Chapter 37
Landon
I tried to get near Shay so we could talk on a deeper level, but we were always intermixed with groups of people.
Plus, it almost seemed as if she’d been avoiding looking at me.
We could be interacting with the same individuals, but she never looked my way.
On top of that, whenever I said anything, she’d laugh with the crowd, but I swore she’d turn away and roll her eyes too.
At one point I thought I saw her make a gagging gesture.
A little while later, when I was able to track her down, I found her sneaking into a closed-off room with a security guard standing outside. She flashed him a pass that Greyson had given her and went inside.
I followed her toward the back room with my VIP pass in my pocket and showed it to the security guard. “Do you think you can make sure no one comes in here?” I asked, wanting to have a chance to have a real heart-to-heart with Shay for the first time.
The security guard cheesed from ear to ear. “Hell yeah, she’s hot.”
“No, it’s not like that. I just want to talk to her in private.”
“Right.” He gave me a wink-wink and nudge-nudge. “Of course, Mr. Pace. Whatever you need.”
I thanked him, and he closed the door behind me as I walked inside.
I cleared my throat and then said, “Hey.”
Shay’s back was to me, and she jumped out of fright when I spoke. She turned to look at me, and for a split second I swore she frowned before turning her lips up into an easy smile.
“Hello,” she replied. “Following me?”
“A little.” I stuffed my hands into my pockets and nodded. “So, earlier you said we were good, right?”
“Yup, yup! All is well.”
“I get the feeling that you don’t mean that.”
She released a dry chuckle and moved to the table with the bottles of whiskey, where she poured herself a glass, tossing in two ice cubes before chugging it. “Why wouldn’t I mean it? We’re good, Landon. We’re great.”
The way she said the word great with such emphasis made it clear as day that we weren’t great at all.
“Then why have you been rolling your eyes at me all night?”
“I haven’t been rolling my eyes at you all night.”
“Yes, you have. Even Greyson noticed it.”
She shook her head. “I hate to break it to you, but you’re wrong. It’s all in your head, and I’m sure you just put those thoughts in Greyson’s too. I told you, we’re good.”
“Yes, right. Cool as a cucumber, right?”
“Exactly,” she said, turning away from me slightly and giving the biggest eyeroll yet.
“See! That! Right there. Shay, what’s that?!”
“Oh my gosh, Landon.” She groaned in frustration. “Let it go.”
“I can’t, Shay, because it’s clear you’re irritated by me right now.”
She sighed and placed her glass down on the table.
She tossed her hands in the air. “OK, Landon. Obviously, you’re not OK with us keeping it simple, so what do you want from me?
You want me to cry like a pathetic little girl because you broke my heart all those years ago?
You want me to fall apart and grovel at your expensive shoes and beg for you to love me again?
” she barked, all the coolness of her cucumber completely dissolving.
“Well, too bad, because I left you in my past, and I’m happy now, OK? I’m happy.”
My brows lowered. “I’m glad you’re happy, Shay.”
“No, you’re not,” she countered. Her brown eyes looked up to my blues, and she shook her head.
“I bet you were hoping I wouldn’t be happy,” she murmured, her eyes glassy.
I wasn’t sure if the glassiness came from the whiskey or from her emotions.
Either way, there was nothing sarcastic and light about the situation in front of me.
“I would never want you to be unhappy, Shay.”
“Then why did you leave?” she snapped. The words came out so raw, I almost thought I’d imagined them, but the pained expression in her eyes told me I’d heard her correctly. I parted my lips to reply, but she shook her head. “Don’t answer that. I didn’t mean that. I don’t want to know.”
“I can, Shay. I can try to explain, at least.”
“No. I refuse to be how we were before, dramatic and heavy. Nothing heavy.”
I took a few steps toward her. “We can be heavy for a minute. There’s a lot of history between us.”
“Yes, exactly. History—past tense. Besides, I’m over it. I’m over you. Everything’s fine.”
I frowned as I slid my hands into my pockets and took a step forward. The closer I grew to her, the more tense she became.
“Dammit, Landon, will you stop walking toward me?” she begged.
“I’m sorry. It’s just . . . it’s been a long time.”
“And whose fault is that?”
“Mine,” I admitted. “Everything that went wrong with us was because of me, and I want to make up for that.”
“Stop saying that kind of crap,” she ordered. “You can’t just show up and start saying that kind of stuff, because you’ll make me say something, too.”
“Like what?” I asked. I needed to know what was on her mind. “What would you say?”
She had to be feeling it. She had to be feeling the strong connection between us, the magnetic pull that we’d always had whenever we were near one another. Never in my life had I felt a link as strong as the one I’d had with Shay.
The words that left her mouth weren’t what I was expecting to hear. I didn’t know what I was looking for—or more so, hoping for—but what she gave me felt like a knife through the heart. A piercing stab that I wouldn’t recover from.
She narrowed her eyes and spat out the words: “I hate you, Landon.”