I knew we were just friends, maybe not even that. He was my partner. But it was getting harder and harder not to imagine how lovely it would be if he were more. His arm brushed against mine as he reached for the iPad on my lap and I shivered.
“Are you cold?” he asked, slipping his arm around me.
My skin sparked to life, burning everywhere we touched. I was the opposite of cold, but I’d rather suffocate in my own inferno of shameful longing than ask him to move his arm.
What was wrong with me? I didn’t let boys distract me. I’d made it seventeen years without falling for one. I would not let Wyatt Nash break my perfect record.
We had one more week together. I could make it seven days, right?
Wyatt settled in next to me, giving me another heart-stopping smile.
Seven days, I reminded myself. Keep it together, Layne. But as the score to my favorite movie started up, my heart was already trying to ignore reason.
Maybe watching Say Anything with Wyatt was a bad idea. We were basically Lloyd and Diane, but in reverse.
Did that mean our fate would be as harrowing?
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Wyatt
Halfway through the movie my phone started buzzing. I looked down, groaning when I saw who it was. I ignored the call and turned my phone on silent, but that didn’t stop it from vibrating incessantly.
The last thing I wanted to do was pick up the call. I was enjoying my perfect bubble of bliss way too much. Layne was tucked against me, reciting her favorite lines and giggling adorably at everything Lloyd did.
She’d been right, the movie was great, and I was desperate to see if the anxiously aimless Lloyd came out on top.
He was as unlikely a hero as I was, but I strangely found myself rooting for him. Perhaps it was because I saw so much of myself in him. And so much of Layne in Diane’s character. It was completely unreasonable, but I felt like if Diane and Lloyd could find a happily ever after, that meant there was hope for me and my Penny Layne.
So, when my phone buzzed for the tenth time, I wanted to throw it across the room.
“You can answer it,” Layne said.
“Sorry. I probably should or they’ll just keep calling.” I paused the movie and reluctantly unwrapped my arm from around Layne, sliding out of bed to take the call.
“Hey,” I said into the phone.
Screaming on the other end made me pull the phone away from my ear as my teammates’ voices filled the room. “Wyatt! We won! Woohoo!”
“Congrats,” I replied.
“You should be here, man! Yeah, come out and celebrate with us.”
“Nah, I’m gonna sit this one out, mates.”
“Come on, Nash! Don’t be lame!”
“Sorry. Doctor’s orders.”
“Aw come on, we’re at Noah’s,” Jake yelled. “You can be here in like thirty minutes.”
“Yeah,” another of my teammates chided. “Since when does a sprained ankle mean you can’t party?”
“Uh, since I know how your parties end up,” I remarked.
More laughter and cheering ensued on the other end and I could already picture the raging party Jake was throwing at his cousin Noah’s lake house.
I’d been to Noah Scott’s place a few times last summer when he was home from college. The kid threw legendary parties, but there was always some kind of drama.
That kind of thing had never really been my scene, but to fit in with my teammates I’d had to endure more than my fair share of shenanigans since moving to Northwood. In the last few times I’d partied with the baseball team, I’d seen a kid drive his car into Noah’s front garden, someone fall out of a tree, a bonfire rage out of control and six guys sink a paddle boat in the lake during a midnight race.
I looked down at Franken-boot. Yeah, one sprained ankle was more than enough for me.
“Sorry, I’ve got a checkup with my doc next week and I’m not adding more time to my sentence in this boot.”
“Not even to party with us?”
“Sorry, mates. Tie one on for me, though. Go Trojans.”
“Go Trojans!” the guys echoed.
I sighed, grateful they were so easily distracted. I congratulated them again and hung up the phone, climbing back into my bed.
Even though Layne was still sitting there, her face bright and unassuming, the reality I’d been trying to avoid came crashing back in.
This wasn’t my real life. In a week, the competition would be over, and I wouldn’t have an angel distracting me from my bleak future. My ankle hurt just thinking about it. I undid the straps and loosened the boot so my foot could breathe.
I’d forgotten to take any Tylenol today and hadn’t had time to ice my ankle at all. Normally, having Layne around was all the pain relief I needed. But my sudden reality check was sobering me from the euphoria she normally made me feel.
I was aware of her eyes on me as I massaged my swollen ankle. I tried to wiggle my toes and hissed in pain. Layne was instantly by my side. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“Do you need some ice or something?”
“Tylenol would probably help. It’s on my dresser.”
She climbed off my bed and returned with the pills, handing me a water bottle from my nightstand. “Can I get you anything else?”
I shook my head. Layne put the pill bottle back and climbed into my bed again, settling closer to me this time. “I think you may have overdone it on stage, Donny,” she teased.
“Hey, I was Donny and Marie, thank you very much.”
She giggled. “How did you know your crazy plan would work tonight?”
“I didn’t.”
“Really? You didn’t think I’d get up on stage with you?”
I shook my head. “I knew you could, and I hoped you would, but I was never going to force you to do something you didn’t want to do.”
“Well, I’m glad I did it. It really convinced me that I need to stop being so afraid of everything if I ever want my music to have a chance.”
I nodded. “It’s all about trust.”
“Trust?”
“Yeah, you’ve got to learn to trust yourself, your instincts, your talent . . . your partner,” I added, wiggling my eyebrows.
She knocked her shoulder into mine and grinned. “So, where did you learn all this trust stuff?”
I huffed a laugh. “It’s more like trust issues in my house.”
“Your mom doesn’t seem so bad,” Layne said.
“She’s not.”
“So, then why the trust issues?”
Why did this keep coming up tonight? I looked down at my lap, wondering how best to avoid dredging up all the bad memories I associated with my father. All the times he’d let me down, choosing work and clients over me, telling me I wasn’t good enough when he did bother to show up.
“I mean, I get it,” Layne said. “I have a hard time trusting people after my dad ditched me.”
My eyes met hers and she sighed, picking at an invisible spec on my comforter.
“I was eight when he left,” she said. “He went to work one day, emptied our bank account and just disappeared like we didn’t matter at all. Like he wasn’t abandoning us and ruining our lives.” Her dark eyes met mine. “I know it wasn’t my fault he left, I do, but the thing I hate most is that no matter what I tell myself, he still took a part of me that I’ll never get back. The part that believed people were good, that part that believed in hopes and dreams and love.”