“You know he’s going to waste her time, right? He’s kind of a douche,” Eric commented. “I mean, the whole time he was talking to us guys, all he talked about was how much pussy he got back home.”
I sighed. “Yeah, I had a feeling, but you know what they say: the heart wants what the heart wants.” And Tracey’s heart was locked and loaded for her next mistake.
“That’s how herpes happens,” Eric said, making me giggle.
Speaking of hearts, mine did an odd skipping thing the moment Landon entered the room.
I’d be lying if I said he didn’t look handsome. He’d grown up over the years from an annoying boy to an annoying man, and I’d watched it happen from a distance. I wished he would’ve lived a little longer in the awkward teenager-with-braces phase of his life, but I hadn’t been that lucky. Now, he had a perfect smile to go with his perfect blue eyes, messy brown hair, and built body. I swore he’d gone from skinny boy to the Incredible Hulk overnight. His muscles had muscles, and every time I looked at them, it felt like they were flipping me off.
His eyes locked with mine, and he gave me an intense stare, almost as if saying, You really had the nerve to show up, huh?
Yes, Landon, I’m here, and you aren’t going to bully me out with your stupid looks.
He must’ve accepted that challenge because he wandered in our direction, red Solo cup in hand and that same damn smirk on his lips.
I hated how he smiled at me. It always seemed so sinister.
I also hated that a small part of me was attracted to said smile. A part of me craved that smile. Sometimes, I’d study Landon from afar, wondering if his lips would curve up. For the most part, he lived with a constant grimace. If he were a Care Bear, he’d definitely be Grumpy Bear.
Landon eased over like the “too cool for school” person he was and settled right between Eric and me. I hated when he stood so close. The hairs on my arms always stood straight up.
“Eric, Chick, it’s good to see one of you,” Landon commented, taking a sip from his cup. He turned my way and locked eyes with me. “I’m a bit surprised you had the nerve to show up.”
I crossed my arms and tried to ignore the chills he always made race up and down my spine. “Trust me, this is the last place I want to be, but I had to be a good friend for Tracey.”
“You don’t have to make up lies to come to my house, Chick.”
“I have no need to lie to you, Satan,” I spat back. I hated when he called me Chick. I honestly would’ve preferred him calling me plain Chicken. Calling me Chick had a much more demeaning feel to it, as if I was just a girl who wasn’t worthy of a real name, just some chick he couldn’t stand.
Chick.
Chick.
Chick.
Ugh. What a jerk.
He got off on seeing my irritation, too, which was why I worked so hard to keep my emotions in check whenever I was around him. I didn’t want to give him any pleasure from my pain. Sure, perhaps my heart beat out of sync when I was near him, but he didn’t have to know that.
“Will you two screw already and give the angst a rest?” Eric joked, rolling his eyes.
“That’s disgusting.” I pretended to gag.
“I’d rather die,” Landon argued. “Plus, I’m not interested in your sloppy seconds.”
“There’s nothing sloppy about my seconds.” Eric winked at me, and I smiled. He always made me feel like I belonged, even when people like Landon made me feel the opposite. “I’m off to get a beer. Landon, find me later if you want to play some video games or something. Shay, I would invite you, too, but—”
“He hates your guts like I do,” Landon interjected, though I was ninety-nine percent sure that wasn’t what had been about to leave Eric’s mouth. He probably knew I didn’t have much desire to be in the same space as Landon for a long period of time.
Eric gestured toward both of us as he walked away. “Just one fast screw. Penis in, penis out. I’m telling you—get the hatred out in the best way possible.”
“Never,” we said in unison, and it was one of the few times we were on the same page.
We stood there alone for a moment, giving each other nasty glances, until it became too awkward.
I cleared my throat. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go ahead and be anywhere but here.”
“Same,” he replied, and we went off in completely different directions.
4
Landon
I shouldn’t have had a party.
It didn’t take long for regret to settle into my gut as people started swarming into the place, and I didn’t even recognize a lot of the faces coming through the door. A bunch of random people decided to crash because they heard there were drugs and booze, and if lucky, some boob and dick touching. Plus, half the people here had probably never even stepped foot into a mansion in their lives.
I’d thought having people around would make it easier to keep my mind off Lance, but the night was proving me wrong. Even though people surrounded me, my memories of the best man who’d ever been in my life continued to consume me.
Forty-five.
He would’ve been forty-five today.
“Are you sure you don’t want to call the cops on your own party, get all these people kicked out, and then play video games?” Greyson asked me as we leaned against the fireplace in the living room while dozens of people pushed through the space, making messes I didn’t give a damn about.
“Nah, it’s fine.” I shrugged, brushing my hand across the back of my neck. He gave me a smile, but it was that fake Greyson smile, the one where he was overthinking shit. I nudged him. “Loosen up, will you? Just get a drink in your system and chill.”
“Yeah, all right. I just know that today is—”
I cut him off because I knew what he was going to say, and I had no desire to discuss said topic. “All right, I’ll catch you later.” I patted my best friend on the back and hurried away, mainly because I didn’t want to deal with him questioning if I was okay every few seconds. I was fine, good as ever.
Later that night, like every night I had a party, I ended up in my bedroom. I sat in my room with Greyson, Eric, and Hank. No one else was allowed in my bedroom, and if they stepped foot inside, I made sure to cuss them out and put the fear of Satan into their souls so they’d never come back. Greyson always called me Scrooge after I snapped, and he wasn’t wrong. I wasn’t polite about kicking them out of my room, but the last thing I needed in my life was some drunk couple screwing on my Italian sheets.
Plus, my bedroom was Ham’s safe place, and I didn’t need anyone screwing with my dog while they were drunk and high.
Eric and Hank smoked a joint and talked about mindless crap that kept my head from going to any really dark places.
“You guys getting the new SimCity game?” Greyson asked, his hands stuffed in his pockets.
“Hell yeah, are you kidding? It looks dope,” Hank said, taking a hit from the joint before skipping over Greyson and passing it to Eric. Hank sounded more excited than he needed to be about the game. “I told my parents I’ve got the theater room for a whole month after it comes out. I’m going to blow through it.”
Hank had a deep voice and was a masculine guy. There weren’t many people bigger than me, but in shoulder span and biceps, that dude had me beat. Plus, he had more facial hair than any kid our age should’ve had. Eric called him Ape Man due to the dark hair curling out of the top of his tank top, but Hank didn’t think too much of it. We all talked shit about each other; it was how we knew the friendship was real.
But the thing about Hank, his manliness, and his apelike appearance was whenever he got really excited about something, his voice would get high pitched, and he’d sound like Britney Spears. Same when he laughed, too, and Hank was always getting excited or laughing, which made it so damn entertaining. Even on my bad days, all I had to do was get around Hank, and his laughter alone would make me feel better. It made sense that he and Raine were in love. Raine loved t
o joke, and Hank loved to laugh.
He clapped his hands together. “Dude! It’s going to be so dope.” He went on and on about the game, as if SimCity was the second coming of Jesus.
Eric shrugged. “It looks kind of stupid to me.”
That was enough to offend poor Hank to his core, so the two of them went back and forth, arguing about why the other was a dumbass who knew nothing at all about good, quality games.
Every now and then, Greyson would interject his thoughts, but for the most part, he was probably running basketball stats through his brain.
“Okay, okay, then what do you consider a good game?” Hank inquired.
Eric responded without a pause in his breath. “Super Mario Sunshine.”
Hank groaned, bending over in horror. “Oh my fucking fuck, that’s the gayest shit I’ve ever heard. I can’t believe I shared a joint with you.”
Eric flinched ever so lightly at the word gay. I knew enough about people to know when they were uncomfortable. Eric always seemed a bit uneasy with words like gay or fag, but he always laughed it off and shifted the conversations.
I was shocked no one else noticed, but it wasn’t anyone’s business except his own, I supposed. When he was ready, he’d talk about it. Until then, there would just be awkward laughter and shifting of the conversations. Sometimes I shifted it for him, to alleviate his discomfort.
He never outright thanked me, but he didn’t have to. That was what friends did—backed each other up when shit got weird.
“Hey, can I hit that?” a voice said from behind me.
I glanced up to see the Southern charmer standing there with his eyes glued to the joint in Hank’s hand. He walked into the room like he owned the place, plucked the joint from Hank’s hand, and took a big drag from it.
After he finished, he passed it to Eric and frowned a little. “Shit, I miss Kentucky weed. I swear, y’all’s stuff up here is laced with actual weeds or something. It doesn’t hit the same. Back home, you’d be messed up for days.”
That isn’t how weed works, Reggie. He was so full of it. People didn’t get messed up on weed for days.
He entered our conversation, turned it completely into his own, and it was a nonstop, one-sided talk about how great damn Kentucky was. The food, the weed, the goddamn sports. Really, I’d never seen a guy get such a hard-on from talking about a state in my life. I wished I could get it up just by thinking about bluegrass music, bourbon, and Kentucky Fried Chicken.
If Kentucky were a cock, Reggie would be the first in line to suck it.
“And what’s up with the girls here?” he asked, glancing back and forth between us.
“What do you mean what’s up with them?” Hank asked.
“Well, shit. I’m just looking for some random hook-ups. Do you know who would be down for that?”
I looked down at the ground to roll my eyes so hard. This guy was like the poster child of a douchebag. I could hardly handle it. He couldn’t be real, could he? He couldn’t be that damn transparent. I couldn’t believe all the girls at school were throwing themselves at him.
Hank shrugged. “I don’t know. The girls are pretty cool here. I’ve been with Raine for four years now, though, so I don’t really think about who to bang,” Hank commented.
When Hank made a commitment, he stuck to it. He and Raine would probably end up being one of those couples at a wedding, still on the dance floor after being married for sixty years or some shit.
Hank kept talking, and I kept wishing Reggie would leave. Every time he smoked the joint and talked shit, I wanted to snatch it from his hands and tell him to piss off. Sure, I wasn’t smoking anymore, but the supply was from KJ—my former dealer. I knew it was the good stuff. Reggie didn’t have a clue what he was talking about.
He went over to pet Ham, and Ham growled at him.
Good boy.
“If you want to know about the best girls in the sack, though, Landon here is the one to go to. He’s had more girls than Clinton,” Eric commented.
I groaned, not wanting to be dragged into this conversation with Reggie.
“Oh, yeah? Maybe you can help a playa out,” Reggie said, nudging me in the arm.
Playa. This white boy from Kentucky, wearing an oversized Biggie Smalls shirt, had actually just said the word playa, and that sealed the deal for me—I couldn’t stand the new guy.
I shrugged. “It seemed you had it handled pretty well with a girl a few minutes ago downstairs. I doubt you need help.”
“You mean that Stacey girl? Nah, she’s a bit too…much for my liking.”
“Tracey,” I corrected, and I didn’t even know why. It wasn’t like it mattered to him, but it bothered me that he had the nerve to call her by the wrong name. He was probably the kind of douche who called girls by the wrong name on purpose just to seem cool and aloof.
You know what else bothered me? That he was in my room, smoking my weed.
“Tracey, Stacey, whatever. It’s all the same, right?” he joked, elbowing me like we were the best of buddies.
Yeah, okay, playa-playa.
“What’s the deal with that Monica bitch?” he asked.
“She’s not a bitch,” I snapped. What the heck? Was I now standing up for the likes of Monica? This night needed to end.
“Landon and Monica have a…history. I’d stay clear of that one,” Hank commented.
“You can do whatever you want. Monica is a free agent,” I muttered. I doubted she’d be interested in someone like Reggie, though. He was a bit too young and strait-laced for her. Monica preferred men with children, or at least guys with damage that somewhat matched her own.
Reggie was none of the above.
He rubbed his hands together like a fool needing his next fix. “Come on, man. Give me some tips.”
“I really don’t know,” I said.
“Land is being humble. If you’re looking for a guy who can get any girl, it’s him,” Eric said, and it sounded so cocky even though the words didn’t come from my own mouth.
“Except for Shay,” Reggie spat out, making me raise an eyebrow.
Wait, what?
“Excuse me?”
“Stacey-Tracey was telling me how the two of you hate each other’s guts. Which is crazy, because Shay is fucking hot. Too bad you can’t get that.”
Fucking hot.
Of course he’d call her fucking hot, because he had a brain the size of a lima bean, but beside that, what the actual hell? Who was he to tell me who I could and couldn’t have?
“If I wanted Shay, I’d have her,” I stated nonchalantly. The douchebag was making my alpha douchebag side come out.
“Word? You’re that much of a baller?” Reggie asked, cocking his other eyebrow.
Every time he used a cliché slang word, I wanted to vomit. “Yeah, word, playa. If I wanted a dime, I could get a dime. You know wassup, dawg,” I mocked, using every annoying word I could think of, but he didn’t even pick up on it.
Idiot.
Greyson snickered under his breath but didn’t add to the conversation. He had a way of staying out of drama of any kind. He had enough shit going on at home, and I understood him not wanting to be involved in anything that wasn’t basketball.
“That’s wild that you think that, my guy, because the way Stacey-Tracey made it sound, Shay would never give you the time of day,” Reggie pushed. I swore he was really trying to get under my skin.
“I could without question. I could even get her to fall in love with me if I wanted to,” I declared, and it sounded a lot more asshole-like than I wanted it to, but there I was, sounding like a jerk because I couldn’t stand the guy standing next to me, challenging me.
“Uh, hey, you guys…” Eric tried to cut in, but I wasn’t interested in being interrupted. This guy really thought he could come into my town, into my house, into my bedroom, and sit on my Italian sheets, and tell me what I was a wasn’t capable of doing.
“Okay, so let’s get a nice friendly bet going,”
Reggie said, standing taller. “I bet you can’t get Shay to fall in love with you.”
“You guys,” Greyson said, clearing his throat. We ignored him, too.
“I one hundred percent can,” I said, holding my hand out to him. “Bet.” Dammit, now I was out here saying things like “Bet” sounding just as stupid as the Southern charmer.
We shook hands.
“Really, boys, if you want to bet on me falling in love with someone, maybe you should include me in the bet,” Shay said, snapping my stare away from Reggie and to the doorway. Her arms were crossed, and she was sporting her normal level of sass. Her left hip was popped out, and she had an annoyed smirk on her lips.
“Geez, guys, a little warning wouldn’t have hurt,” I barked at my friends.
Eric tossed his hands up in the air. “Whatever, I quit.”
“It was nothing,” I argued to Shay, shrugging it all off. “Just stupid guy talk.”
“Oh, please, don’t go limp so quickly because you got caught, Satan. If you think you could make me fall in love with you, then by all means, do it—but do understand that I want to play now, too.”
“Play? What do you mean?” Reggie asked.
“I mean exactly that. I bet I can make Landon fall in love with me first.”
Everyone cracked up laughing because they knew how ridiculous the concept of me falling in love was. I didn’t love. I hardly liked.
The idea that I’d fall in love with my biggest annoyance was beyond absurd. “Listen, again, it was just stupid guy talk. Drop it, Chick.”
“What’s the matter, Satan?” she asked, walking up to me, standing nose to nose. “You afraid you might catch feelings for someone you hate?”
That was one thing about Shay that I couldn’t argue with—she had bark to her. I would have bet behind the bark was a nice bite, too.
“Never, but I’m not going to waste my time focusing my energy on you.”
“Well, who’s the chicken now? Cluck, cluck, cluck.” She smirked as the guys all snickered under their breaths.
Landon & Shay - Part One: (The L&S Duet Book 1) Page 4
