TRIP Page 8

Her giggles almost set me off on a laughing fit of my own, and it took me a minute to pull myself together. By the time I snuck another peek, she wasn’t in the same spot anymore. I knew she couldn’t have gone far, so I threw a handful of Skittles in her general direction.

  Her scream echoed through the store, followed by her admonition. “I’m ignoring you!”

  Oh yeah? Let’s see her try to ignore this. I tore the bag wide open with my teeth and threw it over the wall, grenade-style. I abandoned my attempt at stealth and stood up in time to see the rainbow explosion of Skittle-shrapnel pinging off the shelves.

  Layla screamed her head off as she dropped the stack of tapes in her hands and covered her head. My victory was short-lived, however, because once I ran over and saw her cowering on the floor, I actually felt really bad. Shit.

  I started to apologize, but when she dropped her arms from her face I could see she was laughing her ass off. “You idiot!” she cackled. “You almost killed me!”

  There was candy everywhere. She scraped a handful off the floor and threw it at me, but I swiped my arm across a shelf, blocking her assault with a shield of display boxes.

  And then I ran.

  She picked up one of the abandoned tapes from the floor and hurled it at me in retaliation just as I turned the corner. I ducked out of the way and crashed into the poster display, knocking it over and sending its contents rolling across the carpet.

  I crouched down behind Action Adventure and coiled my body, ready to spring into attack as I heard her clunky footsteps stomping toward me. But when I looked up, it wasn’t Layla standing over me.

  It was Martin.

  “What are you two doing?” he asked, torn between confusion and outrage.

  “Sorry, Martin,” I answered. “I uh, I dropped a bag of candy.”

  He scanned his eyes around the war zone. “And a bin of movie posters and a shelf of videos and...”

  Layla piped up in an attempt to save my ass. “We’re sorry, Martin. We got a little carried away.” She aimed an innocent-as-pie look at him, her wide eyes pleading.

  Martin knew damn well we were full of shit, but he decided to take mercy on us anyway. “Just clean up this mess before any customers come in and see it!” He ran a hand through his greasy hair and laid on the managerial charm, “And if you want to keep your jobs, I suggest you never pull anything like this ever again!”

  It was torture waiting for him to walk away, the both of us avoiding each other’s eyes as we choked back our laughter. But the second the office door closed behind him, we completely lost our shit. The two of us fell to the floor as we held our sides, actual tears streaming down our faces.

  We pulled ourselves together soon enough and simply went about the task of cleaning up our mess, crawling around on the carpet on our hands and knees, busting each other’s chops.

  “Now presenting Layla Streep in her star-making role as Mother Theresa,” I teased. “What was with that good-little-Catholic-girl look you shot him? Holy crap, I’m starting to think I picked the right actress for my movie.”

  Layla giggled and shot back, “Me? What about you?” She hunched her shoulders and lowered her voice to mumble, “‘I uh... I dropped some candy.’ You almost got us fired, DeNiro!”

  “I know. Holy shit. Sorry.”

  She waved me off. “Please. It was worth it.”

  “We still on for tomorrow?”

  She met my eyes, a gleaming smile stretched across her face. “Tuesday is Trip Day. You bet.”

  Trip Day. Nice. I popped a Skittle into my mouth, grinning like a madman. “Great. Then it’s a date.”

  Chapter 9

  MYSTERY DATE

  Speaking of dates... I hadn’t talked to Tess in over a week. I figured I’d better check in. It’s not like she was my girlfriend or anything, but I had to assume she’d be expecting me to call. I got her machine and left a message, but it wasn’t a huge surprise when she didn’t call me back.

  No matter. Between my new job and hockey and life in general, I was crazy-busy most nights anyway. Especially on Tuesdays.

  Our second Shakespeare Session had Layla and me trying out the “boosted” camera for the first time. We were having some trouble trying to figure out how to use it, and it wasn’t long before I threw in the towel in frustration. I had better things to do with my time. Namely, taking a dip in that awesome in-ground pool in her backyard. And wouldn’t you know it? I just so happened to have a pair of swim shorts in the back of my truck.

  Layla, however, refused to let the camera beat her, so I found myself swimming alone as she worked it out.

  “Aha!” she exclaimed at last, drawing my attention toward the chaise she’d been occupying. She was on her feet, the clunky videocam resting on her shoulder, aimed at me. “Wave, Wilmington! You’re on Candid Camera!”

  The girl just cracked me up. “You got it working?”

  “Yes!” she answered proudly. “The camera wasn’t the problem; it’s the easiest thing in the world. We were using an old videotape and the recording tab thingy was broken off!”

  I had no idea what she was talking about, but I was happy she’d figured it out.

  “Are you filming now?” I asked.

  “Sure am! Do something entertaining, will ya?”

  I cocked an eyebrow at her. “Why don’t you get changed out of that uniform and then we can ‘do something entertaining’ together.”

  She lowered the camera and shot a wiseass smirk at me. “Fine. You’re right. I’m sweating to death in this polyester skirt anyway.”

  I was kinda looking forward to seeing her in a bikini, but instead of a bathing suit, she changed into a Bon Jovi T-shirt and jean shorts and settled her pretty self back on the chaise.

  Dammit.

  “You’re not coming in?” I asked.

  “Nah. I figure at least one of us should start taking this project seriously.”

  She propped the camera back onto her shoulder again and started filming. I have to imagine she got some good footage of my diving prowess, because our afternoon consisted of little else. After a few hours of screwing around, however, we were no further along on our project than we’d been a week ago. Sooner or later, we were going to have to get some actual work done.

  But in the meantime, we were having a blast.

  We’d gone into the house so I could change back into my uniform, so we were standing in her foyer as it was time to say goodbye. As much as I enjoyed our Tuesdays together, I never liked when they came to an end.

  Lay had her hand on the door to see me out when I stopped her with, “Hey, you think I could get your phone number?” Her eyes flicked wide for a quick second before I could clear my throat and add, “Just in case we need to talk about our project.”

  “Oh yeah. Sure. The project. Of course.”

  She swiped a pen off the side table and grabbed my hand, scrawling the digits across my palm.

  And then... whether unthinking or by design... she puckered her lips and blew a soft wisp of air across the ink.

  She may as well have electrocuted me.

  I pulled my hand away a little too abruptly, said a stammered goodbye, and drove with a raging hard-on the entire way home.

  * * *

  It was pretty late by the time I called her later that night. I was in my room, fiddling with my Gordie Howe puck, staring at the ceiling... when I just said screw it.

  I dialed her number before I could talk myself out of it. What was the worst that could happen?

  She answered on the third ring, and I put on my best falsetto child voice to say, “Paging Layla Warren. Layla Warren to the front desk.”

  She giggled. “How’s it going, Pee Wee?”

  “Oh Jesus,” I laughed, returning my voice to normal. “Please don’t let that be your nickname for me.”

  “You brought it on yourself.” She snickered before asking, “So what’s up?”

  “Nothing,” I answered. “I guess I just missed you terribly.”


  “Oh, I’ll bet,” she said laughing, just like I knew she would.

  “You’re so predictable.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  I couldn’t contain the grin that eked across my face. “It’s weird. I feel like I know you so well already, and yet not really at all.”

  “Well,” she teased, “what do you need to know?”

  Everything.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Tell me something about yourself.”

  “Like what?”

  I knew I was fishing, but so what. “Like... Who was your first kiss?”

  “Brian Hollander.” She answered without hesitation, leading me to believe it must have been a memorable liplock. I had to fight the urge to be jealous.

  “I’m afraid I’m gonna have to ask you for some details, ma’am.”

  I swear, I could hear her rolling her eyes on the other end of the phone. “Twelve years old. Lisa’s basement. Spin the Bottle. I cut my lip on his braces.”

  “Those weren’t the details I was looking for.” I was expecting a girly, goopy recounting of the experience filled with pre-teen, starry-eyed awe. But her description of the event was pretty tame. Maybe I was wrong about Brian the Wonder Tongue. “What’s the matter? Brian Hollander didn’t sweep you off your pre-pubescent feet?”

  She snickered flatly, “Oh yeah. My world was duly rocked.”

  “He wasn’t a good kisser?”

  “No, he was fine. It’s just that... afterwards...”

  She trailed off, obviously avoiding what she wanted to say. Did he hurt her? I was about to track down the little douchebag and kick his ass. “Afterwards what? I’ll kill him.”

  “No!” she chuckled. “Brian didn’t do anything! He had nothing to do with it. Promise.” I stayed silent, forcing Layla to fill the empty space. She sighed in an attempt to sound unaffected. “It’s just that... when I got home afterward... my mother was gone. The day of my first kiss was the same day my mother moved out.”

  She obviously had no desire to dwell on it, because she quickly brought the conversation back around to our original subject. “Who was yours?”

  I was still reeling from what she’d just revealed about her mother, so I was caught off guard by what she was asking. “My first kiss?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Angela Scalisi. I guess I’ve always had a thing for Italian girls.” Hint hint.

  She didn’t rise to the bait and instead asked, “How old were you?”

  “Nine.”

  “That doesn’t count!”

  I laughed. “Why not?”

  “I meant like your first real kiss.”

  “Oh, it was real alright. Real awkward, real slobbery...”

  “You’re awful.”

  She giggled through her reprimand, which was so freaking cute I pretty much lost my mind, as evidenced by the fact that the next thing I blurted out was, “You want awful? Fine. Riddle me this: Who was the first guy you had sex with?”

  The question was out of my mouth before I had a chance to filter it.

  “Trip!” she exclaimed in faux outrage.

  “What?”

  “Forget it,” she said, a slight waver in her voice. “I am sooo not discussing this with you.”

  “Awww c’mon,” I chuckled, trying to save face. When I was met with silence, I could tell I wasn’t going to get much further with my line of questioning. “Okay, fine. Tell me something about Layla Warren that no one else knows.”

  “Hmmm.” I could hear her shifting under the covers, sinking into her pillows, and I tried to banish the image of her in bed so that I’d be able to continue our conversation without sounding like a raging pervert. “Well, I didn’t know how to be a girl until I was seven years old. Not until Lisa moved to my neighborhood. She made it her duty as ‘the most important female in my life’ to set me straight. Still took her a few years, though.”

  I snickered at the idea that Layla was ever anything less than gorgeous her whole life. “Years. Yeah, right. I’m sure you would have done just fine on your own.”

  “Not really. I was... different.”

  You still are, I thought. I knew why I thought she was so special, but I was curious to hear why she thought she was. “Why’s that?”

  “I don’t know. I was a weirdo. I spent all my time hanging out with the neighborhood boys next door. The McAllisters. Bad influence. They were like, way older than me and completely nuts.”

  That made me laugh. “How so?”

  “Just... all boy. There were four of them, and they were all around the same age as my cousins—also four boys—so when they were here for holidays and stuff, the whole crew would normally hang out, play football in the street or whatever.”

  “Your childhood friends were eight boys?”

  “Nine. Don’t forget about my little brother. Lisa and I were a little outnumbered.”

  “Nine boys and you and Lisa.”

  “Yep. She was such a girly girl, though. I’ve always said the reason she’s such a good flirt is because she practiced on all those guys growing up.”

  “You too?” I asked, a little too earnestly.

  “Me too what?”

  “Did you learn how to flirt because of them too?”

  “Me?” she snickered. “No. I went the opposite direction. I was too busy trying to beat them. I told you I was a tomboy. I don’t think you can appreciate how true that really was.”

  I pulled the phone a little tighter toward my mouth to say in a near-whisper, “Was. Not anymore, Lay. Trust me.”

  The ensuing silence conveyed all the things I couldn’t say. How beautiful I thought she was. How sexy. How I could just be going about my day, and then I’d see her, and then just the near proximity of her could drive me to the brink of insanity, dying to get my hands on her.

  I didn’t think she could appreciate how true that really was.

  While I was trying to recover from Layla’s stunned silence, my mother gave a knock on my open door. “It’s late.”

  “Yeah, sorry, Mom. I’m talking to Layla.”

  Lay’s voice blared against my ear. “Hi, Mrs. Wilmington!”

  I wiggled the phone toward my mother and conveyed my friend’s greeting.

  Mom crossed her arms over her chest and leaned against my door frame. “Hello, Layla,” she said through a smile before giving an impatient tap of her finger against her wrist.

  “Okay, fine, Ma. Hey, Lay? I gotta go.”

  Upon hearing my sign-off, Mom left the room.

  Good thing, because just then Layla purred, “Mmm. It is pretty late. Good thing I’m already in bed.”

  Oh holy Jesus. That was it. That’s what did it. Forget our confessions about first kisses or the heated pauses or any of the thoughts I’d been fighting so hard to keep out of my head. That sultry, sleepy voice traveling across our phone line is what put me right over the goddamn edge.

  My brain melted as my dick solidified, thinking about her lying in her bed, tangled in her sheets, wishing I was right there with her. “Yeah, me too.”

  I heard the slightest intake of breath before the line fell completely silent. Neither one of us acknowledged what I knew damn well we were both thinking. But I did manage to derive a bit of satisfaction when I heard the catch in her voice on her reply. “See you tomorrow.”

  Chapter 10

  MY GIRL

  I called Layla the next night, too.

  And the night after that.

  More often than not, I wouldn’t even say hello at her greeting, and simply launch into conversation, picking up where we’d left off the night before.

  By the third night of this, she called me out. “Trip,” she laughed. “Why didn’t you think to ask me about it today?”

  “I don’t know,” I answered, stalling for the right way to explain. “We’re... different at school.”

  There was a slight pause on her end before she finally capitulated. “I know what you mean.”

  It was cool that
we were on the same page about that. She knew damn well what our deal was. It was like we had five different relationships going on: School Us, Work Us, Tuesday Us, Weekend Us, and Phone Us. I was really digging Phone Us. As much as I enjoyed having her all to myself on Tuesdays, the safety of a phone line providing some distance between us allowed me to be myself.

  It seemed Layla and I spent every spare moment of that week on the phone. Talking about all that personal resume stuff, the list of unique things that made a human being who they were.

  How I couldn’t stop listening to the new Black Crowes album.

  How she was adamant that Teddy Ruxpin was the Scariest Toy in the World.

  How I thought The Godfather was the greatest movie ever made.

  How she had seen every episode of The Brady Bunch.

  More than once.

  And was proud of it.

  We would debate everything under the sun: Hockey vs. baseball, New York pizza vs. Chicago deep dish, “Moonlighting” vs. “Remington Steele.”

  But for everything we talked about, her favorite subject was always books.

  My God did that girl consume books. I never knew anyone who read as much as she did. I’d ask her what she was reading, and she’d offer up a different title practically every day.

  She’d tell me all about her favorites; I’d play her some new songs.

  We’d trade funny stories from our childhood. We’d talk about our day.

  We never discussed Cooper Benedict. She never asked about Tess Valletti.

  Not that there’d be much to tell. The only time Tess called me all week was because she needed a ride to go pick up her car from the shop. I took her out for a quick bite to eat afterward, but she didn’t even kiss me goodnight. I wondered if she could sense that I had another girl on my mind the entire time.

  Because I did. Constantly.

  The third week of our Shakespeare thing, we figured we’d better start doing some actual work. We filmed some practice scenes, but quickly put a halt to the show once Layla’s brother Bruce came home earlier than expected from freshman football practice. Rather than embarrass ourselves in front of an audience, we decided to focus on the technical process instead. Layla had been overly concerned with the editing procedure anyway, so Bruce’s arrival gave us the excuse to switch gears. Between the three of us, we MacGyvered a way to edit our film via a complicated system involving the camera, two VCRs, and a shit-ton of cables.