Page 49 of The Brothers Next Door

Chapter 20

Layla

The next few days went by in a blur. Every second that passed felt like an hour. I threw myself into my work. Numbers were numbers and they never lied. Numbers were always true and there was no grey area with them. Damned grey area.

I missed them both terribly.

My phone chimed, signalling a text message. As with every text message I received a part of me held the hope that it would be one of the brothers. It never was. At least they could have told me it was over—leaving me in limbo like they had for the past couple days was agony.

The phone chimed again and I pulled it out of my purse. I groaned when I saw the name associated with the text message. Craig Vance. Jesus, why couldn’t he just get the hint already? I was done and over with his shit and had been since I left.

Craig: Why aren’t you returning my texts? We need to talk.

Shaking my head, I gave in. I’d been ignoring his texts since I arrived here hoping that he’d get the hint and give up. Alas, it was close to three months and he hadn’t.

I hesitated, gathering my thoughts on how I was going to respond.

Layla: We have nothing to talk about. You cheated. I left and came home.

I gave the text a nod of approval before pressing send. The dots indicated it was sending and then it was done. Sent and over. Grabbing my purse, I was in the process of shoving the phone back in when another text message came through.

You’ve got to be fucking with me. I groaned out loud.

Craig: At least meet me for a coffee somewhere.

Layla: I’m back in New York. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t meet you. Which I don’t.

I waited a solid minute to see if any more messages came in before putting the phone away. Really? What did that asshole think, that he could apologize and erase the past? Maybe before the brothers that may have worked—maybe. But now I knew what it felt like to be truly loved and desired.

~*~TT~*~

I slowly made my way through the lobby of my building complex, hoping to bump into one of the brothers. I didn’t. When I was trying to avoid them a few months ago, I couldn’t seem to. Now that I was attempting to run into them, I was having the exact opposite problem.

Was nothing going to go my way this week?

Unlocking the door to my place, I shot a look of longing towards the door down the hallway. If I was someone else, I’d simply walk down there, knock on the door, and talk to him. Hell, he still had my clothes. That right there was a justifiable reason, isn’t it?

When the door unlocked, I hesitated. I’d just go ask for my clothes back and if he asked me in then all the better. But I didn’t, I chickened the fuck out. That was what I did. I stepped inside, closing the door behind me, feeling like a chump for being so scared of rejection, which was exactly what this was.

I took some psychology courses when attending college, I knew my issues.

Kicking my heels off, I set my purse on the little table by the door which held my keys and so forth and entered the living room, stripping away my clothing as I went. Walking naked to the towel closet, I grabbed one for my body and one for my hair. I’d take a nice warm soak in the tub, put on some relaxing music, light a lavender candle, and melt those worries away.

The worries didn’t melt away. Sure, I felt better to a certain degree, but not good enough to be able to focus on the romance novel I’d loaded on my Kindle. I kept having to read the same line several times over before it made sense to me.

After forty minutes of attempting to read the book and lose myself in the story I gave up. A person had to know when it was time to throw in the towel. So that was exactly what I did—on the book and bath anyhow.

Getting out of the bath, I wrapped a towel around my head and then another around my body. The water slithered down my legs and made a small puddle at my feet. I’d remembered everything for my bath except the bath mat.

Whatever. A little bit of water on the floor was the least of my problems.

Exiting the bathroom, I padded barefoot across the beige carpeted floor and into my bedroom. Going to my dresser, I pulled on a pair of boxers and t-shirt sans a bra. I wasn’t planning to go anywhere tonight. Maybe a good romantic comedy, scratch that, a thriller, would take my mind off my personal issues.

And popcorn. A nice big tub of popcorn. Extra butter. Walking through the living room, I entered the kitchen and grabbed a bag of microwave popcorn. Pulling the plastic wrap from the package, I opened the microwave and shoved the popcorn in, setting the timer for two minutes. I left the popcorn to do its thing and walked back into the living room.

Sitting down, I grabbed the remote and turned on the television, switching to Netflix. As I scanned through the movies, my eye caught the title of Wild Things. I’d seen it before, though it had been a long time. A movie where someone was crossed and double crossed and then triple crossed would be the ticket.

I’d just started Wild Things when a knock came at the door. It had to be one of the brothers, or perhaps both, since no one called up on the intercom. I was both excited and nervous at the concept. Stopping at the floor length mirror in the hallway, I did a double check on my appearance. My face was devoid of make-up, but I looked okay. They’d seen me looking worse.

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