Page 39 of Layla Meets Her Match

“I know. But this is bugging me, and if you’re willing to let me hash it out, I’d like to see if that can get it off my mind, at least for a couple days.” I run a hand over my hair and then down my face.

“Of course. Let’s hear it.” Dad sounds like he’s bracing for a tough medical procedure.

I gear up to ask him something I haven’t dared bring up since we all found out about Dottie after the funeral. “Do you think Grandpa should’ve divorced Grandma if he was going to do what he did? Was Do—Mrs. Van Buren the love of his life?” This is a lot, and I don’t need to add into the mix that I know Dottie well enough to call her by her first name now. Dad’s never even met her. Don’t think he ever wants to.

He barks out a short laugh. “Honestly, Linc? I don’t know. Before we found those letters, I could’ve sworn my parents had the classic love story. I never heard them fight. I’m pretty sure that Mom didn’t know about that woman at all. I’ve struggled with that, wondering if their love was some kind of smoke-and-mirrors show or what.”

That’s what I saw. I don’t think Dad’s imagining it. Grandma and Grandpa were still holding hands everywhere they went, right up to the day he took her to the hospital and she didn’t come home. He was always looking for ways to help her—he enlisted me on plenty of “missions” for Grandma when I would spend a couple weeks with them during the summer. Buying her flowers on the way home from getting gas, just because. Building her a hammock stand in the backyard because she saw one in a magazine and talked about it for days.

He taught me that service was love, but I’ve struggled with how I’m “proving” my feelings to Layla, the same way Grandpa seemed to be proving that he loved Grandma, despite his relationship with Dottie.

“She’s a nice woman,” I say quietly. I don’t tell him that she’s filled a hole that my grandparents left behind, because that will hurt him. My parents know that I sought Dottie out after the funeral, that it was part of my healing. I don’t mention her, so they probably don’t have any idea what my relationship with her has become.

Dad sighs. “I’m not surprised.” He pauses a long time. “I think I’m always going to be a little bit angry with Dad for lying to our family that way. But I think I’ve come to terms with his mistakes the last couple years. I don’t want this to burden you, Linc.”

“I don’t want it to either.” I lean back on my couch, staring out the tall windows that overlook the roofs of dozens of houses and then the deep blue of the ocean beyond that.

Dad asks me about our game plan for the Seattle game and teases me a little bit about Layla before we hang up. We didn’t resolve anything about our feelings about Grandpa, but somehow just talking to him makes me feel lighter about it. And it’s also a relief that there was no judgment in his tone when I implied that I’d gotten to know Dottie. My dad, or my mom, will never be able to have the relationship I have with Dottie, complicated as it is. They’re just too close to the actual events of the past. But knowing that he’s not upset at me for that relationship brings me a lot of peace too.

I spend a good half hour staring out the window at the endless blue, slowly transitioning my thoughts from family drama to my game tomorrow and my goals to succeed. By the time I head to the hotel an hour later, the weight has lifted off me for the time being.

CHAPTER 23

LAYLA

When I walk into the lobby of the hotel where the Rays are staying the night before their game against Seattle, I know I’m breaking all the rules. Court has complained numerous times about not being able to see Eli in the evenings the nights before games, and how even now that they’re married, she can’t stay with him. She’s the starting quarterback’s wife.

I’m barely Lincoln’s friend.

Okay, that’s a touch dramatic. We’re friends. We’ve been on a friend date, and we have another friend date in a couple of days.

You know what else is dramatic? I think I’m here because I’m staking a claim.

Which makes no sense. I’ve made it clear to Lincoln that I can only be friends right now. He’s made it pretty clear to me that we are friends. He’s offered to help watch my daughter, and he’s supportive and excited about me going back to acting. But the way Astrid was kind of flirting with him today did something in my brain.

So what, I’m here to make sure he knows what good friends we are?

I stand in front of the elevators and mentally face-palm. I like him. So part of me must be hoping that he’ll see this as … something more than it is on the outside. Me delivering healthy treats to him.

So if he does see something more here—if there is something more here … then what? I’m going to ignore all the rules I’ve made for myself about love and just go for it?

Yes?

NO!

Uuuuuugh.

I almost walk right back out the door, but there are a couple players in the hotel bar area, which has one full side open to the lobby, and they watched me walk in with my bakery box. I look like I’m delivering something—that’s a good thing—but it means I have to stick with the act so I don’t get someone in trouble.

There’re more people staying here than the football team, and I could be here to see any of them, right? Except that story’s going to blow up the second I set foot on the tenth floor, which is rented out for the team. (That, as well as the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth.)

There’s also the fact that all my friends know what I’m up to. Mila was giddy when I asked her for advice on a healthy treat to make Lincoln, and Eli’s the one who gave me Lincoln’s room number to make this whole thing possible. That means Landon knows, so probably Court and Miss Sophie too.

I step onto the elevator and do another mental facepalm. This started out so innocently. I felt bad that for the foreseeable future, Lincoln has to take all his bakery treats to Dillon first before risking eating them. Mila is campaigning that he doesn’t eat them even if Dillon gives the okay on top of that. Plus, I know he wouldn’t be filling himself full of sugar right before a game anyway.

Hence the protein bites. Mila told me that they’re Eli’s favorite, especially before games. They taste like peanut butter cookie dough, but they’re stuffed with protein, made with zero refined sugar, and full of things that Mila tells me are the perfect fuel for a strapping football player like Lincoln.

I added the strapping part.

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