Page 31 of Landon & Shay: Part One

“I don’t know,” she said, offering a quick shrug before she continued eating, “I’m probably above your reading level.”

I smirked.

Oh hell. Shay Gable made me smirk—a genuine smirk—and I was certain she’d noticed it.

I didn’t often give real smiles. Most of the time, when I grinned, it was just an act, because that was what people expected you to do. Grin. Laugh. Be happy.

My true smiles were few and far between, yet somehow, Shay managed to get one out of me. I have been lying if I said it didn’t feel kind of good, too.

“Whatever, reading is overrated,” I stated. That was a lie. Reading was what I did when I couldn’t keep my mind in check, which meant I had a full-sized library inside my head.

“I bet you think oxygen is overrated, too, based on the lack of it going to your brain cells.” She smiled, and damn, it was beautiful.

She was sassy that afternoon. I wouldn’t have ever told her, but her sassiness was kind of sexy.

I reached across the table and snatched up the last of the grapes on her tray before standing up from my seat and walking away.

“Hey! I was going to eat those!” she hollered, irritation coating her words.

“Ask me how much I care,” I replied as I kept walking.

“I hate you!” she shouted.

“I hate you more.”

“I hate you the most!”

I’d never known hatred could be such a turn-on.

I wasn’t sure if I actually had a plan to make her fall in love with me, really. I wasn’t sure if she had an idea for the love angle, either, but what I did know was thisthingbetween us—whatever the hell it was—felt fun.

Fun.

When was the last time something had felt fun to me?

All the days before had felt like wading through quicksand—slow, exhausting, and hopeless—but now with Shay? I felt entertained, refreshed. It felt good to mess with her, to get in her head. We loved pushing each other’s buttons. We loved the way we pissed each other off. We loved the hate we were able to give each other every day we walked into school.

8

Shay

The other day,Landon had stuffed my locker with dozens of pieces of paper that had “Do you love me yet?” written on them. I took every single piece, figured out his locker combination, and stuffed them right back into his with the word NO written in bold.

Then, he went into my backpack, took my history extra-credit assignment, and wrote “penis” across it, making it impossible for me to turn it in. In exchange for that, I licked my fingers and stuck them straight into the brownie on his lunch tray.

To my surprise, he didn’t seem thrown off by his damaged brownie.

“Thanks, Chick,” he commented as he picked up the brownie. “I love my desserts moist.”

He bit into it as if he wasn’t thrown off by my licks.

The way the word moist rolled off his tongue made me want to vomit. At the same time, it made me cross my legs tighter at the lunch table, and I was certain he saw the redness in my cheeks.

I watched him eat the whole brownie, and then he locked eyes with me as he sucked on each of his fingers.

In.

Slow.

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