11. Briggs
brIGGS
Eleven years ago…
“I made these for you, for good luck.”
I look down at three blue-beaded bracelets lying in Layla Jean’s palm, then back into pretty hazel eyes that appear nervous but slightly excited to give them to me anyway.
I don’t know if she’s giving them to me because she made them at her youth group for church. After all, they’re trying to save lost souls, or if she made them specifically for me.
Two weeks ago, Pastor Denis tried to convince me to attend Sunday mass because he was going to do a sermon with baseball references and wanted my opinion.
When, really, I just got done terrorizing Thomas Redding’s farm and let all his chickens out, his cow, and tried to sell his tractor on Craigslist.
We tried to sell him candy for baseball season, told him he could save it for Halloween because he’s cheap as fuck, but he flatly refused and said he didn’t have the money.
So I helped.
Putting his shit up for sale to help his bank account.
“Do you like them?”
I blink several times before asking, “Are these supposed to save me or somethin’?”
Her brows furrow like she’s confused and doesn’t go to youth group at church for that reason. I mean, why else would you go?
“What?”
“From hell,” I elaborate. “Did you make that in your youth group?”
“No…”
“Is that a question or a statement?”
“Statement,” she says without hesitation, not ever bothered by my off-putting questions. “I made ’em at home.”
My eyes bug out because, my God. “They make you do shit at home, too?”
Layla glances down at the bracelets, then back at me. “Briggs Kerrigan, what part of this transaction aren’t you understandin’?”
I blink. “The whole damn thing.”
“I made these bracelets for you.” She lifts them a bit to throw them on display again. “Of my own accord. No one asked me to do it. They’re yours.”
She couldn’t have.
“For me?”
I’m still questioning because I can’t get past the part where she said she did it for me without any assignment or church thing behind it.
Her brows hike upward, and now she’s looking at me like I’m slow. “That’s what I said.”
“For what?”
Her eyes narrow in on me. “Did you not hear me the first two times, Briggs Kerrigan, or did you blow your eardrums out when you were too busy lighting M-80s at Willowmere’s Pond this weekend?”
I heard her.
I just want her to elaborate.
More.
“Color me confused, Layla Jean,” I coax because, well, this girl has never come up to me like this just to give me something.
We’ve been in the same circles with mutual friends, but never alone.
Layla isn’t a girl who gets herself into any trouble, and I run this town crazy with my antics.
“Why would you be makin’ me bracelets out of the goodness of your heart? ”
This has to be a prank.
One that Cruz put her up to. It’s not a confirmed fact around the boys that I’ve hardcore crushed on Layla Jean, but I have.
I do.
I get lost staring into her long, curly brown hair when she’s bouncing around in excitement or throwing her head back a little when she laughs.
She does that a lot.
I get a perfect view of her lunch table from mine. She’s always in dresses.
Always.
And I like that shit.
It’s not because it’s easy to get under them, but because it just gives her good girl vibes. A girl who likes being pretty and kind in this world, with all her volunteer work and charity.
She even wore a dress when her youth group was repairing Moon Hollow’s bridge. Hammer in hand and everything.
I think I barely did shit all that day.
I wasn’t supposed to be there in the first place, but Maebelle Mitchell somehow got my ass to show up—probably because I ordered breakfast in front of her and cut in line, I had class—and I wasn’t sorry I had. Especially after I got the opportunity to eye-fuck Layla Jean all day.
However, this scenario is odd.
It’s impossible.
Her Uncle Ben hates me, and she’s not someone I could see being interested in me.
I have more problems than math does.
Layla’s fingers wrap around the bracelets protectively, and gone is that excited smile she just had on her pretty-as-a-picture face. “Never mind. My mistake—”
“When are you gonna date me?”
I didn’t expect my question to make her recoil from me, but it does.
She takes a step back, staring at me like I’ve lost my damn mind. Any other girl in this damn town would’ve giggled and pawed at me.
Layla looks at me like I asked her to commit murder.
“You’ve had to have heard that I like you, right?”
She averts her eyes and looks at the baseball field with my teammates warming up for tonight’s game.
Maybe not.
My boys wouldn’t parade the information around town for fear I’d kick their ass if they tried to be dickheads about it. But some way, somehow, something must’ve gotten to her.
There’s no way my crush has been the best-kept secret in Magnolia Ridge since Bobby Papulious had an affair with two women for ten years, and they both chased him out of town.
And how that was ever a secret…no clue.
Don’t care either way.
“That was a yes or no question,” I press, stealing just a millimeter closer to her. “I didn’t necessarily make it a secret. And even the best ones are still circulated through this damn place.”
“You can’t,” she immediately retorts, her chest heaving in unsteady intakes of air all of a sudden.
“Why?”
“My Uncle Ben…he won’t like it.”
Ah, right.
The guy who hates me.
Which is odd because I’ve purposely never done anything to him.
Just his friends.
“He doesn’t know me,” I tell her, but there’s not much to know. I have a father who can’t stand me, I’m decent in school, and I get bored.
And when I get bored, shit gets blown up, or farm animals get their freedom.
Amongst other things.
Layla scoffs a little. “You think you live an exclusive life where no one in this town knows who you are, what you do, and your full name, blood type, most ordered food item, and the last stunt you pulled? That’s ambitious.”
“He thinks I’m a punk, but I volunteer.”
“Maebelle made you do that.”
“It still had its benefits. And I could’ve bailed.”
She shrugs. “Why didn’t you then?”
“Gotta stare at you.”
Her cheeks immediately pinken before she drops her chin into her chest. “Briggs Kerrigan, I am not the girl you date, nor will I become some stupid bet you and your friends—”
“Have you ever heard or seen me play with a girl’s emotions like that? My sister, Adeline, would have my ass.”
She steals a look up at me. “I’m not gonna date you.”
“Gonna need you to sound more convincing than that.” I motion toward what she’s holding with my head. “You gonna give me my bracelets?”
“No,” she says without hesitation. “I don’t think ya deserve ’em now.”
“Why? Because you just remembered that your uncle doesn’t like me?”
I knew she was close to her Uncle Ben, but I didn’t realize she was so adamant about having his approval. However, I know it’s all she has.
Her parents died when she was a young kid, and he does seem to keep her on the straight and narrow.
However, I’m not putting it past Layla that being a good girl is embedded deep in her DNA. This girl will go out of her way for anyone and anything.
I mean, she just made me bracelets for whatever good luck bullshit she allegedly just gave me, but I think there’s something more to that.
With her cupped hand, she hovers it in the air to give me the bracelets, but I don’t extend mine just yet.
“You make bracelets for anyone else?” I pose calmly as a small blush takes over her cheeks.
“No.”
“Why me then?”
“Because.”
No trailing off.
No stupid excuses.
Just because.
“Because you like me.”
I fully expect her to look horrified at the prospect of liking me versus any other asshole in our school.
However, she just looks back at me blankly, learning how to mask her emotions almost as well as mine.
Except I don’t blush.
She does.
“And what makes you think that?” she pushes back, some of that sass protruding through to her tone. “Just because I’m being nice?”
“Nah, because I see how you look at me sometimes.”
She steals glances at lunch or the one class we share, English. I catch her sometimes, and other times, even when I know she’s looking, I allow her to look because I don’t want her to look away.
I’ll take her eyes on me any day of the week because it’s a rarity all on its own.
Layla has never dated.
She’s never once gone to a school dance with a boy, just her friends.
And I want to be the first for everything.
“I think you’re mistaken,” she lies, right through her teeth, because admitting she likes the bad boy, in her head, is probably like bringing the devil into her life.
I know I’m no good for her, but it doesn’t stop the idea from wanting to be.
Layla deserves the world, and I’d give that to her to the best of my ability. It’s not like I’m stone-cold and can’t offer her things.
I like her, so that’s a start.
I like to see her smile and laugh.
I like it when she volunteers, even though you wouldn’t catch me dead doing church shit.
“Is it against one of the commandments you’ve learned then?”
Layla gives me an exasperated look. “And going to church makes me a goody-two-shoes?”
“Kinda.”
I expect her to stomp away because, well, the church folks really like church.
However, she holds her ground against me, and I’m starting to like her more by the second.
“Who do you think was behind replacin’ the red wine with lemonade last week at church?”
She props a hand on her hip, and I perk a brow because there’s no fuckin’ way.
“You?” She smiles again. “Damn, Layla Jean…you’re a real badass.”
She shrugs. “I try, when warranted.”
“You know they blamed David Burns for that.”
“I do,” she replies with zero empathy behind that. “But that’s what he gets for throwin’ away all my pew cards.”
“Pew cards?”
“Yes. I write little cards and throw them in the hymn books to brighten people’s day. He threw them out because he’s a jerk.”
Of course she does.
She’s a damn ray of sunshine.
And David Burns just happens to be one of our outfielders, classic dick, and I wonder how he’d like playing out there with broken sunglasses.
“He get enough shit for that?” I ask curiously. “Because I can help speed up the karma.”
Layla stares at me with no excitement over that prospect. “How about you take the bracelets, and we call this conversation a day?”
I open my fingers for her to drop the homemade bracelets in my palm before she changes her mind, but I’m not done talking to her.
However, I need to go warm up, and she can’t stand here with me all day.
“Is this a proposal?” I can’t help but joke as I slide the beaded bracelets onto my wrists. “Because the answer is yes.”
“Perfect,” she quips. “I want dinner on the table every day by five, and my slippers laid out every night.”
“Done.”
Her lips curl into another one of those breathtaking grins of hers, and I can’t help but get lost for a few seconds into each one.
“We’ll need to date first.”
“Keep dreamin’ on that,” she counters evenly. “My uncle would raise hell if he ever thought I was marryin’ you.”
“I like challenges.”
“You like chaos.”
“I like you, Layla Jean. And don’t think I’m ever gonna let you forget that. I’m also good at what I do.”
“And how many girls have you said that to?”
“None.”
“That’s crap.”
“Marry me and find out.”