Forever Layla: A Time Travel Romance (15 page)

David eyed me and scrunched his forehead as he said, “Thanks for the cheerful advice there.”

“Neither of you are as stupid as the ex and I were when we got married, so don’t worry about ending up like us. I’d probably still be passed out on my desk or carted off and the office closed by corporate if Layla hadn’t planted herself in my office when she did. I started going to AA when I saw the office had potential again. Made me think I might have potential too.”

My eyes grew wide. “I didn’t know you joined AA.”

“Yeah, kept that on the down low. I didn’t want anyone to know in case I couldn’t clean myself up.”

Dinner was ready and we sat down to eat. Everything was delicious and the conversation became less of a downer. Then it was time to leave. David stood and pulled out my chair before taking my hand.

“Time to go home, are you ready?”

I stood and gazed into his eyes. “I am.”

David

WE PULLED INTO THE DRIVEWAY
of our new home. I parked the truck, turned off the ignition, and cut the lights. This was it. I was married to a super hot wife and this was our wedding night.

Crickets and cicadas sang from the wooded lot next to the house. The air in the truck was already turning thick with humidity since the air conditioning stopped. I swallowed and clenched the steering wheel as I thought of the kinds of things said in movies. “Are you ready to go in and go to bed, Mrs. Foster?” I suddenly felt like gagging. “Oh my…” I put my hands over my eyes.

Layla leaned toward me. “What’s the matter?”

“That’s what people call my mother.” I felt like gouging out my eyes as I connected the previous thoughts I was having with the thoughts of Mrs. Foster as my mother.

Layla reached over took my chin in her hand and forced me to look at her. Again, it reminded me of my mother. “David, stop it. I’m not your mother. Would it make you feel better if I kept my maiden name?”

I
considered what she was saying. “I don’t think so.” I was having trouble breathing. Like always, she reached into my pocket and handed me my inhaler.

“Calm down and breathe.”

I did as she said and forced the idea that it was exactly how my mother would handle me if she were here. “I’m sorry. I’m not being very manly at the moment.”

Layla leaned back and put her head on the headrest and sighed. “That’s for sure.”

Her words stung, and other images started flashing through my mind. This time it was Drunk Duke’s life but being played out by Layla and me. I pictured her looking at me all disappointed and me cowering at that look. It was like a movie playing in my head of me avoiding her, taking up drinking, and coming home to find an empty house one night. Again I started wheezing and took another puff of my inhaler.

“Why don’t we go in the house and just relax for a bit. Maybe take the pressure off. No one said we had to do anything right now, okay?” Layla opened her door instead of waiting for me and headed for the house. The set of her shoulders and her stride told me she was upset. I jumped out and soon followed. She started digging through her purse
, but I already had my key out from the truck. I unlocked the door, but just as she started to walk in, I stopped her.

“I’m sorry I flipped out just now. I didn’t get cold feet before
–maybe I didn’t think about what I was getting into before I was in it.”

Her face fell. “Are you sorry already?”

“No, no.” I shook my head and then stroked her cheek. “That was it for tonight’s freak out. I promise. Let’s start over and forget that happened, please.”

She nodde
d, and I moved closer until my lips made contact with hers. I pulled back sooner than I really wanted to and felt my goofy, one sided smile happening as it always did when I was with her. “There’s something a married couple traditionally does when they enter their house for the first time.” I reached down and swept her into my arms.

“Now this is more like it.” She put her arm around my neck and leaned in to kiss me. It was electric as softness
became heated and spread throughout my entire body. I turned us sideways so we could enter. I tried to close the door and still hold her like they do in the movies, but I just couldn’t maneuver it right.

“Just put me down
, and we can close it.”

I did as she said and shut the door before turning to face her. “Now what?” I swallowed.

“I got us something.” She ran to the kitchen and I followed. She opened the refrigerator and pulled out a box. “I ordered us a cake. Just a small one with a bride and groom on it. I’ve always wanted one of those toppers since I was a kid and saw one on display at my neighbor’s house.” She pulled the cake from the box and placed it on the kitchen table. It was just a round white layer cake but on the top was a blonde bride and dark-haired groom.

“You’ve thought about wedding cakes since you were a kid?”

“I’m a girl.” She spun around again and reached into the refrigerator once more. “I don’t usually drink, but again, I only get this one life with you, so I thought a little champagne would be nice.” There was a slight tremor in her voice. Maybe she was nervous too. She pulled the bottle out and put it on the table before she opened the freezer top of the fridge and retrieved two chilled glasses. “I bought a corkscrew. It’s in the junk drawer. Think you can work on the bottle while I grab a knife and some plates?”

I got to work on the bottle
, trying to remember how my dad did it. “I still can’t drink legally.”

“You can in your own home
; you just can’t buy it. Tonight will be many firsts for you then.”

I got the cork out with a pop and poured us each a glass, trying to cover my shaking. I handed her a glass and
looked into her dark eyes under long lashes. She was so beautiful, and she was mine. My wife. A gift sent to me from the future. “To us and to our future.” I started to drink, but then she stopped me.

“Let’s link arms like they do in the movies and take a selfie for our wedding album.” She walked away and brought back a camera.

“What’s a selfie?”

“When you take a picture of yourself.”

I nodded, and we intertwined our arms as we drank from the chilled glasses while she snapped pictures. We sat them down, and then she picked up a plate of cake. “I thought we’d take turns feeding each other too.”

I nodded and took a piece of cake from my plate and pinched off a bite
-size portion and held it to her lips. She took a quick picture and then took a bite. Her eyes locked on mine as a new expression shone from them. With a seductive stare, she took the bite of cake from me before grabbing my hand and pulling it closer. Still looking at me, she licked the remaining icing from my finger. I think I might have groaned before I grabbed her and pulled her close. Her lips were sweet from the cake as I kissed her harder and more intensely than she’d ever allowed.

I moved from her lips down her jaw
line making my way to the spot just below her ear and licked. She moaned and I was lost. I grabbed her up into my arms and headed down the hall to our bedroom. She was my wife. She had my name, and tonight we would start our lives together as man and wife. No more childish ways. It was time to become a man. 

Layla

HIS KISSES CONSUMED ME. THE
intensity was more than I’d ever allowed. We were beyond the place where I always stopped us, but tonight I wouldn’t stop. His lips followed down a path to the neck of my dress, and his clumsy fingers worked on the zipper.
Hot breath on skin.
Funny how it caused goose bumps. Amazing how the way he looked at me at this moment and made me feel like the most beautiful of women. This was special and sacred, and I would savor it and cherish this and every first to come until our last. I swallowed back the sorrow of the thought.

*

I SLIPPED FROM THE BED, put on David’s button-up shirt, and tiptoed to the kitchen. I made my way to the coffee maker and started it, like I normally did, but with a smile on my face and flashes of the night before running through my mind. I glanced down at my ring. Grandma would be proud. I waited for my prince and it was so worth the wait. A twinge hit my heart as I realized there wouldn’t be enough time with him like this. I shook the melancholy. This was my honeymoon; I needed to live in the present or I’d never live at all. I made my way to the fridge, pulled it open, and grabbed the bacon and eggs. When I backed away to shut the door, I was surrounded by warm arms wrapping around my waist.

“Good morning, wife.”

I spun around and kissed him. “Good morning, husband.”

I stepped around him to place the items on the counter. “How do you like your eggs?” It sounded so domestic. The thrill in my chest radiated out to all the parts of my being
, and I knew I was home…for now at least.

Chapter 14

Layla

I PULLED UP TO THE house in the used car David and I had purchased from one of the car lots we now sent regular goodies to for sending business our way. Drake had signed me up for insurance classes in the next town to get me ready to take my state test, plus David still had to haul band equipment to gigs during the summer and would be taking the truck when he moved to Clemson in the fall. We decided to go ahead get a car for me the week after we were married.

I was exhausted from the mind numbing facts from the class
, and my back hurt from the uncomfortable chairs. After a forty-minute drive home, I was ready to kick my shoes off, take a long hot bath, and put on my comfy pajama pants. When I pulled up to the house, there were rows of cars along the street leading up to it, and even more in our driveway and yard. I didn’t know what was going on, but knew it would come between me and my quiet evening of rest.

I had to park down the street and walk to my yard. Music blared from the house and every light was on. I could see a crowd of flannel
-wearing kids through the windows as I approached. When I got to the steps, a girl with long, brown hair parted down the middle stood at the door. She wore cut-off shorts, a floral babydoll shirt, and a pair of Keds. She stuck out her hand to stop my entry. “Ten dollars to enter.”

I stepped back and placed my hand on my hip. “Excuse me?”

“Ten dollar cover charge to the concert. And it’s BYOB–nothing being served but soda.”

“I’m not paying to enter my own house. I live here.” I pushed the girl out of my way and walked in. All the furniture was gone from the living room as crowds of kids pressed in to listen to Michael sing one of his stupid
, whiny guitar songs. Boy, I missed pop music. This stuff was just depressing. It was as bad as the fashion. I spotted David at the soundboard and barreled through the horde to get to him.

He saw me,
jumped up, and kissed me on the cheek. “Hey, I didn’t have a way to reach you at the class, but the house party we had planned fell through, so I offered our place. I didn’t think you’d mind.”

I know I looked at him like he had lost his mind. How could he think I’d be
okay with this? “Well, you thought wrong.”

David’s forehead scrunched as
he just stared at me with no response.

“Why on earth would you think I wouldn’t mind? These people are wrecking our house and it’s not even really ours. What if they do damage we can’t afford to fix?”

He shook his head and grinned. “I’ve been keeping up with where people go, and I put all the furnishings in the shed out back or in the back rooms and locked them. The most they can do is knock a hole in a wall, and I know how to spackle and the room could use a repaint.”

I felt the blood rushing to my cheeks. “What if they break a window?”

“That only happens in movies. I’ve only seen a hole in a wall at one of these once.”

“David, I’m trying to get licensed in this state to sell insurance. Some of these kids are drinking in our house. I’m the adult here. I could get in trouble.”

“We aren’t selling it, and they’re not supposed to bring it. I made sure we weren’t doing anything illegal.”

“What about the girl at the door telling folks it’s BYOB?” I raised one eyebrow and waited for a response.

“That’s not what I told her to say.” He started to go around me toward the door.

I stopped him. “Well
, that’s what she’s saying. Do you think the cops will care where they got it, if we get busted? Why would you do this? If they look too closely at me, dig too much, they might find out I’m not Lisa Kelly Parker. Did you ever think of that? Hmmm….” I spun away from him and grabbed at my forehead before I came back and pointed in his face. “This was so childish and unthinking of you. I knew you were young, but I thought you were more mature than this.”

David’s back went stiff
, and he stood taller. “I’m not a child. I don’t have to ask your permission about everything I do.”

“When it involves my home and my going to jail
, you do.”

David’s lips drew in tight forming a straight line as his jaws clenched. He closed his eyes
and took a breath before he spoke. “I really don’t think there’s any chance of the cops being called. This isn’t some out-of-control party. We are on a back street with a wooded lot on one side of us and an empty house on the other. And I’ll have you know that I was thinking like an adult when I moved the gig here. The band has been my source of income for about a year now. It’s how I bought your ring and how I put money down on this place and paid the first month’s rent. We just bought a car. I know with school starting soon, the most I can get is a summer job that pays minimum wage. Word is getting out, and our gigs make pretty good money now. Having it here gives us a bigger cut. I’m selling sodas from the kitchen and pizza by the slice. I did this for us, so don’t treat me like a stupid kid.”

“I’m going to bed. Get these people out of my house right now.” I crossed my arms and glared at him.

“These people paid money to be here, and this is my house too. The people will leave when the concert is over.”

I threw my hands up in the air. “Whatever.” I stormed down the hall to my room and turned the knob
, but it wouldn’t turn. I remembered he said he’d locked them. The bed was probably covered with stuff from the living room. I spun and marched back down the hall to the front door, nearly knocking babydoll-shirt girl over as I made my way to my car. I got in it and drove off, not even sure of where I was headed.

I ended up at the Bantam Chef, parked the car
, and went inside. This required food therapy. I walked to the counter. “A peanut-butter milkshake and an order of mixed onion rings and fries.”

I paid and went and sat on the red bench near the pickup window
, with my order number in hand. An elderly woman with gray hair sat on the other end of the bench. Her back was hunched and her body thin with age, but she was still well put together. Makeup and dressed nice. I smiled at her and she smiled back. Then I turned away to stare at the wall.

“I like your shoes.” The woman’s voice was cracked and frail.

“Excuse me?” I turned back to face her.

“I like your shoes. I used to have a pair just like them back in the day.”

“Thanks.” I looked down at my shoes. They were the ones I came to 1994 in, so I doubted she had owned these shoes since the designer wasn’t known yet.

“I like your hair too. All these kids running around looking like they forgot to brush their hair.” She shook her head and pursed her lips. “And what’s the deal with all the flannel? Looks like a lumberjack convention.”

I smiled at her. “Exactly. It’s summer and in the south, no less. This isn’t Washington State.”

“Don’t worry. Dressing up will come back in style.”

“I know. Fashion runs in cycles.”

The man at the counter called my number.

“My food’s ready. Nice talking to you.”

The woman nodded as I stood,
got my food, and carried it to a table by the jukebox. A few minutes later someone stood by my table, and I looked up. It was the old woman.

“Mind if I sit down? I hate sitting alone.”

My eyes grew wide at her request. I would have preferred to dine alone, but what could I say? “Sure.” I scooted my tray to the side to make room for hers. “Have a seat.”

She sat
, and I noticed she had ordered the same thing I had.

“Fried food is the best.
Not always great for the thighs,” I said.

She laughed with a scratchy voice common to older folks. “True, but I think I’m beyond worrying about my thighs. Maybe a hip replacement. I don’t eat this way often anymore. I haven’t been here in years. Just got the notion to come to this old haunt and reminisce. Remember the good old days as they call them.”

I nodded politely as I dunked a fry in ketchup and took a bite.

“My husband and I used to come here all the time when we were dating.” She got a far
-off look when she said it.

She pointed at my rings. “I see you’re married. Where’s your husband tonight?”

I thought about how to answer. “He’s…working.” I rolled my eyes and shook my head as I said it.

“Yes, sometimes they do that. Sometimes they do that too much.”

“He doesn’t work too much. It’s not a real job actually. Just something he and his friends play at.”

“Does he get paid in Monopoly money?”

I smiled. “The money is real. It’s just… his friends have this gosh-awful garage band playing whiny guitar music. They get gigs…that’s a chance to play somewhere for money.”

The old woman’s lips pursed
, creating deep wrinkles around her lips and nodded. “I know what a ‘gig’ is.”

“Okay, sorry.
So they play at parties and all…and people, lots of people pay to listen. I have no clue why. They aren’t even the cool kind of boy band that dances around the stage. It isn’t music with a dance beat that makes you want to move. It’s all depressing stuff. One song is about a bunch of sad misfits and has a chorus that just says, ‘Mmmmmmm.’ What the heck?”

“So you don’t take it seriously, what he does for a living?”

“I… I mean it’s not what he’s really going to do for a living. I take his future seriously. I feel like I’m just waiting on the man he’s going to become and putting up with the child he is in the meantime.”

The old woman sat silently eating her fries and sipped
her shake before she finally spoke. “I wonder how that makes him feel?”

“How what makes him feel?”

“How would you feel if what he wanted most from you was for you to become someone else? Why does it matter if you don’t like the music—it sounds like others do? Does he use the money to contribute or blow it all on childish things?”

“No,
he doesn’t waste it. He hasn’t really bought anything for himself since we got married.” I thought about it for a second. “He paid the deposit on our house and the first month’s rent with money from the band.” He’d just reminded me of that before I left the house.

“You say you take what he’s going to do seriously. Don’t you think it would do you better to be happy with the man he is, instead of the man you wish he was? If you only think like that, you’ll miss what’s right in front of you
, and one day, when you are a widow like me, you’ll wish you had him back, irritations and all.”

I sat up thinking of her words and swallowed my own pain at the knowledge that I’d never be like her. There was a bitterness I hadn’t acknowledged before at knowing so much about my future. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you. We had something special and then it was over.”

“Yeah, the end always comes too quickly, doesn’t it?” I tried not to think about what I knew of our end.

“Indeed it does, even when you get two lifetimes worth of joy.”

I sat there chewing on another fry and took a sip of my shake
, pondering what had happened.

“I guess I thought with us, we’d be different from everyone else. He and I…I thought we were special, you know…meant-to-be.”

“Maybe you are.”

“But shouldn’t that make this easier? Keep us from being disappointed with each other?”

“What made you disappointed?”

“I’d been at work all day…well
, class actually all this week. All I wanted to do when I got home was take a long bubble bath and maybe cuddle with my husband and not think about anything else for a while. But instead, he has this concert going on, and some girl tried to charge me a cover to enter my own house.”

“Did your husband know what your plans were?”

“No, but…”

“But what? He should just know what you want without you telling him?”

“Yes, if we are this magically-meant-to-be couple. Yeah.”

“Do you know what he wants without him asking?”

“Yeah. He’s pretty simple to please.”

“Really? Did you know supporting his contributions pleases him?”

“I guess. I wasn’t really thinking about…”

“Him?”

Was she right? Was this more about me being selfish than him being childish?

“Did the two of you ever discuss the issue of his band performing at the house?”

“No, I guess I never considered him doing that, and he never considered that I’d have a problem with it.”

“Then maybe you two need to talk about this together. Also I found
, as a wife, if I made it my goal to be easy to please, I wasn’t so easily disappointed. Maybe you should make it your goal to be easy to please. It would keep the disappointment down and make your expectations a little more realistic. Just because you two are made for each other doesn’t mean you don’t have to work at it. You said you were in class for work, so it seems even though you have a job you are good at, you still have to study. Do you like your job?”

“Yeah, I do.”

“Is every day perfect?”

“No
.”