Layla

Holding his hand up to stop her from seeing, Luke mouthed, “Pussy.”

He was one to talk. He followed Isla all the way to Singapore and then took her to an island in Indonesia to keep her safe. Then again, his actions were one of the reasons she’d left to begin with.

“At least I didn’t go to functions and pretend to date another woman while I was with the one I actually loved.”

It was a low blow, but I’d had more shit than I could deal with today. I wasn’t talking about the shit that’d been kicked out of me, I was more focused on the fact that Layla might divorce me. I’d been on edge, dreading each knock on the door in case the papers were finally coming, and now that her family knew, they could persuade her to do it.

Before he could snap back, Mom smacked her hand down on his thigh, giving him the ‘five star’ we’d all enjoyed giving each other growing up.

“Damn,” Adam snickered. “Was it the full five?”

A five star was when you slapped your hand down on someone else, leaving a red handprint on them that included all five fingers and the palm. It was painful if you received it, but it was immensely satisfying if you were the one doing it.

Rubbing the area, Luke shot her a glare. “No, palm and three fingers.”

That’s how often we’d done it to each other—even without looking at the area we could count the fingers.

“I know what you were doing, that’s why you got the slap,” Mom snapped. “Now, let your brother finish.”

“Anyway, I’d been feeling guilty about Layla only having a Vegas wedding and her dad not walking her down the aisle, so I looked at how to get her the big shebang without her family finding out about us already being married. I was going to tell her about it the weekend after Rocko’s bachelor party, but as I was leaving for Vegas, she found out she wasn’t actually pregnant.”

I rubbed my chest, feeling the pain that fact still caused me.

“I was so excited about the baby when she’d first found out, I replied ‘damn’ or something dumb like that because it’s all I could get out. Then, when she said it was a false alarm, I lost my phone at the airport, and all she got was a text saying ‘oh’—”

“Oh, I remember that.” Mom clicked her fingers. “I thought you’d been kidnapped or were in a coma somewhere. When you got back, I didn’t know whether to throttle you or hug you.”

“At least you didn’t disappear on me,” I said softly, the acidic feeling in my throat feeling worse.

“You had to know where Layla went,” Adam muttered, looking at me like I was stupid. “We all knew where she was.”

“Yeah, but after I tried talking to her a few times and she told me to fuck off, I figured I’d give her time to get over the heartache of not being pregnant and wait for her to come back. I didn’t know where her head was at and assumed she was blaming me for the pregnancy and didn’t know how to handle it.”

“For four years?” he asked incredulously.

Hoping she’d understand, I looked at Mom, who was watching me with tears trailing slowly down her face. “I didn’t know what to do to make it better, but if her being somewhere else and finishing college did that, I didn’t want to take it away from her. I’d have waited until I was ninety if it meant her being happy.”

Her lower lip started trembling, and the tears fell faster.

“There was also no way Layla ever would have stayed away forever. Her family’s here, and she loves them,” Luke pointed out, something that I’d told myself every day she’d been away.

This time when Adam spoke, his voice was quiet and weighted with what sounded like pity. “What if she’d divorced you?”

“I worried about that every minute of every day,” I admitted. “Now that fear’s even worse.”

Mom nodded slowly. “I can understand that, but I think you’re in a better position to fight for her now.”

I blinked, wondering how the hell that could be true.

Unable to figure it out and hoping she could give me some female insight, I asked, “How’s that possibly true? If anything, she has her family behind her now to help her fight for the divorce.”

Picking up some bandages and balancing them on Luke’s knee, Mom leaned in and said seriously, “Because we’re not the only ones who know y’all have been in love since you were kids. Her Mom and Linda saw it a mile away and mentioned it, then her brother’s wives picked up on it, too. Even her aunts and cousins said something about it. I also happen to know that Colette and Linda were happy about it.”

Picking up a Band-Aid and ripping the paper to open it, she smiled smugly. “Oh, and I got a text from both women saying how happy they were about the news.”

We all stayed quiet as we digested that information until Adam asked, “Are you serious?”

Mom nodded as she stuck the first bandage down. “Yup.”