22. Layla
LAYLA
“Well, have ya made up yer mind on what ya want or are ya gonna keep starin’ at her like the answers to all yer questions are gonna pop out of her brain?”
I wince because, normally, I’d get on Blake to stop being so rude to the customers but today, it’s a madhouse, and it’s not because I made fresh cinnamon crumble muffins.
“Blake Fisher, ya better watch yer mouth when yer talkin’ to ladies, now,” I hear Mrs. Norris complain. “I was just lookin’—”
“I ain’t seen no lady starin’ so hard at someone before in all my life,” Blake retorts. “Furthermore, yer holdin’ up the line.”
This isn’t good for business.
However, no one is going to drive fifteen miles out of the way to get fancy coffee and pastries because my employee is on his shit again.
Blake is always on his sassy crap. He’s gay, proud, loud, and one of the first and best employees I’ve ever had. I just wish he’d tone it down just a little.
“Layla, sweetheart?” I hear Miss Christopher ask. “What kind of raspberry desserts do you have today? I can’t seem to get my wits about me with all the delicious things you have.”
Turning from the espresso machine, I brace myself for the onslaught of questions and how this may be a trap.
Nonetheless, it’s just Blake and me in the mornings, and I can’t be slacking when we’re literally jam-packed in here.
For the first time.
“Coffee cake for one,” I profess as sweetly and cheerily as I can. “And I tried some scones this time—”
“Honey, how in the world did you marry Briggs Kerrigan and not say nothin’ about it?”
I stare back at her excited brown eyes and wish I could take it in another context. One that didn’t involve years of keeping a secret and relishing in the fact I married the man I’ve loved almost half my life.
“I…” Words escape me. Like good ones that will prevent more from coming my way, but my brain falls flat from formulating any good ones.
“Her Uncle Benjamin, of course,” Mrs. Goodwin chimes in, sliding up right next to Miss Christopher. “He’s always had it out for that boy, and our girl finally got tired of it.” She smiles proudly at me. “Well done, darlin’. He’s a catch.”
What is happening right now?
“Don’t let him make you feel bad now,” Miss Christopher advises. “Your Uncle Ben was worse than he was when he married your Aunt Denise. He scared the bejesus out of her mother when she found out she was datin’ the town’s biggest playboy.”
My eyes expand into saucers. “He was what now?”
Both women chortle with each other, and I’m about to ask some pressing questions on that matter when a large arm wraps around my middle and pulls me into a hard body.
The smell of nutmeg and a warm woody scent wraps around me, and I equally tense and melt against it. Two polar opposites, but that’s like every two seconds with me when it comes to Briggs.
I love him.
I can’t stand him.
I can’t help but just want to devote all my energy and adoration to him.
Then I want to punch him in the throat.
“Mrs. Goodwin and Miss Christopher,” he greets in this deep, absolutely panty-melting tone that has me dumbstruck from asking him what the hell he’s doing here and lacking any real common sense.
“I’ll grab you whatever you need, but my wife here needs to eat, or she’ll keel over from lack of calories and not enough breaks. ”
They both beam at him like he’s asked them to follow him over a cliff, and they’d be glad to go about doing that if they could just openly stare at him while they do.
He’s forming a damn cult around here.
An aluminum foil something appears in front of me, and I don’t ask questions; I just take it because peppering off eight hundred questions in front of customers isn’t going to help with the unsolicited commentary from the two ladies in front of me.
“That’s the sweetest thing,” Mrs. Goodwin addresses with a smile that fully reaches her eyes. “We don’t mind.”
Briggs gently guides me toward the coffee machines and turns me around. Without a word, an inkling of how I’m feeling about him being behind my line, or anything else for that matter, he grabs my hips, and my body explodes into an inferno of eagerness that only happens when he has control.
He lifts me with ease, then gently places my ass on the countertop before he plucks the aluminum foil wrapper out of my hands and unwraps one end.
“Breakfast burrito,” he informs me. “Scrambled eggs, bacon, wrapped in a pancake with maple syrup in it.” He hands it back over and looks up at me. “Your favorite.”
It is my favorite.
He remembered my favorite.
Goddamn it.
His green eyes bolt to mine as a familiar and fluttery sensation goes off in my chest. He’s wearing that backwards baseball cap again that I’m just an entire sap and sucker for when I hear both Miss Christopher and Mrs. Goodwin ooh and coo over his nice act.
But, through my pounding heartbeat, I don’t register embarrassment or a need to regain control of the situation.
No, I immediately want to remain in this position and eat my pancake burrito.
“Extra syrup is in the bag,” Briggs apprises softly. “Eat, Short Stop. You need it.”
I stare at him like he’s a stranger when, obviously, I’ve known him forever. We just haven’t been able to do this before. All this in public.
Briggs then throws the cherry on top of the scene and kisses my forehead softly, lingering there for a few added seconds before turning on his heels to help his two new favorite customers at a bakery that’s not even his.
I feel a heavy stare on me, alluding to the other man in the space, when I finally glance over at Blake. His eyes are wide and elated to finally meet my now-famous husband, whom I’ve never mentioned a day in my life before.
He wiggles his eyebrows suggestively at me before he quickly falls in line with Briggs, cashing out our customers and keeping the line moving.
And, me, I nibble on my food and watch the scene unfold.
Briggs is quick to find and remember everything once Blake offers his assistance with a few things. The women flock and wait patiently for Briggs to help them. All asking him the same questions on how he’s been, why he hasn’t dropped by and said hi yet, and if he’s going to come by more.
He answers them all, but I don’t register what he says because I’m too busy getting the back view of his shoulders and how his black t-shirt emphasizes and forms a perfect picture of his body underneath.
Briggs is in top-tier shape, and I’m scared to know what he looks like shirtless now. He’s committed to his training and working out, and Lord knows what kind of sinful goodness lies underneath that fabric.
Probably enough to stroke a woman out.
I finish up my breakfast, about to slide off the countertop, and help with the last few customers when Briggs seems to sense my movement and promptly revolves around and hits me with a shake of his head.
“Let it digest, then you can go crazy.”
Let it digest, then you can go crazy.
I want to tell him I can handle my own business and I’m fine, but he closes the distance between us like he knows what just popped in my head.
“Can you make me a caramel cookie butter something?”
My head bobs like the traitor it is when I ask, “Is it for you?”
“No,” he replies slowly. “The only sweet thing I like is my wife.” One of his palms rests along the edge of the countertop as he looms closer. “And I don’t drink weird coffee wannabes.”
Well, it is coffee.
Just made with espresso and a large amount of steamed milk with foam and whatever else you mix it with, but I don’t tell him that.
I can’t.
Because my mouth just dried up, and I can’t seem to snap out of it.
I went after him fine at Maple & Main, but I don’t know, right now, with him in my space, in front of the town, I feel weirdly shy and comfortable about it.
“You wanna walk me through it?” he prompts, yanking me back into reality, because he asked me a question.
“No,” I quickly reply with a clear of my throat. “I can…get it.”
“Sure?” His gaze wanders to the countertop and the multiple machines I have there. “Can’t be that hard.”
“It is when this town has standards.”
His lips coil upward. “They seem pretty happy today.” His pine green eyes flick back to me, and I fight through a flight and fight scenario in my head where this man is going to emotionally wreck me into a million pieces again. “I didn’t expect them to love that I married you so much.”
Okay, I think I want him to leave now.
I wring out my hands and try, with everything in my power, to relax. “I think they’re happy to see you.”
His brows knit a little bit. “Did you not hear Mrs. Warner when she said she’s expectin’ kids in the next two years?”
My chest tightens as I struggle to take a full breath of oxygen.
Kids.
Have I ever thought about it?
Absolutely.
Do I ponder and dream about it now?
Absolutely not.
Briggs has a full-blown career going. He’s at the height of his career, and I don’t want to take away from that in any capacity.
And we’re not even together like that.
“Freakin’ out?”
“No,” I quickly knock down. “That’s just…not in the cards for us.”
“Why not? You love kids.”
Briggs Kerrigan, I am not doing this with you right now.
“Can we talk about this later?” I fling back. “I need to make you that drink order.”
“You can talk and work, can’t you?”
Not when you’re in my personal space, no.
“Move,” I order with zero authority behind it. “You’re in the way.”
“Plan on being that way for the rest of your life, Short Stop.”
He turns to get back to the customers but abruptly stops in his tracks, causing me to look over to see what gave him pause.
It’s Cruz.
Beaming like a freaking fool, like he just did something extremely stupid we’re about to find out about.
“Well, well,” he says excitedly. “If it isn’t the happy married couple.”
“Did you forget where the bar was?” I assert, fully aware I shouldn’t be in front of customers, but there are only four left and, well, congratulations, they might get a show, too, with the coffee and pastries of choice.
“Nah,” Cruz replies flatly. “I just wanted to say goodbye to my girl. I’m leavin’ tonight to head back up to Charleston. Need to be with my team and all that, my suspension is up.” He quirks a brow at Briggs. “Shouldn’t you be back?”
My stomach drops at the reminder I’m on a limited time frame here with him.
That he’ll head back up to Memphis, and everything will go back to what it was again.
Just plain and…boring.
“Where is she?” I mutter, almost not loud enough to be audible to even my own ears. “I’d love to meet her.”
Cruz chuckles like this shit is still funny, but I don’t understand why he still gets a kick out of it. Why he still feels the need to drive Briggs absolutely crazy all the time.
“You know that the whole town will still believe how much we meant to each other. And how much of a part I had to play in this happy reunion.”
“Can’t wait for ours,” Briggs chimes in, his voice grating and on the verge of probably leaping across the bakery display. “Oh, wait, Charleston doesn’t stand a chance in hell for the playoffs. Maybe not.”
Cruz bristles a little, but he doesn’t lose his shit-eating smile. “Season’s not over yet. Maybe next time we meet up this year, we’ll just sweep the Series.”
“Maybe you’ll have another accident if you keep talking to my wife like you’ve got a stake in this game when, clearly, you ain’t worth shit.”
A small gasp fills the air from one of the ladies still in the bakery, and I could stop this. I could tell both of them to leave and not cause a scene, but I’m on bated breath with their dynamic and how much it really hasn’t changed.
Briggs has been terrorized by him mentally, which turned emotional, because the only way to get through to him was through me.
And Cruz had me, in some capacity, for two years. Which only fueled the rivalry even further.
“Then maybe I’ll come home, and Layla Jean can nurse me back to health.”
I fully expect Briggs to bound over the countertop and rip Cruz’s throat out, but instead, he turns and looks back at me.
I wouldn’t describe him as calm, by any means. I know he’s reached a limit, and he knows what those are. Therefore, he needs to leave, or he’s going to redecorate my bakery in ways that aren’t going to pull in business.
“I’ll see you later, Short Stop,” he recites softly, a complete contrast to what his eyes are saying, and that’s murder. “Get rid of him, or I’ll be in here in the next five minutes to drag him out. I’ll be across the street.”
Then he starts for the kitchen without another kiss or anything.
And that’s the first thing I notice like an idiot.
“Man could never take a joke,” Cruz still provokes even when he’s not here. “I don’t get it—”
“You need to stop,” I grind out, finally sliding off the countertop and approaching the bakery display. “I don’t know why you get a kick out of this, Cruz, but it’s immature as hell and embarrassin’.”
He lifts a brow. “For who? You? You married him.”
“And I’d do it again because you definitely weren’t an option.” Murmurs and mutters make up background noise because here we go with part two of the drama currently unfolding. “Was it a hit at your pride? Or are you naturally an asshole?”
The scowl on his face confirms I hit a nerve because he appears like he now wants to kill me. “I’m a professional baseball player who can get more ass than—”
“Cruz Weston,” I hear one of the Southern belles upbraid sternly. “You better watch yer mouth when ye’re talkin’ in front of ladies. I’ll wash yer mouth out with soap and take a switch to that ass.”
Damn.
I steal a look at who said that, and it’s Maebelle, Agnes’s best friend.
I think I’m starting to appreciate the town’s gossips more and more now.
Cruz’s skin turns beet red when he shakes his head as if that’s going to drain the color out of his cheeks. “Good luck, Layla Jean. You’re gonna need it.”
Not sure what that means exactly, however, I don’t stop him when he strides angrily outside of my bakery and promptly leaves my airspace.
If he decides to air out my dirty laundry, I’ll take that as it comes.
However, I do know, he’ll never be welcome again in Magnolia Ridge as long as he lives.