Page 29 of Second Draft

Usually I’d say no. But I’m exhausted and all I want to do is sleep. Well, that’s not exactly true. There are a lot of things I want to do. All of them involving Carter Bennet.

But sleep, and maybe a warm bath will have to suffice.

Chapter 11

Carter

Upstairs, I pass Layla’s room. The door is open a few inches. Enough that I can see in. Everything is neat, perfectly ordered. Even the damn bed is made. And not just a quick toss of the covers, but perfectly made, like they do in hotels, with the creases and the folded edges.

Another weird quirk that I want to know more about.

I press the door open wider, breathing in her soft scent.

I know I shouldn’t be in here. But I want to know more about her, and right now she isn’t exactly offering many details.

The room is pretty bare. Other than her books, which are piled neatly around the room, and an ancient laptop that looks like it was built in the Middle Ages, there’s nothing that really makes it hers.

No pictures, no little trinkets. Just books. So many damn books.

Romance.

Mysteries.

Biographies.

Classics.

She even has one of those electronic eBook readers.

A tattered copy of War and Peace sits on her nightstand. I pick it up and shake my head. I’m pretty sure I haven’t read the equivalent pages in my entire life, but it’s obvious that this book has been read and reread several times.

I’m about to put it back, when I see the edge of a photo sticking out. I flip open the ragged cover, and pull out the picture. A family portrait. One of those posed ones that make everyone look awkward and depressed. The father is in a suit, his expression overly serious as he stares into the camera with a self-righteous expression. The mother’s expression isn’t much softer, but it’s the grip on the little girl’s shoulder that draws my eye. Like claws, her fingers seem to dig into the child’s flesh painfully.

Layla is about nine or ten in the picture. Same light brown eyes. Her hair a lighter shade of brown, pulled painfully tight in a braid. And she looks completely miserable.

Protectiveness swells inside me.

“You shouldn’t be in here.” Like stealth, Layla comes up behind me and grabs the picture out of my hand.

Shit.

“I’m sorry. The door was open…” Not an excuse. I hand her the book. “Sorry. You’re right.”

She glares up at me, then quickly tucks the picture back in the book, and clutches it to her chest.

“We’re you checking up on me?”

“No.” I rub the back of my neck.

“Because I have nothing to hide,” she says defensively.

“I didn’t think you did. I’m sorry, really. It won’t happen again. This is your space and I shouldn’t have been in here.”

“No. You shouldn’t have been.” She turns her back on me and tosses a bag of what looks like more books on her bed.

I know why she works so much. To pay for her damn reading habit.

The thought gives me an idea of something I’d like to do for her. The basement has been left unfinished for years. Just cement floor and insulation. But the space is big enough for a den, or more specifically a library slash office, where she could go to read and write.

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