Page 52 of Layla Meets Her Match

“Like maybe convincing a director to hire me for LA Hope?” she asks. My turn to blink, but she’s almost laughing, so I don’t think she’s mad about it. She’s probably worked in Hollywood long enough to know how insignificant my interference could be.

“Me convince Bruno? Maybe Miss Sophie or your TikTok fans?—”

“But you had something to do with it.” Now she’s leaning closer too, so that must mean something. “And should I expect that it’s just a coincidence that you and Hurley happened to see Jack at a party last week and then he showed up with a check?”

I can’t resist her any longer, so I move the last few inches to close the distance between us. She doesn’t pull away, and I wait one more second to give her the chance, then kiss her. Her lips are soft, and she tastes like chocolate.

This is not the best place for a first kiss. The stupid console is in the way, so I can only slide my hand to the back of her neck to urge her closer to me. She puts her hands on my cheeks and pulls away a millimeter to study me. Her gaze lights me on fire. I have been dreaming of Layla looking at me like that for months. Now that it’s here, it’s kind of surreal. But it’s also the best thing ever. Even better than scoring the winning touchdown in a football game.

“You’re something else,” she whispers.

“It was mostly Hurley. I just gave him the opportunity. You know how good I am at charming people,” I protest.

She laughs. “I know exactly how good you are at charming people, because I’ve been slowly falling for you for weeks.”

I kiss her again. It’s a blessing that I’m a tall guy because it means I can lean over the console and get pretty close to her. I scoop an arm around her back, even though I can’t pull her to me, just to feel the weight of her in my arms. She puts her hands on my chest, fingers catching in my T-shirt.

We kiss until a tap at the window on Layla’s side makes her jump back from me and whirl around. Dottie is standing there, cane in hand, grinning at me. “I’ve got a couch that would be a lot more comfortable, young man.”

Layla looks back at me, covers her mouth with her hands, and dissolves into giggles. When Margot joins her laughter, there’s no doubt that I’m fully gone on both of them.

“I love you, Layla,” I say, ignoring the impatient look Dottie is giving me from the other side of the window.

Layla puts her hands on my cheeks again, a soft sheen to her eyes as she looks back at me. “I know,” she says meaningfully. “I know, Lincoln.”

CHAPTER 29

LAYLA

Mila and Landon show up at Mrs. Van Buren’s about a half hour after me and Lincoln, something else he arranged—to have Mila come make Mrs. Van Buren some cookies in her own kitchen so we could all be sure they were safe. Mrs. Van Buren is delighted by the impromptu party that Lincoln arranged, and I can’t stop staring at him, smitten by the way he loves his people.

It took me by surprise at first, when he confessed not only that he felt the spark that I felt, but that he was in love with me. Head over heels, according to him. Willing to wait forever for me to be ready. But the more I started to realize all the things he’s done for me over the last few months, the more it wasn’t a surprise at all—and the more it felt like thinking it was possible he might like Astrid was dumb. Suddenly the difference between friendship for him and love was so clear.

Those moments also chased away any doubts I’ve had about dating someone again. I know Lincoln isn’t perfect, but I also know he’ll do his best to never hurt me. That’s all I can ask.

I get more than a few looks from Mila over the course of the evening. The flirty looks Lincoln gives me back and the way we brush hands whenever possible doesn’t help. But there’s no time to talk to her with all the cookie making and visiting with Mrs. Van Buren. Mila can only eye me when we all leave, and I walk with Lincoln to his Bronco instead of getting a ride from Mila and Landon, who live much closer to my apartment.

Lincoln comes up to the apartment with me, making himself comfortable on my small sofa while I put Margot to bed, and then we stay up and … mostly talk until Lincoln has to be responsible and go home.

“Are you okay with this? Really okay?” he asks in a soft voice as we stand next to the door.

I press my hands against his chest and look up at him. “I knew there were good guys out there—like Landon and Eli. Even the guys on your team. I can tell they’re good too. I just didn’t see how it was possible for me to have someone like Landon. But I should have seen all along how different you were from Jack. How I didn’t need to be scared of falling in love with you.” I take one hand and press it against my heart. “I know here that you will always catch me. You’ve shown that over and over, even if I didn’t always see it.”

He leans down over me, and we’re kissing again. Several minutes pass before he murmurs something again about how he should be responsible. Let me get some sleep since Margot will be up early no matter what.

“You need to go home too,” I say softly. He has practice tomorrow, and we have a plan to execute that we all hatched with Mrs. Van Buren to catch Astrid in the act. Everything we’ve found so far makes me sure it’s her. We just need to prove it.

“But I’ll see you tomorrow, Detective Delaford?” he teases.

“Every day, right?” I tease back. As long as I work at the bakery truck, he’ll be there ordering cookies he’s not going to eat.

“Every day,” he promises.

Margot might be a good distraction to have on hand, but I decide it’s better to have her out of the way today, so my mom comes and picks her up to watch her. Mila and I both try to act natural as we prepare to open the truck, asking Astrid about the part she got on City Mates and getting her to spill stuff about what will be happening on this week’s show. I know Mila never had the same passion for acting that I did, but she would have been good. Despite both of us only having watched a handful of episodes of City Mates, we keep Astrid at ease.

I want to get everything over with as soon as possible, but we all knew when we planned this that it would be best to have multiple customer orders to deal with in order to make the switch we need to make. Lincoln comes as late as he can, and I spot Officer Brady keeping to the back of the line. We called him last night from Mrs. Van Buren’s after we came up with the plan and looped him in.

“Good morning, Linc,” I say. Despite everything we’re about to try to pull off, the smile on my face is automatic. It would be hard to believe that this good, good man is in love with me if I hadn’t tallied off everything he’s helped me with the last few weeks. I’m not sure I deserve this kind of happiness, but the way he looks at me, like I’m his everything, means I try not to think about whether I deserve him or not.

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