21. Briggs
brIGGS
If one more person approaches my table, asking me how long I’ve been married to Layla Jean, I’m going to lose my shit.
I get it, there isn’t much else going on here. Anything that isn’t festivals or church gatherings is a normal, mundane as hell day.
However, this is one of the things I don’t miss—everyone being in your damn business.
“Fix your face, Briggs,” Adeline lightly chides me from across the table, casually eating her Belgian waffles with fresh strawberries. “You’re gonna start scarin’ people.”
“That’s the point,” I deadpan, actually in the middle of a staring contest with June Delaney.
My breakfast is long gone. I can’t take one bite without someone coming over here when I’m not looking to grill me on my relationship with Layla.
When did it happen?
Why aren’t you here makin’ kids?
When are you quittin’ the MLB?
Are you quittin’ the MLB?
How does Layla feel about you being gone all the time?
On and on and on, and I can’t answer one of them because Layla will not give me a reason or hope that she’s going to stop with these damn divorce papers she keeps trying to get me to sign.
Meanwhile, June Delaney is seated at the bar section of the diner, not-so-subtly trying to think of a way to come in this direction because it’s not near the exit.
It’s in the back.
She’s part of the gossip in town, not as good as Agnes and Maebelle Mitchell when they team up, but she’s a pain in the ass with the way she’s just itching to come over here.
“It’ll pass over,” Everly claims next to me. “You’re exciting.”
“I’m boring.”
“You’re far from borin’,” Adeline retorts with some pleasure in her tone over the fact that I’m the newest spectacle around here. “Folks are sayin’ you two are like Romeo and Juliet.”
“They died.”
“Bonnie and Clyde?”
“They died, too.”
I watch June slide off her stool, stealing another look at me from her peripheral, and I’m ready for her. She’s more than welcome to get my heated glower, and I’m curious to see how many questions she can get out before I make her really uncomfortable.
“Who are you starin’ at?”
“June Delaney.”
“Ugh,” Everly groans, stabbing another bite of her pancakes. “Keep starin’.”
“Everly,” Adeline protests like a mother would to a child that’s being unruly or unkind; however, my younger sister gets it.
Adeline has always needed to be the good one in the family. She’s always seen a need to keep our name in the good graces of town, God bless her. I would’ve probably gotten a verbal beatdown from half the town for the shit I’ve done.
However, it’s been minimal, and I’m not sure if it’s because she’s said something or people are starting to realize their golden boy isn’t so moral and golden anymore.
He’s a fucking dick.
“Leave her alone,” I argue. “If she’s gonna survive in this town, she needs to learn how to have a backbone.”
“Did your wife get one last night?”
I suddenly break my focus on June Delaney and put it solely on my sister.
She says wife like it leaves a disgusting taste in her mouth, but really, she’s still just pissed at me that she wasn’t there to see it.
It doesn’t matter how many times I explain to her that it was sudden and we didn’t have much time, Adeline will never forgive me for getting married without including her or Everly.
“Not sure,” I vouch evenly. “I haven’t heard from her.”
“Have you seen her?” I shake my head, and Adeline visibly sighs. “You wantin’ to quit the MLB isn’t going to get her to change her mind. It’s not going to do anything for your relationship either.”
“How so?” Everly asks for me. “He’ll be here. With her and us. It’ll help their relationship—”
“Because Layla wants Briggs to have everythin’ he’s ever wanted besides her. A career, somethin’ to be proud of.”
“You think havin’ a long-distance relationship is going to be beneficial for her and me?” I pose irritably. “It’s makin’ it worse.”
“Before or after you told her you only married her because of Cruz.”
My nostrils flare because yeah, I said it.
I didn’t mean it like that, but Layla took it as though she meant nothing but a conquest to me, and we’ve been on the outs ever since.
Meanwhile, I don’t answer the question because talking to my sister, with my little one in tow, is not the easiest conversation to have.
I fucked up.
And I don’t know the solution to the problem.
“What do you want me to do, Adeline?” I inquire as patiently as I can. “Keep playing while she keeps tryin’ to divorce me? It’s fuckin’ with my mental health.”
“Time,” she replies, but it’s vague as hell to me.
Time isn’t going to do shit.
“Right.” I roll my eyes and look back at June Delaney to keep her at bay and away from me when I find someone so much prettier to look at.
Layla Jean.
And, fuck me, do I find her.
She’s bent over the bar top near the register, talking excitedly to Sherry, the most veteran waitress here, but then my attention falls on her ass…and, yeah, still on her ass.
I don’t know how or why she isn’t realizing that anyone in this place might be able to see up her dress, but damn, I picked the wrong booth to sit in.
It’s pink, floral, and that’s all I know. Her dark curls lie across her back when she slides into one of the stools, while Sherry heads back to the kitchen.
And that’s my moment.
“Be right back,” I tell my sisters because I can’t help myself. I’m drawn to her in every way, right and wrong, and it doesn’t seem to matter because I am glued to this woman.
She can not shake me.
Abandoning my breakfast, I stride up the bar, feeling everyone’s damn eyes on me as I slide between Layla and the adjoining bar stool and lean over, smelling something sweet and sinful as hell on her skin.
“Layla Jean, if you’re not the sexiest fuckin’ thing that’s ever graced this town, I don’t want to see it. Because if you bend over this bar one more time, the shit I’m going to do to you is going to have to make you move in with me in Memphis.”
Slowly, she turns her head, and those hazel eyes lock in on me like it’s a normal day in paradise, and I’m still here to turn her on my side.
“You’d better hope your voice doesn’t carry,” she replies low, her stare hardening like she’s going to punch me in the dick. “Because if I gotta hear one more rumor about you and me today, I’m going to go live in the mountains.”
“We don’t have mountains.”
“Exactly.”
“But there are some in Tennessee.”
“There are some in Alabama, too. Just not here.”
“You’d look better in Tennessee, Short Stop. You were glowin’ there.”
“I’d look better if you’d stop starin’ at me like we’re happily married when we’re not.”
Ouch.
“I’m happy,” I claim. “Regardless of your attempts to annul me out of your life, Layla Jean, knowin’ that you are mine makes me sleep just fine.”
“So no one can have me.”
Nice try.
She’s baiting me into backing off by throwing Cruz shit back in my face, but I’m too tired for it and, frankly, I’d love to beat the shit out of him if he wants to come over and try.
“Exactly,” I put forth. “And you’ve never had a problem with that.”
“I did until—”
“Watch your next words, Layla Jean,” I caution, because if she is successful in riling me up, I’m kissing the shit out of her for the whole damn town to see. “When I get upset, I do things.”
She lifts a brow. “You’re not going to punch Sherry when she comes back, are you?”
“I don’t hit women. However, I do hit on one woman, and she forgot how to read the room.”
She looks up, suddenly exasperated with me. “I could say the same about you.”
“Reading it just fine. I just need you to put on a pair of glasses or something because you’re not understandin’ the print.”
“Says my attempts to close the chapter.”
“Our story isn’t done yet.”
“Says you.”
“Says me.”
She turns her head and looks straight ahead. “Can you read a restrainin’ order, Briggs? I’m fixin’ to get one of those at lunch.”
I smile. “Whatever makes you feel better. But you should probably suck up more to Dodger. He’s more my friend than yours.”
Her face snaps to me then with gusto and a whole lotta sass. “He is not. You don’t even live here.”
“I pay property taxes, so I do technically have residence here.”
“You mean the one you don’t use?”
“You wanna move in? It’s yours, ya know.”
Layla makes a face. “Yeah, right.”
“You want it in the divorce?”
“No, thanks.”
“Well, we’d need to refinance it out of my name. Yours is on it.”
Those hazel eyes narrow, and I know it’s taking everything in her not to lose her shit on me right here and now.
And I’m basking in the shit.
It’s like the hot sun, being glared at by the most beautiful girl in the world is a day in heaven.
“You did not, Briggs Holden Kerrigan. Not without my permission.”
“Divorce me and find out.”
She scowls at me and returns her focus ahead. “I really can’t stand you like ever in my life.”
“Now, that, Layla Jean, is a flat-out lie. You used to adore me. Loved me, even.”
“Look at you usin’ past tense verbs.”
I lean forward, loving the prospect that I can be this close to her and I can be whispering sweet nothings in her ear because she’s my wife, and I haven’t gotten punched in the head by her Uncle Ben yet.
“I’d love to test that theory to see if we’ve still got it,” I mutter. “I still have a couple days.”
“Don’t I know it,” she grounds out. “I have a countdown in my phone.”
That mouth…
“Well, well, well,” I hear Sherry cluck from my right, breaking through the banter and unsolved issues between me and the curly-haired vixen at my side. “If it ain’t the boy who likes to break arms.”
With reluctance, I move my attention to Sherry, and my God, she hasn’t changed a day since the last time I’ve seen her.
I always considered her middle-aged when I was a kid because I thought anyone who wasn’t in high school was old, but Sherry hasn’t aged a damn day.
She’s got the same peppered blonde hair, sure the same clear-cut blue eyes outlined by slight wrinkles, and the same sharp stare that precludes your one smart-ass comment away from her throwing a salt shaker at your skull.
“And what kind of spells are you doing?” I pose while running my index finger up and down in the air. “Because I thought the Fountain of Youth was a myth.”
She doesn’t smile, nor does she appear charmed by my compliment.
In fact, she looks damn right pissed.
“First, you stride in here without a hello. Not a wave, a middle finger, or nuthin’.
Then you don’t sit in my section where I can grill you on all the important questions like how have you been, did you lose my address because I haven’t gotten a signed jersey or anythin’.
After all the milkshakes I used to feed you, boy wonder, when you needed some calories for baseball practice, I get nuthin’. You should be ashamed of yourself.”
I quirk a brow. “And how was I supposed to know what section was yours?”
She blinks several times at me, implying that I’m a damn idiot. “You ask, boy. You only talk with yer fists now?”
“I apologize. I’m tryin’ to keep a low profile, and my sisters dragged me to breakfast.”
Sherry slides a coffee container toward Layla but keeps her eyes pinned on me. “I’m sorry, was that another excuse, wonder boy? I’m still waitin’ on a better one.”
“No, ma’am.”
“Good. Because you ain’t gettin’ no more milkshakes from me, ya hear? You can pay for them yourself.”
“Will do.”
“And you can pay for your wife’s coffee.”
My lips coil upward because that’s the first time someone besides me has said that.
My wife.
Now, it’s public knowledge.
Now, everyone knows she’s mine.
However, it does feel like it’s a little too late, and Layla is still going to be on her bullshit.
“Put it on my tab,” I advise. “I’ll take care of it.”
Sherry nods. “Good. Now, start payin’ attention to where your wife goes because she’s gone.”
Craning my head to the side, the spot where Layla was just standing is now empty.
Son of a bitch.
“She doesn’t eat breakfast still, does she?”
“No,” Sherry replies. “Coffee on busy mornings and then she’s off again.”
“Which is probably all the time.”
“Mhm hm. She keeps herself busy, that one. Now, I see why.”
I refocus on Sherry because I’ll take the blame for all of it if I have to. Even if Layla does keep pushing on this divorce, I’ll be the bad guy so she doesn’t have to endure any negative comments about what she should and shouldn’t have done.
“She didn’t tell her Uncle Ben, did she?”
Sherry asks the question before I can devise a comment to match hers. To have me look like it’s my fault, Layla is always running around.
But I can’t answer that question because it means going against what I just said.
So, instead, Sherry leans in and whispers so no one can hear, “Show her, wonder boy. That woman needs a man, and she needs support. You can do both, even from afar. Her Uncle Ben knows now. But his opinion doesn’t matter; she’s free now.”
It doesn’t feel like it.
And this is the second time she’s brought up Layla’s uncle, so that only means he’s really made it known around town that he loathes me.
“Thanks,” I offer to fill in the space of needed words. “I appreciate it, Sherry.”
“Any time, wonder boy. Don’t mess this up.”
I think we already did.