Landon & Shay: Part Two (L&S Duet #2)(61)

Raine must’ve picked up on my unease. She placed a comforting hand on my knee. “You can do it, Shay. I know things look a little bleak right now, but the ship can’t always be sitting out at sea. You’ll start moving toward the shore soon enough. Keep your head up.”

I smiled and thanked my friend for the words of encouragement. To be honest, I needed it. Losing my job couldn’t have come at a worse time, seeing how bills were already tight. I didn’t really have time for a break in my pay, and I was currently beating myself up for allowing my emotions to get the better part of me.

“I’m okay.” I smiled at my friend, not wanting her to worry too much.

“No, you’re not, but I know you will be. Now come on to the kitchen. I’ll make us a pot of coffee.” She paused and gave me a wicked grin. “On second thought, let’s make it tea.”

She stood from her chair and began waddling away toward the kitchen. Once we arrived in there, I reached for the tea mugs, as Raine cradled her stomach in her arms. She seemed winded from the small walk and cringed as if the baby was fussing.

“Is he kicking around?” I asked, smiling to my friend.

“More like playing the freaking drums. I’m telling you, don’t get pregnant. Everyone on Instagram makes this shit look cute, but they don’t post pictures of themselves peeing in Target lines and having hairy vaginas because they can’t bend over. The other day Hank shaved for me, because he’s Hank and perfect, but I think he shaved a lightning bolt down there, because when the baby is born he wants to say, ‘You’re a wizard, Harry,’ because he’s a freaking lunatic. I tried to tell him that a shaved lightning bolt in Lily Potter’s pubes isn’t what made her son a freaking wizard, but he was like, ‘Babe, you just have to believe me. Your vagina is magical.’ I hate him so much sometimes.”

I laughed. “That’s a very Hank thing to do.”

“I can’t stand that man,” she grumbled as she walked over to her tea cabinet and pulled it open. I swore, she had more tea than anyone should’ve ever had. I wasn’t even sure that Raine liked tea, to be honest. She’d binged The Crown a few months back, and ever since then, she’d picked up about two packs each week. You would’ve thought she was British—until you heard her hideous British accent.

After she heated up the water, she leaned against the countertop, taking deep breaths as she rubbed her stomach. “Do you think we can talk about the big elephant in the room?” she asked, raising an eyebrow at me.

I sighed. “You mean the fact that Landon showed up to my job and has been so persistent about talking to me, and the fact that the more he shows up, the more I want to talk to him to get answers to questions that don’t really matter, because I’m over him, and I’m not an emotional teenager anymore who needs to know why she wasn’t good enough to come back for, and the fact that I shouldn’t look back, but should only look forward, even though I can’t stop thinking about the night we’d slept together, and ever since then I’ve been having sex dreams about him, and secretly wanting to sleep with him while sober in order to see if the sex was just whiskey-drunk good or if it was good-good, but I know that’s a terrible idea, because if I slept with him again, I’d be opening a door that shouldn’t be opened, but I mean, isn’t it already open seeing how we’d already banged? I mean, people just have sex, right? It doesn’t have to mean anything other than banging. There don’t really have to be feelings involved, because I don’t think I really do feelings on that level anymore, so I don’t know. That’s it. That’s all I have to say.”

Raine’s mouth hung open as her eyes widened in shock. “Holy crap, that was the longest run-on sentence I’d ever heard. Honestly, I don’t think you even blinked once or took a breath.”

“I know, but I just wanted to get the elephant in the room out of the way, because I’m pretty sure you’ve been able to tell what was on my mind ever since it happened. So, there. It’s all on the table now.”

Raine blinked repeatedly, still appearing stunned.

“What?” I asked.

Her eyes moved across the room and she pointed. “I was talking about the huge fucking stuffed elephant Hank ordered from Amazon the other day. He’s been buying stuffed animals as if we are having a freaking zookeeper.”

Oh.

She meant that elephant.

Right, of course.

“I guess this took an awkward left turn,” I awkwardly laughed.

“Awkward left turn? Shay, you just did a figure eight in the air with that comment. You’ve been thinking about sleeping with Landon?”

I rubbed my hands over my face. “I actually can’t stop thinking about sleeping with Landon, which is driving me crazy. I shouldn’t be feeling any of this, because my logical mind knows better.”

“You can’t always listen to your mind. Sometimes you have to let your heart lead the way,” Raine said, shrugging her shoulders. “Landon isn’t the same boy he was all those years ago, and even the person he was back then wasn’t awful. He was just lost.”

“Do you know why he never came back?” I asked, feeling a tad bit stupid for even asking. Raine and I never talked about how Landon moved on without me. I asked her to never mention his name again after he moved on so publicly with Sarah Sims all those years ago. Seeing him with her crushed me, and I didn’t have the energy to talk about him. But lately, that question had been sitting heavily on my mind.