Finding Serenity (29 page)

“Hey yourself.” Layla stands on the mattress and walks to the other side, making Mollie loll backward as she sits down next to her. “You scared me, bitch.”

“How’d I do that?” Mollie rolls onto her back to see her friend better.

“Wreck, hello.” Layla helps Mollie sit up, holding her until she can wiggle against the headboard. “You don’t remember?”

“No,” Mollie says, spotting the glass of water on the bedside table and pointing at it. “Thanks.” Layla nods and Mollie’s throat is instantly refreshed when she downs the whole glass.

“What’s the last thing you remember?”

She closes her eyes and memory and dreams mesh together like a silent film, all black and white, muted and vague. “The cute cop.”

“Can’t say I’m familiar.” Layla lowers to rest on her elbow. “Vaughn said he took you to talk to a detective and when y’all left, you got rammed at a four way.”

“That… that sounds eerily familiar.” Mollie can see clearer now, to the large room she’s laying in, clearly a log cabin, and the light streaming in from the attached bathroom. “Where are we?”

“Vaughn’s cabin. Or, his family’s cabins, I’m not too sure. His sister wanted you incognito until they can transfer your dad to a safehouse.” Mollie’s chest fills with hope, with possibility at her father finally being free, at the end of this entire madness. Layla lifts the blinds from the window next to her side of the bed. “Way up in the mountains. Those are clouds, friend.”

Mollie inclines, leans on her elbow. “Damn. I don’t think I’ve ever been this high before.”

“Liar. I remember junior year.” Mollie throws a pillow at her best friend, but she only catches it, doesn’t throw it back like she’d usually do. When Mollie looks at her face, Layla’s eyes are red and glistening. “Why didn’t you tell me?” Layla’s voice isn’t clipped or frustrated and concern quickly filters into Mollie’s mind. Layla never speaks like this, never shows anyone her real worries.

“What?”

The blonde gives her arm a gentle shove. “Vaughn and his sister told us everything. About your Dad, what he’s doing, why Vaughn showed up at the Dash, why you’ve been off with him.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, ‘oh.’ Molls, you texted me almost every day and didn’t tell me once what was going on. I’m your best friend.”

Mollie moves over, making room for Layla and then points to the space she’s made next to her. The blonde joins her, resting shoulder to shoulder with Mollie against the headboard. “That’s why I didn’t tell you.”

“Huh?”

“Layla, you know how fucked up my childhood was. You know where I come from. None of that ever touched me here, except my raging bitch of a mother.”

“And sister.”

“And sister, true.” Without really thinking about it, she takes Layla’s hand and they both stare up at the ceiling, looking at the high sheen on the logs and the orangey hue that reflects the soft light from the bathroom. “But now, all this stuff? It already touched you. That fire, that was meant to hurt me. You got in the way, same as Autumn.” Mollie turns and Layla copies her. “You have all been my family and not a substitute, but the real deal. If something bad happened to any of you because of me…”

Layla waves her hand, placing her fingers over Mollie’s mouth to silence her. “Guess what, genius, family is family through the great and the not so gravy. And in case you forgot, this little family of ours hasn’t always had only good times.” She sits up, takes her hand off of Mollie’s mouth. “Hey, you remember that time Autumn almost died?”

“Not funny.”

“Not meant to be. I’m making a point.” Layla again lays on her side picking up the ends of Mollie’s hair and running her fingernails to the knots she finds there. “You can’t handle the shit on your own. Not when you’ve got us. That’s what families do, Molls… they shovel the shit right with you.”

Mollie exhales, pulling her matted hair out of Layla’s fingers. “I love you, bitch.”

“I know. I’m so freaking lovable.”

The girls share a laugh and Mollie stretches. Eager to see if her legs still work, she pulls back the covers and swings her feet onto the hardwood floor. It’s then that she notices the vase on the bedside table containing four magnolia flowers. Glancing over at Layla, she raises her eyebrows but her best friend only shrugs, as if she has no clue where they came from. Mollie finds it weird, finding her favorite flowers here. As far as she can remember, she has never told anyone why she loves them, that her father took her to the place where his family was buried only once when she was ten. It was a large farm, lost to bankers a generation before, but the cemetery still stood and all around the broken, brittle headstones were magnolia trees perfuming the air so that when Mollie sat down next to her Daddy, neither one of them felt sad.

“See, not such a bad way to spend eternity, huh Mimi?” He pointed to the largest headstone at the center of cemetery. “That’s Granny Tippit and she always had the prettiest gardens. She planted these trees a long time ago.” Mollie had been fascinated by the thick branches and the beautiful green leaves that shown like wax in the sunlight. “Family keeps family,” he told her, “and Granny Tippit knew enough to keep things pretty for everyone here.”

The flowers in the vase were wide, white, with petals that stretched out like stars and a yellow center that filled the massive room with the distinctive scent that reminded Mollie of Jackson and her Daddy and the beauty Granny Tippit created all those years ago.

“So, I guess I better tell Vaughn you’re awake.” Layla walks toward the door and Mollie smiles at her, as if to say ‘how do you mean?’ “He wouldn’t leave and so I told him he stank.”

“Layla…”

“Molls, two days we’ve been here and you’ve been in and out of it, but that dude hadn’t showered once because he thought you might wake up when he was gone.” Her best friend smiles, the glint in her eyes wicked and calculating. “He is so very into you.”

She dismisses the remark, not ready to explain the clusterfuck of whatever one would call her relationship with Vaughn. His face comes to her and then she remembers something from the crash—his bloody shirt, how pale he’d grown, but the images are fractured by the collection of hazy recollection when she tried to sort through what had actually happened and what her mind invented. “Wait! He got shot! I saw the blood!”

“He’s fine. Just a graze, but you know he did that whole ‘Me Marine, Is Fine, No Stitches’ crap at the hospital.” Layla leans against the bed post, pulling her hair through her fingers. “Declan threatened to hold him down if he didn’t get patched up.”

“Declan? He was there?”

Layla steps back in front of her. “Duh. Deco, Autumn, Sayo, me, we were all there, sweetie. And we’re all here now.” The blonde leans down, tips Mollie’s chin before to leaves a quick kiss on her cheek. “Family, remember?”

“So tell me what I missed. Sayo mentioned something about you and a bucket of paint?”

Layla cringes. “In my defense, the dousing flour incident was a low blow.” She leans in, whispers in Mollie’s ear. “It took me two days to get all the flour out of my ass crack.”

“Nice visual, thanks.” Mollie waves off Vaughn’s offer of more ribs. She was stuffed already and couldn’t take anymore protein.

Her friends were adjusting to seclusion, despite Sayo’s constant complaints of needing to be at the library. It was summer semester and very few students milled around her library, but Sayo wanted to be there even with the threat shadowing Mollie and her friends. Mollie smiles when Declan moves his half-full glass of sweet tea, giving Layla a disappointed frown. “I’d say the lowest blow was glitter in Donovan’s bleeding vents.”

“Hey you, no picking sides.” The salad dressing on Layla’s fork flies across the table when she points it at Declan. “He’s your best friend, so you are biased and therefore get no opinions on the matter.”

“That’s shite and you know it. I’m the sorry sod who had to hear him yammering on for a week about all that mess in every crevice of his car.” Declan waits a beat, as though he’s recalling Donovan’s loud complaints in his head. “You know he’s had to sell it, right?”

Mollie notices the quick wince on Layla’s face, but it shifts quickly and her best friend recovers with a flippant shrug. “Two words, Fraser: Kidnapped Puppy.”

“That
puppy
hasn’t been a puppy for three years.” Declan’s had a few beers, Mollie can tell. His bright green eyes are red rimmed and Autumn replaced his beer with tea at least two drinks back. “And you’re deflecting. Paint? Go on, tell her then.”

Seeming to realize Declan won’t let her off the hook, Layla deflates and she rests against the back of the chair, looking at Mollie. Across the table, Mollie sees Vaughn’s wide eyes, the grin that dimples his cheek as though he’s enjoying the entertainment. “Fine. So, that asshole doused me as I’m trying to work on my tan, at my house, mind you, which is just a violation of general prank decorum.” Declan’s snorts and Layla glares at him. “So, I thought, fire with fire, and went to his apartment. Which, by the way,” here she closes her eyes and shudder works over her shoulders, “single grossest place I’ve ever stepped my Jimmy’s onto
in my life.
Smells like weed and those Neanderthals seem incapable of picking up their dirty underwear or used condom wrappers.”

“Not everyone can have a maid, love.” There is a niggling tone in Declan’s voice and over Layla’s loud “whatever,” Mollie hears Declan making excuses to Autumn for his friends’ disgusting apartment.

“Newsflash, Irish, we don’t have a maid. We have a cook and that’s only because my mom is a surgeon and is too damn busy to cook anything, so shut it.”

Declan laughs, raises his hands in surrender.

“So, how’d you get into his apartment?” Mollie asks.

“Pffft, easy. A couple of Kappa Sigs picked the lock. Andrew Shipley is the president and he owes me since I got Walter to tear up the ticket he wrote them for public indecency.” At Mollie’s frown and slight head tilt, Layla explains. “Streaking at the Founder’s Day luncheon. Idiots.”

Vaughn leans in, captivated. “Does she always talk this much?”

Mollie nods, distracted, and her attention quickly returns to her best friend.

“So I got him good. Waited until I knew he’d be at practice,
thank you, Dad,
and snuck in. That pothead he lives with was totally crashed out on the sofa and so I slip into Donovan’s room with a can of fluorescent green oil based paint.” Mollie shakes her head, eyes closed, knowing that the oil based paint would be impossible to get out. Layla catches Mollie’s frown and her smile becomes obnoxious, as though she’s proud at the devious levels of her prank. “I’m waiting outside his window when he gets home, all stinky and disgusting from practice.” She wrinkles her nose, but then, when the next chapter in the story pops into her mind, the blonde’s smile grows wicked. “Then I hear it… the whine of his door, the simultaneous flick of the light and
thunk
of the paint can knocking against his head. I got everything on my phone, of course.”

“Tell her how you managed to sprain his ankle.” Declan isn’t smiling and his waves off Autumn’s elbow to his ribs.

“That wasn’t intentional,” Layla tells Declan.

The Irishman leans forward, gaze shifting between Mollie and Vaughn who are clearly the only people at the table unfamiliar with the levels of Layla’s prank. “This crazy bird buttered the bloody floor in his bathroom. With real bleeding butter so my poor mate is screaming his head off, paint all over, and he runs into the bathroom to clean himself up a bit and slides all the way across the floor, lands on his arse. He’s out of commission for the first two matches of the season.” Declan shakes his head. “Best you mind yourself, Layla. He’ll have far too much time on his hands to think of devious revenge.”

“Please. I’m Prank Queen. He’ll never get that paint out of his apartment.”

“You could have really hurt him, Layla,” Sayo says, leaning her elbows on the table.

“It wasn’t
that
much butter and Donovan is a big boy and quick on his feet.” Layla catches how Declan shakes his head, how Autumn stops him from saying anything with a touch on his arm. Vaughn mumbles to Mollie, they both laugh and Mollie tries to keep her humor in check, but Layla spots her smirk and she pushes her plate aside, frowning at Vaughn. “What?”

Vaughn looks around the table watching everyone’s expression. “So I take it none of you have nutted up and told her what’s really going on, right?”

“What’s going on?” Layla asks, as she brings her gaze to around the table, to her friends and their shifting attention. No one will look at her directly.

Finally, Vaughn exhales, moving his elbow onto the table surface. “Layla, you could end all this misery very easily.”

“How?”

He picks up his glass and takes a sip, offers her a slight shrug. “Fuck him.”

Layla’s face is ashen and her mouth drops open, despite the hysterical laughter around her.

When she protests, the laughter only gets louder. “That’s just… how,
ew
no. He’s disgusting.”

“And yet, last month at Sayo’s barbeque,” Mollie offers, “you couldn’t keep your eyes off of him when he jumped in the pool.”