14. Laila
Laila
My phone ringing jolts me awake. I had been in bed editing content for Lovely Day ’s social media platforms when I must have fallen asleep. It’s dark in my room, the only light sources coming from my tv and my open laptop next to me in my bed.
I reach out to my nightstand and grab my phone to see Bryce FaceTiming me. I answer the phone still snuggled under my blankets.
“Hello?” I say, yawning.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you. I didn’t think you’d be asleep already.”
Usually I wouldn’t be, I’m notorious for always being up at all times of night working. Today I had been tired all day and despite trying to push through it, my body clearly had other plans.
Something in Bryce’s voice is off, his usual nonchalant, teasing personality is absent and instead he’s quiet. I haven’t seen him in person since he came back from Baltimore because we both have been busy.
“What’s wrong?” I ask my brows knit with worry.
“Nothing,” he replies. “I shouldn’t have called, get some sleep.”
I don’t believe him. He’s in the car with the phone resting in his lap. Instead of seeing his face I see the headliner of his car and the front windshield, street lights passing by as he drives. But even without seeing his face I can just tell that something is really bothering him.
I sit up in my bed. “Bryce, tell me what’s wrong.”
He lets out a deep sigh. “Do you want to take a drive with me?”
“Yeah, okay.”
“Bet. I’ll be there in a few.”
Bryce ends the FaceTime and I sit in my bed confused about what's happening for a minute. My brain goes down a long list of possibilities for what’s going on with him and I have to force myself to stop speculating.
My phone chimes with a new text message.
sonny
I’m here
He got here much quicker than I expected him to, but I quickly get out of bed and gather myself together to meet him downstairs.
An orange Hellcat Charger is parked in the fire lane in front of my building, it’s hazard lights flashing. Bryce is leaning against the car dressed in all black sweats and a fitted White Sox hat pulled low onto his head to shade his face from being recognized by anyone who may walk by.
“Hey,” I say softly.
Bryce doesn’t say anything, he just takes my hand and gently pulls me forward into a hug. He wraps his arms around me and I’m completely immersed in the warmth of him and it feels like I melt against his body. We stay in the hug until Bryce pulls away.
“This you?” I ask, tilting my head towards the car.
This car is unfamiliar to me. Every time I’ve seen Bryce’s car, it’s been the same black SUV so this is a stark difference.
“Yeah, this is my baby. I just pulled her out of storage.”
“Her?” I say. “Don’t tell me she has a name too.”
“Of course she does,” he replies, opening the passenger door for me to get in.
I slide in and Bryce closes the door behind me before he walks around the front of the car to get into the driver’s seat. He left the car running so he shifts the car from park to drive and just drives.
Five minutes pass.
And then ten.
And then twenty.
And still Bryce just drives.
He drives with seemingly no real destination in mind. Music plays quietly through the car speakers but Bryce doesn’t say anything. I watch his side profile, the set of his jaw, the curve of his nose, the fullness of his lips. Unabashedly cataloging all of him.
I’m bubbling with the need to know what’s bothering him, what’s making him so sad but I’m trying to give him the space to share it on his own, whatever it is.
At the next red light Bryce merges into the left lane and puts his turn signal on. The light turns green and he takes the turn merging onto Lake Shore Drive. I look out the window and out into the pitch dark of Lake Michigan, a stark contrast to the bright lights of the city to our left.
“Ask me.”
“What?” I reply, confused.
“Ask me whatever is on your mind,” he says.
“Are you okay?”
“No,” he murmurs. “But I will be.”
I take his free hand that had been resting on the arm rest into mine, sliding my fingers into the free spaces between his and covering it with my other hand.
“It’s been almost five years since I lost my dad,” he says, turning to look at me for a second. “The last time I saw him was right there, right where you’re sitting.”
My stomach drops hearing the pain laced through his words and even more so as he continues.
“My sister Shannon was the one who called me with the news. I didn’t know it at the time because no one told me, but his health was rapidly declining.
He wasn’t that old and was seemingly healthy until he wasn’t.
The doctor’s didn’t figure it out until it was too late, the cancer diagnosis coming only a short while before he passed. ”
“I’m sorry Bryce.”
I say the words and I mean them but they don’t feel like enough, they aren’t enough because there aren’t any words that you can say that can mend the pain of losing a parent.
“The day my sister called me, I flew home to be with my mom and my sisters for his funeral. But I couldn’t stay home for long because two weeks later was the start of my tour and no one gave a damn that I had just lost my dad.
They didn’t care that I felt like a piece of me had died with him.
They only cared about me getting on the stage and performing damn near every night.
So I did. And life just continued, the world kept spinning. ”
Bryce rubs his hand across the steering wheel. “I bought this car when I made my first real money as a singer. It was my dream car at the time and I bought it brand new off the lot. My first brand new car.”
I stay quiet and let Bryce talk and rub my thumb over the back of his hand to let him know I’m listening.
“My mom was pissed,” he continues with a sad chuckle. “She said I was wasting money and I shouldn’t be out ‘spending it all crazy’. But my dad understood. He was so fucking proud.”
A tear slides down Bryce’s cheek, followed quickly by more and I reach over and gently brush them away with the pad of my thumb.
“I bet he still is,” I say softly.
Bryce nods.
“Is there anything I can do?” I whisper.
Bryce gives my hand a quick squeeze. “You’re doing it.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah,” he replies. “Driving has always been my way of clearing my head, but tonight I wanted to see you and you came. So yes, this is enough.”
Bryce turns up the music and returns his hand to hold mine and we just keep driving.
I don’t last much longer before my eyes get heavy and the lull of the car sends me to sleep. When I open my eyes again Bryce is nudging me awake. We’re parked in his parking spot in the garage under his building.
“Stay with me tonight.”
Bryce says the words as a statement and I don’t fight him on it.
“Okay,” I reply with a yawn.
I unbuckle my seatbelt and get out of the car following Bryce into the building and into the elevator to go up to his condo. Bryce holds his key fob to the reader and presses the button for his floor and the elevator doors close.
Bryce tugs on the strings of the hoodie I threw on when I changed out of my pajamas. “This looks familiar.”
I look down and realize in my haste to meet him outside my apartment I grabbed the hoodie he gave me the first time we met. Since we’ve become friends, I’ve taken a couple more of Bryce’s hoodies, but this one has remained my favorite of them all.
“Yeah?” I reply. “I stole it from a friend. I think it looks better on me though.”
He gives me a small smile, the first one I’ve seen from him all night and my heart constricts at the sight of it.
“I think so too.”
The elevator doors open and we walk into the condo.
“Let me get you something to sleep in,” Bryce says, walking to his bedroom.
In his room he goes to his dresser, pulling open a couple of drawers and taking out a pair of pajama pants and a t-shirt.
I take them from him, escaping to the bathroom to change.
The shirt is soft, the kind of soft where you can tell it's been worn a million times and has gone through the washing machine just as many. I leave my clothes in a folded pile on the counter for me to change back into in the morning and leave the bathroom to go to the living room. I don’t make it far down the hallway before I hear Bryce behind me.
“Where are you going?”
I turn around and see him walking towards me until he’s less than an arms length away.
“To the couch,” I reply, confused by his confusion
“Nah pretty girl,” he says, shaking his head. “Take the bed, I’ll take the couch.”
“No, I don’t want to kick you out of your own bed. I can take the couch.”
“Laila.”
“Why do you have to be so difficult?”
“I’m not being difficult,” he replies. “I want you to have the bed and you want me to have it so where does that leave us?”
I let out a deep sigh. “We can share.”
“Share?”
“Share,” I repeat. “The bed is big enough and then no one has to sleep on the couch.”
“Fine, we can have it your way but you have to promise me one thing.”
“And what’s that?” I ask.
Bryce takes a step closer and my breath catches. His eyes stare into mine and the pounding of my heart makes me want to look away but I can’t.
“Stop doubting that I want you around, because I do. You aren’t a burden or an inconvenience and fuck whoever made you feel like you are.”
***
I was so tired the night before I don’t remember falling asleep. One minute I was climbing into Bryce’s extra plush bed and then... nothing. I rub my eyes in an attempt to clear away the remnants of sleep and sit up in the bed.
The space next to me where I expected Bryce to be is empty.
I climb out of the bed in search of my phone when I realize that it isn’t on the nightstand.
Exhaustion must have really been kicking my ass last night because I hadn’t even thought about putting my phone on the charger or setting my alarms, I just went right to sleep.
I find my phone in the pocket of my pants that I left in the bathroom. I try to turn it on but a blank screen stares back at me when I push the button.