Half an hour in and already Layla had grown tired of her friend’s interrogation. She didn’t want Mollie knowing about Donovan. She couldn’t say why for sure, but she figured, deep down, if she admitted aloud what she’d done with him, then it would become real. Then, she couldn’t pretend it didn’t happen. Besides, Mollie would give her so much shit for the whole situation.
“I don’t know what you’re bitching about.” Layla shot for a relaxed pose, pushing Mollie’s legs aside as she stretched out on the sofa, suddenly interested in the hangnail on her thumb. She could feel her best friend’s level, focused stare. “I’m not keeping anything significant from you.”
Mollie released a breath, and a frustrated little grunt as she flicked a teasing slap on Layla’s ankle, making her best friend to frown. “But there is something you’re not telling me?”
Mollie had beautiful eyes, Layla always thought so. There were round and large, and right then those big doe eyes of hers were squinted in suspicion, with the cool consideration as she gazed at Layla’s face. She was silent, not really digging, and Layla caught what she was doing. It was Biker Interrogation 101, something Layla knew Mollie had learned from her motorcycle club president father before he’d landed in prison. Normally, Layla could bypass the focused stare, make a joke, play up the vapid persona she used to get out of most awkward situations, but Mollie already knew all the stupid little tricks Layla used to save her own ass. She’d never buy it.
Layla wasn’t ready for Mollie’s judgment; a judgment she knew would come. For all her friends’ constant teasing that she and Donovan pranked each other, acted as though they couldn’t stand the sight of each other because they really wanted each other, Layla knew that if Mollie discovered what happened between them a few nights ago, the judgment would be quick. Mollie would want to tease Layla, to make her suffer, to make her laugh like all best friends do. Layla didn’t think she’d understand her being with Donovan. Certainly not her wanting to be with him again. Not without her also wanting something real with him. Not without admitting she liked him. Stupid mistakes with some random guy at a club were one thing. Stupid mistakes with one of your friends, or at least someone who always seemed to be around their friends, was something altogether different and just not cool.
When Mollie’s stare grew too hard, Layla tried for mock annoyance, rolling her eyes and sighing heavily. “It’s nothing. I’m just stressed. My, um, my dad is giving me shit about breaking up with Walter.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.” That wasn’t a lie. Her father had questioned her incessantly about Walter being absent from their Sunday afternoon lunch. Layla hoped behind her closed eyes, her father’s niggling questioning would disappear and the hard glare she could feel still coming from her best friend would fade. Fingers smoothing over her eyelids, Layla shrugged her shoulder as though her father’s ridiculous cross-examination was a simple annoyance. “I think he was hoping that we’d get married so he could turn my room into a man cave.”
But the staring continued, growing into something awkward that had Layla pulling her knees to her chest and scratching the polish from her nails.
Finally, Mollie sat up, relaxed against the back of the sofa, but her gaze did not diminish. “Are you sure there’s nothing…”
“Jesus, Mollie, I’m fine.” She didn’t need the investigation. She didn’t need Mollie trying to get inside her head. Not now. Her head was already too full, too cluttered with guilt and shame for the things she’d done. For the things Layla wanted to do again. “I’m stressed and I really don’t need you adding to it.”
“Hey.” A gentle hand on her leg and Mollie inched closer. “What is this?”
Layla knew she was acting like a brat. All Mollie’s meddling, all the prying came from her worry for Layla. The blonde knew that, but she couldn’t shake the growing desire to put distance between herself and Mollie’s hard eyes glaring down at her. That look filled her with guilt, with a reality she still didn’t want to face. Ever.
It was too much. As she bolted from Mollie’s apartment, pausing just long enough to grab her bag, she caught the look of shock on her best friend’s face, but she couldn’t think of any other way to evade the question she knew Mollie was about to ask. She didn’t wait for it, didn’t even pause as Mollie called after her. Layla took two steps at a time down the stairs in front of Mollie’s apartment and fled the questions she couldn’t answer truthfully, running into the inky blackness of Cavanagh’s empty streets.