“Looks like you all had a wild night,” the driver remarks before the door closes and the overhead light goes out again.
Ignoring him, I lean closer to Lyla to whisper, “Do you want to go to the emergency room to get checked out?”
“No. I’m fine, just embarrassed. What a shitty day.”
It’s not like I can drag her down to the hospital to make her get checked out, so I’ll have to take her word for it that her injuries are minor.
When I hear her sniffle as if she’s crying, I think maybe she’s lying. Not sure what I should say or do, I reach over to cover the top of her hand gently with mine.
Lyla doesn’t pull away from me; she wraps her fingers around mine and gives them a squeeze, holding on tight like it’s the comfort she needed but was too stubborn to admit.
Dammit. I don’t want to drop her off and leave her alone at home. She’s upset, and she could be more injured than she’s admitting. I should just call Laurel and tell her.
Except I know the sisters don’t have the best relationship. I thought the sun shined out of Laurel’s ass for years, but now, thanks to the long list of negative things Lyla told me about her, I realize I didn’t actually know her well at all.
The van slows to a stop at the curb of the dark, empty ranch house, not a single light on inside, and then the side doors both slide open.
“Thanks for everything,” Lyla says before she slips her hand out from under mine to get out on the left side. Before she even walks all the way around the rear bumper, I’m out of the van too.
“I’m going to stay with her,” I tell RJ when he opens the passenger door.
“Huh?”
“What?” Lyla asks when she spins around on the sidewalk to face us.
“She’s hurt and had a bad night. What if she has a concussion? She did hit her head,” I explain to my brother.
“So, we’re going to stay here with her?”
“You don’t have to stay. I can handle it.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, go home. It’s late.”
“Okay,” he agrees as he shuts his door again and turns to the driver. The side doors close, and then the van pulls away.
“What are you doing?” Lyla asks when we’re alone on the sidewalk.
“I’ll just hang out until your dad or grandmother get home.”
“It’ll be hours before they leave the party…”
“That’s fine. I can just sit out here on the porch so you won’t be alone.”
“Ah, I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” she replies.
“Why not?”
“We have one of those doorbell cameras, motion activated and all.”
“Oh.”
Walking up to me, she says, “If my dad sees a guy hanging around outside the house, he’ll show up with a bunch of bikers and probably shoot you.”
“You think I should leave?” I ask. It occurs to me that I probably should’ve asked her if she wanted me to stay first. Lyla doesn’t know me that well. Just because we had lunch together once and I was married to her sister doesn’t mean she trusts me.
“No, I think we should sneak you in around the back of the house.” She grabs my hand, and then I’m following her to the far side of the yard, past the double garage, to the back of the house. She stops below a double window.
“Stay here,” she says. “I’ll go inside and unlock the window.”
“You want me to come inside?”
“If you want to stay. There aren’t any cameras inside.”
“Okay.”
“Wait here?”
“Yeah,” I agree.
This is a bad idea, going into my former in-laws’ house while they’re not home to hang out with his youngest daughter. If her father catches me here, well, it won’t matter that she’s a woman in her twenties or that I haven’t laid a hand on her. He’ll still put a bullet through my skull.
But the risk seems worth it because I don’t think Lyla wants to be alone, and she’s too stubborn to admit it.
The light inside the house comes on right before Lyla appears at the windows, obviously trying her best to push either of them up, but neither will budge.
I can’t help but wonder if her father did that on purpose. If so, that’s one hell of a fire hazard.
She points her finger over to the right before disappearing. The light behind a smaller, higher single window comes on. Before I even walk over, I hear the latch click, and then it slides to the side. “Can you fit through this one? I can’t get the others up.”
I consider the dimensions for a few seconds. “Probably, but it’ll be tight,” I say as I also judge the distance from the ground. Since it’s higher than I can reach on my tiptoes, I get a running start to jump up and grab the window ledge. Just as I begin to heft myself up, I realize there’s a problem.
My head and one shoulder go through…before I get stuck.
“Well, fuck,” I grumble. Lifting my neck to see her face, I tell her. “Sorry about the f-bomb.”
“It’s fine. I’m twenty-one, not twelve,” she remarks.
Twenty-one? Really? I keep forgetting that she and Laurel weren’t born much more than a year apart.
“I guess the window is, um, narrower than it looked. I could try to help pull you in,” she offers.
Since I’m not going anywhere on my own, in or out, I agree. “Okay.”
Lyla grabs the back of my cut, which slips right over my head, hanging in my face so that I can’t see a damn thing.
“Whoops,” Lyla whispers.
“It’s fine as long as it doesn’t tear. Remy would chew my ass out if it’s even scuffed. Pull it off my arm to get it out of my face?”
“Sure.”
With a little maneuvering, I yank my arm backward so Lyla can get my cut free so it’s dangling from the arm that’s still outside, before she tells me, “You’re too wide. Maybe…maybe you can try and twist your body sideways.”
I wiggle around, getting a few more inches inside.
“Your, um, chest is too wide.”
“No shit,” I snap, getting a little annoyed dangling off the ground.
“I could try pushing you in from outside.”
“You’re probably not tall enough to reach my ass. I had to jump to make it.”
“Oh. Well, then, I don’t know.”
“I don’t either,” I say as I quit flailing around aimlessly to think.
Eventually, Lyla says, “If you take your shirt off, I could grease you up with like oil or something.”
“Do you really think greasing me up will gain any progress?”
“Do you have any other ideas?” she asks. And no, I don’t.
Nodding, I tell her, “Grab the back of my shirt.”
We manage to get it over my head and off one arm.
“I’ll grab some baby oil!”
“Great. Can’t wait,” I mutter.
Lyla
There’s a huge, half-naked man hanging out of my bathroom window. Never in my life have I snuck in a boy, much less a bigger-than-average man.
As soon as Barrett gets free, he’s probably going to run like his ass is on fire away from me.