13. Layla
LAYLA
Three years ago…
“I hope I’m not bein’ too forward, Layla Jean, but you truly are the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen.”
I force a smile.
Something I should be an expert at by now because my current date has been nothing but sweet and a complete gentleman, but if he compliments me one more time, I’m flipping this damn table over.
And it also feels weird.
Because it’s the wrong guy telling me these things, and it’s something I clearly need to continue working on getting over.
“I think we got past the forwardness, Hunter, after the sixth compliment.” He bows his head into his chest, posing on how I may have embarrassed him by the callout, but I simply tack, “But it’s sweet, just the same.”
But, seriously, you can stop.
That spruces him right up because he pulls his chin up and smiles, displaying the two smallest dimples on his cheeks.
Hunter is thinly built, but he fills out a blue jean button-up shirt nicely. He brought me a cake pan, which to any other female would probably not be the best present to give someone, but I loved it just the same.
“I’ll take it down a notch,” he claims. “I’m nervous, I apologize. I haven’t been on a date in quite a while.”
“Me either. It’s okay.”
“Is your steak good?”
I steal a glance at my plate, and it’s perfect. “Almost too good to eat.”
“That’s why this is my favorite restaurant in the whole world. Food comes out amazin’ each and every single time. No issues, amazin’ chefs.”
“You bring all your dates here?” I tease, dipping a piece of my steak in the restaurant’s homemade steak sauce.
“No, ma’am. Been too busy with football, but I bring my mama here, though, while she’s visitin’ in town. So does that count?”
“Counts, but not against you.”
He smiles, then continues eating his dinner.
Hunter is a man I met in Auburn Lakes, the town next door to Magnolia Ridge. There’s a baking supply store, and the few times I’ve met him, he was running errands for his mother and the bakery she owns a couple towns over.
Then he asked me on a date.
And I blurted out a yes.
It wasn’t that I necessarily thought it was vital that I went out on one, but that I needed to finally get past Briggs Kerrigan being the last man I kissed.
That, stupidly, was the first thing I thought of when he asked.
Not because I thought he was cute—which he is—or that it would be an experience I could pass up—the jury is still out on that one—but because Briggs Holden freakin’ Kerrigan came blazing into my head like a damn tornado.
Which is fitting, because he’s on a team with a bunch of them.
“I’m really glad you came out with me tonight,” he states through our silence. “I’m hopin’ we can do it again because there’s a shrimp place I think you’ll love.”
“I’d like that.”
“That’s disappointing to hear, Mrs. Kerrigan,” a deep, grating male voice returns, and it’s not my date’s. “And here I was thinkin’ you’d wait for me.”
My focus is so intense that it does not give my brain and body so much as a moment to prepare myself for what happens next.
No, it just acknowledges it because I can never seem to help myself either way.
Standing at the end of our booth is none other than Briggs Kerrigan.
As if I just manifested him out of thin air because I didn’t want him to be my last anything, and he had to come fix that.
He’s wearing a black baseball hat with “TT” embroidered in burgundy on it, but underneath, it doesn’t soften the glare directed my way for obvious reasons.
I’m on a date.
He won’t allow me to move on.
And I’ve been ratted out.
The only two people who knew about this dinner were Fallon and Zoe.
However, Fallon’s voice isn’t what I would consider inside because she gets so damn excited about things that it carries.
However, we were walking outside when I told her the news of the latest in my life.
So, whoever heard it—I shouldn’t be surprised, but I am.
This is ludicrous at its best.
“You’re Briggs Kerrigan.”
Oh, for the love of God, who cares?
I steal a glance over at Hunter, who looks up at him in sheer awe. Like God just happened to come down to pay us a little visit during a steak dinner.
Not the man who just interrupted it.
“Don’t know him,” Briggs deadpans, his attention still locked and loaded on me. “Would you excuse us?”
“We’re on a date.”
There you go, Hunter. Come back to Earth.
“Date’s over.” Briggs suddenly snaps his fingers and demands Hunter’s dismissal before he starts to remove him himself.
“Briggs,” I warn as calmly and simply as I can.
Meanwhile, my heart is racing in my chest because how am I supposed to explain this?
So, sorry, Hunter. He’s an ex who won’t give me the decency to move on with my life. He has psychotic energy, obviously, he’s here.
And he should be playing.
The Tornadoes have a game tonight.
“Fine.” Briggs moves toward my side of the booth and slides in, forcing me to edge closer to the wall to keep some modesty and distance between us. “We’ll all talk together then.”
“You’ve got to be kiddin’ me right now?” I leer through a tick in my jaw. “How are you even here?”
“Magnolia Ridge isn’t a stompin’ ground for secrets.” Briggs turns his head my way, and I instantly feel two inches tall. “You shouldn’t be tellin’ them to anyone but me.”
I scoff mindlessly. “I shouldn’t do anythin’ with anyone else that isn’t you, you mean. You won’t let me.”
“Now, you’re finally getting it, Layla Jean.” He casually props his arm along the top of the bench, but his body is tense, and I can feel it radiating off him from inches away. “Now, are you gonna tell him or should I?”
I immediately feel defeated by this man. He won’t give me what I want, but he won’t let me get it elsewhere.
He will literally hunt me down and any prospects of happiness until I only accept him.
“You wouldn’t,” I dare him even though I know better. I am fully aware of who Briggs Kerrigan is and everything he does.
“So you are Briggs Kerrigan?” Hunter presses, obviously not reading the damn room, the conversation, the simple fact that another man just crashed our date.
Nothing.
Briggs steals a glance at Hunter, clearly not impressed with his question again, because his expression is blank and on the edge of stabbing him with a steak knife if he asks it again.
“Who?”
Hunter looks to me for help because unmasking the man at my side’s identity is more important than the date.
Got it.
Great.
“No,” I lie because who cares at this point? “His name is Digs. Nickname.”
Hunter frowns, but he doesn’t look fully convinced. “But he’s wearing a Tennessee Tornadoes jersey and hat.”
Good job, Briggs.
You dumbass.
“I’d be happy to punch you in the fuckin’ face, and you can compare it to Briggs Kerrigan, if you want.”
I shove at Briggs’s shoulder to get him to vacate before he acts on that threat. “Out.”
He doesn’t move an inch, patiently waiting for Hunter’s answer, but he doesn’t get one.
So, in all Briggs’s fashion to toss the final nail in the coffin, he reminds me, him, and makes sure my date is fully aware of the circumstances here.
Slowly, he leans over the table, and my first thought is that he’s going to flip it over on Hunter and cause a scene.
It’s all he’s been doing in the MLB since…I called everything off.
“Just so we’re clear,” he says monotonously. “You won’t be going on another date with my girl.”
“Your girl?” Hunter sends a not-so-surprising, confused look my way. “What’s going on?”
My lips part to explain, but I need an hour, not two seconds, to fully encompass the full extent of what Briggs and I are.
Actually, I need more time than that.
“Focus, friend,” Briggs grinds out, receiving Hunter’s full attention now. “My girl. Meaning, no one is going to be touchin’, kissin’, or fuckin’ what’s mine.”
My skin turns crimson as I deliver another push to Briggs’s body.
This dinner date is over, and truthfully, I don’t want to explain anything anymore. Especially on a first date with a guy who barely knows me except for my name, what I do for a living, and, now, that I have a crazy ex.
What he needs to do is stay far away from me.
Obviously.
“I’m really sorry, Hunter,” I try to apologize, but it comes out as a croak, if anything, then grab my purse to fish out some cash for dinner. “I’ll pay for—”
Briggs’s palm slaps the table and snaps my head to what he’s just done.
Underneath it is a wad of cash.
“Take the rest and buy yourself some baseball tickets, Hunter.” Briggs slides out of the bench seat and waits for me to follow. And I do because I need to get out of here like a pansy. “And lose her number.”
Mortification.
That’s all I feel as I leave the restaurant with tears burning in my eyes.
I also feel bad for Hunter because he didn’t ask for this.
And I thought maybe, just maybe, I could just move on with my life.
Fat chance.
There’s a spy in Magnolia Ridge that just reached out to Briggs, of all people, to let him know I was going on a date.
It couldn’t have been Fallon or Zoe.
There’s no way.
They wouldn’t do this to me.
They encouraged it.
Fallon.
Zoe.
Who else?
I pass the hostess station, hearing one of the girls telling me to have a good rest of my night, but I push the glass door open and immediately welcome the night air.
Not Uncle Ben.
Biting down on my lower lip, no one else knows I’m here.
I didn’t grab a microphone and announce it in town that my loser, single, and pathetic self was going on a date tonight.
Who?
Who?
Who?
Fingers wrap tightly around my tricep before I’m spun viciously around and slammed into a nearby car.
The body that presses into me is the obvious one because there is no way Hunter and his Southern tendencies of being a full-on gentleman would do this.
So, in retrospect, that leaves only one person.
And it’s confirmed when I smell cedarwood and recognize the hard muscles of his chest against my body.
“Layla fuckin’ Jean,” I hear Briggs grind out through, what I think is clenched teeth. “You thought you were slick, eh?”
I tug at my arm, which is futile because I know I’m never getting it free unless I rip it off. Though I’m still going to try anyway.
“What do you want, Briggs?” I clip out, unable to look up at him because it’s hard.
It’s really, really hard.
“You,” he says instantaneously, cupping my chin gently and forcing it upward to meet his gaze.
Pine green eyes.
My favorite.
He looks as freaking handsome as he did two years ago when I saw him last. When he refused to let me go and told me he’d have to be dead first before he allowed that to happen.
He even recommended ways that I could do it.
Hit and run.
Hitman.
Poison.
Sniper.
Some other stupid ways that randomly came to his head because, again, psycho.
“When are you gonna get it through your head, Short Stop, that you’re it for me and you’re mine? You can throw all the damn temper tantrums you want, keep me in the MLB, but you won’t be fuckin’ around behind my back while I work my ass off to give you everything you deserve and need.”
I needed you.
I wanted you.
But I’ve spent so many years trying to make things work, and in his defense, so has he, and it just didn’t.
It hasn’t.
It’s time to move on.
“You can’t keep doin’ this to me, Briggs,” I complain evenly. “It’s not working.”
“Because you won’t allow it to work.” His fingers run along the edge of my jawline, and he follows them with his eyes. “I’ve been good.”
His voice is soft, searching for the praise he deserves because he knows I don’t like it when he fights. Especially when it’s with Cruz Weston.
And, truthfully, it’s only been with Cruz except for one time.
Back in July, Cruz tried to hit Briggs three times when the dugout emptied on his behalf, and Briggs didn’t need to get his hands dirty for that one, even though he still could’ve joined if he wanted to.
Instead, he remained at home plate so he could eventually take his full turn and hit.
He did that for me.
Even after I said I was done.
“Let me come home, Short Stop,” he mutters softly. “I’ll break my contract and I can—”
“You can’t,” I retort sharply. “You still have six years.”
“I can,” he returns evenly. “Due to personal reasons.”
“You don’t have personal reasons. Just impatience.”
“I’m emotionally distraught.”
“You’re not.”
“I definitely am,” he utters while leaning in closer, placing his lips so dangerously close that I stop breathing.
“I want you, Short Stop. I’ve never stopped wantin’ my curly-haired country girl with too much pride and a whole lotta sass.
Put me out of misery already and let me have you fully already. This isn’t workin’.”
Does he mean now?
Like…wait, does he want—what does he want?
My brain just conked out.
His being so close, and us being so alone after all this time, my eyes begin to flutter closed just to be able to fully submerge myself into all of him.
All of what we were.
Everything.
His lips barely brush against mine, but I definitely feel them, sending a ripple of lust and excitement through my body that I haven’t felt in forever.
“If I ever see you with another man again, I’ll rip him apart.
” My eyes fly open with his direct threat, and I find him already staring down at me through a glower heated enough to melt through any future ideas I may have of that happening.
“You fucked up, Layla Jean. Because I have eyes in town, and if you thought you were free of me tonight, you just earned yourself a full twenty-four hours of me fuckin’ it into your skull.
I told you to suit up. You’re in for the ride of your life when I get you to finally stay with me. ”
It hits me like a ton of bricks falling on top of my head on how he found out.
Adeline.
His sister.
Fallon’s other best friend.
Damn it.