You know what
they say...
All’s fair in
the game of love and war—especially the heartbreaks.
Landon & Shay: Part One, an
all-new second chance romance by Brittainy C. Cherry, is available now!
Shay Gable hated my guts, and I hated
hers, too.
We went out of our way to avoid one
another at all times. When she came my direction, I went the other. When we
locked eyes, she’d turn and walk away.
All of that changed the day I was
presented with a challenge. It started out as a stupid bet: make Shay fall in
love with me before I fell in love with her first.
That was an easy bet for me to win.
I didn’t love, I hardly liked.
Yet slowly the game started to shift.
Shay made me crave things I never knew I wanted like love, happiness, and her.
The closer we grew, the more she
challenged my darkness, and the parts I kept locked away.
The hurts.
The pains.
The truth.
The game between us became too real,
our feelings intermixed, and the risks of hurting one another grew higher.
But you know what they say...
All’s fair in the game of love and
war—especially the heartbreaks.
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Pre-order the emotional conclusion,
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REVIEW:
Wow, this book has everything you could want in a book. Brittainy's storytelling ability is phenomenal and just when you think there is no way she could top her last book, she goes and writes Landon & Shay (part 1). I was happy, sad, broken, hopeful and more while reading this book. I cried, I laughed, and I fell in love with the beautifully broken characters in this story.
There are some subjects discussed in this book that might be triggers for some people, but Brittainy handled them with tact and grace. I cannot wait to see what happens next for Landon & Shay.
I received an ARC in exchange for an honest, voluntary review.
There are some subjects discussed in this book that might be triggers for some people, but Brittainy handled them with tact and grace. I cannot wait to see what happens next for Landon & Shay.
I received an ARC in exchange for an honest, voluntary review.
Excerpt
Landon
Spin
Seven was a mixture of spin the bottle and seven minutes in heaven. When it was
my turn, I reached out to the bottle with no concern about whether or not it
would land exactly where I wanted it to go. At fourteen years old, I’d learned
how to perfect my spin-seven skills in order to kiss the girl I wanted.
Though,
this time, I knew there wasn’t going to be a lot of kissing going on. More like
yelling.
The
bottle spun and spun, around and around. Shay’s eyes stayed glued to the glass
beer bottle. The moment it started to slow down, I watched her lips part as she
quietly muttered, “No, no, no,” before it stopped directly in front of her.
The
circle began oohing and aahing at the idea that the two sworn enemies were on
their way to the closet together for seven minutes straight. They were all here
for that show, and I knew the moment we stepped into that closet, the door
would be surrounded with people whispering and pressing their ear against it
from the outside, trying to catch a snippet of what was going on behind closed
doors.
I
stood from the circle and gestured toward Shay. “Please,” I offered. “Chickens
first.”
She
grimaced, her thick, full eyebrows lowering a hair before she pushed herself up
from the floor and headed toward the closet in haste. We both stepped inside
and stood nose to nose.
“Okay,
friends, you know the rules,” Eric said, grabbing the handle of the door.
“Seven minutes in heaven—or, in your case, hell. Have fun!” He slammed the door
shut, and the moment it happened, Shay whined with irritation.
“I
can’t believe I’m locked in here with you for seven minutes. I could think of a
million things I’d rather be doing,” she grumbled, probably with a pout.
“Like
what?”
“Oh,
I don’t know…watching paint dry.”
“Well,
since we’re here, we should probably spend our time wisely,” I joked, moving to
unbuckle my jeans, knowing it would bother her. I wished I could see the
annoyance on her face. I loved when I got under her skin enough to make her
nostrils flare.
“Oh
my gosh, remove that idea from your mind, Landon, and stop messing with your
belt, because there’s no way in hell I’m touching you.”
“I’ve
thought about it before,” I said, my voice low and tame.
“Thought
about what?”
“Kissing
you.”
She
huffed sarcastically. “I’m sure that’s not true.”
“You’re
right, it’s not.”
“I
know.”
It
was true, though. It’d happened once—and only once—after Lance’s funeral. I had
spent a lot of weeks being out of it, using alcohol to cope with the shitstorm
raging inside my head, and I was a bit unstable. If my friends hadn’t been
looking out for me, I would’ve probably gone overboard. I remembered walking
into school one day and seeing Shay standing there at her locker with a few of
her friends. She was laughing and tossing her head back in such a genuine way,
and I couldn’t take my eyes off her.
I
kept thinking about how she’d held me weeks prior and stayed with me during the
lowest point of my life. She had been there—my enemy—taking care of my scars.
And as I’d stared at her in the hallway, I’d thought about thanking her—walking
over to her, parting my lips, and giving her my gratitude. I wasn’t used to
people doing shit for me with no hope of anything in return, and Shay had done
it without any expectations.
I
remembered looking at her eyes, and then moving down to her slender nose, and
then her cheeks, then those juicy lips.
I
wondered how those lips would taste if I used mine against them to thank her. I
wondered if she tasted like the candy she was always popping into her mouth. I
wondered if she dripped of the angelic sin I always claimed her to be. I
wondered for a split second…considered it for a blink in time…and then she
slammed her locker, walked away, and I sobered up.
Still,
I had considered it.
We
both went quiet for a few moments before I cleared my throat again. I didn’t
like silence. Silence and I didn’t get along too well. “Just one kiss, Chick. I
can keep it a secret.”
“You
keep secrets the same way you keep girls. AKA, you don’t—other than Monica.”
“Monica’s
not mine.”
“That
doesn’t change the fact that she thinks you’re hers.”
I
smirked a little. “You jealous of her?”
“Jealous
of her having to deal with a guy like you? Never in my life.”
“Whatever
you say, Chick.”
“I
wish you’d stop calling me Chick,” she snapped. “I hate it.”
“You
want a new nickname, sweet cheeks? I can give you a new nickname, sweet
cheeks.”
She
shivered in disgust. Good. There was nothing I enjoyed more than getting on her
nerves. “Not that either.”
“I’ll
keep working on it.”
“Or
you could just call me by my name.”
“Nah,
Shay’s too ugly a name to leave my lips.”
“I
hate you.”
“I
hate you more.”
“Yeah,
but I hate you the most.”
I
snickered. “You really think you can get a guy like me to fall in love with
you?”
“Yes.
I’m positive, actually. People are the easiest to read, and that includes you.”
“You
can’t read me, Shay.”
“I
can, like an open book.”
“Okay.”
I reached into my pocket, pulled out my cell phone, and turned on the
flashlight, lighting up the small space. “Read me.”
She
raised an eyebrow. “You sure you want me to do this? Reading people is kind of
my gift, and you might not like what I have to say.”
“I
never like what you have to say, so this time shouldn’t be any different. Go
for it.”
She
rolled her shoulders back and stretched out her arms as if she was about to
deadlift me. “Okay. You’re fake, Landon.”
That
was it? That was the big reveal? “What the hell do you mean I’m fake?”
“I
mean exactly that. You. Are. Fake. F-A-K-E. Fake. There is nothing real about
you. You’re a walking lie.”
I
laughed. No joke, I actually laughed out loud, which didn’t happen often for
me. It was a deep-rooted, belly laugh.
“What
the hell are you talking about?” I questioned. “Everything about me is real.
I’m the realist damn person you’ll come across in our town.”
“No,”
she disagreed with a shake of her head. “You are the fakest. You’re even faker
than the new boobs Carly Patrick got for her eighteenth birthday.”
“What?!” I breathed out, stunned by her
words. “I’m not fake, Shay.”
“It’s
not a big deal, Landon.” She shrugged her shoulders and went to picking at her
nails. “People seem to love your fakeness.”
“I’m
not fake,” I argued again, my blood boiling at this point. “Plus, I’ve seen
Carly’s boobs up close and personal. Those are straight in-your-face,
nips-don’t-flick fake. There is no way in this world I’m more fake than those
silicone watermelons. I’m a lot of shitty things, but fake isn’t one of them.”
“Okay
then, can you answer a question for me?”
“Anything.”
“How
many people know you’re sad?”
“The hell kind of question is
that?” I barked.
“A
very straightforward one,” she replied. She seemed so cool, calm, and
collected—one of the many things I despised about her. It was as if her life
was always so solid. I wished for that kind of stable structure, and seeing
that she had it annoyed the living hell out of me.
“How
long have you been sad, Landon?”
I
glanced at my watch. “About a solid three minutes now, because being trapped
inside this closet with you is complete hell.”
“Aren’t
you the one who wanted to come in here with me?”
“Bad
call. A lapse in judgment. I forgot how annoying you are.”
She
smiled. She freaking smiled at me, pleased by my annoyance. “Are you going to
answer me about your sadness?”
“Are
you going to suck my dick?” I replied.
“Do
you always do that?” she asked, tilting her head to the left as she studied my
expressions. She was doing that thing she did—reading me. Taking note of my
movements and the tightness of my jaw, taking in every inch of me.
Don’t let her read your pages,
Landon. She
couldn’t have even handled my prologue.
All
my walls were up, and I wasn’t going to let her knock them down.
“Do
what?” I questioned.
“Use
sarcasm to shield your hurting.”
“There’s
nothing hurting here. Look at this life. I have money, badass parties, and
girls throwing themselves at me—why would I have anything to hurt about?”
“Maybe
because money, girls, and parties don’t make a person happy. I see how
miserable you are in your eyes.”
I
grimaced and whisper-hissed, “You don’t know shit about me, Shay.”
“Then
how am I able to get under your skin so easily? If that wasn’t true, if you
weren’t sad, why would my saying that bother you so much?”
“You
don’t,” I calmly replied.
She
did.
She
was pushing me, making me uncomfortable with the fact that she did seem able to
see the parts of me no one else could. Anger was building in my chest, and I
needed to defuse it before it became too big.
“Maybe
it’s best if we shut up for the rest of the time,” I told her.
“For
the second time in my life, I agree with you.”
Shay
sat down on the floor of the closet, and I did the same, leaning back against
some coats that were hanging. How did seven minutes feel like seventy? Was time
moving at all? This was hell.
Then
came the silence. The silence that brought out heavy thoughts. Shay could read
my mind somehow, and so, when the silence became too much, I cleared my throat
and tried to make small talk in hopes of shutting my own brain up. “A chicken
and Satan walk into a closet—stop me if you’ve heard this one.”
She
laughed a little.
It
was quiet and low, and dammit, I’d never heard Shay laugh at anything I’d ever
said before, so that was new. What was also new was the small part of me that
enjoyed hearing her sound.
“Landon?”
she whispered.
“Yeah?”
“Just
shut up, all right?”
Yeah, okay.
“One
more minute, you horny hatebirds!” Eric called out.
We
both stood, and I took a step closer toward her. “I get you not wanting to
kiss. That’s intimate and personal, but if you want, this is your last chance
to touch my cock while no one’s looking. I won’t stop you.”
“No
thanks. I’m allergic to peanuts,” she said so effortlessly and loudly, causing the crowd on the other
side of the door to burst into laughter.
Shay
smirked again, feeling proud of her little dig at me. That beautiful, annoying
smirk I loved to hate.
Shay:
1
Landon:
0
I
wasn’t worried, though. The game was just getting started. She might’ve scored
one point, but I wasn’t going to let it happen again. We were playing on my
field, and Shay didn’t know what she was up against.
About Brittainy
Author Brittainy C. Cherry is an Amazon
#1 bestselling author.
She has been in love with words since the
day she took her first breath. She graduated from Carroll University with a
Bachelor Degree in Theatre Arts and a minor in Creative Writing.
Her novels have been published in 18+ countries around the world.
Brittainy lives in Brookfield, Wisconsin with her fur babies.
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