25. Layla
LAYLA
Briggs barely said a thing all night. You could cut the tension between him and his father with a knife, but Adeline, Everly, and Caleb tried their best to keep the conversation flowing.
Even I would attempt to make small talk about things just to keep dinner going, but Briggs barely ate and, when he thought I needed something, he’d ask. If he needed two seconds to himself, he’d grab himself and me another beer.
All in all, I wouldn’t say it was a successful night of reconciliation between the two, but Everly seemed extremely happy that her brother got to meet her man.
And he’s nice.
Briggs insisted he’d drive me home even though I could walk. I didn’t argue or push him about it because I didn’t want to trigger him any more than he may have been, nor did I want to overstimulate him.
I came tonight to support him because I know how hard it was, and probably still is, to manage a relationship with his only living parent.
When Briggs pulls up into my driveway, I instinctively reach for the door handle, but his hand shoots out to stop me.
He doesn’t say a word when he slides out of his own side, closes the door, and rounds the front end of his truck to come to my side.
He opens my door, poses a hand for me to take to help me out, and I don’t bicker about that either because this is more than our past together. It’s more than the push and pull. It’s more than my need to protect myself from this man.
It’s an open wound he still carries around.
We approach my porch steps, and I nervously fumble in my small purse for my keys, but when they jingle, Briggs promptly spins me around by my bicep and props my spine against the coolness of my front door.
His palm lands on the surface next, close to my head as he leans in, and I wait on bated breath to see what in the world he’s up to next.
“I don’t remember invitin’ you to dinner, Layla Jean,” he drawls, removing my purse from my hold and letting it drop aimlessly to the wooden porch. “What’s your motive here?”
“Support,” I immediately respond, and it’s true.
Everly had texted me about her shift next week, one I bring her in for to practice, and I teach her a few small things, then she told me that Briggs was coming back to meet her boyfriend.
And that his dad was going to be present. “And your sister invited me.”
“Which one?”
“Everly.”
He bows his head, and when I think that’s it, he mutters, “Weston has made a threat to go to the press and spill about our marriage. It’ll be a media circus. This town will flood with cameras and reporters, and you will sit center stage with all that.”
My stomach drops to my feet. “Oh.”
That sounds like an absolute nightmare, and I’m not surprised Cruz would do something like this. He has this evil streak about him, I’m realizing, where he just will not stop harassing us both about stupid things that don’t matter.
I mean, we matter, it’s just there’s zero reason to do this but pettiness and cruelty.
“I already have my lawyers servin’ him with a cease and desist letter,” he continues. “I can sue his ass off if he decides to invade our privacy, along with harassment. However, I’m not a fan of that one.”
I shift my weight and try to focus on the matter at hand and not the fact that Briggs’s hand just found my hip and began kneading it.
“Which…one are you a fan of?”
“The one where I get MLB intervention for blackmail and extortion.”
My brows crash together. “What?”
“They’ll investigate him for conduct detrimental to the game.
I can claim he asked me for money to keep it quiet, he didn’t, by the way.
He still leaks the story, my agent will go public with his story and what he’s done.
Rumors and bullshit headlines are enough to scare the shit out of his team.
Baseball is full of image management. I go to his manager and team owner, he’s done. ”
I inhale because this all sounds messy and chaotic, at best.
And I started all this.
A long time ago, because I wouldn’t go to Uncle Ben and tell him what was going on. I could have changed everything going on between us right now, but I was too scared to go about it.
Now, we’re in this.
“Or, I pay him off.”
My face contorts. “No. Absolutely not.”
“I’m not going to have you dragged and evaluated for eyes that don’t need to see you. And I sure as hell am not going to let him tell the story.”
“You’re not payin’ him off.”
“Then I either rat him out, or I threaten to sue him.”
Through my rapid heartbeat, I try to think rationally and logically about the whole ordeal, but all I can center on is how much stress it’ll cause him.
“What will be best for you?” I inquire softly. “The least amount of everything.”
“Are you askin’ me or the Southern gentleman you made up tonight?”
My eyes roll. “I don’t care what you think you are, Briggs, you do have that Southern boy residin’ in you. I could name over a dozen things you’ve done that would be categorized as that.”
“Such as?”
“Opening the car door for me a minute ago. Makin’ sure my plate didn’t go empty tonight, or that I had a drink. You pulled out my chair when we were ready to go. You didn’t fight or provoke your father—”
“That was for my sisters’ sake, and I have nothin’ else to say to him.”
“You bought me flowers every year for my birthday. Even when we weren’t together.”
Briggs compresses his chest into mine then and centers his body with mine so that I’m sandwiched against him and my door. “We’ve always been together. You’ve just been pissed at me for the last two years.”
He can call it whatever he wants, but I’ve served him with divorce papers a million times—by mail because, again, no need to cause any unnecessary media coverage—but he never signs them.
He sends them back with notes, drawings, ways he’s going to have me make it up to him for hurtin’ his feelings, etc.
“Regardless, you chose to be the bad boy over the Southern gent,” I retort evenly with a shrug. “It is what it is.”
“And which do you prefer?”
Ha.
The option that is the most dangerous to my heart and soul.
However, it more than likely wouldn’t have mattered either way. There’s something about Briggs that undeniably draws me to him. His countenance just meshes with every love story I’ve ever dreamt up in my head, and I love everything about him.
Even his temper.
Even his stubbornness that drives me insane.
“Does that determine the next few moments on this porch?” I volley back.
“Probably.”
Placing a hand on his chest, I don’t push, but I don’t pull him in. I just need some grounding and control over how he’s going to start this.
Whatever it is that’s living and forming in his head right now.
“Behave,” I warn with a bit of sternness to my tone. “You can’t come waltzin’ in town and expectin’ me to forget all the things that’s happened between us.”
Things I did and have to come to terms with.
Because, all in all, Briggs did nothing but defend himself against Cruz and then…worded in the most stupid way possible that he married me just so my fake-ex couldn’t.
He wouldn’t fight for me if he meant it. And, at the time, I believed he would do just about anything to get back at Cruz for all the shit he did in high school and beyond.
Now, it’s becoming water under the bridge, and I want to move on from it.
“You don’t have to,” Briggs acknowledges. “In fact, I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
I frown at that, but I don’t add any commentary behind it. Instead, Briggs leans closer, and I stop breathing altogether.
“I don’t want you to ever forget that you’re mine, Short Stop.
That you pined for me and snuck away for private moments just so I could get my hands on you.
Then there is Memphis, your drivin’ up to see me.
The way you could never just let me go, despite your Uncle Ben and every complaint he has against me.
You love me, deep down, it’s somethin’ you can’t rid yourself of, so why even try?
There’s no universe where you and I don’t exist together, and that, Layla Jean, is why you’ll need to come to grips with the rest of what we’ve got.
I’m never lettin’ you go. Unless you want to force me into signin’ divorce papers, you’ll need to get on your knees and beg me because I won’t do anything different than what you’ve asked me.
You want freedom, a life without me, you’d better get creative as hell about it.
Because if the only thing you had was going on a date with some dipshit who couldn’t get his life right, I’m going to be sorely disappointed. ”
He’s nuts.
Insane even.
“How many balls did you say you’ve taken to the head?” I ask even when his mouth gets even closer to mine.
“Seven.”
“Concussions?”
“Four.”
“Brain injuries?”
“None. Yet.”
“You still need your head examined.”
“Why? It’s not going to change the way I feel about you, so what’s the point?”
“Because you’re torturin’ yourself, Briggs. You shouldn’t want to be with me. I’ve done nothing but drag this on for way too long, and there’s no point in you chasing.”
“That’s in my DNA, Mrs. Kerrigan. I’ll always run after what I want, and what I’ve wanted has been you since the first time you showed up in that damn dress looking good enough to be devoured by me. Since then, nothing’s changed.”
“It’s toxic.”
“It’s love, Short Stop. Catch up, read the room, move on, let it go.”
“You let it go.”
Briggs shakes his head, eyes dead set on me when he whispers ever so damn softly, “I’m never lettin’ you go, wife. You’re too damn good for me, and I’m too fuckin’ bad to ever give you that reprieve.”
Then his mouth captures mine in a kiss that sends me spiraling and gasping for much-needed air.
He forces my head to tilt upward so he can get more access, sliding his tongue between my lips, and I’m instantly done for.
His fingers tighten around my waist before his hard body drives mine harder against the door. He tastes like barley from the beer and every sin I want to keep committing.
Our breaths mix into a desperate necessity to end this madness and get on with it, but Briggs keeps his fingers wrapped around my waist and no further.
If he decides to be a damn gentleman tonight, I swear to God, I’ll skin him alive.
A low-toned groan comes off Briggs’s chest, and this is where I want him to break. Where he makes the decision for me to drop the shenanigans and fix this.
Make the decision for you, Layla, honestly.
Opening my lips wider, Briggs bites down gently on my lower lip, already picking up on what I’m trying to do and proving that he’ll move along at his own pace. His digits trail around my waist to my ass, but he again does not take it any further.
“Behave, Layla Jean,” he reprimands me lightly. “You know I’d fuck you in a second.”
He kisses me again, and I pull away slightly to get my next thought out before I chicken out or drown it in the sea of my self-doubt.
“Then why don’t you?”
A hum of appreciation rumbles in his throat, but he remains annoyingly composed. “Because I want you fienin’ for me. I want you to realize it’s me you want and not the idea of you getting off just to get off.”
I’ve never thought that.
Well, I mean the latter.
However, I could understand his hesitance about being a one-night stand for me while he maintains his, what, moral compass?
Bullshit.
My hand resting on his chest lowers just a fraction, and I feel Briggs’s body break out in a shiver of need, and I take silent joy in the idea that I can still control his emotions and headspace in the same way.
His kisses get a bit more frantic and destitute, tasting me in long strokes of his tongue while I feel his cock twitch in his jeans against my upper thigh.
How long can he go on doing this before he breaks?
I’d love to find out.
Like an idiot.
However, to my utter exasperation and lack of any release from a man in over two years, Briggs suddenly pulls away and puts some distance between my mouth and his because of his damn height. But his body pressed firmly into mine doesn’t move.
“Thank you for comin’ tonight,” he murmurs. “You made the night tolerable.”
I bob my head while attempting to catch my breath when I’m able to finally say, “You’re welcome. Just makin’ sure you don’t terrorize that kid.”
Or fight with your father in front of your sisters.
“Mhm.” He leans down again and places a firm kiss on my lips once more before he adds more distance between us, releasing me from his hold, and I’m immediately cold and restless. “Until next time, Layla Jean.”
He turns, and waltzes off my porch to his truck, leaving me in this turmoil of wanting to call out to him to come back and accepting the fact that this is probably for the best.
The best.
What the hell is the best, misery?
I’m screwed.
Again.