,” I yawned into the phone receiver.

“Good. He’s a fucking asshole. And that means a lot coming from an asshole like me.”

“You’re not an asshole, Landon,” I yawned again, “You’re a like a teddy bear hiding in a grizzly bear outfit.”

He snickered. “You’re yawning,” Landon noted. “Go to sleep.”

I rubbed my eyes, trying to get the sleepiness to fade. “I’m still here. I’m good.”

I yawned again.

“Hang up,” he said.

“Not until you’re asleep.”

“You’ll be asleep before me.”

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