15. Briggs
brIGGS
Buying Everly off and getting her to buzz off Layla and I is easier than any single-run hit I’ve ever made in my career.
A hundred bucks, her friends, and a bunch of shit to do and eat, Everly made her exit several minutes ago, and Layla should reconsider helping my sister out with anything since she can’t seem to be her ride-or-die in situations like this.
However, I’m not going to bitch about getting my girl to myself.
Hell, after seeing my father today before this, I could blow off some damn steam for a while.
Layla makes sure to keep a good amount of distance between us. Shocker, since she refuses to see what this is—us—and how there’s never going to be a lifetime she and I live in where we don’t end up together.
I buy her a funnel cake with extra powdered sugar because I’m masochistic and want to see her lick it off her lips.
When we reach a hot dog food truck, it’s Magnolia Ridge’s baseball team selling them to raise money for shit I wasn’t listening to because half of the horndogs were eye-fucking Layla Jean like she was their next wet dream.
“You like just mustard, right, Miss Melrose?” one of the little fucks asks her, practically batting his puppy-dog eyelashes at her like he wants her to stroke him to completion.
I’d also like to know how the little shit knows that.
“Yes, please,” she says, then jerks her head to me. “And just ketchup for this one.”
Just ketchup for this one.
Damn.
If I didn’t know Layla’s love language was words of affirmation and my cock deep inside her, I’d say this would be a close second.
Also, for being such a well-known MLB player in the league, not one of these pricks notices me or who the hell I am.
Not complaining.
Nonetheless, if they want to get out of here, they should probably watch the sport.
“Any chips?” another asks her.
She shakes her head. “No.”
“Soda?”
“No, thanks.”
“A cookie?”
“Damn, kid,” I grumble out. “Why don’t you just listen to the lady when she said she just wanted two hot dogs?”
My God.
The younger generation is going to shit, and I don’t know how they’re going to respawn when they have zero game and can’t read a damn room.
“Ignore him,” Layla announces with zero embarrassment or qualms about how much I allegedly don’t matter. “He’s just hungry.”
Some of them eye me, screaming in their gaze that I’m an asshole and how did I end up with her, when the answer is simple.
I live for her.
Period.
“If we ask you if you’d like to come to our next game, will he—”
“Yeah,” I answer for her because what in the actual hell is this scrawny little shit who is too small to play football, so he picked the only sport that he could get in, thinks he’s going to do?
Fuck my girl?
That he has a damn chance?
Even I knew at that age that anyone older than me wasn’t going to allow me to shoot my shot because I was too stupid and immature.
And in love with another girl.
“I think she’s gonna be too busy with her husband to see your next game, junior, but maybe next time.”
Layla slowly turns her head, and I can already picture her contorted brows and the way her nose lifts when she’s pissed.
And, sure shit, there it is.
“Are you seriously gettin’—” She stops herself mid-sentence, straightens her spine, then takes the two hot dogs that promptly show up over the table.
Then she’s off.
I wink at the boys because, again complete asshole, and follow Layla Jean through the crowd of town folk, watching her dress hit the back of her creamy thighs, and not able to help my teeth biting down on my lower lip.
She tosses one of the aluminum foil hot dogs straight in the air without looking, and on instinct, I rush up to catch it.
The warm bun seeps through my palms, and I step up and fall in line with her.
“You’re a real douche canoe, did you know that?” she says, unwrapping her hot dog with mustard, and then I realize, how the hell did those little fuck twats know what my girl likes on her dog?
“How did they know you liked mustard?”
The question is stupid, but I’m still going to ask it. Having to be here, in town where everyone knows her, I don’t get that luxury.
I mean, I know her, but I don’t get to experience it every day.
I haven’t in about two years.
“They know how much I love wieners in my mouth.” She glances over at me, those damn hazel eyes deadbolted with too much seriousness in them. “I’m a regular.”
I scoff at her bullshit answer because she’s purposely trying to rile me up and continue to just walk with her. “Right, Short Stop.”
“Don’t believe me?”
“Not for a second.”
“A lot has changed since the last time you’ve seen me.”
“Oh yeah?”
I watch her take a bite of her hot dog, appearing happy once she does, as if it gives her more pleasure than my presence.
Amazing.
Now I get to compete with food.
“How so, Mrs. Kerrigan?”
Her elbow slams into my ribcage at lightning speed before she goes back to her food. “I enjoy beer now.”
“Wow. They need to lock you up.”
“And I obviously have an obsession with bread.”
“You’ve always had an obsession with something food-related or another. Last year, it was pecans.”
Her head jerks in my direction, but I ignore it because I already know what’s about to come off her lips. “How do you know?”
“I stalk you on IG.” I hear her huff her annoyance, but she doesn’t bother to bicker anymore on the matter. She can’t stop it; it’s already happened, and I’m not going to stop doing it either. “What else?”
“I dunno, you tell me, stalker.”
“I’ve definitely been enjoyin’ the new dresses you’ve bought.” She steals another look at me, and I take a moment before glancing over at her. “You know how much they drove me crazy, Short Stop.”
Her nose wrinkles. “They weren’t for you.”
“Well, I know they weren’t for those high school boys who won’t stop eye-fuckin’ you. If you needed the attention so bad, all you needed to do was tell me.”
Her hazel eyes roll. “I’ve never been in desperate need.”
“I have.” Layla purposely goes back to her hot dog, evading the whole subject matter. “Unblock my number, Layla Jean. Or I’ll do it for you.”
“There’s no need to unblock you, Briggs Holden, because we have nothin’ more to say.”
“There’s plenty to say. You’re just too much of a coward to listen to it all.”
“I highly doubt there would be anything productive or—”
“There she is!” a male voice slurs loudly, causing both Layla and I to stop dead in our tracks. “The prettiest girlfriend a man could ever want or need.”
Cruz Weston.
His voice registers because I’ve been around this prick more than I have my girl, and the constant taunts and jabs he tosses my way over her.
I’d love nothing more than to shove my uneaten hot dog down his throat—aluminum foil and all—however, I know what that will do, and I’m not looking to spend my trip home in Magnolia Ridge on Layla’s shit list.
So, I shut my damn mouth because he was talking to her, not me.
She said she could handle him. That I didn’t need to. That there was no reason to bust his skull open because nothing was going on between them.
Fine.
Let the nothing commence then.
“Layla,” Cruz falters, stumbling forward a step and clearly drunk off his ass. He can barely keep his eyes open, his golden blond hair is astray and half in his face—perfect set-up to hit him—but Layla doesn’t move away, nor does she appear fazed. “I love you.”
“Do you?” Layla inquires as if the prospect of that is extraordinary, and honestly, she’s got ten seconds before I end him. “And when did you come up with this revelation?”
Cruz lifts his red Solo cup and looks under it like it holds the answer. “Four—five beers in. Yes, five.”
“How romantic,” she drawls, then shoos him away with her hot dog. “Move.”
“Are we finally going alone together?” he mutters conspiratorially, and I clutch my free fingers into fists over his blatant disrespect. “I don’t think Kerrigan would like that.”
“Neither would I,” she immediately claps back. “And get the smell of your alcohol out of my face, Weston.”
He withdraws a step, face skewed as if in utter shock she’d ever say something like that to him. “I’m sorry, baby. I’ve been nervous to see you.”
I’m amazed when Layla takes another damn bite of her hot dog like she’s having a normal conversation and not getting hit on by her fake ex-boyfriend.
“I bought you tickets to a Charleston Otters game.”
“Oh, for the love of fucking God,” I mutter under my breath, turning my head away so I don’t have to look at this fucking idiot.
“And since I’m out for the rest of the season,” Cruz continues like the drunk dope he is. “I thought we could spend some time together.”
I hear the aluminum foil crinkle in Layla’s direction, and when I finally look over to see what in the hell is taking her so damn long to tell him no, she’s back to eating her damn hot dog.
The hell is up with this girl and hot dogs all of a sudden?
“Well?” Cruz presses impatiently and, out of my peripheral, I see him steal a look at me because, well, we both know he’s trying to piss me off here. “What do you say, baby?”
“Honestly?” Layla muffles with her mouth full, balling the foil into a ball and taking her sweet ass time turning him down.
“Why would I want to go out of town just to watch a team lose when I already watch the Tornadoes, who actually have a spot to make the playoffs this year? The Otters are in last place.”
My brows clip together. “I thought you said you didn’t keep tabs on me?”
“I don’t,” she replies evenly. “I watch the team.”
Oh, Short Stop, bullshit.
You still watch me.
“The Tornadoes won’t make it past the wildcard because they’re too busy babysittin’ your boy over here,” Cruz clips out, permitting some of his true dickhead to come out.
I’m surprised it took him this long, honestly.
The beer must’ve logged him around a little in his head.
“Besides, it’s free, baby. Free food, free hotel, free beer, free sex.
” He closes some of the space between them, and it takes everything in me not to shove his Solo cup down his throat before he says another word.
“Let me fuck you, Layla Jean. I know I can do it better than Kerrigan can.”
My girl looks up at him, strait-laced and completely at ease.
That’s until she tosses the aluminum foil ball at his forehead and has the balls to lean in.
“That’s gonna be a huge problem, Weston,” she claims evenly. “Because Briggs Kerrigan is my husband. And fuckin’ me will have you killed by the end of the night.”
Then, without pausing a moment to watch his jaw drop or his eyes bug out, Layla Jean walks around his unstable body and proceeds toward the carnival rides with complete ease.
That’s my girl.
That’s my motherfuckin’ wife.