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Layla is snuggling with her boyfriend, chatting with him as she snacks on some cheese and crackers. I think she needs real food, but at least she’s eating something. The constant fainting is getting a little irritating.
She needs to eat more.
Draven’s glance at me makes me realize that I made some kind of noise to myself. Fuck. She’s like a damn infection, burrowing under my skin. The old me enjoyed taking care of people, keeping gummy bears in my pocket or Mav’s for Lennon.
Now? Caring about people hurts. It cuts both ways because I just manage to disappoint them, and they disappear which makes me feel abandoned. I haven’t texted Lennon again. I should be crawling across glass to make things right with her,but I know it all starts with the woman across from me, smiling at her man.
She used to smile at me.
I shouldn’t be thinking about how it feels like the sun is always shining when Layla Campbell smiles at you. Maybe that was one of the appealing things about moving to the UK, when I left everything behind: the overcast days.
Forcing air into my lungs, I stare out the window, ignoring her laugh. It’s nearing one in the morning and we’re headed to Kansas City, Missouri. We quickly packed up our bags and checked out of Chicago. I don’t blame Tyler for moving like someone set his ass on fire. Chicago doesn’t feel safe for any of us, especially the blonde girl who finds herself attracting dangerous attention.
Fuck, I’m just talking myself in circles. I’m pissed off and horny, and I shouldn’t feel either of those things for Layla. Pushing myself to stand, I scrub my spiky blond hair with my hand, deciding I need a shower.
Maybe it’ll help me get some perspective. My tight black shirt and jeans are bothering me, so it’s time to get something more comfortable. I hope that this is what I need to get back to normal, because everything is annoying me.
Can men go into asshole menopause? Obviously not, but my skin feels too tight. While I’d normally have Mav fuck my bad attitude out of me, I won’t do that on the bus, not ever again.
My eyes naturally find Layla, who just finished polishing off her snack.
“We should get a real breakfast in the morning,” I say to the bus, because I’m sure as fuck not speaking to her. “Maybe we can find a decent place before we check in. Performing always makes me feel like my stomach is attempting to eat itself afterwards.”
Tyler’s lips twitch as he nods. “Hungry, angry ogres are definitely not something on my bingo card for tomorrow,” he says, making me snort in amusement.
I kind of wish he wasn’t such a good person. Is there an asshole that lies in wait? Oh, for sure. Tyler just isn’t an asshole to Layla I’ve noticed.
“I believe you promised me my bed and snuggles.” Layla grins. I notice as I move to my bunk to grab a towel and clothes that Draven follows them nonchalantly.
“Night,” he says as he passes me. Draven’s become a staple next to Layla and it both irritates me and makes me sad. It feels as if he’s chosen a side, just like Mav has. I’m the only one who still irrationally hates this beautiful girl.
I grunt in response as I squeeze myself into the tiny bathroom. Everything about Layla makes me twitch. The way the corners of her eyes crinkle with the smiles, how she scrunches her nose when she’s writing in her notebook, and the way her legs would look wrapped around my waist.
Fuck me.
Stripping my clothes off, I shake my head as I turn on the water for the shower. Mav and I left our lives so we could give her space, let her grow up without our presence. Neither of us wanted to remind her of our rejection, and I didn’t want to feel the crushing shame.
Stepping inside, I’m pleasantly surprised to find the water warm instead of freezing cold. I hate these tiny bathrooms, almost sharing in my old ex-friend Turner’s unhinged love affair with the opulence of a real bathroom.
Sighing, I stand as the water runs over me to really think about it all.
Mav and I haven’t fucked around outside of each other in years. Yeah, we enjoyed pushing others to the edges of theircomfort, teasing people to orgasm at clubs under anonymity, but we didn’t fuck them.
It was more about the high of the power play between us. Mav and I lost interest in fucking anyone except each other. I think emotionless sex is now overrated for me. I’m sure my old bandmates thought we had both taken a vow of chastity, since they didn’t know we were together, but it never really came up. Lenny, Turner, and Roark fucked each other without a care, so they never got very caught up in our sex lives.
Stealing some of Layla’s frou-frou face wash, I scrub my face. It smells a little like cucumber, and it’s surprisingly not terrible.
I pretend I haven’t looked Layla up on social media at all while I’ve been gone, but that’s a lie. She looked happy as she climbed the charts, and she’s in a lot of photos with Tyler. I don’t know why her uncle chose us to be her bandmates, outside of maybe familiarity.
We’d never creep into her room to do God knows what, or miss a cue on purpose. Tonight was wild because the brat refused again to give us a single clue as to what her next song was. I can’t even bring myself to call her petty, not after what Mav and I have put her through.
What the memories of our actions and words have done.
How would it feel to have an ugly, running mantra of words running through your head, that reminds you constantly that you’re not enough? Biting my lip as I struggle to think of things from her point of view, I wash my face.
Shampooing my hair next, I remember the hesitance in her eyes when we goaded her to showing us her songs. My annoyance at her twisted my words into live weapons, because I literally ached to hear what she’d been working on. Now, I think her refusal came because they were so raw, so definitely about Mav and I.
My poker face is better than most, and Mav and I pretended they weren’t about the two of us. We pushed her work on the music, drawn to the emotions of her words. If she can feel like this, then…
