Landon & Shay - Part One: (The L&S Duet Book 1) Read online

  Landon & Shay - Part One

  L&S Duet Series Book 1

  Brittainy C. Cherry

  BCherry Books, INC

  Contents

  Pablo Neruda

  Beginning

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  To Be Continued…

  Eleanor & Grey

  The Elements Series by Brittainy C. Cherry

  Also by Brittainy C. Cherry

  About the Author

  Landon & Shay – Part One

  By: Brittainy C. Cherry

  Landon & Shay Part One

  Copyright © 2019 by Brittainy C. Cherry

  All rights reserved.

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the author of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.

  Published: Brittainy C. Cherry 2019

  [email protected]

  Editing:

  Editing by C. Marie, Ellie at My Brother’s Editor,

  Jenny at Editing for Indies, LBEdits

  Proofreading:

  Virginia Tesi Carey, Jenn at Jenn Lockwood Editing

  Cover Design: Hang Le

  Created with Vellum

  To anyone who’s ever felt alone.

  This one’s for you.

  “I love you as certain dark things are to be loved.

  In secret, between the shadow and the soul.”

  -Pablo Neruda

  Landon & Shay

  Senior year & junior year

  2003

  1

  Landon

  I never meant to be a monster, but sometimes I wondered if certain people were born that way, born with a darkness that oozed into their bloodstreams and infected their souls.

  My name was living proof that I should’ve been a better person.

  I came from a line of extraordinary men. My mother named me after my uncle, Lance, and my grandfather, Don—two of the greatest men who ever lived. The name Don stood for noble, and Lance meant servant. They lived up to those names, too. They both fought in wars. They sacrificed their lives and their minds for others. They gave fully with arms wide open and allowed people to take and take from their good nature until there was nothing left.

  Their names combined should’ve made me a noble servant to the world, but I was far from it. If you asked most of my classmates what my name stood for, they’d probably say asshole. Rightfully so, too.

  I was nothing like my grandfather or uncle. I was an embarrassment to their memories.

  I didn’t know why so much darkness sat heavily in my chest. I didn’t know why I was so angry. I just knew that I was.

  I was an ass, even when I didn’t want to be. The only people who put up with my jerky ways were my core group of friends and Monica, the girl I was trying so hard to shake from my life.

  There wasn’t anything noble or servant-like about me. I looked out for myself and the very few people who had enough nerve to still call me their friend.

  I hated that about me. I hated that I wasn’t a good person. I wasn’t even decent. I did a lot of ugly things that probably had both Lance and Grandpa rolling over in their graves.

  And why was I this way?

  I wished I knew.

  My mind was a puzzle, and I hardly knew how the pieces linked up.

  I headed to the cafeteria after a pointless morning of pointless classes and grabbed my lunch tray. Senior year, one semester down and one to go before I could rid myself of small town Raine, Illinois.

  As I walked toward my table, I grimaced when I saw Monica sitting there. For a second, I considered hanging back until Greyson, Hank, or Eric showed up, but she’d already spotted me and waved me over.

  “Landon! Get me a milk—low fat,” she commanded, her voice sounding so high-pitched. I hated that sound. She sounded like a banshee, and I swore I’d had nightmares of that girl screaming my name.

  I hadn’t remembered her voice irking me so much in the past. Then again, for our past interactions, I had always been drunk or stoned. We’d known each other for a long time. Monica and I were neighbors and two kids with kind of messed-up lives. I had my demons, and Monica had her own set of issues.

  When our problems got too heavy, we used sex with each other to shut off our brains. There was nothing romantic about the hookups. Honestly, we didn’t even like each other that much, which was why it worked for me. I wasn’t interested in a girlfriend or anything emotional. I just needed to get laid every now and then to shut up my overthinking mind.

  It worked for a while until I decided to go cold turkey on the alcohol and drug front.

  Ever since I stopped using, Monica had so much crap to say about the matter. “I liked you more when you were high,” she’d stated the last time we banged.

  To which I had replied, “I liked you better with your mouth around my cock.”

  That wasn’t even true. I didn’t even enjoy sex with Monica. It simply passed the time. She had sex like the girls in pornos, and in theory, that should’ve been amazing. But in reality, it meant too much slobber, too many hit-and-miss strokes, and every so often, I ended up having to find my own way to a happy ending.

  Monica slapped me the night I told her that, and part of me kind of liked the sting. My skin flushed and bubbled up from the sensation. It was a reminder that I was still alive, still able to feel, even though for the most part, I felt like dry ice—frozen solid and painful to whoever tried to hold on to me for too long.

  Monica told me she wouldn’t screw me again until I was high.

  Therefore, whatever disaster we were was officially over—for me, at least.

  She hadn’t gotten the memo. I’d been trying to shake her from my existence for the past few weeks, but like the dedicated cockroach she was, she kept reappearing in my life, popping up at the worst times.

  “Are you high yet? Did you relapse? Want to take a shot off my tits?”

  The last thing I wanted to deal with that week was Monica, but I knew
if I didn’t sit by her, she’d only grow louder.

  I plopped my tray down on the table and nodded once toward her.

  “What the hell? Where’s my milk?” she asked.

  “Didn’t hear you,” I dryly replied.

  She reached over, took the milk off my tray with no concern for my thirst, and opened it. She was lucky I didn’t have the energy to argue with her. I hadn’t been sleeping, and I reserved my anger for things and people who actually mattered to me. That list was short, and her name wasn’t on it.

  “I’ve been thinking—you should have a party at your place this weekend,” she said, chugging down my milk. On the plus side, it wasn’t low fat, so at least she didn’t completely get her way.

  “You always think that,” I replied, diving into my lunch. It was only the first week of school since winter break, and it was nice to see that the cafeteria was still serving us the same crappy food as the months before. If there was one thing I liked in my life, it was consistency.

  “Yeah, but you should really have one this weekend, seeing how it’s Lance’s birthday. We should celebrate his memory.”

  I felt a small fire starting to burn within me as she spoke of Lance as if she’d known him or she cared. She said it for that exact reason, too—to get to me. To push me. To make me the monster she had recently been missing. In her mind, she couldn’t use me to forget her scars if my wounds weren’t freshly opened.

  It had been almost a year since Lance passed away.

  Still, it felt like yesterday.

  I gritted my teeth. “Don’t push me, Monica.”

  “Why? Pushing your buttons is my favorite thing to do.”

  “Don’t you have some older dicks to chase?” I exhaled heavily, and she gave me a sinister smile. She liked when I brought up the fact that she messed around with older men. It was how she had tried to teach me a lesson when I didn’t want to sleep with her. She’d hook up with some older guy and tell me all about it.

  Too bad her plan was idiotic, because I didn’t care.

  If anything, I felt bad about her lack of self-esteem.

  Monica was a classic case of a rich girl with daddy issues. It didn’t help that her father was actually a huge dick. When Monica told him one of his business partners felt her up at a holiday party, her father called her a liar. I knew she wasn’t lying, though, because I’d seen her go to her bedroom that night and fall apart. People didn’t cry like that unless there was some truth to the story. It turned out it wasn’t the first time one of her father’s partners had messed around with her without permission, yet every time she went to him about it, he called her dramatic and desperate for attention.

  So, she became exactly what her father told her she was: dramatic and desperate for attention.

  She clamored for attention from the men her dad claimed never wanted her. She had issues with her daddy, so she slept with men his age. She even called them daddy in bed, which was disturbing on so many levels.

  Once, she called me daddy in bed, and I stopped screwing her right there. I didn’t want to feed her demons; I wanted to help shut my own up for a while.

  Truthfully, I was glad she and I weren’t messing around anymore.

  Monica pushed her tongue into her cheek and cocked an eyebrow. “What? Are you jealous?”

  She wished, she hoped, and she prayed.

  I wasn’t.

  “Monica, you do know we aren’t together, right? You can do whatever you want with whomever you want. We aren’t a thing.” I was good at making it perfectly clear to chicks what we were—or more so, what we were not. I never misled them with the idea we’d be anything serious because I didn’t do serious. There was only so much free space in my head, and I knew I wasn’t relationship material. I didn’t have the energy to be someone’s someone—just someone’s fuck buddy.

  Honestly, I wouldn’t have even said buddy. I wasn’t their friend or confidant, and I never would be.

  Monica winked my way like she thought I was the cat and she was the mouse I was trying to chase. I blamed myself, really. The worst thing a broken person could do was hook up with another broken person. Ten times out of ten, it turned into a disaster.

  Monica pulled out her cell phone and started texting nonstop, blabbering about something or other as her lips flapped open and shut. She talked about other people and how ugly, stupid, or poor they were. As hot as she was, she was one of the ugliest people I’d ever seen.

  Couldn’t really judge her on that, though. When I used to be drugged up, I was a bigger dick than I was now. It turned out your level of compassion for others when you’re high is extremely low. I said and done a lot of shit I was certain karma would get me for at some point down the line.

  “Rumor is there’s a party at your place this Saturday,” Greyson said as he walked up to the table with Hank and Eric. Thank God. Sitting alone with Monica was a nightmare.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  He waved his phone toward me, showing me a text from Monica. Figures. I was sure that same message had gone out to a ton of other people, and no matter what, they were going to show up to my house for a party. So, lo and behold, it appeared I was hosting a party.

  Happy Birthday, Lance.

  I turned my back a little toward Monica, and my eyes widened a bit at Greyson as I whispered, “Dude. She’s nuts.”

  He laughed and ran his hand through his charcoal hair. “I hate to say I told you so, but…” He trailed off and snickered. From day one, Greyson had told me that sleeping with Monica was a bad idea, but I hadn’t listened. I was more of a screw now, consequences later kind of guy. That quickly came back to bite me in the ass.

  Monica tapped me on the back. “Hey, I’m going to go to the girls’ room. Watch my stuff.”

  I shrugged, not wanting to give her any more of my words. Talking to her was almost as exhausting as homework. I’d have preferred to do algebra instead of speaking to her, and I sucked at math equations.

  As Monica was walking out of the cafeteria, Shay entered the room, and a knot formed in my gut. Since the year before, that knot in my stomach always appeared whenever Shay Gable entered the room. I wasn’t exactly sure what the feeling meant, or if it even meant anything, but dammit, the feeling was there.

  Probably gas, I always told myself.

  I hated Shay Gable.

  If there was only one thing in life I knew for certain, it was that fact.

  I’d known her for years now. She was a year younger than me, but her grandmother was my housekeeper, and she used to bring Shay over sometimes when her parents were unable to watch her.

  From day one, we never gelled. You know how people have instant friendships? She and I had an instant hateship. I hated her and her goody-two-shoes personality. Ever since we were kids, Shay never misbehaved. She was always getting good grades, always making friends wherever she went. She didn’t touch drugs, and she partied sober. She probably said her prayers and kissed her grandma before bed, too.

  Little Miss Perfect.

  More like Little Miss Fake.

  I didn’t buy her good-girl act.

  Nobody could be that good. Nobody could have so few demons in their closet.

  We hung out in the same circles, had the same friends, but we were far from being anything more than enemies. I was comfortable with our hate, too. It felt oddly pleasing. Hating Shay was the most constant thing in my life. Hating her felt like a high I’d always been chasing, and as each year passed, I got more and more high off Shay’s dismissal of me. There was something intense about the hate we gave, and the older we grew, the more I craved it.

  Shay grew up in ways most girls dreamed of growing. Her body developed as quickly as her mind had. She had curves in every place us dicks hoped curves would exist, eyes that sparkled in every situation, and a dimple so deep you kind of wished she were always smiling. Sometimes, I’d watch her and hate myself for liking what I saw. This year, Shay came back to school looking more grown-up than ever
. More curves, more tits, more ass. If I didn’t hate her so much, I would’ve considered screwing her brains out.

  Not only was she beautiful, she was smart, too. She was the top of the junior class. Brains and beauty—though I’d never tell her so. For all she knew, my thoughts of her were completely filled with disgust and loathing, but sometimes, I’d watch her when she wasn’t looking. Sometimes, I’d listen to her laugh with her girlfriends. I’d study the way she studied people like they were art and she was trying to figure out how they’d been created. She was always jotting things down in notebooks, too, like her life depended on the words on those pages.

  I’d only known one person who wrote as many thoughts as Shay did. She must have filled up hundreds of notebooks with how many damn thoughts she scribbled down on the regular.

  Monica stopped Shay, likely to invite her to the party.

  Why would she invite her? Everyone knew how much Shay and I despised each other. Then again, it was Monica. She kept her head so far up her own ass she didn’t notice anyone else’s issues. Or then again, maybe she invited Shay solely to spite me. That was one of Monica’s favorite pastimes.

  Shay stood there with her closest friends, Raine and Tracey. Raine happened to be one of my closest friends, too, seeing how she was dating Hank, who was a good buddy of mine. Raine was the comedic relief of any gathering. If you needed a reason to laugh, she was the person you went to. She often joked that she was named after the town she was born in because her parents were too lazy to come up with something clever on their own. “Thank goodness I wasn’t born in Accident, Maryland,” she’d always joke. “That would’ve made for a hefty therapy bill.”