Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
Layla
I felt like hot shit. It wasn’t a good feeling at all, but I’d promised to go out with the girls, so I’d managed to get ready and meet up with them.
Mark had gone upstairs after lunch for a nap, and I’d figured leaving him to sleep was the kindest thing to do, seeing as how it was one of his rare days off, and he’d spent part of it at the gym and then had to pop into work for a couple of hours.
But, God, I wished I was at home curled up on my bed.
“You know, you look like you’ve been bitten by an Ebola monkey,” Cyn whispered, jerking away from me at the last minute. “Wait, are you infectious? I can’t get Ebola when I’ve got a kid to look after.”
“It’s not Ebola, I just feel crappy. Maybe I’m hormonal?”
“Your hormones make you look that pale and sick every month? If that’s the case, chickadee, you need to get your furnace checked by an inspector because that ain’t right.”
“My furnace is just fine, thank you very much.”
Cyn shrugged. “Maybe furnaces are like chimneys—you need to check they’ve not gotten blocked up by leaves, dead birds, giant spiders, and dead Santas before you ignite them and burn a fire. I don’t know because I don’t think we had a furnace, just a boiler, back in England, and it was pretty self-explanatory to make sure the burner was lit and to call the gas guy if it didn’t work.”
I leaned my cheek on my hand—fuck being able to hold it up by myself at this point—and looked at her carefully. “How the hell have you survived this long in life?”
“On a wing and a prayer, my friend.”
Just then, her back stiffened, just as Sayla’s did the same. With how we were sitting—my back to the door and them facing it—I couldn’t see what’d caused the reactions, but I could guess.
Well, well, well, it seemed those boys were keener than I’d realized. I mean, come on, it didn’t take a genius to figure out they liked my friends and were just going about it the wrong way, but to turn up tonight after crashing and burning on the endeavor the night before and likely knowing it? That spoke volumes.
“Oh, that little piece of donkey piss,” Sayla hissed, shooting an irritated glance at Roque as he leaned on the bar and stared straight at her. “All I wanted was one night of peace.”
I took a sip of my drink, grateful I’d chosen a pina colada that wouldn’t sting my throat. Then again, the alcohol it did have in it and the pineapple juice kind of did that, but it was ice cold and soothed it afterward.
“You can still have a peaceful night and let your hair down,” I pointed out, hating how raspy and nasal I sounded. “Just stop staring at him and letting him know he’s getting to you.”
She blew out a frustrated breath and looked back at me. “You know, Cyn’s right, you really don’t look good.”
“I did the best I could. I don’t know what this is, but I’m sure it’ll go away once I finish my drink.”
Alcohol cleaned cuts and sterilized knives—I’d learned that from a movie because they didn’t tend to approve of your doing that in a hospital—ergo, it’d clean my body of whatever beasties were ailing it and sterilize it afterward.
My crutch tonight was my desperation, and I wouldn’t be admitting that out loud.
Cyn finally dragged her eyes away from Kapono and sucked the rest of her drink through her straw. Given that it wasn’t a small glass and it’d been half full, her ability to not cry with brain freeze and to remain sane was impressive.
“Where’s Mark tonight?”
“Sleeping. It’s supposed to be his day off, and he worked late last night and went in for a couple of hours before lunch, so I left him to get his rest.”
“Aw,” she cooed, “spoken like a true Stepford Wife. Did you clean the house and make sure his laundry was neatly folded, too?”
I bit my lip, not wanting to admit I had indeed done all of that, but only because it’s what I usually did on my day off, and I’d wanted to get it out of the way for the week ahead.
Regardless of how much I thought I’d hidden the response from them, they still read me like a book and burst out laughing.
“Yo, move your butt and let us through. Once we’ve gone past, you can crowd together again and rudely block the path for all of the other patrons, I promise.”
Hearing the loud familiar voice, I slowly turned around and tried to smile when I saw Jacinda and Rockie heading toward us. “Hey, g— Oh, shit, what the hell happened to you?” Rockie asked, looking worried.
Tilting my head back, I wasn’t surprised when I saw I had his full attention on me.
“I’m fine.”
“Darlin’, your lips might be saying that, but they also just added a ‘d’ to the word ‘fine’ that doesn’t exist in it.”
Fuck my life.
Pulling a chair over and leaving the one closest to me for Rockie to use, Jacinda sat down heavily. “Lord, I need this drink.”
Rockie leaned across the table. “Canon’s in a bad mood, so she’s hiding from him.”
Whatever the reason was, she never got to say it because a fight broke out near us, and the next twenty minutes were filled with my friends getting rid of their tension by placing bets on who was going to win. The reason it took twenty minutes for it to finish was that no matter how hard they tried, neither Roque nor Kapono could get through the crowd to get to the two women fighting.
And this wasn’t any cat fight. This was a nails, fists, feet, hair pulling, nose breaking, and tit punching war.
By the time it was finished, and they were passed over to the officers who’d attended, the girls and Rockie were doing shots. As they pushed mine across to me, I decided ‘fuck it’ and down it. Who knew that a cinnamon shot with gold in it called Goldschlager could cure a blocked nose and sore throat? It was genius.
So genius, I also decided to do a couple more to help my aching joints.
Cyn made a gagging noise and pushed her phone away with her nail. “My sister’s disgusting. She’s just sent me a text about how juicy her pineapple is.”
“Is that a euph- an epha- a…” Rockie looked like his brain was about to catch on fire he was thinking that hard. “Why can’t I say the word?” He growled and then slurred, “Is that you talking about something dirty?”
“No, she’s eating pineapple—the boring old fart with big tits and a hot hubby.”
I’d just been about to take a sip of my new drink when she said it, and I ended up getting the straw up my nose. Not that it mattered, given what’d just come out of her mouth.
“You say that about your sister ?”
“Pfffbt, she knows I love her, but she used juicy.” Her phone beeped again, and this time, when she saw the screen, she snapped, “That’s it. No one says the words juicy or juices innocently. No one. It’s one of the grossest words in the world wide world.”
“I know one,” Rockie hiccuped. “Clam.”
Cyn motioned with her hand as she tapped on her screen. “Keep ‘em coming.”
“Creamy,” Sayla snickered.
Jacinda thought about hers. “Homonym.”
The one that popped into my head when they looked at me made me burst out laughing. “Homoerectus.”
“Fuck it, she wins,” Rockie snapped, throwing his arm out in my direction.
I glanced over at the bar and saw Mark watching me with a small smile on his face. He’d turned up during the fight and had immediately checked on me to make sure I was okay. He hadn’t tried to mother hen me to death like everyone else had, and I was beyond grateful for that.
“Ladies, your drinks,” the female bartender, whose name I’d forgotten, said as she took them off the tray and put them on the table. “They’re from that man over there.”
There were quite a few men in the direction she was pointing in, but when Mark winked, I figured it out without asking her for clarification.
“Your husband’s the bestest,” Cyn sighed. “Do you think he’d want a second wife?”
Why the hell not?
“Hang on, I’ll ask him.” Picking my phone up, I texted him the question and stared at my phone until I got a response from him. “Damn, he says he lucked out with the one he’s got already.”
“Aw, that’s so sweet,” Sayla cried, then stood up and pointed at him. “You, my friend, are the absolute shit, and I don’t mean the nasty brown stuff animals leave outside. You’re not poop, you’re shit.”
That was probably the sweetest thing I’d ever heard anyone say, but judging from the expressions on people’s faces in the bar, they didn’t quite agree. The insanity of the world we lived in.
Next to me, Rockie snorted loudly, one of those long, drawn out ones, and swayed in his chair. “She told him he was a shit.”
“No, she said nice things to him, Rock. Don’t ruin the moment,” I admonished, catching him when he swayed again.
“She said he wasn’t poop, he was shit, girl.”
“Yeah, that’s sweet, though,” I argued.
A glass of water appeared on the table in front of Cyh, and we all followed the arm attached to the hand still holding it, our heads moving up at the same time.
“Hey, Kapono,” Jacinda greeted, throwing her arm out in a wave and hitting him in the crotch. “Can I call you—” she stopped when she realized he wasn’t standing next to her anymore and looked around. “Hey, where’d he go?”
“A magician,” Cyn squealed. “Okay, who’s got the wand?”
“Jesus, you guys are dangerous,” Mark chuckled as he bent over to pick something up from the ground next to Rockie.
“Oh, hey, he found Kapono. I thought it was a hobo, which rhymes with Kapono!” Rockie clicked his fingers like he’d just discovered the answer to life’s biggest mystery.
Kapono had his teeth gritted and was glaring at Jacinda. “You hit me in the balls.”
She gaped up at him, her head tipped back. “Was that what the squishy thing was?”
“Squishy thing s —plural—and yes,” he growled, standing slightly hunched over.
His eyes slid to Cyn when she choked on her drink and spluttered, “You hit him in the testicularees?”
“Apparently. I just thought I’d hit a ghost or something,” Jacinda whispered, glancing at Kapono nervously.
Either Cyn was the best drunken actress in the world, or she’d perfected the ability to tune him out like he genuinely didn’t exist because she didn’t even look at him as she burst out laughing.
“I’ve heard that sucks when that happens. I once kicked a rugby ball to my brother and his friends when they were training, but no one told me or even warned me that those things shoot off in weird directions and spin like a mutha.”
She held her finger up and took another mouthful out of her glass. “So, rugby balls are shaped like an oval with pointy ends on either side—”
“Like a football,” Roque added.
Cyn tipped her head back to look up at him. “No, they’re round, mate.”
“They most certainly are not,” he argued firmly, and I had to hazard a guess that he’d likely played the game once upon a time.
“They are. Round like a ping bong pall.”
I blinked at the description, but it made perfect sense to me, and my head was beginning to thump again, so I waved it away.
“Cyn’s talking about British football, not American,” Mark interjected, looking at me worriedly.
Did I have egg on my face? Ugh, just the thought of eating eggs made me want to throw up.
Roque frowned at him. “You mean soccer?”
Over that part of the discussion, Rockie clicked his fingers at Cyn. “You can’t stop there, I’m invested in this story. So, you had the ball, kicked it, and it spun?”
She looked confused for a moment, like she’d forgotten what she was telling us, but then made an “aah” noise.
“Yeah, I was pissed off because it’d hit me, but I didn’t know it was going to go to the side instead of straight ahead, did I? And it was spinning, too. Crazy stuff.”
When she didn’t add anything, Kapono looked like he was going to throttle her.
“That’s it?” Rockie’s shoulders slumped.
“Yeah, apart from where it hit this guy in the knackers, and I had to run for my life.”
A smile slowly grew on Jacinda’s face. “Knackers as in nuts?”
Cyn nodded. “Big bugger he was as well and mean. It was an accident! I didn’t know the pointy end was going to hit him or that I could kick that hard.”
All the men aside from Rockie winced and did variations of a leg wiggle and a body jerk at the thought. Rockie, though, gave himself a high five.
“Now that’s the stories we need every time we go out. Layla, next time we do this, you need to bring the rest of your family along. Jacinda, bring your— No, wait, don’t bring your sisters. They’re crazy as fuck.” Jacinda nodded understandingly. “Sayla, where’s Heidi? She should be here.”
“Likely feeding Kingston from her boobies. He’s the cutest!”
Someone cleared their throat next to us, and my eyes slid to the side where Kapono was still glaring at Jacinda. “That’s it? You crushed my nuts, and that’s it?”
“Damn it,” Cyn pouted. “I missed it. Hey, do it again.”
His eyes narrowed on her. “You and me need to have a chat, Cynthia, don’t think I’ve forgotten about it. Do you want to add this into it, too?”
“Nah, no need to chat. Text me, and I’ll get back to you about it all.” She waved her hand dismissively and looked around the bar. “Hey, when did all these people get here?”
I couldn’t keep up with it all anymore, my head just wouldn’t let me, so I leaned down to rest it on my hands and closed my eyes, filtering out the bickering going on around me.
I felt my hair being pulled away from one side of my face, and then a hand rested on the back of my neck. “Baby, are you feeling okay? You’re really hot.”
There was a chorus of sighs followed by, “Aww!”
“I ache,” I rasped. There was so much more to it than that, but after getting those two words out, I just didn’t have the energy to list the rest.
“Okay, guys, I’m going to take Layla home. She’s not feeling well and is burning up.”
Fortunately I was asleep by the time Mark managed to get me out of the chair and into his SUV, otherwise, I’d have freaked out about the potential of me breaking his back.
Mark
“Is it a hangover?” Colette asked, looking at the screen on her thermometer. “I’ve never known alcohol to give someone a fever of a hundred and three, but I’m not a doctor, so it could be possible.”
“No, she said she wasn’t feeling great on Friday and looked pale and like she wasn’t feeling well when I got to the bar last night, so I’m thinking it might be a virus.”
She looked over at the Gatorade I’d set out next to Layla. “Has she managed to drink anything?”
“Only little sips. I tried giving her some pills to get her fever down, but she spat them back out again.”
Colette rolled her eyes and pulled her phone out.
“Jack, can you bring me the kids' medications out of the medicine cabinet, please? No, it’s not for any of them.” She crossed her eyes this time at whatever he’d asked. “No, it’s not for Cole, either. He has his own.” Her eyes dropped to her daughter. “Layla’s not well. She’s burning up and won’t swallow the pills Mark’s tried to give her.”
I left her to update Jack and went to rinse out the cloths I’d been pressing against Layla’s head and the back of her neck.
“Jack’s just going to bring the stuff over as well as the Pedialyte popsicles from the freezer. Hopefully they’ll rehydrate Layla and cool her down, but I think we should call the doctor and see if they have any recommendations.”
She didn’t have a freezer to keep them in, but we managed to get her to have one before Jack took them back and promised to come back later with a cooler full of those frozen blocks in it, too.
Given that she was a mom of five and a grandmother of a thousand, I followed Colette’s recommendations. Sadly for Layla, the doctor decided to come out and check her over, meaning she got poked, prodded, and her throat was swabbed, making her choke and gag.
I’m not ashamed to admit that I moved out of sight so she’d blame her mom and not me when she cracked her eyes slightly open. Listen, we might not have been around each other during our marriage—and didn’t that sound weird—but that didn’t mean I hadn’t picked up life hacks from my family on how to survive situations like this.
“I’ll deal with you when I’m reborn,” she choked out, then promptly passed out again.
After talking to the doctor, making a note of what I had to do, and promising to get her prescriptions filled, I dropped down onto the couch and leaned back on the cushion behind me.
“You’re doing a good job, you know,” Jack said, surprising the shit out of me.
Rolling my head to the side, I watched him sit in one of the recliners Layla loved. “You think so?”
“Oh, I know so. The first time Colette got sick after we got together, I assumed it was period pains and asked her what she needed. A few weeks later, she actually had period pains, and like an ass, I went back to the pharmacy and picked her up the same shit I’d gotten her when she was ill—chicken soup, NyQuil and DayQuil, and a romance book.”
I burst out laughing. “What did Colette do?”
His lips twitched. “Threw them at me and kept the book. Then she ordered me back to the store to pick her up a decent selection of chocolate, candy, and savory snacks.”
“I’ll have to remember that,” I snickered, then rubbed my chest. “I hate Layla being ill, Jack. It makes something hurt in my chest.”
His expression sobered as he watched me. “Sign of being in love, son. It hurts to think they’re in pain, and the fear of something happening to them keeps you up at night, even if it’s just a head cold.” That about covered it.
“About eighteen years ago, I read an article about this woman who’d been diagnosed with a newly discovered cancer, and she was dead seven weeks later. I couldn’t sleep for three days worrying about Colette, so I dragged her to the doctor’s office and demanded they test her, scan her, and do everything they could short of cutting her open for exploratory surgery to make sure she was okay.
“Poor woman didn’t know what’d hit me, but after the doctor had assured me he’d do it, he kept Colette behind while I went outside to get some water like he’d asked me to.” I watched as the somber expression morphed into a grin. “Know what Colette did?”
“What?”
“Apparently she hadn’t slept for three days because I hadn’t slept, and she was worried about me, so Colette asked him for a sedative or something to calm me down.”
I barked out a laugh. “Did he give it to her?”
“After the crazy I’d just shown him, he absolutely did.”
Colette found us a few minutes later, still laughing. “Your darling wife is now in clean pajamas and has finished another popsicle. Although, it would have been more fun shoving it up her ass,” she muttered the last bit under her breath. “Do you need us to do anything while we’re here?”
I stood up and patted my pocket, checking the prescriptions hadn’t fallen out at some point. “I won’t be long picking up her meds and getting her the stuff the doctor recommended. Do y’all need anything?”
When they both shook their heads, I smiled gratefully at them.
It was as I got to the door that an idea hit me. “Hey, Jack, do you have an hour free tomorrow to come with me to get something for Layla?”
He looked surprised initially, but then his face softened. “Well, I think I’d enjoy that, Mark. You wouldn’t rather take Colette or one of her brothers?”
I shook my head and meant it. “I’ll drag Colette on a trip like that one day, but not for this one.”
He grinned at me, and as I left, I caught him laughing at Colette’s pout.