ELEVEN
Layla
The November air in Cavanagh stung with the bite of frigid wind. In the breeze the hint of ice and snow whispered among each touch from the mountain peaks above the town, those looming sentinels guarding Cavanagh against the world, against the harsh glow of all places not as beautiful, not as welcoming as their small town.
Layla sat in her car, watching the window in the apartment building to her right, scanning its side, the brick and the light shadows moving behind the curtain. Donovan was waiting for her. She knew he was. She thought, maybe, he’d given up in the hour and half since she left Joe’s, but that light was glaring onto the empty streets and she’d noticed him staring through the glass more than once.
She thought, when she first parked on the street in front of his place, that maybe he’d let the day, the food and its slumbering effects erase any need he might have for her body. But he was twenty-four. The stores of someone so young, so virile, could be replenished, then depleted until whatever hunger he had would be ready, eager to be filled again. She wasn’t sure hers would allow the same.
They had made those non-promises to each other. Swearing not to need each other. Swearing that emotion, affection would be absent from the room once they came together. And it had been that way, for weeks now. It had been passionate and wild and needy and blissfully free of expectation. Donovan was the release Layla took for herself without the hope of anything complicated beyond the taste of his skin. It’s what she wanted, what she told herself she needed.
In that room, just beyond the street where she sat debating whether to drive away or leave her car, there was no requirement of love or responsibility. There was only Donovan’s beautiful skin, his long, lean muscles and the warmth of his damp breath on her body. He took away what was expected of her. Them together, scratching, controlling, surrendering, weakened by touch and flesh and tempting release, was a playground, the relaxing haven that took away her worry and the pressures that surrounded her.
So why did she stay in her cold car staring at the yellow light spilling out from his window?
Mollie. Her best friend. Those words, those warnings stuck in Layla’s mind like an insect immovable on tacky paper.
“You… you and Donovan?”
Layla’s ears still rang from the shrill, loud pitch of her best friend’s voice. Mollie had dragged the blonde outside onto Joe’s patio, away from their friends, from the curious glances they’d garner if anyone caught sight of them. The whole time, Layla’d felt the heavy weight of guilt—shame she’d been repressing for weeks now. Shame that set heavy on her chest as Mollie asked her question after question.
“How did this happen?” and “Why did this happen?” and “Are you being careful?” and Layla’s personal favorite “How could you not tell me? I’m your best damn friend!”
That one had bit down deep, made the guilt of letting Donovan have her again and again seem like nothing compared to the hurt, the shock that showed in Mollie’s eyes. All of her friends had joked for over a year that she and Donovan’s pranks, their long, hateful scowls at each other, were step one in the long dance of foreplay that would lead them together naked. Maybe Mollie didn’t really care that Layla was sleeping with Donovan. Maybe, she’d guessed, that the greatest source of her best friend’s anger came from the fact that she had never told Mollie that this… whatever it was with Donovan… had begun at all.
“You don’t tell me everything, Mollie. I didn’t know anything about what you were running from, what Vaughn tried to protect you from until after your accident.”
Then Mollie kicked Joe’s tattered, threadbare lawn chair until it rattled against his cold fire pit. “That is not the damn point, Layla!”
“Mollie…”
“Do you love him?”
The question had Mollie’s eyes sharply focused on her best friend, had Layla’s hand shaking and she didn’t know why or how four words could unravel her composure until she was left with an abundance of useless emotions. And so, Layla did the only thing she could. She laughed. Hard, loud, rolling belly laughter. Laughter so piercing that Mollie looked around the patio, to the back entrance of the sunroom as though she expected someone to come outside. Layla laughed because if she didn’t, she knew fat, leaking tears would fall from her eyes. Donovan did not deserve her tears. No man did.
“No. God, no! I just… Mollie…” and then Layla fell into the patio chair, slumped against the back with her long arms hanging over the side. “God.” She’d tried to buffer her humor, to make that shocked, wary expression leave Mollie’s face, but the laughter continued until her best friend came to her side, stilling her with small fingers over her wrist. “I’m… I’m just like Buffy.” The metaphor was stupid, juvenile, but Layla thought, highly accurate. A few seconds to rub her face with her cold palms and her humor had vanished. “I swear I am. Donovan is my Spike.”
Mollie’s smile was brief, barely moved her lips. “Buffy slept with Spike after crawling her way out of a six month old grave.” She’d pushed Layla’s head up, forced her to look at her. “Digging out of graves lately and not telling me?”
“No. God. I don’t know what I’m doing, Molls. Honestly. I have no idea.”
“Sweetie…” then her best friend had hugged Layla, brought her face against her shoulder and held her tight. “Do you like him at least or is this just some, I dunno, weird sexual power play?”
“No. God, I don’t know.” Layla stood, eager to pull herself together in case anyone heard them outside. “Mollie, it just sort of happened. That night Walter and I fought, I ended up at McKinney’s and Donovan, he was there and we drank and then I went home with him and…” she waved her hand, not thinking Mollie needed to hear all the stupid things she’d done with Donovan. “It’s been going on for weeks and weeks. We aren’t together. Neither one of us want that. It’s just sex. It’s just really good sex.”
“Layla, it’s really good sex with someone who is, for better or worse, a part of our circle. Trust me, I have zero room to judge anyone, but if something happens, something bad and this doesn’t work out, it could complicate an already weird situation.” Layla frowned, not certain what point Mollie was slowly meandering toward, but her best friend knew Layla better than anyone. She must have caught that confused expression and hurried to explain herself. “Quinn being here, messing up our little dynamic; Sayo struggling with her cousin’s illness and now this? Did you ever consider what Declan would do to Donovan if he finds out? I know you said you don’t love him, but you have to at least care about him a little if you’re sharing naked time with him. You really want Declan kicking his ass?”
“It’s not Deco’s business.”
“Yeah and when has that ever stopped him from bullying his way into everyone’s relationships? They’re best friends, honey and if Donovan so much as thinks about screwing you over, Declan will go at him. It won’t be pretty. More to the point, something that doesn’t make sense to me is that you have hated Donovan for so long. I mean, I know we picked on you two about all the ridiculous pranking but how do you go from hating him one minute, to sleeping with him the next?”
“It just sort of happened.”
“That’s the thing, honey. You are not a ‘just sort of happened’ kind of chick.” Mollie had kept her voice even, the shock and anger completely gone as she’d brushed Layla’s hair off her face. “You want the fairytale. You always have. Since you were fourteen, Layla, you talked about the ridiculous girly romancey type things. Will Donovan give that to you? Do you want him to?”
“No… I… I don’t think so.”
“Then why are you giving yourself to him when you know it doesn’t mean anything to him? And I know you, Layla. You’ve been my best friend since we were middle schoolers. This means something to you.” Mollie had stopped Layla’s protest with a quick wave of her hand. “Even if you don’t see it, this thing with Donovan, means something. You deserve the fairytale.”
She’d known Mollie was right. It was a fact in Layla’s daily life that Mollie had an annoying tendency to always be right. Layla thought she wanted the hearts and flowers and love and romance bullshit. She wanted someone to treasure her, to think she was precious. She wanted all those things still, but God help her, she didn’t know if she could walk away from Donovan. She didn’t think she had the strength to stop going to him.
But she knew she had to try. “It’s just sex,” she told herself, promising that this would be the very last time. She’d listen to Mollie, she really would, after tonight, after one last taste of his body and feel of his hands. It would be a parting, a goodbye and Layla had no intention this time of leaving without a good-bye kiss.