Though she kept their intermittent financial troubles to herself, Liam’s need to always have the best of everything—the luxury cars, the electronics, the latest gadget, the tailored wardrobe—had not gone unnoticed by anyone in Layla’s family.
“Champagne tastes on a beer budget,” her brother had once said to Liam after he’d bragged about something in front of her family while he was in between jobs. Liam had laughed like it was funny, but he’d been quick to put her brother in his place by stating loudly that their budget was also champagne because the next new job was already in the works. And this one would pay even better than the last!
Layla had cringed.
And certainly, if Liam did in fact have that champagne taste, then he would always make sure he had the budget to back it up, right? And most of the time he did.
Most of the time.
When she and Liam had been married for seven years, her parents asked her to come over for dinner. “We’d like you to come alone,” they said. “It’s a private family matter.”
Layla had driven to their house worrying about what they might tell her. Was someone sick? Was there a job loss? Layla’s thoughts raced as she imagined the potential scenarios.
They’d sat down at the kitchen table and her parents had laid it out for her. They’d decided to do some estate planning, and every January for the next several years they were going to be gifting some money to Layla and her siblings. “We’d rather give it to you now,” her dad said.
Layla had been stunned.
“I don’t know what to say,” she said. Her parents, who had worked all their lives to provide a good home for her and her brother and sister, had somehow found the capacity to save and gift despite what looked to an outsider like very modest means.
“There are tax benefits for doing it this way,” her dad said. “Your mom and I are getting older and it makes sense.”
“Thank you,” she said. “I just … thank you.”
“Can I make a suggestion?” her dad said.
“Of course,” she said.
“This is a gift and we can’t tell you what to do with it. If we wanted to put strings on it your mom and I wouldn’t have decided to give it to you in the first place. But maybe you could set yours aside, open an account with just your name on it somewhere. Then when you needed it or if there was something you’ve always wanted to do for yourself, it would be waiting there for you.”
She tried her best not to cry and failed. She nodded, and her dad reached across the table and squeezed her hand.
Two years later, Liam decided they should buy a new house.
chapter 36
Layla
Josh arrived five minutes early on Saturday. “Maybe we should come up with a code word,” Layla said. “For our protection.” Josh was tall and he had the kind of body that looked strong and capable and like it had been built by physical work. Plus, he did that boxing thing a few nights a week and she’d had a daydream or two where she imagined him boxing without a shirt on. His hands were rough, and he had an interesting scar on his palm that Layla had asked him about the second night they worked on the puzzle together. He told her he’d brushed a live wire when he was an apprentice and had never made that mistake again.
“A code word,” Josh said.
“In case it seems super sketchy or like something that might get us both killed.”
“There’s that imagination again.”
“I do tend toward worst-case scenarios.” That was what happened after years of Liam knocking her off her axis. Springing his latest news on her, news that never seemed to be all that positive and was often some sort of setback in the making.
“Well, then, I guess we’ll need a safe word.”
Layla laughed. “I said code word. That’s different than a safe word. And our code word is Gibson.”
“Gibson. Got it,” he said.
They needn’t have worried. The seller turned out to be a man in his late seventies who was selling the belongings of his son who had died the year before in a terrible auto accident. The guitar was in wonderful shape and Layla bought it on the spot with the cash she’d withdrawn from the bank on her way home from school on Friday. Maybe someday she would learn that not everything in life was a shit show, and sometimes things worked out exactly the way she hoped they would.
The man seemed lonely, and Josh sat patiently as Layla listened to him reminisce about his son and how much music and the guitar had meant to him.
“Is it okay if I use your restroom?” Josh asked about twenty minutes later.
“It’s right down the hall,” the man said.
Layla had not let go of the guitar. The mother-of-pearl inlay shimmered in the afternoon sunlight that streamed in through the living room window. Josh came back from the bathroom, but he didn’t sit back down on the couch next to Layla. He pulled his keys from his pocket and gave them a little jingle. “Okay,” he said. “We should probably get going.” His words sounded clipped, and maybe she and the man had been reminiscing longer than she thought.
“Thank you so much,” Layla said to the man.
“It was my pleasure, dear. Maybe you can come back again sometime.” His eyes shined with unshed tears, and when he reached out and clasped her hands in his Layla swallowed the lump in her throat. He was kind and he’d suffered a horrible loss, and now she was going to waltz right out of there with a guitar that he could have gotten a lot more money for. At least she could take comfort in the fact that she and Josh might have been the only bright spot in an otherwise long and lonely day.
“I’m sorry about that,” Layla said when they got back in Josh’s truck. “I probably got carried away. I can talk guitars for a long time, and I’m sure you were bored. He was just so nice, and he seemed lonely.”
“No need to apologize. You were fine. It’s just that when I walked down the hall to the bathroom, the door to one of the bedrooms was wide open, and something caught my eye. I took a quick look.”
“What was it?” she said as he backed out of the driveway, her curiosity rising.
“Just an entire wall covered in knives.”
Layla’s eyes grew big. “What do you mean knives?”
Josh handed her his phone. “Here. I snapped a quick picture for you.”
She looked at the picture. Not just knives. Swords, daggers, a twelve-inch butcher knife. A serrated one with a curve at the end. Fifty at least on one wall alone. There was a neatly made bed and a nightstand beside it with a perfectly normal lamp on top. The juxtaposition only made the knives creepier.
“That’s a whole lotta knives, Layla.”
“Gibson. Gibson!” she yelled, half serious but half laughing because they weren’t in any danger now, but it blew her mind how wrong she might have been about the lonely old man.
“People collect all kinds of things,” Josh said. “And he certainly wasn’t trying to hide it.”
“Or he starts in that room and has a more private and secluded one in the basement.” Layla exhaled and it was a mixture of incredulity and relief. She turned to Josh. “Do I strike you as a gullible person?”