9. Layla
LAYLA
Ten years ago…
“When are you gonna break up with him, Short Stop? You know it drives me fuckin’ crazy.”
My answer doesn’t even formulate in my brain when Briggs’s lips kiss and suck on the column of my neck. His body pressed firmly into mine against the drywall of Stacy Mulligan’s pantry closet.
Some stupid P!nk song plays loudly in the living room, the makeshift dance floor for tonight. The house is already an absolute disaster, littered with red Solo cups, chip bags all over the place, and the boys have started an arm wrestling contest in the kitchen.
They’ve already broken one of Stacy’s mom’s glass bowls, and she’s been frantically trying to clean up ever since.
I was helping her.
Until Briggs pulled me aside, huddled me into this closet that’s big enough for half a dozen people, to have a “chat” with me.
His idea of a conversation, however, is chiding me about Cruz—who’s off doing God knows what—and kissing me to madness while he does.
It’s been the main conversation as of late.
He almost ripped a locker door off its hinges the other day when he saw Cruz holding my hand down the hallway in school.
They got into a fist fight about a month ago when Cruz was talking about taking me to the Spring Fling, and the boys on the baseball team are pretty hush-hush about the details.
I’ve tried to grill at least three of them already, but they won’t break boy code, and I’ve given up asking more questions.
“Let me talk to your Uncle Ben, Short Stop,” he mutters confidently against my heated skin. “I can make it work.”
Mindlessly, my palms find his chest, shoving him away a bit to look up at him.
Meanwhile, my heart that was once beating rapidly because of his lips and tongue now slams into my chest for a whole other reason.
Him speaking to my Uncle Ben.
“You can’t,” I argue immediately because it’d never work.
My uncle loathes Briggs with a passion I’ve seen similar to Tulane baseball.
It’s deep, faithful, and infuriating, sometimes.
It’s why I’m fake-dating Cruz in the first place. So I can go to the games and be around the baseball team as much as possible. If I weren’t, Uncle Ben would find a way to keep me away.
He’s not stupid.
“You don’t think I can change his mind?”
No.
Uncle Ben is all about being a country boy, a gentleman, someone smart enough to make their family proud.
Not a rebellious teenager who lacks the love of his father, still grieving—I think, anyway—the loss of his mother at such a young age, which causes disorder at town events.
Briggs once siphoned gas out of Mr. Anderson’s truck because he kept riding Briggs about his batting average.
It got so bad that Mr. Anderson started making posters to remind Briggs of how he wasn’t connecting and being able to focus on the game, plastering them all over town like he was seventeen, too, and had some weight in the matter.
Mr. Anderson, at the time, was a middle-aged man who worked at the septic tank services, which gave Briggs all the ammo he needed to claim Mr. Anderson was full of shit.
You either love the kid, or you hate him.
That’s Briggs Kerrigan’s reputation in this town.
And even his father doesn’t show him the support and admiration he should get from a parent.
“This is workin’,” I say instead. “Uncle Ben doesn’t ask me any questions. I can come to parties, like this, to be around you and—”
“We’re trapped in a closet,” he drones, running the tip of his nose along the shell of my ear. “And I want everyone to know you’re my girl, and you’ve always been my girl.”
“You don’t do yourself any favors when you just put sunglasses and a baseball cap on the baby Jesus last Christmas. He knows it was you.”
“Magnolia Ridge doesn’t have cameras like that,” he retorts smoothly, brushing his lips against my cheek. “Besides, the church ladies have been talkin’ about it ever since, and Jesus is supposed to be cool, right?”
“And how would you explain the water tower?”
“Anyone could’ve spray-painted that, too.”
“And everyone knows you can’t stand Cruz.”
“It wasn’t anything bad.”
REAL BALLPLAYERS HIT LEFT. I’D WALK YOU, TOO #69.
It’s Cruz’s number, clearly—because he’d pick the only number that has a sexual reference to it while most of the town has zero clue—and it wouldn’t have been anyone else.
“Let me figure somethin’ out,” I tell him, even though I personally haven’t come up with any ideas.
When I think I may have an opening, or I can say something nice Briggs did, Uncle Ben always finds something Briggs did or said to point out.
However, it’s not like Briggs helps me here. He’s always causing some mischief in town. Always causing talk amongst the townsfolk, and he has zero problem doing it.
Briggs pulls his head back to look down at me. “I can come over and help you strategize, Short Stop. I don’t mind.”
I give him an exasperated look because he won’t help with anything but kiss me silly and distract me. “Sure you will.”
“I will,” he poses simply. “Because, one day, Short Stop, this won’t be a problem. Your uncle is gonna love me. And you’re gonna be Mrs. Kerrigan.”
Smiling, despite myself and that very exaggerated assumption that my uncle will ever change his one-sided opinion, I don’t correct him. Because being Briggs’s wife would be a dream, one day.
“You don’t mean that,” I retort, needing to hear him say it again.
“I definitely do.” His lips press lightly into mine when he whispers, “Fuck, I love the sound of that. Mrs. Kerrigan. I’m gonna keep sayin’ it until it’s true.”
“You’re insane.”
“And you need to come.” His fingers suddenly show up on my upper thigh and trail underneath the fabric of my dress. “Now, be a good girl for me and tell me how much you think of me when it’s him that people call your boyfriend.”
His touch feels like fire licking up my skin, and he wastes no time running the tips of his digits across my panties with one ruthless swipe to my clit.
“I bet you taste so good, Layla Jean,” he mutters through this deep and needy tone that has goosebumps littering my skin. “You’ve been good for me, haven’t you?”
I move my head with a frenzied bob because I have. I wish Briggs were my boyfriend, open and honest, who was walking me to classes, sitting with me at lunch, and kissing me because he wants to.
We steal everything we have.
Looks, moments, brushing of hands, and hidden minutes like these. Uncle Ben has been on this kick lately with colleges and plans. Of all the things I can do and accomplish, I’m on the right track.
His approved track.
The one with a golden boy boyfriend—who really is a dick—and a good head on my shoulders. If he knew Briggs was the boy I wanted to be with, he’d have a heart attack.
“I can only take this for so long, Short Stop, before I lose my mind,” he confesses, dipping two fingers underneath my panties, but he doesn’t give me what I want—yet. “You don’t know how hard it is for me to watch you walk around with this prick instead of me.”
“It…” I moan when he teases my clit. “Isn’t forever.”
“Feels like it.”
“You need to stop givin’ my uncle things to complain about, then.”
“I volunteered at the Thanksgiving feast.”
“You ate half the food, Briggs.”
He doesn’t respond right away, but then mumbles, “Shit was good.” I smack his chest lightly, and he chuckles a little. “Alright, more golden boy and less me.”
“I don’t want you to do that.”
“Then what do you want me to do?”
“Less painting taunts on the water tower and more…calm things.”
Briggs kisses my neck and licks up my flesh in one slow, torturous movement. “I don’t know how to be calm.”
“You have to be playin’ shortstop.”
“Yes, but I like focusin’ on you better. You’re short, and you definitely got me to stop in my tracks when you were wearing that pink dress that one day.”
Short stop.
The position that he plays, but he gave me another version to link us.
And I really love it.
Cruz loathes it.
“I’ve had it for years.”
“Then it was the way you filled it out this time. I’m hooked.”
“Briggs, just be nice and…calm.”
“Calm.” He rolls the word around like it’s foreign to him. “Alright.”
“And then we can see if my uncle chills a little on the judging.”
I can’t say I’m throwing all my faith in this.
It’s a long shot.
I’m not sure if my uncle will ever like Briggs, no matter what he does or doesn’t do, but we can at least try.
We have to try.
“Whatever you wanna do, Short Stop.” He takes that second and slowly shoves two fingers inside me, making my thighs clench around his hand. “I’m only here to serve.”
He begins pumping, causing a delirious swell to form in my stomach.
“Briggs,” I mewl, cupping the back of his neck as he begins making out with my neck. “I want you.”
“I want you, too,” he returns against my heated flesh. “But I’m not going to fuck you until Cruz isn’t your fuckin’ boyfriend.”
I would think he’d want to just to spite his high school rival, but Briggs has been completely hung up on all the titles lately.
“He’s not my boyfriend,” I retort weakly. “You know that.”
“I know that. But no one else knows that.”
“It’s temporary.”
“Good.” He sucks on my throat for a few seconds, still working my pussy while he does, and I’m barely able to stand on my two feet. Everything he does always feels so damn good to me. “Then it won’t be long now.”
See, that’s the thing I think he underestimates—Uncle Ben’s stubbornness. Who knows when he’ll let his prejudice go on Briggs and trust me enough to know what I’m doing.
He does with everything else.
“I can’t wait,” I argue. “I just want to be yours.”
“You are mine. And you’re a virgin, so—” He pulls his head back and looks dead in my eyes for a moment. “You are a virgin, right?”
My brows furrow. “Are you serious?”
He frowns and stops working me. “You’re not.”
“Does it matter?”
“Yes—no…yes.”
“Which one is it?”
“It matters,” he claims. “I don’t want to…have your first time in a closet.”
I smile. “Why not? Who cares?”
“I care.”
“I don’t.” He opens his lips, but I add, “And it’s you.”
He glowers at me. “Damn it, Layla Jean, why do you do this to me?”
And then he slams his lips against mine, sliding his tongue between them while he feasts and puts me in a comatose state.
Of want, need, and absolutely love.
He thrusts his fingers faster in me, and I clench around him, ready for my release but wanting it differently.
“Give me two weeks,” he says against my mouth. “To win your uncle over, and then it’s game on.”
“And if not?”
“I have to have you as mine for everyone to see.”
No, you don’t, stupid.
I’m right here.
And I’m going to drive you crazy until you do.
“I bet I can get you to break that.”
Briggs lets out a husky chuckle, and I feel its callous danger and challenge behind it. “You flirt with Cruz just to break me, and I’m breakin’ his face.”
I don’t want him to do that, but I don’t entertain the idea or argument.
“There are other ways.”
“Play fair,” he warns. “Two weeks.”
I can’t wait two weeks, and I can’t wait two more seconds when his knuckle brushes my clit with his strokes.
“All the things I’m going to do to you, Short Stop,” he quips. “They’re gonna write a book about it.”
I squeeze his shoulders, needing some reprieve before I die from lack of orgasm. “Awfully presumptuous of you.”
“It’s a fact.”
“How so?” I bite down on my bottom lip. “You don’t read books.”
“I can write one.”
“Mhm hm.”
“I can,” he says against my cheek, running his lips by my ear.
“Especially with the number of times I think about it, Layla Jean. Then, when it gets to be too much, I jack off thinkin’ about the way you’d be moanin’ and milkin’ my cock with that sweet cunt.
All the times you’d be bouncin’ on it like the sweet girl you are.
I’m hard just thinkin’ about how many times I can get you to scream my name while I’m so deep—”
My orgasm triggers with the visuals and how detailed he just described fucking me.
That’s all I want.
It’s as bad as he wants it because, when I’m alone in my room, I do things, too.
Things that would stroke his ego but, possibly, make him break that two-week deal.
“Fuck, Short Stop,” he mutters deep in his chest before he pushes against me harder, his cock pressed into my hip. “You sure you don’t wanna run home and tell Uncle Ben right now?”
Not when I know I look a mess.
And not when the Spring Fling is comin’ up, and he might forbid me to go.
“You want me to be grounded for a year?” I pant when he kisses my jawline. “I’d like to see you before I graduate. He’ll homeschool me.”
“Can’t have that.” He compresses his mouth on my skin again. “Two weeks.”
I bob my head, then cup his face and kiss him, coaxing that timeline to shorten without words.
Briggs moans in his chest, pumping into me again and threatening to make me lose control again.
It’s all he’s ever done with me.
And I want to be that for him, too.
I just don’t know how I’m going to get my Uncle Ben to see how he makes me feel, and that I feel complete with him.