10. Layla
LAYLA
“Layla!”
My screen door slams after my uncle’s frantic call out to me, and I’m surprised it took him this long to approach me about the subject matter that I know is going to come out of his lips next.
Briggs is home.
He saw him.
Did I see him?
You need to stay in the house.
I don’t want you near that boy.
Thing is, I’m a grown-ass woman, and my uncle can’t keep dictating what I do.
I mean, technically, I’ve already gone behind his back and did exactly what he never wanted me to do in the first place, so this talk is pointless.
“Briggs Kerrigan is home.”
He doesn’t even make it to my living room before those words of horror leave his lips. So, when I spray my windows with the cleaner in my hand, the first clear indicator that I’m already privy to this news.
“When?”
I exhale a sigh silently before craning my head over to look at him.
He’s in a tan plaid shirt today, blue jeans that are held up with a thick brown belt that proudly displays a silver belt buckle.
He’s going to lose his shit.
He’s going to do that, and he’s going to try to watch me like a hawk while Briggs is here.
“Yesterday,” I deadpan nonchalantly. “He’s only here a week, Uncle Ben.”
“That’s seven days.”
It is.
And, give it to Briggs, he’ll turn Magnolia Ridge upside down in that amount of time.
“You sound more terrified than I am,” I point out, returning to my task at hand. “He was bound to come home eventually.”
“Why?” Uncle Ben clips out. “He never does.”
“He has a home here.”
“And he doesn’t talk to his father like he should.”
Mhm, I don’t know if I necessarily agree to that.
There is a lot of hurt in that relationship, and I wouldn’t even know where to navigate that. Briggs not only had an emptiness when his mother died, but his father abandoned him, too.
It was like he lost both of them, but one was still here, and I think that might hurt worse.
“You already know the story behind Mr. Kerrigan and Briggs. It’s cruel.”
“It’s old.”
My neck snaps to my uncle because, now, that was cruel and unnecessary, regardless of his personal opinions about Briggs.
“Are you serious? Can you imagine someone doin’ that to me after Mom and Dad died? That’s heartless and—”
“Frank struggled,” my uncle tries to defend. “Raisin’ three kids—”
“And neglectin’ one of them,” I clip out, and I don’t regret that I do.
My uncle is very old school and set in his ways, but he knows better than to try to side with Frank Kerrigan on the matter.
There is no other way to paint it. “That’s not an excuse.
Briggs saved his home and his sisters when Mr. Kerrigan got that second mortgage with a balloon payment on it.
If it weren’t for him, who knows what would’ve happened to them. ”
My uncle shifts his weight, clearly uncomfortable with having to admit that Briggs does have some empathy and compassion in him.
Not just turmoil and anger in his veins.
“That boy may have rescued his family home and kept them from becoming homeless, but the town would have helped. Furthermore, that boy has always had a knack for bothering you—”
“He never bothered me, Uncle Ben. You were just worried that he’d break my heart and I’d crumble into a million pieces like some weak little girl without a backbone.”
He frowns. “I never said that.”
But you thought it.
And I did.
However, I do have one hell of a backbone, and I chose to be with Briggs.
I chose, and then I chose not to.
“Is that all you came here to tell me?” I press because, honestly, it’s too late and annoying. “Because we have a dinner date tonight, and I know you ain’t wearing that.”
I’m using dinner date loosely here because it’s the town’s summer festival. And, every time they serve the fish and chips, my Uncle Ben loses his damn mind.
And when I say he loses his damn mind, I mean it’s his favorite.
Uncle Ben promptly looks down at his attire. “What’s wrong with it?”
“Miss Agnes doesn’t like gaudy belt buckles. She likes ones that are present but don’t take up your whole waistline.”
He narrows his eyes at me. “And why would I be concerned about Miss Agnes and anything she’d like?”
“Because you’ve been wantin’ to ask her on a date now for months and—”
“I have not.”
My brows lift because, yes, he has. And if he’d stop talking to his card friends about it, I wouldn’t know about it.
Furthermore, he needs to date so he’ll leave me and my love life out of his brain.
Not that I have one.
Regardless, I’m not going to lie and say picking at him and what he does doesn’t make me feel a little better.
“Layla Jean,” Uncle Ben grumbles out. “I don’t know what kind of randy gossip you’ve been hearin’ around town but—”
“But nuthin’. You men run your mouth just as much as the women do in this town. Plus, I see how you look at her at every town event. And, it’s obvious, because you leave her a piece of lemon dump cake every Thursday.”
“Because she’ll complain.”
“And since when do you care about complainin’, because you still ransack Maebelle’s blackberry cheesecake.”
He rolls his eyes. “That’s because she takes all the damn Dutch pear pie. All of it, Layla. You know it, you make it.”
“I swear if y’all would just share—”
“She started it.”
Lord, have mercy.
“My mistake then,” I return because obviously my uncle is not going to say anything about his town crush, nor will he ever admit that he gets all soft and sweet on Miss Agnes when she serves him his meal.
She runs the fish fry every Summer Festival.
She will also run the bake sale for the church.
And Uncle Ben buys, at least, half of it to make her smile. It isn’t because he needs it—I mean, I am his niece who owns a bakery in town—but because he likes to subtly flirt with her and will stand by in that damn tent for over half an hour while he “makes his decisions”.
“Definitely a mistake,” he mumbles a bit annoyedly at me. “I see her because she runs a lot of the church functions, and that’s it.”
“So does Maebelle.”
I can feel his glare lash against the side of my face. However, I still clean my windows like the little innocent bystander I am.
“Seven still okay with you?”
“It’s fine,” he grumbles. “I’m meetin’ Tom at the beer tent at five. You wanna come in there, and we’ll go?”
“That’ll work.”
“Alright then.” He begins to turn, but not before he gets all his worries and frustrations out. “Stay away from that boy, Layla. He ain’t nothin’ but trouble.”
Don’t I know it.
And, frankly, that’s going to be hard.
Because Briggs has his eyes set on things I’ve already shoved out of my brain for my sanity’s sake and survival.
He’s never going to let me go while he’s here.
Uncle Ben is going to have to get used to it. Because this time, I’m not so sure I can keep him at bay when I can’t run home to get away.