Landon & Shay (Chances #2)

Chapter 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 bad attitude 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 willpower 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.

Sure, they had their own issues, but they had a right to their problems. They were veterans who went to actual war.

They fought for freedom, and the fight fucked with their heads.

That’s understandable. But what reason did I have to be so broken?

The only wars I’d ever fought were the ones within my mind.

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

I headed to my kitchen after a pointless summer morning. At least I didn’t have to sit in school and pretend to be happy around whole groups of people. Now I only had to perform for my closest friends.

Then come September, I’d start my final year of high school. Only two more semesters until I could rid myself of small-town Raine, Illinois. I had no clue where I wanted life to take me, but I knew for a fact that I wanted to get far, far away from the place that grew me.

As I walked past my living room, I grimaced when I saw Monica sitting on the sofa.

It wasn’t shocking that she was over. She was a part of the crew that always came to my place.

My parents were never home, so that made it easy for our house to be the hangout spot.

But it annoyed me that she was the first one to arrive that night, because that meant she’d be yapping her big mouth toward me.

Monica and I had known each other for a long time. We’d been neighbors since we were kids. Still were to this day. On top of that, we were two kids with messed-up lives. I had my demons, and Monica had her own set of terrors.

In the past 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. Once I stopped using, Monica had so much crap to say about the matter. “I liked you more when you were high,” she told me the last time we banged.

I told her I never liked her to begin with.

Monica slapped me that night, 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.

“I’ve been thinking, Landon,” Monica called out to me as I grabbed myself some water. “You should have a party at your place this weekend.”

“You always think that,” I replied, walking into the living room to join her. I sat on her opposite side.

“Yeah, but you should really have one this weekend, seeing as 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 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 she annoyed me. She even liked when I put her down, because she craved the male attention.

Monica was a case of rich girl with daddy issues. It didn’t help that her father was actually a huge dick. Same with my father. I wondered if there was a correlation to that: rich dads being dicks. The more wealth, the bigger the dick.

When Monica told her father one of his business partners felt her up at a holiday party, he 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.

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

She wished, hoped, and 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 girls 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 deeper 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 attractive as she was, she was one of the ugliest people I’d ever seen.

Couldn’t really judge her on that, though. When I was 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 had 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 through the front door with Hank and Raine. Thank God. Sitting alone with Monica was a nightmare.

“A party?” I asked Greyson.

Greyson walked over and showed me a text from Monica about a party. 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 at my house. So, lo and behold, it appeared I was hosting a party.

Happy birthday, Lance.

Regardless, I was happy Hank, Greyson, and Raine arrived. I had a lot of people who came to my house to hang out, but none of them were truly my friends, other than those three. If my heart had any goodness left, it was because of them.

Greyson and I grew up on the same block. He’d been my best friend since I learned how to walk. Hank and I met in Little League, and he’d been a constant for me since then. He and Raine started dating when they were like eleven years old, and so the Fantastic Four crew was created.

We just so happened to have a few side characters like Monica, Tracey, and Shay who would rotate through the friend group every now and again. I couldn’t stand Monica and Tracey. I found them annoying. But I deeply loathed Shay Gable. That woman drove me wild, and not in a good way.

I was a big fan of Raine, but her greatest character flaw was being best friends with Shay. God, how I hated Shay Gable.

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

I’d known her for years now. Her grandmother, Maria, was my housekeeper for over fifteen years, and when I was young, she brought Shay over sometimes when her parents were unable to watch her.

From day one, we never jelled. 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.

Her body developed as quickly as her mind did.

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 was always smiling.

Sometimes, 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 our 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.

We never crossed paths much, seeing as how she’d never go out of her way to hang out at my place, but if we did, we exchanged short words with each other. Most of the time, they were rude, too. It was kind of our thing. We both got off on hating each other.

Except that one time nine months ago.

Maria had attended Lance’s funeral, and Shay had come with her. They came to the reception at my house, and Shay walked in on me during one of my not-so-manly moments.

I wished she hadn’t seen me that way: broken, disheveled, raw, real.

I also wished Lance hadn’t died, but you know how it goes. Wishes, dreams, hopes—all fiction.

“You sure you want a party?” Greyson asked, lowering his voice and pulling me from my thoughts about Shay. Everyone else was chatting among themselves, but Greyson seemed more concerned about me. “With it being Lance’s birthday.”

No one else knew about my uncle’s birthday, and I was thankful for it.

Greyson only knew because he kept track of important things.

He was that kind of friend. He had a memory like no other and used it for good.

Monica only knew because she collected any information she could somehow use as daggers to stab her victims with.

She was the complete opposite of Greyson.

I shrugged. “Rather be with people than alone, I guess.” He went to argue, but I shook my head. “It’s fine. I could use the company. Plus, I don’t see Monica letting up on the idea.”

“I could host at my place,” he offered, but I declined.

Besides, me throwing a party was one thing; Greyson throwing one was a completely different ball game.

My parents would be annoyed to hear about the party but would shrug it off pretty quickly.

If Greyson’s father found out about him hosting it, he would have a much harsher punishment.

If there was anything I knew about Mr. East, it was that he had a violent hand and wasn’t afraid to use it on his wife or his son.

He was lucky I’d never witnessed him laying a hand on my friend. That hand would’ve been chopped off quickly. Same if I saw him harm his wife. It took a real piece of shit man to hit a woman. If I saw that happen anywhere to any girl, I’d punch the hell out of the guy.

Regardless, there was a party happening at my place come Saturday, on one of the hardest days of my life.

Fantastic.