“Layla!” That scream from downstairs could have woken the dead. “Did you text Ethan about lunch on Tuesday?”
God, but was her mom’s voice shrill. Her hearing had always been terrible—the constant tone-deaf tune of every conceivable Christmas song she’d been humming all week was evidence enough of that—so Layla crawled from her spot in front of her bed and reached up to open the door. “Yes!” Her voice was loud, shouting really, but the woman wouldn’t hear otherwise.
“What?”
“Jesus, Mary…” she stopped cursing when her father stopped in front of her door, eyebrow arched in a silent warning. “Will you please tell her Ethan will be here at eleven?” She decided not to tell her father about her smart ass brother’s text of “I’ll get there when I can, Cinderella.” And because she forgot to remind him that morning, she smiled at her father, hoping her voice was sweet enough to keep the scowl from his face. “You forgot the trash. It’s in the laundry room waiting for you.” Her father sighed and Layla shut out the noise of her parents shouting back and forth information from the stairs to the landing below.
Two quick chirps alerting her to a text and Layla grabbed her phone from her bed, smiling for the first time in two days when she saw Mollie’s face pop up on the screen, her hair in a faux Mohawk and her eyes red-rimmed and rolled back. Last Halloween. Mollie had been sauced beyond her limits and Layla caught the moment before she passed out with one click of her phone. She giggled every time Mollie called her.
Mollie: I need to talk to you ASAP.
Layla hoped this wasn’t about Donovan again. In the weeks that Mollie had discovered their stupid little tryst, she’d hounded Layla incessantly about why she was sleeping with him. It hadn’t been as bad lately, especially when Layla told Mollie that she’d stop going to his apartment every night. That had seemed to satisfy her best friend, so did the weekly trips Layla made with Mollie to Maryville that ended with Vaughn screaming and torturing them both all in the name of “fitness.”
But Mollie had been MIA that week, claiming to be sick, swearing that she’d jump back on the CrossFit bandwagon after she’d gotten rid of whatever funk had crawled into her stomach and kept her out of commission. Still, Mollie wanting to speak to her in person, despite feeling like walking death, meant that something significant had happened or, you know, the gossip was too juicy to be told over the phone.
Layla: Everything okay?
There was a delay, only a few seconds between each message and when Layla read the second text, her worry increased.
Mollie: Meet me at McKinney’s in fifteen. At the booth. You’ll need alcohol for this news.
The booth was reserved for close confidence and silent conversations. It had always been that way. That booth held all of their secrets and if it could speak… well, Layla had a box of matches reserved if that unlikely event ever occurred. Knowing what the request of a booth appearance meant, Layla hurried from the floor, picking up her black leather jacket and gray cable knit sweater before she grabbed her boots and bag and swung open her door. But her father’s tall frame stopped her. His skin was pale, pasty, and Layla’s stomach immediately twisted hard when that scowl on his face deepened and he jerked his head up to glare at her.
She didn’t see his hands, barely registered how often he swallowed, as though whatever it was he held was some distasteful, cruel joke.
“What the hell… the fucking shit is… Layla, for the love of God…”
He didn’t seem able to make the words connect or pull enough focus away from that thing in his hand to organize his thoughts into coherent phrases.
“Daddy?”
And then, Layla finally moved her gaze from his reddening face, the anger, the disappointment. He stretched his arm, thrusting that small plastic stick in his hand right at her and when he finally spoke a complete sentence, the words were loud, enraged. “What the sodding hell is this?”
“So, I say to him, ‘calm your bullocks, you daft wanker. You can’t be going over to that bitty girl’s home to read her a fecking bedtime story.’ Those poor people are having her home for one bloody week. Like they’d want his grumpy arse around their dinner table. It’s like he’s no common sense a’tall. And it’s bloody clear he’s never heard anyone tell him to piss off.”
“It’s the rich bastard attitude, man. I’ve been around assholes like that my whole life.” Donovan shrugged, remembering how most of his grade school friends had carried on, moaning when the nuns asked them to pick up after themselves or threatening to have them—nuns for Christ’s sake—fired if they didn’t perform well on exams. Their parents never brought them to school, never showed for matches or practices. The only time any of them made an appearance was during formal school events like Christmas plays or mini-graduations. It didn’t surprise Donovan that Declan’s brother had a rotten attitude when someone told him no.