ChapterFourteen
Layla
Finding out that both Dad and Gramps were staying at my house the day after my birthday was a surprise, but I shrugged it off. I was used to never understanding things like that, so it wasn’t a hardship not knowing what they’d done to piss off my mom and grandmother.
What I couldn’t shrug off was the cuddly SpongeBob stuck on my foot. I know I’d put him in the smallest spare room on the futon I had in it, but I couldn’t explain how I’d ended him up on my foot, with stuffing trailing out.
“Morning, baby,” Mark greeted as he walked into my room carrying a tray. His eyes went from the cup of coffee on it to me, and he frowned. “How are you feeling?”
“Rough,” I croaked. “Do we have any Tylenol?”
His eyes slid to the table next to the bed, and I followed where he was looking. “Uh, why do I have so much of it?”
There had to be at least five bottles of each just sitting there.
“Something happened yesterday, and Cole just wanted to make sure you had enough to get you through not feeling well.”
There was something off about how he was talking. “What are you leaving out?”
“Nothing.” His eyes looked at the top of my head as his lips twitched.
Reaching up, I hit what felt like a ton of snags and knots. Damn it.
Carefully getting out of bed, I walked toward the bathroom, trying my best to ignore the pain in my legs. Today’s flu symptoms seemed worse in my lower extremities than they had the day before, like I’d run a marathon or something.
I’d just put my toothbrush in my mouth when I looked into the mirror and screamed at my reflection. I had a sort of top knot, but this one was on my hairline at the top of my forehead. The rest of my hair looked like I’d been rubbing it on a bed of hedgehogs, but the top knot itself looked horrific. Instead of putting a hair tie around it like a normal person, whoever had done it had wrapped my hair around the band.
Mark knocked on the door. “Layla? Are you okay?”
With my toothbrush still buzzing in my mouth, I opened it and stared blankly at him.
“What’s wrong?” His eyes slid from my toes to my head and then lowered to mine.
How he wasn’t staring at the monstrosity that was my hair was insane. Either that or he was just being polite.
Pointing at it, I waited for him to explain it to me.
“Your hair was like that when I got home, so I don’t know how that happened.” Well, that was disappointing. “Jack, Hurst, and Cole were looking after you yesterday while I was at work, so you could ask them.”
He looked way too innocent as he gave me their names, but at least I had people to press for the answers he was unwilling to provide me with. When we were kids, I’d have jumped on his back and tickled him, and as we got older, I’d have threatened to withhold blo—
Oh, Jesus, I’d tried to give him a blow job last night. And when he’d attempted to get me to stop, I’d held onto his dick like a hammer to prevent him from moving away.
Unable to face him, I turned back to the sink and finished brushing my teeth, and then washed my face. I felt rank, and I swear I could smell my hair—which was beyond gross—but I didn’t have it in me to stand in the shower. Maybe I could sit in it?
Mark lifted his arm and checked the time on his watch. “I don’t think I’ve got time to give you a deep scrub, but if you want your hair washed and a quick shower, I’ve still got an hour before I have to leave.”
Did I want that? For Mark to wash me and see me naked?
Fortunately, if I had any arguments against it, my desperation to be clean overrode them.
“Please,” I breathed. “Getting the tangles out of my hair and this damn hair tie is going to be hell, though.”
He began opening the drawers under the sink, moving stuff around as he looked for something. “Got it.”
When he turned around, I saw the small pair of nail scissors I’d never used because I liked to use proper nail clippers on my feet. I didn’t think twice about what he wanted them for until he raised them above my head.
Taking a shaky step away from him, I pushed his hand away. “What are you doing? You can’t cut my hair off.”