Landon & Shay: Part Two (L&S Duet #2)(5)

“Would you wait for me?”

“Forever,” he said matter-of-factly.

I thought he meant it, too.

I thought he meant forever.

My palms fell to his cheeks, and I leaned in to kiss him lightly against the lips. No tongue, no pressure, just a gentle kiss filled with my love.

“I’ll wait,” I swore.

“For how long?”

“For however long it takes.”

“Geez, Chick…” he muttered, pressing his forehead to mine as he shut his eyes. “I came back here to make you feel better, and you ended up making me feel better instead. How do you do that? How do you make things better?”

“That’s what we both do for one another. We make each other better without even trying. That’s what love is, I think. Love is feeling healed whenever you’re near your person.”

This time, he kissed me harder. I kissed him back with just as much passion, sucking on his bottom lip, allowing his tongue to make love to mine.

“It’s getting late,” he commented, pulling away from me a little. “You should get home before your mom and Maria start worrying. I noticed you’ve been ignoring your texts.”

I frowned. “Do I have to go?”

“Yes, but I’ll be here for two more days if you want to—”

“Yes,” I cut in. “Whatever, whenever, wherever, yes. I want all your time here to be spent with me.”

He kissed my forehead. “I wouldn’t have it any other way. Before you go, I got you a present.”

I climbed into the passenger seat and combed my hair behind my ears. “You didn’t have to get me anything.”

“Oh, but I did.” He reached into the back seat of his car and pulled up a bouquet of beautiful, exquisite, breathtaking peanut butter M&M’s.

I smiled bigger than I’d smiled in days.

“I couldn’t find peonies, so I figured this was the next best thing,” he explained.

I kissed him again, completely baffled that anyone in their right mind could think what Landon and I had wasn’t worth fighting for.

“It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my life. I have something for you, too. I mean, it’s not officially from me, but it’s for you. One second.” I hopped out of his car and moved over to mine, grabbing the containers of food Mima had sent with me. The moment Landon saw them, his eyes lit up, and he hopped out of his car.

“From your grandma?!” he exclaimed, taking the containers from my grasp.

I laughed. “How did you know?”

“Are you kidding me? I would never forget Mima’s food containers!” He opened one of them and dug in with his fingers like a madman, stuffing the mashed potatoes into his mouth. “Fuuuck,” he moaned, sucking his fingers clean.

“I need you to moan like that when you taste me,” I stated nonchalantly.

That caught his attention. He cocked an eyebrow and probably cocked another body part, too. “Come again?”

I leaned in and kissed his cheek. “Good night, Landon.” I headed to my car, and he groaned.

“What? No. No fucking way. You can’t say something like that and just leave me, Shay!”

“I have to. Like you said, it’s getting late. You’re the one who notified me of the time.”

“Screw time—we own the night!”

“Text me tomorrow when you’re ready to hang out.”

“It’s one in the morning, Chick—it’s already tomorrow, so we might as well hang out and taste some things together.”

A pool of heat filled my stomach, and I slid into the driver’s seat of my car. I rolled down the window and stuck my head out toward Landon. “I’ll see you later.”

“You’re killing me, Smalls,” he muttered, walking over to my window after he set his precious food in his passenger seat—even buckling it in. He leaned into the window and gave me that smile that drove me wild. “Good night, good night, parting is such sorrow,” he said, leaning in and kissing my lips. “I’ll text you in the morning.”

“Good deal.”

He started walking back to his car and spun on his heels to face me once more. “And Chick?”

“Yes?”

Those blue eyes of his sparkled as his lips curved up. “I love you times two.”





3





Landon





If Greyson ever needed a kidney, I was fully prepared to give him one of mine. Shit, he could have both. The fact he’d gotten me to Illinois to be with Shay was a big deal. I’d already felt like a huge letdown to her with each passing day, and I’d often felt like I wasn’t good enough for her. I’d lie awake tossing and turning, wrestling with the fact that I couldn’t be there for her to give her the kind of love she needed and deserved.

I often thought about her starting college in a few months and how I didn’t want to hold her back from living up the full experience. There were times my thoughts tried to convince me I wasn’t enough, tell me I couldn’t provide the normal kind of love a girl like Shay deserved, but then I saw her.

I held her.

We fell together with a magnetic pull, and nothing felt better than being able to hold her when she needed me. Nothing felt better than feeling needed. As if there was a reason I was in this world, and that reason was to help others.