Page 77 of I Still Love You

Knowing I’ll have the freedom to spend the rest of my life with her hits, and I decide I’m telling her that—that I want her forever—and I’m doing it today. I’m not letting another day pass me by, pass us by. I want what I want. I just hope she feels the same.

I grab the folder from the dash, slowly flipping through the paperwork and skimming it before settling on reading through it in more detail when I get back to the house. The judge ordered me a hundred hours of community service at a local Child of Peace nonprofit that helps juveniles work through anger issues. I’m also required to seek anger management counseling on my own. Oh, and I can’t leave the state until my six months of probation are over.

So much for that trip back down to Austin, though it seems so insignificant now that I haven’t been robbed of something so important. I’ll wait to see Mason, Mackenzie, and Charlotte if it means I don’t have to spend a day behind bars.

I place the folder on the passenger’s seat and shift into drive. I’ll head back to my place, grab a shower, and wait for Layla’s shift to end. I can’t fucking wait to share the good news with her. I know she’s been just as worried as me over this. The way she crawled on top of me just after midnight told me she couldn’t sleep. And I was happy to oblige her desires because I couldn’t calm the hell down, either.

But now, we can.

32

Luke

The air conditioning hits me as I walk through the door and loosen my tie. Unknotting it, I make my way into the kitchen and place it on the counter, along with my paperwork from the hearing. I grab cold water out of the fridge and drink half the bottle, my eyes shifting to Layla’s scrubs draped over the back of a kitchen chair.

Yesterday when she came over after her shift, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on her. I pulled her shirt off and tossed it over the chair. Her pants, panties, and bra followed. We fucked against the kitchen table before I took her up to the shower and washed the sweat from the day off her body. Afterward, we fell into bed, only getting out once for me to get the takeout that was delivered. We spent the rest of the evening tangled up with our thoughts, food, and watching reality T.V.

I finish the rest of the water and toss it into the recycling bin before making it up the stairs. This sense of certainty comes over me. I can’t describe it. Maybe it’s happiness? For the first time in a long time, I’m okay with myself and looking forward to the future. There’s not this idling pressure in my chest that’s ready to blow. My eyes aren’t holding any anger but rather hope, and I’m clinging to it.

Stripping, I toss my clothing into the dirty hamper and hop in the shower. I let the day swish down the drain and grab a towel to dry off. Wrapping it around my hip to tuck it, I venture back into the bedroom and bite back my smile at the messy sheets.

For years, there’s always been a place for everything. When things lay around, I find it distracting, and it only adds to my stress, but I’m finding I don’t mind as much. Her clothing on the kitchen chair and the sheets crying to be made are all signs of me getting my old life back, of me getting her back. If it means seeing a little disarray, then so be it.

Making my way to my dresser, something sounds, and it’s almost like a phone vibrating on a flat surface. When I look at both nightstands, I realize my phone is on neither. What the hell? I round back to the bathroom, realizing I had set my cell on the counter before I hopped in the shower. Only when I light up the screen, there are no notifications. No missed calls or texts.

I chalk it up to nothing in particular and head back into the room to get dressed, only I hear it again moments later, and this time I put effort into tracking it. My eyes focus on the bed because it sure as shit sounds like it’s coming from that direction. Pulling my shirt down my torso, I yank the sheets up and down, back and forth. I see it when I crouch to move a pillow that somehow ended up on the floor.

Layla’s cell.

I grab it, and when I do, the screen lights up and vibrates for a third time. What the hell is so damn important? Putting a hand on my knee and pushing to my feet, I sit on the edge of the bed. I’m ready to set it on the nightstand for when Layla comes home, but then this paranoia chokes me out, telling me to investigate further even though I know Layla has been here with me every night this week.

I swipe the screen to unlock it, but she has a password set. I think back to what it was when we dated, typing in her birthday. I understand how much of an invasion of privacy this is, yet I can’t help myself. I tap the tiny icon at the top, seeing a string of emails responsible for the noises I heard, the timestamps for each on the right-hand side with the incoming name of Mr. Aubrey Dredging.

My insecurities get the best of me, and I open the first email, scanning the listings within the body of it. It takes less than a minute to put the pieces together. All the listings are for nursing jobs. And none of them are in Maine.

My stomach constricts, and the feelings from this morning before I walked into the courthouse return. Betrayal winds around it, intensifying the ache in my diaphragm and the sharp pain working into the back of my neck. I press on to the second email and scan, but there aren’t listings in this one, only instructions and advice on which contracts are the best.

What the fuck? Is she leaving? I dart over to my dresser to pluck my phone from where I set it and open the calendar to check the date. “Shit.” Back when Layla and I initially started the fake dating deal, and I told her I would do it under one condition, I marked my calendar with a blue asterisk, knowing it would serve as a visual for counting down until she left.

“Her contract is almost over,” I say to no one but myself. “Why the fuck didn’t I realize it was coming up?”

She can’t still think I want her gone. She wouldn’t be getting these emails if she thought I wanted her to stay. Was I not vocal enough the other morning with her? All at once, my gears shift, the past coming back in full force. The memories of her running away when her father died, of her calling off the engagement, and of not seeing her for years flash before me, and suddenly, my chest cracks from the fury and torment of it all.

She got close to me, knowing that she would leave again. And I let it happen. I opened my arms and encouraged her back in my life. Once again, I’m playing the part of the lovesick fool.

God fucking damn it.

I barrel down the stairs, my feet thumping on each step as I go. I swipe my keys off the counter, not bothering to give the manilla folder with my community service and anger management information a second glance. Right now, I don't care about that.

What I do care about?

Being the fucking idiot in this story of Layla and me for the second—and last—time.

Three hours pass until Layla finally walks through the door with the key I gave her two nights ago looped around her finger. I gave it to her because I want her to feel at home here. The house she rents must be lonely. Here, there’s me. Only, I’m regretting it now.

How fucking stupid am I?

I’ll never do this again. Never give her the benefit of the doubt. It’s obvious that Layla and I already had our time. It ended when she fled Quaint, and I need to get on board with that. I need to accept spending the rest of my life with someone else because Layla isn’t it, and that fucking kills me.

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