Chapter Twenty-Three

Layla

I felt out of sorts after Eamon kissed the hell out of me, so I took a quick hot shower until his scent no longer lingered on my skin and my body only burned from the scalding water and not his touch.

The whole Saturday stretched ahead of me. I got dressed and sat around my house in search of something to do or someone to talk to. I’d been too busy building my career and taking care of Dad that I didn’t have any real close friends, just a few acquaintances I could go out drinking with when I needed to unwind. My apartment was in order, so I couldn’t do a few hours of mindless cleaning to keep me busy, either.

I went to the gym and spent thirty minutes on the treadmill pounding out anything that might resemble feelings or emotions. I ran out the anger I felt at my dad for keeping this huge thing from me and then for letting it get so bad that it got to this point. I ran out the feelings that were bubbling just beneath the surface for Eamon. I ran and ran, then I swam, focusing on nothing but the next stroke through the water. But even ninety minutes at the gym couldn’t tire out my overeager mind.

Which meant I needed to venture outside again, something I had no desire to do while I still felt raw and a little shaken by my time with Eamon. But maybe a bit of grocery shopping with a few hours of retail therapy was exactly what I needed, at least that was my excuse when I grabbed my purse and reusable bags and got in my car.

Rocket wasn’t a big metropolis by any stretch of the imagination but a girl had options. There were two malls in addition to all the shops and boutiques inside the two dozen or so casinos in town. I turned out of the parking lot and got ready to blast Queen Bey when I saw something that stopped me cold. At first I didn’t even realize what it was, but my body recognized it before I did.

The sleek red car that I saw yesterday rolled down my street at a much slower speed than most drivers use. It didn’t matter much that there was no reason for anyone to be following me but tell that to my overactive imagination that had me convinced they were sex traffickers looking for pretty young girls to sell to rich dudes overseas.

Since there was clearly no way to reason with me, had anyone been with me to reason with, I reversed out of my parking spot and sped away like a bat out of hell. I drove and drove, my eyes flying to my side mirrors and my rearview mirror like I was the getaway driver for a bank heist. If there were any cops around, I would’ve been pulled over and given at least three tickets, but the traffic goddesses were smiling down on me because there wasn’t a black and white in sight.

I merged into the traffic at the mega shopping center complete with the biggest supermarket in town, which was surrounded by at least two dozen stores, shops and boutiques.

My heart still raced, even as I threw the car in park and rested my head on the steering wheel.

“No one is following me. I’m being ridiculous.”

My emotions had to have been on edge if I thought some random red car was the same car as yesterday and following me through Rocket, Nevada. “Yeah, right.”

A laugh bubbled out of me at just how silly I was being and how real my fear was. The laughter helped and with one final look around, I stepped from the car with my handy canvas bags and got lost in rampant consumerism for a few hours.

Mostly rampant consumerism mixed in with a sickening dose of obsessing over a certain hard bodied gangster. Why couldn’t I stop thinking about him? He wasn’t my boyfriend or some guy I met in a bar and hooked up with a few times or any variation of that scenario. Nope, he was a guy who’d demanded my body in payment for a debt.

No more and no less.

But still, when I thought of last night, which I did for damn near the entire afternoon, I swore there were flashes of emotion there. Something beyond lust and desire, more than simple pleasure seeking. But it could have been the pleasure he gave me that was clouding my vision and making me see things that weren’t there. It wouldn’t be the first time I’d made that particular mistake and I swore after the second time, I was done with that. But that was said with the bravado of a twenty-two-year-old and in the three years since I made that teary promise, I hadn’t broken it.

Not. Even. Once.

And I wouldn’t this time either. Just because my stupid heart was seeing things and making me feel things that I absolutely did not want to, didn’t mean I had to say anything or act on it. I didn’t. I wouldn’t. In fact, I doubled back to the baking goods aisle to pick up some chocolate chips, flour and nuts so I would have something sweet waiting for me when I came home from Eamon’s. Tonight.

My last night with him.

I repeated that speech to myself while I packed the groceries into my trunk and again when I brought the bags in to the kitchen and baked my sweet treats. It became my mantra for the rest of the afternoon. And it worked.

Mostly.

When I forgot to remind myself, my mind inevitably wandered back to him, but I was good, and I quickly shut that shit down.

It wasn’t much but it was a start.

A damn good start.