8. Briggs
brIGGS
We skip the beer because I’m not in the mood to drink, and I sure as hell don’t need alcohol with the way my adrenaline is raging inside my body to fight.
He won’t stop.
I know it’s to piss me off and remind me that he’s had Layla in his arms, he’s tasted her lips, and he’s tried to take her from me several times before. However, it’s the fact that he’s done all these things that really boils my blood in my veins.
“Briggs,” I hear Layla drawl as I tightly hold on to her hand, dragging her through the party and by every curious eye we pass. “Where are we going?”
Away.
Unless she wants me to put Cruz on life support next, she’d better distract me or I’m going to do things I’m not going to regret but will put assault charges on my name.
I don’t answer her when we approach the thick set of woods. We don’t necessarily need to be extra right now and hide away because we’re far enough from the crowd to talk, but I want to touch.
I want to kiss and lick and do everything I’m able to because Layla is my kryptonite. She’s my damn future and happiness, and no one is going to videotape it with their phones and send it in to the next media station for some coin or spread it around town.
They’re definitely going to spread it around town, at least.
“Briggs,” Layla carps out, attempting to pull her hand free from me, and since she wants me to let go so bad, I do.
But then I crowd her into the next thick tree trunk, smothering the space between us.
“How many times, Layla Jean, am I goin’ to need to endure that piece of shit with you?”
My question isn’t lost on her, I’m sure. I’ve asked it over a million times at this point in our lives, but I never get an answer.
Well, not one I like.
“Briggs Kerrigan, are you on some type of psychotic break right now? You literally just lugged me into the woods like you’re going to murder me.”
“I’d rather fuck you; however, I don’t mind murdering Cruz Weston instead.”
“Be for real,” she chides, glancing back toward the little gathering we left behind, but I catch her chin between my fingers and lift her head to look up at me and only me.
“I am for real. Everything that isn’t us right now is because of him.”
Layla tries to move herself from my grasp, but I only put a bit more pressure on it for added effect.
She’s not running from me this time. I’ve had enough of this fucking game we’ve been going at.
“No,” she argues. “It’s because you can’t seem to get past it. So, how many times do I need to endure your questions about the same damn guy, Briggs? When are you finally going to let it go?”
Abandonment issues.
I have them in droves.
My mother died, my father hated me, and I was left to deal with shit on my own. Adeline and Everly were there; they loved me, but it was nothing that could replace the kind of love I was missing from a parent.
Let alone someone I could see spending the rest of my life with.
“When you finally tell me you’re mine,” I answer honestly. “But, also, when can I rid him from the universe?”
Layla slaps my hand away, and I let her, releasing her face, but not giving anything else.
Like personal space.
Air.
Her ability to talk her way out of this conversation.
None of it.
“I don’t see either one of those happenin’ in your near future, Briggs. You shouldn’t have come home.”
“Why?” I press. “Because it’s hard to see me? Because you know damn well you can’t be happy without me? No one in the world can fuck you like me, Short Stop. And, even if they tried, you’d still be thinkin’ of me.”
“Doubtful.”
I love and hate that she spends zero time thinking of it. That her sass is easily tossed back at me because that’s just who Layla Jean is.
I just wish she’d spend some of that energy on her Uncle Ben instead of me sometimes.
“I should let you try,” I divulge evenly. “But, we both know the monster that lives inside my head won’t even allow you or anyone else a shot.”
“If a restrainin’ order won’t help, what will? Chains?”
“I’d love to see you do that.” And I don’t know why, but my dick just got harder from that measly little threat of hers.
So much so that I prop my palm against the tree trunk by the side of her head and lean in.
“Make sure it’s a great amount of distance away, Mrs. Kerrigan.
My obsession seems to have no bounds, but we can experiment with it. ”
Her hands prop and shove at my chest, but I’m too damn big for her little frame to make a great effort to regain some damn room for herself.
I should give her that, but I refuse because she is intent on making me work for this.
And I don’t mind doing all the work.
“I told you to stop callin’ me that,” she seethes. “And consider it done—”
“You used to love the prospect of marriage with me, Layla Jean.”
“I don’t anymore.”
“Is that your truth or your pride talkin’? You seem to get confused.”
She glowers up at me, and I swear to God, this woman can’t get enough of me. It’s not deception, and it may not be her blushing my way like she used to, but Layla adores me.
She just stopped admitting that to herself about two years ago.
“Definitely my truth,” she spits back spitefully. My little curly-haired woman seething so much that I’m surprised steam isn’t popping out of her ears right now. “I’ve told you this a million times, Briggs, we’re over. We’ve been over. You just won’t let me go.”
I lift my shoulders dismissively because she’s not lying. I am never going to let her go.
“You keep tellin’ me to play, Short Stop. I’ve been wantin’ to leave baseball for years, but you won’t let me retire.”
“Because you like it. You’re good at it. And I know you don’t want to come back here.”
“You’re here. I’d always come back for you.”
“But this is the first time you have in five years. The house you bought, you haven’t even set foot in it yet.”
“I was processing things,” I reply honestly. “And makin’ money for us—”
“I didn’t want money, Briggs,” she rebukes, throwing her clutched fists toward the ground in a huff. “I wanted you. I wanted you, and I wanted you to trust me—”
“I do trust you.”
“But you keep listenin’ to Cruz with everything he says—”
“Because he won’t shut the fuck up about how he had you first over me.
How he kissed you first. How he touched you first, Layla Jean.
You were supposed to be mine. That motherfucker knew I loved you, and he still played you like a fool.
He wants to keep throwin’ jabs at me; he’s going to get a broken arm, a broken leg, a broken head if he keeps fuckin’ with me.
I keep to myself when we play against each other, but he pushes me, Layla.
He pushes me, and I don’t want to lose you.
I really don’t. But I told you I couldn’t take you datin’ him, and you still did it.
You still protected him, and I felt like I was losing you.
It’s always you worryin’ about him, but what about me?
What about you and me? You were always everything to me, but you always seem concerned when Cruz came crying to you like a bitch, just like he did tonight.
You said two intentional hits, and you wouldn’t get pissed at me.
I gave him four, Short Stop. And if that doesn’t tell you how much I thought about what you said and how much I love you, I’m not entirely sure what will.
We may need to crack your head open and experiment on it. ”
She’s silent for a few moments, maybe allowing me to calm down, I don’t know. But it’s her next words that really get me.
The ones that still haunt both of us.
“But you said you did it so he couldn’t. And that concluded it for me. I was a conquest. Something you needed to win—”
I regain some of the distance back, launching myself back into her orbit because there’s no fucking way I’m going to permit her to keep thinking that.
Both of my hands clutch her face, palming her soft cheeks between my palms as I tilt her head to look up at me.
“I didn’t win you, Layla, I needed you. I love you.
You’re it for me, you always have been. I’ll leave the MLB right now if you want me to.
Without us, we aren’t complete human beings.
You beat for me the same way I beat for you.
Our universes don’t rotate without the other’s.
I need you to see that. Or there’s no way I’m stoppin’ at breakin’ another limb on Cruz Weston.
I’ll kill him. And, that way, I know he’ll never get what was mine. Not him, Layla.”
“I think you’re more obsessed with him than anyone, Briggs.”
“Fuck, yeah, I am. I picture his death every day.”
She palms my hand and tries to lightly pry it away. “You need to stop that. You’re gonna to stroke yourself out—”
“Tell me you love me, Short Stop. Don’t make me force it out of you.”
Her brows crash together, more defiance coming off her conscience, but I know, deep down, she can’t stand being with me.
We’ve been obsessed with each other since we were sixteen. For me, even longer.
My head drops, and that’s when I hear a small gasp leave Layla’s lips.
“You’re wastin’ time, Mrs. Kerrigan. Do us both a favor and tell me how much you want me in your bed. With my hands all over you when you’re tryin’ to cook. Like that one time you attempted to make baked chicken, and we ended up fuckin’ instead.”
Her lips part, and I fully expect some sass thrown back at me for bringing up a very perfect memory when she mutters, “You…ruined it.”
“I made it up to you, didn’t I?”
She doesn’t even need to think about it when she slowly nods, finally quiet.
Or maybe exhausted.
I took her to a small pizza joint I frequented, bought us a pie, drove her up to the mountains, where we sat in the back of my truck and watched the stars come out.
I fucked her there, too.
I promised her the world as well.
I wanted to quit the MLB then, too, but she told me no. That I needed to live out my dream, and then I could come home.
But my dream had hazel eyes and smelled like sugar wrapped in a body that I can never get enough of.
Layla was home.
The MLB was always a means to an end when she followed me there.
“I’ve got seven days to make you change your mind, Layla,” I emphasize so that she knows my full intention while I’m here.
“You’d better suit the hell up against me because, once I get my hands on you again, I plan on winnin’ the whole damn series of games we’ve been playin’.
And, if you think I was a pain in the ass before, wait until you see me put all my weight in it.
I score runs when I’m against the grain, baby.
Batter up. You’re gonna need to stretch for this one. ”