Page 50 of Landon & Shay: Part Two

Maybe he needed the right girl to shape him into a good man.

Dating in your thirties felt a lot like fishing in a dirty goldfish bowl with murky water. Most of the fish were floating upside down, and the ones who weren’t were running head first into the sides.

Which was exactly why I’d opted out of the dating apps world so long ago. I had found Sam only because he walked into the bakery I worked at, and I swore if I were to date again, I’d have to cross paths with the person in a real-world scenario.

Yet there I was, vodka-drunk at eleven in the morning, swiping right nonstop, because I was in need of an instant fling, just for a few hours.

I needed someone to have on my arm that night, because my ego had been bruised, and I couldn’t show up emptyhanded, especially knowing my first love was going to be there with another woman.

To the rest of the world, he was Landon Pace, Hollywood’s golden boy, the next Brad Pitt. But to me? To me he was just regular ol’ Landon Harrison, the boy who broke my heart and never looked back.

I wasn’t looking forward to reconnecting with him, especially without Sam by my side, because even though Landon infuriated me to extremes, he still had some kind of effect on me. I hated the idea of being around him, because out of all the men I’d ever crossed paths with, he was the only one who made my heart run wild. I hadn’t known it was possible for a man to make your skin crawl with annoyance and tingle with desire at the same time.

I needed to put distance between us—or a human being at the very least. So, I kept drunkenly swiping on my phone, looking for a one-event stand with anyone, including PimpDaddy69.

Every time a guy would message me with DTF, I’d reply with, DTMLJAPSIMS?—down to make Landon jealous and pretend Shay is mentally stable?

Needless to say, I didn’t get too many hits, and as the hours kept passing, a hopeless feeling grew in my gut. I’d just became single, I was going to be confronted with my ultimate-ex within a few hours, and he’d have another woman on his arm.

15

Landon

I hated social gatherings.

Greyson’s whiskey launch was the first big event I attended since the Oscars, and I still wasn’t ready for it. I felt as if it took me about ten months to recover from awards season. Being surrounded by other celebrities was the most draining thing in the world, but I knew the publicity would be great for Greyson and his company. Even if we were in a space filled with snakes.

About ninety-five percent of the people at the whiskey launch hated one another, though they smiled as if they didn’t. A room filled with actors. That’s what it meant attending any social event with the extremely wealthy, but these individuals were real fucking actors. They all received their nourishment from LDG: lies, deceit, and gossip. About one-third of the crowd was probably heading toward bankruptcy yet lying their asses off about it. Another third was cheating on their spouses, and their mistresses were probably in the same room.

The last third were just really shitty humans.

Most conversations were pretty much women gossiping about crap that didn’t matter, and guys talking about how their yacht was the biggest yacht out there. That conversation opener would always launch another person to disagree, then they’d talk about their huge, throbbing yacht engines.

Easy, fellas. You’re all beautiful snowflakes.

I sipped on my whiskey and kept myself engaged enough so the tabloids wouldn’t run stories about how anti-social I had become. Normally I wouldn’t have even bothered attending an event like this, but since it was for Greyson, I knew I’d show up. There wasn’t much I wouldn’t do for my best friend, especially after the trauma he and his two girls went through when they were in a car crash a few months back.

Anything he’d ever needed, I’d do without question. I knew he’d do the same for me in a heartbeat.

“To your left is Ralph Weldon. He worked as a producer on your filmA Time Lapse. To his left is his wife Sandra, who just gave birth to their second child a few months ago,” Willow whispered as she leaned in toward me.

I smoothed my hands over my tailored Giorgio Armani suit. My eyes darted around the whiskey function, taking in the familiar faces of people I had crossed paths with throughout the years. I never forgot a face, but I was almost guaranteed to forget a name.

Thankfully Willow was always close by to lean in and whisper them to me. I wasn’t certain how I got anything done without her, let alone greeted others. Her brain was a filing cabinet of information, and she spat it out like Sherlock Holmes on a case.

If I asked her what I’d eaten a year ago to the date, she could go into full detail about what seasonings were used in the dish. Okay, maybe she wasn’tthatgood, but pretty damn close.

We walked over to Sandra and Ralph to greet them, and I congratulated them on their new child. If there was anything I was a master at, it was communicating with individuals in such a way that they felt at home when they spoke to me. It came as part of the celebrity job tasks, wining and dining individuals so you left a lasting impression. The goal was to have people so comfortable with you that the men would walk away thinking they could grab a beer with you and the women would wonder if a secret affair could take place.

Tacky, yet powerful. Being well received and liked in the world of acting was one of the best characteristics a person could hold. You couldn’t only be talented, but you had to have a solid personality to showcase said talent.

Plus, you’d leave an imprint on the individuals, and when casting directors would start their search, you’d pop into their minds.

All of Hollywood was a game. All you had to do was know how to work the system. It took me a few years to get my footing on how things went in la-la land, but once I learned, I mastered my skills.

I’d never let people in close enough to know the real me. Otherwise, I doubt I would’ve landed as many roles as I had.

For example, if Ralph and Sandra knew I’d suffered from one of my panic attacks on the way to the whiskey launch tonight, I doubt they would’ve found me as charming.

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