“You like her,” Layne concluded.
It took some time but he finally dredged it up and, when he did, Jasper grunted, “Yeah.”
Layne smiled at him and straightened off his arms, saying, “Then good luck, Bud.”
Released, Jasper made a break for it, muttering, “Whatever.”
Layne watched his boy move from the room and it hit him that from the minute he lost his virginity at fifteen to Cindy Stanley, a junior with a great rack and a broken home and a need to get whatever attention she could no matter what form it came in, he’d been like Jasper. No steady girl. No one special. The field wide and open and he’d played it. His mother called it “gathering lipstick” (though she did this while muttering and shaking her head) and she was not wrong.
Until Rocky.
He found himself wondering what Keira Winters was like when he heard a car on the street.
His eyes went to the clock and then he walked to the window in the front room, saw Rocky swinging her Merc into his drive and he went straight to the door and out of it.
As he strode down his walk toward her car, he looked across the cul-de-sac of which he was on the southern edge of the curve. Natalie Ulrich lived on the northern edge of the curve. Natalie Ulrich never parked her car in her garage so it was now in her drive. Natalie Ulrich had a huge fucking mouth and ran it as often as she could. And Natalie Ulrich was a surgical nurse at Presbyterian.
She might have missed Layne backing Rocky into her car the morning before. She might not see what Layne was going to do now.
Then again she might.
And if she did, yesterday was all over Presbyterian Hospital and what he was going to do right now would be all over the hospital, and town, before his head hit the pillow.
His eyes moved to Rocky who’d rounded the trunk of her car and met him where the drive met his walk. She’d changed out of her tight skirt and high-heeled shoes and now she was wearing tight jeans, a light, also tight, sweater and a pair of high-heeled sandals.
Layne stood smack in her way so she stopped and tilted her head back to look at him.
“Is everything –?” she started but he lifted both his hands to curl around her jaws and he pulled her up to her toes. Her body instantly got tight. “Layne, what –?”
She didn’t finish because he dropped his head to kiss her like he did that afternoon. He did it hard but, this time, he did it long. Long enough for her fingers to curve around the sides of his waist and he pulled her close enough and high enough for her to lose balance so her chest was resting against his.
Her lips tasted like mint and he released her when the urge to find out if her mouth tasted the same threatened to overpower him.
He released her mouth but he didn’t release her jaw and he kept her close with his two hands there.
“What on –?”
“Natalie Ulrich ever work with your dickwad ex?” Layne whispered and saw her face pale. She misunderstood him. Natalie wasn’t hard on the eyes. “Sweetcheeks,” he kept whispering, “she lives across the street and the woman has a big mouth.”
He kept her where she was but his eyes slid to Natalie’s house. He was right, he could see her silhouette in the front window.
Fucking brilliant.
Layne looked back at Rocky and finished, “And she’s watchin’.”
“She is?” Rocky whispered back, her fingers flexing into his waist.
“Yeah, can’t see her well but I’m pretty sure she’s got her phone glued to her ear.”
“Oh boy,” Rocky was still whispering.
Layne grinned and didn’t move.
When this lasted awhile, Rocky asked, “Are we going to stand out here all night and pretend we’re kissing?”
“Maybe,” Layne replied.
“That would be bad since I’m starving,” she returned.
“No, Roc, that would be bad because you’re about to enter a testosterone zone and no one in that house has the first clue how to cook.”
“Then I’ll cook,” she offered and his hands slid down her neck to her shoulders and then around her back and he pulled her closer.
“Nope, you cooked last night. We had a huddle before you arrived and Jas has decided he’s going to amaze you with his culinary brilliance.”
He watched her eyebrows go up. “You had a huddle?”
“Yeah,” his arms gave her a squeeze then he dropped one, slid the other one to her shoulders, he moved to her side and walked them forward, “they’ve been briefed.”
She slid her arm around his waist and turned her head to the side, tilting it up to look at him and he felt the soft hair of her ponytail glide across his forearm at her shoulders. “They okay with, um… everything?”
Layne nodded. “They’re good.”
She looked to the house as they took the two steps to the small, white fenced, cement front porch and whispered, “Okay.”
She didn’t sound okay. She sounded tentative and scared as hell.
He pushed her forward, opened the storm door and held it over her head as he shoved the front door open and she preceded him.
“Hey Mrs. Astley!” Tripp shouted, sliding across the wood floors on his tube socks with his greeting and Layne decided that lessons in cool were definitely in order for his younger son.
“Hey Tripp,” Raquel replied and then was hit dead on with a frontal assault from Blondie that rocked her back on one of her slim high heels.
“Down, Blondie,” Layne ordered, closing and locking the door and Blondie ignored him for the first time in her life, pawing at Rocky’s fancy-ass sweater and aiming repeated lashing of her tongue on Rocky’s neck like Rocky’s perfume was eau du bacon. “Tripp, get her off Roc.”