ChapterOne
Layla
“Layla,” my own personal Voldemort clipped behind me again.
Seeing no reason to turn around and even acknowledge him, I moved on to the next platter, spooning way too much macaroni onto my plate.
“Layla, damn it,” he hissed, finally crossing the line by grabbing my bicep to get me to turn around.
Dropping my overflowing plate onto the table and knowing one of my brothers would grab it up, confident that God was smiling on them by providing an already served meal at a buffet, I yanked my arm away from him.
“To hell with this.”
“No,” Mark said firmly, moving now to stand in front of me and blocking my escape route. “You don’t get to ignore me. We’re talking about this right now.”
I’d been back in Piersville for three months, and in that time, he’d done everything short of kidnapping me to get this conversation out the way. The thing was, it never needed to happen. I didn’t need to rehash old history. I didn’t want to ‘clear the air’ right now. I didn’t care that the Montgomerys and Townsends were such close friends that I’d never for the rest of my life be able to not see him.
I wasn’t having the conversation, and that was final. I wanted to, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it.
Veering to the left to go around him, I ignored his repeated attempts to get me to stop and focused on my escape. I was going to go back to my house, get in my car, and I was going to drive until I found somewhere interesting to stop. I didn’t care where so long as it wasn’t near him.
And most importantly, I wouldn’t come back until one of my sisters-in-law texted to tell me the coast was clear.
When my brothers had first started getting married, I’d loved the women, but I’d been sure it’d be a ‘me and them’ situation, with me being on the outside. Instead, I’d gotten sisters who had my back and didn’t mind helping me out, even when I didn’t ask for it, like now. No one knew the real reason I’d left and gone to college further afield when I’d been adamant that I was going to one near Piersville so I could live in my own house. And, if I had my way, no one ever would.
“Layla,” Mark said loudly. “You don’t get to continue acting like this and ignore me.”
Those were the words that changed my intentions completely.
Spinning around, I poked him in the chest as hard as I could. “Don’t I? So, you’re saying only you get to do that?”
Rubbing the spot my nail had just left an impression, he scowled at me. “I never did that to you. I came home, and you’d decided to move on without telling me. I tried to get you to talk to me, but you just packed up and left.”
How could one asshole—admittedly an insanely hot one—rewrite history?
“Are you out of your mind?” It was a serious and genuine question. I mean, I came from a family with questionable sanity, so I knew the warning signs.
“Not that I’m aware of, or I wouldn’t get to do the job I do.”
Taking a step closer to him, I hissed, “For two weeks, you withdrew from the relationship or whatever it was we had going on. I told you I was pregnant, and all you said was ‘damn.’ There was no reassurance, no horror or excitement, no support.”
When he opened his mouth to interrupt, I held my hand up. “No, you’ll let me finish recounting our story because mine is spot on, unlike your version of what happened. You went to Vegas for that bachelor party, likely sat in a strip club and did God knows what, while I sat at home and bawled my eyes out when I found out it’d been a false positive.”
Taking a step even closer, I added, “I texted you to tell you, expecting just a modicum of sympathy, empathy, or even just an ‘are you okay,’ but you never replied because you were too busy having a good time while I sat at home with a broken heart. Oh, no, stupid me, you did text to say, ‘oh.’”
Shaking my head, I blew out a breath and tried to calm down. “Was it really a shock when you never contacted me once that weekend, not even to explain the photos being posted all over social media by your buddies, that I decided to move on?”
Leaning down until his nose was only an inch away from my own, Mark ground out, “Yeah, it was a shock. I told you when I got back and got a new phone that I’d lost the other one at the airport. I apologized, but you didn’t want to hear it.”
“And you couldn’t have borrowed one of your friends’ phones to text or send a message on Facebook?” I asked in disbelief, mentally kicking myself for even getting into this conversation with him. It was the exact same shit he’d said back then and didn’t need to be rehashed.
Before I could turn and walk away, though, he threw his hands up in the air. “None of them were friends with you on there, so it would have gone into that weird non-friend message folder no one ever checks, and who remembers numbers nowadays? You store them in your phone and just hit the name.”
“Listen, I need some more time, okay? I just—“
“It’s been four years! Do you need a whole decade?”
Shaking my head, I did what I should have just continued doing a few minutes ago and turned back to walk to my car.